music and the rest

Whitebait doesn't usually do 'what I did on the weekend' kinds of posts but sometimes a change is good so here is a grab-bag of the things, erm, grabbing his attention over the last few days:

-Finished David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas earlier last week. Here is an A.S.Byatt review of it - but it is an unecessary read really and probably a whole lot better if you just go and get this book if you haven't already read it.  The most exciting and gripping book Whitebait has read for years. Anyway, so W. went on a mission on the weekend to get some new reading. Ended up with Mitchell's first book, Ghostwritten,  and Delia Falconer's The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers (which W. has been meaning to get for ages - is true D, if you happen to be reading!).

-Got a plug from the talented and funny 'l'nfantile terrible of Singapore' himself, MrBrown, who quoted a recent comment by Whitebait to the effect that he is an 'A-grade gear slut'. I hasten to add, dear readers, that this was in fact a compliment to Mr B. (In fact I'm hoping to use Mr B's famous name to help me with the speedy replacement of an external hard drive, purchased at Singaporean electronics mecca Sim Lim Square, which soon after died - 'yeah, Mr Brown say you replace or else he will go to Funan IT mall'). Mr B used your bloggeur's compliment (yes, really) as a nice anecdotal beginning to a satiric column in Today (Whitebait may have to go into transnational competition with MrBrown's frequent partner in blogging crime, Mr Miyagi, whose tagline used to read (just noticed!) 'as spoken about in the Sydney Morning Herald' but is now the equally droll  'Miyagi.SG: We don’t talk about the elections here'. Whitebait in the City - as mentioned [in] Today. Excellent.

-Celebrated FrauleinDrDr's birthday in a very low key but lovely way with a trip to the Vic markets and some breakfast at the nearby Piazza Vittoria cafe (an old standby on a Saturday morning). Had to come home and do some journal entry marking for work but felt more relaxed once that was polished off.

-Went with FrauleinDrDr to The Empress on Saturday night to catch workmate M. who is the driving force behing Koshowko who were playing support for winduptoys (another member of the fabulous Clan Analogue, an Australian electronic music collective). Koshowko  (featuring two performers that night) was outstanding and it was inspiring to hear a combo of laptop, synth, saxaphone and flute working so well. Yay for local live music of this calibre. But have sent M./Koshowko an email about the quote on his home page about music writing, dancing and architecture as W. suspects it was Elvis Costello rather that Frank Zappa. Am hoping he doesn't find that too querulous.

-Bought a copy of Lotek Hifi's Mixed Blessings album after watching a great one hour 'in-the-studio-making-a-track' with Wayne 'lotek' Bennett. The album is a real grower - like it a lot. Bennett is a charming guy who you can imagine it would be great to hang out with and talk about geek-boy computer music stuff and old movies. His best gear story was about a mission 5.1 centre speaker he picked up for a one pound because the store owner thought they usually came in pairs. The interview was on a dvd that came with a music-making mag purchased on Friday.

-Inspired by general music vibe in the air spent most of Sunday working on the first co-written original track with FrauleinDrDr. And it sounds respectable and listenable he thinks. Will take a couple of weeks work but will post it here eventually to get some feedback. Have had the luxury of a spare room to set up a studio space since return from Japan and it has a great vibe. Gratuitous and pointless photos coming soon.

-Also, a link arrived from Whitebait's good Japaneses friend K (I will write soon K - I promise!) to a video featuring his friend and all round nice guy, Ami, who is a Tokyo dj and producer in the psy/trance scene. Whitebait was fortunately enough to meet Ami and hear him play when living there (a favourite was a set of old japanese pop tunes from the 70s that Ami played in a tatami-matted chill space - a perfect surface for dancing in bare feet). Even better yet, Ami had the extraordinary patience late one night in a Shibuya cafe to work directly on a Whitebait track and to not laugh but to instead offer a few invaluable tips about getting the bass and kick working together.  Anyway, Ami also has a background as a vocalist and here he is in an extraordinarily hybrid track from Israeli trance crew Skazi's and their  'Hit and Run'. Ami looks pretty tough and scary here (he has some great Japanese tattoos) but, be reassured, he is a lovely guy and actually rather dapper-looking in person.

Enough already.