In the days before CDs we used to release cassettes. Often digitally recorded. It has been my intention to remaster and re-release these to CDr. Last year I did this for 3 Storm Thieves albums. Now I wanted to start with The Rain Garden albums. Starting with our 3rd album fro 1991 - practical Candle Magic - perhaps our 1st mature recording with a digital master.
Wiuth this kind of job I have to work out a different methodology in each case - I did start the night before but on todays listening I found any stereo enhancement wasn;t helping. once I worked out what to do in this case it all went pretty easily - just needed to reduce the odd boom of tabla or keyboard and then multiband compression and then overall compression to bring the level up.
Need to agree artwork with Carl the Sitar - the old cassette artwork was a bit limited as we could only afford black&white printing. Found a few possible photos on Dreamstime.

I also did a bit of mastering on the new Govannen Live album and looked for some photos for that too.

Nice feedback today from someone online who raved about my solo piano album Sanctuary which is gratifying. Plus nice email from a lass who really dug the Jazz Orient gig. Then I sold a River of Life CD online tonight. Coolness in threes!

The Vizier worked over my laptop in the end - he had to wipe and start again - I will add my music stuff and see if the shutdown problem happens again.

Sunday I took gingerly recovering from the previous day's trip. ot to The Donkey at about 3pm - luckily Big Neil was doing our sound and Neil the Cajon was joining Dan & I. It was our 1st leicester gig in ages.
The sound was awesome from the 1st number on so despite aches and tiredness we really got into it, starting with old safe songs, trying a couple of new ones and in the encore hitting them with some pop songs from the cabaret set. Slight gloom in the room later as Leicester City football team got relegated to effectively division 3. But overall we really enjoyed playing at The Donkey, probably our favourite venue in Leicester at the moment. Lots of old chums there too. Really satisfying gig largey due to the 2 Neils. Chloe the Singer was there too so could give her her copy of Songs for Dreamers.

Set 1 - Tequila, Snow & The Fire, Carousel, These Days, Long Day's Waiting, Sweet Thing, Call of the Wild, 
Set 2 - Wish, Finally (1st time out with Dan), Bad Things for Love (Dan new song), Deja Blues, Matty Groves, When Will We Be Married, Alien Jellyfish Song -
encore medley - Seems Like You Just Don;t Care/Lost Highway/Hounddog/Whole Lot of Shakin/ I'm a Believer

Chilled in evening - Vikki Clayton had come to visit the Vizier - they were watching a kung fu DVD but it was a bit busy for me

Saturday was quite a long day. The drive to the jazz gig in London took 4 hours, (shoulda taken about 2 1/2)  tho that included a couple of stops. I only went a bit bats in central London - satnav lady wasn't always on the money with her directions. Got to venue - The Crypt in Camberwell - another dark underground venue like the Troubadour a couple of weeks ago. The soundman didnlt show up. The venue man set up the desk and mikes and stuff and I basically ran the sound - unfortunately their desk had 3 channels on the blink but we (just) made it. We luckily found a noodle bar so I ate well.
The gig turned out well actually - about 40 people - a little ropey at the start. I decided to make it chatty and informal which helped a lot as we often have  alot of tunign to do, especially Baluji. I;d made a good decision to take my small keyboard (the venue was small) and a great decision to take my headset mic which worked really well. The theremin went down very well - I took harmonizer and Lexicon effects for it. We sold a  lot of CDs - I ran the shop too - but they were Linda & Baluji's stock.
Packing up took a  while so I only headed for home at 12.45 but had quite a good run getting home at 3.15am. I hit on a great  driving album (Alan Stiven 1 Douar)  which helped a lot. Central London driving at 1am is mad - like Grand Theft Auto as cars drive really fast round all the roundabouts & twists as I gingerly change lanes assisted by satnav lady.

Today I copied (and adjusted graphics of) 5 copies my 2004 theremin and live electronics album Contact Light - I was listening to it the other day and was really happy with it. Especially as my theremin skills were more limited then and I only had the Lexicon effect I actually woudn't change anything. It will be the next album for the CDBaby/iTunes treatment.

I also wrote my monthly newsletter and pondered on using the Reverbnation email handling function - except they wanted all emails to have definitely opted in. I realise my mailing list has gotten kind of old ( my late mother was still getting my newsletter) so decided to ask folks to opt in.
If there is anyone here who wants to opt in to my newsletter (usually monthly) follow this link and fill in your email in the box. (don't worry about "street team" box.)
http://www.reverbnation.com/chrisconway?add_email=true

Went to dinner tonight with G - we both have a busy weekend. Posh new place. Then i caught up with something of a coming out gathering for Fandango at the Dos Hermanos who we nearly lost a while back - he;s on crutches but in good spirits.

I was surprised to find out that the venue we used to do our weird electronic nights has replaced us with a pasta night with topless waitresses. Now how they think that can be more popular than our electronic night I don't know. I hope some of our electronic nerdy crowd don't go down there by mistake thinking we're still on. They'll be so dissappointed...

Monday's jazz duo gig with Andy the Sax was weird - partly because we used to play there about 15 years ago, and also because they now supply PA and posh Roland electtric grand piano - which was fine once I;d got to grips with the programming in the 2nd half. I hadn't done a gig I could walk to for years and years - maybe the Belmont Hotel years. It all went pretty quick - the food there still doesn't suit me - either meaty, fried, or chillied or both.

Tues - was website day - updated quite a few pages especially the monthly news page. My 5th Dimension reissues came in - Soul & Inspiration and Individually & Collectively/Living Together - hadn't heard them since I heard them on vinyl - neither is them at their best but they all have one or 2 gems it was nice to hear again.

Weds - went for checkup at hospital about my hand - not a lot to say - they want to monitor it, take more tests & xrays in the winter. It's been a lot better since I got the new piano. Got a new CD player - weird not to have to hit the CD player to make it work like I;ve been doing for over a year.
Tried out 2 free widget download sales systems. Set an album up on each to see which had the most hassles - the answer - they both had hassles, but different ones. I looked at Soundloud.com and Blastmymusic.com.
S. looks glossier, had the easier track loadup, but once in there the catagories were annoyingly rigid and the interface hung a few times
B. was a bit more basic, a bit dumber uploading tracks, simpler interface, but they take more of a cut.
Might try it with a few albums - donlt really know if it;s worth my time. The German Potato System is nicer in a lot of ways except it's all in Euros. In evbe dropped in on the open mic at The Donkey - nice to see some guys from the old Soft Touch band in a new configuration - 5 piece brass band, guitar, drums.
3 gigs came in on the phone - I turned down tour of Estonia & Finland in the winter with Jazz Orient.

Finished my book - Paradox by John Meaney - I liked his 1st book but this - part 1 of a trilogy - just didnlt connect for me. Good on imagination but all the clever stuff - techie things, is only skin deep - the other stuff, characterisations, plotting, scene setting was dumb. I also wasn;t sure if a one armed man can rockclimb - I guess he can but I doubt he;d be good at it. Don;t think I'll continue with the trilogy. It wasn't quite bad enough to give up earlier.

I really noticed it when I moved on to a William Gibson - Pattern Recognition - What a difference - from the 1st few pages you know you are dealing with someone smart - who observes and thinks - good evocative writing from page 1.

3 gis in 2 days comes to an end and I have a day off :-)

Fri - I prepared quite a bit for my gig covering for Dan Britton at the Musician and had written a lot of chords out for Andy the Guitarist. The gig wasn't quite what I'd hoped for although musically we were good and the new trio (Andy the Guitar, Neil the Cajon) sounded good. The night kinda got shunted down as there were 2 support acts and one brought 75 people ( I could only really muster about 10)  - as might be expected the supports fans mostly went to the bar after he played. Also Andy Griffiths joined us singing 3 of Dans songs which was fun. In the end tho the 2nd set started about 11.15pm and we finished around midnight. Annoying thing was my voice was begining to get sore - not used to a full set singing loud I guess. I'm greatful to my gang who came but I;m beginning to think my crowd generally tend not to go to the Musician anymore. A good workout - I'd quite forgotten what runnung a band gig was like. Sold 2 CDs a Just Be Real and a Storming.

set 1 - Water is Wide, Lifespell, Finally, Above My Head, theremin interlude, 3 Headed Girl - 3 Dan songs with Andy G
set 2 - Call of the Wild, Train of Thought, theremin & electronics jam going into Life Road, Time to Talk, Carousell, Alien Jellyfish Song

Sat - felt terrible when I woke up for lunchtime solo gig at the Phoenix Arts Centre but slowly as I was setting up the kit I came around. It turned out to be a really nice gig - just what the doctor ordered. Lots of nice and mostly familiar people in a nice light arts centre cafe all listening and enjoying it. I took things easy and decided to go thru my song albums one by one, chat a bit about them and sing a song from each. Singing a couple of covers at the end. Nice to see Helen, Rachel, Vivien & husband, and Mick the Fiddle, amongst others Vikki Clayton popped in for a coffee and a chat afterwards.

set 1  - Tomorrow Lives Again, Coming in to Land, Long Days Waiting, Green Clothes, Age of Miracles, Alien Salad Abduction, theremin interludes,
set 2 - Train of Thought, Homecoming, Finally, Above My Head, Leaves, theremin interlude, Call Me, Going Out Of My Head

Swapped kit and napped in arvo ready for Govannen gig in evening in Oakham at the Catmose Club, home of the Royal Antidiluvian Order of Buffalos. Nice people but only 20 of them in quite a big hall. We were all a bit tired but turned in a pretty good show and sold a Water is Wide CD.

Sun - takin it easy today - seeing friends for dinner. Voice is a bit gravelly and low - coulda done a Barry White set today no problem.

Weds night was a routine gig with Andy the Sax at the Mexican restaurant - odd night as it was lively to start with then everyone left early (not because of our playing :-D  )

Spent last coupla days trying to choose songs for upcoming double-header songs gigs tonight (wit band) and tomorrow (solo).  Plus writing chord sheets out for Andy the Guitar so he wont be soloing completely in the dark.

Been dabbling in Reverbnation - a cute fanbuilding site including a music widget etc. Fun so far plus  think I can tweak it to handle my emailing list. Stepping up my dormant Facebook a little too. Plus some website work is in the offing once Ip;m done preparing for gigs.

I think I just signed up for 3 more albums with the new age label, 2 producing - actually there isnlt much of a distinction as I write/record pretty much all the music either way.

3 gigs in 2 days coming up... - for a guy who said "never again" to 2 gigs in a day I seem to be having 2 consecutive Sats arranged that way. Ho hum...

Still a bit tired after the big weekend - still I went into town and bought some Euros to send Singer Pur and a new microphone stand (mine broke on Sat)

Online I looked around some online promotion places. and tried out another online storage space (my free BT one I get with my ISP looked OK then after all the rigmarole of joining it turned out they didnlt allow the sharing of any music - even my own - might have to stay where I am - company buyout linkchange hell and be done with it). It has made me think about how I present myalbums and soundclips on my website. ie If an album has a Payplay widget does it need my own mp3 soundclips?

Tonight - well gosh - I just sold 6 CDs to a guy online out of the blue - there's a job for me tomorrow then. (Kym,  River of Life, Guiding Light, Celtic Fire, Spirit of the Moon, Healing Waters)

In eve I watched Spinal Tap for 1st time in years, still remembered almost every line - saving up the bonus features I haven;t seen b4.

Must get set together for Fri & Sat song gigs - the Fri gig must have easily buskable songs for Andy the Guitar to be able to jam on. Did a little rehearsal of Sunrise and Above My Head from the new album. I find song selection really hard for song gigs these days.

Chillin today - recovery mode from weekend.
My 2 CDs by Singer Pur arrived (SP are a wonderful 6piece German choral group - one their new album Memento with the final 3 Rihm Passion motets from 2006,  plus some medieval and some Arvo Part. Excellent, esp the Rihm.
The other one was SOS - Save Our Songs - a collection of novel new arrangements of German Folk Songs - I imagine it might be of interest to some German LJers/filkers. Guten Abent Gut Nacht doen as a bossanova is a favourite.

I was sent their groups bank details to pay for the albums. In the UK it still is not possible to tranfer money between banks without a big charge. My bank told me it would cost 20pounds to transfer the money plus I'd need to fill in a form and bring my passport or drivers licence. They eventually told me I'd be better off posting the cash. Innit marvellous? In a digital age?

Anothe rnuts thing - the online storage space I store all the soundclips of my albums for my website has been taken over AGAIN. Meaning? All the links to every track of the 40+ albums I have clips for will have to be remade. Thats over 400 links to fix. I had a go aty some other alternatives including a free space that does widgets but it didnlt look very elegant, plus there was a widget/commerce place Bizmo which looked like a pallava. Will think on it again when I have a brain back.

 Sold a Celtic Fire CD online. :-)

Sandy Denny Anniversary Tribute - at the Troubadour
Vikki Clayton picked me up noonish and drove to London - not a great trip with 2 holdups - but we made it to the Troubadour to rehearse the song all the artists were to play together at the end. I turned out to be the oly one with a chord sheet, and the PA hadn't been set up yet so no keyboards so I had to strum through the song (for the 1st time for me) on Vikkis guitar - whilst sat around the table were Martin Carthy, Linda Thompson, & daughter Kamila Thompson and her band and  Lisa Knapp and Linde Nijland with citternist all following my lead. Weird.
Then a lot of hanging about - I had nice dinner in the cafe above with Martin Carthy who is a nice guy - although are musics are far apart, he is open and interested in things and music generally. In fact everyone was very nice which made the event for me.

Space was cramped as the show oversold, it was hot in the dark historic basement venue, and there wasn't really anywhere to "be". A crowd of devoited Sandy fans - a bit like playing at a shrine or a wake. Our 3 spot set was OK and the live aid finish with everyone was a bit mad but fine - again I was conducting, this time from the keyboard.  I later found a real lack of breathable air (they coudn't have aircon on due to noise) - by the end of the night I was virtually gasping for oxygen. When we got out of there we had to stop at the 1st services for 30mins to BREATHE and walk around.  We got home around 2am.

Glad we did it, and as I said everyone was nice, but it was a 14 hour day to play 4 songs, none of which of our choosing coming after a 2 gig Saturday. Pretty knackered today. I found a review of the gig (no mention)

Saturday was a 2 gig day -
The 1st was a jazz duo gig in the day with Andy the Sax - all a bit hurried as the wedding party arrived early but we played for 90mins in a chilly corridor and it seemed to be appreciated.

I had a 1 hour turnaround to cook, eat, change and repack for the evening gig.

Govannen were booked to play at Cottesmore church - wow - 100+ people there, all listening, beautifully lit - Tho we were all a bit tired it went really well. One funny thing was I arrived by mistake at the village hall where I;d thought the gig was only to find everyone dressed as cowboys and Indians - Country & Western A|ppreciation Society. Luckily I remmebered the real venue. We sold 4 CDs, 2 each of Water is Wide and Celtic Fire.

Better day yesterday - i promised self that if I did a little promotion work in the morning I could treat self to cafe lunch and wander round town. So I wrote some blurb for Songs for Dreamers CD, then did just that - I needed CDrs so there wss a work connection. Lunch and book in the EAT cafe simple pleasure tho it is was very centering. I then wandered round town for the 1st time in maybe a year - I didnlt buy too much as I;d splurged on Amazon the day before but I couldn't resist a Hepburn/Tracey box set reduced to 20quid.

I also promised self that if I didnlt daudle in town I would come back and have a play on my theremin and moogerfooger murf. This was also a treat.

My head feels better for the break and my brain feels comfortably inside my head rather than fighting to get out of it.

I also had nice surprise - my PRS royalty came and was about 280pounds! Thanks to visiting PRS man who saw me play at the Cactus Cafe that time. Foir some reason every tune I logged with him I got 90quid for! PRS royalties are always a mystery. Nice to note tho thet my Rendezvous with Rama got aired in Poland and Bulgaria (for which I got 3 pounds :-) )

In evening - still battling with my laptop - was doing ever so well til I reinstalled my midi keyboard and guess what? Windows now hangs on shutdown again (I;d fixed that last time by using system restore Norton removal tool). Tried to system restore this time to find all my system restore points vanished - neat. I will try uninstalling the midi keyboard software then i think I'll just say that my computer hangs on shutdown and that's just the way it is.

I'm in one of my post project / post busy week heads - this usually leads to bad sleep patterns and by day vaguely trying to get organized but never doing much of any use. Then eyes wont stay open and I need a nap. Then I fumble around some more etc.... After a few days of this spiral I find it's best to take a sleeping pill and put my burned brain out for the night. It only happens every other month or so. Usually does the trick.

I oughta be fixin up my laptop or doing publicity but my brain aint up to manuals and blurb writing.

I did do some stuff tho -
I made a masterlist of promotional plans (vague) in all the spheres of my active music. I confirmed 2 gigs and sorted a guitarist for Musician venue gig.  I posted the Clookai project off to artist and label.

I then decided I just needed to get OUT of the studio and away fro computers, so I went to 2ndhand DVD store in town and bought some TV (I tend to watch DVDs instead of live tv nowadays) I got My Name is Earl season2, a Mae West, a Neil Simon, a Monkees concert (recent), and a 2disk Spinal Tap. All very cheap.

I also went to the City Gallery to discuss possibility of doing electronic music there - unfortunately I wasn't prepared and had no publicity or samples and being in Tired Head I looked like Alice Coopers older brother. Still she took my name and I remebered another poss electronic venue.

So I did do stuff see?

In the evenign I watched the Monkees concert from about 2000 - sans Nesmith  - fun - luckily lots of good Tork - he was on good form and a good selection of song. Only had to flip on one Jones song.

Now where's that sleeping pill again?

OK so today I rehearsed with Vikki - we went thru some songs for Sunday's Sandy Denny Tribute - I did my homework on them and anything - Vikki arrived having changed one song to another - we workedthru them - then she felt poorly and had to go home. I wasn't feeing that great myself but I think it was coz I was tired as I had a bad night.

Wanted to do some promotional brainstorming but didnlt have the head for it - I finished the mastering of Clookai's album - listened thru - sounded fine - burned copies for her and label and they are ready to post.

Dropped some posters down to the Musician venue for the new gig on the 25th.

In evening installed wireless router at G's - had some trouble with security setup - needed some manual reading - but then later troubles were entirely caused by me trying to connect my laptop with the rinkydink Acer software rather than the Windows connection thing. Once I'd sussed that it was fine.

Got a call from Neil the Bass - he said he;d heard from Sally Barker that she was interested in recording at his studio with some...theremin - whoyagonnacall? :-)

a quiet day - too tired to do much constructive. Last night I watched Folly to be Wise DVD (Alistair Simm - excellent.

Some gigs came in on the phone. I;m now ding Dan Britton's gig on the 25th April in my own right (rather than as his bandmember) as he has had to pull out. Need to think who will play with me apart from Neil the Cajon.

Did the fixes needed for Clookai's album - just have to master up 1 track and it's done.

Went to Borders - bought a William Gibson book and another Alistair Sim DVD (Green for Danger)

Vikki came round - the London Sandy Denny Tribute gig on Sunday is clarifying - some new songs will ahve to be learned - one bummer - We can't do Who Knows Where the Time Goes which is our killer song - someone else has bagged it.
Plus we have to get there for 3pm fo rehearse a song for all to sing. 6pm woulda suited me better - esp as I have 2 gigs the day before...

Steinberg LE4 (or rather their Softsync stupid licencing software) didnlt like my system restoring on my laptop. Tried various things but the software is too stupid.

Oh cool - I sold a download copy of Chocolate Bossa on iTunes Japan

So ends 5 gigs in a row  - and I survived.

Fri - I was really tired after my solo gig the night before - Vikki came round to rehearse for the Sandy Denny Tribute - we went thru 2 songs and were both so knackered we gave up early and Vikki watched 2001 A Space Oddysey and stayed for some of The Viziers cooking while I got ready for the evening gig to come.
The Ceilidh with Govannen was very nice in a village hall in Normanton-on-Soar - Dan was a bit under the weather so we rallied round and he joined us in the 2nd half. Cathy Lesurf our caller was on especially good form. one funny thing - the lady I played at her 60th birthday and I cxmplained about the band's sandwiches in my blog brough me a special sanwich with everything on it - :-)

Sat - a Govannen wedding gig at Rothley Court but with Neil the Cajon Drum on board - turned into pretty much a function band with 1/3 Irish stuff and the rest 60s/70s pop. The crowd were totally into it all and laughed in all the right places and danced madly all night. Even had a couple of lasses playing air-keyboard whenever I took a solo. My voice was a bit kaput by the end even tho i don;t sing many. -

Sun - this gig was supposed to be a little foyer gig with Vikki at Loughhborough Town Hall - the foyer was busy and it turned into a sit down proper gig in the ballroom to about 100 people. We didn't have a setlist and took to weaving our way thru songs we knew and lots of stories with Vikki sat in the huge mayoral throne. Went really well - I sold a couple of Songs for Dreamers CDs too.

The other good news is that Clookai and the label like the album I finished for them and barring a few little click fixes I don;t have to do any major re-works.

And now for some rest.

Tues - mxing - and then I found out the priblem with my laptop not shutting down - I did some system restores and found I hadn't remived Norton properly (you need a Norton Removal Tool - wwho knew? ) so everything on my laptop goes back to where I was a week ago so have to reinstall a lot of stuff - however - glad I found the problem.

Weds - more mxing and a jazz duo gig with Andy the Sax at Pixxa Express - my fingers enjoyed doing some jazz instead of mxing - not many there we got to finish early - 2 old muzo mates showed up Grham the Drums and Steve the Bass from Jewellers Eye band so we ate with them in our break.

Thurs - I;ve been mixing Clookai's album - one thing that took a  while was the fact that she had a clicking key on her flute - so I had to go thru every track with a fine toothcomb and find the clicks and fix them - certain clicks needed differetn solutions - given i;ts mostly a flte album this took a while.  I think today I have finished all the tracks, mastered them up and made an order for them and sent copies for appraisal to Clookai and the label. Haven't listened all the way thru the disk yet - need a break from it.

In the evening I had a solo songs gig at the Criterion - it was a quiet little pub gig but a good workout for me as I don't do many full songs gigs solo. I took the teremin which went down well and ended in request for Dr Who theme so I got the audience to sing the bass line while I played the melody. Turned out the Chef at the pub owned a copy of my Contact Light CD (very rare! ) - and is an electonic music maker.

Vikki Clayton rang and wants me to play a London posh gig with her - a Sandy Denny Tribute night with several singers inc M Carthy contributing. We are to do 4 songs or so - I only know one of them.

Sold a Chocolate Bossa CD online (to a usual suspect in the USA)

In the middle of 5 gigs in a row - I;m a bit sleepy tonight.

Finished my short story book Ray Bradury's The Machineries of Joy - excellent selection ending ona  great Irish story very remioniscent of Flan O'Brian. Next short story bok is The Great Years anthology edited by Carol & Frederik Pohl

Sundays Govannen gig was at a wild birthday party of  afriend of a friend - 100 people in a small country pub - we got there to play at 6pm - everyone there had been drinking shoulder to shoulder from noon. They were up for a good time. So upberat jigs and reals and classic pop songs. 2 8/10yr old kids in particular danced manically all evening. We sold 3 Govannen Water is Wide CDs.

Monday - I spent the day mixing Clookai's album - mixed 5 tracks - 3 to go, then premastering - might finish it tomorrow. Brother Jerry came over to go through the summary of mums estate stuff. Pretty much all sorted now thanks to his hard work. We went out for noodle bar and cocktail ( Manhatten each - a family tradition in honour of our folks) with G in piano bar where I have a gig soon to check the place out.

Still battling with new laptop setup - XP pro is now hanging on "Windows is Shutting Down" - according to the web forums there are any number of reasons for this  so I'll slowly start at the top of the list and walk thru. I tried getting some sound out of the soundcard - distorted :-( re-installed the  soundcards drivers - seemd to work OK. Need to get rid of a lot of "stuff" from startup and programs I'll never use and tune xp to lean and mean.
For those setting up pc music systems and know as little about computers as I do I found this set of links and articles very groovy - http://www.podcomplex.com/pc/
 

So what do folks think about Phorm? -
(Recently brought to my attention that your ISP might be selling your browser history without you having to opt in. )
details - http://www.badphorm.co.uk/page.php?2
let me know what you think