My 'Deadliest' Recording session..

Halfway through a session at Jutland Studios in Brixton the studio was taken over by Danny Dyer and his men filming for Bravo TV's series 'Britians Deadliest Gangs'..

Thankfully my recording skills got me through the session and I lived to see the light of another day ;)

Southbank Pics..

I found a room on Villiers Street which is only minutes away from the Southbank. ( it lasted only a month but thats a WHOLE different story! ) These pics are taken with my little ( dearly departed ) Samsung ..... quite pleased with the results.

Asst Stage manager for 'Pendulum' at the Jermyn St Theatre, Picadilly

Last year I took on the role of Assistant Stage Manager for a small Theatre production 'The Pendulum' at the Jermyn Street theatre in Picadilly. My tasks were pretty diverse, from prop handling backstage to 'bruising' Helena, the leading lady ( as seen below ) 'Another' perk of this particular job was being paid to spend the whole day on Portabello road shopping for the necessaries. The piece was set in 1800 Vienna and required a few silver relics to play pivotal roles in the storyline, from the classic candelabra to drawings and tablecloths. (A few pics here if your not too familiar with Portobello Road)

Death Cab For Cutie, Koko Camden

O2 Wireless Festival, Hyde Park..

I honestly dont 'love' Counting Crows, a few good tracks/memories growing up maybe but was mainly a good trial for my little camera.. she did well. Ben Harper however! Sheeesh! his live band were amazing and he's pretty hot on the old lap guitar himself.

Ping Pong..

Moving here in September I really wanted a part time job that really felt the vibe of London (and really wasnt up for retail) PingPong was perfect for that, based in the Southbank area it invited people of every type and was unbelievably busy! with cues down the stairs and out of the door even on a Tuesday night

As the staff were mostly international students around the same sort of age and in different circumstances it was a really active and diverse place to work. We were treated a bit too well as the PingPong brand was proving to be hugely popular, the staff parties were actually wild with staff prizes spanning from iPhones to skiing trips and weeks holiday in LA.

Worth checking out a restaurant sometime ;) http://www.pingpongdimsum.com

Portobello Road

Carlos Paes, Bass track Dance Remix..

A Brazillian DJ fancied remixing a small track I wrote for an assignment at ( preview here ) .. His tracks unfinished and the camera sound is poor but I took the vid so thought I'd share it.. He later had his Macbook stolen from his hotel room while on holiday in Vegas (happens to everyone) so he apparently lost the final version along with all his course work. Ouch.

http://www.myspace.com/djcarlospaes

Black & Gold cover..

Our first practical assignment at SAE was a little 8 track acoustic production. I decided to give Black and Gold by Sam Sparrow a go.. ( If you've not heard the original listen first here )

Here's a little preview of the final track - which 'will' be available for free 'very' soon ;)
(On the cello is the amazing Lucy Payne!)

Preview..

My Lifes Mixtape

If you hate the question 'so what type of music are you into' as much as I do for sheer inability to give an answer broad enough to cover tastes, then you'll understand how helpful building a playlist of almost 'Every' song that you've ever liked (and would 'still listen to' I need to add ) can be.

This list will obviously continue to grow but for now I hope you enjoy ...and if you're on Spotify

Pound

Its a Military thing..

Some shots from a little extra work as a soldier in a short film directed Jack Herbert. (Filmed in conjunction with Yorkshire TV for a Leeds Film School graduate. Full piece currently still in post production)

Nike / Zoltar Exhibition

At the end of 2008 I was introduced by the lovely Angela Buttolph to a design/fashion company called Zoltar, a small but influential design/fashion company, headed by London socalite, art collector, fashion designer, model, actor, photographer and viscount Dan Macmillan (style.com, wikipedia) I was hired in as a freelancer to help prepare some artwork for their esteemed Wunderland exhibiton for Nike held as part of the London Frieze Art festival. My roles included Illustrator line-art work on the trainers seen framed above as well as general Photoshopping.

For full reviews and articles:
http://giant.blackplanet.com/articles/zoltar-x-nike/
http://dazeddigital.com/Fashion/article/1375/1/Zoltars_Wunderland
http://slamxhype.com/art-design/nike-wunderland-by-zoltar/
http://www.highsnobiety.com/news/2008/10/27/zoltar-wunderland-exhibition-for-nike/

My Acting Debut...

Back in October 2007 we received an email asking for extras for a low budget film starring Richard E Grant called Cuckoo - although it was due to be a long day of standing around not doing a lot ( as a lot of extra work can be ) I couldn't turn down the opportunity. The role was as a Cardiology student in one of Richard E Grants ( aka Professor Julius Greengrass's ) lectures.. Please forgive the shaky camera-work, on top of being an old mobile camera I also wasn't really supposed to be filming so I had to be a little sneaky about it.

The film is still in post production.
www.cuckoothemovie.com


My second acting role was as a military official in a short film 'Get A Life'.. read more here.

SAE

So my first year at SAE was in a slightly battered, pub smelling type facility near Holloway but thanks thanks to our ever increasing course fee's (no doubt) SAE aquired a brand new 7 story building on Kingsland road Dalston. As you can see above they're pretty sweet, with 24 hour access to 9 major audio studios housing the (prepare for the geek-out) Neve Genesys, Logic SSL , TL Audio VTC 32, Digidesign Icon as well as a number of film editing suites, green screen facilities, practical workstations and a cafe.. more details here..

The course was pretty full on being a 3 year condensed.. Our first 6 weeks were solid maths, digging right into the physics of sounds, then building up to electronics before (thankfully) more hands practical recording on assignments.

You can see a small preview of one of my first practical assignments here..

Although my focus was more of the creative elements of the course I was really keen to dig into some of the sound physics modules. Because of its spiritual and emotional connotations it can be so easy to forget that sound actually moves, changing the atmosphere around us. Learning about sound as 'physical' and learning the techniques used to control it in particular environments was invaluable.

One of the other modules we covered was the area of Psychoacoustics, the study of subjective human perception of sounds. Here is one little auditory illusion to enjoy:

It Begins..

So!.. Ive finally managed to gather some of my thoughts and happenings ( 2 years later! ) and I hereby - officially, finally! and with pleasure - open this blog to the public ;)

Although my time here has seemed to fly in some ways, its been pretty rich and being London, full of creative madness. Thank you to so many amazing friends in Lee On Solent for your much encouragement and motivation over the last 7 years, this will hopefully serve to keep you updated with some of those things as well as be home to my general thoughts and midnight ramblings.. I'll mostly be focusing on any areas of creativity, Dance/Theatre/Photography/Modern audio technology and general culture. Please bare with me while it all takes shape.. and please feel free to comment! ;)

Andy x