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December 3rd 2004 - Two months to the day so definitely time for an update. I have
been doing a little writing but not as much as I'd hoped. Things tend to
get "busy" around this time of year for most people. No exceptions here.
No chapter update for my fanfic yet, but I'm still hoping to get some
work done on BG Cross before the year's end. As always though, plans to
write tend to get back-burnered for real life "stuff". We will see what
we see :) In music news the band has added a few new songs to the
setlist and we are currently recording some of those songs. Here's a
short sample of Xanadu from 2 weeks ago. A little rough
around the edges October 3rd 2004 - Been
a while eh? Well, there's not much new to tell, but there are some
scattered udpates to point out. There are some new pics on the newly
re-organized My Weekly
Crime homepage, as well as an update as to what's going on with
my fanfic BG Cross. I
hope to have more next time including a chapter update to
BG Cross, and some new recordings of MWC. Stay tuned...
July 24th
2004 - I, ROBOT...
THE BOOK - Just finished reading "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov. For
some reason this book has always eluded me whenever I saw it in book
stores, but after reading it it's easy to see how significant an
influence it must have been on Toshmichi Suzuki when he wrote BGC. From
comparisions between Susan Calvin and Sylia Stingray to the Three Laws
of Robotics and the OMS and much more... read it and see for yourself.
And no, the movie isn't really based on the book ;)
July 10th
2004 - VAN HALEN IN
DETROIT! - Scott (drummer from My Weekly Crime) and I went to see
Van Halen at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit this weekend. Despite our
seats being in the nosebleed section and DLR not being back in the band,
we had a great time and managed to get back to Canada in one piece.
Eddie was in fine form and the band doesn't seem to have lost any of
it's energy after being side-lined for the last few years. Nice to see
Ed trot out a few of his older guitars too! My ears weren't ringing from
the show but they were ringing afterwards from all the horns in the
parking garage! So what's next? Well, I've seen Rush and VH in the same
year so things are pretty damn good. But if Triumph were to reunite...
June 05
2004 - RUSH ON
TOUR! - My favourite band is currently embarked on a 30th
Anniversary Tour and my band-mates and I have tickets for the Detroit
show on June 8th (next week!). Thirty years... imagine that? Staying
together for thirty years? In a band of all things? Well
it's true, Rush has been in existence since 1974. Hailing from the small
Ontario towns of Willowdale and St. Catharines, the three members of
Rush, Neil Peart,Alex Lifeson, and Geddy Lee, are self-described
suburban boys who never really got into the rock star lifestyle, and
instead decided to focus on the music. In this day and age of
cookie-cutter pop stars who have a very vague idea of what real musical
instruments are, it is very inspiring to still have Rush around, doing
what they do best and playing the kind of music that they want to play.
With the members of Rush all in their fifties now, any opportunity to
see them play live at this stage of their careers should be considered
bonus and the audience should feel fortunate. No rock band lasts forever
(try telling that to the Stones!). But the best part of good music is
it's ability to stick around long after the musicians have passed into
obscurity. And if it's really good music it will still make you
feel the same way it did when you heard it the first time 30 years ago.
For more info on Rush checkout their official website at www.rush.com
May 02
2004 - A MUSICAL
UDPATE In some ways I'm skeptical of what technology can do for us
(cloning, and Artificial Intelligence come to mind) because the benefits
are murky and controversial. But there are some technological
advances that present their benefits very clearly the moment you use
them.
For example, I've just finished uploading a song that were recorded
this afternoon by "My Weekly Crime", a Rush tribute band I play in, and
the three of us are still amazed at how easy and productive an
experience it was. All three of us are pretty much old-school rockers,
and we've all had experience using multi-track tape recording devices,
but today we used my PowerMac G5 and Apple's GarageBand program to
record ourselves. I could talk about the time that we saved by not
having to rewind a tape every time we wanted to do another take, or the
clarity of the digital medium, or the ability to manipulate the recorded
tracks by dragging and dropping or cutting and pasting. All of these are
amazing benefits. But to be able to export the song to an MP3 player and
then burn the finished songs to a CD in a matter of minutes still
boggles my mind.
It wasn't that long ago that I had a room full of outboard effects
gear, a giantmixer console and miles of cables all over the floor all
working together to try to achieve a similar result yet not quite
managing to do so. Tape hiss, rewinding over and over again, cable
hassles, running out of tracks. Bleh. I look back on those days fondly
because of what we accomplished, but I sure would like to get all those
wasted hours back!
Anyway... made possible by the wonders of Modern Technology, feel
free to check out the tune
we worked on today. They are works in progress and by no means finished
products but we're pretty proud of them just the same. The 2 years we've
spent honing our set list seems to be paying off, and there's lots more
to come. And hey, just for fun, try comparing the version of
Subdivisions we did today with the version we recorded several months
ago. That's a whole other kind of progress ;)
February
11th 2004 - A late
opening but we're always open late, 24 hours to be exact! For
those of you like myself whose imaginations start working after 10 pm. A
quiet place where I am not bound by someone else's images or words, and
the rain just keeps falling outside my window. There isn't a ton of
stuff here yet, but I started this website with the hope that I will
have lots to add as I refocus on my writing and other projects. Speaking
of which, in the writing department I am hoping to finish BG Cross soon. Yeah, yeah,
you've heard all that before. But there's really not that much left to
do, it's just a matter of doing it. It'll happen. I promise. No,
really ;) Just like I hope to record the band I'm working with, working
title "My Weekly Crime".
Once we get moved in to our new practice space we will be looking at
recording some of the songs we're working on. In the meantime, there's
lots here to read. Have fun, watch out for but the construction zones
and don't be afraid to get lost for a while...
Oh, and if you happened to end up here while looking for Raven's
Garage you can still find it at it's usual home at ravensgarage.com
- Andy
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