kristieaddison.com

Came across this video on geeksaresexy.net and had to repost it because it made my day. 

 

 Rough WIP - "I'll Always Be Second Best": Play Now | Play in Popup

This song is very much a half finished WIP.  I lost my voice last week after a cold, and when I tried to sing this on Friday I got only one terrible take done before my voice gave out again.  So I will definitely be redoing the vocals on this!

It has recently come to my attention, that there are people out there who don’t know what WIP stands for.  WIP = Work in Progress.  There you go.  I usually use the term to refer to something that isn’t finished yet, something that is in fact, a work in progress

I am trying out a new WordPress plug-in called Podpress.  Unlike the previous media player I’ve been using (I think it’s called Wimpy) this one should show up in the RSS feed.  I guess I’ll find out soon.

1.  My Google Reader is chocka full of politics.  I can’t take it any more!

2.  Today I went to the gym.  I have been meaning to join for a long time and I’m glad that I finally have.  When I got home I ate chocolate biscuits.

3.  I discovered my degrees of separation from my most favorite author Terry Pratchett today.  I play/ed in a band with Tory Staples —> Who also plays in a band called Battle Circus —->  Who recently opened for Amanda Palmer —->  Who’s photo book “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” had text written for it by Neil Gaiman  —> Who co-wrote the book Good Omens with Terry Pratchett.  Small world aye?

4.  I am really pleased with the game music I have done lately, though I keep wanting to do more and more little tweaks because I am on a perfectionist buzz.

5.  With my album I am much less of a perfectionist.  Keeping it indie, keeping it real, it has to sound like it was recorded in a bedroom. I want to finish it in time to go on summer tour.  This summer is just screaming road trip at me.

A little sneak peek of a current WIP. Really rough, not mixed cos still in the recording process on this. Still gotta record drums and redo the bass, record my vocals if I ever get my voice back (thats just my old guide track in there so far), gotta fix up those harmonies a bit (thats my friend James on backing vox, he’s gonna kill me if I don’t make him sound fab).
If you can’t see it on the RSS feed just click through to the site. I do need to find a better player that works on RSS feeds. Any recommendations?

I am speechless.  Literally speechless.  I have completely lost my voice!  As far as I can recall I have never had this happen to me before and it is very frustrating.  I had a bit of a sore throat and a cold last week, but I just took pain killers and went to band practice and sung my lungs out anyway.  Now I’m paying the price.  I feel absolutely fine, but I can’t talk apart from a hoarse painful whisper.  It is very frustrating and I’m quite mad at myself for not resting when I should have.

I went to a really good gig last night, Battle Circus, Infinite Flying Kick, Decortica and Crash Test For Favorite Things.  Unfortunately I missed Crash Test as I had wandered off in search of a hot lemon drink to sooth my throat after trying to have conversations with people I hadn’t seen for ages.  I arrived back partway through Infinite Flying Kicks set.  Infinite Flying Kick (IFK) were incredible.  It has been a while since I have seen them play, and I thought they were good then but now they are fantastic.  Check out their myspace at http://www.myspace.com/infiniteflyingkick

It was the first time I had seen Decortica play, they are a very good very loud three piece.  Probably the loudest three piece I’ve seen play in a while.  The music was a little heavy for my personal taste but still very good.

Battle Circus were on last, it was there first gig since arriving back in NZ after touring Australia, Germany and the USA.  Despite complaints of jet-lag they played really well.  I have been a Battle Circus fan since gigging with them back in 2005, and they just get better and better every time I see them play.  Check out www.battlecircus.com/

Dear Diary Blog Readers.

Today I decided to keep a blog here on this site.  I already have a blog on the site for my recording project transitofvenusproject.com but that’s supposed to be a helpful music type blog or news about my recordings, and I often feel I shouldn’t use it to blog about things like, well… cheese.

Kaimai Cheese

I discovered a great cheese place on Monday.  I already knew of it’s existance due to my mother often bringing me cheeses she had picked up on her way up to Auckland from Tauranga.  But on Monday I stopped there myself for the first time.  It’s called Kaimai Café and Store, and it’s also a cheese factory.  It is in Waharoa, just on the Auckland side of Matamata.  Definitly worth stopping if you’re driving past, they make a decent cup of coffee as well as excellent cheese.  Nice lemon cake too.  Their website is www.kaimai.co.nz and you can order their cheese online or find a local stockist.

The places to be this weekend….

Today is Halloween, and I am inundated with Halloween party invites.  I have trawled through them all and eventually managed to plan my weekend.

Tonight, Galatos to see Deja Voodoo play along with my old friends Miscreant and Litvak attack.  The door charge is only $10 if you dress up.  I’m still trying to decide what to go as, probably something lame like a vampire.  I’m tempted to put a black streak in my hair and go as Susan Death, but I’m not sure that all my too-cool-for-discworld friends will get it.

Tomorrow night its off to The Basement for Decortica’s album release party.  I haven’t seen Decortica live before, but two of my favorite bands will be playing support, Battle Circus and Infinite Flying Kick.  If you’re in Auckland and haven’t seen these bands, I really think you should!  Battle Circus have just returned from a tour of Australia, Europe and the USA and I can’t wait to see how much more awesome they could get while they were away.

Sunday night is the last night for Jester Events Acoustic series at The Crib in Ponsonby, always a nice relaxed and fun evening.

Well, it has again been a while since I have written a blog, and indeed a while since I have actually written anything useful!

I have been keeping myself busy with writing yet more music for computer games, recording my album with the help of some of my favorite local musicians, and of course trying to keep up with paperwork!

Have also formed a covers band recently. There are a few reasons for this, first and foremost – Fun! It has been a year since I last played with a band regularly and I really really have missed the fun times. Secondly, I really want to get my singing up to scratch and learning a few covers is a way of finding out what I am capable of vocally. I’ve mostly sung originals previously, and have probably stuck within my comfort zone too much. Thirdly, it wouldn’t kill me to earn a bit of extra cash here and there. So there you go, I’m in a covers band. We’re still looking for a proper band name, we’re temporarily calling ourselves (or at least each other) The Tards.

In the not too distant future I will be curating a small exhibition of artwork from some of my favorite practitioners of the quieter arts. Painters and photographers for the most part. More news on that closer to the time. Don’t want to give too much away just yet

I have noticed in my site stats that a few people are finding their way here from searches for “The Venus Project”. I had a look what this is about myself, and it’s absolutely nothing to do with me or “The Transit of Venus Project” – which is my recording project. Completely unrelated.

I also just wanted to give a quick shout out to some of my fav blogs. I know I haven’t been much use lately on the blogging front, but here are some of the blogs that I always read that you might enjoy too.

In no particular order…
http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/
http://rekkerd.org/
http://www.chipcollection.com/articles/
http://www.weeklysongcast.com/
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/
http://www.geeksaresexy.net/

Monday morning. Coffee, toast, forgot to put the rubbish out again.

I handed in my notice for my part-time guitar technician job last week. I am now wearing the label ‘full time musician’ or perhaps ‘composer’. I am working on a few exciting projects at the moment, but I can’t tell you about them yet…

One thing I can tell you about is my album. There’s not much to tell except that hopefully I get some time to record it soon! So busy lately. The songs are all written, I have picked out which guest musicians I will be having along. Different ones for each song just to keep things interesting, except drums which will all be played by Tory from my old band. He is about to take off to Australia and Europe on tour with an awesome NZ band called Battle Circus (one of my favorites), but when he gets back I’ll be dragging him into the studio. All going well the album will be released through indie label BDM (Black Doris Music).

I have an acoustic gig coming up next Sunday, my first solo performance ever. Well, not including those awful piano competitions I used to have to play in growing up. Yikes! I will be playing keys live for the first time in 10 years. Playing a few originals, a few covers, and even going to play some Rachmaninov just because I’ve gone to the effort of learning it so I may as well perform it. If you’re in Auckland come along 6pm The Crib in Ponsonby – 151 Ponsonby road, Sunday 28th September.

Ok, coffee is gone, thats it from me this morning.

K.

Just a quick note to say Transit of Venuses first single ‘Enemy’ is now available for $1.99NZ from Amplifier.co.nz.

Format: MP3, 256 Kbps.

Enjoy!

Started with a pencil sketch.  Took a photo of it, got it into photo shop to colour/edit it, then chucked the "color halftone" filter over it.  A fun way to spend a sunday

Special thanks again to Michelle Klaessens (The Rock Factory) for a fabulous mastering job, Mark Towl (Stapleton) on drums, and Mike Johns (Revolution Brother) on lead guitar.

The Gear (because recording is always just an excuse to play with fun things!):

The song was entirely recorded and mixed at home in Cubase, with my ancient Tascam US122 USB interface.  I used Adobe Audition for a little wave form editing in the form of noise removal on a funny hiss from the piano (must try solve that some day).

The Drums are recorded from the line out of a Yamaha DTXpress electric drum kit – thanks to Go West Music Henderson for the loan.

The piano is a line out taken from my Yamaha CLP-230 Clavinova via a stereo headphone output

The rhythm guitar is my 1999 Ibanez RG520 (V7 and V8 pickups) played through my Peavey Triple X head and Peavey 5150 cab, which is mic’d up with an Audix OM2 dynamic mic and an Audio Technica AE6100 dynamic mic.

The lead guitar is Mikes Fender Strat played through his bizarre set-up involving an amp that’s rewired to bypass some bit of it and another external unit.  I’ll have to ask him about it sometime because I didn’t pay much attention at the time.

The vocals are me singing though an Audix OM2 straight into the interface, that was turned up to the max to get a bit of distortion going on. (In hindsight this was probably not the best way to do it! )