_ the drums! the drums!

I've been programming the drums. A lot. Good days, bad days....tired days, too much music sometimes. Carnival Of Black still sounds the best in my opinion. Where We Belong is coming along nicely too. I hope it turns out well for Lowlands...

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_ progress

Since setting up Logic Studio 8 in Air Traffic Control (think of it as a home away from home, several stories high and now with superb mixing & production capabilities), I've been able to make real progress with the backing tracks. Hopefully it will all be ready in time for the Lowland Games...no, actually, it WILL be ready in time for the Lowland Games, it has to be!

A Carnival Of Black is ready, sounding great...as is No Man Is An Island, and Red Flag & TNF are done too. More are in progress, plus I started working on a new cover this morning, should go down well with anyone who appreciates their classic rock!

Right, well, better stop posting blogs and get back to work

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_ 24-inch iMac: 2.8GHz of media-loving fun

I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new 24-inch 2.8GHz 2GB memory all-singing-all-dancing Apple iMac =D It will help HUGELY in mixing and producing at home. It will mean no more lack of sunlight, living in Bombshelter Studios, no more *hoping* that there will be a studio free on downtime. I'll be able to record at Bombshelter, then come back home and mix mix mix the night away...

SO...hopfully it will arrive in time for the Lowland Games, in time for me to make my own god-damn electronic drum backing track sample thinger.

You can rely on no-one but yourself.

Remember that my friend........................

On a more musical note, I have plenty of new songs that I cannot wait to play live. Some of the titles include:

A Carnival Of Black
Where We Belong
Pleased To Please You
Things Will Change
No Man Is An Island (Except Me)

Plus a veritable album of unfinished ideas, odds & ends, as mentioned in a previous post. Expect much fun, frolics and comedy covers at the Lowland Games in a couple of weekends. Ok, one comedy cover.

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_ knife crime.

It's everywhere recently. You read the papers, it's there. You turn on the TV, and its another figure, statistic, a growing number on the tally chart of young people knifed for the most trivial of reasons. It's something that's impossible to ignore. Just take a look at the Google search of 'BBC' and 'knife crime'. Much of it is from this year alone. The danger is that after a while the term 'knife crime' - much like 'gun crime' and any other type of crime - becomes just a buzz word. It even shifts the blame away from the individual and onto the knife.

I think as a country, Britain is becoming engulfed by this...and to be honest, sometimes I can't tell if it's hysteria or a genuine rise in incidents. I don't say this to belittle the problem; I just have a deep mistrust of anything the media swing my way, and believe you can't know the absolute truth unless you go out there for yourself and make your own findings (much like Al Gore, but that's another story...). But in the end, the papers are not making it up, and there's a sick problem out there.

The thing is, it's not exactly anything new. Teddy boys of the 50s were renowned for their razor blade and knife brandishing and use. It's a whole culture that revolves around bravado, intimidation, and turning to weapons to give certain people a sense of power and control over their (and others') lives that they may not otherwise have. Did you watch 'Fallout' on C4 the other night? It was right;

"People talk about the 'war on the streets' - but they're wrong, there is no war, because wars have an end and this just goes on and on and on."

It's a cycle, with so many factors involved. Lack of money, lack of motivation, lack of hope. No aspiration, and a belief that their life is stuck on one level. Those that attack others do so not because they have power, but because they see a certain power in others; it's a fear that while others succeed, they'll get left behind. How will it end? Who knows if it will ever end. There's always been people like that, and there always will be. There's no black without white, and no good without bad. It's just making damn sure they don't outnumber the ones who have a chance of making it out of there.

Ok, well here's a little something I wrote, thought I'd get all this off my chest in one big blog post. Oh, and here's a clue if you're still puzzled at the end: tally.

The Drip Drip Drop

The drip drip drop
The sound of another
A childless mother
Four lines,

The drip drip drop
When will it stop?
We're all at a loss
One across.

The drip drip drop
A city disease
Deaf to the pleas
Four lines,

The drip drip drop
A failing crop
Life became a cost
One across.

The drip drip drop
The animals run
To the sound of guns
Four lines,

The drip drip drop
How can it stop?
We're all at a loss
One across.

Your thoughts please (and I mean the issue, not the poem!)

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_ a great day for bullying

I am of course referring to Zimbabwe. What can I say. Nothing really. Disappointment.

_ if you haven't got anything nice to say

...don't say anything at all. So goes the saying...

On the other hand, if you have something nice to say, do tell =] Possibly one of the best quotes of the day comes from a French fan on Facebook;

"LONG LIVE TO WILLIAM ECHO AND HIS FOLKTRONICAROCK !!! :D"

Phew! Talk about enthusiasm. Thanks Chris! And while I'm at it, thank you to Ms. Khor for writing a great review of the Satellites EP on the Facebook group. If you haven't joined the group yet, go ahead!

Cheers everyone =]




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_ bits & pieces

Whenever I get an idea for a song I tend to record it on my mobile so I can use it later. The recording is always crap, quiet, and extremely tinny, but it means that if I'm having a couple of weeks where I can't seem to come up with anything new, I can listen back to the recordings on my phone and get some new ideas.

The only trouble is I never remember I recorded them in the first place! The other night, however, struggling to get to sleep, I decided to listen back to the bits & pieces I had recorded over the past 6 months, and you know what? I reckon I have about an album's worth of new and unfinished material just on my phone - plus new songs I have been writing over the past few weeks.

It's been really quiet recently, I'm so used to being in the studio and having new songs to put on MySpace and generally rant about on the internet...but the studios I record in are shut until September (or even possibly October!), so I think I'll use it as time to write songs, get new ideas, and come ready at the start of the new academic year with an arsenal of songs to record. I'm also still trying to put together this live show - some people are proving elusive and others extremely willing & helpful. Slowly but surely I'll sort something out. I have to! I'm playing at the Lowland Games at the end of July and I want it to be spectacular. Or at least mildly interesting. ;-)




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_ come gather 'round people

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

If you hear only one piece of new music today, let it be Jona Byron's cover of Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin'

http://www.myspace.com/jonabyron




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_ motion picture moods

A homage to Erno Rappee...

I did some film music recently, as part of my university degree. I thought I'd share the results with everyone online - I'm thinking, it's still William Echo music, right?

Anyway, the brief was to write music for film (the default film given was Love Is The Devil with Daniel Craig and Derek Jacobi - wiki entry here) - I was unimaginative and chose the default film for the course. I had 2 assignments, both to do 10 minutes of music. For the first one I used MIDI instruments and tweaked the EQs and added plugins to make them sound as realistic as possible. For the second assignment, I wanted to use some real instruments - but was pushed for time. So, I ended up recording and layering electric guitar and mixing it with a little MIDI, and recorded some MIDI piano for a cartoon I found online. If the owner of the cartoon is reading this, please don't sue me :D I tried to make this a bit like a silent film, but with Rachmaninov and Liszt influences/rip-offs.

All the intruments and sounds are performed by me, written in Logic 8 in about a week. Enjoy!

Assignment 1



Assignment 2

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