Unhappy Laptop, Vacuous Pop and I Am Giant Gigs

IN YOUR BOX!

My laptop has been making loud grinding noises, bluescreening and failing to render stuff properly in Ableton Live for far too long, and so it is back off to Millennium Music from whence it came to get a nice repair and overhaul.

I was in the middle of writing about Ableton Live's stability when things started to go wrong, so in order to be fair to them I've put that on hold until my laptop is well again. Then I'll bring you the results of my interview with them, as well as a more objective opinion.

Also, I have confirmed to play for Vacuous Pop at the Wheatsheaf in Oxford on the 13th of November. They haven't published details of this gig yet, so as soon as they do I will include it in the gigs section on the left. I can probably say that I'm playing with Knifehandchop...well, there I said it. Anyway, Knifehandchop is great - I'm sure we will get on swimmingly.

AND....and, I'm playing for I Am Giant in Banbury on the 19th of November. Again details are a bit sketchy for that, so I will post that properly soon as well. I'm assured that this will be an exciting affair.

An annoying teaser

I expect to announce 2 or 3 more gigs fairly soon, but I'm just awaiting confirmation of some details.

New gig - Gappy Tooth Winter Warmer

I will be playing for the cherubic children of the Tooth at their little winter party at the Exeter Hall, Oxford Rd, Cowley on the 2-4th of December 2005.

Performances run from 20.00 - 23.00 on Friday, 12.30-23.00 Saturday and
15.00 - 22.30 on Sunday.

I shall be delivering a riotous tumult of Determinance music at 9pm on the Friday, so get your proverbial down there and check me out in all my alleged glory.

Audioscope

The rather extravagantly-named Jo Edge emailed me in order that I might let you know about Audioscope.

It's a mini-festival running from Saturday 29th to Sunday 30th October in aid of Shelter, the national charity for homeless and badly-housed people.

It will occur at the lovely Zodiac in Oxford.

This is the line-up:

Saturday:
Four Tet
Explosions In The Sky
Data Panik (Ex-Bis)
Shooting at Unarmed Men (Ex-McLusky)
Ill Ease
Ivory Springer
Bullet Union
Fell City Girl

Sunday:
Luke Vibert
Scout Niblett
Billy Mahonie
Super Numeri
Lords
Quack Quack
Nought
Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element

Now, that sounds pretty cool to me.

Apparently, since 2001, Audioscope has raised over £10,000 for Shelter and they plan to add to that total significantly this year.

Sadly, two-day passes are now sold out, but you can obtain
one-day tickets on the door.

Totally go here right now.

Incoming stupidity

First, there was Cats In Sinks. Now, there's No Cats In Sinks. All we need now is, obviously, Cats, No Sinks.

M4G, VGL, IGC...RSVP

As I've mentioned, I've recently contributed to an interview series for Music4Games, and it's just gone up. Nile Rodgers (Halo 2), Jesper Kyd (Hitman), Alex Brandon (Unreal), George "The Fat Man" Sanger (Wing Commander and about a million other things), and great and mighty Rob Hubbard all got asked about the state of game music past and present, and it makes entirely interesting reading.

I just received a nice email from Jack Wall, who produces the Video Games Live tour, despite the fact that I previously mocked Elijah Wood's face furniture as featured in their trailer. The concerts are shifting gently across the face of North America, covering 24 cities between Oct 29 and Dec 3, so if you're a "Yank" of any description, then you should totally dress up like a mushroom and go.

And finally, IGC starts tomorrow. I can't go, because I'm still in England, but I've been assured of live reports from the convention floor from my special correspondent.

M4G excitement, Determinance promos

I am excited about the latest thing I've helped with for Music4Games; I think it will probably cause a lot of people to start thinking about exactly how game music should progress. The article will be up very soon.

I now have some promos of the Determinance E.P. to sprinkle liberally about myself - if you are a journalist, DJ or some such creature of the night with at least some identifiable credentials then feel free to email me and I will send you one.

Nice little Determinance E.P. review

...over at OxfordBands. That's all.