Frosty Festivities

Well well well, first day of the official Yule and I wake up to a generous layer of Frost about the county. And glorious sunshine!

I got back from another sound beating at the hands of my trainer this morning to Classic FM playing Christmas carols on the radio. The kids were already en route to their respective schools, the house was calm and just for a brief 3 minute period while the rest of "Good King Wenceslas" played out, I looked out at the icy garden from the warm kitchen and finished my cuppa while being overwhelmed with a feeling of profound inner peace. A definite memory moment.

In other news, I've been asked to join in on the It Bites charity record in aid for the flood victims of Cumbria which is a great gesture on behalf of the IB boys. There's a big day of recording and larking about this Friday at Team Asia's studio, but I have to confess that I've already done my part and emailed it over last Friday. The dayjob is at full tilt at the moment with the pre Christmas audio rush and much as I'd have loved to have gone over and met the others, I've had to put my sensible heed on and focus on beating my insane tranche of deadlines. So I'm afraid you won't see me in any of the accompanying videos or pictures or what not doing the Live Aid one-headphone-off-the-ear-all-singing-round-the-mic bit.

Probably no bad thing anyway as the public at large will go, "Ah, there's Marillion, there's Howard Jones, and John Wetton too!...er...who's that little fat bloke?"

It would have been nice to see Pete Trewavas again though, we did briefly chat a while back about doing some stuff together next year with old man Mitchell, just a bit of a musical kickabout. Hopefully we can sort something out in the new year...

I have to say, it did feel very odd singing "Calling All The Heroes" at the top of my lungs last week, but it was a right laugh. I sang the second verse the best so I hope they use a bit from there. The "dead of the night there was movement and shadow" bit was a bit high for my hit and miss little gob so it sounded a bit like I was trying to fling one to the coast.

I also discovered that the theme tune to The Archers fits perfectly over the jolly semitone riff middle bit just before the keyboard solo so I tracked a few of them up just to demonstrate. I doubt that'll make the final cut though...

Joking aside though, this e.p. is a great idea for a serious and worthy cause so if you are in a position to put yer hands in yer pockets and get hold of a copy it would be very fantastic of you and we'd all be very grateful to you for doing so. And who knows, we might even be able to dent the charts a bit. Been a bit of a while since I bothered the hit parade...

Anyway, The Philadelphia Experiment is nearly ready. It'll be a CD and a DVD containing the gig, proper WAVS of much more of the gig and a special 45 minute Frost Report on the making of the gig. The tracklist will be -

CD -

Intro
Hyperventilate
The Forget You Song
Falling Down
Black Light Machine
Experiments In Mass Appeal
Snowman
Saline
Milliontown

DVD -

Frostfest Frost Report (45 minutes)

Plus more of the concert in WAV format -

Intro
Hyperventilate
The Forget You Song
Wonderland
Falling Down
Black Light Machine
Experiments In Mass Appeal
Snowman
Story Time
Pocket Sun
Saline
Dear Dead Days
Milliontown
The Other Me

The WAV album is pretty much on the cock of 100 minutes so there's plenty of Frost to get stuck into. Perfect for the post Christmas blues.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin

I just saw this via Twitter -

A controversial Scottish brewery has launched what it described as the world's strongest beer - with a 32% alcohol content.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin has been unveiled by BrewDog of Fraserburgh.

BrewDog was previously branded irresponsible for a 18.2% beer called Tokyo, which it then followed with a low alcohol beer called Nanny State.

Managing director James Watt said a limited supply of Tactical Nuclear Penguin would be sold for £30 each.

A warning on the label states: "This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost."

That's proper that is.

The Future's Black...

A bit hungover today. I was at the Student Radio Awards at the 02 in London last night. I had a great time and verily I did seek solace in lager and wine and champagne flavoured drinks in the enthusiastic manner befitting a student. When in Rome and all that...

I went for a bit of wander at one point as awards ceremonies can be a bit, y'know....repetitive. It was my first time at The Dome and, by Jingo, it's huge. And odd. At one point I found myself watching a tennis match...



And walking past a fairground, complete with indoor roller coaster...



The rest of it is bars, restaurants, a big cinema and shops. It felt like somebody had taken Reading High Street and put it in a tent.

It was also strangely and totally lacking in atmosphere and it all felt a bit wrong. Like a firework display during the day. Or a McDonald's salad. Or a dog buying a cat a drink.

So I've decided to redress the balance of nature by giving my Fantom G a makeover courtesy of the immeasurably talented Jeff Thoman. Gone shall be the EIMA white paint scheme and in her place will be a jet black colour scheme.

We did briefly discuss doing it in chrome, but it's a bugger to keep clean and if I went onstage with it, I'd most likely end up blind. So black it is. Plus, Jeff's in Devon and I'll be in Somerset soon so I can drive it down to him.

Gentlemen, I think we have a plan.

Time for tea...

Soldering On

I felt like Dr Frankenstein today. But a sort of Blue Peter version.

I've made a sow's arse out of trying to solder a new battery onto the motherboard of DX7-B. I accidentally broke the battery off the PCB with the little connectors still attached to the circuit board. I then pulled the motherboard out of DX7-A with the voice cartridge still attached which broke the cartridge in two and bent the connectors about 45 degrees upwards. After this, I took some solder off a completely unrelated part of the circuit board mistakenly thinking it was one of the battery parts which resulted in my having to solder it on again. Rather badly. I think there are some scorch marks next to it now and I scratched the tracks with my screwdriver for good measure.

As technological procedures go, it was not my finest set of moments.

However, I bent the cartridge back into shape and stuck it together again and amazingly, it works.

As for the motherboard, I took the one out of DX7-A and swapped it into DX7-B resulting in a fully functioning DX7-B with no broken keys and a working battery. Wallop! I swapped their brains, I've never done that with a synth before.

On the downside, I have the brain of the other one on a shelf now while I try and find somebody in the area a little better at soldering than me. The remains of DX7-A are leaning up against the wall like some lobotomised Japanese horse.

It's rather sad.

My Mother And Anyone Else Who Knows Me

Word reached me today that Milliontown won "Album Of The Decade" on David Elliot's show on The Dividing Line. I think I owe a Giant Panda sized "THANK YOU!" to the lovely people who voted for it. Bless you both.

Seriously though, it's a lovely accolade and I'm dead chuffed. Frost and The Dividing Line have a long and happy history together largely owing to the mighty Franz Keylard who has championed the band from day 1 pretty much. And now with extra thanks to David, we're even more interconnected. It's nice to have some friends out there in Radioland. I know that Badger on Planet Rock wanted to play bits off EIMA when it came out, but was overruled by the powers that be. Rick Wakeman did manage to go through a small phase of playing Frost songs during his show on Planet Rock which was great. I should imagine the powers that be wouldn't dare tell Rick what not to play. I was also intrigued to hear that BBC 6 Music played "Toys" a couple of times last year. Quite how that happened is anyone's guess, but I'm grateful all the same.

Co-incidentally, I got an email today from a gentleman in the US who wants to talk about using a Frost song on a film he's working on. I can't say anymore than that at the moment as it's bound to go horribly wrong if I do, but a thought's a thought and right now, it's a thought that's out there. And it's an exciting thought.

In other news, I'm trying to become a man. The weekend before last, I fixed the dishwasher which was immensely butch of me, however, shortly after that I drove to Kingston dressed as a Victorian so it was only a partial victory.

This weekend I plan on delving into the world of DIY electronics. A man's soldering set for men will arrive tomorrow complete with clamps, sponge, multiple solder tips and some other solder type stuff along with 2 lithium batteries on comedy stilts and some solder braid. Armed only with some instructions I found on the internet, I shall endeavour to replace the battery in a Yamaha DX7 Mark II.

No, not that one. The other one. The one I bought yesterday in Tonbridge. The one which has turned out to have a flat battery.

Do synths have batteries I hear you cry? Well, amazingly...yes. They have little round batteries like you used to get in digital watches that help them remember things after you turn them off such as the sounds you put in them. This is very useful. Otherwise you have to make your sounds from scratch every time you turn them on.

The last machine to require that sort of thing was called a Minimoog, which is very old, very wooden and very silly. Like this -


Currently, all the sounds in the Tonbridge DX are called things like "*9*u1#uj$£))" and "#78jJ--hyR!!" when they should be called "Bell" and "Electric Piano" and most of the patches sound like a postman whistling a very high note while atop a windy cliff.

On fire.

So I figured I would be a man about it, get my soldering iron out and save myself a few quid on sending it to the menders. How hard can it be?

On the plus side, if I do accidentally burn through the motherboard or spit a full gob of red wine into it (these things do happen you know) I can relax safe in the knowledge that I've got another one to replace it with. Either way, I shall emerge from the experience with slightly larger techno cojones than before.

And probably slightly fewer DX7's.

Survivor Syndrome

I keep thinking there's something I need to be doing. Driving back from the gym just now, my subconscious starting hassling me to listen to the Kino album again as has been standard practice this last few weeks so that I could practice the backing vocals to Perfect Tense.

And then I reaslised that I didn't have to anymore. It was like one of those dreams where you wake up and everything's alright after all. It was lovely.

The Fantom's still in it's flightcase actually, covered in lyrics and chords and sellotape. I might leave it there in perpetuity, like some mad esoteric prog time capsule thing. In years to come I'll dig it out and turn it on and be amazed at the sheer madness of it all. I've no idea why I do gigs you know, I do get terribly scared just before hand. It can't be good for the heart.

Anyway, today's lesson is go and pick up any synths that you might buy online if you possibly can. Otherwise they can end up being delivered by UPS looking like this -



Friday the 13th eh?