I have a dream. Well, I have lots of dreams, but let's set aside the one where I'm chased naked across a WW2 beach-head by a machine-gun toting giant lemur and focus on another particular one.

The dream of the ultimate home hifi. Surely all guys have this?

Now I'm not one of these people who reads "what Hi-fi" magazine and believes that if I buy speaker cables at £100 a metre, my audio fidelity will improve dramatically. But I do think there is an ideal home audio setup for me, and it's not going to require a second mortgage either.

I'd like to be able to store all my music on one hard drive, then access that hard drive via a wifi remote control from any part of the beatcave. I'd like speakers to be set up in every room, along with receivers (small, of course) so that I don't have to have wires trailing all over the place. Miss Tulip hates wires.

It'd also be good to have a digital radio on there as well. I don't care about surround sound really. I just want to hear music everywhere I go.

Imagine, a home audio setup where your whole house could have the same music on as you potter from room to room. Cool huh?

Am I a nerd? I think so. Still, if you have a setup like this, I want to hear about it. Is gadgetvicar still reading?

  I've always taken a somewhat warped pride in the dreary and foreboding look of the Beatcave. Passers-by in the glorious suburb of Ibronx (those not already preoccupied with being mugged) might look across at this dark and gloomy establishment and shudder. I'd like to think that the place had something of the Bates' Motel look about it. You know: suddenly it catches your eye; the sky darkens. A cold wind blows from the east; you turn up the collar on your coat and quicken your pace. All that hooey. Furthermore, I've fine tuned the windows to make a ghostly groan every time the wind blows. (I was told this adds to the property value, too)

Problem is, Miss Tulip, my lovely (but rather firm) housekeeper, insisted that we put in window boxes. With multicoloured pansies.

"But I want it to look tough and mean!"

Miss Tulip's response that pansies were, contrary to their name, "actually quite a resilient flower" did little to offset my dismay.

"Are they some kind of...killer pansies?"

Miss Tulip didn't think you could get killer pansies. How disappointing.
My plans for having the most ominous dwelling in the neighbourhood are seriously hindered. But what can you do. She's very persuasive. But I'll definitely make sure my next car is a hearse.

Hello chaps.

I have a new toy for the studio. Native Instruments KORE (rhymes with "PHWOOAR!")
Here it is


Isn't she a beaut? Now, all I have to do is figure out what it's for, and I'll be laughing.

hear it at The Beatcave Page  if you can't get it on my profile.
Many thanks to the 'I-bronx' police  for the provision of that useful siren sample. And also to the gang of Ibrox Tongs (no.1) that they were pursuing at the time. The wee rascals.

Young Offenders Institute are a manchester guitar band. You can hear the original (non radio-friendly edit) here

It's a gritty social commentary, not a pro-drugs stance, OK?

    Life gets really busy doesn't it? Ho hum.

Well, in recent news, I spent a lovely week away visiting the parents of the lovely Miss Tulip. Time was spent swimming, up hills, visiting friends, having barbecues, in shops and reading Agatha Christie murder mysteries on the garden seat. (commas are great, aren't they?)
Listening to the gentle lap of the fountain and the groans and munchings of the nearby Crossgar cattle: what  better way is there to spend a (mostly) sunny week in Northern Ireland?

Leading the band in church this evening was fun. Forgot that I had agreed (did I?) to cover the team of J-Knee while she had a holiday (I hope she doesn't read this) at the simply splendid Scottish christian event that is Clan Gathering. Enjoyed the gig, despite the lack of preparation time.

Anyway, in other business, it seems that a remix which I recently did is being used as the b-side of a forthcoming single release. I had been asked to do this by the band's publisher, who was then going to suggest it to the record label. Seems they like it! Cool beans. Other remix on there will be by N-Joi. I'll need to go and look them up...
 No money it seems for this one, but it should lead to some more proper work. (ha! proper work, indeed..) Should probably mean that I'm ok to let people hear it on this site, so a new tune should be forthcoming.

Love and marriage
BA

    I've been thinking about starting a small removals firm with a couple of transit vans and drivers. Would call it "Move U R Us". (many thanks to Veronicon for the suggestion, and the lovely indian meal yesterday)

Any other ideas (must be originals)?

The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.

Mark Twain. What a narrow-minded wally. He forgot that books LOOK great, and make you look well-read, which is enough to impress most idiots.
Ever gone into a large library and been impressed by the sheer number of volumes lining the walls? And did you take the time to read them?

I figured that so many of the pics I upload have the bookcase in
my studio in the background, so I thought, "why don't I take a
picture of it for people what read my blog so they can see what
books I can pretend I've read like innit". My thoughts might be
more concise if I was well-read, but hey.

So here it is. Are you impressed? You should be.





(I've made this smaller for formatting reasons. Right click on it, get properties, copy the address into your address bar and you can see the full sized pic)
Comments?

You should hear it if you go to my profile, but if not, try going to Beatcave's myspace site instead.

Original is called "Ain't No Other Man", and can be heard on the official Christina Aguilera website

Original track got leaked on the internet last week, which I found out about on the Record of the Day forum... here. Dangerous thing to do: people will start to remix it without permission :-)

So I thought I would get my effort in first. This is a first rough mix. I'd probably lift the synths a bit in places and put in a funky guitar solo over the middle breakdown, but other than that, whaddaya think?

Oh, and I'm not certain, but I'm guessing this song (the original I mean) will have to be used on the forthcoming Superman soundtrack, given the lyrics.

Get funky!