i had a bit of a tech tard moment the other day. i’m sure i’m not the only one.

there i was, reading my old-fashioned print copy of future music, when i felt a picture on the page was not large enough. my first reaction was to pinch-pull at the picture to make it bigger, as one would do with an ipad or similar.

i managed to stop myself from actually doing it; but am i the only person to have thought this? i guess a similar thing would be rotating one’s newspaper from portrait to landscape, and expecting the page to spread out wide; or perhaps waving around a landline phone trying to get a signal. daft, really, but it goes to show these relatively new behaviours are creeping into my involuntary brain.

speaking of tech tard, i think there is something perverse developing in the world of tablet computing. i got a couple of free tablets from a deal with my mobile network provider. they’re just clunky wee android things that are handy for the odd surf – nothing particularly flash. but i discovered that if i leave the wifi on and switch the thing “off”, it chomps thru all its battery within a day by downloading updates for all its frickin apps. crapplication? the ipod’s the same.

and of course, all these apps “need” all my personal information and location to “work”. more like so they can sell my ID on to the rest of the world, whether the app’s free or not. so not only am i flagrantly weeing away my ID to potentially irresponsible corporations, i am also sucking electricity out of the grid just so my tablet can continuously update itself. it’s all a bit daft really. given the evident pubic demand for tab-dom, perhaps we need to take a step back and think about what path we’re treading here …

i like tablets though. they’re cool

i had a good hard drum this morning and practiced a few fills. then i went out and walked around the park with the dog before a long lazy lunch at monty’s, who do the BEST CHIPS imho – i mean these are real gourmet shit, to paraphrase the “samuel L jackson” there. it’s a bit of a call-of-the-wild thing.

tech politics and sly lunching aside, i am working on a new track now the demo of competition is out there to be heard. the new track is starting out upbeat, but i want to pull it down as close to 120bpm as i can – otherwise i’ll end up with a bit of an overly frenetic album.

i’ve got this new toy, the wow filter, which lets me go ape with the filterage. i promised myself i would try to operate it tastefully – which means i must learn its subtleties before i allow myself to use its “diabolic” distortion setting …

i want to make something quite tight and pacey, but also try and keep some of that lovely distorted grit. i’ve already strayed a bit on the drums – i chopped up some 909 sounds and hoofed them through a compressor and mild distortion to get them to cut thru. i might still add some more organic drums, but this gave me a pretty solid starting platform.

i don’t know where this one is taking me yet, but ya’ll be the first to hear it when it’s ready