Garage workshop extension (BEFORE)

Just a couple of quick snaps to record the conditions before work begins on the extension to our garage. This will allow me some room for a small workshop, and make getting Lynda’s car into the garage in winter a bit less of a production (or that’s how I’m spinning it at least) B-)

The “footprint” of the new section will be where there used to be a kind of makeshift greenhouse, which we have mostly demolished now. Wasn’t difficult to take down, being all rotted and badly constructed of odd bits and pieces…

Garage workshop extension (BEFORE)


Garage workshop extension (BEFORE)

Originally uploaded by rgdaniel


Are You KIDDING Me??

My first reaction was “Hey Loreena McKennitt, kiss my ass” but maybe that’s a bit harsh…
It seems my modest little home movie from our 2003 vacation to Alberta and BC, entitled “Misty Mountain Hop”, has incurred the wrath of the copyright police. Not from the Led Zeppelin camp, despite my naming the piece directly after the Zeppelin song, but due to the use of Loreena McKennitt’s song “Ancient Pines” in the soundtrack.
Are You KIDDING Me??
I don’t even mention the names of the soundtrack songs in the description on YouTube, they’re only credited at the end of the movie, in the barely legible credits… so it wasn’t searchable in the traditional sense, there’s some high-tech text-recognition technology going on here, or maybe audio-recognition, not sure…
Here’s the message attached to my video (not sure when this happened, I just happened to notice it today when poking around):

Your video, Misty Mountain Hop – September 2003, may have audio content from Ancient Pines by Loreena McKennitt that is owned or licensed by WMG.
As a result, your video has been muted.

So how exactly is the artist protected here? Was I expected, in the production of my little home movie, to pay for the privilege of promoting her song? Doesn’t this just make the artist look petty, vindictive, self-aggrandizing, and ridiculous?
Musicians deserve to be paid for their work. No question. And I am not unaware of the irony of me getting up on my high horse, given my immense collection of ill-gotten MP3’s downloaded from the Interwebs. But we’re not talking about counterfeit CD’s eating into legit sales, we’re talking about a stupid little home movie in 320×240 fer crying out loud. And I actually do own the song legally.
So, upon further reflection, my revised position is now “Hey Loreena McKennitt and/or WMG, kiss my ass”.

“Meanwhile back in the Year One”

I’ve been having great fun digitizing some old basement tapes from 1976-1977. In the case of this particular bunch, I mean that literally — several were recorded in the basement of the family home.
These are samplings from 1976, from the period before the band “Auspex” was formed. More on that in a future post. Some notes on each track appear below the player. Each track is one or two minutes long at most, in order that you should not become bored…

Song notes and credits:
These are all multi-track recordings, made on an old Akai reel-to-reel… We had to “bounce” tracks to create overdubs, whereby some quality is lost from the previous take. That said, these are fairly bright recordings for the most part.
Aftaglid (clip) – This is a loose cover of a Steve Hillage (Gong) track. This one was recorded at Monte’s apartment. Somebody had some nifty finger cymbals, or something, which is what I’m playing. A fun riff to stretch out on.

Bob Daniel – percussion, recorder
Monte Horton – keyboards
Steve Vickery – guitar

Space Blues (clip) – Starts with a section based on a nifty 7/4 bass riff by Steve Vickery, moving into a more traditional blues structure in the second half.

Bob Daniel – drums, Roland Space Echo (!)
Monte Horton – electric guitar
Steve Vickery – bass guitar

Earth Blues (complete) – No overdubs on this one. I show off my mad recorder skills, using a singing-while-playing technique I stole from Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) who in turn stole it from Roland Kirk. I remember this is the one my mother liked.

Bob Daniel – recorder
Monte Horton – acoustic guitar

Time for All (clip) – Cheesy title. This one is in three sections (gots to have sections if you wanna be progtastic). Starts with a quirky 10/8 section, then into a brisk 6/8 thing, ending in a lovely 7/8 theme. Nice acoustic playing from Monte.

Bob Daniel – drums, “string machine” (poor man’s mellotron)
Monte Horton – acoustic guitar, synth leads

Voyage (clip) – A stately, bombastic 3/4 march of doom in the grand progressive rock tradition, or one of them. Originally called “Voyage/Arrival” but I omitted the second half — sometimes the journey is more important (and way less cheesy) than the arrival.

Bob Daniel – drums, string machine
Monte Horton – electric guitar

Mental Midget (complete) – This is a really fun number, named for its obvious debt to Gentle Giant, whose bags we were not fit to carry, but we could dream. In an intentional mind-f*ck, the jerky 4/4 of the opening reveals itself, when the tambourine changes, as a brisker, triplet feel with some nice mod-ring synth licks from Monte. The middle section is a peculiar pattern of alternating bars of 11/8 and 14/8 which had to be my doing. A rather splendid drum break (if I do say so) leads to the final section, a bouncy triplet-feel 4/4 that carryies the fun to the end.

Bob Daniel – drums, percussion, keyboards
Monte Horton – electric guitar, keyboards

Thanks for listening!! Your gratuitous praise, or your harsh, uncalled-for criticisms, are welcomed.

Bill Bruford Retires

If you had ever hoped to someday see drummer Bill Bruford perform live, again or for the first time, your chances of that happening are now pretty much zero.
From allaboutjazz.com:

After 41 years spent first in the art rock arena with everyone from Yes and King Crimson to Genesis, in addition to his own inestimable forays into fusion with his critically and popularly praised ’70s group Bruford, then turning to things more jazzy from the ’80 onwards with various incarnations of his much- heralded Earthworks group and his equally acclaimed improvising duet with pianist Michiel Borstlap, veteran drummer Bill Bruford has announced he’s hanging up his sticks and and retiring from public performance, effective January 1, 2009.
As Bruford told AAJ’s Managing Editor John Kelman, “41 years of me is quite enough for anybody, and especially me!” though he thankfully clarified that he’s not retiring from recording.

Here is a photo I took of Bruford in performance with King Crimson in 1974.

Bill Bruford 1974