Reading - February 2017

The Week (4 February 2017 / Issue 1110)

A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away by Christopher Brookmyre (2001)

I've lost count of how many times I've read this (or other Brookmyre books), but it still works for me - funny, thrilling and fantastically plotted.

The Week (11 February / Issue 1111)

Guitar & Bass (March 2017 / Vol 28 No 6)

The Week (18 February / Issue 1112)

The Week (25 February / Issue 1113)

Where Wizards Stay Up Late by Katie Hafner & Matthew Lyon (1996)

I bought this about 20 years ago, while working in the US. Its subtitle is "The Origins of the Internet", which explains the contents better than the main title, and it's a very thorough story about we got from the original, tiny Arpanet to what we had in 1996 - when the internet was just about starting to go mainstream. What's happened in the last 20 years could fill another book. Hopefully it would be a little less plodding than this one.

Reading - January 2017

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)

B was reading this for school so, having never read it, I thought I'd give it a go. I'd thought of it as proto-horror, in the same category as Dracula or Frankenstein, but in fact it's both much shorter (it's a novella) and milder than I expected. The basic idea is so well known that perhaps it loses its impact. Entertaining enough, with a clear moral.

Guitar & Bass (February 2017 / Vol 28 No 05)

The Week (7 January 2017 / Issue 1106)

The Week (14 January 2017 / Issue 1107)

London Bridge In America by Travis Elborough (2013)

The story of the sale of the "old" London Bridge (it wasn't that old) to a town in the US is mildly interesting but the basic facts aren't that complicated. A lot of padding and tangential detail has been needed to make this book into anything more than a pamphlet, which doesn't help the central narrative.

The Week (21 January 2017 / Issue 1108)

Guitarist (February 2017 / Issue 416)

Reading - December 2016

Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett (1991)

Early Pratchett and more interested in comedy than the later, more satirical books - in this case, what would happen if Death took a holiday? A short and easy read, although the last sections are a little vague.

The Week (3 December 2016 / Issue 1102)

Guitar & Bass (January 2017 / Vol 28 No 4)

The Week (10 December 2016 / Issue 1103)

1971 - Never A Dull Moment: Rock's Golden Year by David Hepworth (2016)

An engaging, entertaining read, choc-full of interesting titbits and trenchant observations. Hepworth's main contentions are that a) 1971 was never-equalled golden year for rock music; and b) that it was the start of the modern era in rock, which therefore strengthens contention a even further. Despite his amusing assertion that 1971 is objectively the best year ever ("The difference is this: I'm right"), it's obviously subjective and while clearly great music was made in this year, much of it sounds dated, regardless of how good it is. Contrast that with some of the biggest records from a mere six years later, such as Aja or Rumours, neither of which sound as of their time in quite the same way.

The Week (17 December 2016 / Issue 1104)

Guitarist (January 2017 / Issue 415)

The Week (24 December 2016 / Issue 1105)

Haynes Explains Teenagers: Owners' Workshop Manual by Boris Starling (2016)

A slim, 34-page, 20 minute read, this joke "manual" about teenagers is a classic stocking filler. It makes me wonder what percentage of those bought are actually read, versus those just parked on a shelf. Anyway, amusing in places, a little stereotyped in others, but a nice little present and appreciated as such.

Solo of the Month #22

December 2016

Often the biggest influence on what I choose to play over a solo is the presence of a new toy. In this month's case, it's a very simple one: an expression pedal. Attached to the EHX Pitchfork, it makes it into a Whammy-style effect, and huge amounts of fun.

So it was already on the board when this rather nice backing track came up. It's got good dynamics, it's well recorded and there's some lovely little details going on. In fact, at nearly two minutes and with a clear verse/chorus structure (albeit one that cuts off rather suddenly), it's more like recording an instrumental than a solo.

After a bit of experimentation I settled on a compressed driven tone, using the EXH Soul Food into the drive channel of my amp and the internal gain boost on as well. I had a verse part and a chorus part and to add interest I used the expression pedal with the Pitchfork to sweep up an octave to the chorus, up another octave in the middle of the chorus, and down again at the end. The very high octave parts in the first chorus sounded a little thin, so I doubled it quietly an octave below. Then for the second chorus I recorded a harmony part, mostly fourths - basically, the same pattern but a string higher.

Recording this was straightforward, particularly since I did it in several parts, but this probably ended up being the most complex "production" in Reaper yet. I ended up with eight tracks (plus one for the backing): the guitar parts themselves, plus separate tracks for delay and reverb and a bus track to bring it all together. It was recorded dry, so I routed all the guitar parts through the TAL Reverb plate emulation plugin. I also wanted delay, but at different levels for different parts, in particular the long downwards glissando at the end of the first chorus. Here, a big modulated delay made it sound very other-worldly. It's using the superb PSP cmDelay (a cut down version of their Stomp Delay that was given away with Computer Music).

The guitars were routed in parallel through the delay and reverb, not in series, and brought together on a bus so I could control the volume easily. I put automation on the delay volume to bring it in and out where I wanted it. The reverb was as much because when the delay kicks in half way through the first verse, it makes a big difference to the sound, and the reverb cushions this slightly. However, it does have the effect that when you first hear the guitar, it does sound a bit like it's in a tunnel. I wasn't sure how to prevent this, but it does all come together later.

I'm quite proud of this one. It got some nice comments during the voting, including top marks from the guy who had recorded the backing track in the first place.

Reading - November 2016

Midnight In The Garden Of Evel Knievel by Giles Smith (2000)

Collection of amusing television reviews, heavily in stylistic debt to Clive James's wonderful seventies columns (or more likely, the books - here's James himself on the same subject), but that's no bad thing at all. Since the remit is more limited (sport on television), the same subjects come up again and again - boxing, football, Formula 1 - but it's well observed and amusingly written, so doesn't become boring.

The Week (5 November 2016 / Issue 1098)

Guitar & Bass (December 2016 / Vol 28 No 03)

The Week (12 November 2016 / Issue 1099)

Guitarist (December 2016 / Issue 414)

The Week (19 November 2016 / Issue 1100)

A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen (and Garry Jenkins) (2012)

I hadn't heard of this at all until I saw a recent mention of the film that has just come out. Then I found it in our book exchange at work the other day; it has obviously been well read and done the rounds of many people - something I feel that the author would like. I can see why it's been so popular (over 3 million copies sold and translated into over 20 languages, apparently) - it's a quick, simple, pleasant read. Not much happens but there's a nice ending. From the look of trailer for the film, it looks like they feel they've had to invent some drama and a love interest, unfortunately.

Guitarist Presents 100 Great Guitars edited by Owen Bailey (2014)

Guitar porn, diverting for a few hours.

The Week (26 November 2016 / Issue 1101)

Solo of the Month #21

November 2016

A first this month: the solo section from a well-known classic. One of the players on the forum has been recording a very close version of Ace's "How Long". mainly (as far as I can tell) to learn the track for live performance.

I thought the challenge for everyone on this one would be to avoid reproducing the original solo, unconsciously or not. But when I went back to listen to it, I realised I didn't know the solo at all, even though I'm very familiar with the song. It's Paul Carrack's wonderful vocal I remember, and the lovely plodding bass that introduces the track. The solo seems like it belongs in a different song.

I was also surprised to find that most other participants in the challenge didn't know the song at all. That freed them to produce some interesting solos, but - for me, anyway - ones that would have entirely failed to work in the context of the overall track. My personal challenge, then, was to try and do something that could be fitted into the original song and not stick out.

Having some context was a nice change, actually. It meant that the melody of the verse could be used as a jumping off point for the solo. I dialled in a gently overdriven tone on the amp, and recorded it in two sections. I added a bit of EQ to thicken up the tone and gentle reverb to place it in the mix. The master had Melda's MLimiter on it to punch up the overall sound. And here it is:

Reading - October 2016

The Rainmaker by John Grisham (1995)

Probably my favourite story of Grisham's, with lots of interesting twists and turns, a great verdict (of course) and a nice little romance on the side (I'm always a sucker for a romance). Oddly though, despite being narrated in the first person, you don't get a great sense of who the main character is.

The Week (1 October 2016 / Issue 1093)

Bedsit Disco Queen by Tracey Thorn (2013)

A charming account of Tracey Thorn and Everything But The Girl's unusual journey through pop music in the last thirty years. You get some sense of the oddity of being a pop star. I've come away from this and her other book, Naked At The Albert Hall, with a real respect for her and a wish to revisit some of their music.

The Week (8 October 2016 / Issue 1094)

Guitar & Bass (November 2016 / Vol 28 No 02)

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (2008)

A really cool novel about hacking, security, encryption and the state. A bit lecturing at times, reflecting its target audience of "young adults" (teens, I suppose) and a clear attempt to make them care enough about the subject to get involved. I don't know if it's worked or been successful, but certainly I'd be keen for B to read it, and the others when they're old enough. It's also a good story (although the ending is a bit sudden and a tad inconclusive) and kept me reading (on my phone, since, interestingly, it's released under the Creative Commons license).

The Pelican Brief by John Grisham (1992)

A fun, if somewhat unbelievable thriller.

The Week (15 October 2016 / Issue 1095)

The Fermata by Nicholson Baker (1994)

When I first read this - probably 15 or more years ago - I thought it was very good, but now I'm not so sure. Nicholson Baker's ability to pick up on usually unobserved but common mannerisms, items and phenomena is still here in abundance but the subject matter - a man who can stop time and uses it to undress women for his own amusement - gives me a queasy feeling. His writing is superb and the more pornographic sections quite amusing, but maybe now I am more sensitive to the issues it raises.

Guitarist (November 2016 / Issue 413)

It's One For The Money by Clinton Heylin (2015)

I'm cheating a bit by including this in my list of books I've read, since I got less than a quarter of the way through before giving up, but I'd had enough (and the only reason I got that far was that I had nothing else to read during a train journey). A potentially very interesting history of music publishing is ruined by numbingly boring detail and the author's insistence on strict chronological sequence. Normally I prefer a history that starts at the beginning and doesn't jump around, but in this case I, like (I would bet) most people, would be primarily interested in the facts about publishing cases I know about; maybe the Northern Songs saga, or the fuss around "Bitter Sweet Symphony". Since the first half of the book barely takes us out of the fifties, there's a lot of tedious trivia about people even I have never heard of to wade through first. There's an interesting book to be written about the subject, but this isn't it.

The Week (22 October 2016 / Issue 1096)

How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt (2015)

Entertaining but over-simplified account of the rise of music online

Thud! by Terry Pratchett (2005)

Neil Gaiman says that Terry Pratchett's fury at the unfairness of the world  "[...] was the engine that powered Discworld." That anger is very evident in the first half of this book, which is as unvarnished a parallel as any I've seen in his books - in this case, of blinkered, inward looking, religious fundamentalists of all types. The rest of the book plays out in typical Discworld fashion, centering on Samuel Vimes this time, with cameos from Captain Carrot and Sergeant Angua, two of my favourite characters (from Men At Arms). 

The Week (29 October 2016 / Issue 1097)