I Know there's a Better Way

Yes dear people, some more music:


(As always, if you're reading via RSS/Facebook click HERE for the flash player)

This was my first attempt at the sort of layered approach to vocals that a few of the artists I listen to tend to favour, and that I really love. I did this one a little while ago actually, so if you've read my old Wordpress its probably gonna sound familiar, but its one of my favourites of the songs I've written recently.

There's a little verse section in Zulu, so for those not from SA, it's basically just: "Hello, how are you?", but it just represents everything I love about walking around the streets in my neighborhood, or just about anywhere in this country (yes, you can walk around on the streets), because, in the Zulu culture, and the Xhosa culture especially, the people are a lot more friendly and respectful, and a lot more likely to great you when you walk past, even if you don't know them. Its great.

I was reminded of this song, because I've been reading Rob Bell these past couple weeks, and he talks a lot about a "better way" of living, and the sort of spiritual aspects of nature and the world around us that I was trying to express in this song. If you haven't read his stuff, I highly recommend both Velvet Elvis, and Sex God. Very interesting reads. There's some controversial stuff that you may have to take with a pinch of salt, but most of it is very good.

Johannesburg, Facial hair and Clapham Grand

Its been quite a while since my last post, so this is going to be one of those long, boring, wordy catch up ones. I've been extremely busy with work, but since I officially finished Varsity for the year yesterday (assuming I don't have any sups to write) it looks like I'll have a lot more time on my hands, which means a lot more internetz.

So apart from work (which is super boring), some other things have been going on. I've written some new stuff, so that'll be up once I get round to doing some recordings; my moustache has grown considerably; and its two weeks today until I see the Killers in Jo'burg! Woooo! Excitement. I'll be staying with a friend of a friend who I have never met, but I assume she's awesome, because she takes some rather lovely photographs.

Mo Bro

The other night I went to Clapham Grand, a club in Durban. I'm certainly not a big clubber, partly because none of the clubs here play the sort of music I listen to, and partly because I've tended to do things I regret at these sorts of places, but I seem to have grown out of that.

Back to Clapham.

My first impression was so totally surreal that I almost turned around and walked right out. The DJ was playing Lady Gaga, hands were raised towards the speakers in the classic I-hear-you-and-I-like-what-you're-doing dance move, and on the two massive big screens above the dance floor, the Rugby was showing. It was magical

I realised as I was walking around, looking for somewhere to get a beer, that the past two years of studying Architecture have pretty much taken over the way I think about just about everything! I found myself analysing the whole place. Firstly, the dance floor is tiled. This is perhaps the worst design choice. It wasn't a particularly wet night, but somehow there was a wet, muddy layer across the whole floor. It was so bad that a cleaner had to wander around all night with a mop, wiping up the mess. As you can imagine, the floor was also rather slippery, which of course, is not cool.

The tiles are complemented by a raised, carpeted bar area just behind the dance floor. Yes, carpet. I would hate to see that carpet in the day light. It actually stuck to my feet as I walked. Enough said. The space between the bar counter and railing that surrounds the dance floor is a narrow corridor of maybe 1 and a half metres max. That's a generous estimate. Now add bar stools and people leaning against the railing on the other side. Now try and get two way traffic to and from the bathrooms past them. Not good. It does however have a rather nice upstairs area, and the wall paper and panels on the walls are super cool.

Its also got a great atmosphere. Its 20 for guys and 18 for girls, which means there's a lot less unnecessary in-your-face hook ups, drunken stumblers, and no stupid fights. I had quite a good time actually. Certainly don't see myself becoming a regular of "The Clap" though.

Sugarcane Fires

Its nine o'clock on a thursday morning, and I find myself in the lan at varsity desprerately trying to amuse myself. I wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for an irritating little issue with our exam on Monday that I need to try and sort out. Total waste of time.

So, as usual, I turn to my greatest procrastination tool: blogging.

I thought I'd share my second recording from last week with you. Like THIS one, I used the webcam mic instead of my proper microphone, and did some extra, Justin Vernon inspired, layering of guitars and vocals, with some piano and other stuff thrown in.


(Click HERE if the player isn't showing)

Its one of the most spiritually themed songs I've written in a while, but is mostly about the sugarcane fields that used to grow all over the hills around where I live, that have subsequently been replaced with residential development. Whenever the cane was harvested, they would burn away all the extra chaff to expose only the sugary stems, which would cover all the houses near by in a thin layer of ash a lot like burn newspaper. Its about laying off whats not important, and getting to the sweet stuff in the middle.

Let me know what you think..

Ever The Pedestrian..

These past few days, I've found myself thrown headfirst into girl-world. Its a scary place. A lot of emotion. I mean a lot. I've always thought of myself as, for lack of a better term, something of a sensitive guy, but this pushed me far out of my comfort zone. The details are unimportant, but all I can say is, although the whole Men-are-from-Mars-women-are-from-Venus thing is a bit of a cliché, it really is true, and men don't realise that just about everything we say or do has an emotional implication to the women around us.

A word of advice, there are three things that one should not talk about in polite company; religion, politics, and Twilight.

I took a rather long walk today to sort some stuff out and thought I'd share some of my surroundings with you good people of the internet:

Yeah, so the edits are rather cheesy, but I was having fun alright!

Also, a little earlier a friend of mine sent me something that quite nearly made me wet myself.
If you want a good laugh check THIS out!
The second song on the play-list's an absolute killer.

Umhlanga Mixed Use Photos 3

Ok, Third (and last) post of photos from my awesome little roof top exploration mission. The other two are HERE and HERE.

Here's something really rad that I noticed. I'd always thought the big metal circular things were just (perhaps somewhat unattractive) decorative corner articulation elements, but it turn out they have a pretty interesting functional use...

...lightning conductors. That steel cable goes all the way round the roof of the building before running down to earth.

Well I thought that was pretty clever. Anyway..

Liewe Pretoria

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I recently went to Pretoria, for the Architecture Students' Congress 2009, and much to my surprise had really loved the city. Its probably mostly to do with the whole atmosphere of the conference, but when I got home it just kind of felt like there was a little something missing, and as cheesy as this sounds, I started writing a bit of a love song for the city.

I'll always love Durban more though.



(Click HERE if the player isn't showing)


When I sat down to record this, something pretty strange happened: so far, I've always used my proper vocal mic for recording, its not a great microphone, but its an SM58 clone, and it sounds pretty decent, but this time round I mistakenly forgot to change the audio input setting on my PC and, completely accidentally at first, ended up using the internal mic in my little webcam. I only noticed this was happening when it came to recording the piano bits, because I was getting background noises (my chair creaking, breathing, etc.) in the recording, which was very strange since I'd lined my keyboard directly into the mic-input at the back of my PC.

I ended up recording everything with the webcam though, because it actually has a whole lot less buzz than the microphone was giving me, and gives quite a nice natural reverb. It was also pretty fun to just stand and sing out into the room rather than holding a mic.

I used the same technique on a second song that I'll put up soonish. Comments/crit would be appreciated.

A Pinch and a Punch

Woohoo! 1st of the month. I have my internet back!

Unfortunately, here in South Africa Broadband internet is something of a luxury, so I've been cappedfor the last few days. But I'm back now.
Sweet!

Even more importantly than this, today marks the start of the glorious month of November Movember. For those of you who haven't heard of it, and can't be bothered to read through the Wikipedia article linked above, Movember is a month long event celebrating that most manly of arts, the growing of facial hair, specifically: Moustaches. The pure awesomeness of moustaches is not the soul purpose of Movember, but rather to raise awareness for mens health issues such as prostate cancer.

Last year I tried rather unsuccessfully to accept the mo-challenge, but found my manliness lacking.
This year however, I started nearly a month in advance so that I could grow out a full beard and shave the reveal the 'stache in all its radiant, Starsky and Hutch, Ron Burgundy glory.

 

Its ON!