Iain Cameron's Diary
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2010-08-09 - 10:09 p.m.

My email was down all of Sunday but was back by 6am on Monday. I left EE to one side on Sunday and concentrated on Sony Music Studio. I didn't get MIDI recording to work but I did manage to record from the Dhorn via the line in. I was surprised what a low noise recording resulted. I managed to get FX onto one of the MIDI tracks I created but failed with many others. One of the chord sequences I created in a groove piece got under my skin - both in terms of its timing and some of the chord timbres. On Monday I took this piece on in two versions - one in Kristal and the other rendering the mix from SMS, loading the WAV back into SMS abd adding some MIDI parts. I think maybe the Kristal version will be the one that's taken on

An e/m arrived from James McG who likes LS5 - one of my favourites. I have put Wild About Herself into the Airburst Suite - I have looked hard for Jon Cole's e/m but can't find it - maybe this will tempt him out. Listening to his guitar solo has made me work on my single string playing on the U2. Charles Alexander is playing the restaurant in Battersea High St next Saturday but I will be in Brill unfortunately. He says it's their last gig there for a while.

James McG has recommended the Grey Album - I have put it into the library. Amazon are recommeding a new Cassandra Wilson album - which has a great review. The bear played a series of bossa related tracks including Areia's Bye Bye Brazil. Then Poppa was a Rolling Stone which never fails for me and a selection from Sahara Blue which I bought 2nd hand in Greenwich and can't currently locate.

I wonder whether to explore recording audio in SMS - at some point I would like to record electric guitar. When the bear put on Dont Want to Know (one of his favourites) I couldn't help thinking of the way RY juxtaposes the music and the life. On one theory it should be possible to prise one away from the other. It certainly doesn't do to let the life undermine the music. B also pulled out Trane's Blues To Elvin - which is down home by his standards. It works because of that unique tone - some evocative splits on some of the high notes.

I wonder whether to take some La Monte Young into an SMS rhythm piece? There are lots of comments on LFM including - that tortoise is seriously in need of some down time he sounds wrought with anxiety in his dreams. It wasn't quite so much this way when I heard it live. Bear followed LMY with Dopplereffekt - not at all bad. The Independent reminds us - In a competition for the 2nd alto sax chair in the Los Angeles City College Dance Band La Monte Young beat Eric Dolphy. That was in 1953. I actually asked him about it at the concert I attended. He said they were both very into C Parker. Indy also says - Before minimalism became the polite, dinner-party backdrop it is now it was a rigorous downtown din made by the cool, 1960s conceptualists who occupied the lofts and studios of avant New York: and La Monte Young was their mentor.

Buy and Sell is one of my faves off First Songs - I also like the Suzanne Vega version. B went for Shake Em On Down by Bukka White as the follow-up. The current gtr based piece has taken a couple of steps forward. As his contribution to JM studies the bear played The Creator has a Master Plan plus My Brother Jake. Soon after there was SS1 - quite good company - with the Cocteau Twins. I suppose I have to admit to liking CBR.

Meanwhile getting into the last hundred pages of EE there's a trip round the festivals of 67 and 68 including the one in Parliament Hill Fields with the Jefferson Airplane and the big event in the meadow at Cambridge. At RY's suggestion I tried Comus Radio - which came up with the Trees' version of Sally Free and Easy - a bit of a folk-raga. James McG and I were saying earlier how much we like PW's Seachanges album which includes his take on this one.

The piece in development on the guitar has moved on - it is rather Jobim like and very circular. I have to think of a way to end it.

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