Weekend off...Sort of..
Posted on
He he! A weekend off. Well sort of...I've been roped into a fund-raising gig on Sunday. Man and the work that I've had to do this week...It's a fairly regular sort of thing and they hand out awards for donations. I have to play cheerful music to accompany them coming up to get their awards. The last couple of times I've done this gig I've cued up the usual suspects: The best-Tina Turner, I need a Hero-Bonnie Tyler etc. But this time to avoid becoming a cliche, I'm locked and loaded. I've been up half the night for most of this week editing 30 second samples so I can fire them off "like what they do" on TV when a celebrity walks up to the stage. It's a long old process I can tell you. I've done around 26 of them and I might add some more today. Probably not though, as I've got to process the latest downloads from the charts and request lists for upcoming gigs. Some people think this job is easy but the prep work...You've no idea! Once you've done all that stuff at home from phone calls and bookings to the above and then heaved all the equipment into the venue, then finally the easy bit starts, providing you don't get equipment failure of course which I try and iron clad myself against. If you can imagine a crowd at an execution it can't be far off from the atmosphere that seems to instantaneously emanate from the bevvied-up crowd when the music goes down at a gig. If you add up all the man hours I should be charging around three times as much I think. Still I enjoy what I do and how many folks can say that?
Well I'm going to enjoy my Saturday off and do something nice with Becky who's been in Germany all week and came back last night. Soooo good to see her again!
I should have a party of my own really to celebrate the last ever series of "Big Brother". Thank God I won't have to hear about that crappy excuse for entertainment again after this summer. Let's all watch a bunch of freaks trapped in a box house. How did they ever manage to pitch that to the execs at channel 4? I guess they must have been desperate even back then.
Which begs the question. Do all ideas have to be new these days? Can't we just make programmes and dramas based on say...oh I don't know...Adventure? Just to throw in an example... The kind of escapism that most of us don't get to experience? Having said that, I think Apart from that excellent BBC crime drama "Luther" I don't need to worry about getting distracted by the telly any more. It's gotten so bad it's just not worth booting up the freesat box and I've already given up on SKY long since. I guess that the advertising budget is spread too thinly now with all the channels out there and this has taken the money out of production for what used to be the big four channels. Yeah, I think it affects the BBC too as it has less to compete with. Although, kudos to them for there HI-Def nature programmes with good old legend David Attenborough.That time laps photo/filming was great the other night. I only caught it on the grave yard shift with some chick waving her hands about next to it.
I still recall the Seventies and eighties when you used to really look forward to sitting down and watching such programmes as Tomorrows world and Top of the pops followed by the Sweeney or Some such thing. Maybe some Morcombe and Wise on Saturday as opposed to ruddy X factor etc. where once again they save money on professional talent and ridicule the contestants with creative chopping and pasting in the editing suite. For a while Simon Scowl had a point when he claimed that he was giving artists the break that record companies were denying the talent. But these days, artists are celebrating the END of their record contracts as they can make all the profit from their own download links to I-tunes and the like and not get constantly ripped off by EMI/Virgin or Sony etc. "Oh the times, the times they are changin'"...You could never fail to strike a chord with a song title like that could you?
You lot have a great weekend and let's hope England do well this time. We've certainly got enough songs to jump around to this time if they do...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLvS_w9gy8g
Rick and Ade at their very best! Enjoy..
Well I'm going to enjoy my Saturday off and do something nice with Becky who's been in Germany all week and came back last night. Soooo good to see her again!
I should have a party of my own really to celebrate the last ever series of "Big Brother". Thank God I won't have to hear about that crappy excuse for entertainment again after this summer. Let's all watch a bunch of freaks trapped in a box house. How did they ever manage to pitch that to the execs at channel 4? I guess they must have been desperate even back then.
Which begs the question. Do all ideas have to be new these days? Can't we just make programmes and dramas based on say...oh I don't know...Adventure? Just to throw in an example... The kind of escapism that most of us don't get to experience? Having said that, I think Apart from that excellent BBC crime drama "Luther" I don't need to worry about getting distracted by the telly any more. It's gotten so bad it's just not worth booting up the freesat box and I've already given up on SKY long since. I guess that the advertising budget is spread too thinly now with all the channels out there and this has taken the money out of production for what used to be the big four channels. Yeah, I think it affects the BBC too as it has less to compete with. Although, kudos to them for there HI-Def nature programmes with good old legend David Attenborough.That time laps photo/filming was great the other night. I only caught it on the grave yard shift with some chick waving her hands about next to it.
I still recall the Seventies and eighties when you used to really look forward to sitting down and watching such programmes as Tomorrows world and Top of the pops followed by the Sweeney or Some such thing. Maybe some Morcombe and Wise on Saturday as opposed to ruddy X factor etc. where once again they save money on professional talent and ridicule the contestants with creative chopping and pasting in the editing suite. For a while Simon Scowl had a point when he claimed that he was giving artists the break that record companies were denying the talent. But these days, artists are celebrating the END of their record contracts as they can make all the profit from their own download links to I-tunes and the like and not get constantly ripped off by EMI/Virgin or Sony etc. "Oh the times, the times they are changin'"...You could never fail to strike a chord with a song title like that could you?
You lot have a great weekend and let's hope England do well this time. We've certainly got enough songs to jump around to this time if they do...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLvS_w9gy8g
Rick and Ade at their very best! Enjoy..