Weekend part 1 - Bass

I've injured my knee. Nothing major, but it's meant I'm off karate for the week.

Not thrilled abut it. I've got a grading in a few weeks. And since we'll be in Sydney for the weekend, I'm already missing classes.

Oh well. Chin up.

Friday after work, I bought the bass guitar I meant to buy before being seduced by the peacock blue acoustic. Then I got lug said bass and its massive rectangular hard case up three flights of stairs to the Order of Melbourne bar for a workmate's farewell drinks.

Nice bar, that, if outrageously expensive. They hold Red Door Burlesque there, and we really should get along one day.

The glorious daylight hours of Saturday were spent huddled over my MacBook Pro, trying to convince GarageBand to record my guitar playing as something other than muddy noise.

Sunday was more hunching over the MacBook. Managed to record five songs, although they're all rougher than barbed-wire toilet paper.

And when GarageBand exports them to MP3s, they all come out really really quiet. So I've got to go learn some audio engineering skills to figure that one out.

(I've tried Google. All the pages say "It's really complicated and difficult and very much case-by-case. Go read some articles on audio engineering.")

You can hear one of my really really quiet songs up here: http://www.myspace.com/sharplittleteeth
(Listen at own risk).

Weekend part 2 - Bill Bailey

Saturday night was Bill Bailey.

The program booklet came with badges, a copy of his Kraftwerk-inspired version of Das Hokey Kokey, and a guitar plectrum. Synchronicity!

You've got to love a comedian who can do Satan singing Lionel Ritchie songs, analyse the different theme tunes for the local TV news, and then get into an etymological discussion with the crowd about the origins of the word "bogan".

My favourite joke of the night was a throwaway line in his routine about middle-class alternative to the "Do not operate heavy machinery" warning on pain killers - "Do not attempt to read the novels of Thomas Pynchon, as the dense, multi-layered narrative may cause confusion".

The thing I really love about Bill Bailey is that he looks like an old hippy, but he actually used to be a punk. There was The Clash playing as we came into Hamer Hall, and he made jokes about The Strangler's "Golden Brown". It pleases me, to think a punk has grown up into someone so smart and silly and weird.