The Modern Game Complete, Winter Party Rehearsals

Woke late and converted and scheduled The Modern Game videos yesterday. NASA samples in the music stop the album from being released on some platforms, as the content can't be 100% exclusive. Of course, no music with NASA samples can be. This seems like a shortcoming in the licencing system, a lack of up to date regulations; 99.99% of my content is new and exclusive, but for the sake of 0.01% of overtly free-to-use samples I can't claim, for example, usage on YouTube for my content. All of the basic work on the album is now complete and ready for release.

Today, started the 'Snowflake' videos and rehearsed for Tuesday's 'Winter Party' performance before a sojourn in the rain with my beloved Deborah around Christmas shops. I need to charge on with new things but feel overwhelmed with possible remasters, tidying old works. Working on The Myth Of Sisyphus was planned for 2025, but I've worked on so many other albums instead. One thing that work on The Modern Game has taught me is how much I've improved in singing and production since 2022.

Christmas Tails in is the local newspaper again, we've had a huge amount of coverage. I feel I need to perform more, to exhibit more, to do more. I hope that I can do more next year. I hope I can find a break, a chance, a place, an opportunity. I'm always hesitant, if not afraid, to pursue anything or anyone.

Onwards I push through the heavy air of life. Onwards to our destiny we step.

The Ropes of Art, The Modern Game 4 Complete

A long sleep of many dreams and such languid laziness interrupted by spurts of waking. I became sad and worried about the toothache which has been with me for about two weeks, knowing I have no NHS dentist.

I listened to a moving and inspiring radio programme about Lancashire artist Michael Ashcroft. It made me somewhat melancholy and feeling like a failure as an artist, yet I was being romantic. I've had ups and downs, won prizes and now have work in two museums, counting the music from the Salomé project. I've never managed to find an art gallery interested in selling my work, and rarely sell a painting; yet I am able to continue to live and work as I do. I regularly exhibit, passing the jury in open competitions; have received the occasional commendation and exhibited in a few venues of prestige, though I usually feel that my best work is not selected and that the most mainstream and pretty works are favoured over the powerful paintings I feel convey something new and arresting.

Yet, I keep trying without compromise. My many artworks vary hugely in style and depth. The 'Will You Be My Snowflake?' song is a world away from the painting 'The Angels Musing Over All That Is Left Of Rachel Hudson', yet I try to make both the best they can be in their fields. Artists can only make what our passions instruct, and we can only pursue those passions and interests, whether good or bad. We grip the rope and must hold on until the journey ends, whether it pulls us under the waves or to heaven.

After such musing I started work on the list of the day, and today's rope pulled my limbs a little upwards.

I sang new vocals for 'All The Broken Flowers', and these were instantly better than the 2018 vocals. I mixed them and the album was complete. The rest of the day has been spent working on the huge job of preparing the album for release; breaking up the tracks, submitting the music for distribution, listing on Bandcamp, burning archive CD copies, compiling the final videos, archiving the Argus and Prometheus files, registering the music with some of the many different music authorities, and lots of other paperwork, half of which is still pending.

I have a sore throat and upper chest. Deb is ill with a cold and I probably have the same virus.

I started The Modern Game remaster on Nov 3rd, and now it's complete. I'm pleased with it, and pleased to complete it. Once done, I can work a bit on the Will You Be My Snowflake? videos, and prepare for next week's live events.

So many ropes pull me in different ways... which will win?

Modern Game Videos Complete, Sheet Music Updates

Another full day. Completed compiling all of The Modern Game videos. I made a small change to the mix of 'Looking For A Lover'. Here's a video still:

All audio and videos are now complete apart from 'All The Broken Flowers'. This uses my original vocals, which are emotional even if out of tune. They may suffice, but it's horrible to be in a situation of 'I can to better' with anything an artist makes. Sometimes this must happen due to time or budget constraints. Ken Scott often mentioned his dissatisfaction with the claps in 'Life on Mars?'.

I was unable to record new vocals today so I charged into updating my sheet music listings on my itch channel. I've distributed this in a variety of ways, but now have some that is free (generally at least one version of each track) with sold versions for a small fee on itch.io, with more complex parts. The majority is free. Much of the older albums didn't have this arrangement (I have 25 albums worth listed), so today I updated it all.

So much more to do this month. Of immediate concern after The Modern Game; three videos for the Will You Be My Snowflake? single release, rehearsals for the 4 tunes I'm performing next Tuesday, and the social work of Christmas gifts and cards.

Backup Day, Modern Game Video Work

Much of yesterday was spent on videos for The Modern Game, including a new video for 'Looking for a Lover', and improvements to most of the others. I found a bug in Argus, so fixed that too. When I find any bug in my software I won't rest until it's understood and fixed.

A super busy day today. Started with monthly backups, and other routine jobs which apply on the first day of each month. There were a few Christmas Tails sales to process.

Then charging into work on the video for 'The Trees'. Most of the videos for The Modern Game 4 are relatively simple placeholders with lyrics, but in several videos there are elements which play along to the music or make dramatic changes to follow the musical drama. 'The Trees' begins as a sort of drift through mist, a bit like the video to 'Ultramarine'. It then swirls dramatically when the musical drama hits. I also added a per-note ring for the piano notes. This is a common motif throughout this album.

At 13:30 I dashed out for a few hours of shopping, which included buying a new frame for the painting I want to enter into the Nantwich Museum Open this month; then back to work on the videos. I rendered the full videos for all tracks. This takes a lot of processing, though oddly, rendering and saving in Argus takes less time than the video creation and compression using FFMpeg. Then, I made up a few test videos, and prepared the FFMpeg scripts and YouTube text.

So, a first draft of all of the videos is now complete, including the 'Masculinity Two' single version and its B-Side.

There may be slight changes needed, but I haven't much time to tweak or change much. I remember taking weeks to make one music video, now I make 8 per day; but of course these animations are very simple. Content always takes time, and I focus my time on one or two showcase tracks and videos.

In contrast to a few days ago I find myself filled with enthusiasm and positive energy. I reminded myself that if we can't change something, we can always change our attitudes towards it. Swarms of ideas ran to my electric brain in the night, and I submitted my proposal for a regular art performance at Platform. I also proposed a Digital Cultural Archive, something I've already proposed to Nantwich Museum. I think that such an archive is really important for culture at the moment. So much cultural content is digital now, but so much of it insecure and easily lost due to the highly ephemeral nature of the internet.

I have many other ideas too... these can perhaps wait.

Onwards we charge.

CD Player Failure, New Gallery Opens

Sold 4 Christmas Tails CDs as presents to relatives, so began the day by burning these and assembling the artwork. My 7-year-old Marantz CD player seemed to complain about some discs, and it appears that the player is failing. Confusingly, some discs are more susceptible than others, but they seem to play elsewhere so I'm sure it's a fault with the CD player. Such hi-fi separates, once common and even cheap (CD players were usually the cheapest item, the amp the most costly) are now expensive and rare, around £300 to £400. This amount may be trivial to most people but is 3 or 4 months of my income.

I've spent much of the day trying to diagnose the fault and repair it. Most discs seem to play, and as yet, only CD-Rs seems to fail, but this includes, for example, our professionally manufactured Salome albums, so it's a recently developed fault with the player, not a fault with my CD-R stock.

In the afternoon I went out to to opening of the new Crewe community art gallery, 'Platform'. Chief driver of the project, Jamie, is ever friendly, encouraging, enthusiastic, though I remain frustrated, aghast, and depressed that David Jewkes always has paintings there yet, years into the so-called Crewe community art gallery project, I can't seem to get a single painting exhibited. This small exclusion so exasperates me that at times I hate the entire project.

I have an idea for a performance event there. Performance seems to be the box I've been placed in so it seems to be my only option for any sort of participation here. When a place feels unpleasant or unfriendly it becomes a hurdle just to think about doing something with them, never mind doing something for them. It's a great space for the town, there's an energy and drive behind it, and it's an important new space; yet for me it's an uphill struggle to interact at all. I know I must try. The world, most of the time for an artist, is all up hill.

I returned home and assembled two more copies of Christmas Tails, this time for Deborah.

Christmas Tails Release Day

Christmas Tails is released today on Bandcamp and will be on sale for a limited time until January 31st. All of these new Christmas songs can now be previewed on Bandcamp, and all profits from sales will go to RSPCA Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre, Nantwich. I (and other of us 'Sprout' artists) will making up a few hand-made CD copies for those who prefer CDs to downloads.

The next events for the Electric Sprouts will be attending the Christmas Fair at Stapeley Grange on Sunday 7th December, and a fund raising performance of the songs in Crewe Library on Tuesday 9th December at 2pm.

After the launch, most of my day has been taken up with working on videos for The Modern Game remaster. I'll probably, at some distant point, make a video for my Christmas song too. Just need a few more hours in the day...

Good Vibrations, The Modern Game 4 Work

A full day yesterday, with an early start for the Good Vibrations event. The Microkorg is a great instrument for this, working well as either an organ or a bass in a sea of guitars. After that, wandering around many shops, seeking and collecting Christmas presents. Money is short. I found a terrible CD collection in a charity shop, saxophone love songs, but their great merit is that this 3 CD set unusually came in CD Single cases, so I used these for the Kate Bush CD single King of the Mountain (which originally came in cardboard) and another CD of waltzes. I printed off more CD art for my classical music. Of my music collection, I have about 200 pop/rock CDs and about 100 classical albums - though maybe 150 CDs; complete symphony cycles can take up many discs!

Today began with printing the last of this art, the track listings and artwork for the two Wagner operas I have, then a tiny update to Prometheus. Then, adding the new vocals to the climax of 'The Trees', and making more tweaks to The Modern Game 4 mix. The changes are fewer with each listen.

Then more work on the videos. 'The Trees', 'House of Glass', and 'Love in a Hopeless World' don't have lyric overlays yet. The 'Masculinity Two' video has some white screens, so I need to mask the letters to make them visible. Making the lyrics is a tedious matter of photoshopping each line of text, making lots of single images. With a mask that's 2 images per line, so 42 images for 'Masculinity Two', for example.

Most of this is done. I've broken up the album as it is into tracks, so I'm now ready to charge into making music videos proper for the entire album.

CD Shelves II Fitted

A sleepless night. Finally drifted off past 7am. One night thought was a plan for 2400mm track for the router to enable me to rout picture framing from plain wood. Not difficult, but I don't have an immediate need for new picture framing, and the storage space and cost of these long twin tracks make them undesirable at the moment.

Woke at 10 and dived into CD Shelves II work. Glued the central support, then after an hour screwed it into place, did a final bit of spray paint touching up, and fitted the shelf to the wall in the afternoon.

The time since has been spent organising my old CDs. I so hate cardboard CD sleeves! These, to me, are an excuse to save money; they can scratch the CDs, and look ugly as well as being impractical. Alas, many CDs ship like this now. I also had CDs with partial (or no) artwork from my CD book, where I've long thrown away the art and retained only the disc, so to solve all of these problems I've designed new templates for the cover and rear tray, and have today printed lots of new track lists, and created new covers. Now, for the first time in years, my copy of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane have jewel cases. The same goes for Ha!Ha!Ha!, and many other discs.

Today I've printed and cut 22 such cases, and, apart from a few classical sets over which I must muse, my CD collection is now all on the wall in one place.

I listen to music almost exclusively on CD, I don't stream, so these shelves are part of my cultural engagement, but also my inspiration and reference library. The disorder of the last month has disrupted me for too long but now I can ignore such things and get back to art. At times I despair at the paralysis of my painting, but I remind myself that this is due primarily because I charged into music in 2020 and have made huge strides there. My plans are huge, and on track.

Onwards we stride through the viscous wind. Tomorrow, a 'Good Vibrations' event.