Cabomanuscripts

Grateful Dead - 4-17-72 - China Cat Sunflower

2010-05-21T11:14:00.000+02:00

I can't get enough of this song... :) This live version is a bit slow for my taste but still great fun. I never eally got into the Dead but someof the stuff they do is just mesmerizing. I love the way Jerry Garcia never looks at his instrument as he plays, especially in contrast to Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, who keep their eyes firmly on the fretboard. You also have to dig Jerry Frankenstein of a guitar... :) Too bad the video is cut right when the jammin' gets hot but it's still a lot of fun to watch.

Merry Xmas!

2009-12-23T10:31:00.001+01:00

Merry Christmas, everyone! :)

Get this widget

Track details

eSnips Social DNA

I recorded it last night using Guitar Rig 3, which I haven't done in a long while. Both guitar tracks were laid down with my white Strat. This is based on an instrumental version of 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town' recorded by Booker T and the MG's that was on a Christmas CD that my wife got from a client back when she was working for an ad agency. There's a couple of good tunes on that CD but this is my favorite. I like the way it grooves. ;)

Facebook

2009-05-07T17:17:00.004+02:00

Been a while since I last posted here... Just got turned on to Facebook by the guys in the band, click on the badge to the right to become my friend, if you're so inclined. (There's lots to see, I also posted a pic of my new guitar on my wall... :P) Anyways, I'll be playing @ the Black Stuff (15, Val de Hamm, Luxembourg) this coming Saturday with Radio Daze, do drop by. Hope to see ya there...

Whatever

2009-02-12T00:55:00.004+01:00

Another quick one for tonight. Here's an instrumental piece that I wrote on keys. A rare event by all accounts :P.

Get this widget

Track details

eSnips Social DNA

To All My Homies

2009-02-11T23:38:00.001+01:00

This is all I got to say today...

Various Recording Endeavours

2009-01-28T21:13:00.008+01:00

I spent the whole day in bed and missed tonight's rehearsal on account of a bug. I began feeling queasy yesterday, when I took the afternoon off from work and drove to Folschette to lay down my guitar parts. I think it went down okay, although I did struggle with the solo's. It was good to have Mel up in the control room to give some pointers. Couldn't use my Fuzz Factory 'cause it picked up radio interference, which was disappointing, but to my luck, Mel brought along his Little Big Muff (I think I might get one... :P). That's the only effect I had. It sounds really meaty and seems to cut nicely through the mix. I didn't feel my playing was stellar and didn't have a chance to hear it afterwards. Zsolt was already there to the basslines another shot and I was already unwell... I just remembered that I recorded some short video on my phone the first time we were there. I might put it up on you tube tomorrow, as I won't have much else to do. Anyway, I still can't see the end of our little sessions up there. Mark still has to do his keyboards and then come the vocals, mixing... It's going to cost us ;). [edit] I almost forgot to mention this: remember that I said Jacques' drumming on Sunday Driver was uneven? Well, it seemed to be gone once Mel put down his guitar. I can't trust my senses anymore :P.

On another note, I also finished off a song that I began recording sometime last year, using my little Fender Champ. It's a knock-off of 'Green Onions', I just love that riff to death. I now added drums and a Rhodes track (including a cheeky solo) to the two guitar tracks and bass that were already done. I'm really pleased with the overall sound of the result, it's really raunchy. Check it out:

Get this widget

Track details

eSnips Social DNA

I'm also working to finish some other stuff. Watch this space... Toodeloo!

Studio D

2009-01-19T12:23:00.006+01:00

We spent Saturday up in Folschette with the band recording our demo. The studio itself is a cool place, set up in an old farm building in the village. The room has a good sound, as far as I can tell. Yves Ditsch, who was manning the console for the day was very helpful and friendly, we got good coffee and such. Two thumbs up for the facilities and service. We went in to record 4 songs: 'Let's Pop', 'Oceanbound', 'Sunday Driver' and 'Too Much Room'. The drums went down real quick, kudos to Jacques for that, although his playing on Sunday Driver is a bit uneven. We were done so fast that we decided to lay down a fifth track, a cover of 'Psycho Killer' by Talking Heads. However, we hit the big hurdle when recording the bass. [edit] It really is too bad, we got off to such a good start. I decided to put down two rhythm tracks before we left. I was pretty happy with the one I did for Oceanbound and Sunday Driver was okay. (Before anyone accuses me of being too hard on the others and not being as critical towards my own work, I only recorded easy-peasy things that day, we'll see how I will fare with the hard stuff, like the vocals and lead lines...) At least I didn't bring all my stuff along for nothing but on the whole, I was pretty disappointed with what we achieved that day. On the up side, I was really pleased with the sound I got out of my amp (a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe). I used the "clean" channel. With the volume up about half way, I got a nice, well defined, crunchy tone. Too bad I can't have this setup live right now, it's just too loud. I'm looking at attenuators, but I'm not sure if they're worth the investment. After all, I can use the "drive" channel or my DS-1 and get close (kind of). I've been looking at the THD Hot Plates and Bad Cat's 'The Leash'. I hope the shops here in Luxembourg have something. I want to try before I buy. That's one of the downers in living in a small place like this, it's often hard to find the gear you need (want) without resorting to extensive travel or the internet...

20

2009-01-13T22:59:00.007+01:00

Just been reminded that it has been 20 years this Christmas since I got my first guitar... Jeez, 20 years. 1988. I think it was sometime during the summer that I got the idea that I was was going to play guitar, when I saw 'Sweet Child O' Mine' on MTV (that's when we moved to New York, where dad worked at the UN Embassy). I was already listening to a lot of music by then but I guess this is when it clicked for me. And I guess I must have driven my folks nuts with it. My first axe was a horrible Asian made black electric with a little built-in amp and speaker. I think it was from Sears or something. I remember being so happy to have it. My dad used to play when he was a kid and he taught me my first three chords, open E, A and D. I remember D was so damn hard. ;) He also got me some fake books, which was awesome, 'cause it was great fun learning songs (and as a side effect, the chords). In fact, I don't think I would have kept with it if I hadn't begun that way. Fake books are the sh*t, kids. For a good couple of years, it's all I did, comping myself, strumming along. I only got into lead guitar when I began taking lessons as a high school student. But I always kept with the fake books and to this day, I can spend a whole day flipping through them and playing my favorite songs or learning new ones. The great thing about them is that you only get the chords, the vocal melody and the words. The rest, you make up yourself. We do lots of covers with Radio Daze and I like to approach things the same way. It's way more fun.

CAE Boost/Line Driver

2009-01-06T22:43:00.004+01:00

Now if the Memory Man is my most elaborate piece of gear, this has got to be the simplest. This is a true bypass pedal that boosts my signal by up to 20dB's. It slightly accentuates the highs when turned on, which is welcome. I use it for solos or to add clarity to clean guitar parts. I keep the knob at around 9:00 for the former and turn it all the way down for the the latter purpose. I got this pedal just before a gig last December and it worked really well for me. Again, the blue LED is slightly annoying but it's an 'evil' I can live with :).

Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai

2009-01-06T21:23:00.007+01:00

The SMMH is my craziest pedal of all. It does a lot and is an altogether more complex toy than my other stompboxes, as the length of this post already suggests.

It's a digital delay with several modes (4 echo, 3 multi tap modes and the looper mode). 'Echo' is a traditional delay effect, while in 'multi tap' modes the pedal repeats your notes from 1 to 32 times. The most interesting modes are:
- '300ms echo + mod', where the pitch of the echoes is modulated. When you turn the delay time all the way down you can also get absolutely wild flanging, which is great fun to play with;
- 1sec (multi tap) + rev, where holding down on the 'tap/record' switch plays back the last six seconds of whatever you played into the pedal backwards. This is a really cool effect that gets a lot of mileage from me. I use it on long chords, and in solos a lot. It's brilliant;
- Reverse Echo is just that. The repeats play back in reverse and turning down the delay time produces an effect that's kind of like a ring modulator.

Six knobs control the effect. The white 'Hazarai' (Yiddish for 'all the bells and whistles') knob toggles between modes and calls up/stores presets. You can store one preset per mode, which is very useful. As the name suggests, the 'Blend' control adjusts the level of the effect. As with most delay pedals, you lose the volume of the dry signal as you turn it up, so you have to be careful with this one. I usually have it set low when I play with the band, as I rarely need a pronounced delay effect. The next knob, 'decay' adjust reverb in the first two and the reverse echo modes. The reverb is not exactly to my taste and I only use a touch of it. In the third 300ms echo + modulation mode, it sets the level of pitch modulation. In the 3 'multi tap' modes the 'decay' control actually does what it says: it adjust the decay of the repeats. The volume of each repeat decreases whit the knob up till noon. Beyond halfway, the volume of each repeat actually increases, so you can get a great swelling effect. In loop mode, 'decay' allows you to flip the recorded loop for backward playback. The 'filter' control is basically an EQ for the repeats/loop, twisting it anti-clockwise adds bass, turning it to the right accentuates the highs. 'Repeats' sets the amount of repeats, as you rightly guessed, and adjusts the level of subsequent layers as you record loops. 'Delay' sets the delay time and in looper mode, allows you to adjust the pitch of your loop from an octave down (half speed) to an octave up (double speed).

There are 2 switches on the pedal, one of which turns the effect on and off. The other one, 'tap/record' allows you to set the delay time by tapping your foot, which I find indispensable live. In loop mode, you can thus adjust the tempo of your loop without changing the pitch. A green LED blinks in time with the rhythm you set. If you hold down this same control, the pedal records a loop of what you play. You can record a loop in any mode except 1sec + Rev (see above) along with the desired effect. The loop turns around when you lift your foot off the switch. You can then edit your loop (flip it, slow it down, filter it etc.) in loop mode.

Now this pedal does an awful lot more than what I can use it for in my band. It does the simpler delay effects that I need in that situation well but it's also the main reason I pull out my pedalboard when I'm fooling around at home. With the looper, it's a great practice and songwriting tool. I love it to death.

Boss TR-2 Tremolo

2009-01-06T21:00:00.003+01:00

Tremolo is one of my favorite effects. This Boss pedal is another one that I've had for longer now. Very simple to operate: it has rate and depth controls plus a smaller knob in the middle for adjusting the waveform (from a very gradual seesaw to an on-off helicopter effect). I usually have it set to a subtle, relatively fast throbbing to spice up clean chords. I really like Boss pedals for their sturdy construction and especially for their quiet switching. Although they're not true bypass, they won't eat at your tone. I was surprised to read that a common complaint against the TR-2 is that it drops the volume when turned on. I don't know if mine is a freak example but I hear a slight volume boost... Anyway, I have a lot of love for this box and use it pretty often.

MXR Super Comp

2009-01-05T22:35:00.010+01:00

This is the second new pedal on my 'board. I got this one as a Christmas present from my wife, Anna. I've been struggling a lot with my clean sound in Radio Daze and I think this might just be the thing that's missing for songs like 'Suspicious Minds'... Why did I put the Super Comp on my Christmas wish list instead of some other pedal? I tried several compressors and really liked the timber of the Dyna Comp. This is basically the same pedal (with 'output' and 'sensitivity' controls), with the added possibility of setting the attack attenuation (a knob labeled 'attack level'), which should be useful to me as my guitars' pickups each have very different characters. The P-90's on my Les Paul Special have almost twice the output of my Strat's pickups, which will affect the level of compression I can get. MXR boasts that the Super Comp can bridge this gap with the extra control. The effect itself has a tonality that is very pleasing to my ear (like the tone of Andy Summers' guitar on many Police classics). It's not very noisy. There is some added hiss but nothing too bothersome, even with the distortion engaged in front of the Super Comp. I love the slight volume swell as the notes seem to sustain forever. The Fuzz Factory especially comes alive when the Super Comp is on. I've read some complaints that this pedal has an adverse effect on the tone when bypassed but I haven't experienced this. The output control sets the level of the effect. Unity gain seems to be around 2:00 on the dial, leaving quite a bit of room to use the pedal as a boost for solos. The attack level and sensitivity controls seem highly interactive, though, and I'm still struggling to find the perfect mix for all my axes. As always, a test run at this Thursday's rehearsal with the band should reveal more.

Boss DS-1 (Keeley Ultra Mod)

2009-01-05T21:35:00.007+01:00

This is one of the new additions to my pedalboard. I wasn't really looking for a distortion pedal but I stumbled upon a demo of the DS-1 Ultra on YouTube and was sold right away. I immediately began browsing for a distributor here in Europe and since the pound is pretty weak against the euro right now, I ended up ordering it from the UK. I received the package just in time for Christmas :). It was fun to see those 'little differences' between Boss' US and European packaging... Those damn Yankees get a 5 year warranty, not fair! ;) A warranty, which I guess is void now that Mr. Keeley and his trusted employees had their way with this brand new Boss DS-1 (Keeley provides a 2 year warranty on workmanship). As far as the sound goes, this modified version is nothing like the original. The distortion is rich, creamy, harmonic, very musical indeed. A red LED is added to the circuit (right where the 'o' used to be in 'tone' under the left side knob), which lights up as you pick a note. The brighter the LED, the more distorted your sound gets. The pedal cleans up beautifully as you roll back the volume on the guitar or lighten your picking attack. A switch is added to the left of the said LED, which allows you to choose between 'Seeing Eye' (up position) and 'Ultra' (down position) modes. The latter has less gain but a higher output and makes the pedal sound more like an overdrive. I've played around with both and haven't really made up my mind yet about which one I like better. The pedal has three knobs: tone, level and distortion ('dist'). Operating it is straight forward. The instructions provided by Keeley along with the pedal are very helpful, too. I found my sweet spot with the tone control at around 11:00. Things can get as harsh or as muddy as you like, the tone range is surprisingly wide. The 'dist' knob goes from a slight crunch to full blown shred heaven. Again, a good array of sounds to play with. I really enjoy cranking it, although I'm pretty sure I won't be doing that too much in practice. Radio Daze is no metal outfit... Optical changes include a super bright blue status LED (which verges on the annoying, IMHO) and cool new knobs (you do get the originals in the package, though, if you prefer those). I'm still yet to try the DS-1 Ultra with the band but have high hopes for it.

MXR Phase 90

2009-01-05T20:38:00.004+01:00

I've had this pedal for a while now and have fallen in and out of love with it and back again. I tried it just about everywhere in my effects chain until I settled on keeping it towards the front end. This pedal sounds magnificent when it drives a good distortion or overdrive and has enough kick to shine through a compressor, as it adds a discernible boost in the treble frequencies when turned on. This is also great for clean parts because it lifts the guitar out of the mix. Anyone who, like me, has to fight for sonic territory with another guitarist and a keyboard player in the band will appreciate this. (By the way, I found that it's this boost that is the most notable difference between this 'block logo' version and the vintage '74 reissue.) Operating the pedal is easy, the only knob regulates the speed of the phasing effect, ranging from a slow wash to a whacked out wobble. Despite it's simplicity, this orange box ended up covering a lot of bases for me. With it, I can get pretty close to a wah-wah effect but the Phase 90 also produces a convincing rotary/Univibe swirl (about halfway on the dial) and has also worked decently as a replacement for a flanger, where a similar effect is needed.

Z.Vex Fuzz Factory

2009-01-05T19:18:00.009+01:00

This little monster blows my mind. The Fuzz Factory (FF) can be pretty ordinary or take you into the twilight zone. There's a million sounds in this green box and it can oscillate like crazy, which is great fun to play with. It's not a modeling pedal (as the name may suggest), all the effects you get out of it are very original indeed. You need to spend a while with it to figure out how each of the five controls (volume, gate, compression, drive and stability) interact but it's well worth the effort. And a lot of fun anyway. The first four knobs are pretty much self explanatory, stability, or 'stab', is where things get really weird. It has a profound effect on the tone of the fuzz, treble content is reduced as you turn the sucker down. It's modus operandi is not explained in the manual but I remember reading a post somewhere that said that it regulates voltage. I usually have the FF set to a sharp fuzz sound that's great for power chords and lead (volume at about 9:00, everything else around 2:00). It's just on the edge of breaking loose and has that velcro feel when the compression kicks in. I also use the 'octave fuzz' setting (gate between 2:00-3:00, comp and drive at 7:00 and stab all the way up). Here the pedal produces an overtone when I play above the 12th fret, especially with the neck pickup. Pretty often I just play around with the oscillation, twisting the knobs to change the pitch and tone. In accordance with Mr. Vex's recommendation this is the very first pedal in my signal chain, going even before the tuner. It uses very little power, and I can therefore safely run this one on batteries, which is welcome since I have 8 units to power and only 7 plugs on my daisy chain :).

New 'Board

2009-01-05T18:46:00.003+01:00

Here's the latest incarnation of my pedalboard: Z.Vex Fuzz Factory -> Ibanez LU10 tuner -> MXR Phase 90 -> Boss DS-1 Ultra (Keeley) distortion -> MXR Super Comp -> Boss TR-2 tremolo -> Electro-Harmonix SMMH delay -> Custom Audio Electronics (MXR) Boost/Line Driver. :)

New 7 series

2008-11-14T14:35:00.005+01:00

It's no news to those who know me that I have a weakness for Beemers... Check out the new 7s:

I absolutely love these designs...

Anyway, back here on Earth, Radio Daze plays Oscar's in the Grund 2nite, see you there if you can make it ;).

Edit: my fave video won the Guitar Rig You Tube contest, yipeee :):

Photoelectronic noise

2008-11-12T12:21:00.002+01:00

This was posted by Tom on his Musicthing blog, a really cool gadget made by a guy called Gijs. ;)

Low

2008-11-11T16:32:00.004+01:00

Anyone got land for sale?

-

2008-08-06T22:40:00.002+02:00

When I made my last entry, my only regular reader, my grandpa asked what I meant by it. What he said made me realize how banal my feelings were. He told me about the time he was watching the Allies carpet-bombing the factories in Pest across the river. The ground shook as he lay there in the hills petrified when each 4,000 lb. bomb detonated on impact. He was just 14. It's a story he told me a 100 times or more and I can feel how vividly that and countless other wartime memories were etched into his brain. All the fears I hold are mere products of my imagination. His are real.

This June, they found a tumor in his brain. I try to avoid the thought that this might be it and hope he may yet read this one day. I drove to Budapest last weekend to visit him at the hospital. He had just been through radiotherapy and lost most of his hair. Though he seemed to be in good spirit and eating well, the effects of the cancer were visible. He's weak and has a hard time remembering recent events. His thoughts seemed to be centered on his refusal to undergo any surgery, though the doctors ruled that out given his weakened condition. At one point, out of the blue, he looked up at us and said 'that's it, they're not cutting me up again' (last year he underwent surgery and had a very difficult recovery).

Then, the news I got today was not reassuring. I spoke to dad tonight. It wasn't what he said that scared me. Grandpa got transfered to another hospital, apparently to get him in shape for chemotherapy. It's that I can't remember ever hearing my old man's voice being like that. He spoke low, slowly and I could sense that he's only holding on to a faint glimmer of hope, even before he told me about how the prognosis was bad. He's taking it very hard. I talk to him alot now and feel his pain very intensely. And there's something very powerful about seeing your father like that... I can't describe it, my heart sinks so low. I wish I had a magic wand that could make all of this go away.

But we're strapped in for the ride now and there's no getting off...

Just a Quick Thought

2007-12-31T01:15:00.000+01:00

I was laying in bed last night not being able to find sleep when this crossed my mind: the most important decisions I made in my life were guided by fear... Scary stuff...

!+%!+"%!+!%!!!!!!!

2007-12-25T19:26:00.000+01:00

Yours truly is a major ass:
http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=59110

Jeez I feel überstupid now. Just what the doctor ordered for Christmas :)...

Merry Xmas!!!!

2007-12-24T00:32:00.000+01:00

Csendes Éj.mp3

Looping It

2007-12-16T19:13:00.000+01:00

Here's a little video I just recorded:

I'm playing around with my Boss loop pedal and my new Fender Champ (thanx Mom!). It's a bit long but I hope there's enough going on to keep your interest. :)

"October"

2007-11-03T23:25:00.000+01:00

October (1st mix)....

I uploaded this one more than a week ago, but I wasn't really sure if it was good enough to post here. I got a couple of very positive responses (which, to be honest, surprised me a bit), so here it is. It's a song that I put together real quick, just to keep busy and maybe to see how far I could get with a simple idea. BTW, this is the first time I used Guitar Rig 3 on a recording. Hope you like it too.

GIG!!!!

2007-10-03T00:24:00.000+02:00

Just dropped in quickly to let you guys know that my band, Radio Daze will be playing on October 24 2007, 21:00 at the Ecosse in Clausen, Luxembourg City...

$$$$$

2007-09-14T09:59:00.000+02:00

Money.mp3

This song was stuck in my head all week, I had to get rid of it somehow, so I put it into my sequencer :)... I recorded the whole thing in about 45 minutes and played around with the drums and adding effects for another hour or two, so it's not like alot of effort went into it. I used GR2's tube compressor and studio reverb on the lead vocals and the drums and I think it came out pretty nice. The bass runs through one of GR2's stock presets ("Ballsy Bass", if I'm not mistaken). There's two guitar tracks panned left and right, both played on the Les Paul into my new pocket POD. I used emulations of a JTM-45 and a small Fender Tweed amp.

Pocket POD

2007-09-12T02:05:00.000+02:00

Grabbed a new toy today. Finally a way to liven up my solid state amp, it works like a charm. It's loaded with amp models, 300+ presets and cost me under 100 euro... Hope to post audio pretty soon.

Mice

2007-08-04T19:55:00.000+02:00

Mice.mp3

I spent most of Friday afternoon recording this track. The song itself is something I've been playing around with for quite some time now. It's been recorded during rehearsal by Szegényanyámhalátna. At that time our drummer was away on a scholarship for 6 months, and we had a guy fill in for him who just got back from Canada and was trying out for orchestras and stuff, so he was pretty good. Anyway, I used the bassline that was on that recording as a basis for what I do here. I also recorded an acoustic version about two years ago but that was very uneven.

The bass became the lead instrument for the first two verses, so I reverted to playing chords on it so as not to overshadow the guitar solo at the end. I must say that I'm really happy with the way my bass guitar sounds. My playing is still a bit sloppy, so it's nice to have that compensated by a pleasing tone.

The drums are made up of a backing loop (dnb 156bpm) from Guitar Rig 2 and some added accents from the LiViD synth. Again the LiViD patterns were manually modified in the sequence.

I used my Telecaster for the comping right up to the solo. I made several attempts at recording the lead with that guitar but it always came out too clunky. The Les Paul's P-90 at the bridge was the answer. Since I had about 30 shots at recording it (no kidding), the solo came out more structured than usual. The section over the verse riff was fully mapped out by the time I recorded the final version, the rest was pretty much improvised on the spot. I feel I'm stuck in a rut with my lead playing. I have horrible difficulties coming up with stuff that sounds original and isn't too repetitive... Anyway, both guitar tracks use GR2's "Hall Warm FX" factory preset.

Kitchen Groove

2007-07-29T21:46:00.000+02:00

This one came along as a series of accidents. I initially wrote the underlining bass groove in 4/4. As I was setting things up to record it, I accidentally set the metronome to 7/8. I tried it that way and it worked out, so I kept it. It then took me a good couple of days to figure out the guitar parts. I accidentaly stumbled upon a video review of the Roland JC-120 amp on Gearwire. The guy was playing those jazzy arpeggios between chords, something I still couldn't get my head around after all these years. I saw that he was pretty good at responding to questions posted on the site, so I asked him how that works. He told me to check out diminished chords and scales. I googled it and found a website with a basic introduction. Reading that article, I realised that one of the riffs I'm playing on the bass in this song actually matches the "whole-half" scale. That's how I ended up playing the corresponding diminished chord over that part. Recording the lead part there was pretty uncomfortable, my left hand is locked into the pentatonic box thing. It took me about 10 takes to get an acceptable result.

For the recording I used my Magix Audio Studio software. I built the drum track with "LiViD", a synth that is included in the DAW and did some manual editing to fit the bass track. All bass and guitar parts were done with Guitar Rig 2. I used a Jazz amp with a Psychedelay a synthlike effect on the rythm guitar. The main bass groove uses my own preset, all the others are stock, namely "Vocode Bass" for the bass solo, "No Holds Barred Lead" for the cleaner lead guitars (the distortion is turned off), "Stepping Gates" for the parts over the diminished chords and the lead guitar following the bass solo (the tremolo rate was adjusted to fit the song). The latter part is doubled on another track with the "System of a Crown" preset from the Metal & HiGain bank (wah pedal on, controlled by the input level modifier). Enjoy:

Kitchen Groove.mp3

Super Andrea

2007-07-26T14:36:00.000+02:00

Hilarious:

So Easy v2.0

2007-07-20T22:30:00.000+02:00

Here's a new version of the song I did based on comments I got on various forums. There still might be some room for improvement...

So Easy v2.mp3

So Easy

2007-07-17T01:09:00.000+02:00

Yeah, right! I spent the better part of three days putting this thing together and I'm still not entirely happy. But I guess this is as good as it'll get without starting over from scratch. Check it out:

Get this widget

Track details

6orange Rollin'

2007-06-25T10:41:00.000+02:00

I finally have some half decent recordings of my band to show you. The stuff below was taped last week during rehearsal. Of the 12 songs we did that night, I picked four which I consider my favorites.

"Social Vein" is the most recent of this lot and features some neat shifts in time signature. I really get off on the almost brutal middle bit ("But when you're middle class..."), pure energy...

Get this widget

Track details

"Beautiful Jails" is one of the earliest numbers from this project. The song, goes through three riffs the key of A, F and G. The song then goes into a bridge section, borrowed from "The End" by the the Doors. The idea came from our drummer, Mel Goulding, after we jammed that part with our former singer, Kewin Moret (who left us just a week before this rehearsal). With Kewin out of the picture, we might substitute it for something else (Hendrix' "Third Stone from the Sun" was brought up as an alternative).

Get this widget

Track details

"Famous Faces" is typical Mark Theis (keyboards) composition. Check out the bass riff in the verses, I think it was Matyas Zlatnik (our former bassist) who came up with that one. But my favorite part is the "outro" section with the chugging V-IV-I chord progression.

Get this widget

Track details

"What's Your Style" is again a thing Mark came up with. His original version didn't seem to hold up well, so I sat down with it at home. I rewrote the lyrics around Mark's ideas, added a part (verse 2: "Because you were so frustrated...") and that was basically it. It's also the only song I play in dropped D tuning.

Get this widget

Track details

The band that you hear on these recordings is composed of Diane Frisch (vocals), Mark Theis (keyboard, vocals), Mel Goulding (drums, backing vocals), Zsolt Pataki (bass) and yours truly (guitar). All four songs were written by Mark with each one of us adding their own bits and pieces here and there. The recording was made in stereo using two ambient microphones. You'll hear some clipping, we had a pretty hard time setting levels.

Bass Riff

2007-06-15T00:53:00.000+02:00

I came up with this while practicing...

Get this widget

Track details

Kubica

2007-06-11T20:10:00.000+02:00

That he walked away from this one with only minor injuries is astonishing...

F1 - New video => Crash Robert Kubica
Uploaded by Deutschland-Uber-Alles

Singing At The Street...

2007-06-04T11:09:00.000+02:00

I just have to put this up here. One half of Szegényanyámhalátna (God rest his soul) and the bunch singing on (sorry, at) the street in the headlights...

Barcelona

2007-06-02T10:32:00.000+02:00

Just got back from Barcelona, where we spent most of the week. Here's a video slide show of the pictures we took:

Ocean Bound

2007-05-27T23:10:00.000+02:00

This is my latest recording, the first to feature my new bass, an Ibanez Artcore AFB 200 (pictured). The song itself is pretty old, I wrote it about ten years ago after seeing a TV documentary about how coastal areas will vanish due to global warming. I always had a hard time singing it, but since I since I've been using a capo, I finally found my range: I can hit just about any note at a decent volume when I play at the third fret. Initially, this was supposed to be a single take, I recorded myself singing and playing guitar with my USB condenser mic. However, I found the results good enough to add other instruments: I first recorded a second guitar, which developed into the part that is played with an electric on this final version. I used my Telecaster through a simple Guitar Rig 2 (GR2) preset comprising a Vox amp emulation and a stereo tremolo effect.

The bass was also recorded with GR2. The instrument itself was an unexpected find. Since I never actually owned a bass, I always relied on BG's lent by my bandmates, so it was time I got my own. I went to a guitar shop here in Luxembourg, called Stage Music, and tried several instruments. I picked this one up purely based on its look but was surprised to find that it felt the best to me. It's all passive, the action is pretty high and the neck isn't exactly a modern slender cut but it just felt right. It has a very down to earth acoustic tone that reminded me of what I heard on Beatles records.

Anyway, hope you like the song. It still needs drums but I didn't want to ruin it with fake electronic stuff. Maybe someday I can get someone to record live drums for it... Enjoy:

Get this widget

Track details

Tapedeck

2007-04-01T00:46:00.000+02:00

This is a little something I recorded tonight using the tapedeck in GR2. I've been playing around with the software, creating new presets. I was aiming for some old school blues/rock overdriven sound and what you hear on this recording is what I came up with.

Tape Deck 2 Apr 01...

Pedalboard In Action

2007-03-26T23:24:00.000+02:00

Since I recently posted about my pedalboard, it's only fair that I show you what it actually sounds like. This is an outtake from a 10 minute recording I made by mic'ing up my Park G10 practice amp (basically, a Korean made solid state Marshall). On this piece, you'll hear my Les Paul Double Cutaway guitar (check it out here) using the rythm (neck) pickup, playing through the Boss overdrive and delay units (set to a slight slapback). I'm kicking in the Phase 90 at about a third of the way through the track with an extreme, Leslie-speaker type setting, then roll it back for a slower phasing effect. Check out the crunch this latter setting adds to my tone, I just love it... Oh yeah, the backing track is played on the Boss RC-2 Loop Station (this loop came stock with the pedal). Enjoy!

Live Guitar 1.mp3

Reptile

2007-03-22T00:53:00.000+01:00

Here's a recording I made this evening. The song is called Reptile, one of the numbers we're doing with my band, Sixorange. The lyrics were written by Mark Theis, music by yours truly. I also sampled a recording posted on freesound by sagetyrtle (that's the howling wind you hear at the beginning and end of the track). I used my trusty old Samson USB condenser mic for both guitar and vocals. I'm not very happy with the quality of the latter but it's only a demo, it'll do. Oh, by the way, I did get a little carried away, as I sometimes do, and hadn't noticed how late it was. I have a rather "civilized" neighbour who believes that the best way to let me know that I'm too loud is to turn up his stereo, thereby ensuring that everyone gets their fair share of late night entertainment in the building. And he has to have horrible taste judging by the stuff he puts on. (Luckily, my mic didn't pick up his crap oompah techno record :)...) Anyway, dude, if you ever read this, next time you hear me banging away on my acoustic and howling at the moon, feel free to ring my doorbell and tell me to shove it face to face. I ain't gonna bite you...

Reptile (acoustic)...

Going Acoustic

2007-03-21T00:31:00.000+01:00

Just had some of the best time tonight. The band decided to bring acoustic instruments for rehearsal and it worked out great. The dynamics of the songs just came out much better that way. We'll keep working on our program like this, it just sounded so good... For one, we could actually hear each other. And I guess it was better for the vocalists as well, not having to fight my 100W amplifier. Anyway I can only recommend it to anyone who gets stuck with working their sound. It's a change of settings and it therefore makes you think differently about your songs. And you also hear a lot more, stuff that you miss when your volume is maxed out. It's really worth a try.

In Effect

2007-03-05T10:08:00.000+01:00

Check out my new pedal board. Unpacking and hooking up all my pedals had become quite a hassle, so I finally decided to dish out the cash. I also bought a Phase 90 to complete my floor arsenal. Here's the signal path: Ibanez LU10 tuner -> Cry Baby GCB-95 -> MXR Phase 90 -> Boss OD-3 -> Boss DD-3 -> Boss RC-2.

Originally, I intended to use Guitar Rig 2 running on my laptop in the effects loop of my amp. Although GR2 has an unbelievable amount of effects and awesome amp, speaker and mic emulations and sounds great live, it proved unpractical for many reasons. First, the laptop is much too delicate for the stage. Second, the many features GR2 offers are overkill for a player like me, who tends to use a constant tone throughout the set.

I therefore decided to rely on trusty old stomp boxes. The only effect I had initially was my Cry Baby wah-wah pedal. I then got the Boss OD-3 Overdrive to give me some boost for solos, but I grew fond of the nasal character of its tone. Then I found my old Marshall Drivemaster, which I’ve been using a lot for the last couple of months but has fallen out of favor recently. It tends to be slightly too brash for my taste. I received the RC-2 Loop Station as a gift from my wife this Xmas. That’s an awesome practice and songwriting tool. I love it to death at the moment. However, I haven’t been able to integrate it into my live playing, mainly because of its accuracy. Drummers are less so ;), so the loop eventually falls out of tempo…

Anyway, when I got this far in collecting pedals, I began to think about what other effects I will need. I was definitely sure about a delay pedal, though. I decided to get the Boss DD-3, which is simple enough. It does up to 800 ms of delay but I usually have it set to a slight “slap back” echo to add a little space to my leads and clean guitar parts. I can also play around with the knobs for some weird sound effects. I knew I could also use some sort of modulation effect. While recording at home with GR2, I got into using phaser effects for nice liquid rhythms and outlandish warbling. I chose the MXR Phase 90 for its crunchy tone and utter simplicity. The fact that the rubber cover on the knob allows you to change the speed of the phasing effect with the tip of your shoe while playing, is a great plus.

I now feel that I have a nice array of sonic tricks in my bag to keep stuff interesting without overdoing it. With the new pedal board, I have everything set and powered up, so all I have to do is plug into my amp and play.

El Che

2007-02-28T14:23:00.000+01:00

Sometime during the last couple of weeks, a big fuss was made in Hungary about the fact that the youth organization of the Socialist Party presented Che Guevara as a role model to its members. Not long ago, I got an e-mail from a friend, with obvious reference to the fact that I wore a T-shirt with Alberto Korda's famous photograph of El Che at one time, with a link to an article containing quotes from the man, which place him in a light that is obviously much different from that, which the above mentioned leftist youth society would propagate. At first, my gut reaction was to shoot back with some cynical remark, but I found myself questioning my own ideas. Was I wrong to display the image of man who, apart from being driven by compassion for the oppressed people of Latin America, also had a reputation of being violent and ruthless with his enemies? Is his status as the pop cultural icon of hope for the underprivileged cancelled out by the legacy of the totalitarian regime he participated in establishing? I clearly remember this same friend confronting me at the time, claiming that my wearing this T-shirt was analogous to wearing one with a stencil of non other than Adolf Hitler. Is Guevara a leftist equivalent of the Führer?

Of course, my choice of casual clothing had less to do with political inclination than with a certain sense of “cool”. Nobody can deny the appeal that Korda's fortunate shot of the iconic revolutionary has. I'm quite sure that Guevara's cultural impact would have been much more muted if it wasn't for this photo of him seemingly gazing into the future with determination. It also bears an element of provocation against the capitalist establishment, a liberating “fuck you all” by which one may feel the sensation of having asserted his/her individuality. Granted, much the same appeal and effect can be attributed to, say, the Swastika. Both images are tools of propaganda, weapons in the battle for our hearts and minds… Yet I still feel a marked difference between the two.

Is this down to my upbringing? I was born into a leftist family, my grandfather held high office in the socialist Kádár regime. My leftist leanings were also certainly reinforced by the official line of education in Hungary. However, I was also heavily exposed to Western indoctrination, especially during the years spent in a New York public school. I remember a social studies class when the teacher portrayed communism as a sort of oppressive utilitarian ideal, a far cry from the utopia that was presented by the official Marxist curriculum. Nevertheless, to avoid getting into events and issues that would steer me further away from the theme of this post, although I never felt a conviction for communism, I can't deny that I do sympathize with some of its elements. Undeniably, my suspicion towards nationalism and utter rejection radical forms of the same are rooted in leftist doctrine.

I am strongly determined that Nazism is wrong, and thus find offensive any representation thereof. This moral judgment is easily justified by the events of World War II and the holocaust. Ironically, even some present day fascists acknowledge it by their denial of the latter. After all, what need would there be for them to deny the reality of the Ha-Shoah if they were convinced that it was “right”? However, a similar justification exists against communism. The Siberian labor camps mirror the Endlösung of the Third Reich, and Guevara was allegedly involved in setting up the first such “establishments” in Cuba. Why is it, then that I'm not outraged at the use of his likeness on fashion items? Am I guilty of applying double standards? After all, the violent oppression of dissent is a sine qua non element of all totalitarian regimes, whether rooted in ideology or religion. However, there is a pronounced difference, which makes it impossible to regard these two ideologies as opposite sides of the same coin, though it is often overlooked by many these days. Nazi or fascist ideology is based on the idea of the supremacy of a race (be it German, "white" in general or, for that matter, any other group defined along national, ethnic, religious or other lines), which is destined to assert its rule by all available means, not to mention the fact that it draws heavily on traditional European anti-Semitic sentiments. Fascism presents the ideal of a hierarchic society, in which each creed has its place as servants of the supreme race and designates those groups, which have no place in this utopia and should therefore be “dealt with”. This, if anything, is synonymous with outright oppression. On the other hand, even though Marxism admits that the so called dictatorship of the proletariat, in which dissent (ie. the "counterrevolution" of the bourgeoisie) may be suppressed by force, is a necessary transition towards a communist society, it does not call for the extermination of any group of society, be it economic, ethnic or religious. The purpose of this “dictatorship” (actually closer to a certain form of direct democracy) is in essence to prepare the ground through the indoctrination of a new generation, which is free of preconceptions such as possession. It is seen as a station in the progress of history, which inescapably leads to the establishment of a stateless and classless society, in which all men and women are equal. The aim is to free all from oppression, eventually.

In this light, while Hitler is a symbol of oppression based on a false sense of supremacy and delusions of grandeur, Guevara stands for revolt against oppression and the illusion of egalitarianism. It is the hope of such equality that is embodied in the popular image of El Che, the hope of a better world, free of all that which divides us, be it wealth, race, nationality or religion (and, lest we forget, the will to fight for it).

However, is it possible to separate this aspect from communism’s dark legacy? As a totalitarian ideology, communism is inherently intolerant of competing views of the world. Where Marxism has prevailed, this has inevitably meant the suppression of checks and balances, which could have avoided its falling victim to the perversions of power (look no further than Stalin’s Soviet Union). Moreover, the fact that the ideal of socialist society openly clashed with prevailing perceptions and economic realities also increased the damage toll. A classic case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions… Speaking of hell, there exists a comparable totalitarian and egalitarian ideology, actually a religion, the same shortcomings and perversions of which are effortlessly forgiven by many. The crusades, the inquisition, the conquest of the American continent or the burning of Giordano Bruno at the stake come to mind. And similarly to communism and its Che Guevara, Christianity has its fair share of warriors (ie. men whose hands are stained with blood) revered as ideals, even saints. As a Hungarian, St. Stephen I is an obvious example for me. Stephen established the Christian Kingdom of Hungary and is therefore credited for assuring our survival to this day as a European nation. Yet it is difficult to assume that the Magyars willingly gave up their own brand of shamanistic religion, customs and freedom to join the flock of Jesus and become serfs of the king’s vassals. Moreover, Stephen’s decision to mutilate his defeated pagan adversary’s body, although often presented as having been taken under pressure from his (foreign) supporters, is hardly a deed of Christian forgiveness worthy of a saint. Thus, by analogy, it seems that the answer to the above question is yes, to the extent that it is possible and morally justifiable to the masses.

We like to view our icons as being faultless and pure, which is seldom the case in reality. Therefore, when raised into this realm, it is inevitable that certain elements of the personality in question are magnified and others are discarded. In fact, it is no longer the person which is venerated but rather our own perceptions of it. To the chagrin of his detractors, the Che on T-shirts and posters is no longer Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, the erring, reportedly often violent guerilla warrior, but an icon, a trademark, if you will, of the struggle for the emancipation of the oppressed. Look at it this way: stating that your role model is John F. Kennedy does not imply that you feel compelled to commit adultery. By contrast, having the image of Hitler tattooed on your biceps rarely implies that you merely like dogs and Bavarian mountain resorts.

This, of course, does not exculpate Guevara from any of his wrongs, but the display of his likeness does not indict anyone of identifying with such elements of his personality. For the rest: "El conocimiento nos hace responsables".

A 3rd One

2007-02-26T01:09:00.000+01:00

Here's the last recording for this weekend. It's something I came up with Sunday morning. It seems I'm kind of stuck with slow minor progressions for now... This is just one acoustic track with some nice stereo reverb. I spent 2 hours trying to come up with a second guitar track, but in the end I just stuck with this. It sounds full enough to stand on its own, and everything I added seemed out of place. Anyway, have a listen:

B minor song.mp3

Another Acoustic Demo

2007-02-25T00:31:00.000+01:00

Here's a new one I recorded 2nite with my acoustic. This is a song we've been working on for the last couple of weeks with the band. The main riff and chorus are from our keyboard player, to which we added stuff during rehearsals. The arrangement is (hopefully) the one we came up with last Tuesday. I recorded this demo on 3 tracks panned left, right and center. The guitar on the left has a capo at the 8th fret and plays the basic rythm part. In the center I put another rythm guitar, this time playing the chords at the lowest possible position (even adding the low 5th if the root falls on the A string) to add a bit of dimension. On the right, I'm playing the main synth riff with a slide (standard tuning) and adding some other elements just to keep it constant. Check it out:

Mark's Song.mp3

PS: I did screw up a bit towards the end, falling out of tempo on the last couple of chords. Being the lazy bastard that I am, I just faded the whole thing out before it got really nasty ;)...

New Song

2007-02-24T00:29:00.000+01:00

Hey, I just came up with a new thing on my acoustic while I was noodling around. I recorded it using my Samson C01U condenser mic. I haven't got any lyrics yet, but it's the best thing I've come up with in some time. Check it out:

D minor song.mp3

Where's my bandwidth?

2007-02-22T02:39:00.000+01:00

That's the latest result:

It's 2:30 AM, for God's sake! This can't be just the traffic.

Scam

2007-02-21T22:29:00.000+01:00

I'm paying for 2Mbps Internet access. Here's the result of my latest speed test:

Am I being fucked or what?

Back From the Depths

2007-02-21T00:42:00.000+01:00

Ok, so it's been a while since my last post. Went through quite a rollercoaster ride... This is kinda stupid, 'cause I ain't gonna post anything about it. Now way. Just so that you know that a large chunk of what I am will always be missing from here.

Anyway, I'm back and that's all that matters. I'm going to start recording again pretty soon, got new things to do with the band as well, we're doing a Rockhal gig in May. We'll also be recording a demo of three or four songs and try to get some air time on local radio to promote ourselves. On the downside, it seems our singer, Kewin will leave in July (the country boy's moving up to Brussels, where he plans to start a new career in music). Diane may also be off to Germany next semester, so we'll definitely need to find new voices... Or start singing ourselves... Naaaaa :).

Did I already mention our first gig? Man, that was the weirdest shit I've ever done! We backed a Catholic children's choir during the first 30 minutes, then played some of our songs to an audience mostly made up of the kid's parents and the local pensioners' club. Personally, I was scared shitless about what the reaction of that crowd would be. Plus the sound was awful, and I had so many lights in my face, I couldn't even make out the first row. But they actually liked it and started clapping along to the songs and shit... Either we're doing something right or just very, very wrong ;).

Anyway, if people keep coming and going at that rate, we'll need to play more regularly to avoid having a new lineup for every other gig.

Guitar Synth

2006-12-08T12:56:00.000+01:00

Here's a recording I made using the new "harmonic synth" unit in GR2:

Texture (short).mp...

Lots of new stuff on Cabomusic

2006-11-05T03:15:00.000+01:00

I've been doing quite a lot of recording this week, as I had three days off from my dayjob. You'll find a good couple of new songs up there: "Work" and "Successfool" are demos of stuff we're working on with my band here in Luxembourg, while I also finally finished "Guiding Light" after a false start earlier this year. Hope you like 'em.

Rusty Cage

2006-10-23T01:45:00.000+02:00

Check out my new recording (click on the title of this post). It's a cover of Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage". One of my friends sent me a video of Johnny Cash playing this song. I started out with his cowboy riff, then took it into Allman Brothers territory. It's been a while since I played slide, but my new Les Paul is set up just right to allow it, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Feel free to explore the other stuff in my esnips music folder.

Confession of a Lost Soul

2006-10-09T15:55:00.000+02:00

All these years I've scorned those who trot the stage with set-neck guitars hanging on their shoulders. For the life of me, I could not see why these errant souls would choose to side with the Devil and be blind to the example of Saint Eric, who he himself had walked the path leading to damnation before finding the light within the divine instrument that is the Fender Stratocaster. Believing myself to be strong in faith, I have never cared to lay eyes upon anything other than a Fender. My weapon of choice against evil was to be the sublime twang of a trusty American Standard Tele.

This was until one dark September evening when the Evil One came to tempt me. With unholy intervention, he caused my third string to break during rehearsal, knowing full well that I had no replacement in my guitar case that faithful night. Having no other choice, I decided to use one of the instruments lying around the room. The Prince of Darkness had made sure that a gold top Epiphone Les Paul – synonymous with abomination – fitted with a pair of P-90's would sit just in front of me, which I picked up unaware of the fate that awaits me.

Oh my brothers, the sound of that guitar burst onto my ears like the Sirens calling Ulysses to his doom. It filled my soul with doubt and bewilderment with sweet tone and heavenly sustain. My knees shook with each beautiful cutting note unleashed by this creation of the Fallen One. I suddenly found myself questioning the one Truth I had known to that day, that in the pantheon of guitars only those bearing the mark of Fender would bring me salvation.

I could not resist the temptation. Having lost all sense of right and wrong, I surrendered to the desire for a set-neck mahogany instrument. I sought high and low for the object of this dubious lust. In my search, the Beast brought me to the premises of a musical instrument retailer in Cologne, offering a large selection of all that which is unholy. Paying no mind to the voice calling from the heavens to keep me on the path of the righteous, I stepped into a demo room with two atrocious, albeit affordable axes, one of which was black as night and bore the name of Gibson Les Paul Special, and the other having a sickly yellow color, named Gibson Les Paul Double Cutaway. The sheer sight of these abominations would have struck me down with sickness any other day, but by that time, my soul was firmly in the grasp of the Devil. The Lord, may his name be blessed, made one last desperate attempt to save me from damnation, inflicting an inexplicable and repugnant buzz on the third string of the black instrument. However, with a perfect factory setup and that same sweet tone which lead me astray, the Double Cutaway finally made me succumb to the powers of Darkness.

Behold the instrument that proved to be my undoing. May thee who still have hope be forewarned of Satan's traitorous ways…

Mazen

2006-08-08T14:54:00.000+02:00

I feel guilty. I read through Mazen's blog. Mazen is a musician living in Beirut (yep, that Beirut), who was playing gigs in Amsterdam 2 months ago. Now he's writing a blog about daily air strikes, empty supermarket shelves and gas shortages.

I guess I have to get used to this feeling of guilt. I remember this very same feeling when I was younger, mixed with a bit of fear. It was Yugoslavia's turn in the headlines. It was close, easy to relate to. Stray shells fell onto border towns in the South. We had a nationalist government. It was close.

A couple of years later I went on a rowing trip on the Mura river, along the border. The trip ended near a small village where the Mura joins the Drava. The village was on top of a cliff overlooking the Slavonian lowlands. The village pub had a concrete terasse with a great view. People used to sit outside, sipping their "fröccs" (1/4 wine, 3/4 sparkling water) and watching the armies pounding each other from plastic chairs. Not on CNN. The stray shells were also very much unlike their media counterparts. They actually hurt, they said. It was that close to them.

I remember seeing reports on TV about Sarajevo. On the screen, there were people who were doing the same things I've been spending my days with, having the same mondane preoccupation I had. Until it all broke down. They were now gambling their lives trying to cross a street. It was a bit further off, though. I was shocked.

Mazen wears a beard and drinks whiskey occasionally. Mazen is used to living in the shadow of billboards, listening to the radio, drawing pictures, watching TV, reading books, going out at night, I guess.

I wear a beard and drink whiskey occasionally. I'm living in the shadow of billboards, listening to the radio, drawing pictures, watching TV, reading books, going out at night.

Why is it that my worries about which model of iPod I should buy can't ever be universal?

Just a Picture

2006-08-04T00:47:00.000+02:00

This is just a recent photo my wife took of me playing my acoustic.

Recording Again

2006-08-04T00:11:00.000+02:00

I recently added two new songs to my Soundclick page. I feel pretty uncertain about the quality. First, both are slow tracks, which is the hardest thing to do. Second, I feel my voice is really not up to par. It took me quite a while to get an acceptable result. I keep telling myself that I just have to find the right style or something but I have my doubts about singing. Anyway, see for yourself. I also posted them on various forums. Most of the feedback was about the guitar tones (these are guitarhead communities, it's true).

I decided to record an album's worth of my older songs, And found a nice photo I took one evening for the "cover". I call it "Bad Moon Rising". Most of these tracks have a very somber mood, hence the title. Still, this nagging insecurity about my voice is holding me back. Last night I was surfing the iTunes Music Store, listening to Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen, some of my big influences, and began wondering if I should bother at all. But I guess I'll just have to try and ignore this and do my best...

Isn't MySpace crap?

2006-07-27T15:58:00.000+02:00

I've recently created an account on MySpace and was absolutely dissapointed by how clumsy it seems in comparison to other networking sites I've used. First of all, it's really annoying that you have to click through two links to log in. I mean, is it hard to put a "login" link on the homepage? Second, I found no way to to transfer my account to MySpace Music. Why shouldn't I be able to do that? Customising your page is also extremely tedious. And why can't I include a link to my own webpage in my profile, for example?

Anyway, maybe it's just that I haven't really taken the time to sort it all out. But I just love to complain! :)

Heat

2006-07-26T14:56:00.000+02:00

I'm starting to have enough of this heat, it's practically unbearable now. No rain for weeks now, I don't think the Grand Duché had anything like this for years. Hopefully, things will get a little cooler for the weekend.

I'm having a great time playing again. I recorded one of my older songs last weekend, "Winter Garden". Stream or download it here. Like most of my older stuff, it's a melancholic number, badly marred by the quality of my voice ;). Anyway, I had a great time doing it. I originally went for a kind of Neil Young sound with loud guitars but that sounded a bit too flat. So I threw out everything except the bass track and went with an acoustic rythm and a bluesey solo guitar part. I think it sounds pretty good, at least as far as the instrumental part. I added some master reverb, which pretty much gives the impression of a band playing, rather than layers of tracks. The song is pretty slow, 65 bpm, but I don't feel that it drags, hopefully noone else will.

I also put the finishing touches on an instrumental called "Bee", also available on my Soundclick page. That was totally written on the fly, from the ground up. I used lots of filter effects, it was great fun sculpting the tone of the bass guitar. My original intention was to mask the fact that I was playing with a pick, I think it worked great.

Summer in the City

2006-07-14T15:45:00.000+02:00

Lots of people put Luxembourg down as a small town where nothing ever happens and there's nothing to do. Nothing could be further from the truth this summer. It seems that there's no end to things worth checking out. This week I went to see Sigur Rós at the Neumünster Abbey, a great venue for the band down by the Alzette river under the fortress walls. They were supported by Amina, who also played strings in their set. Never heard of them before, although a search on the Internet revealed that they've been around since 1998 and have played on an Album Leaf record. Their stuff was lots of fun, playing all sorts of instruments from strings to a pump organ and a musical saw. Art school kids, go figure. Sigur Rós' set was also great, though I didn't pay attention to much of the second part, since I spent most of it chatting with some colleagues.

My band also has a new lease on life. We finally found a frontman capable of pulling things together to make it work. The last two rehearsals were great fun. Good thing that I hesitated about leaving them before that, it seems that there's no reason now. Our first show is scheduled for October, seems like it might just work out fine.

I've also been coming up with new ideas for my own stuff. I have three tracks in the pipe, all very different in nature: some new metal stuff, more in the vein of my last finished track "Driving Nails", a funkier number and an alt-rock instrumental job. Haven't got much time, though. Anna is coming home with her sister's family tomorrow, and I still have a couple of things to set straight.

Righteous Driver

2006-06-26T15:09:00.000+02:00

Having spent the better part of this weekend driving, I was once again confronted by a highway vigilante. These are the dumb f*cks who think it's their job to enforce speed limits on the road by doing stupid and dangerous sh*t, like hopping on the brakes and making unpredictable moves. Too bad I was driving, I should have taken a picture of that ass, who almost got four of us into a nasty accident. I was following a van on a highway somewhere in France, at a decent pace, when we came up to two other cars: an Audi A3 with German license plates (SLS something or other) and a slower vehicle. The A3 was overtaking the slower car when the van, obviously much faster, arrived from behind. Before pulling over to the slow lane, the German found it appropriate to express his outrage by stepping on the brake pedal. Lucky that the driver of the van was unphased by this unexpected little manoever, othrewise it could have killed all of us. Would that have been worth getting his point across?

When you drive, keep it neutral. If you see something you don't like, pull over and call the police or something, but don't put the lives of others in danger just because you think you're right, man.

Mad as sh*t

2006-06-09T15:23:00.000+02:00

May God strike down upon Coditel SA (my ISP) with great vengance and furious anger and kill them with death and other nasty things. These motherf*ckers are supposed to provide me with broadband internet access, what I get is 15Kbps since last Friday. It's virtually non-existant. I phoned their "technical assistance" team two days ago. It took three separate calls for them to make the effort to check whether something was wrong on their end. They had me make modifications to my start-up procedure in msconfig twice, told me to turn off any P2P app I had running (I only use one, Skype, which made it seriously doubtful that this would be the cause). It's only after having spent 3 hours calling them back repeatedly (about 10 EUR in phone-charges), that they admitted that it was due to their mistake and promised to rectify the problem within 48 hours. Those are now almost up and there's still no change. If the connection is not up and running as agreed in contract by the time I get home today... I'll have the opportunity to spend another fortune calling them tonight. Man, I hate these situations when I'm absolutely powerless. I mean, what can I do? Anyway, I'm going to deduct a week's fee from next month's bill. I ain't gonna pay for service that was not delivered. Coditel, go to hell and die!

It's been a while

2006-06-07T11:10:00.000+02:00

...Yeah, like about three weeks since my last entry. Spent one of those in London, had a great time aside from the weather. Got me a new England jersey. Suppose I chose sides for the World Cup :). Otherwise it's the same-o'. Enjoying the sunshine (endlich!). Also visited Aachen over the weekend. Paid 2 euros a piece to have a peek at the medieval Town Hall and the Cathedral. Lots of bones in the cradle of feudal Europe. Idolatry... Oops, I mean artifacts meant to remind the faithful of saints' virtues. They also have the "Virgin" Mary's belt. Exciting stuff :).

I'm having a great time with my new camera, taking loads of pictures. Yours truly just turned 30 (ouch!). I got it as a birthday present, and been loading my laptop with gigas of photographs. Love it to death. Not that I'm any good at it, but lots of fun.

On the music front, I'm pretty much stuck in a rut. Nothing new coming out. The band sucks, it's just not fun right now. I hope this feeling won't last or I'll have to draw the consequences. Been listening to some new stuff: Tool's 10,000 Days got me hooked. This morning I streamed some songs off Sonic Youth's new record. Awsome. Record out on the 13th, a must buy. (When will I be able to do this sort of stuff, man!?)

Also, I haven't received an e-mail from friends back home in ages. It's now more than 2 years since I moved out here and ties are beginning to fade. Szahl (the band I played with in Budapest) is dying slowly. We're still supposed to play at a friend's wedding in September... But we didn't get together at all the last time I was home this spring.

Ah well, it's not all doom and gloom. Been doing lots of work for a change, which is good. Had a pretty lousy time in the office in May (little to do). Looks like it'll be much better this month. And, like I said, the sun is out.

A Quick One

2006-05-17T17:16:00.000+02:00

I'll be short this time, 'cause I only have a few minutes. I've been watching late night TV again Monday, assuring that Tuesday would be another "great" day for me. This time I saw a '50s movie, "The Bad and the Beautiful", with Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner. Despite not getting enough sleep, I took it well yesterday. Even decided to go play football instead of rehearsing with the band. A bad move.

We decided to try a new pitch in Hesperange. The downside: it's absolutely impossible to get out of town just after work. (No wonder they say that Luxembourg reunites all the disadvantages of living in a small town and a big city.) Plus, we didn't get to play at all, since the storm from hell came down just as we got there, with a bit of hail to improve the finish on my car. We had a drink in a local pub and went home. Bummer.

Had a bit of feedback about "Rise" on the Guitar Rig forums, mostly about how bad my drum programming is. I spent most of the night trying to improve the drum track, it's more sparse now, hope it does the trick. I'll be uploading the updated song to my Soundclick page later, hopefully this evening.

Creative Juices Flowing

2006-05-15T16:38:00.000+02:00

Man, what a great weekend! I spent virtually all Saturday sleeping. I woke up at 1/2 past 12, went for a walk in town and was already in bed by 7. My idea of an ideal day :). Had my favorite dish on Sunday morning for breakfast, baked beans (no, seriously), and took the Beemer to the car wash. You have a thirty minute wait for your turn on Sundays, so it's good opportunity to listen to music in the car. I had the Iggy Pop anthology playing. It's been a while since I bought it but I've never heard it through until now. It was time for a change, I've been listening to Pearl Jam for almost a week now.

It got me fired up to record an idea I came up with on Friday while practicing. As soon as I got home, I sat down with the laptop and recorded a basic rythm track with the metronome. It turned out to be pretty unusual for me and I found it damn hard to come up with a second guitar part and a bassline. I did each in three takes and overdubbed a guitar solo. I usually avoid this but I couldn't find any other way to make it work. The second guitar and solo tracks have a couple of errors but I still decided to stick with them to give the recording a live feel. You can check out the results by clicking here, it's the song called "Stress".

By the way, I pretty much gave up on recording vocals for "Guiding Light". I have to accept the fact that I just can't sing. On the other hand, it seems I'm churning out new stuff by the week now that I have a proper rig for recording. I'm also getting better at building drum tracks. The one for Stress took me under an hour and it isn't all that simple if you listen to it closely.

Anyway, after recording the bass and guitar tracks, I went to see the UEFA U17 European Championship final between the Czech Republic and Russia at the Josy Bartel stadium. I have a couple of Czech friends from work, with whom I watched their team agonize in the first half, which ended with a score of 0:0. The second half was much more exciting, with the Russians scoring an early goal after a really stupid defensive mistake. The Russian number 9 is a guy to watch. A big, strong and agressive striker, this one. The Czechs had nothing like him and it showed as they were struggling to get even, with the Russians using every opportunity to kill the game, of course. They finally got their equalizer in the last minute of the game through a header from a corner. The Czech supporters around me went berserk and the teams got ready for extra time. It was the Russians who scored first again after the Czech 'keeper couldn't hold a well applied free kick and a striker butted the ball into the wide open net. However, the Czechs clawed themselves back into the game before the first period of extra time was over, thanks to another mistake, from the Russian goalie this time. The Czech number 10 headed the ball on goal after a nice cross from the right, and though the 'keeper caught it, he dropped it behind the line. 2:2 it remained after the second period of extra time, so it was down to penalties. The Czechs missed their second attempt, and though their 'keeper had saved a shot, the referee had the penalty repeated, since the Russian player hadn't waited for the whistle. Of course, the second attempt went in, giving the Bohemian crowd around a good excuse for their team's loss...

H-bombs, Gulash and What Not

2006-05-13T01:32:00.000+02:00

Yee-haw! I was lucky enough to catch Dr. Strangelove on TV last night, definitely one of my fave movies of all time. It's interesting to watch, say, the BBC's banned late sixties faux documentary on the probable consequences of a nuclear attack on Britain. But Dr. Strangelove shows us exactly how all our safeguards and good intentions can amount to nothing now that we have the bomb. I love the way it uses the elements of a John Wayne war movie to get its point accross. I mean, take the B-52 crew. They're your typical war movie heroes: determined to serve their country, they won't let up, no matter how many obstacles they have to overcome. They get hit by a missile blast, start loosing fuel fast, can't release the warhead... Everything is up against them, even the audience wants them to fail this time, but these good American boys prevail and bring about the total anihilation of mankind and all life on this planet. Watch your fluids, guys!

Of course, the movie was on pretty late, so I woke up feeling like crap again this morning. I revised communications all day at work, not very exciting stuff and had a terminology meeting in the afternoon.

Tonight we had some guests over, Anna's colleagues from the European School. She spent the entire afternoon preparing a good old fashioned Hungarian dinner with gulash soup, cottage cheese pancakes and Mr. Bock's wine from Villány. It was a good opportunity to satisfy my urge for flapping my mouth. As we were talking about all sorts of things ranging from the integration of people working here, through our respective homelands and the miseries of traffic to renewable energy, a storm rolled in with thunder and lightning, marking the end of the good weather we enjoyed here for days... Just in time for the weekend.

We quickly cleaned up after the guests left, after which Anna went to bed and I read an article in last week's HVG about Sigmund Freud. Then I checked my e-mails before beginning to write this entry. Got one from grandpa with a couple of comments about my earlier posts on religion and immigration. Since he sent his comments in a private message, I'm not going to discuss them in this public space, but I feel that I'll have to ellaborate my position on these issues a bit further sometime.

It's getting pretty late (or early), so I'm going to call it a day for now. It's still raining cats and dogs.

Ignorance is Bliss

2006-05-11T16:19:00.000+02:00

Booked our train tickets and hotel in London last night. We're taking the Eurostar from Brussels and we're going to stay at a hotel near the Lords cricket ground. Can't wait to be there. It's going to be my first time in the UK and there's so much to see. I'm worried a little about the currency, got a bit comfortable not having to check exchange rates and provide for cash in the Euro-zone. And I heard London is pretty expensive anyway, I wouldn't like to get fucked. Stupid, ain't it?

Otherwise, not much is happening. I held a presentation in German class this morning. I think I did pretty well. It's just so annoying, I'm now at the point where I understand most of what is being said but have terrible difficulty expressing myself.

I also saw two documentaries on TV last night. The first one was about the Belgian colonization of the Congo, about which I knew very little. It certainly wasn't the sort of glorious adventure in bringing civilization to the noble savages, as it's made out to be by the colonnial monuments in Brussels. The Congo and its people were exploited ruthlessly. They choped people's hands off, even killed them and/or their families if they didn't supply enough rubber to plantation owners, a practice also followed on the Belgian king's own estate. Entire villages were wiped out that way. All this went on systematically for decades, until British missionaries raised the issue (not that the Brits were any better on their own colonies). There was a big uproar about it in the 1900s, then it just got forgotten. One thing's for sure, I'm not buying any more hand-shaped chocolate in Antwerp.

The second one was about how stereotypes of people from the colonies developed over the years in France, and how that still affects the way people issued from immigration are viewed. It was interesting to see how this still manifests itself every day in the media and indeed, in our minds. The noble savage, who needs to be taught as if he were a child, or presented as a freak-show attraction, the Chinese immigrant communities refusing to integrate and being a hotbed of drug abuse, lazy and dangerous Arabs, and so on. Yeah, these images are still prevailing in our collective conscience. And what about the fat, lazy, ignorant, violent, prejudiced, xenophobic white Christian European? Things are not looking up in Babylon.

I guess it's just to complex to judge people on their individual merit. It's easier to take that everyone in Poland has a plumbing business and they steal cars and stab Belgian students for kicks when they're not out taking decent people's jobs away...

Unhappy 'Burgers

2006-05-10T14:34:00.000+02:00

I was dicking around with the acoustic guitar Monday night and found a riff that I liked. Since I wasn't getting anywhere with Guiding Light, I decided to record it. Spent a good couple of hours laying down guitar and bass tracks before going to sleep.

Had yesterday off, slept long. After finishing with cleaning up the appartment, we went to a Swiss restaurant in Kopstal (Koplescht), called Edelwyss, and filled up on fondue. There was a waitress there who seemed frustrated that we didn't speak Luxembourgish. When I ordered "fondue genevoise", she looked back at me as if I was speaking gibberish. "Ah, genfer Fondue!", she said. You get a lot of that here, especially up North. I once asked a policeman in Vianden for directions in French and got my reply in English. Not that it matters any to me, not being French, but his intention was clearly to insult me. I guess it's hard for them to stomach the fact that they're fast becoming a minority in their own country, but this is a really stupid way of venting it. Especially if you're working in a restaurant where the manager is French-speaking Swiss. Anyway, the food was great, and that's what matters.

After getting home from Kopstal, I had to run to make it to my band's rehearsal. We worked on a song written by our keyboard player, Mark. It's a joy to play, a kind of post-punk number. But Mat, our bassist, was bitching again. He didn't take it well that his rolling bassline didn't work at all during the verses, and then he was complaining that you can't hear the vocals. We had kind of a run-in earlier about a proposed gig, where we would back our vocalist's choir and then do a couple of numbers of our own. The choir chose songs that simply didn't work for us, I mean we sounded like a really lousy cover band playing them. We proposed that the choir learn three simpler songs and to go from there, but they rejected it and postponed the event until October. Mat then wrote an e-mail, which disgusted me, laying all the blame on me and Mel, the drummer. It kind of ruined last week's "repetition" for me. Anyway, I'm glad at least that I don't have to do a humiliating gig.

After recording a version of Mark's song, he asked us if anyone had an idea for another song, "Atmosphere" (we're working on a kind of concept show based on Mark's lyrics that were inspired by Andy Warhol's autobiographical book). I pitched the riff I recorded Monday night, and we actually found a way to make it work with the words. This version only uses the verse and chorus parts (slightly altered) of the song I recorded, but it seems okay. We had our usual glass of beer after rehearsal and I was on my way back home.

I spent the rest of the night building a drum track for the Monday recording. You can check out the finished product here, it's the one called "Rise". It could use some lyrics of its own. I put up a picture showing gas prices to go with the song.

Rain

2006-05-08T17:07:00.000+02:00

The rain won't let up. It's one of those days. Pretty much uneventful, didn't get to speak to anyone. Tomorrow's a holiday for us at the institutions and most people took Monday off. I did more than enough work for today and am tired anyway, so I spent the last 30 minutes surfing the net. Read a couple of blogs, something that I rarely do.

I was planning to check out a game of the U17 European Cup after work, but I guess I'll stay in. Maybe I'll check out a movie later tonight...

Santiago, Tibet

2006-05-06T23:15:00.000+02:00

Had a pretty good weekend, appart from having to spend the better part of Sunday cleaning up at home. My wife and I were invited to a party at a sculptor's studio in Dalheim, a village south of Lux. It was kind of weird, as the invitation came not from the host but a guest. It seems that he was eager to show off his work to pretty much everyone. We arrived pretty late and we knew nobody there.

It was kind of awkward but the host, a Chilean called Marco something-or-other, did a good job at making us feel welcome. The place was in a farmhouse, partly renovated, which Marco rents from a Danish guy who's selling it, until the new owner moves in. A couple of Marco's works were exposed in the main hall but you could walk around freely in the studio and check out his work in progress as well. Marco works with stone, mostly non-figurative. He spent some time speaking with us about his stuff, showed us around, offered food, drinks and smoke, then told us to check out his travel log on Tibet when he got bored with us.

I kind of envy guys who can do stuff like that. The book was filled with sketches of places he saw, different ideas, beer labels and other documents (including a bus ticket from a Chinese "aviation bus company", which cracked me up), his commentaries (in Spanish, of course) and notes from people he met. The spontaneity of the whole thing made it pretty exciting to look at, though we couldn't make out much of the text, as neither of us speaks Spanish :(.

It reminded me of "mail art", where people send letters or a book back and forth by mail and react to each other's work. I like the "log" format, which lends a narration to the whole thing and gives meaning to otherwise sketchy stuff. I wonder if it can be done with music...

Speaking of music, not much got done with "Guiding Light" this weekend. I re-recorded the song like three or four times. It seems that the key of A is just too low for my voice, so I threw the whole thing out and did two new takes in E, before deciding to go back to A, 'cause the guitar parts sounded way better that way. So now I'm stuck with trying to make the vocals come alive. I made a couple of attempts last night but am very far from having anything definitive.

I'm still listening to the new PJ record, it's starting to grow on me...

TGIF

2006-05-05T14:42:00.000+02:00

Began work on the recording one of my older songs last night, "Guiding Light". So far, so good. I layed down two guitar tracks before going to bed. Then I woke up around 2 AM and couldn't get back to sleep, so I recorded the bassline. Now comes the hard part, building a drum track on my sequencer. I just hate to do it, it's slow and frustrating. Then I'll try to get my vocals down. I'm very unsecure about my voice, so I always have to do it in about 9-10 takes. I transposed the song into A to fit my vocal range, so I hope it's going to be okay. If not, I'll have to start all over again.

Anyway, I woke up feeling like shit, since I didn't get enough sleep. I got dressed, had another listen to what I recorded and went to work. I had coffee with the Polish girls in the morning. We were talking about how hard it is to find a good appartment in town. You can look for ages until you find one that's worth having to pay instalments on a loan for the rest of your professional life. The rices here are ridiculous.

Had Lasagna for lunch. A positive note.

This afternoon I'm going to town with the wife to meet some people. I'm not that excited about it right now, I'd rather go home and get it over with the drum track. Plus my leg hurts real bad. Got injured playing soccer yesterday. I was having a damn good game up until I got kicked by a defender while we were scrambling for a loose ball. I was cursing at the top of my lungs, it's a nasty bruise. I couldn't walk yesterday but it got better by this morning :). Yet it still hurts just enough to contribute to my "high spirits" today. Anyway, as the sign says, no spitting...(By the way, I found this photo while sifting through old stuff on my hard drive. It was taken by one of my friends, Andras Hagen, in Shanghai.)

God's word

2006-05-04T13:54:00.000+02:00

I just bought this month's National Geographic. It runs an article about the Judas Gospel, which is currently a source of great debate. The text is a Coptic copy (written in Greek characters) of a supposedly Greek original, which is also referred to in independent Christian sources from the 2nd century AD. It describes a conversation between Jesus and "his most faithful disciple", Judas in which the Christ foretells the role the Apostle will play in his undoing. This was, of course, denounced by the Church as heresy early on.

I don't really want to go into much detail about Judas. However, the questions raised by his treatment in cannonic scriptures are among those that underscore my scepticism towards Christianity. I mean, without him, there is no Calvary, no salvation and consequently, no Christianity (at least as we know it). If he is to be hated, are we not admitting that the Christ's sacrifice was a product of chance, rather than fate? If he acted of his free will, wasn't this whole thing an accident? However, if it was meant to be, should he not be seen as victim (even as a hero)?

There are just too many uncertainties like that for me to forge faith out of it. And this religion has been abused so much anyway, all that's left are rags. It's like a piece of meat that's been thrown to the dogs, really.

Its morals are not its own, the most fundamental ones are not reliant on religion and have been known to exist for as long as we have records of human existance, while many of its teachings have been proven to be false, downright lies or just plain stupidity. It was also turned into an institution of convenience, which should not be the case for what it pretends to be.

The only reason I could see myself submitting to it is just that, convenience, and for that, I have no need. Do I need it to tell me what's right or wrong? I have my sense of that, be it a divine gift or nothing more than a product of civilization. Do I need it to make sense of the world or to find my place in it? I'm doing pretty good without it, thank you. And I've found better answers than it can provide.

Pearl Jam

2006-05-03T15:02:00.000+02:00

Last night I downloaded the new Pearl Jam record from iTunes. Been listening to it all day. These guys get me every time. I couldn't tell you why, they're not doing anything new, technically. It just works, period.It's the sort of music that makes me want to scream the lyrics out loud and not give a fuck.

There's no other band out there at this time that has the chemistry to make this happen, IMHO. That's what I'm missing in my current group. I mean, it's all fine, there are lots of decent ideas floating around but it doesn't click. The fact that it doesn't look like we'll have any opportunity to play live in the near future only makes things worse...

I decided to look for another band to play with on the side but I don't really know where to start. Luxembourg is a small place and you can't pick and choose, so you take what you get. You have to make compromises and I don't want that anymore, I've made just enough already.

First post

2006-05-02T15:31:00.000+02:00

So I finally got down to it. Last week I read an article on villagevoice.com about a New York cabby who's doing a blog about her shifts, posting photos of stuff/people she found interesting or just pissed her off. I spent something like an hour reading through her posts. Something clicked in me at that point and decided to start one myself. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, we'll see what comes out...