The Secret Room Deep in the Forest / Video with sound version

This was an AI image I created based on a photo I took of the interior of a motel we stayed in recently in Skaneateles, NY in the Finger Lakes region. I added the woodland creatures, faerie folk and other details in AI, then I generated a short looping AI video of fireflies, sparks, etc to overlay onto it in Blender's video editor. Finally, I created a short piece of music by noodling on a MIDI keyboard into Ableton Live. It came out quite nicely. I don't normally make this kind of image, but the source material suggested it...

 

The original photo from Skaneateles, NY

Ghost - Square Hammer

I occasionally post musical items on here when they interest me. I recently came across this "band" (seems to be one person, mostly, with some "Nameless Ghouls" hired to play on stage), who are gaining popularity these days. It's not really heavy metal as such, more melodic hard rock in my humble opinion. They remind me of my teenage years wasted listening to the likes of Blue Oyster Cult...and like that band, there is a heavy mystical/dark/atmospheric feeling to the proceedings. The video shown here I like for its overall aesthetic & the references to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" & that old vampire movie "Nosferatu"...it's my favorite song of the week & that guitar riff is killer. Also, the singer/mastermind gets kudos for not just wearing makeup but also a prosthetic mask under that, to give him that aged/ancient look. A hit.

Today Tomorrow...review to come

Apologies to Stephen—I've been meaning to put a substantial review of his new(ish) album on my blog for a month or so now, but keep getting sidetracked with other things. The CD is very good, by the way. One of the reasons it's taken so long is that, while the music is quite simple (just Stephen and an acoustic guitar or two for much of it), it is in other ways very dense and layered. Still, I do intend to write a review very soon, so do stay tuned.

Here's a link to his web site.

Stephen Harrison | Today Tomorrow

This just in...my old musician friend Stephen Harrison from Edinburgh (we were in his band Heyday together back in the 80s) just sent me his latest CD. The cover image is great. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but I shall soon...

Here's a link to his web site.

Chips For Supper

Stephen Harrison's retrospective CD:



Stephen was the singer/songwriter in Heyday, the band I was in during the mid 80s in Edinburgh. He's just self-released this CD. It is very good. I'm going to do a little review here after I've listened to it some more. In the meantime, here's Stephen's MySpace page for Heyday.

BTW, I'm playing keyboards on track 13, "Pull Up A Chair".