The Firebird (2001) - BBC Opus Arte

I bought this a while back but I only got around to watching it this weekend. It's a BBC recording of The Royal Ballet's 2001 production of Stravinsky's The Firebird. Also included as a secondary feature, is their production of Les Noces.


Leanne Benjamin as The Firebird. Partnered by Jonathan Cope as Ivan Tsarevich.


In this clip Ivan has summoned the Firebird where she forces the crowd of Kostchei's followers to dance until they are exhausted.


The immortal Kostchei (David Drew) showing off his decorative cape, which seems to be adorned by a variation of the Mandelbrot Set.


A clip from The Wedding Feast section of Les Noces (original choreography by Nijinksa!) It's easy to hear the influence Stravinsky had on Christian Vander's Zeuhl genre of music. Watching Les Noces reminded me that I wasn't completely mad when I first proposed a ballet based on Vander's music.



As beautiful as the two productions are, the extra's included on the disc deserve to be mentioned too. Included is the entire recording of a 1965 performance of the Firebird, conducted by Stravinsky himself! Truly fascinating to see the man at work.


David Drew talks candidly about his experience with Nijinska while performing in Les Noces. A funny and charming interview, and again fascinating.


The last feature included on the disc is a collection of rehearsal footage, interviews etc. of those involved with and performing in The Firebird and Les Noces. In this piece I selected, we hear Monica Mason describe the differences between how the Principals and the Corp de Ballet rehearse.



It's very rare to see a "Digital" sweatshirt now. It's very rare to see a "Digital" anything to be honest.


Awww :)

Thats that. Not quite a review, more of a sampling of whats on the dvd. Some final details would include that the main features are filmed in anamorphic 16/9 and both a stereo and 5.1 soundtrack is available. Sound quality is excellent and theres a good thump from orchestral hits.

I bought my copy from Amazon, although play.com have it for cheaper. Don't forget the Billy Cobham version of The Firebird I mentioned before.


La Sylphide is a subsidiary of Riemann's Cut

MUSE - H.A.A.R.P.

I finally got a copy of it and its been on repeat ever since.


First impressions: just look at the above still, its fuckin' luscious! There's a rough kind of doomsday, radiation, biohazard theme to the concert and the video footage has been toned to match. There's a lot of grain and a lot of stark DV wash outs. It reminded me of a few movies filmed on DV actually, "28 Days Later" being one, but this time with a better plot. STALKER might be a better comparison.


Even the fans look luscious! The editing is a mixture between the quick slice n'dice of the Hullabaloo but with the more traditional feel of the Absolution tour DVD. I guess they are trying to cater for those who hated one or the other.


It's time to spot the gear. This is NOT Chris Wolstenholm, the unofficial 4th member of Muse, keeping it all together in the background. Lets have a closer look.


Right I see a Novation ReMote SL61 anyway :) and theres a Zero hiding somewhere in the background too :) Korg Kaoss Pad, a Nord of some sort, a Mac running Logic, etc. etc.... did I mention a Novation ReMote SL Zero :)


Luscious!

Oh in case you're wondering, HAARP stands for High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. All I know is that Nikola Tesla invented it and someone built it.

Cork Nights

Photo by Donncha O'Caoimh

This has taken me over a year to finish, and finish is being facetious. I have abandoned this song, I need to move on from it. Not that I feel bad about it, it was Da Vinci that said art is never finished only abandoned. Every now and again I would tinker at it adding and subtracting bits, so for better or worse this is it.

Cork Nights (Document 8).mp3

Being, in actuality, an immigrant to Cork, the city still holds an air of magic to it. Its that sense you get when something is familiar but not quite native. There's a distinct definite feeling I get when I think about the city, and for me at least, this song evokes that feeling every time I listen to it.

Anyway, one night last year while returning home, polluted from the nights frolics and feeling slightly melancholic, I watched the traffic and night rebeler's out the car window as we traveled. I had this sombre melody playing over in my head, along with a rough chord progression. When I got back home I sat down and recorded a rough sketch of I had been hearing. As the days went on, I fleshed the ideas out and made a fuller, (albeit extremely rough) piano, bass and drum version. And after that it just evolved as you would imagine any other song would. This is where the "Document 8" title came from as each iteration of the song would be saved as a new Reason "document". Minor changes meant the file only got a letter attached to the end. Document 7 went up to "g" because I swore Document 8 was where I was going to call it a day.

There's very little actual programming in the tune but plenty of quantising and alterations to notes. Nearly everything was played live, including the percussion and "guitar solo" at the end. Ah yes, a good old guitar wankery solo at the end. I remember it so clearly, I was just after watching an episode of Ugly Betty and I lashed out an overthetop guitar ending in two takes. It was a joke to begin within, still could be I guess :) Anyway thats it now. FIN.

[image source]

MUSE - Butt Plug Baby

What did poor old Matt Bellamy do to deserve all this lol While I was working on Document 8 I took a break and figured out the main hook from Plug In Baby by MUSE. A few moments of messing and this is the result. All played by hand but heavily quantised.

The title is just an obvious pun on the original. I did have great fun coming up with the cover art. Bellamy has a great expression on his face, such gleefulness almost as if to say: "Butt Mellamy reporting for service!"

Its only a minute long so it won't waste a lot of your life.

Butt Plug Baby.mp3

And this is what its meant to sound like. Plug In Baby as performed on their new HAARP dvd. I'm still waiting for play.com to deliver a copy to me. Bastards!



Don't forget my other bottom related Muse title, "Supermassive Black Hump". A mashup between MUSE and the Black Eyed Peas. I still honestly prefer it to the original Supermassive Black Hole, as do a few others.



Supermassive Black Hole.mp3

[Update 28.02.09] Looks like photobucket deleted my cover art. Talk about extreme censorship. A butt plug is offensive now apparently.

New Layout

I've switched things around a bit. I had to add another layer because I really needed to have pc keyboard out all the time (for shortcuts etc.) I've also added some *ahem* studio monitors :) These are professinal and not just cheap hi-fi speakers, oh no... have a look...



Yep they be genuine Genelec's them! In fairness though, all I need is hifi sound, as a reference to what my music will sound like in general. I'll still use headphones for more accurate monitoring.

More M3/Hill of Tara stuff

"I like it, lets do it!" Bertie Ahern's reaction to image [possibly]

I noticed that the hilloftara blog spotted St. Patrick wearing a "Save Tara" t-shirt in the Dublin parade on Monday. Lets have a look at this shall we:


There he is alright, with the T-Shirt. A Christian saint, who originally came here to save us from Paganism, who now wants to save a Pagan site of worship, sounds about right...


And how will he stop the motorway going past Tara... yep on a big ol' Motortrike! Talk about fucking irony. Look the legend goes: Patrick went up on the hill and told the Pagans: "get back ye bastards, I'll break yer legs!". If he had a bulldozer at the time he would have leveled it himself.

Squeak (Indymedia still say its "Squeek") was smoked out of her hole. As soon as she did the bulldozers came in. Did she really think they wouldn't. Anyway here's a video of her going into her hole initially:



I'll say one thing for the girl, she pulled a great Jackson Pollock when they took this shot of her. A gooey crusty; sounds almost culinary.



Why didn't they just move the damn road. Its not like they were trying to keep up a good record of Irish planning. Roads in Ireland are formed willy nilly. The m50 needs another lane and by the time thats built it will need another. As much as I like seeing decent roads being built in Ireland, they sure as fuck make a mess of the planning. As a rule of thumb, never employ an Irish manager.

Note To: Novation Remote Zero SL Users

See that disc above? Thats one of the discs that came with your unit. My advice to you is fuck it in the bin, fuck it in now! All my problems were caused by it and more than likely all your problems will be caused by it too.

It's like its missing half the needed software or something. The unit comes loaded with a Universal Automap template but theres no software on the disc to use it. In fact the year on the disc says 2006 but the Universal Automap was only added in 2007. I don't know what kind of funky shenanigans was going on at Novation when they bundled these two together but I hope they sort it soon.

After you get rid of the disc-of-doom make your way to the Novation website and download the proper up to date software here. My Reason problems were instantly solved without me having to dig around in system files to fix things. Automapping now works for 99% of all my VST plugins. It works for ReWire too.

Novation say version 2.0 of Universal Automap will be available at the end of this month and its touting to be much improved, including a transparent overlay GUI for all midi parameters.

Raggedy Man Joins Raggedy Newspaper

Holy shit, the excitement of it all!


He joins Jooooooooooooe Duffay' The bestist writer... an all star cast so.


"Is it cos I is a good writer?" No, John its not.

Japanese Artist plays Smokin' Jazz

Famed Japanese jazz pianist Yosuke Yamashita has expressed his burning passion for music by setting his piano on fire.

On a Japanese beach in front of 500 spectators and wearing a firesuit, Yamashita played an improvised jazz piece for 10 minutes before all the strings were burnt out or snapped and the piano went quiet.

This is the second time in 35 years that he has played a burning piano.


At least he played the thing, unlike these yobs Music Thing talked about.

[EDIT: Of course another funny title could have Been Japanese Artist plays Smoke On The Water]

[link : via]

Arthur C. Clarke 1917 - 2008

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008[2]) was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name.

Famous for "2001" but in reality so much more. In primary school, our fifth class teacher used to treat use to watching episodes of Clarke's "Mysterious World" every week. The book of the series is of the first books I bought myself and one which I still have in the bookshelf.

[Time's Online Article]

The Piano (1993)

I finally finally watched The Piano this weekend. I remember when it came out in the early 90's so vividly. I put off watching it for so long because I was always anxious over what levels of sexual violence it contained. After watching it now I can say that my fears were not only exaggerated but even perhaps unfounded. I guess it didn't help that every time I thought about Harvey Keitel in it, I was reminded of Robert De Nero's character in Cape Fear

Musically speaking, I was quite used to the score before watching the film. I had bought Michael Nyman's The Piano Concerto when it was released in 1997. Nyman based the concerto around the themes found in the score he wrote for The Piano after a friend suggested the idea. It's divided into four movements: The Beach, The Woods, The Hut and The Release. Also contained on the Naxos release was a single piece entitled Where The Bee Dances. This work was unrelated to the score of The Piano but fit quite well nonetheless, and could be said to be quite reminiscent to the "Here To There" segment found on The Piano's OST. Some years later I went on to purchase this OST also. Both have become two of my favorite works of music.

Having such familiar music as backing to such a powerful and well made film was quite an experience. I was totally enthralled for two hours watching it. I was in tears for half of it. Fantastic, absolutely fantastic, and I know I'm prejudiced because of the music but for me, I still say fantastic. A film worthy of its Oscars, but I can't believe Nyman didn't even get a nomination. Schindlers List would still have won it anyway (if you ever want a bag of Oscars, make a film about the Holocost).

I've included the music video that went along with "The Promise", the main theme from The Piano. It has some great use of a pianola playing the paino roll of the actual score.


The

AVP: Requiem

Karl Hungus has reminded me just how bad AVP: Requiem really is. The first AVP film was dire too, indeed the whole concept is nauseating, but this follow-up truly is gonorrhea for the senses.

There's one scene which sums the film up for me, frankly its a pile of arse. I'll set the scene. The ALFS have been going at it hammer and tongs for about 40 minutes already. Enter the cutesy teen couple having forbidden meetings in the school swimming pool...


"Are you looking at me, or the cock"

So we get a typical cheesy horror-film shot of a girls physique with some stupid dialogue. Fairly mundane cliched horror stuff there. A few seconds pass which include some staged osculation. The tension begins to build, we see some headlights appear (could the Predator be driving a Dodge Challenger?). If you were the film editor, how would you handle this shot? Would you put it together like this...



Yes but of course, show the girls arse again, and stay on it. Sure isn't that the most important thing when a bunch of thugs enter the picture. The tension is building somewhere else and the audience is being directed to a pair of buttocks. Let me add an analogy to this. Imagine your friend Bob was in New York on 9/11 when the Twin Towers came down, and he had his camera with him. You'd ask "hey Bob, did you get any interesting shots on 9/11?". To which he'd reply "I most certainly did!"


My advise to the Strauss Brothers: stick to bangbros.com

[Jeans by TaH]

Socks In The Toilet

http://kimberlychapman.com

I got a bit carried away this morning. I was rolling up yesterdays socks and decided I'd throw them in the toilet for some reason. It just felt good at the time. I have my laundry basket in the bathroom but I aimed at the toilet and thought "Three pointer!!!". As soon at they left my hand I said "oh shit!" and watched as I made the basket, err... toilet. I laughed so much as I picked them out and ran them under the tap. It was perhaps the funniest bit of laundry I ever did. I sometimes think I have the brain cancers.

I like the socks above with all the smiley toes heehee :) but I also like the motorbike boot socks below. I think these would set off a suit quite nicely :)


http://www.motorcycle-superstore.com/

Squeek, Tara Tunnel Girl

Say hello to Squeek everyone. This is the girl who trapped herself in a tunnel under the works for the new M3 motorway which run near to the Hill of Tara. She has attached a man-trap to her neck so that she can't be forcibly removed without the risk of her death.

The Tunnel:


This is the entrance to the tunnel where she is in situ. Jeeps and heavy machinery have been seen passing over the ground where the tunnel is located.


She went down the tunnel happy like this man. She has enough supplies to last for weeks. She will only come out again when works on the motorway are halted.

The Solution to this impasse?


Not my thoughts; yours!

[images via lostvalleyobservatory.com]

The Cathal O'Searcaigh Thing

I watched that documentary on Tuesday last. I had heard about it weeks before hand when listening to a debate on Joe Duffy's Live Line regarding the documentary. First of all, I hadn't heard of this Cathal O'Searcaigh dude before and I was initially shocked when I saw how far "Feargal Sharkey" had let himself go. I soon realised my mistake however.

Well with the way some people were describing O'Searcaighs carry on I was nearly afraid to watch the program. I was well sure we were going to see him dragging 5 year olds off the street into bushes and showing them whats mightier than both the sword and the pen! Instead we get an hour of talking and remanissing, with a lot of smiley faces. Then for 5 minutes we get a few random interviews with young men we hadn't seen before detailing how Cathal dangled money in front of them before dangling his micky. This was the schlockiest piece of film making I've seen in a long time. The film maker wants to be famous so badly I'm surprised she didn't jump out in front of the camera naked! I wouldn't like to go into court with this as my only evidence, thats for sure.

As for his actions, its hard to say, since the documentary was so prejudiced. We don't know for sure what kind of sexual shenanigans he got upto because it was handled so badly. Hey I'm not defending the man, theres a lot of unsettling situations discussed that need to be followed up, perhaps in another documentary by a more competent film maker. The sex thing just all felt tacked on, more emphasis seemed to based on how he was exploiting his "God" like position out there. Leaving the sexual exploitation out of it, those condemning O'Searcaigh on the grounds that he was exploiting poor people with a few Euro should have a good look at the labels on their clothes. Let they who are not wearing a garment made in a sweat shop by an 8 year old girl for 5 cent a year cast the first stone.

As regarding those calling for O'Searcaighs work to be taken off the Leaving Cert, I agree absolutely. Lets not stop there though, lets get rid of all Irish from the Leaving Cert! If one good thing were to come from this documentary its that Irish became defunct.

A video of some Irish...


[UPDATE] An image of Cathal promoting Irish on a stairs in Nepal, allegedly.

iPhone In Ireland

I don't know why people are complaining about the price, it is an Apple after all. It's loaded with techno and even comes with a nice shiny flat surface to use at your discretion.

Hand In Hand - Ballet

Performed by Ma Li and Zhai Xiaowei with music by San Bao and choriography by Zhao Limin. Both dancers have lost limbs as a result of seperate car accidents.

"Their dance is about how people overcome life's frustrations and enjoy the happiness of love."

I just wish the audience didn't applaud so much.

Who sent Mary the banger?

Mary Harney got a shotgun cartridge in the post last month. It's a pity it was some fruit cake calling himself the "Irish Citizens Defence Force", rather than a mis-diagnosed cancer patient taking my call to arms literally. Because of that I now have to strongly condemn the action.

[It Augers Well For Mary Harney]

This 17 Year Old Girl Is Stunning

Just watch the video, I'm sure you will agree, this girl is stunning... Stunningly deranged that is!



Mmm.. Christians, making mental illness sexy! Extracted from the four Wonderland: The End of the World Bus Tour video's on youtube, a seriously good watch!

Yes, I did 'shop her face.

Alas Poor Telly

You were older than I, they got you long before me. You're dead now, but gone to a better place, the great big wheely bin out the back.



Hitachi shell, split open for us to see, what we watched without seeing.

2008 Olympic Theme Tune - Giorgio Moroder

I just found out that Giorgio Moroder has written the an entry for the official theme tune to this years Beijing Olympic games. His song "Forever Friends" (with lyrics by Michael Kunze) was chosen from at a gala of others last year. The official song will be chosen later this year.

Whatever about the music, he's looking pretty amazing for a 67 year old. The eyes still look fresh, most probably because of the sunglasses he wore constantly throughout the 70's and 80's.



As for the song itself, well its a long way from Donna Summer or Flashdance but it's easy enough on the ears. This is not the first Olympic theme he's penned. He's done two others but people generally rave about his tune for Seoul '88.



I'm heading off in a tanget now but do you know that Chicory Tip song "Son of my father"? Well aparently Moroder wrote that one too! I'm beginning to think this man has written everything!

You can download the original Moroder version here.



Moog's galore in this vid!

My Current Setup

"I like to play"



The Specs:
Hammond XB-1
Technics AX7
Alesis Photon X25
Dell Inspiron 530 (2.2ghz w/2MB @ 800mhz dual core: 2GB RAM @ 800mhz)
E-MU 0404 PCI Audio Interface Card
Little Behringer 5 input mixer
Peavy 50w Valve-Amp
Novation A-Station
Novation ReMote Zero SL
Running Reason and Music Studio(Samplitude derivative)

All I need to get now is a cheap pair of monitors, and some talent :)



The AX7 is only out of the way on over the pc's monitor, I'm not sure if I'll keep it there as I'm not sure how often I'll be using it now.