Moochy Sphere

Scotland Adventure, March 2003

2006-03-10T02:48:00.000-08:00

A small group of us did a four day mountain hike on the Glen Affric ridges, camping out in the snow in March 2003. This is probably the most extreme thing i have ever done, and the experience will stay with me forever, unless of course i better it by doing the same in the Alps or the Andes, he heh! My and Viv went along with two very serious climbers, Alexis Pearce (Lex) and Nigel (Beaker). We were hoping to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis), but not this time. Instead however, we were treated to the most amazing full moon with a huge corona round it, which almost touched the horizon. Looking south on the final evening, we could see the Cuillins to the west, the Cairngorms to the east and Ben Nevis to the south. We all had a different bottle of Single Malt to keep us going - never leave home without one! Talk about being the highest people is Scotland on the final night, i can tell you! I had a near brush with death in trying to descend a polished ice sheet, slipped and flew down this steep slope. At the bottom were large boulders and beyond a sheer drop down the mountain. Somehow i managed to stay on my feet without breaking any bones and causing myself very serious damage. Indeed lucky. I had a nice gash in my shin and still have a nice scar. A truly unforgetable experience. We were very lucky with the weather as well, and I was surprised by how hot and sunburned i got. I expect it was the sun being reflected off the snow.

Diving in the Red Sea

2006-03-09T05:17:00.000-08:00

During my egypt holiday i wanted to do my advanced PADI course, a natural progression after doing my Open Water course in Thailand in 2002. However, i do not consider myself an 'advanced diver' at all - hell, ive only done 20 dives anyway! But i do consider myself to have bettered my breathing and buoyancy control. We chose a dive school called Camel Dive, at Sharm-el-Sheik. I can now dive to 30 metres, a fact of diving which became all too surreal for me at one point - I had a funny turn underwater at 30m during my first deep dive of the training course whilst doing some skills tests. It seemed to have been triggered by me fretting about touching the corals with my fins. My breathing became erratic which led to a panic attack. I signaled my instructor straight away and we ascended to 20m, and soon i felt normal again and fit to carry on. I and my diving instructor reasoned that i had not drunk enough water, or that nitrogen narcosis was creeping in. For those of you who don't know about scuba, nitrogen narcosis happens when, at depths of +30m, the nitrogen you breathe in your air tank becomes halucinagenic! Cool - Tripping underwater! No, seriously, it was a wierd experience but it didnt put me off doing more dives, although i think i learned more respect. Scuba Diving isn't a game...... The snorkelling just offshore was amazing as well! Did some more dives, including a night dive (pink jellyfish pink jellyfishpink jellyfish....in torchlight lol!) and i did a Peak Performance Buoyancy Dive to finish off my Advanced course. We both opted to do one of our dives on Fish Identification - theres a Global Project going on called Project Aware where divers can join in by sending in their collected data. Sounded good we thought. So i bought a fish slate, and the advanced PADI book - Adventures in Diving Manual. Diving in the Red Sea is a real treat as the visibility is very good, and due to the high salt content, you are naturally more buoyant. There are also a wealth of wrecks there including the SS Thistlegorm. However, parts of it lie at 30m+, so i probably would want to do both the Wreck Diving and Enriched Air courses first. I have not done any diving since Egypt, but i certainly plan on going again sometime. To keep interested, i regularly look at underwater photos from people on Flickr, such as Aquanerds, who last year was voted best Flickr underwater photographer.

Egypt, January 2003

2006-03-09T02:58:00.000-08:00

Around this time everyone was very jumpy about Muslim countries, you know, around the time just before the second Gulf War. Because of this, we were able to get a very cheap two-week package holiday in Sharm-el-Sheik. As you may know, this very touristy and also very nice place was bombed by terrorists last summer. Our first week was spent exploring the area, and studdying for our Advanced PADI Open Water course. I will make a separate post about this above. On our second week we decided to hell with packages and nice hotels, lets just head inland on a bus. We had arranged to meet some friends from Chorlton (Johnny & Caroline) in Luxor - this is where internet cafes come into their own! So we met up and stayed at a nice place on the West Bank. On one day, we hired bikes and cycled up to the Valley of the Kings (man, HOW HOT WAS THAT!) and went round a load of tombs and temples. Very impressive stuff - ACE! After that we had a night in Luxor city and went round Karnak Temple - also very cool indeed. And that was pretty much Egypt. Had a great time.
Oh, and it was on this holiday that me and Viv decided we both wanted to have a baby. So we filled up our diaries with many short breaks and trips away, and had sex for England. To put it bluntly.

Scanner Fun

2006-03-09T01:48:00.000-08:00

I got a new toy - a Genius ColourPage Vivid Pro II (model no. FB624D) scanner! Well, its not new of course, its been sitting inactive in the attic for several years. It was formerly hooked up to Windows 98, and the driver CD was outdated. After a bit of research, i found the right driver called vp2w2k from www.driverguide.com - you have to join and register as a member in order to download, and i found the site quite user-friendly.

This driver is apparantly for Windows 2000, but it works fine on XP. After installing, i was able to simply import scanned images directly into Photoshop. Very handy! Now i have been scanning photos from my backpacking trips. Up to now, ive done the Egypt set and have started on the Cuba photos. Unfortunately the Thailand photos are glued into an album, so i'll have to give some thought to un-glueing them, lol!

The Tripods Trilogy - John Christopher

2006-02-21T02:55:00.000-08:00

Who remembers this from around 1985? I was mad for it, as were my peers at the time. John Christopher write the Tripods Trilogy and the BBC televised it, although series three called "The Pool of Fire" was never made. Worse still, only Series 1 is available to buy on DVD or video. However, if you know someone who recorded it off Sky during one of the repeat cycles, then you can see it in all its nostalgic glory. I know such a person, and now i want to read it all over again. Time up update my library membership methinks.

Goyt Valley, Derbyshire

2006-02-21T01:59:00.000-08:00

While I've been out of work i've been using my time sensibly! Been doing lots of DIY, mainly wallpapering & decorating my studio room. I've also widened my loft hatch, purely so that i can fit more junk in the attic! Also very much been enjoying the extra contact with my son, Jake, who turned two in January. Anyhow, My partner has taken some holiday time off and we have done some cool day trips. On this occasion we went to the Goyt Valley in Derbyshire (Peak District), specifically to visit Eerwood Hall. Ive been here many times before, mainly before Jake was here, at all times of the year. The best time to visit is around April when all the different colours of Rhodedendron bushes are in bloom. The walk we used to do was to cut along the top of the ridge by Pym's Chair for a mile or so, then dive off down to the left over rough ground, through the trees and finally joining one of the paths which leads to Eerwood Hall. This part of the hike is pretty cool in Mid-Winter after a heavy snowfall. Well, these days are a bit different, its just not practical anymore with a toddler! Here are some of the pics from the 'family version'. Look out for the smallest church in Britain, a quaint round little chappel not far from the road.

Music Software

2005-11-10T03:16:00.000-08:00

This is one of my current songs (you can hear it by visiting this link) which i composed using Steinberg's excellent Cubase SX3, Propellerhead's Reason 2.5, and a virtual sound module - Wizoo's Hypersonic. When the mood takes me i launch into producing mode and do very little else! Unfortunately, due to the demands on my time i do not get as much quality producing time as i would like. The reason for this is probably due to this cheeky chappie, and having a houseproud partner who makes me do DIY and cleaning all the time. Cubase is wicked, its definately my studio and sequencer of choice. I first got hold of Cubase 2 on the Atari back in 1994, and its been nice to see how far it has come over the years. There are plenty of Virtual Studio sequencers around :

Virtual Studio

(Sony) Acid

(Ableton) Live

(Apple) Logic Pro

(Cakewalk) Sonar

(Digidesign) Protools

(Steinberg) Cubase SX

(FL Studio) Fruity Loops

(Propellerheads) Reason

VSTi Plug-Ins

(Wizoo) Hypersonic

(Wizoo) X-Phraze

(Native) Battery

(Native) Absynth

(Native) Guitar Rig

(IK) Sampletank

(GMedia) impOSCar

(reFX) Vanguard

Mastering Plug-Ins

(IK) T-Racks

(iZotope) Ozone

(Waves) Platinum

Audio Editors

(Steinberg) Wavelab

(Sony) Sound Forge

Cubase just works for me. I know it so well now from teaching the damn thing for years that i dont see much point in learning any others. I might get into Ableton Live and Pro Tools one of these days however. Protools is just about the best Audio Sequencing and Virtual Studio application in the world. Those of you that use Cubase SX might be interested in checking out this Cubase forum. You never know when you will need it!

There are many software synthesizers and sound modules available on the market which can be bolted onto Cubase, Logic, or Pro Tools, some of which are amazing, some of which are appauling. Native Instruments do some very good ones, as do Wizoo, Steinberg, reFX, IK Multimedia and GMedia. Also, dedicated digital audio editing software is good to have, such as Wavelab or Sound Forge. Last but not least, a good selection of mastering plugins are available. Three i have used are T-Racks, iZotope, and Waves.

Synthesizers

2005-10-28T15:04:00.000-07:00

Any sound engineer or producer worth his or her salt loves to mess about with synths. Some like me and others i know are almost geeky about it. We will happily explain to you about Oscillators, Waveforms, Phase Offset Modulation, Pulse Width Modulation (especially!), Frequency Mod, Ring Mod, LFO, Envelopes, Filters, the list goes on.....! Anyway, heres a synth you wont find many places : This is a home made drum synth i built in 1989, out of a kit. It won me a 'Distinction' for my GCSE Electronics project. Years after i sampled the hell out of it. Its got a few dry joints which i fixed recently, but otherwise, still works. Its got a piezo-electric pick-up, blue tacked to the side to trigger it and also a audio input. I used to feed it closed Hi-hats and synchronize it with a Yamaha RY30 drum machine.

I also had a good condition Roland Juno 106 to play with at work. What a sweet machine! As a kid, i always knew i wanted to mess with synths as soon as i was old enough to recognise my own name splattered across all kinds of sound boxes. My favourite trick with the juno back then was to stick it through a Drawmer DS201 in stereo, one side on Gate, the other on Duck. Pan the outputs left / right and pass a 16th hi-hat through the key input. Hey Presto! You got an autopanner. Heres a cute little number, a Wasp synth i bought from a colleague years ago for £180. It must be worth a lot more than that now. I believe there is a device called a Spider which can be used to synchronize it.

Violectra Electric Violins

2005-10-28T08:10:00.000-07:00

This is a 5-String Violectra Electric Violin, similar to my own model. I had it custom-build (to exactly match my accoustic violin) a few years ago, 1998 i think. The violin maker, name of David Bruce Johnson, was a real sound guy and a Canadian ex-pat. During the Christmas / New Year of '97/98 he took me down to London to a Violin exhibition, where i was treated to beholding some truly magnificent fiddles! At the time, my father was dying from lung cancer, caused by breathing asbestos in the 60's, and my parents put up the money to buy it for me, bless them. As you can probably imagine it was quite an upsetting time, made all the more poignant by me and my brother playing violin and cello at his funeral. Still, life goes on.
Also at the time i was living in Manchester, working by day as a Studio Maintenance Technician, and a Sound Engineer by night. I had loads of free studio time on my hands and i would regularly stay up all day and all night at the weekend doing my own music. Actually, i did this most weekends for 2 years, and finally, after an exhausting weekend working saturday morning till monday afternoon, with no sleep and living on beer and junk food, i collapsed on the stairs at home going up to bed. It all helped to deal with the grief, but my health was suffering!

Anyway, im drifting off the point here... i had my violin made with a pickup under each string on the bridge, connected with a 7-pin DIN plug. David had been experimenting with his violins and MIDI, and had a guitar synth adapted for violin connected to it through a little DIY interface. This was a wicked idea! When i got my violin in the studio i was playing all sorts of sounds and synths over MIDI. The set-up was not without its problems though, the pitch would never remain constand, MIDI controllers were all over the place, and you had to finger each note on the fingerboard EXACTLY to pitch to get a level MIDI note. In short, it was too unstable to do anything with.

The reasons for this are better explained by experts, but when i researched into it, MIDI Violin technology was still in its infancy. Sadly, not long after this, my MIDI violin synth packed in, and fraustrated, i returned to playing as normal. The electric signal from the pick-ups is naturally trebly and thin but can be fixed easily enough in the studio with some EQ. It sounds mint with a good Lexicon reverb on it and a touch of chorus or delay. In fact, someone i met got me into Ed Alleyne Johnston. Check him music out! If anyone reading knows anything about MIDI guitars, or violins, and thinks they can help me here, please let me know, i'd love to hear from you.

Creating Documents

2005-10-28T03:19:00.000-07:00

Just thought i would make a post about a couple of documents i made using MS Word. I guess i just wanted people to see an example of my work. This image is a link which downloads the first proper reference worksheet i created, which i gave out to students new to using computers and audio production software. It gives basic information on file management, navigating Windows and a network, backing up, and all kinds of stuff. This particular page gives guidance on how to search for audio clips on a central store of Sample CDs, in order try them out in a piece of music. To see just the image full size, click here. Here is another one - this is a screenshot of a page from a set of teaching meterials i used this year. As part of my teacher training course (City & Guilds 7407 Level 4 Stage 1), i was asked to design, use, and evaluate a resource, and present a series of assignments for Unit 4 - Teaching Resources. As it hapenned, this lesson was also observed, and i had the students coming up to the whiteboard and drawing in Audio / MIDI cable links between the various pieces of equipment. It worked well, i had a good report for it! To see the image full size, click here.

Working On A Track

2005-10-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

Ive been lazy with producing lately so ive knocked this up in about 3 hours. Its just one Hypersonic and 2 x A1's, and all the usual FX suspects. Damn it - the strings didnt fade out towards the end. Must have forgotten to click the Read Automation button. See what you think. Please leave a comment below - all suggestions appreciated!

Moochy In The Dark :

You should be able to see the player just above. If all you can see is a white strip, it's likely you need the flash plugin installed - get it here. If you want to download the track, just click the link on the sidebar for MP3 Unsigned. Its far from finished but i will be working on it over the next week. Bear in mind that if you navigate away from this page, the audio stream will stop. Suggest right-click and choose to Open in New Window.
By the way, i have stumbled upon an offer for a free iPod! Cool - i've been wanting one ever since i lost my Philips GoGear in France whilst on holiday. Try this link : Free iPod Offer.

Cicada Insect & It's Weird Call

2005-10-17T03:59:00.000-07:00

This is a cicada insect with a very strange mating call. I heard it in the Jungle in Thailand a few years ago, in a National Park called Khao Sok. I did a jungle trek for 4 days, sleeping in hammocks and eating out of bamboo plates. At the end of the afternoon all the species of cicada would broadcast their mating call. The strange thing is, one species starts up and has their 10 minutes, then another pipes up, and the whole effect is really wierd to say the least!

80s Cartoon Themes

2005-10-14T07:37:00.000-07:00

Those of us who grew up in the 1980s will no doubt remember a heyday of brilliant cartoons. Everyone seems to have some common ground and it can be fun to compare the ones we missed. Here are some of my own favourites - I guarantee that some of these will have you jumping up and down in your seat and calling your mates over!
Raccoons :

Thundercats :

The Mysterious Cities of Gold :

Gummie Bears :

Many thanks to all at 80s Cartoons for giving us all a big boost of nostalgia!

My CVs

2005-10-13T09:01:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone - I'm being made redundant from my teaching job at the School of Sound Recording. Ive been at SSR for nearly 10 years, in fact, it would be 10 years in March 2006. I know why this has happened, and I would imagine that a lot of teachers everywhere, in many colleges, are in the same boat. Basically, I blame Gordon Brown. Government funding is being cut drastically, which means that Jobcentre Plus are unable to offer specialist courses to the unemployed. When Labour came to power in the late 90s, New Deal For Musicians started up, and in 2000, SSR was able to tap into this nice lucrative earner. Unfortunately, this is all at an end now, and the competition for teaching jobs is going to be huge as many teachers are facing redundancy.

However, I am not particularly worried about my income as i am a qualified electrician. Ive not been a pro spark since 1996, but ive not abandoned it either. I rewired my own house when i bought it in 2001 - best job i ever did! And throughout my time at SSR I've done many installs and improvements, never once forgetting any of my skill. I may have lost some speed, but thats only natural. Im good at lots of stuff and i've put together two CVs which bias towards the type of work i have done in the past. I may be forced to fall back on my past career and return to Fire Alarm / Fire Engineering if i can't find a similar job to what i do now.

CV for Electrician and Fire Alarms.
CV for Teaching & Music experience.

Drop us a line - i will be working 4 weeks notice, and i leave SSR on the 18th November. Ideally i would like to stay within the Music Business, perhaps working in Publishing, Marketing, Promoting, Management, Record Labels, Production Companies and the like. I have picked up a range of transferable skills which would benefit any of these areas, i am certain. One area which really interests me is Web / Graphic Design. What i really need here is to find an entry level job so that i can get trained up on Dreamweaver / Flash / Photoshop / Illustrator etc.

Fungi Forray in Cumbria

2005-10-11T02:24:00.000-07:00

Well, i had a good time caravanning in the Lake District last weekend. It was the last time i will use my Mum's motor caravan (a Highwayman) as it will be sold next year. Many thanks to my Mum for its use - I've put a few thousand miles on it, i can tell you!
Anyhow, we didn't go to Grange this time, we went to Skelwith Fold Caravan Park near Ambleside. This place is deep in a forest - a fungal goldmine in Autumn. We also went to Hawkshead for sunday afternoon, a lovely little village full of old english country pubs and gift shops. On the Sunday i was chased by a cow whilst trying to find some mushrooms! Here are some of my favourite shots, now added to my collection on Flickr :

Red Mushroom

2005-10-03T04:57:00.000-07:00

Red Mushroom
Originally uploaded by DSutherland.

Here's a pretty unusual mushroom. Its caused rather a debate amongst the fungi fans at Flickr. I'm off to the Lake District this weekend camping in the woods. I had a book for my birthday on edible fungi and some delicious looking recipes, but i doubt i will be cooking any. Hope i get some good photos! Grange never disappoints....

Paul Brookes - Trance Producer

2005-09-30T04:03:00.000-07:00

This is Paul Brookes, a friend of mine who is developing a talent for Trance music. He has some music uploaded here, and he has been blogging away like mad! He recently told me that "Time is running out, i need to get my music ready asap. I can't be bothered doing Jobsearch, its a waste of time!". Admirable sentiments dude, however, we all got bills to pay! Paul has really come into his own in the last 4 or 5 months, especially since he learned about all things online. Me, Paul, Prem, and a few other students at SSR are all leaving on the same day, 18th November. I went round work the other day taking some pics (probably for nostalgia) and heres Paul in full production mode!

Matthew Dekay at Tangled

2005-09-26T03:48:00.000-07:00

My 31st birthday was on Saturday 24th September, and Matt Dekay just hapenned to be playing at Tangled in Manchester. I only found about about this 4 days before - much to my delight. MDK is one of my favourite Producers & DJs. I probably shouldn't have gone out at all really considering i have a nasty chest infection at the moment! But hey - i wasn't going to miss this for the world, especially as he played Digifruitella, which is a tune that had me going for ages! Quite possibly the best kick drum i've ever heard.

My mate Stu Higgin and his friends were also there. Stu was 30 on sunday 25th - a fitting way for us to spend our birthdays. Last time i saw them was almost exactly a year ago here at Tangled, the last time MDK played funnily enough. After the club, they wanted to drag me off to an after show party. I had to decline - and i only ended up with two hours sleep as it was!

Frontier Elite 2

2005-09-21T05:15:00.000-07:00

NB - Suggest read all of this post before visiting any links!
When i played Elite 2 on the Amiga years ago, I was so impressed with it that i hammered it constantly (as you do) - much to the displeasure of my house-mates - and got my saved game as far as owning an Imperial Courier. If i remember, the best missions i did at the time were 'assasinations', that is, disposing of some fat-cat merchant in his Puma Clipper just up in the atmosphere of some planet (Incuring the wrath of the police). I think i was stuck in the Diso / Lave / Leesti / Ridquat system somewhere, and was so surrounded with pirates that i was unable to get to a decent planet to recruit more staff in order to buy a better ship.

Inevitabley, i missed playing FE2, so last year I searched Google and found a Shareware version - Nice One! Download it here. Note that on this site you can also download Frontier First Encounters. I never played this, although i might have a look one of these days. You can also download French, German and Spanish versions of the games.

I also suggest you visit the Elite Club website, which contails lots of other useful links and help. Remember the copy protection - you need to periodically enter security codes from the manual in Page number, Line number, Letter number format. Thats still in there, although if your like me and still own the original boxed game and manual, then just use this!

When you have read the notes on getting Frontier Elite 2 to work you will see that it has to work on pure DOS mode - something that most people don't know much about. You can download a program called DOS Box, which sets up a DOS environment from Windows. Make sure to read the notes here carefully. After a few goes with it and a bit of fiddling around i got the thing to work.

Finally, if you're lazy and want to dive stright in with a big ship, ive made my own save game available for download, from my own "Our Media" profile. Just click the link where it says "This media file's URL". I got as far as owning a Panther Clipper, and i found i could make vast ammounts of money by trading Robots and Computers on the black market, on Earth or Mars. Sell all your ship's equipment to make room for ALL CARGO - don't worry, there are safe planets to visit in the area, all you need to keep are docking computer and atmospheric shielding. How about that?! Download the small file and put it somewhere in the same location you put your main Frontier game folder. Happy Trading!

Many thanks to all at Frontier Astro for giving me a huge sense of nostalgia. Respect

Retro Gaming

2005-09-21T02:48:00.000-07:00

Ive been wanting to make a post like this for a while. It seems like it will be a long post, but maybe i will make it several posts, each with its own theme perhaps.
Ever since the early 80's I was into gaming. It fascinated me - i would spend hours and hours as a kid trying to max out the score counter, get 99 lives, get every secret and complete all the special missions, hacking into games with a plug in cartridge, even programming my own games from the back of the manual or from magazines and books. I collected piles of Zzap magazines until they flowed out from under my bedroom door. My parents were often fraustrated as i hogged the only TV in the house, finally relenting to buy me and my brother another small TV for ourselves. I would beg my mum for pocket money so i could buy cheap cassettes for £1.99, and possibly the better games for £5 / £10 on birthdays or christmas.
As i got older and met other like minded gaming buddies at boarding school, things got so obsessive that my work suffered (so what?), but at least i became a games guru amongst my friends, and probably a geek to my non-friends and other 'normal' people.
Here is a brief summary of my gaming and computer history :
Vic 20 -
Pet Commodore -
Commodore 64 -
Acorn BBC Model B / BBC Master
BBC Archimedes -
Commodore Amiga 500 -
Atari ST / Mega ST -
Nintendo
Sony Playstation 1
Nintendo 64
PC
_____________POST UNFINISHED______________________

Jabberwocky - Lewis Carrol

2005-09-20T04:29:00.000-07:00

Jabberwocky

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

The Rhino Bitch

2005-09-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

Ok everyone - this is good for a giggle! Visit this link to download some 4 movie files of a film called The Rhino Bitch. If you havn't got Real Player, get it here. Let me explain what this is about, as this story is ten years old.

I saw my mate Neil Arnold earlier in the year, who lives in the village i grew up in. Thats 'Armitage' - we are famous for manufacturing toilets and bathroom stuff (Armitage Shanks). Anyway, we were reminiscing about a club night, which us group of lads went to at the Que Club in Birmingham, in 1995. It was an allnighter, finished 7am i think, banging Techno and Hard Trance. Another mate was DJing - his name is Simon Gilchreest (used to play the Love Shack in Blackpool). It was to be my 21st birthday party, so i wanted a 'special' event, or perhaps one i would find difficult to remember in future!

During the course of the night, a little worse for wear, me and some of the lads went and slumped in a chill out room off to the side. There was a wierd film being projected onto a wall which spun me out - i thought it was some sort of mad snuff movie as i watched - some monster tearing the 'bits' off this unlucky chap, and generally lots of people getting brutally killed by this bizarre creature in a rhinocerous costume.

Well anyway, that was that, and for a few years after, the night was ocasionally mentioned, including this strange film which we all remember different parts of. Moving on to this year then, like i say, i met up with Neil and we decided to search google for this elusive Rhino Bitch. Success straight away! We downloaded it and watched it again - 10 years on! I can tell you, the tears of laughter were flowing, he heh!!! I was so filled with nostalgia that i emailed the film maker, Thomas Lawes, saying how much i enjoyed watching the Rhino Bitch after all this time, and where could i buy the DVD?

I'd really like to host a party one of these days, and play this film just with video only. Since no such DVD exists, there must be a way to convery RM files into DVD. Anyone know how to do this?

Internet Radio - Progressive House

2005-09-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

Ive just been listening to Mark Santangelo, Kosmas Epsilon and Logiztic all playing storming sets on Frisky Radio - great stuff! Someone get me a tracklist! My buddy Stu tipped me off - we both know Mark. These guys are starting their night in November : Nocturnal (When i know full details i'll edit this post)

The show on Frisky, called Un-Limited, runs every third monday in the month from 9:00 pm, although there are loads of other shows. Its best heard with Winamp - the most useful and reliable player ive come accross - and i've tried a good many! Frisky streams at 160kbps which is pretty good quality. If you don't use Winamp, you're missing out! Get it here

I don't listen enough to prog house radio shows. I think the last one i heard was Matthew Dekay DJ on Essential Mix last November - and what a show! If anyone out there wants to recommend a station, feel free to! Comments below.

Straws and Spaghetti

2005-09-19T02:08:00.000-07:00

colours! (clear version)
Originally uploaded by k.o.m.e..

I've been adding to my Flickr Favourites - that is, going through other Flickr users' photos, and any i find which i really like, i can add them to my own 'favourites' collection.
Anyhow, i find these two images are amazing! Well done to both TA and Rune T for finding studding shots in the most innocuous of places.

Spaghetti 2
Originally uploaded by Rune T.

Mushroom Magic!

2005-09-16T04:16:00.000-07:00

Charcoal Burner Negative Art
Originally uploaded by Moochy.

Some of you perhaps know that i have a somewhat unusual habit of photographing fungi. I host all my photos on flickr, where other users can comment on your images, forum style. While on holiday in france last week i took this 'Negative Art' picture of a fungus called a Charcoal Burner (one of the Russula family).

However, when i came to upload my holiday photos, i saw i there had been some recent activity by a flickr user called Webgrrl, who had posted this image under one of my other fungus photos :

This seems to be an in image linking to her Blog all about her favourite fungi - and she seems to have good taste!

Links to legal Artist Download Sites

2005-08-30T02:20:00.000-07:00

You've probably seen the links to the right, taking you to my artist profile on several different music-hosting websites. I and many others offer their music to download for free, in the hope of attracting new fans or record label interest. I figure that the more of these sites i can join and upload my music to, the more i can spread myself (and links to this blog) around the net.

Earlier i was doing a search for similar sites and came across a site run by Michael D. Crawford. I read its contents with great interest, especially the part which lists all the music hosting and legal download sites, both free and pay-per-download. I will be spending time creating profiles on as many of these as i can, hoping to get more downloads. I'm not saying my music is amazing or anything (in fact, i'll be the first to say its crap), but since time is the great Fixer, i will only get better. Besides, having a lively 20-month old son and a house-proud wife prevents me from spending as much time producing as i would like.

Incidently, anyone who does want to download my tunes for themselves, just to clarify this : the post below will let you play two songs but not to download them. For that you must visit any of the links to the right, under the photograph, such as Dance Industries / MP3 Unsigned / Acid Planet etc....
And to finish off - i'm off to France (Brittany) this week to stay in a large Villa with 6 families. Thats 8 children under 4 and nine adults. Only three of us are blokes. Oh...my...god...
Moochy

My Tracks

2005-08-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

This post is a feedback point for my track so that people can leave a comment (no expletives please!). I've put this little flash player in, which simply plays the mp3 directly from the host server without navigating away from this page.

Autumn Fun :

You should be able to see the player just above. If all you can see is a white strip, it's likely you need the flash plugin installed - get it here.

Please leave a comment below - i value your criticism! If youre also an unsigned producer, please feel free to add a link to your own pages and i'll give you some feedback myself. If you like, I'll add a link to your own site here in my blog. Thanks for listening!

Moochy gets into Psytrance!

2005-08-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog.

I just got into this side of house music called Psytrance, in particular a producer called Simon Posford. Its such a difference to Prog, even with all it's many guises. This stuff just sits out there, with darkness and moody, twisted synth lines. Phat as fook mon.

Where can i go in Manchester to hear this? - i got a birthday mash-it-up night coming up in September. Anyhow, if anyone in the know wants to suggest some artists & Producers to check, i'd be grateful. In the meantime, thanks to Dr Jehr who has been educating me - he knows much about psytrance.

By the way, i watched the Che Guevara and the Motorcycle Diaries film last night (see post below). Thanks to Si for the loan. I was quite impressed at how the film makers portrayed Ernesto being influenced by seeing the plight of the americam people. However, it contained only this part of his life and not his campaining years. It'd be good if some film maker did a film about the Cuban Revolution!

Thats all for now folks.
Moochy

Che Guevara

2005-08-02T17:42:00.000-07:00

Ive just been looking for some photos of Cuba, Thailand and Egypy to include in a long post im doing on my holidays. I came accross a link here about Che Guevara, relating to the recent film, The Motorcycle Diaries". I read it with mixed feelings. I always thought Che appeared to be a hero-type figure. He certainly achieved much for the Cuban Revolution, and the Cuban paople talk about him with reverance. On the outskirts of Santa Clara, there is a HUGE shrine in his memory, with an everlasting candle lit by Fidel Castro., Im' not sure how to take this post. Perhaps it was just written by some bored journalist, or someone doing a paper on martyrs, or just someone who thought the film was crap. Has this person been to Cuba? Strangely, i can understand a lot of what he / she is saying, particularly the bit near the end about the imprisioned poet. While in Cuba we met a Fugitive poet who was being sheltered by a musician in a small town called Remedios. We never learned his name. Could it have been Raúl Rivero? I'll never know, but this guy was intelligent with piercing eyes, spoke extremely good english and was friendly and up for discussing world cultures (rare amongst the Cubans)
I never heard of Che Guevara before going to Cuba, but was fascinated by his life, particularly as the man had chronic Asthma. Those of you who have heard of him should click the link with an open mind.

Online Friends

2005-08-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

Heres a few buddies of mine :
Ofer S - from Israel, Tel Aviv i think. Hes a DJ and producer and knows some big names on the club scene over there. We have had many chats about music production, software and the like and have swapped demos.
KaTgirL - Top lass from Leicester. She's given me many good titles to get and seems to know a shed load about progressive house. How can people know so much? She's constantly on slsk of an evening, heh he!
keane1 - John, brother-in-law to a very good friend of mine who is called Stu. It was Stu who first revived in me the passion that is Progressive House music, about 3 years ago. Another of our Manchester mates, Mark Santangelo, is currently doing well for himself DJing around the UK and Europe, and plays online for clubs and radio stations. His mixes can be had from www.limitmusic.com
rubinstine - One of my neighbours and a studio buddy. Rubin plays bass and drums and has got a well nice little studio in his basement. I want to move in with him!

Holidays

2005-08-02T04:20:00.000-07:00

Its been well over 2 years now since i had a decent holiday abroard - not to worry though, because i've hammered England / Scotland / Wales as perfectly good substitutes. They are cheaper, more accessable, nearer home, i can understand the language, the beer is great, and many more reasons i can think of why the UK is the best place in the world to be.

I wouldn't say that ive been all over the world (I'll leave that to the likes of my girlfriend and our friends) but ive seen a nice amount of stuff abroard. What i'm going to do below is to list the places ive been with a brief summary of what i did, along with some good memories and any other info as i remember.

Cuba - November 2000

Backpacking round Central / Western Cuba for a month. Places visited : Havana, Pinar del Rio, Vinales, Maria la Gorda, Santa Clara, Remedios, Trinidad.
Here are some pics of things around Cuba - they are not mine, i need to scan all my photos in - so thanks to all the Flickr users for links. Unfortunatly i couldnt manage to blog the images in with this post.
1. Revolution Square, Havana Thanks to Barrybar.
2. Vinales Mogotes Thanks to Robin Thom
3. Old Vieja, Havana Thanks to jcgonz
4. 1957 Chevy Thanks to Cyberesque
5. Cigar & Havana Club Thanks to hmichel777

Thailand - February 2002

Travelled round places in roughly 4 week 'blocks'. First week - chilling out in Koh Samui, Bo Phut beech. Took speedboat over to Koh Phanghan for a Full Moon Beech Party (and what a party!).
Week 2 - Learning to Scuba Dive at Koh Tao. Took the PADI Open Water course and a few extra fun dives. Also snorkelled with White-Tip Reef Sharks - a very scary encounter i can tell you! While here, i met some cool people including a guy called Rolf Schid. He is an underwater photographer, and was at the time doing his Enriched Air PADI course (allowing you to stay underwater for longer). We swapped email addresses, and after the holiday he sent me links to his pictures. These are above water and these are under water. If you look at the above water pics, im in there somewhere drinking Singha beer and Chang. They give you an idea of what Thailand's Island beech life is like. Fortunatly, Thailand's Eastern Gulf islands were spared the horrors of the Tsunami, where so many people were killed or displaced.
Week 3 was spent in the Khao Sok National Park. This was the heighlight of the trip - me and Viv did jungle treks with two local Thai lads, and we were rewarded on her birthday by seeing a black panther and a huge Reticulated Python lying in ambush in the river bed we were walking up. Watching the gibbons up in the jungle canopy through my binoculars is something that will stay with me forever! As will hearing the Cicada beetles and the frog's chorus in the evening.
Week 4 was spent in and around Bangkok checking out the sites and temples / palaces etc. Great stuff. Yep - Thailand was great and everyone should go. While planning the holiday, i found a great Thailand Travel Forun herewhich people might find useful.

Egypt - January 2003

Around this time everyone was very jumpy about Muslim countries, you know, around the time just before the second Gulf War. Because of this, we were able to get a very cheap two-week package holiday in Sharm-el-Sheik. As you may know, this very touristy and also very nice place has recently been bombed by terrorists. Our first week was spent exploring the area, and studdying for our Advanced PADI Open Water course. Woo-hoo!
We can now dive to 30 metres, a fact of diving which became all too surreal for me at one point. I had a funny turn underwater at 30m, or a panic attack which i found hard to control. I and my diving instructor reasoned that i had not drunk enough water, or that nitrogen narcosis was creeping in. For those of you who don't know about scuba, nitrogen narcosis happens when, at depths of +30m, the nitrogen you breathe in your air tank becomes halucinagenic! Cool - Tripping underwater! No, seriously, it was a wierd experience but it didnt put me off doing more dives, although i think i learned more respect. Scuba Diving isn't a game...... The snorkelling just offshore was amazing as well!
Our second week we decided to hell with packages and nice hotels, lets just head inland on a bus. We had arranged to meet some friends from Chorlton (Johnny & Caroline) in Luxor - this is where internet cafes come into their own! So we met up and stayed at a nice place on the West Bank. On one day, we hired bikes and cycled up to the Valley of the Kings (man, HOW HOT WAS THAT!) and went round a load of tombs and temples. Very impressive stuff - ACE! After that we had a night in Luxor city and went round Karnak Temple - also very cool indeed.
Yeah, that was top, but we had to get back to Sharm for the last few days. Did some more dives, including a night dive (pink jellyfish pink jellyfishpink jellyfish....in torchlight lol!) and i did a "Peak Performance Buoyancy Dive" to finish off my Advanced course. We both opted to do one of our dives on Fish Identification - theres a Global Project going on called Project Aware, where divers can join in with sending their collected data to an organisation. Sounded good we thought. So i bought a fish slate, and the advanced PADI book. What the hell! And that was pretty much Egypt. Had a great time.
Oh, and it was on this holiday that me and Viv decided we both wanted to have a baby. So we filled up our diaries with many short breaks and trips away, and had sex for England. To put it bluntly.

Chervil at Uffington

2005-07-27T16:21:00.000-07:00

Chervil in Uffington
Originally uploaded by Moochy.

My Pride and Joy of Room Design! lol, not really - but i put more effort into building this room than any others. I wanted to make it all like a bedsit or flat, you know, with its own little areas in. Can you see the beer cans, pizza box, and Aloe Vera plant? At the time i made these rooms, i was well in to reading 'Duncton Wood'.

A BIG prize if anyone can leave a comment saying who Chervil's father is??

Chervil in the Duncton Garden

2005-07-27T16:15:00.000-07:00

Chervil in Gardens
Originally uploaded by Moochy.

Before i cannibalised the garden (robbing bits for other rooms) it looked quite good, with every sort of plant ever on Habbo. Some of the items cost a fortune, such as the three 'petal patches' on the left corner. Some are only available as 'seasonals' like the Poinsetta plant, Hyacinth or Holly Sprig (Christmas) or the Red Roses (Valentines)

Chervil in Battle Hall

2005-07-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

Chervil in Battle Hall
Originally uploaded by Moochy.

This room was an attempt on an arty-type chessboard, using garden statues, candle stick holders and lampshades. I made this room when i used to hammer Final Fantasy a lot.

The Half Blood Prince

2005-07-20T02:13:00.000-07:00

Even as an adult i am fascinated by Harry Potter. JK Rowling paints a very compelling world - her books are both easy to read and the plots are deep. I blame my own boarding school background and Enyd Blyton as the culprits!

Anyhow, i finished reading the Half Blood Prince over the weekend it was released, and i immediately wanted to discuss it with others. My missus has the reading pace of a snail, so i'll have to wait a few days before i get any decent discussion there.

So the questions we all want to know, Who is RAB ? Is the answer as obvious as we think?

(EDIT) Thanks to Anthony's Blog for this interesting post about HBP.

Yellow Patches Fungi

2005-07-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

Yellow Patches Fungi
Originally uploaded by Mr. Physics.

Nice one! What about this for a fine-looking fungus! The owner of this photo on Flickr has quite a talent.

Into Nothing Remix

2005-07-05T17:26:00.000-07:00

I made this remix arrangement back in January of a track called 'Blue Haze - Into Nothing (Bill Hammel's Last Time For 9 Vocal Mix)'. The original tune - Blue Haze is Michael Burns - was itself remixed by Bill Hamel. I own a vinyl copy of this record, released by Saw Recordings. I liked it so much that i was moved to try and recreate it, using absolutely NO MIDI FILES OR SAMPLES WHATSOEVER, a fact which i am rather proud of! And thats just what i did. I wanted to get a female vocalist to undertake the vocal part, but she left my course before i had chance to ask her. I worked on it until i couldn't bear to listen to it any longer, so its still unfinished. And then i emailed it off to Hector Romero at Saw Recordings, who replied back saying they liked it but couldn't do anything with it, and could i send them something original?

It does concern me that i have probably infringed copyright here, but i do not intend to do anything commercially with this in any way, shape or form. I have uploaded it purely for people to see and hear what i can do. Incidently, i do quite a bit of this - recreating tunes i really like - who knows, maybe someone will pick up on this and offer me some remix work. It would be a hell of a lot easier with MIDI files and .wav samples, i can tell you!!! Anyone wanna try me out???

Blue Haze - Into Nothing (Moochy Mix)

You should be able to see the player just above. If all you can see is a white strip, it's likely you need the flash plugin installed - get it here.

Lake District secret

2005-06-22T04:21:00.000-07:00

Ive just come back from a camping break in Eskdale, Cumbria. While there I discovered Mitterdale, a well kept secret and very much unfrequented by the tourist masses. Also found an overgrown but partially restored Japanese Garden which is a very fine one as they go. Here is a nice pic of Dryad's Saddle Polypore thich is the second one Ive found yet, and in perfect condition. Gonna go back on next visit to the Lakes and drink Sneck Lifter :)

Panther Cap / Amanita Pantherina

2005-06-09T14:18:00.000-07:00

Panther Cap / Amanita Pantherina
Originally uploaded by Moochy.

Fancy!

2005-06-08T16:41:00.000-07:00

Honey Fungus

2005-06-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

Panther Cap

2005-06-08T16:24:00.000-07:00

Jake at two days old

Free Software Programs / Utilities

2005-06-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

The list below is a collection of free software. All are free. They are all either open-source, freeware, trial versions / demos. I will keep adding to this list and also updating the links as they change (i.e. when new versions are released). Please feel free to suggest any other utility programs you use, in the comments below. And remember, wherever possible, boycott Microsoft software - there is much better software out there written by good people who care about their product.

Mozilla Firefox v1.07
Everyone should be using Mozilla's fantastic Internet Browser. If you are still using Internet Explorer, you should be ashamed of yourself. Firefox is very smart and far more secure. A lot of websites display better with Firefox. Direct download here.

Mozilla Thunderbird v1.0
Mozilla's e-mail client is the perfect compliment to Firefox. A no-nensence program and not filled with useless junk, like Outlook is. Direct download here.

Macromedia Flash Player Plugin
With the Flash Player you will be able to view Flash graphics routines and animation on most websites, without needing any other video download support. Direct download here.

Macromedia Shockwave Player
You will have access to some of the best the Web has to offer - including dazzling 3D games and entertainment, interactive product demonstrations, and online learning applications. Shockwave Player displays Web content that has been created by Macromedia Director. Direct download here.

Real Networks Real Player
Sometimes you need Real Player to view special movie files. Thats all i use it for, but you can stream audio and video, and other stuff too. Direct download here.

Nullsoft Winamp v5.11
Ive tried many media players, and Winamp beats them all hands down. Many audio / video / radio websites write handy plugins for Winamp. Forget Windows Media Player! Direct download here.

RAR Lab Winrar v3.51
If you download a lot, its likely you will encounter compressed (or Zipped) files. People compress, or shrink files which means a faster, safer download. Direct download here.

Illustrate dB Power Amp v11.5
This program is an all-singing-all-dancing, audio file format converter. Say no more - if you need to convert something, this program is for you. Direct download here.

Iomatic Disk Medic v.3.0
A program that 'tidies up' your hard drives. Scans your PC, Finds junk, reclaim space and more. Handy for all that essential maintenance. Direct download here.

Iomatic Registry Medic v4.0
Useful for speeding up start times, removing obsolete files and generally sorting out your cluttered registry. Direct download here.

Iomatic RAM Medic v4.0
If you're short of RAM and need it all for your audio system, use this program to manage your RAM usage effectively. Direct download here.

ZJComputing WinAVI Video Converter v7.1
Converts to and from all the popular AV formats, at an unmatchable speed and high quality. Supports burning. A must have for anyone who downloads video files of the internet. Direct download here.

Javacool Spyware Blaster v3.4
Does what it says on the tin. Finds and kills nasty spyware. If you havn't got a spyware program yet, start here! Direct download here.

Java Runtime Environment

Moochy and the Hedgehogs!

2005-06-08T04:12:00.000-07:00

Fine looking Hedgehog!

This was an amazing piece of luck which came our way on tuesday night whilst sitting round a candle. I skedadled immediately when it froze to get my camera and we only just got a shot in each before the battery died.

We speculated that this rather cool looking hedgehog probably lives in a twig pile at the end of the garden.
Enjoy!