David Gardiner - Music

Welcome to 2016 with Weird Al

2016-01-09T16:01:00.001+10:30

I knew Weird Al Yankovic was touring Australia in January 2016, but when I jumped at the chance to see an NBA game during my visit to Toronto late last year I had resigned myself to the fact that doing so would probably mean passing on Al this time (I had seen him on his Poodle Hat tour back in 2003).

That was until Narelle spotted cheap tickets to Weird Al’s Adelaide concert appearing on lasttix.com.au. By clicking on the special (and avoiding signing up to lasttix because I didn’t want to if I didn’t have to), I ended up at ticketmaster, but with a cheaper price of just $60 per ticket instead of the usual $90+. Bargain!

There was a great crowd, a good supporting act in Mickey D (nice to have a comedian that was funny without being crude), and eventually Al and his band came on to give us a performance just like we were hoping.

It was a great mix of old favourites and songs from his latest album Mandatory Fun (which reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts recently)

All in all a great night out – even better as I went with friends Tom (whom originally introduced me to Al’s albums many years ago) and Derek (who wasn’t a huge Al fan before but I think enjoyed the night anyway).

I know that it's Christmas..

2012-12-26T09:39:00.001+10:30

Because people will even dance to some guy trying to play the 'cello

Always nice to have enthusiasm when you're doing a sound check😀

This year we visited our friends across town who were organising a Christmas Eve service at Playford Uniting. I was also able to be part of their band playing a few Christmas carols.

Because the Road to Christmas is on again

And even made the Channel Seven news. Over the 3 evenings that this runs there's probably a few thousand people from the local community (and beyond) that come and experience sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Bethlehem. It's a great atmosphere and lots of fun too.

Because the cactus that flowers at Christmas is in flower

and the flowers came out first in the morning on Christmas day this year too.

Because the table is set for Christmas lunch

Because Narelle cooked up a storm

Yummo

Because the pudding is ready

Extra yummo.

Because Mum & Dad gave me a new Super Soaker

So it turns out that the CFS actually recommend having one of these around the house. If you did have a bushfire go through then then a key thing is to put out any spotfires in gutters or roof spaces once the main fire front has passed. They reckon a super soaker is good as you can pop your head up through the manhole into the ceiling and squirt any smouldering embers that might have found their way inside.

The other benefit is that it means I can now compete with my son's soaker he got as a LobsterPot Christmas present a couple of years ago (thanks Rob!)

Because it is a chance to take a breath

Borrowing from the theme of Pete's message at the Christmas Eve service. After a busy and in many ways difficult year this year it is good to have a couple of weeks off and take a breath (or two).

Time to spend with family. Time to sleep in (maybe). Time to do a bit of riding in preparation for the Tour Down Under in a few weeks. Time to reflect on the year that was and the year that is to come. Time to appreciate the extraordinary gift that is the real reason for celebrating Christmas.

Take your partner by the hand..

2010-11-01T17:17:00.001+10:30

If LobsterPot Solutions had a theme song, one pretty obvious choice would be Rock Lobster by The B52s.

It looks like we now have another option!

First Microsoft Partner with Gold Competency in Australia - Well done Rob, Ben, Roger, Ashley (and me!).

Also a big welcome to Ashley, our most recent Lobster to jump in the pot 😀

sevenfold – Yeehaa!

2008-11-11T11:36:00.001+10:30

We had a blast last night. It was great fun. We ended up performing about 10.40pm, and seemed to be well received. The stage was a little small but we managed to fit all 7 of us there (and Billy-Bob said they once had 14 so we’re not the largest group to play there).

The quality of the other bands playing was very good, but I think we held our own. No word from any record companies wanting to sign us up yet.

We all got a free drink voucher, but curiously they insisted the voucher was good only for a schooner of beer, even though all I wanted was a “raspberry” (surely soft drinks cost less than beer?). I bought one instead, but had to tell the girl how to make it - “just raspberry cordial and lemonade”. Yum.

On an final note, I also discovered that “pub rules” for playing pool do exist – fortunately I wasn’t the one who failed to pot any balls :-)

Adelaide International Cello Festival

2008-04-09T09:35:00.001+09:30

I'm sure this will be of interest to all you .NET programmers - have you heard about the 2008 Adelaide International Cello Festival?

The main programme runs from Friday 11th - Sunday 20th April.

This is totally out of my league, but I might see if I can go and catch one or two things. Nothing like seeing experts in their field to inspire you.

Practise makes perfect (or gets you closer to it)

2008-01-10T11:03:00.001+10:30

Photo by rongzoni, used under the Creative Commons License

When I was at Primary School, I had the opportunity to learn to play the 'cello. I continued to learn until year 10 at High School, when I realised that:

As I wanted to do some kind of computing degree at Uni, choosing Music as a year 12 subject wasn't useful.
I hadn't really ever put the effort in to practising regularly so I probably wouldn't do very well.

I'd reached a level where I could "bear to listen to myself playing" - if you know what I mean. Not in any danger of being head-hunted by a symphony orchestra, but I could muddle along. So apart from the odd time playing at my old Church, my 'cello pretty much stayed in the cupboard after that.

That changed a couple of years ago, when some musical friends of mine invited me to be a part of a band they were putting together (this later became Sevenfold). We practise about every two weeks, so the 'cello got dusted off and used a bit.

Then just before Christmas I was asked to take part in a 'Cello ensemble that was going to perform at my church's "Road to Christmas" event (where they transform the front carpark into "Bethlehem", complete with animals, food, beggars and roman soldiers!).

The ensemble was organised by Shinduk Kwoun, who is an accomplished 'cellist. She asked some of her students to come along (ranging from one who had only had 3 lessons, to others who have a few years under their belts) and also roped in Kym Worley (who's graduated from the Conservatorium, so he's pretty good)

Sadly (for me), Shinduk and her husband Robin are moving to Melbourne. But before she left, I asked her if she could suggest anything that would improve my playing. I was thinking maybe new strings, but her immediate response was "get some lessons!". And then she offered to give me some free tuition before she left Adelaide.

It was the Christmas break, so I was able to cram in quite a few sessions, and for the first time in a very, very long while, I was practising every day.

And you know what?

It does make a difference! Having someone to both encourage you and tell you what you need to work on really helps. Even in this short time, I've noticed some small improvements, and I'm now aware of some things I need to keep working on.

As well as the token of appreciation I plan to put in the mail to Melbourne, I'd also like to say thanks here for her help. Now it's up to me to see if I can keep the more regular practising and maybe get some more lessons.

How to rip audio from a DVD to Audio CD

2007-12-30T14:05:00.001+10:30

Paul videoed Sevenfold's recent performance and created a really nice DVD for all the band members.

Jane doesn't have a DVD player however, so I used these instructions to burn her an audio CD.

Additional comments 2nd Jan 2008

Things didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. My DVD burner came bundled with ULEAD Burn.Now. I wanted to add CD-TEXT track info which Burn.Now supports. However after I burned the CD and tested it, I discovered that some of the tracks had been messed up. The track times were correct, but the content had been messed up. Jumping to track 4 played the content that was actually half-way through track 2. Very weird.

I read that WinAmp supports CD-TEXT, but after trying it out, discovered that it only supports reading CD-TEXT, not writing it.

As a last resort, I grabbed iTunes, and it did the job, though it could only add CD-TEXT for each individual track - I didn't see a way to add info about the album as a whole.

Seven Fold

2007-06-29T12:41:00.001+09:30

The band, at various times known as Verandah and more recently Kaboodle is now known as Seven Fold.

Hoping that this name may last a bit longer than the others, I've taken the plunge and created a band blog.

I've also invited the other band members to contribute to the blog, so hopefully it starts to record a bit of the continuing history of what we're up to.

Canada Day

2007-04-23T10:45:00.000+09:30

While the official Canada Day might 1st July, last Wednesday was the next best thing

It was my birthday, and I got given the new Serena Ryder CD - "If your memory serves you well".

She's a young Canadian singer that first came to my attention while watching RocKiz on the motel tv at Wagga Wagga while attending CodeCamp last month. I've never seen the show before as our SBS reception is virtually non-existant at home (lots of snow!). Anyway, she not only had a very good knowledge of music trivia, but has a really nice voice.

The other Canadian event was the birth of my cousin Toby's son Tiernan (technically this was on the 17th, but I'm sure we can work something out with timezones!). Toby and his wife Jen live in Canada, and this is their first child. Congratulations to all concerned.

WinAmp plug-in for Windows Messenger, Carols at Westminster

2006-12-14T07:32:00.000+10:30

One nice feature that my ISP Internode offer with their ADSL plans is 'free' access to numerous streaming radio services.

Until recently I've stuck with Windows Media Player (WMP), but I've found that WinAmp does have a nice feature in that it it can display the 'current song' info in the MP3 stream.

I've also just found this nifty plug-in for WinAmp that updates the "Now Playing" bit of Windows Messenger, so that people on my instant messenger contact list can see that currently I'm listening to SKY-FM's Christmas Channel! I think I'll change to another station shortly, but it is getting close to that time of year, so it isn't too bad.

While on the topic of Christmas, our band "Verandah" will be performing at Westminster School here in Adelaide on Friday night as part of their Christmas Lights Festival (I'd link to the Westminster site, but I don't want to inflict their horrible Flash-only site on you). A mix of traditional carols plus a few of our own original songs.