Hello yet again everyone!
Well the AEGRE technical department has been busy! In a bid to publicise me, the mad_vicar, and to promote the album being worked on (mvVIII), loads of things have been happening. I have tried to keep you up to date with developments as they happen. Sooooo, in addition to the other things reported in the blog, here's yet more news.
All of the videos from "Participant in the Liquidation of the Accident Consequences" album, which as you know, we tend to refer to as either "Liquidators" or occasionally mv6, have been uploaded to YouTube, where I have never had any presence before. There are three videos accompanying tracks off the album.
Here are some quick links to save you searching YouTube:
Video 1 - Pripyat, City of the Future I - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNMshyGOepI
Video 2 - Nuclear Power - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgze8rOr6gI
Video 3 - Liquidators - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0_n1wsFLnY
So as you can see, it's been pretty busy. Do stop by and check out the videos - leave a comment too.
Stay well y'all, and I hope you enjoy the music/videos...
m_v
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
ANOTHER EXCLUSIVE - Track from "on hiatus" mv7 for your enjoyment...
Hello AGAIN everyone,
Due to some incredible technical jiggery-pokery, we have managed to get a track from "mv7", the postponed album, just so you could have a little listen to something from it. We may manage a couple more if we can polish them up a bit - watch this space as usual.
The track is called "Drawkcab Gniksam and deals with a subject in music that is always controversial.
It's available at the MySpace page. Which you can find here: http://www.myspace.com/paganmadvicar
Do let me know what you think!
Take care,
mv
Due to some incredible technical jiggery-pokery, we have managed to get a track from "mv7", the postponed album, just so you could have a little listen to something from it. We may manage a couple more if we can polish them up a bit - watch this space as usual.
The track is called "Drawkcab Gniksam and deals with a subject in music that is always controversial.
It's available at the MySpace page. Which you can find here: http://www.myspace.com/paganmadvicar
Do let me know what you think!
Take care,
mv
Monday, 20 September 2010
EXCLUSIVE!! Preview track from mvVIII for free download at SkyDrive...
Hello Everybody,
This is just a quick note to let you all know that there is a new exclusive preview track from mvVIII and you can download it for free at the SkyDrive location. It's called "The Winds of Karachai" and is about the terribly polluted and now concrete filled Lake Karachai, and how it came to be.
You can find it here: http://cid-42d5bc382f04b5ba.office.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public
Do let me know what you think.
Take care,
mv
This is just a quick note to let you all know that there is a new exclusive preview track from mvVIII and you can download it for free at the SkyDrive location. It's called "The Winds of Karachai" and is about the terribly polluted and now concrete filled Lake Karachai, and how it came to be.
You can find it here: http://cid-42d5bc382f04b5ba.office.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public
Do let me know what you think.
Take care,
mv
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Alien Landing Strip in mad_vicar back garden denied...
Hello again,
I forgot to mention this. Yes, we have solar powered lights in our garden: those low ones that stick into the ground and the blue ones that are on a long wire like Chrimbo lights. No, they are nothing to do with landing strips, alien or terran. They are there because I like to go out for a smoke in the middle of the night and these are better than putting on the stark outside light. I don't like slugs, and we have loads of them. The lights make it so I can see that I am not in the vicinity of any of the slimy ne'er-do-wells when I have a fag, a book and a coffee to keep an eye on. That's all. I did see how it might look like a runway, since the lights go down two sides, then mark the end, with the blue lights draped across the other end. But it would have to be a very very small UFO to land in our back garden. It's tiny!
mv 20100905
I forgot to mention this. Yes, we have solar powered lights in our garden: those low ones that stick into the ground and the blue ones that are on a long wire like Chrimbo lights. No, they are nothing to do with landing strips, alien or terran. They are there because I like to go out for a smoke in the middle of the night and these are better than putting on the stark outside light. I don't like slugs, and we have loads of them. The lights make it so I can see that I am not in the vicinity of any of the slimy ne'er-do-wells when I have a fag, a book and a coffee to keep an eye on. That's all. I did see how it might look like a runway, since the lights go down two sides, then mark the end, with the blue lights draped across the other end. But it would have to be a very very small UFO to land in our back garden. It's tiny!
mv 20100905
Apologies for the delay... here I am in person! "7" Postponed **OFFICIAL**
20100912 mad_vicar status report.
Hello, this is the mad_vicar in person. I would like to apologise for the apparent lack of updates over the summer. We thought we had transmitted them properly, only to find that we had not only not posted them, but that we had lost the originals too. So I will try to update you quickly here and now.
The dates in the PMR went off splendidly and we seemed to have built on the original fanbase and gained a few others. To all who came to see the shows, thank you. It meant a great deal to me, and the generosity and warm-heartedness of the people was so welcome and appreciated by our little group that was far from home. We shall return soon!
Next onto the complex recording situation. It has got very weird over the last month or two. Upon returning from Europe, I started toying with the tracks already put down towards "7". I felt quite listless and not as full as enthusiasm for a new m_v album as I felt I should be. I left the recordings alone and just worked on a few "standalones" or aimed more at the 30minute CD single medium than an album. Among the tryouts and experiments was a track that came to be called "The Winds of Karachai". I had gone back to my "Liquidators" period and been reading about man-made disasters through history. The story of Lake Karachai is particularly sad, and I felt a story worth telling. After laying down an ambient/accoustic crossover main track, I read out the story in short passages every so many minutes. As had been commented on beyond repetition, I am a little shy about using my own voice in my music. I don't feel comfortable, and worry that it looks conceited. But there was no other way, and so I wrote out the passages, practiced them, recorded them on my Olympus digital voice recorder, imported them into Music Maker, then got to work on the modification applications! I wanted to remove "me" out of the passages, and have them read by a knowledgeable but disinterested third party. Thus I adjusted the tempo, pitch and "scenario" to flatten out the text as much as possible. I can still hear me in there, but reduced to a tolerable level, at least for me.
The reception to "The Winds of Karachai" has been very positive. I am going to add it to MySpace in the next day or so. I think it will be easy for those who appreciated the story telling aspect of "Liquidators" to feel comfortable with the track and to hopefully like it enough to listen to more than once. But this thought allows me to segue into my next point...
It's about "7" and another album, provisionally entitled "mv VIII". I have a bit of a dilemma on my hands and the outcome will cause some dates and expectations to change - I hope for the better. I am proposing to postpone "7" for the time being. Yes, as I have been made aware, I have easily enough material already recorded to create a decent single-disc CD album. But I don't want to do that. I want "7" to be a certain type of album, definitely not single disc and being a kind of party surprise. Indeed, the planning for "7" goes on all the time. I'll think of something, grab my laptop or dictation machine, and make a note of something else I would like to include. Therefore, I would like to postpone "7" until I can give it the time and dedication I feel it deserves (be ready for the preparation for "9" when that comes around). By giving it more time, it can mature more fully. It will be made, but later on.
Instead, and I realise the chronological terror this will cause forevermore, I am going to push ahead over Autumn and Winter with "VIII". This album already has a defining concept, one that did not begin with "The Winds of Karachai", or even with "Reactor Number Four Suite". It began in December of 2006 with the sudden fancy to do a "special album" as I wrote in my PDA at the time. An album that celebrated the brave men and women known as Liquidators in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. I stepped back slightly and wondered whether I should tell the events leading up to the Liquidators brave action. The result was the release on April 26th (21 years to the day after the disaster) of "Participant in the Liquidation of the Accident Consequences", the biggest package and largest mv production to date. It comprised one audio disc which held the musical album, and then a free bonus DVD-ROM with a whole load of goodies. Not least among these gifts was a batch of music videos produced by Mrs. mad_vicar that illuminate those parts of the story tackled with stark factual content - be that charts of disease or a group of men shovelling radioactive material off the roof of the reactor building. I have always valued these videos very highly, and remain grateful to my wife for making them for me - for love. Since the project was designed not to make any money, everything was done on the cheap or for free if possible.
I shall have to explain this bit. Early on in the work, in Spring of 2007, the idea was floated that the album could be given to a charity, and that if they promoted it correctly, they could make a good few quid. If only all the workers bought a copy, at whatever price they decided - I gave them that right too as I wanted them to have the album and do what they wanted with it - they would have more cash than they had if they hadn't sold them, if you see what I mean. As the work on the album progressed, I had been trying in vain to locate a Liquidator charity, and decided I might have to spread the net a bit wider and broaden my terms. Then one day, I found a charity which I felt could really be said to be involved at grass roots level with the after effects of Chernobyl. This charity helped the disabled and deformed children born in the area, most of which had been dumped on the steps in baskets, and paid for decent levels of care in orphanages. The children are testament to the continuous radiation that pervades the area. It's easy for the rest of us in Europe to forget about it, now that it's only killing it's own people and not likely to explode and contaminate all of us in the civilised part of Europe, but a look through the charity's photo album brings it all back home. A baby with two heads does tend to get one's attention. And this is par for the course in the area where the radioactive cloud touched the land with its toxic fingers.
To shorten the story, the album ended up a CD-AUDIO disc and a DVD-ROM with tons of stuff on it. Masters were sent to the charity (including an "update" when I re-mixed and lengthened "Reactor Number Four Suite" a few weeks later - damn my messy perfectionism) along with inserts and booklet templates and images so that they could include them in their yearly Chernobyl campaigns. Indeed, the focus of the 2007 campaign was the Liquidator, and the sacrifices made. Strangely enough, I never found out what the overall reception had been, as the person I had previously dealt with moved and I was never able to get any information on the 2007 campaign, what happened regarding "Liquidators", or anything else. As frustrating as this is, I realise it is a charity, and such things can just happen. I hope that if they are still offering "Liquidators" that it is making a few quid for them if nothing else.
Anyway, to get back to VIII. Once "The Winds of Karachai" had been recorded, I felt it was totally out of place on "7" and would need to wait for a later album, probably an mv_8 whenever that might be. It's tricky these days with the disability, dates get all messed up due to the pains and aches, and things need rescheduling at a moment's notice. Luckily, I work with a very very small team, and they are "hip to my sitch". Thus, with the start-stop-start nature of "7" and the constant refocusing, it looked like an eighth album could be ages away.
Then Mrs. mad_vicar solved the problem. Over coffee one evening, as we were discussing the roadblocks around "7" and my desire to do more work like "Karachai" - perfectly beautiful places that get, in the course of an accident or a policy, completely messed up. She said, "just work on eight now, and make it about man-made disasters. Then you could have "Karachai" in it's natural home along with the other pieces you want to do about these unfortunate places." I asked, what, just jump 7 altogether? She said that that was the point. If 7 was holding me up, postpone it and get on to eight straight away.
This is what I am going to do. I am going to look at the things we have done to the planet and ourselves, usually accidentally, and usually due to a crippling lack of knowledge.
It's going to take a while, as I have to now bundle up all the "7" things and start a new album from scratch. Well, not quite from scratch. I do have "Karachai" already. Thus I have to ask your patience while I get on with VIII. What I might do (and I have to ask around about this first) is put some early versions of tracks that will later appear on "7" on the free areas of the website. Thus you can get a little bit of new stuff while you hang about waiting for VIII. I also have some CD single tracks almost ready for release, so with luck I could have two CD singles ready pretty soon, and this means FREE for all you who enjoy downloading and listening on mp3 players.
In the meantime, do feel free to drop me a line, as I am always happy to receive feedback. Oh, and a quick bit of gossip for you before I go. It is whispered that "Participant in the Liquidation of the Accident Consequences" might have a special facelift next year. It will be 25 years since the Chernobyl disaster, and depending on how negotiations go between the charity and the Authentricity record company, there may well be a Jubilee edition. Other than that, we know nothing.
Take care you lovely people,
m_v
Hello, this is the mad_vicar in person. I would like to apologise for the apparent lack of updates over the summer. We thought we had transmitted them properly, only to find that we had not only not posted them, but that we had lost the originals too. So I will try to update you quickly here and now.
The dates in the PMR went off splendidly and we seemed to have built on the original fanbase and gained a few others. To all who came to see the shows, thank you. It meant a great deal to me, and the generosity and warm-heartedness of the people was so welcome and appreciated by our little group that was far from home. We shall return soon!
Next onto the complex recording situation. It has got very weird over the last month or two. Upon returning from Europe, I started toying with the tracks already put down towards "7". I felt quite listless and not as full as enthusiasm for a new m_v album as I felt I should be. I left the recordings alone and just worked on a few "standalones" or aimed more at the 30minute CD single medium than an album. Among the tryouts and experiments was a track that came to be called "The Winds of Karachai". I had gone back to my "Liquidators" period and been reading about man-made disasters through history. The story of Lake Karachai is particularly sad, and I felt a story worth telling. After laying down an ambient/accoustic crossover main track, I read out the story in short passages every so many minutes. As had been commented on beyond repetition, I am a little shy about using my own voice in my music. I don't feel comfortable, and worry that it looks conceited. But there was no other way, and so I wrote out the passages, practiced them, recorded them on my Olympus digital voice recorder, imported them into Music Maker, then got to work on the modification applications! I wanted to remove "me" out of the passages, and have them read by a knowledgeable but disinterested third party. Thus I adjusted the tempo, pitch and "scenario" to flatten out the text as much as possible. I can still hear me in there, but reduced to a tolerable level, at least for me.
The reception to "The Winds of Karachai" has been very positive. I am going to add it to MySpace in the next day or so. I think it will be easy for those who appreciated the story telling aspect of "Liquidators" to feel comfortable with the track and to hopefully like it enough to listen to more than once. But this thought allows me to segue into my next point...
It's about "7" and another album, provisionally entitled "mv VIII". I have a bit of a dilemma on my hands and the outcome will cause some dates and expectations to change - I hope for the better. I am proposing to postpone "7" for the time being. Yes, as I have been made aware, I have easily enough material already recorded to create a decent single-disc CD album. But I don't want to do that. I want "7" to be a certain type of album, definitely not single disc and being a kind of party surprise. Indeed, the planning for "7" goes on all the time. I'll think of something, grab my laptop or dictation machine, and make a note of something else I would like to include. Therefore, I would like to postpone "7" until I can give it the time and dedication I feel it deserves (be ready for the preparation for "9" when that comes around). By giving it more time, it can mature more fully. It will be made, but later on.
Instead, and I realise the chronological terror this will cause forevermore, I am going to push ahead over Autumn and Winter with "VIII". This album already has a defining concept, one that did not begin with "The Winds of Karachai", or even with "Reactor Number Four Suite". It began in December of 2006 with the sudden fancy to do a "special album" as I wrote in my PDA at the time. An album that celebrated the brave men and women known as Liquidators in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. I stepped back slightly and wondered whether I should tell the events leading up to the Liquidators brave action. The result was the release on April 26th (21 years to the day after the disaster) of "Participant in the Liquidation of the Accident Consequences", the biggest package and largest mv production to date. It comprised one audio disc which held the musical album, and then a free bonus DVD-ROM with a whole load of goodies. Not least among these gifts was a batch of music videos produced by Mrs. mad_vicar that illuminate those parts of the story tackled with stark factual content - be that charts of disease or a group of men shovelling radioactive material off the roof of the reactor building. I have always valued these videos very highly, and remain grateful to my wife for making them for me - for love. Since the project was designed not to make any money, everything was done on the cheap or for free if possible.
I shall have to explain this bit. Early on in the work, in Spring of 2007, the idea was floated that the album could be given to a charity, and that if they promoted it correctly, they could make a good few quid. If only all the workers bought a copy, at whatever price they decided - I gave them that right too as I wanted them to have the album and do what they wanted with it - they would have more cash than they had if they hadn't sold them, if you see what I mean. As the work on the album progressed, I had been trying in vain to locate a Liquidator charity, and decided I might have to spread the net a bit wider and broaden my terms. Then one day, I found a charity which I felt could really be said to be involved at grass roots level with the after effects of Chernobyl. This charity helped the disabled and deformed children born in the area, most of which had been dumped on the steps in baskets, and paid for decent levels of care in orphanages. The children are testament to the continuous radiation that pervades the area. It's easy for the rest of us in Europe to forget about it, now that it's only killing it's own people and not likely to explode and contaminate all of us in the civilised part of Europe, but a look through the charity's photo album brings it all back home. A baby with two heads does tend to get one's attention. And this is par for the course in the area where the radioactive cloud touched the land with its toxic fingers.
To shorten the story, the album ended up a CD-AUDIO disc and a DVD-ROM with tons of stuff on it. Masters were sent to the charity (including an "update" when I re-mixed and lengthened "Reactor Number Four Suite" a few weeks later - damn my messy perfectionism) along with inserts and booklet templates and images so that they could include them in their yearly Chernobyl campaigns. Indeed, the focus of the 2007 campaign was the Liquidator, and the sacrifices made. Strangely enough, I never found out what the overall reception had been, as the person I had previously dealt with moved and I was never able to get any information on the 2007 campaign, what happened regarding "Liquidators", or anything else. As frustrating as this is, I realise it is a charity, and such things can just happen. I hope that if they are still offering "Liquidators" that it is making a few quid for them if nothing else.
Anyway, to get back to VIII. Once "The Winds of Karachai" had been recorded, I felt it was totally out of place on "7" and would need to wait for a later album, probably an mv_8 whenever that might be. It's tricky these days with the disability, dates get all messed up due to the pains and aches, and things need rescheduling at a moment's notice. Luckily, I work with a very very small team, and they are "hip to my sitch". Thus, with the start-stop-start nature of "7" and the constant refocusing, it looked like an eighth album could be ages away.
Then Mrs. mad_vicar solved the problem. Over coffee one evening, as we were discussing the roadblocks around "7" and my desire to do more work like "Karachai" - perfectly beautiful places that get, in the course of an accident or a policy, completely messed up. She said, "just work on eight now, and make it about man-made disasters. Then you could have "Karachai" in it's natural home along with the other pieces you want to do about these unfortunate places." I asked, what, just jump 7 altogether? She said that that was the point. If 7 was holding me up, postpone it and get on to eight straight away.
This is what I am going to do. I am going to look at the things we have done to the planet and ourselves, usually accidentally, and usually due to a crippling lack of knowledge.
It's going to take a while, as I have to now bundle up all the "7" things and start a new album from scratch. Well, not quite from scratch. I do have "Karachai" already. Thus I have to ask your patience while I get on with VIII. What I might do (and I have to ask around about this first) is put some early versions of tracks that will later appear on "7" on the free areas of the website. Thus you can get a little bit of new stuff while you hang about waiting for VIII. I also have some CD single tracks almost ready for release, so with luck I could have two CD singles ready pretty soon, and this means FREE for all you who enjoy downloading and listening on mp3 players.
In the meantime, do feel free to drop me a line, as I am always happy to receive feedback. Oh, and a quick bit of gossip for you before I go. It is whispered that "Participant in the Liquidation of the Accident Consequences" might have a special facelift next year. It will be 25 years since the Chernobyl disaster, and depending on how negotiations go between the charity and the Authentricity record company, there may well be a Jubilee edition. Other than that, we know nothing.
Take care you lovely people,
m_v
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