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.
Radio Radio
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.
