Neutron News

An A-blog-pology!

2018-10-01T11:00:00.003+02:00

Yeah, so it didn’t quite work out like I had planned . . . As I mentioned a while back, my intention was to blog about the various steps and recording sessions involved in making my album . . . photos, video clips etc. Unfortunately, after the last blog below, I did three or four sessions which were really productive and interesting but, during which, I completely forgot to take photos or make

So, how do you make a multitrack recording..?

2017-05-17T13:29:00.000+02:00

It's been a while but I have finally managed to make the video I promised about multitracking. Please feel free to comment . . .

Too late . . .

2017-04-03T09:34:00.001+02:00

With a truly heavy heart I have to sit down and write my tribute to Bernie Bigler . . . it’s been hard to take it in that he is gone. I’ve know him for over 10 years. We spent many hours together playing, travelling and talking and what I loved most about him was his love of music and harmony; how music fits together and how it works. Bernie had a great sense of humour, he was outgoing,

Squeezebox ahoy!

2017-03-04T14:25:00.005+01:00

The Shabby Road branch of NewTones Studios was on the road again this week. Hector Gubbins has been a friend for well over 20 years. He is an immense talent - artistically and musically. He is a great guitarist and mandolin player but he is also one of those people who can pick up almost any instrument and get a sound out of it. I really wanted to get some of his squeezebox talents onto

Piano session . . .

2017-02-24T18:33:00.000+01:00

NewTones Studios was on the road this week. This was session to record piano tracks for the song 'Before It's Too Late', which will feature on the - as yet unnamed - album. As you can see, it was a hard, hard session. Proof that musicians don't just sit around drinking coffee and cognac and eating doughnuts all day...oh wait . . . My thanks go to Renate Dienersberger for really hitting the

For example . . .

2017-02-14T14:07:00.000+01:00

There should have been a recording session today with my long-time musical collaborator, and highly talented pianist, Renate Dienersberger, but I had to postpone it due to unexpected work commitments. We would have recorded piano tracks for the song 'Before It's Too Late', which will be on the album. To give you an idea of what it sounds like when we play together, here's a video of 'Brooklyn'

So, how do you make an album . . ?

2017-02-09T16:43:00.000+01:00

Yeah, good question. First you have to write songs. I wrote my first song when I was about 15. And it was a big surprise. Up until then I had firmly believed that it was IMPOSSIBLE to write a song - I know there was a lot of evidence around me which should have proved to me that people could indeed write songs, but I considered it simply IMPOSSIBLE! So, suddenly, somehow, I had written a song.

New Album News

2017-02-04T14:02:00.000+01:00

After years of wondering which studio to record my songs in and who to do them with and wondering how to pay for it all and waiting for the perfect moment and procrastinating and going round in further circles, I have finally reached the point where I have decided to do it myself, NOW! The plan is to make one new album with my own songs and possibly a second album with cover versions of some of

A Winter Solstice Thought...

2014-12-22T13:27:00.001+01:00

I was just thinking about the memorable JFK quote "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" and I thought, "hmm, y'know, that could be extended...". So, instead of texts from holy books and scriptures, popes' proclamations, ayatollah's admonitions, chief rabbis' recommendations and so on, what about if we all simply said to each

How About Thinking for Ourselves?

2014-10-04T09:25:00.001+02:00

This latest atrocity, the beheading of Alan Henning by the Islamic State, is another example of concentrated barbarism carried out under a religious banner. The fact that world leaders have condemned it is good. The fact that religious leaders have condemned it is also good. However, the way some of these religious leaders have condemned the killing is, in my opinion, not so good. To say this

And in Other News...

2012-06-21T14:23:00.001+02:00

...I have a brain! And here it is (well, slices of it) That is just SO WEIRD!!!!!

Evil in the Cutlery Drawer

2012-03-29T08:05:00.004+02:00

Singers are hypochondriacs (ah, here I must insert my standard "joke", sorry: I don't know what hypochondria is, but I'm sure I've got it...). They are hypochondriacs about their voices - which is fair enough, seeing as their voices constitute their livelihood. But there is something deeper too; a singer's voice is an extension of his or her being, it's like an extra limb or an extra faculty

And on the Subject of Good Words/Phrases...

2012-02-13T15:48:00.004+01:00

See temperature at top of screenshotWe have now had over a week of double-figure minus degree C temperatures here in Deepest Bavaria, all thanks to a Russian high (if that's a high, I'd hate to experience a low). The most minus last week was on Monday with a stinging minus 20°C, plus the gentle breeze chill factor = -27°C. I missed my tram that day and decided to walk the 4 km to the lesson I

2012-02-04T22:09:00.006+01:00

Bleak, bleak, bleakity bleak. If ever there was a morning which defined bleak then this was it out in the railway-bus exchange suburb Feldmoching...a thin layer of evil snow, leafless, lifeless puny newly planted trees, white tower blocks with feeble early-morning lights dimly glowing through some of the windows, cloudy anonymous sky, cold air...well, not just cold, more like fucking freezing air

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)

2011-12-31T10:19:00.002+01:00

I wrote here about Christopher Hitchins having been diagnosed with oesophagal cancer, well, he has now sadly succumbed to this evil disease.It's hard to believe that the great voice is now still, that the mind so erudite and acerbic, profound and witty is gone, the brain, so crammed full with learning, literature, history and experience is now just so much meat.I think the only other occasion

Life is Life

2011-12-04T08:36:00.006+01:00

We gathered on Friday at a beautiful funeral service on a beautiful day to pay our respects to Helmut and take our leave. There were over two hundred people there and I am sure many more would have liked to attend. Helmut's parents were there, his sister, his wife, his children, his best friends, his work colleagues. Some of us spoke, some played music; we all shed tears and then smiled, laughed

See you, Helmut...

2011-11-28T00:13:00.003+01:00

I'm trying and failing to reconcile two concepts or entities: Helmut and death - the two just don't go together in my head. And yet, in harsh, uncaring reality, sadly, unbelievably, they must.I first met Helmut in 1983. We were expecting our first child and being in deepest Bavaria, far from grandparents, had decided to look for a couple in a similar position to share a house with, and share the

The Sevvie; Oh howe are the myghtie ouerthrowen

2011-10-30T10:16:00.007+01:00

The Sefton Arms Hotel was once a proud drinking establishment, built on the very entrance to Aintree Race Course and less than 50 yards from the train station which was named after it, "Aintree Sefton Arms". The hotel would reach its apotheosis each year during the Grand National racing meeting.It was also our local pub, the place where my mum and dad spent almost as much time as they did at home

D-I-f-Y

2011-10-29T07:23:00.005+02:00

It's probably quite fortunate that people pronounce DIY as "dee, eye, why" and don't say the actual words the acronym is made from -oh, hang on, it's not an acronym is it? Because you don't pronounce DIY as "diy", but it's not an abbreviation either...so what is it?I could look it up for you but, well, DIY!And indeed, that is my point - if people didn't go around saying "dee, eye, why", they

Sapphic Apple

2011-09-12T14:57:00.005+02:00

Οἶον τὸ γλυκύμαλον ἐρεύθεται ἄκρῳ ἐπ' ὔσδῳ ἄκρον ἐπ' ἀκροτάτῳ· λελάθοντο δὲ μαλοδρόπηες,οὐ μὰν ἐκλελάθοντ', ἀλλ' οὐκ ἐδύναντ' ἐπίκεσθαι.That's a fragment of old Sappho for you...What?? You want a translation..???Ok, first here's GoogleTranslate's version:Quasi the glykύmalon ereύthetai akrῳ on ysdῳwelding on akrotάtῳ; lelάthonto he malodropies,My Man eklelάthont 'But owc edύnant' epίkesthai.No?Ok

Zen and the Art of Washing up by Hand

2011-09-02T11:55:00.004+02:00

As a musician, I loathe and detest background music. This is becoming more and more difficult to avoid; supermarkets have had it for ages now, pubs unfortunately too, of course - that awful piped musak. Now you get it on the phone when you call, say, the gas board about a leak, “...all our operators are busy at the

TOGS

2011-07-23T15:17:00.002+02:00

Verily, this blog has endured a Time Of Great Silence in the last months. Forthwith, I shall endeavour to be more loquacious. I can extend no guarantee that my efforts will bear fruit - but I'll have a bash!

Welcome to the Fold

2011-02-24T23:38:00.003+01:00

When my daughter Nick phoned up late last year and said, "hello daddy, erm, I'm engaged!", I thought she meant she had a long term gig with her band Liza23.I said something like, "oh, good, where are you playing?"She replied in that tone which daughters seem to reserve exclusively for their slow-witted dads, "No, daddy, enGAGed!!""Ah, enGAGed, ok, erm, that's great... isn't it?"Well, it turned

Why I am not a Physicist

2010-12-16T16:49:00.003+01:00

Some old archive in my memory has just been jiggled open while I was listening to a programme on Radio 4.I spend a large part of my, admittedly far too limited, reading time buried deep inside books about science. I'm quite eclectic in my tastes, quantum mechanics, relativity, particle physics, neuroscience, evolution, astronomy, psychology and so on - from parallel universes to the Large Hadron

Hitchins

2010-07-03T11:34:00.005+02:00

Christopher Hitchins, a man I admire greatly, has been diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus. He is undergoing chemo-therapy but the prognosis for this particular type of cancer is not good.Christopher Hitchins is a courageous. honest and exceptionally erudite individual; he writes in Vanity Fair - in fact he writes extremely well in Vanity Fair, has had several books published, notably 'God is