Morning Ali
Arrghh.
Monday.
Half an hour standing in the rain
As the bus didn’t turn up
Sore head.
Rainy Monday Morning Thoughts (Email to Ali K)
June 30, 2008
Leave a Comment » | 
General | Tagged: Monday Morning | 
Permalink
Posted by riadsala
The Big Chill 2008 – My Preview
June 28, 2008Hello.
Glasto weekend. But I’m starting to really look forward to the Big Chill. Fingers crossed its nice and dry. Thought I’d do a little blog sharing some of people I’m looking forward to seeing.
Leave a Comment » | General | Tagged: The Big Chill | Permalink
Posted by riadsala
The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete
June 26, 2008The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete
It’s kind of depressing to think that it might work quite well formy project, and beat my snazzy visual search model. But then again, a lot of the statistical tools I’ve come accross are pants. Interesting article though.
ps. For anybody I’ve not told already: my first paper has been accepted. Yay!
Leave a Comment » | General | Permalink
Posted by riadsala
A Very Musical Weekend
June 23, 2008Hello.
That was a pretty busy weekend. Practise with the band Sat morning. Things are starting to fall into place, fingers crossed the recording date next month will go smoothly! Then in the afternoon, I had a little jam with Sylvain. It’s been ages since I’ve last played with him. I’d forgotten how much fun it is. Although it’s hard work keeping up with him, not much time to think. And it really drags me out of the comfort zone I’ve built for myself due to playing with Ali so much! I’ll have to brush up on my afrobeat chops and grooves.
Leave a Comment » | Music | Permalink
Posted by riadsala
Eric Bibb at the Queen’s Hall
June 15, 2008Went to see Eric Bibb at the Queen’s Hall last night. Great gig. 🙂 He seemed to be enjoying himself a lot too, which created a great atmosphere. Amusingly, he did as a lot of things that Ali does at gig: spend a while tuning guitar before each song; start a song with the capo on the wrong fret; play a whole song in the wrong tuning; tell the audience that he’s starting to sweat…. I guess the trick to getting away with all these things it to act like you feel really privileged to be playing. Although this is maybe easier done when you’re playing to a capacity crowd in a nice venue with good acoustics, as opposed to playing to your friends again at Henry’s.
Leave a Comment » | Music | Tagged: Eric Bibb, gig review | Permalink
Posted by riadsala
Home Made Pizza
June 12, 2008Just thought I’d share a photo of the monster pizza we made at the weekend.
And thanks to my mum for supplying the (very elasticy) dough from her bread machine. It took quite a while to make a half way sensibly shaped pizza base!
1 Comment | General | Tagged: pizza | Permalink
Posted by riadsala
Coming Attractions: Eric Bibb and Pentangle
June 10, 2008Hello. Windy day for a cycle along the canal today. All good exercise I suppose. Anyway, there are some good gigs coming up. Next Saturday Eric Bibb is at the Queen’s Hall. An acoustic, folk, blues sorta guy from what I know. Paul Jones on BBC R2 plays him quite a bit. I don’t know much of his music, but what I’ve heard, I really like.
Then next month, Pentangle are playing a reunion gig. 40 years from their famous concert in the Royal Albert Hall. It’ll be another welcome opportunity to see the wonderful Danny Thompson – joint first with Jaco for my favourite bassists.
Leave a Comment » | General | Permalink
Posted by riadsala
A far cry from playing with Ali… (from Tony Levin diary).
June 5, 2008May 24, Nashville
There’s no experience quite like rehearsing with Crimson.
We’re working on the classic material, not trying to write more yet – but some of it is so complex it’s quite an effort to get it right.
For Gavin (Gavin Harrison is playing drums now, in addition to Pat Mastelotto) it’s all new. For me, a couple of the pieces from the recent albums I hadn’t played on are proving very challenging indeed. I even wrote to Trey Gunn (he’d played the bass parts) asking for some clues to the parts!
Actually, The Construction of Light is kind of like a game of Myst – occasional clues lying around, which may, after a lot of wandering, lead to finding the right part. I joked with Trey that to figure out the part I needed an abacus and a bottle of Advil.
As an example, here are some of my names for sections of the piece:
Trey’s 28 Ramble – then 29, followed by Rising 15’s.
C tone row in 5, triple offset with guitars, then backward.
E Boogalooga with Silent Seven followed by Variable 11’s with door knocks in G.
And, from Level 5 there’s the Blazing 11’s RiffSplat on E, then inverted after two drum 11’s.
As I said, there’s nothing quite like rehearsing with Crimson!
(Note to self: learn to play parallel 7/8 and 5/8.)
Whereas, playing with Ali, well, first I have to check that the song is in the key of D. Which it usually is. And then, a 1, a 2, a 1 2 3 4……. and it’s time I learnt to sail…
Al out
(looking forward to the jam on Sat morning!)
Leave a Comment » | Music | Permalink
Posted by riadsala
