The original:
The Most Excellent Cover by Alic Sibu:
If you haven’t already purchased the brilliant “Disorganised Fun” CD by Ronald Jenkees, do so now – Ybeq Rexl Commands You! It is quite simply the best $12 plus postage that you will ever spend (to date).
Since I obtained my classical guitar a few months back, I’ve tended to carry it around with me rather a lot, usually taking it with me when I go to JAFWA on a Saturday night – there’s quite often shows on that don’t capture my interest.
Out of curiosity, I decided to play some songs I used to perform back in the early Nineties when I was in a band called “Cerebral Nomad”. The band didn’t last long but it showed a lot of potential.
Or so I thought.
As a four piece band – Barry on drums, Steve of lead guitar, Jason on bass and myself on rhythm guitar (though we often swapped instruments for certain songs) and we preferred to do mostly original material. If we did a cover, we played it how we thought it should be done – never mind what the original artist thought. We also split in to two songwriting teams – Barry writing the lyrics and I composed the core melody, whilst Jason and Steve would share duties. Arranging was generally a group effort.
When the band split after six months, I took my songs with me and wrote new lyrics for them. As Barry had ambitions of being lead singer as well, he had a tendency to keep his lyrics to himself. I usually had little idea how they went. Though I did do several instrumental arrangements as well (you’ll find a couple of them under the High Voltage SID Collection).
So as I sat outside JAFWA one evening fighting off the mosquitoes, I tried to recall some of the material written by the other band members, such as “Mother” or “Dove”. My parts were generally pretty easy, usually only three or four chords. Steve wrote songs to demonstrate his guitar technique, not mine. Easy but dull, so I developed a more intricate playing style incorporating different techniques that I’d picked up over the years – arpeggios, tapping, slapping and plucking (usually used on bass guitars), four note chords (when most people would use three) and using my little finger to play a melody around the chord. All of this designed to make my part of the music sound much bigger and more interesting.
I struggled to recall the arrangement of the music, but it came to me after a while, along with some of the lyrics. Its funny how the mind sometimes distorts experiences, exaggerating certain points. What I recalled as powerful, soulful imagery proved to be a whiny, immature and incoherent tirade as told by a spoiled, bratty teenager. Seriously – cheer up, emo kid.
I had a similar experience many years ago when playing back some of our recordings made at the Fremantle Music Centre – I wanted to show some of the material to the lead guitarist from my then current band (we never really settled on a name, though we had narrowed it down to “Electric hooligans”, “Hooligans with guitars” and “Fastidious rabble”). I remember playing some of my best guitar ever during that recording and yet we ended up with a ghastly cacophony of twangs, out of time drumming and squeaky, pained vocals – I only retain the tapes to stop them falling into the wrong hands (they are hidden away with my collection of Ringo Starr LPs).
So I’m thinking it might be time to walk away from the older material – put the worthy material down on disc and recycle the rest before it pollutes the environment. Whilst I still want to get a band together again, I have two main projects on the go now – the folky (or filky) concept album inspired by BlackSylph and a new electronic suite inspired by a conversation with a friend the other night (for those of you wondering what “Ybeq Rexl” was all about). And that game soundtrack I’ve been promising since 1993.
Three! Three mains projects. And that music demo that I formed Project: Synthesis for.
Four!
I’ll go sit in the corner now…with the soft cushion…
A co-worker asked me the other day “Your older brother is older than you, right?”
You can see how these people make it into managerial positions, can’t you.
I have taken a step along the road to enlightenment. That is to say I have started experimenting with Linux. Again.
Not that one is obligated to look like Richard Stallman in order to use Linux or open source software but it appears to help – if most of the Linux users I’ve met are anything to go by. I grant you that the rebellious part of my nature has sprouted a goatee beard and a beret and has taken to carrying a placard and waving its philosophical fist in the air.
I’ve been using Windows as my primary operating system since May 1997 though I have trialled various alternatives over the years – FreeDOS, BeOS, early incarnations of Linux and OS/2, all with mixed success. Outside of SCO or BSD Unix at TAFE, my first proper taste of a Linux-like operating system was playing with Red Hat 5.0 way back in 1999. Though it looked impressive, getting anything useful done required much delving around in the Land of the Big Scary Command Line and editing scripts. It all seemed like too much hard work. More recent attempts tried to make use of some older hardware that I had lying around – mainly my Celeron 600 – and conservative installations such as Xubuntu. The software would install nicely but refuse to talk to my internet connection. I could use the operating system but couldn’t update or hunt for new software.
On my current system, I use Vista Home Premium on my notebook (and primary workstation) and XP Pro on my file and print server – Home Server being far from suitable for my requirements due to the strange “may corrupt your really important information without warning or apology” bug that I believe still hasn’t been fixed as I write this (at least, when I started writing back in July 2008).
Microsoft has received a great deal of criticism regarding their rather restrictive licensing schemes, questionable security and debatable stability – I’ve always seen it as “You don’t have to buy it, you know – you can always use an alternative system.” Other people have taken the attitude of “We want to use it, we just don’t want to have to pay for it. Repeatedly.” What really irritated me recently was Service Pack 1 for Vista was released earlier this year and the update manager has been nagging me for weeks to install it. I’d heard whispers that the upgrade often failed and ended up corrupting people’s installations so I made a point of doing a complete backup first. This was a very wise move as two thirds of the way through the upgrade, the system balked and refused to boot again. Six hours of frustration and restoration later and I’m back to where I was previously. And the update manager is still bugging me to upgrade.
So out of sheer irritation, I thought I’d have another go at Linux – this time on reasonably up to date hardware. I’d recently built myself a new server and so I had a spare system lying around looking for something useful to do. I’d been getting regular copies of Kubuntu since June 2006 and version 8.04 seemed to be mature enough to warrant a second look. Friend Style has been using Linux in various forms for as long as I can recall, dedicated enough to even have had Tux the Penguin tattooed on his arm, and has been an advocate for Ubuntu for some time.
Kubuntu seemed the logical choice since it came with a comprehensive install base (the only distribution of the primary three that came on DVD) and a familiar user environment. So where to start? I took the install DVD, started up my decommissioned server and waited for the system to start installing.
Since I started investigating Linux again, one thing has come to cause me a great detail of annoyance – the Linux Evangelist. Such people will talk endlessly about how much better Linux is than Windows at absolutely everything, often with such fanaticism that even seasoned Linux enthusiasts shudder at the mention of their name. Most people just walk away – this doesn’t seem to bother the Evangelist as they will quite happily continue talking, with or without an audience. If you can bring yourself to endure their incessant waffling, you will note that they often contradict themselves several times and bring their knowledge of their subject matter into doubt.
So after several practice installations and configuration sessions, I started to become familiar with the quirks and idiosyncrasies of Gnome and KDE, and their associated foundations – to the point of migrating a number of my daily tasks over the Linux system, and even to the point of installing Windows versions of some of the applications on my Vista notebook (notably OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird since I had being using Lotus Smart Suite for over ten years and Opera web browser for the last eight).
Out of the box or – more accurately – from the base installation, Ubuntu does around 80% of the tasks I need. With around an hour’s tweaking, downloading and configuring, it can do about 95%. I figure that the remaining 5% has mostly to do with my inexperience or simply not having found an application that will do the task I require.
The environment reminds me rather a lot of the days spent working on my Amiga 500 and later the A1200. Much of the software is a little unpolished, a little rough around the edges, but include most of the features needed. As I continue to become familiarised with Gnome, I’ll likely find better programs, or new ones that do old things in a better way.
So where to from here? Whilst it nice to not have to spend money buying applications to perform the tasks I require, I now find myself pondering upgrading my hardware again. Having wasted yet another morning attempting to configure my Vista notebook for dual booting with Ubuntu – and failing miserably – I ponder upgrading my spare notebook with additional memory to improve performance. For some odd reason, 512MB doesn’t quite seem to be enough and the older video controller doesn’t want to recognise an external monitor (which may or may not be related to the limited memory). And you can understand my reluctance to spend $135 on upgrade parts for a six year old notebook that might die tomorrow.
Playing with Fedora Core 10 on another system implies that that would be a better solution, up until the point of not being able to access my Windows network. Does everything nicely until that point – though I have yet to test it accessing another Linux system on the same network.
As I write, I’m testing an installation of Xubuntu 8.10 downloaded this morning (Xubuntu tends to be a later release than Ubuntu or Kubuntu) – I’ll let you know how that goes.
It would be nice to be free of Windows though – maybe I ought to upgrade the hard disk of the Vista notebook just for a test…
Ever get those moment of epiphany, when everything you need to do or you need to achieve are suddenly visible to you, like walking drunkenly into a darkened room only to have someone switch on the light?
That happens to me all the time.
So after having a really freakishly awful time during October, I’m making an effort to get some semblance of order back into my life.
I went out for a walk this evening – something I’ve not done for over a year. Although its late Spring and we’re partaking of that nonsensical process that is daylight saving, this evening was heavily overcast, raining only slightly and rather cool. I enjoy my evening walks – it gives the body something to occupy itself with whilst the mind gets on with the task of sorting out the Thoughts of the Day. Plus I need to try and get fit again. Really.
With a rental inspection due in the immediate future, I felt it was time to have a big clear out. Over the last couple of years, I’ve accumulated so much excess computer gear that it had taken over both kitchen and dining area – my apartment was rapidly turning into Style’s Dad’s house; so much accumulated clutter that there was practically no room to move. On top of that, there’s a number of boxes of crockery and glassware that I packed up years ago when looking to move somewhere else due to unruly neighbours. I figure that if I haven’t used it in three years, I don’t need it anymore.
The same goes for my manga – I’ve decided to donate all the collected editions to the JAFWA library (I’ll probably end up putting the individual issues up on eBay or something since the library doesn’t want those).
I managed to find a new home for most of the computer gear – a customer who comes into my office on a regular basis is on the lookout for leftover bits and pieces to assemble systems for people who either can’t afford a system or don’t need anything powerful.
The next step is to change my lifestyle – eat better, drink less, exercise more. The past weekend I finished the last bottle of Falling Down Liquid (plum wine made by my parents) so that temptation has now been removed. With cosplay activities finishing up for the year, I now have more time to cook properly and can go back to planning my meals rather than cooking quick and easy (and typically unhealthy) things.
I’ve also made an effort to renew my interest in gardening. When I first moved here, it was the first time I’d had a decent size garden that I could shape to my whims. I started growing vegetables (bok choi since I do like my stir fries, cos lettuce, pumpkin, onions – nothing particularly challenging) but after the first successful crop, everything went to seed. I pulled it all out and started again, only to have that go to seed immediately as well. My interest declined rapidly after that and the vegetable garden was eventually given over to a decorative herb garden. Eventually most of that died as well, until only the oregano survived and threatened to take over that entire area.
So last weekend I pulled most of the oregano out and binned it. I have since made a mental note to remember to wear long sleeves when working in the garden – not because of the risk of sunburn but because contact with most plants brings me up in hives.
That was the other reason I lost interest in gardening.
I’ve still to dig up the mat of roots that the oregano has left behind, but once that’s done I’ll plant carrots, zucchini and broccoli and see how that goes – that’s a suitable Summer crop for this area I’m told.
Eating well has always been something of a priority for me so that won’t be too much of a challenge, but staying off the booze and continuing to exercise will prove more difficult. Since I got back from Rottnest with Mistijen back in September, I’ve been saving up for a bike of my own so I’m hoping that will help. Looking forward to just getting on the bike of an evening and going exploring.
If I can get back into the routine that I used to have many years ago, next time I go back to Rottnest with Mistijen, not only will I be much fitter, I will have a bike that doesn’t cause me so much discomfort that I feel like the seat has come off and I’ve been sitting on the pole.
There was a comic strip in the Wizard of ID series published some time ago. It went as follows:
A schoolboy is asking his parents for assistance with his homework. The problem he is having difficulty with is “If inflation increases by 12% a year but Daddy’s pay cheque increases by only 6%, how long will it be before Daddy is wiped out?”
The Mother responds “About 10 minutes after the barman cashes the cheque”.
Perhaps a more relevant riddle would be “If Kris’ rent increased by $60 a year but Kris’ salary only increases by $50 a year (before tax), how long will it be before Kris is sleeping in his employer’s warehouse?”
Since June 2005, my rent has increased every six months – first it was small, understandable increments; $20 here, $10 there, but more recently its been jumping up even more – come next June, if this pattern continues, my rent will have doubled in four years without the landlord doing a thing to improve the place. Indeed, he only spends money on things that he is legally obligated to do – fixing a leak in the roof, replacing a leaking toilet cistern. Never mind putting air conditioning in this place, the unit doesn’t even have a TV antennae.
I had a grumble about this to my co-workers and was surprised at how polarised the reactions were. To put it simply, those who rent or have rented were shocked by how greedy the landlord is; those who own investment properties thought it was perfectly reasonable since they’d just put their rent up on their properties by $50 a week themselves. Not because they needed to, but because everyone else was putting their rent up as well.
What is even scarier is how so many people are desperate for a place to rent that they are quite willing to accept this. Some four years ago, I had really bad neighbours – your typical Australian yobbo, playing their stereo loud at 2am, noisy parties in the middle of the week, having drunken brawls in the central courtyard – so I was looking for somewhere nicer to move to. Every time I found an apartment that I liked, I would submit an application along with a list of repairs I would like done before moving in (you know, clean the smelly oven, fix the leaky taps, replace the torn fly screen) only to be told that whilst I was viewing the property, someone had offered to take it as is and offered even more rent than was asked for – sometimes $20 or $30 more.
Sometimes I regret that I accepted a managerial position at the regional office rather than staying here and buying my old apartment when it came onto the market. Back then, the units were selling for $80,000 and everyone thought that was ridiculously overpriced. Five years later the same unit was listed for $325,000.
All I can hope for now is that the bottom will drop out of the market, all the greedy investors will suffer terribly and property prices will return to the land of the sane.
Unlikely though, since its the greedy ones who are in charge and the working class who will end up propping up their sagging worth.
I’ve had my first out of body experience.
February 23rd, 2008, Leo Kottke performed at the Perth Concert Hall. My brother and I had been waiting for this concert for some four months, having purchased tickets in November as soon as we had heard news of Kottke’s impending arrival.
We were a little bewildered at first when two people walked out of stage – Bridget Pross and her bass player. I hadn’t been aware of a support act so I was a little surprised – first thinking that he had a support band, and then wondering if the concert had been cancelled and this was Kottke’s substitute.
Pross, a folk singer and guitarist from Tasmania had been touring with Kottke for the last couple of weeks. Six songs from her new album, “I wanted to” were performed. Now it must be said that Pross has an amazing voice, powerful and resonant, and it quite a capable guitarist. Her songwriting, however, leaves something to be desired. The melodies were quite well devised, if overfamilar (one of the last songs she played had a melody disturbingly like a song I had written back in 1992 when playing in a band called “Cerebral Nomad”), but the construct was repetitive and her lyrics were very weak. Although she might have been writing from life experiences, she hadn’t put a lot of consideration into how she was communicating the idea – and once you’ve heard her sing the chorus six times in a row, it starts to grate.
Her inexperience as a live act showed clearly as well, she hadn’t created any kind of script for introducing her songs or explaining the origins, and didn’t seem at all comfortable talking with the audience, her speech pausing often and hesitant. The word “Umm” seemed to make up the greater part of her vocabulary. Hopefully she will grow as a songwriter and entertainer in time. The CD was for sale in the foyer after the show.
After an intermission of 20 minutes for the audience to empty their bladder, or refill it at the bar, Kottke finally came out on stage at 9:30. A six string guitar in one hand, 12 string in the other. With nary a pause for introduction, he started of into three instrumental pieces on the 12 string.
It was halfway through the second piece that I suddenly realised that I was floating some distance above my own body, what felt like 15 to 20cm above the seat, so enthralling was the music. It appears that I was not the only person to have been carried away so. Amusingly, around halfway through the show, Kottke was playing a slow, moody and deeply atmospheric piece that seemed to suddenly taper off two thirds of the way through. A pause, then Kottke said “Sorry, its supposed to end more like this…” and started playing it again from the middle. Kottke had gotten so caught up in the music that he’d forgotten that he was the one performing it.
Kottke certainly puts on an entertaining and enchanting show – during the forty or more years he has been perfoming, he’d not only honed his guitar playing techniques but also his manner of communicating the audience, explaining origins of the song and telling anecdotes about the authors and artists he has worked with. Many of the songs performed required different, often very unconventional tunings and a 12 string guitar often takes some time to retune – Kottke would joke and tell stories in a manner not dissimilar to Steven Wright, even in the same, deep, dry, husky voice.
Kottke has released over thirty albums since 1969 so there was a lot of material to choose from each show, many of them previously unknown to much of the audience, although when one of the more famous and familar songs (such as “Louise”) started, the cheer rising from the audience was deafening.
The concert itself lasted a little over an hour but seemed to go on for ages. After 10:30, the concert ended and Kottke left the stage to a well earned standing ovation – the applause and cheering seemed like it was never going to end. Kottke returned to the stage for an encore, performing one more song before retiring for the evening.
I’m not sure how soon he will return to Perth but I’ll certainly be looking out for him. After the show, our group of attendees filed out of the hall into the car park, each of us with a dazed but very happy expression on our face.
Bridget Pross was still promoting her CDs in the foyer – I wonder how many she sold?
Leo Kottke official website and Wikipædia entry
Bridget Pross official website
