Sound By The Pound

Just a short update.

On the weekend I submitted my entry for the Triple J hottest 100 of all time thingy. This is my list:
The Clash - White Riot
Rancid - Time Bomb
The Saints - (i'm) Stranded
The Victims - Television Addict
The Specials - Ghost Town
Operation Ivy - Sound System
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Radio Radio
Billy Bragg - A New England
The Skatalites - Christine Keeler
Desmond Dekker & The Aces - Israelites

All of them I feel have been significant in my life in some form. It took me a few hours to whittle it down to that tiny list!

Throwdown audio mixing an video editing has begun. I've started with San Salvador because it seems that their audio tracks came out the best. Seven Steady's were okay and the other stages were pretty bad, but at least it was something. It's a pity the cameras didn't work so well. At one stage with San Salvadors set, we only had two cameras filming them out of the 4 we had set up. Oh well.

Speaking of San Salvador, here is a video for you all that I found the other week. It's of them playing in Panania in Nov 2007 at Youthquake. I think this might be one of Ben's last shows with the band before he moved to Brisbane. Anyway, just watch it and enjoy it:

Dreamworld

Disclaimer: This entry was written when I was still upset, but I decided to type it anyway because I felt the need to get all this out of my system. I'm not good at articulating myself at the best of times, so please bear with this.


Okay, so Hometown Throwdown has been and gone. I had a lot of fun on the night, the bands played well, the people who were there had an excellent time and the follow up night ran really smoothly. There was lots of support and lots of people helped out doing small jobs that just helped pull the night together. Thanks to all of you, I really freaking appreciate it. Not even kidding on that one. Major props go out to Mike from San Salvador for coming all the way to Sydney with the biggest flu ever to play.

Despite all that, what I wanted to achieve didn't happen.

Why? Maybe you're thinking I have too higher expectations, but here is my explanation. I hope you understand my reasons. This is complete, utter and blunt honesty here.

The reason I love putting on such an event in the first place is because I get to involve two of my favourite things: church and audio/music. Bringing the two together under one roof and making them good with the skills I have gives me the biggest thrill. So much so that for the past 2 months I've literally been living and breathing the entire show, planning it all in my head with meticulous detail so as on the night once the first band is playing the entire night runs itself and runs like magic. From handing out flyers to people on the street, to putting them up in shops, getting them handed out in schools, spending the entire day looking up and emailing every Anglican & Baptist (I only got through A and B in the White Pages) church in Sydney about the gig, I've been doing a lot of hard work.
Why so much? Because I'm sick of so many things I see going on that this is my way of bring able to help make a difference to so many of them.
Some of those things are:
- Bad church events. The number of tacky and badly organised church events that go on in every church around the place, not just in Sydney but everywhere, just makes me feel so embarrassed to encourage people to go to them.
- Stereotypes. You know what I mean. Most people I talk to who aren't Christians think that church is a boring place where you go on Sundays because you have to because a guy up the front is telling you you're an evil person. They also think that we hate gay people and just want their money.
- Bad bands. There are so many bad Christian bands out there. Not even kidding.

So, what do I want to achieve, considering the feelings I have towards those items above (and many others)?

Well, what I want to do is be able to share my passion for being a Christian with other people, particularly those who aren't Christians, by showing them that what really goes on in church doesn't have to be what they expect it to be.
I want to show them that it is a place full of good people with many many great skills who just want to show love to them and each other. They don't hate people just because they're different, no matter whether it be because of their orientation, race, culture, background or anything else. It's a place where things are peaceful, fun and where it's attendees are striving for a bigger and better world.
I want to show them the power of God's love by demonstrating to them a friendly, unified, selfless and giving community of people who only want the best from everyone.
I want a church to be a place that people WANT to go to.

Some people would argue that Saturday night's event was just that. But I would argue otherwise.

Now, we got 240 people through the door. Pretty much everyone would say that was awesome. My main issue with this is the number of people that DIDN'T come.

Before it happened, I've been spending every minute of my spare time telling everyone I can about the show, getting people excited about it and trying to get them to come along. Through that process a large number of people said they would come who didn't show up. Most of those people aren't Christians, but a lot of them are.
The problem I have with this is how am I meant to break down barriers in peoples minds, help push good church events and show people what God's love can really be like if the people that really need to see and hear it don't show up?
I put on a show that was extremely lightweight on the Christian content to even try and get people to even turn up, with the option of hearing it the next night after having a great time the night before and being more comfortable with the idea, but they still didn't come.

Pretty much all the people that were at the show were from other churches, not from the general public. How am I to reach the general public, have them come along and achieve the goals I want, when after spending every waking moment putting all my effort in to try and make an event (a really kick ass event, to be honest) that even a small number of them could show up to and have a good time, and they don't?

I know the show was great and I know it ran really well. I know the bands were great and I know everyone that was there had a good time. The problem is that I just can't get my mind off all the people that didn't come, especially those who told me they would and didn't.

I may feel a whole lot different about this in a week or two when I've spoken to more people about it, but currently, the night after it happened I don't feel very satisfied.

I know I can put on a really good show with really good bands and very honest and open intentions, but what use is it if the people who need to hear it, don't?

Diabolic Scheme

Well well, what do we have here?

Another chapter in Owen's life. Sweet

I've been quite busy lately, not getting much sleep and just generally exhausted, but that's life!

I've been working, staying back late (i.e. till 5am) to mix a song for Pat Maloney that didn't come out sounding very good at all (i.e. not exactly my best work) so that was kinda lame, but the recordings my students are doing have been coming along very nicely and are sounding great. I think I might steal a couple to mix for a bit of fun once they're finished being recorded. I'm quite proud of all of them, especially those who had some of their work deleted and have had to re-record it again.

I'm organising a show and you need to come along as it's going to be ace! Check out the flyer and gasp at it's awesomeness:


It's going to be a brilliant night with so many good bands playing and all for only $10! Make sure you go to http://www.myspace.com/hometownthrowdown or if you're a Facebook type of person go to http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=79596933119 and let me know you're going to come along.

What my weekend hopes to bring me:
- Playing football in the mud
- Photocopying and cutting up thousands of flyers
- Doing some trivia
- Watching Everton beat Chelsea in the FA Cup final
- Going to the Belgian Beer Cafe with Esther for tasty lunch and wishing I owned one of the Tintin posters they have on their walls
- Buying a few CD's I've been wanting to get
- Hanging out with peeps at church
- Organising more stuff for Throwdown and just generally being excited by it

Yay!

Radio Radio

The fun and exciting times of Owen, back again for your internet boredom breaking interests!

Last week I got to hang out with Dan Jones on his radio show over at 2SSR. While I didn't do too much in the way of talking, I did get to play a few tunes and had an enjoyable time playing with all the old equipment the station has (gotta love community radio, ha). If you'd like to hear ramblings instead of reading some head on over to http://www.danjoneslive.com/main/archives/347 and have a listen. Unfortunately the music can't be put on the online podcast due to copyright issues, but you can hear me and Dan's mate Josh make jokes about Dan no problems. The song names are still there and there is a small sample of them there, so feel free to check them out of your own accord sometime.
Photos from the trip? Check them out here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=93938&id=544876388&l=711eafff5b.

Dylan Moran was a great highlight of the past few weeks as well. He made me laugh so hard my stomach was hurting hours afterwards!

Remember in the last blog I mentioned that I went to Steamfest with Dad? Well I made a video of it! Have a look at it here: http://www.facebook.com/v/80170146388

That's it for the moment.

North To The Ocean, Harder Than The Sun

Hello World.

The past few weeks have been pretty full, but very fun and eventful!

I moved out of home for a few weeks, staying with my friend Jez. I didn't see him very often because of our work hours but when we hung out it was good times. The freedom of not having to tell family members everything I was doing was pretty nice!
While there I went and saw Soul Riot play and got to hang out with those guys too, so that was pretty fun. Check out a video of them I filmed of their song Animal:

Soul Riot - Animal


Dad and I went to this thing called Steamfest and had an awesome time chasing trains around all weekend. For photos of those shenanigans, follow this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=89972&id=544876388

Yesterday was my Graduation! I was very pleased to receive my certificate and got to wear a fancy getup and everything. For photos of that, follow this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=89963&id=544876388

But yes, things have been pretty alright lately!

Function Is The Key

Just a few short things.

First things first, I've changed the template of my blog. I'm not THAT happy with it but it'll say like this until I can find a better one.

My work hours have changed again, so if you want me to do stuff with you it will be hard. I now work on Monday, Thursday and Friday nights till midnight. A little annoying but that's the way it is.

When I was in Melbourne I bought one of these little friends:

I finally found a place online to buy film for it too (thanks ebay!) so I'll hopefully be taking photos with it soon.
The button on the top that opens the shutter doesn't work, but when the camera flicks open the shutter opens and closes. A little annoying but I'll deal with it. The camera only cost me $5, which is 1/2 the cost of a roll of film for it. The film is 110 film and comes in a cartridge. Pretty fun.

I've been working my way through my Monty Python DVD's quite steadily and have been enjoying them very much. I've also had my first kick around to get ready for another season of Football. It turns out that once again I'm less fit than the old guys. Pretty embarrassing but I'm sure that after a trial game or two I can come good again.

Nothing too ground breaking for this entry, just a quick update for the sake of it.

Oh yeah, if you haven't done beforehand, please check out this album:

Hello To Wasted Hours

3 easy steps to forgetting your worries and having a blast:

1. Grab your favourite Less Than Jake album
2. Play at a reasonable volume (i.e. loud)
3. Sing every single line at the top of your lungs

Success!

(s)He's Lost Control

Bad week? Yep.

To but it bluntly, early last week I had a friend overdose on drugs, become brain dead as a result die, all within 24 hours. Pretty much the worst ever. He lived in the USA, so I couldn't do much except sit at work pretending not to feel so bad.
The same day I found all that out I got my student feedback forms and noticed that most students didn't like me. Most of it really was my fault. I haven't been as attentive as usual and my brain has been all over the place lately, resulting in me not sitting in with my students as much as I should have. I'm attempting to fix this and get my brain centered.
That morning I also realised I left my wallet at home when I was almost at work on the train. This meant my weekly ticket was at home. I was freaking out because I had to get through the ticket barriers and past the ticket inspectors that had been there all week. Luckily the ticket inspectors weren't there that day and I snuck through the wheelchair exit.

The rest of the week I didn't get much sleep. The weekend was okay because I got to go have some Bulmers and listen to great ska/reggae/punk tunes at a pub and eat some good food, but the funeral of my friend was on at the same time so I was also forcing myself not to think about it too much.

Yesterday I did some mixing at The Gaelic Club, a place I haven't mixed in a long time. They had a new console so it took me a bit to get my head around the routing of it and how it worked. The mixes were good from about 1/2 way through but before that it was pretty rubbish. It was good getting to learn a new and complicated console but also a little stressful as it was a JMC event and all the higher ups were there listening/performing.

Today was a bit lame. I got a nice sleep in, but after sitting around for ages I thought I'd go to the beach for a swim. I drove all the 35 mins it takes to get there to find all the beaches shut because of rough surf. Annoying.
Headed for home and a few mins down the road I heard a "thumthumthumthumthum" noise coming from my front left tyre. I had run over a screw and it was stuck in the tyre. managed to change the tyre and have taken it to the mechanic to see if he can plug it and save me buying a new tyre. He took one look at the screw and didn't look too optimistic. Lame. I pick it up tomorrow and hope that it is fixed.

OKAY I PROMISE NO MORE RANTING ABOUT BAD THINGS IN THIS ALREADY LENGTH BLOG ENTRY.

So, now that all the bad stuff it out of the way, I should mention I'm heading to Melbourne this weekend with Esther, so if you're a Melbourneite and would like to hand out, message/email/sms/call me and we'll sort something out. Esther and I plan on relaxing and taking time out from Sydney so seeing our Melbourne friends would be great times.

This week things I aim to do:
- Wake up
- Be more on my game
- Not be as pessimistic
- Be way more confident and not doubt my skills and talents
- Realise that it's a new week and the past week's events are exactly that, past events

Lets see how I go!

I leave you with something to ponder, and maybe even a way for you to respond to this blog entry so I know if anyone actually reads it.

Which song is better?

Chuck Berry - Johnny B Goode (1958):


OR

The Kinks - All Day & All Of The Night (1964):


?

No They Never Miss A Beat

Wow, I know I say this quite a bit, but I need to update this more.

So, since November huh? A lot has happened, most of which has kept me busy.

I worked right up until Christmas. I was at JMC Mon-Fri and then doing live gigs every weekend, so I was very busy! Things have slowed down now, there are no live gigs (happens at this time of year) and I'm only at JMC 3 days a week until March when the main intake starts up again and we have a lot of students again. The students I have at the moment are doing what's called an "unsupervised recording" where they go off and do it on their own. Make life a bit more relaxing for me, but also a bit boring. I might start ducking in on them all a bit more often to keep them going, take a listen to their tracks and give them some tips. As one student yearned last week, "COME ON, IMPART KNOWLEDGE ON ME!"

After Christmas I was away on beach mission. Having no internet for two weeks was glorious. We had a great turnout of people to our activities and they all seemed to enjoy it. It was good for me in that I got to go to the beach every day (I did miss 2 days unfortunately) and hang out with a bunch of mates. I also produced a video with some of the guys on mission as an exercise at getting used to the new ProTools 8 that came out a week before Christmas. The whole song was written, recorded and filmed in 4 hours. Pretty crazy and dodgy but really quite fun. Check it out here:


After coming back from mission I've been going to the beach an average of 2-3 times a week and can't wait to go back again. Might not make it again till the weekend (or maybe Friday morning before work again, we'll see) as I have work on.

Esther and I have bought tickets to go overseas again. We're heading back to the USA to go to Sarah and Justin's wedding. Hopefully some of the Dutchies will be able to make it too and we can have a cool UK reunion thing. Should be good fun. It's only for 3 weeks but it'll be nice to go overseas again. We're going to try and get to Canada too, at least then we can get a new country under our belts.

I've got a huge urge to do some recording, preferentially of a band that use both live and electronic instruments. If you know of anyone, send me an email.
Also, you know of any bands that want a live recording done, PLEASE get them to email me at structurefire@gmail.com. I'm more than happy to do some live recording, it'll be great fun for all involved and all the band needs to do is play a concert. They don't need to spend days in a studio or anything. Let me know.

That's enough for now. I've got this musical bug stuck in my brain that I think is forming new ideas about doing recordings and styles of music. Might talk about that another day when I shouldn't be about to go to bed, ha.

Night night.

Terminal Rock

I feel I should write something here, especially as I dislike checking my friends blogs and there is nothing new in quite a long time.

I've just been working (and enjoying it quite a lot) on weekdays and lately there have been quite a few things for me to do on weekends (weddings, 21st birthdays, farewells, get togethers etc) when not working.

Today I noticed a good reason why my posture is so bad, so I'm hoping to do stretches and exercises to fix it. I'm not going to bore you with the details of particular muscles in my back and legs and why I know they're the reason, but if you see me sometime please ask me if I've done my stretches that day to remind me to do them. I really want to stand upright. Not only is it good for my overall heath, but my confidence as well.

Oh yeah, here is a sweet sport that Ben posted on his blog that I thought I would share with you too as I think it looks pretty rad. It's called "Slamball" and involves a combination of basketball and trampolines!

Check it:


I should also tell you about this old punk band I found out about called The Chosen Few. They were a band from Melbourne who were around in 1978. I ordered their CD and it turns out they're pretty awesome. You should check them out, but they're very hard to find.

This weekend I'm flying down to Narranderra with Esther and her family for an engagement party for her cousin Michelle and her fiance Rowan. Should be a good trip.

That's about it really, hopefully that quenches your blog reading appetites for a short while.

Revelations

So tonight I had an interesting night.

I had work, but after work I went and hung out with one of my best friends, John. He's getting married on Sunday, so I really wanted to just hang out with him before it all happens.
In the end we did what we usually do, sit around and play records. This time though, because John had just moved house, he'd found all these random old 7" records that we used to listen to. We sat back, discussing why we liked them, why we didn't like any of the newer stuff by those bands, what made them change, the concerts we'd been to involving those bands and all the kinds of random things you talk about.
Because I'd been so busy, I hadn't thought about the fact that this would be the last real time John and I could just sit around doing this before there would be someone else in his life/house who would be around when we wanted to hang out. I got pretty sad when I left to go home. Either I was good at holding back tears or John pretended not to notice.
It's always a weird feeling for me when things like this change. I dunno about John, but for me sitting around just listening to records and having someone else who actually likes them too had been a pretty important thing for me that I've really enjoyed doing. It makes me feel normal knowing that yes there is someone out there that listens to the same music as I do, as opposed to everyone else out there who just doesn't get it, making me feel kind of alienated as "that guy that listens to weird music".
It's not like I'll never see the guy ever again, hopefully now that he's got a house closer to me I'll be able to see him more often, but it's just that things will be different, a state that I really don't handle so well.
I'm excited that he's found someone to spend the rest of his life with, but I'm also shocked at how quickly the wedding has come about and how little I know his wife-to-be. I've only met her in real life 3 times, including the 10 mins I saw her tonight. It feels kinda strange knowing that one of your best friends is getting married to someone you don't really know. I'm sure she's a great gal and I'm looking forward to getting to know her.

I just had a thought. You people out there reading this probably know them and I'll probably see you on Sunday at the wedding. Please come and say hello to me, I probably haven't seen you in a long time.

Upon leaving John's house, he told me to watch out on the drive home (it was 12:30am) because there were lots of deer about. I drove around the first corner and there was this MASSIVE deer with huge antlers standing right in the middle of the road. It was crazy awesome. It also made me drive quite slow for the rest of the trip :p

On the way back, I was keeping a lookout for wildlife, driving nice and slow. I saw: 2x wallabies, 1x wombat, 1x deer. As I was driving, I was also looking around at just the scenery of the Royal National Park (as you need to drive through it to get to his house) and just noticed how peaceful it was in the nightime. It was quiet, animals were out and about, the moon was shining down and the trees were blowing softly in the wind. I thanked the Lord for making such a beautiful place, straight after which I felt compelled to pull over and stop at the park in Audley. I got out and wandered down to the river, sat on a bench and listened.

That's it. Just listened.

It took a while, but after a minute of sitting still and quiet, I started to notice things. You could hear the river slowly sloshing about. That was it. For the minute.

As I sat longer, more things started popping out, slowly at first but ended in a torrent of noise. Ducks up the river quacking, fish in the water, something in the trees behind me (on closer inspection I found some Koalas!), nuts falling off trees, bats flying overhead etc. It was amazing! I thanked the Lord again, and in return he showed me something.

It was only just then, sitting by the river in the dark without any other people around that He really showed me an example of his timing compared to my fragile quick lifespan. He showed me the growth of the land, how without people it still moved and lived. It's perfect balance.
I thought about Genesis and how everything in His creation was perfect, including humans, before 'the fall'. At that same moment, He showed me that without humans around, the world could still operate because He had made it perfect. He showed me how slowly compared to my measily schedule ridden life the world grows and changes. Despite how slowly the world moves, it is just a blip on the scope for Him. Why should I demand things to happen NOW? Why should I expect Him to jump down and do everything I want Him to in such a tiny moment in the short space of time that is my life?

I shouldn't. I should do as He says and wait, be patient, pray, and one day He may if He feels like it should be so.

I thanked Him for everything he just showed me, and he let me sit there outside for a while. Even though it was cold, I did not feel it.

I walked around a bit, followed my ears and found the Koalas (there were two of them) and after a while I asked the Lord to let me know when He thinks I should leave. Straight after saying that He sent me a kangaroo OUT OF NOWHERE that almost ran into me, scared the life out of me, chased me back to my car and disappeared as quick as it arrived. Thanks!

The trip home was spent driving slow (by this time it was 2:15am) and just looking around at God's creation, admiring it, and seeing how we'd flattened it to put roads and houses on.

Workers Wage

Reading my last update is kinda funny. There's me talking about how I don't need to go back to JMC ever again and I had to find a job etc. Well, plans have changed!

In the end, I'm back at JMC and I didn't need to look for a job. Why?

24 hours after posting that entry I got a message over Facebook asking if I wanted to work at JMC as a Studio Assistant! Of course I said yes and now I have a regular job there in the studios teaching kids how to record things as well as do any repairs and maintenance. I get to play with all the sweet gear they have as well. It's only 3 days a week at the moment but it's a great start to my career.

So yeah, champion!

Apart from that, not too much has happened. It looks like I won't be going down to Melbourne for Joel and Lisel's housewarming as I have the 4pm-midnight shift on Fridays and 8am-4pm shift on Monday, not leaving much time to go flying around the country on weekends.

Jobs are fun :)

Snap Happy

As usual, I'm posting on here real late at night. I should probably not do these things and try and sleep, but oh well!

So college is over. I got that presentation done and everything handed in, so I never have to go back to JMC again. Which is kinda sad I reckon because I liked going there and getting to use all the sweet gear and being able to pick the brains of my tutors and lecturers and things.

Time to move on! Easier said than done, but hey, life is like that.

I'm spending the next few weeks making up a portfolio of recordings and such, hopefully it'll be enough to get me a job somewhere. Whenever it is I get around to making a resume, I think on paper I can make myself look pretty awesome thanks to all the live sound and stagehand stuff I've done, so I'm not worried about that.

Oh yeah, as I'm now free of college, invite me out places! I can go! Woo! This week I'm going to head over to Hugh's place to play Super Smash Brothers on his Wii, so that'll be awesome times.

Oh yeah, I have this camera:

I have recently discovered that using it is pretty fun, so if you see me carrying a camera around a lot in the near future, that'll probably be it.

I was going to type a whole lot more, but I was distracted just now by all the mess in my room. There is now a large pile of rubbish and recycling in the corner of my room. I feel liberated.

Can't sleep... boogers will eat me

I'm awake because I'm sick with a cold. I spent all day in bed trying to get better, but because of that I'm wide awake now.

In other news, as it's after midnight, apparently it is my birthday. 23 years old. Good on me.

A friend made this for me:


Pretty funny huh.

Well, another update on me:

I got those assignments all handed in ON TIME somehow. I'm pretty pleased with myself over that one. I just need to present my essay to the class and hand in my minor project work this Friday and I'm done. For good. I'll have a degree. Crazy.

It's pretty scary finishing up. It means many things. One is I'll need to get a full time job. Two is I can't hide behind the "it's okay cause I'm a student" moniker any more. Three is I won't get to be taught all this amazing stuff and it be okay for me to royally stuff up because I'm there to make mistakes and learn from them. Five is I won't be able to watch The Young Ones any more and be allowed to relate to them as I do. Six is that I have no direction because I won't have anyone to tell me what's next, I'll need to find it for myself.

Lets hope I can summon up the courage to start emailing people about proper jobs. It would be nice to have more money than enough to pay for fuel and train fares. I'm an audio engineer who can't even afford to buy CD's to listen to. It's pretty sad.
What sucks the most is that IF I get a job somewhere, the chances of it being something I really really want to do (audio recordings, studio or live) are so slim it's nuts.

Aaaanyway, enough of that nonsense.

Throwdown went really well. I was hoping for 300 people, but in the end we only got 250. Heaps of people who said they were going to come didn't come. The bands played great and everyone who came to watch had a great time. It was good to see the SS peeps again, I do enjoy their company. It would be good to hang out with them for more than a few hours though.
One person I know told me that 'considering the state of the scene, 250 people is a great number', so that cheered me up a bit.

On Monday I spent the whole day capturing video and audio off the recording devices. In the end I was only able to record Reverend X and Playjerise. What I got came out pretty good for Playjerise, so lets hope that I can mix it okay. Reverend X's set didn't come out that good, but I might be able to save it. I think I'll take it in to college before they stop me using the facilities and try mixing it there. The video isn't crash hot for either band (two handycams on tripods) but it's better than no video, that's for sure. Thanks to those people that lent me the cameras.
Oh yeah, if you're a myspace person, there are photos of all the bands playing at the show at www.myspace.com/hometownthrowdown

Apart from the Throwdown recording, I've also got a recording I did with Soul Riot to mix. I'd get into mixing it now as I'm keen to do it, but this cold is messing with my ears something horrid. Compared to normal everything sounds a bit muffled. It'll pass a day after the cold does and I can get into it.
I've also got at least two more recordings I need to do for Dr Buff and Reverend X to do, so I've got a bit of mixing and recording coming up. Depending on how the Dr Buff one comes out, I might have a paid recording lined up, so that's some good news.

I'm going to go and climb back in to bed. Hopefully I'll be a bit better in the morning and can enjoy doing nothing on my birthday and not have a headache and runny nose. You know, I should go down the road tomorrow and buy some tasty beer to have at home to celebrate. Yes, that would be good :)

It's Not Over Yet

So another blog to let you all know what is going on in my life. I know at least one person enjoys reading them (thanks mez/marlei), so here it goes.

College. That's pretty much my life right now. I have three assignments to hand in next week, so I need to get them all done. As of now, one is due in 7 days, two in 8.

The one due in 7 days is about sourcing and putting sounds to a 6 minute montage of scenes from The Animatrix. Seems simple? Well yeah, but when you actually give it a go, it's pretty hard. First things first, you need to watch the video and make a list of what sounds you want to put where. This takes an hour or three. Next part is finding those sounds. I've been spending the last week trying to find appropriate sounds and I've only got approx 1/2 of them sourced. After that, you need to place them all in the movie at the right points and line them up with the picture. This doesn't take too long, as you have the sounds and know where you want them. When I say not too long, I mean it takes a few hours to do. Hardest part is making them fit with the scene and mixing them to appropriate sound levels. This takes aaaaages. The video goes for 6 mins. I go through it 5 times and that's 30 mins. You need to go through it hundreds of times to make sure everything is perfect, especially for such a long piece. Lets assume all that is done.
Now, the next hardest part is exporting all the sound and making it into a DVD. First you need to export the audio, then render the video into the right format for a DVD, then time align them, make up DVD menu's and blah blah blah.
Whinge whinge moan moan, I have a lot of work to do.

8 days away I need to hand in an essay (which is super boring and hopefully the last one I'll ever have to do in my life) and final mixes of 6 bands that I recorded live so they can be put to video and also made into a DVD. This time I don't have to author the DVD myself, some DTV people will do that, but I will be handing in stereo mixes of each band AND 5.1 surround sound mixes. I've been progressing through these quite well. Tomorrow I have to re-record some vocals for one of the bands, but after that I should be able to get them finished pretty quickly.

Now, you might be thinking "hmn.. that sounds like a lot of fun compared to sitting in an office doing what I do". Yes, the mixing bands in stereo and 5.1 is great fun, but essays have always been my weak point for maximum damage, and I'm not terribly keen on doing sound-to-picture work unless it's mixing a band for DVD. Also, I don't have much time to get all this done.

On a brighter note, Throwdown is on in 8 days, which is excellent. I'm going to be busier than an ant when the rains are coming up until then, but so far things seem to be fitting together nicely. No bands have pulled out, we're going to have two stages, two good PA systems, advertising is being handed out (despite the photocopier breaking), we have some youth groups coming along etc etc and so forth. We're even setting up a coffee stall.
Only thing now is really for us to have the event and hope that people come. I'm assured that a few people will come, but I will be disappointed if we have less than 300 people. Always am, always will be. It seems to be my mental benchmark for how successful it has been. If you're reading this and are in the area, please come! Details are here: http://www.myspace.com/hometownthrowdown

Oh yeah, it's my birthday this month on the 18th, that same week my car rego is due and I finish college forever the week after that. Please buy me lots of presents of cash payments and cheques in my name so I can pay for my car service, pink slip and rego and still be able to enjoy my birthday somewhatish. Why it all costs as much as it does, I really don't know. Stupid ageist insurance companies/RTA.

Oh yeah, The stupid Klaxons make me want to go back to England again. All this rain and their music is making me miss the place quite a lot. It probably doesn't help that I'm wearing my Pogues shirt from when I saw them and Billy Bragg play in Manchester.

Aaaaaanyway. I should go to bed.

Night!

Goodnight Goodnight

Bored much? Yes please.

I've been pretty busy of late. It's great when I'm busy, always having something to do, but as soon as I stop doing things, like now, I get SO bored.

Right now I can't sleep, I've got the songs I've been re-recording the vocals on today playing over and over and over in my head. I'm playing other music to try and flush it out. I was planning to get up at 4am to watch the UEFA Cup final between Zenit St Petersburg and Rangers. Looks like that won't be happening as it's now midnight and I have a full day of being awake in class to do tomorrow.

I've been a very tired person lately. I think all this soccer playing/college going/being up late I do is really catching up with me. I'm constantly tired, my knees and ankles ache and it takes a second or two for me to think. My days off from college are spent lying around in bed simply so I can recover. 7 more hours till I need to be awake to catch the train to do it all over again and I can't sleep. Great.

Yesterday I went on a tour of the Rode microphone factory. Good fun that was. Getting to see the process of making the mics from design to assembly to testing to distribution. They have these sweet machines that machine the metal parts for the mics that are weapons grade. The government checks the machines every few weeks to make sure they haven't made any weapons with it. These machines cannot be sold in The Middle East, China or Korea. Pretty nutty. Also, the factory floor is full of Asian and Indian workers. It looks a bit sus.
Still, all in all a good trip. It really opened my eyes to what's inside the things and gave me a bit more of a feel for ways to use them.

Last night I was going to start overdubbing vocals, but the vocalist didn't show up. A bit annoying but it meant I got to have a play with using Auto Tune. Pretty fun. You can make everyone sound like Cher at the touch of a button (literally, it's the basic function of the plugin).

Today was spent back in the studio redoing the vocals for two bands. Ended up powering through 4 vocalists in 3 hours. A mean feat by any standards. That said, it left me with the songs stuck in my head, and me sitting here typing a meaningless blog. Sorry I don't make poems or try and make them sound mystical. That's just not me.

I finish college in a month and a bit. I'm so freaked out by that.

I'm going to climb back into bed, the songs may have stopped, lets see what happens.

High Fives and Stage Dives

A new blog entry! It's been quite a while since I did this.

This time, unlike most times when I complain about things, I'm actually very excited and have lots of news for everyone.

The latest thing to be excited about is that Throwdown is happening again and last night Luke and I conformed the lineup. Always a good thing to do, especially when we have such good bands! The next one will feature:
San Salvador - http://www.myspace.com/sansalvadormusic
Playjerise - http://www.myspace.com/playjerise
Dr Buff - http://www.myspace.com/drbuff
Red Letter Project - http://www.myspace.com/redletterproject
Reverend X - http://www.myspace.com/whoisreverendx

Luke and I have some sweet ideas about the way it's all going to work on the night, and I'm going to try and record it (mostly for my own personal recording stuff). Not just audio either, I'm going to try and video it too, so if you have a video camera and will let me use it, please let me know!

Another thing to be excited about is the recording I did this past week. For college I need to do a major project. For mine, it involved doing live recordings of the 3rd year performance students. We went down to The Metro theatre, the bands set up onstage and played, I recorded all the audio and the DTV students filmed it all to make live video clips for each band. It all went really well, but I'm going to have to re-record most of the vocals for the bands as the microphones we were given weren't very good (I was promised good vocal mics and didn't get them!).

On Wednesday I got to see Henry Rollins tell stories from on the road and rant about different things. It was brilliant. He spoke for 3 hours non stop and had some amazing stories to tell about music (such as singing for The Ruts with support from The Damned and the day he first met Iggy Pop) and also from countries that he's visited. So jealous of the woman I overhead in the lobby after the show mentioning that she was going to the next nights show as well.

Everyone seem to be having or going to have babies right now. Scotty and Corrine had their baby, James William, the other week. I finally saw the little guy on Saturday, and he's tiny, but pretty awesome.
That same day I found out that Paul and Katie Gatt are expecting, and yesterday I found out that Brian and Cathie Hall are also expecting! Who's next?! They all seem to be beach mission related people.... so married beach mission couples, watch out (or hurry up)!

This week Esther is in Melbourne having fun going to design conferences and buying sweet cameras (I want the camera!), so that's leaving me to get assignments and things done. This week I need to finalise what my setup would be for a 5.1 Surround recording of an orchestra would be, and I also need to analyse the sound of 5 mins of a movie. I'm going to head down to the video stop to hire some movies. I HAVE to hire and watch movies for college assignments, what a hard life!

I am going to miss college quite a bit once I'm finished....

I have some paid work this week for once, so that is nice. It's a gig I usually do for Greg over at Asquith doing sound for people who sing cover songs to old people. It's not the greatest gig in the world music wise, but it's easy and you get a free hot lunch (inc dessert!) to go with it, so in the end it's a pretty good deal.

Oh yeah, I had a great weekend. Shayne was back in Sydney (great to see you again!) and had a belated 21st birthday party. It was over at Chipping Norton Lakes, lots of people I haven't seen in a while were there, we played sweet games of soccer, ultimate frizbee and hackemback, ate cake and just had a good time hanging out.
The second half of the party meant going to Bar Ace in the city (schooners of Old for $3.20!) for some drinks and hanging outs with more people. After Bar Ace everyone decided they were going to this club called Bungalow 8. It's a loud dance party type place that I really don't like, but upon refusal of entry due to it's horribly tight dress code I wasn't too worried. Hugh and Brendan couldn't get in either and on the way there I spied a pub that was quiet and had Premier League Football on a big screen, so we just went there! It was awesome because I got to see Manchester United lose in the last 5 mins of their match against Chelsea and also the first half of the West Ham vs Newcastle match where West Ham got up 2-0, but just before half time Newcastle got it back to 2-2. We were kicked out of the pub as it was closing, but it was no matter as the match didn't end up having any more goals, and Shayne and the others were heading to The Rocks for 2:30am pancakes!
Ended up getting home at 5:30am. Awesome.

Well, I'd best be off down to the video store to get these movies, I'm not sure what ones to get to choose from, I'm just going to go and see what they have.
Hope you all have a great week!

This is the topic of conversation...

Here's a tip for you kids: Next time you're meant to be adding people to your 'band' myspace page, triple check that you're actually signed into the band account, NOT your personal one. Way to waste 2 hours and confuse a lot of people Owen.

Holiday is happening soon. Just over two weeks and I leave! Woo!

Last two days was JMC Showcase stuff. I was meant to be doing FOH sound, but instead I was shoved on Monitors for the night (sound on stage, the stuff that the performers hear for the uninitiated). The upside of doing Monitors is that because you're tucked away on the side of stage out of sight to the public, you can easily curl up on the floor for a sleep when you've got nothing to do. Downside is that you've got to deal with performers being whingy and doing things they shouldn't: for example, pointing the microphone directly at a speaker then wondering why it keeps feeding back.
In the end, it wasn't too bad because we had 6 practices to get everything right, but it was bad because we had 6 practices (going through everything so much is very boring for sound guys) and I'd gotten all the levels fine after the first band had done their song for the first time.
It was good to work with fellow JMC types to see what skills each group of people had, to see what skills people lacked, how I could improve my game a bit, and to see Trainers in their prime (i.e. in the bar after the show).
It was also good for me to have something 'responsible' to do. Because I was doing monitors, it was my job to direct a couple of 2nd year students in helping me out (I don't need help, so most of the time I was telling them to chill out) and to also keep the performers happy by making each one of them feel like they're the centre of the show. It was good in that it gave me something to do.

Back onto the topic of this sweet holiday I'm going on and that you're not (unless your name is Esther), flights around Europe have been booked, tickets to see The Slackers have been booked, tickets to see The Pogues & Billy Bragg have been booked, tickets to see Arsenal have been booked (!!!), tickets to go on the Eurostar have been booked (!!!), and the only things left are accomodation in continental europe and our Eurail train pass. Oh, and I need to pay for this all. I owe someone a lot of money right now. They'll get it soon.

Next week I can finally get my full licence! Yay! This means I can drive at 110km/h legally and also not be patronised by other drivers for driving better than them while carrying a 'P' plate. This week after I get that, I'm going to go and get an International Drivers Licence (only $50 from the NRMA, you can even get one on your L's), and then get an International Student Card. Pretty exciting stuff from my end, its okay to he jealous, I know you are.

Ok, now on to the annual blog entry rant:
Why are bands that I like releasing albums that I don't like?
This week I have two prime examples: The Hives and Hot Hot Heat (both of whom Esther is seeing live this week, so darn jealous).
I got The Hives album in my CD player, hit play, and this weird noise came out. It sounded like a rock band, but was it The Hives? There was a rock n roll sound, but apart from the distinctive vocals, it really didn't sound like a Hives album. After a couple of tracks, what's this? Pianos? RnB? What? Turns out Pharrell Williams (one of my most loathed musicians) co-wrote and produced two songs on the album. Really not cool guys.
And Hot Hot Heat? What happened to their fun indie rock n roll? They've turned into a Stadium Rock band. You know what I mean, minimalist guitars and drums with whiney vocals sung over the top that only sounds good mixed in a stadium. The only song I can really say I like is '5 times out of 100', which is a re-recording of an old song!

Annoyance aside, hooray for holidays and all that. Also, I just noticed I really like brackets.

- Owen

sick of it all

so i'm sick today. hooray! its one of those "i feel like i'm going to be sick everywhere but i'm not so i'll just curl up and try to sleep" type things. it's really annoying.

this past month has been mega busy with college. i've handed in all but two assessments (inc the major ones) so i'm almost finished up for the year. i've got a restoration project due on monday, where we need to restore a wax cylinder recording and try and remove as much of the crackling as possible, and my final soundscape recordings for the semester on friday. i can't wait to hand all of these in as they're weighing on my mind quite heavily.

i'll be arriving overseas in 1 months time. i'm very excited by that prospect, but 1 month is a really long time when you're excited about something. esther and i trying to work out where we will be and when, so its really fun just going through and doing that. it also looks like we'll make it to germany too.

hometown throwdown is coming back! we're going to start it off as a smaller event and try and build them up again. its on the 30th nov and features three bands: Dr Buff, Airship Colour Majestic, The Understatement. it'll be pretty cheap, i think $8 or something, so it'll be a good night. i'm going to try and record the entire thing multitrack into protools and set up some video cameras to film it. in the end we'll have a sweet dvd. i might even be able to mix it for 5.1 surround sound at college, but we'll have to see. i'm pretty excited by throwdown being back, and all the recording process that'll get done too. it won't get done until i get back from my holiday (i leave 36 hours after its on), but once its done it'll be great.

royal crown revue are touring in 3 weeks. because they're touring at the gaelic club i not only get in for free, but i might even get to do monitors for them. fingers crossed is me!

oh yeah, once i work out how to compress the doco i made for college, i'll upload it to youtube for you all to look at and tell me how good i am at things.

if you're doing things in the next month, please invite me along. the lack of not going anywhere with anyone to anything is making me feel kinda lonely to be honest.

thats enough for one day, speak to you next time.

too much paranoias

argh

right now i'm having one of them.

i don't like it, i wish they would stop.

why does it happen? i kinda know, but don't fully understand it

what can i do about it? i don't know yet

i like to call them 'brain explosions'. basically it's an anxiety attack of sorts.

for no reason whatsoever my brain will go "hey owen, BLAH" and make me think something horrible, then get me worked up about it, make me have some sort of freakish daydream about it, make me think i'm physically in the situation, then dump me back in the real world to deal with it.

right now my brain is telling me i hate someone. i don't really hate them and they haven't done anything wrong to deserve it. my brain is telling me they did something, which actually didn't happen. my brain put me in the room that this thing that didn't happen happened in for me to see and has now thrown me back in front of my computer screen again.
worst thing is, i KNOW that none of it is true, but now i'm left with this horrible feeling of pain and hate for no reason at all. hate is a strong word, but thats what it does.

sometimes things will trigger this off, sometimes nothing will trigger it off. most of the time that something will trigger this off, the situation isn't actually happening and there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything, yet i still have these problems.

sometimes when it happens and i'm sitting at my computer, it makes me want to break the computer. again, i don't know why because i like my computer a lot, but it's just what i happen to be sitting/doing at the time.

confused? don't worry, i am too. i am also trying to fix it.

EDIT: turns out what my brain was telling me was partly true. i'd say that this one was approx 75% correct. when i spoke to the person involved they said it was "freaky" how accurate i was. unfortunately this is the case whenever this happens. a gift? it can be, because when the outcome is good it's wonderful, but when the outcome is bad, it's really not fun