Chris

Going to Copenhagen in a couple of weeks. Anyone been? Got any good tips? We're just going there for a weekend so mostly looking for food and bar recommendations (currently planning to go to the Mikkeller bar and Radio). Going to get the train over to Malmo for a day as well.

It won't be picking up a radio nearby, it's acting as a radio. Used to have a CryBaby that did it, once so bad I had to completely disconnect it at a gig. Also used to get it a lot when practicing at The Foyer. Even had an amp once that regularly used to spit out foreign radio stations. Lots of reasons for it happening, usually related to shielding but the problem may not even be in your board. Could be a poor quality electrical socket.

We've already bumped one thread for this: http://www.aberdeen-music.com/topic/44241-vindicated/ Don't think it needs two zombie threads.

I did get one lesson from Jayne last year and she gave me some warmup exercises which have helped a lot. Hard to find the time to go back for more regular lessons but I should maybe take another look into it There's nowhere to hide when it's just guitar and vocal...

Still available

Just been thinking about how I went from playing Metallica covers in a mate's garage to being in a band. While a lot of my friends played guitar none of them have ever really gone on to be in gigging bands doing their own stuff. Fuck knows why, two of them were lightyears ahead of me in terms of ability. One did go on to study music and played in covers and weddings bands for a while but that was all. Always struck me as a waste. I think in 98 or 99 when I was 18 I tried answering a few adverts in R&B and then ended up jamming Black Sabbath songs with Paul Sammat in the old Captain Tom's on Dee Street. Then both of us got involved with Pete Harper and Red By Choice (don't think Sammat was originally involved with this but joined later). Spent a year writing the music for the set then got sacked after the first gig in Exodus and watched every man and his dog go through that band's lineup before it inevitably imploded. Kept writing music and got Dos Dedos together after a year or so. Great 3 years during what was a pretty fun time to be in a band in Aberdeen. Lots going on and seemed like everyone was on the same page. Drakes, Dr Drakes, Glow/Lava/Kef, The Palace all saw more of me than my home in that time. Kind of petered out a bit in the end and everyone quit after a shitty gig playing to nobody. Did have a few jams with some of the guys after that to do something else but it was done. Next up was spending fucking ages trying to get a metalcore band off the ground with Phil Alkaline and others. Fuck knows what happened but it just never got any momentum. Eventually killed that after yet another drummer disaster without playing a single gig. Think 1864 In Art followed directly after that. 2 or 3 gigs. Pretentious as fuck but good fun. Post rock with annoying (for Martin) time signatures. Again lost momentum after a member left (bassist this time) and never quite got going again. Shame as there was some good ideas being worked on before it stopped. Next few years I started writing some proper solo songs and was getting seriously into folk and trad by this point. Also spent a couple of months getting an alt-rock band up and running in a Tomahawk style but again it was struggling for momentum. Didn't feel like it was working so when I was asked to help out with Das McManus I knocked it on the head. With me leaving Das at the end of last year that's us up to date.

A friend at school taught me how to play Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd when I was about 13 or 14 (twenty years ago FFS!). I'd never been interested in learning guitar that much but that showed me that it wasn't all that hard to pick up the basics. Borrowed an old acoustic from an auntie to try and see if I would keep at it then got a Squier Strat for Christmas. Took lessons for a while and then spent a lot of time in a friend's garage with a couple of mates learning Metallica and Megadeth songs for the next few years. Great fun.

Thank you very much for listening and taking the time to comment guys. I know my vocals are still patchy. Think it's something that will just improve with practice (and some vocal exercises) and I can already hear a big difference in consistency and control compared to how I was singing when I first put some stuff up a couple of years ago.

Yeah you need to start slowly with barefoot/minimalist shoes. Your feet will feel battered and your calves will fucking hate you so do no more than a mile or two in them at a time to start with. Having said that I wholeheartedly recommend ditching heavily cushioned shoes. It promotes good running form and I feel better with light shoes than heavy ones with inches of padding on the heel. I don't run "barefoot" but have switched to shoes with no or very little "heel drop", basically the height difference between the heel and the toe. Again it promotes good form (landing on the front of the foot instead the heel) and the shoe is lighter. I still like a little bit of cushioning though just to save my feet feeling battered, especially in my trail shoes for the rough stuff.

Well done! That's a bit brisk!

The other good thing about adding distance is the more miles you do the faster you get. One of the easiest ways to get your 5k and 10k times down is just to do more long runs. Sure, eventually if you want to get really fast you need to add interval training, sprints and hill training to really get big improvements (the old adage of you can't run fast in a race if you never run fast in training holds some water). But for the majority of runners upping the mileage is the biggest way to improve your times.

That's the same pace I was running. Add another mile like that and you've got a 24 minute 5k... If you can do 8min miles over 2 miles then try doing one longer run a week at a 10-11 min/mile pace . That's how you build distance. Start with 4 miles, or 5 if you're feeling good. Don't worry if you have to walk bits. Time on your feet is more important than speed for these sessions.

Paranoid Android and myself have done 10k in 11 years. Soda's done 16,000 in 6!

My parkrun PB is 23 mins I think (set ages ago) and I feel faster than I did then. Got a leaving do tonight so not planning to do any running tomorrow. The route wasn't as hilly as some of my runs. Just to Crathes Castle and back along the railway line, but the path up to the castle is uphill all the way and the return leg on hill of Banchory is a steady hill too. Nothing major, but enough to add a minute or two per mile to my pace. The slowest splits from last night were 8:57, 8:29 and 8:28. The 57 included walking up some steps and crossing the A93 and the other two were the hilliest bits of the run. The first mile was 7.50 and it's all downhill. I've run it in 7mins before so could have done a 49 minute 6 miles if I'd pushed harder but wanted to set off slow as I had a headache and a dodgy stomach. Plan for next two weeks is lots of proper hills and club training then take it easy with some light running the week of the race. Once Baker Hughes is out of the way it's into Half Marathon mode and starting to attack that 2 hour mark and maybe get close to 1:50 by the end of the summer.

He deleted his account and started from scratch when he returned.

Went and ran a hilly 6 miles last night at a bit below race pace and got round in 50 minutes dead (http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/486357194). Did it to see what shape I was in before the Baker Hughes so I'm pretty happy. If I don't get under 50 mins for the 10k I'll be really pissed off.

Yup, really enjoyed it. Never seen the film (though feels like I have as I've seen so many clips of it) so that might help as I don't have too many preconceptions. Looks like there's going to be a shitload of familiar faces popping up through it.

SM58 aimed roughly at where the fretboard joins the body about 5 or 6 inches from the guitar. There's a bit of EQ and reverb been added afterwards (just acoustic presets in the relevant Reaper VSTs).

Ah well guess that's a bit different if it's all within the same company, no need for the usual cloak and dagger in case your current employer finds out.

Not really, no. Usually references are only obtained for successful candidates in my experience and you can usually specify that they can't approach a referee without your permission.

Thanks for taking the time to listen guys With regards to songwriting or the lyrics being compared to Weezer, I should point out it's a traditional ballad (Child 243 ballad fans) so I can't take any credit for the words. All I've done is my own arrangement of it.

I took the opportunity after getting a new acoustic to record a couple of songs last night. A couple I've done before and a new one. They need a bit of work but I thought this one worked well enough with just the guitar and vocals that I'd put it up after a quick tidy. This is one of the ones I've recorded previously though I play it in a different key now than I used to, which I think makes it a bit easier on my voice.

Why are you updating/bumping whistle tester's threads?