28-Jul-08: Numan II

Earlier this year, Jules and I went to see Gary Numan performing at The Carling Academy in Newcastle. This concert was part of the Replicas nostalgia tour and, frankly, it was pretty damned good. Numan set about re-creating the original Replicas album (1979) plus all of the associated singles from that period, beefed up by his trademark sledgehammer guitars and NIN-inspired electronica riffs. I enjoyed that gig - a lot - but it was mostly old stuff and we've heard most of it before in one form or another. And, frankly, I prefer the new stuff these days. There's only so many times than you can hear Cars without wanting to reach for a tyre iron.

Numan extended his current summer run to include one smaller venue, Rio's in Leeds, I think because the Perfect Day festival that had been previously scheduled had been cancelled.

I don't like travelling to gigs these days but I didn't mind driving 180 odd miles for this one because it was kinda special. Why? Well, there was a time when I would rather admit to being a card carrying ABBA fan than admit to being a Numanoid in public. He had about as much street cred as Bungo out of Rainbow, except more people would buy you a pint if you walked into a pub with Bungo on your arm. There was a time when Numan was so unpopular, even amongst the faithful, that he couldn't even fill a small night club like The Riverside in Newcastle. These days, not so. Rio's in Leeds was packed.

Over the last 15 years, Numan has successfully rebuilt his image so that's he's now breathtakingly cool, carefully deconstructing the shy, sensitive, deeply flawed pop superstar identity, which was his major weakness and replaced it by a confident, hip, ballsy rock God-cum-family man persona that does him much credit. He's also evolved his sound considerably. Chart success is no longer critical. Instead, he's directed his efforts towards a dark and atmospheric variant of God-hating black metal. The technology that was his crutch for many years is now pretty much relegated to backline filler and it's the guitars that have again grabbed the centre stage, resulting in a wall of sound approach to making music that manages to appeal both to the Numan faithful (mostly old punks) and younger fans who are into the new merchants of doom and gloom - NiN, Marilyn Manson and Depeche Mode.

Does it work? Of course. The gig was a lot of fun and Numan looked happy to be there. Sometimes, he doesn't. This time he did.

Why did we go so soon after the last concert? Essentially, I wanted to see if his new stuff still gives me a terrific buzz, the same buzz that I picked up on when I saw him do the Jagged album in 2006. I needed to know because that's where I plan on taking SkinMechanix in the near future. I've pretty much had all I can take of pure electronic music for the time being. I can't listen to Berlin School stuff anymore without reaching for the off button. I can't listen to most of the stuff that inspired me originally because it now seems weak and even cliched. When TD announced that they were playing Edinburgh in November, I thought "So what?".

Essentially, I need a change of scene.

Rio's is a pretty good venue, even if some of the clientelle were arseholes. (Can they not afford soap in Leeds?). The gig was good fun and I'm not ashamed to say I'm a Numan fan anymore. The old Numan, the sad Numan, the Numan with the white make-up and blue hair, has left the building. Goth Numan is here. Cool Numan is here. Long live Numan.

22-Jul-08: Video

I've felt for a long time that one area we really ought to get into in a big way is making films. I've produced a few video shorts over the years, holiday films and some stuff to promote the sequencers but it's never been a field we've exploited as I think we could and should. Video technology is one area that develops and evolves on a weekly basis and technology that was once considered pro-level only (and with a price tag to match) quickly finds it's way into the consumer market. Equally, what little knowledge I've acquired over the years feels like it's out of date in no time at all. However, I think it's time we caught up with the rest of the world and so, with this in mind, I set about producing a short video to accompany the track Minerva from Ion's Future Forever.

Planets by Infection Media, Copyright 2008 presented by Vimeo

The basic idea was to produce something to help promote Newcastle Astronomica Society in their quest for new members and Minerva always felt as if it belonged out in deep space. I don't know why. Those are just the images that come to mind when I hear it. I had the idea to piece together sections of footage from the program Celestia but nearly all of the screen grab software I tried was either too slow to capture the video as smoothly as I wanted or too buggy to consider for a professional project. However, my friend Kirsty Hawkshaw suggested iShowU by http://www.shinywhitebox.com and it worked a treat.

I put together the first version using just clips from Celestia but (very) quickly realised that it sucked (like a Hoover). We needed something else to give the images context and I found it in the program Stellarium, which is truly one of the most gorgeous programs I have ever used. If ever I have the money I am going to buy a huge LCD projector and just leave Stellarium running against a blank wall. It looks astonishing.

Anyone who has ever done much editing with Apple's iMovie, quickly and inevitably comes to the conclusion that iMovie is little more than a promotional tool for Final Cut Express. Sorry, Apple. iMovie really is a pile of crap. Buggy, unreliable, amateur use only. It's like using a Microsoft program except that Windows MovieMaker is a lot easier to use and doesn't lose your files so often.

Anyway, I've just finished my first ever HD video. It's called Planets. I've tried to host it on Newcastle Astronomical Society's page but Quicktime won't display it in full HD. Hence, it's now running off Vimeo and it looks pretty damned good, if I may be permitted to say so myself.

Enjoy.

15-Jul-08: Sequencers

I was reviewing these pages over the weekend and I found it fairly astonishing that my main activity, designing and building sequencers, doesn't figure very highly, if at all. So, here is an attempt to re-balance this blatent lack of gear porn. Look away if your wallet is not strong enough to cope with these images.

	Fitting the 40-way data cable. Making these cables used to be a nightmare but I've since become used to the poor design of the crimping tool and the tendency of the floating plastic insert to fall out just as you're about to fasten the IDC header into position. I also split the cable into two sections, with a 40-way male socket binding the two halves together. This has made the job significantly easier - if a fault develops then you can just work out which half is faulty and make a new one. Previously, you had to unpick each connector, looking for the bent pin.
Fitting the 16-way signal cable This cable is considerably easier to make in part because the cable is thinner and easier to move around but also because it doesn't put up nearly as much resistance to the crimping tool as the 40-way cable. Snaking it through the power harness is much easier too.
	Testing the finished wiring harness, 101 The most dangerous aspect of using IDC cables is that the pins can short together during the construction phase. That's why the procedure is best carried out carefully and with special emphasis on preparation i.e. making sure that the measurements are precise, making sure that the headers and the cable mate together perfectly etc. This used to be a big problem with the early machines. The eaiest way to work out if you have a major problem is just to measure the resistance of the whole sequencer before and after you fit the cable. If they're significantly different then you have a problem. Higher resistance isn't so bad. A lower value means you could blow the power supply and/or risk the great God of the work room to spill forth with some magic blue smoke.
Is this thing on? Rule 101 of the workshop is "Never trust a voltmeter.". Rule 102 of the workroom is "Always measure twice." This is especially true if you're about to cut something like a length of cable. The probability that you'll cut an object in the wrong place rises in direct proportion to the cost of that object. Rule 103 of the workroom is "Never, ever get caught using your girlfriend's best dress-making scissors for cutting up lengths of IDC cable."
	Hard at it? Build stuff like this has to be the best job on the planet. I call it a job but it isn't really a job. It doesn't feel like work. You just keep doing it because it's so much fun. It's also good when your customers finally receive their instrument and they're not disappointed. Most of the time, they're elated. It does exactly what you said it would do all those years ago.

13-Jul-08: Generations?

You may have noticed from the 'news' section over on the Thinking Metal site that we've postponed the Generations concert for a couple of months.

There were two reasons for this decision which, trust me, was not taken lightly. In fact, 4 days later, it's still causing me a great deal of mental anguish and much second guessing. The familiar "What if?" syndrome.

Firstly, Hawkwind are playing at the Carling Academy on 5th December 2008 and a number of my friends, whose opionions I trust and respect, felt that putting two similar concerts on at the same time was asking for trouble. It would almost certainly be commercial suicide. Hawkwind are on a mini revival of their own and the two concerts might have split the audience -if we were lucky. Chances are, all of the old hippies and stoners would probably have just gone to see the Hawks. And who would blame them? What would you do in similar circumstances? There is much comfort in the familiar.

Simply put, we have to maximise the number of bums on seats because this concert is costing us money to put on so it made sense to postpone it. Of course, there's the danger that someone else will annouce close to our new time and well, we'll be screwed a second time.

Secondly and most importanly, the current organ master, with whom we've had many, many productive and enthusiastic conversations in recent months, put his notice in last week, much to the surprise of both ourselves and the Cathedral staff. He leaves his position at the end of July and, well, good luck to him. It's a disappointment but he has his own career to think about.

Now, the Cathedral can't advertise for a successor for a couple of months because of the time taken to book space in the various specialist publications. A stand-in organist has taken over the soon-to-be-vacated position but he's said that he doesn't feel he has the experience to deal with what we're asking. Fair point. Plus, he has all of his other Cathedral duties to take care of and the earliest we can expect to see someone new at the healm will be November, which doesn't leave much time to get the new person up to speed for the busy Christmas schedule.

I want Generations to be special. Very special. After all, I first dreamed up this idea nearly 30 years ago so it's not exactly an overnight project. And, even though the project was only green-lighted a month ago, we've both been hard at work preparing for the concert. Indeed, Jules has been working her proverbial bollocks off in recent weeks, transcribing music originally written by my Great, Great, Great Grandfather into MIDI, so that we can begin to rearrange the works for a live performance.

After much consideration, we took the decision to postpone. It will give the new organ master time to find his feet and it will give us more time to work on our side of the concert.

And yet, even though the above reasoning makes a lot of sound, commercial sense, I'm still second-guessing myself. I keep thinking "What if?". Could we still do the concert? Could we pull it off? What's stopping us?

Part of me is really, really worried that the project will just stop, that it will become just one more heroic failure, doomed never to get off the drawing board. Maybe this is something for another Generation? Maybe it's for them to take up the torch and run with it. Maybe they won't.

This is what is really bugging me - a profound sense that here was a wonderful opportunity to actually do something thoughtful, clever, stimulating, exciting and intelligent. And we caved at the first hurdle.

Right now, I am, frankly, seriously disappointed in myself.

02-Jul-08: The Beach...

I know I said that I wouldn't be adding much more to the blog for the forseeable future but I felt that this episode was worth recording because it sort of proves my point about saying the right thing in a public forum but the reception not being exactly what you intended.

I took the dogs to the beach yesterday morning. It was bright and sunny with a gentle breeze to keep the temperature just about right.

So, we're walking along the sands and Charlie spots two females, both about 22, sunbathing. Charlie goes over to talk to them, which I don't mind at all and neither do the two girls, who are quite pleased to see a nice, friendly dog.

My other dog, Dodie, spots something lying on the sand about 20 feet away. It's black with straps and looks like it's made of canvas. So, in a very loud voice, I shout at Dodie to stop barking:

"Dodie! Stop it! It's just an old bag..."

.. and that's when I spotted the middle aged lady sunbathing just out of sight, using the rucksack as a make-shift windbreak.

She looked up at me and, well, if looks could kill... :(

 

Copyright 2008 David J. Hughes and Thinking Metal Music