DrGaz's Music: Old Old Stuff

I finally figured out how to convert my old audio tapes into MP3. Horray! This has given me a the perfect excuse to inflict all my old music on you!

"Old Old Stuff" is a collection of tunes I recorded on an 8-track about 9 or 10 years ago. It's a bit like with my Garageband stuff - lots of little ideas, short snippets and concepts that were recorded in the hope that one day I will harvest the better ones and develop them into proper songs! Some of them are intended to have vocals which were not recorded (I'm no singer), so it's all instrumental - just me with a guitar, occasionally accompanied by a shit keyboard.

So here they are! All 31 of 'em - some short, some long, some bloody awful, some irritating, some cheesy. But hopefully you'll find one or two tolerable ones. My apologies for the quality of some of the recordings, but the little analogue 8-track I used was just borrowed from a mate and it wasn't a particularly great one.

What I've done is compiled all the songs as MP3s over podcast and you can listen to them using the players below. The reason there are two players is because for some reason odeo.com wouldn't let me put more than 20 MP3s into a single podcast. Very annoying, but hopefully I'll work out how to get around this soon.

DrGaz's Motorhead jacket

I was a bit of a heavy-metaller when I was an undergraduate ('92 - '96). I had the full rock credentials; the mullet, the leathers, the oversized white trainers, the range of Iron Maiden T-Shirts, and of course the inevitable 6-string. In about 1993 I decided to paint the sleeve of my leather biker jacket with a "Motorhead" logo (click the thumbnails for a bigger view). I was quite pleased with how it came out. I used acrylic paints on it which were pretty tough and kept their nice rich colour. I also did a crazily green "Overkill" logo on the back of a mate's jacket too.

I put my jacket on eBay last year and amazingly it went for about £22! Not bad for an old jacket. And I thought I'd be dumping the thing at the local charity shop! I had to get rid of it one way or another, you see. The time had come. As a respectable member of society I hadn't worn it for over 10 years, and certainly couldn't think of a socially acceptable occasion (apart from maybe a fancy dress party) where I'd ever wear it again.

Anyway, below is a view of the jacket that I used for eBay auction. That's my Fender Stratocaster I'm holding!

Photo of the day: Cambridge market square.

This is a view of the colourful market square taken from the window of the Marks & Spencer cafe in the middle of Cambridge. At the back of the shot is University Church of "St Mary the Great". Visitors can climb the tower and believe me, you get a fantastic view of Cambridge from there.

DrGaz's Music: The Gaz Dance (Lets Take Some Drugs)

OK, I'm not sure why I called this one "The Gaz Dance (Let's Take Some Drugs)". It sounds more like Van Halen than Acid House. I think that this was the first name that popped into my head. And why not? There's nothing stopping anyone from popping a few pills and grooving down to this tune! It's another short - one of my earliest Garageband attempts.

DrGaz's Music: Spooky Happenings

Here's another short snippet of another musical idea. Actually this was my very first attempt at doing something on Garageband. "Spooky Happenings" is a clunky little '70s classic rocky thing. I've even thrown in a church organ for maximum spookiness! Maybe I'll improve it, make it longer, and add some guitar added to it, but something tells me that I'll never get around to finishing this one off!

DrGaz's Music: MonsterBeat

This in one of my MANY unfinished Garageband compositions. I call it "Monsterbeat". Any suggestions on how to take it further? I haven't got a clue. I like it, but the problem with my songs is that if I don't finish them in a couple of days they simply never get finished!

Sketch of the Day: Nosferatu

This was something I drew way back in 1989. I was 14 then, doing my GCSEs (click on the image to enlarge). The woman and her right hand came out a bit dodgy, but I was quite pleased with the Nosferatu chap himself and the woman's left hand. This is a copy of a photo I liked in a "Monsters of the Movies" book that I had at the time. I found this image on my hard drive and thought I might as well post it. This is a photo of the A3 original that I binned during a de-cluttering session a couple of years ago just before I moved house. I beleve that this image comes from a 1970s remake of the classic horror film "Nosferatu".

I really should do more drawings. I always enjoy doing pencil sketches, and could probably get much better with practise. I get so absorbed doing them that I forget myself. Sadly I never seem to find the time.

DrGaz's Music: Frozen Beef

One of my recent favorite obsessions is composing music on our trusty little iBook G4. We have a piece of software called Garageband that comes free with Macs as a creative tool. It's fantastically easy to use and immense fun. I was up and running in a few minutes. So far I have put together lots of ideas for songs. Some of these are complete, and some of these mere snippets of ideas. I'll gradually add them to this blog over the next few weeks.

This is my first upload, a recent attempt that I entitled "Frozen Beef". It's a silly name (DrGaz likes silly stuff), it's primary objective being to remind me of what the song sounds like. I'll never remember how it goes if I called it "Song idea 32c" or something. Do you get me?

On "Frozen Beef" I dabbled with some crowd noises to give it a "live" feel. Hopefully it'll make this effort sound like a better job if you can hear people going crazy for it!

Photo of the day: Bedside table.

It's our bedside table, and it's got some stuff on it.

Photo of the day: Yes, folks - it's a church!

I snapped this earlier today as I was walking near Hills Road. It's "Our Lady and the English Martyrs" (that's a mouthful) church, the Catholic Church in Cambridge. Not my favorite piece of architecture here, but quite an imposing beast nevertheless. Please could somebody give it a bloody good scrub.

Such beautiful weather we're having at the moment. I can't believe that snow is forecast soon.