Awake for hours, ready to charge with great energy into routing my new shelves, on this, the warmest (well, mildest, at 11 degrees) and driest day for a few weeks. I woke early, assembled the wood, the hoover, rulers, and everything... but hit s snag. I'd not used the 12mm router bit, and the two that my father had used imperial shaft sizes - how I hate inches! The router comes with a few collets, but none would fit either of these, which is even more stupefying as almost all router bits come in a limited range of sizes. I sighed and was resigned to buying a new bit with the correct 8mm shaft. B & Q didn't have any (the very limited ones on offer, again stupefying, were also in inches. If I were prime minister I'd tax every device that features inches, pounds, pints, miles; it would raise money and help engineering). I ordered a set online, so must wait days, and now, my shelves which could have been completed today will take weeks. I should have tested the 12mm bit far earlier.
After that, a productive day of music. First, updating the cover artwork, and creating the 14 page iTunes Digital Booklet.
Here's the final cover (ta da!):
Then mixing the album again. In the night I thought it would be a good idea to release my Christmas song, and it's fellow two songs, as a single or EP now, rather than wait a year, so I've manically worked on mastering this. A single today has 3 tracks at most, but an EP 4 to 6, so I've toyed with making a new one. I looked at some existing songs and found a sequence inspired by Matt Gray's theme to Dominator on the Commodore 64. I quickly wrote some words on what this time of year is like; currently entitled 'Burn Me Cold':
Burn Me Cold
Dark dark November
Frigid in my bones
Everybody needin'
Money running low
It's a black white season
Don't I know
Windows are a leakin'
Saving up the mould
Give me some salvation
Dear dear Lord
And the screens that I stare at
Burn me cold
Later on, some initial mixing and track ordering for Christmas Tails. Work on that will start tomorrow.
Onwards!
