Old Album Diaries

15 September 2010 Yunyu

Hope you are well. Your Royal Madness, Yunyu, plays at the Vanguard on 30th Sept supporting the lovely and talented Anikiko who has been described as the “portishead of generation y”. http://www.anikiko.com.au

Also featuring the soulful sounds of Alex Gibson
http://www.reverbnation.com/alexgibson

On our end, we will be featuring tunes from the yet to be named, yet to be announced album. Hope to see you there! Details below.


Vanguard Show
supporting Anikiko
also featuring
Alex Gibson

Date: 30th September Thursday

Location: Vanguard, 42 King Street, Newtown, NSW

Time: Doors open 7.30pm 8.30 Alex Gibson

Tickets:

Pre-Sale: $15 +bf
Main & Show: $44 +bf
Door: $20

Buy Tickets

Day 3 Song Summit (Final) – Meet the Publishers

6 July 2010 Tags: , , , , Yunyu

Dear Minions
Last post from the Song Summit. Took awhile because of the rabid rabbits.

Day 3 – SS3

Big Day. Actually no. It’s been a big couple of days. The house looks like a bomb shelter. Meanwhile, a furry beast also in the fridge that was once a tofu is now calling me “Ma”

My study is a glitter of CD cases and papers from multi-press kit creation.

Meet the publishers

Last day at the song Summit and there’s nothing more distracting than the impending “Meet the publishers” speed dating session coming later in the day.

Not looking forward to it and looking forward to it to be over. It’s a strange feeling.

We’re meeting publishers.

1430 hrs and there’s a horde of songwriters/ musicians/ managers in tow. Time to meet the publishers. We’re told this:

Here’s the room with the publishers. Wait till you are called. Sit in your designated chairs meet your designated publishers.

You cannot choose your publishers, You cannot choose your seats, You have 5 minutes, when the bell rings. You must go.

And no, you there, you signed up too late. You must leave, this forum is full. There’s no room for you. Next.

No you too. Look people, if you don’t have your name on this list you cannot enter, the publishers will not see you. No…no exceptions, please make way for those on the list.

Yes…that goes for you too.

You enter the publishing room and it’s an awash of activity. There’s a long line of about 20 publishers sitting in a pretty little row. All waiting for you to tell them that you are the next best thing. Yes you rock, yes your songs are going to make everyone millionaires, and yes, my dear…

You have 5 minutes to make me believe you.

So Lee and myself are at the back of the line, we watch the others approach. We watch the others leave. We watch people being shuffled….and we get shuffled along. It’s all an automated system. To a pitch we go.

“You remember your pitch?” says Lee. “Yeah I remember. I’m fine, yes…don’t worry. We’ve rehearsed this…well sort of.”

So I watch. On the publishers’ tables the CDs stack up. Each little piece of plastic holds a world of hopes for a musician who wants to make it. What’s making it anyways?Such a vague romantic notion that is probably popular because it’s vague.

I’m pretty specific about what I want from this. Right now I want my album finished, and I want it out and about into the hands of music supervisors who will then put it in films. No I’m not shy about telling you I want to monetize my music. Then I want the music to travel to places…and me along with it and make a whole heap more music. I want to work with people I’ve long wanted to work with (I have a list) and I don’t just mean musicians. Then I want to make more music and create until my fingers bleed into my zithers and I melt into my keyboard and my drums. I want to meet my minions hug them all and tell them thanks very much for making this happen. Then I want to make some more music.

I want to be paid a decent wage for my craft and then make some more music until my body no longer twitches and I am ash. That’s what I want. I don’t know about making it. I just want to make music…lots of it and leave behind a pile of nice sounding notes and hopefully some appreciators who will continue humming the songs when I cark it.

then if there’s music in the afterlife….if there’s one…Well…I’ll see you there.

what’s your version of making it? What’s their version of making it? I wonder? Is it the same? Or is making it a vague idea for most that never looks good on close inspection and people just ask other people to help them make it because it sounds nice and it sounds like a plan?

So it’s my turn and I realise I only have 5 minutes. All social filters go down. I’m no longer shy and I’m no longer interested in telling you that I might be good. I tell you that I’m very good and will get better. I tell you that these are the things that are happening for the album. Yes, the deals surrounding the album are unique and you’ve never seen this before. I tell you that…yes I write to briefs and yes I’m a bloody fast songwriter, I really really do write in most genres. Yes my music video is mid creation. Yes I work with great film people, check out my last film clip. I’m a fast writer and I’m good and I tell you that what’s holding me back is the resources to record.

That’s why the album’s taken so long…because we want it to be good. Yes, amongst many things this is where you come in and this is what I;d like you to do….we don’t have much time. Oh yes…and since you ask, this is where we are recording at the moment and of course we would like to meet with you further if you are interested in hearing more. Can’t give you the full picture…we don’t have time, it’s your move after this.

I’m trying not to listen to Lee’s spiel as he’s pretty pitching the same thing to another publisher just beside me. We don’t have time, it’s a mad dance. In Lee’s words we talk fast, we listen fast. 3 minutes into time everything slows because I’m a fly in an uber fast capsule and it speeds up again as I make sure my contact details are in my album.

Bing

the bell goes off.

Don’t call us we’ll call you.

Next.

Please don’t drag your heels.

Make way for the next.

Out you go. I’m sure you made a good pitch. good luck

There just like that…it was all over.

That was officially the end of Song Summit for us, needed 2 glasses of champagne to calm things down a notch since the neurons were firing in uber time and that wasn’t a good thing mentally in the long run.

Lee had managed to chuck a short meeting with the legendary Sebestian Chase to talk about a few things to come. It was good to finally meet Sebestian in person, and even better to see that this is a person who really didn’t believe in all the doom and gloom currently sprouting about in the panels. Good…actually Great. What a bloody breath of fresh air. The music industry is dead my arse.

We’ll show you.

Day 2 – Song Summit (Songwriting highs and lows & impt minion missions)

29 June 2010 Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Yunyu

Stephen Schwartz – Writer of Colors of the Wind is going to review my song as part of a panel.
Good GAWD.

A little admission, Colors of the Wind was just about sparked the moment when I decided I’d have a crack at creating words to music. I remember how much I liked the imagery of that one song and how I listened to the disc till the plastic melted. (Or it could have been the high humidity in Singapore) That…and Lion King’s soundtrack….which led me on a one way ticket to a lifetime love for world music….and a teenage crush on Hans Zimmer.

There I said it, I have Disney beginnings…

So seeing the man himself and knowing he was going to listen to some creation of mine was a quiet and internally very loud moment of “ohmygodohmygodohmygod” followed by “I’mgonnadieI’mgonnadieI’mgonnadie!!!!!!” which then culminated into “Oh hey! here’s a pillar I’m going to hide behind this beautiful architecture…did I tell you how much I love architecture?!!!”

Of course, I wasn’t really forwarned that part of the listening to the music panel meant that you had to sit a metre from the man himself on stage and that you were going to have to have a very public conversation with the man himself about songwriting.

Stephen was very kind. The song up for review was one called “Disconnected” I had recently had it remastered and mostly always had a very soft spot for it. The tune was mostly liked, he liked the poetry in it, loved the verses (thank u v much) questioned some of the word choices and encouraged some thoughts about the choice of the chorus .

Some which I agreed on but will not change, some which I disagreed on,…and will not change…but it was good to hear where how it sat with his ears and how he’d actually like to hear the song again and some more. That broke my happy metre.

There were other things he brought up about the song that made me rethink some songwriting decisions but mostly, it wasn’t bad and the man was gracious and kind and probably understood that right then, I was squirming like a nematode under a microscope.

More importantly the song survived. I didn’t feel like I needed to destroy it in the end which is also an uber step forward for myself as a songwriter.

It was nice and warm and fluffy to hear that my process of songwriting was somewhat similar to his where he mentions that he first writes the titles to songs, then works out the stories then writes the songs….my newly cerebral songwriting methods salute his very cerebral songwriting methods.

My only regret was that somehow the recording got wrongly sampled by those running the panel, and Stephen got to hear an awful recording where my voice that got pitched up an octave as a result. I only wished he got to hear the better version, but heh…I survived..so did the other songwriters whose vocals got chipmunked by a wrong sample rate. No matter, I sent a ninja his way and who promptly delivered my CD into his hands. Hope he gets a listen.

Sacha Skarbek’s songwriting panel

I enjoyed the panel. Good to see the writer behind many songs I try very hard to hate…but cannot. For an idea he wrote “You’re Beautiful” with James Blunt. Though it got killed to death by overplay in then end, that’s really hardly his fault. I remember liking it before gross repetition killed the love.

Sacha came across as a little bit of a shy performer although it seemed to me that he had a bloody good voice and a rollicking sense of humour. I was enjoying his panel quite a bit…until….he announced that he was working on the soundtrack for Chuck Palahniuk’s Lullaby with Starsailor.

I am Yunyu’s broken heart
I am Yunyu’s seething green serpent of envy

If you slow motion the reading of this sentence, you could probably pin point the exact moment my heart split in two

Because lullaby is one of my favourite horror/comedy story. Read it here.

and I want to write the culling song that features in the tale.

I already hear the culling song in my head…except I promise no one dies, though the effects might be convincing..

and I believe that when it comes to death put to music, I have a little bit of an authoritah on that.

No matter. I’ll get there. I’ll finish the bloody album, get the word out, then badger screen people to use some of my dead people music.

Still it hurts…because I want to write music on Lullaby.

Meanwhile…yoohoo Sacha. Can I write a culling song with you? I’m great at death, I would have loved to speak with you, but post panel, it seems most panel speakers are harder to seek than unicorns. I’m not sure where they go, and I was looking.

So there, Sacha, if you google yourself and find this, I want to write that culling song, I also want to work with you and learn from you. Meanwhile I’m sending the word out on how to bloody hell find you…so I can write THAT culling song.

I has your website
http://www.sachaskarbek.com/
I see your management contacts … and will write to your gate keepers or keymasters.
but I rather write to you. Artist to Artist. Songwriter to songwriter.

Minions, if you know Sacha Skarbek, send on my love, and my need to write the culling song and that I want to work with him.

Minions…you has mission. Find the man.Find Sacha. Find him with your twitter, ask your friends, ask your enemies, send for your psychic pets, post on facebook. send word. Now. Get his email, get his number.

Find Sacha Skarbek.
Find him.

BRING. HIM. TO. ME

Go

Go Now.

Fly my pretties…fly.

can you tell I’m obsessed?…with the culling song?

Till Tech do us apart.

28 June 2010 Tags: , , , , , , , , , Yunyu

Dear Powerbook G4 (1.67gHz PowerPC G4)

It’s been 6 years.
You have been my general, my conspirator, my friend, my comrade, my backup musician, my heaven and my absolute joy, my shiny toy.

It’s been my honour to have you, fight with you and work with you…
But for the last 1 year…and only in the last year.

Youtube videos won’t play on you – and if they do everyone in it looks like they are strobbing or have parkinsons

My Tweetdeck won’t work without me shutting everything else down

My CS3 is saluting me with a permanent rainbow ball

Logic gives me the permanent finger

Safari loads funny and you can’t handle the shiny things on the new sites though my broadband can

You make scary helicopter noises when I load a DVD or CD so I never know when the secret SAS is coming for me and my ninjas or if you are still just trying to entertain me.

Your speakers have blown up and your jacks look like they have conjunctivities of the red glowing kind.

and

You won’t let me play plants vs Zombies.

I love you. You’ve worked hard and you will always have a place of honour in my heart. You are still fighting strong….
But the tech has come, has grown and has left you behind.

So…
the new mac must come and it must be done today.

In the climate of exploding wallets and the empty vault that is my bank account and my heart

it must come today.

but you will always have a place in my heart. I love you very much

When the new mac comes all 80gigs of you will be wiped and then loaded with music and food recipes and yes…you can still help me blog. It’d be my honour. Till even more insane Tech renders one/both of us catatonic

Music and Food Recipes and blogs. My 3 loves. I will share them with you till our end of days.

You will live out the days in my living room and/or in my kitchen. If you’re not beaming beautiful tunes, you shall be beeping recipes when I’m pretending to be Iron chef and we shall still share a good tale. Always.

Yes for the rest of your days my old general. You will do only those things that we’ve done so well together. No more. Hopefully no less.

Rest better soon.
I love you.
Hang in there… at least till I get this newsletter out and back the crap up of you. Don’t die don’t die don’t die….

Day 2 of Song Summit – Would you bittorrent your mate?

25 June 2010 Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Yunyu

“Feeling better?” Ready to take on the hard music industry?” Lee, my manager says as he chucks a coffee in my sleep deprived direction. It is day 2 of Song Summit and I’ve been trying to put my new site up…just in case we speak to anyone interesting.

First panel up “Would you bittorrent your mate?” Curious and curiouser, I am interested, I’m nursing a vague hope that the industry has stopped trying to police pirating efforts by now and has moved on to more constructive approaches that involve working with the technological environment and not against it.

Nope. Nooo such luck. Here goes a summary/ thought piece

“Would you bittorrent your mate?” 

Basically  they’ve got MIPI (Music Industry Piracy Investigations) talking about possible ways to deter this from happening.

Then there’s the explanation that there is misinformation that musicians are making money from gigs and hence don’t need album sales because they are rolling in it. I agree. Of course, only the top layer of the gig industry can command fees that make for comfortable living…I get that, but policing data is not the way to go. But you know…I’m still listening.

There was some mention of France’s Data Protection agency and how Australia isn’t catching up and how dissapointed we all are etc etc because the government is not protecting the musicians and France is.

Then there are complaints about lost album sales because 485000 people downloaded a certain artist and only 8000 people bought the album.
I’m sorry, but in the world of file sharing, we covet because we can, not because we want. You’ve got to know the difference. Those figures you listed mean nothing. They don’t mean 400000+ lost sales, they mean that 485000 people were curious enough to check out the album, 8000 people of the lot..valued it enough to buy it. There, end of story. Get over it.

Gosh I’m bored and dissapointed — after all these years we haven’t moved beyond these very boring and ineffective thoughts on data policing?!

I would have liked to hear more about  the following:

1) what you are going to do with Russian websites that are illegally selling mp3s for 1 cent. – namely allofmp3s and their replacement sites

 – I think it’s all well and good that MP3s are being shared for free between friends and over the net, because I do know from personal experience that when people like something enough, they’d buy it. I know my minions do. My minions also spread the word by giving my music away for free for other listeners who sometimes become fans too. Not all bad there. Sites like allofmp3s are different.
They make nothing, and when money is earned, give nothing back to the industry. The arbitrary price they set on music is not discussed with neither the label or the artist, yet they profit from it. They must be annhilated, like all other parasite industries. But no…no discussion there, no way, we’re too concerned with killing bittorrent.

2) I would have liked to hear how they might work with ISPs on possibly profiting from the bittorrent technology somehow. Maybe through clever subscription models possibly inbuilt into our monthly broadband bill, or working out a plan where they have a slice of bittorrent’s advertorial profits. Possibly, hopefully, fostering the belief that we can all make money together and paying money for lawsuits and lawyers get us nowhere. Nope…no such thing, we’re WAY too concerned with killing bittorrent.

3) I would have liked to hear what we are going to do about the ongoing trend that itunes is pretty much the monopolising platform for all digital media and if this trend is healthy for the economy in the long run because Monopoly sucks and Absolute Monopoly sucks absolutely. Nope, we’re too concerned with killing bittorrent.

This was made worse when the forum was put to the floor and some songwriter comes up to suggest that viruses be placed in songs…so that you, my dears, your iphones will blow up if you share music.

In the real world, your royal madness has no ninjas, but if she could, she’d very much like to nuke the panel for gross lack of insight and for encouraging it with a nice shiny mix of nunchucks and sais. No your Royal madness did not go up to the panel to speak her mind because…she knows a lost cause when she sees one. And these people, who are still sprouting stuff like that at THIS time…are a lost cause.

Panel Conclusion: Pirates are bad, they must be neutered, we must strive to be better internet nuns, and yes minions if you tell your friends  about my music by letting them have it for free:

1) I’m supposed to tell you that you have been bad 
2) I must spank you and educate you on the value on my music because by sharing it around for you have been naughty minions.

What absolute horseshit.

Moving along. Next up: my song review. – where I squirm in a very public / microscope and realise that being analysed isn’t going to kill me.

I, fridge mold, will speak now.

24 June 2010 Yunyu

Hi all,

Her Royal Madness is demanding that I get off her chair and her mac and is screaming about me leaving spores all over her keyboards. Says she wants to do some blog about Song Summit and that I’m interrupting her neurons and what not.

I don’t have much time before she thinks to bring out her vacuum cleaner so here it is. There are some things I need to get off my chest.

I believe her Royal Madness calls you her minions. I find this very strange because her Royal Madness is really her Royal Squeamish and she screams alot…says “No!!! NOOOOO!!”  alot, then hyperventilates alot at me. So I can never understand why someone like her gets to have minions while I get to be mocked by you lot.

Allow me to introduce myself. I began life as what human beings call a Tofu, a harmless piece of beancurd that got left over as a midnight snack because her Royal Madness decided that it would be a good idea to eat that Tofu with Lemon and Bonito Flakes.

She probably decided that the tofu must taste pretty bad and she was going to recycle it for her next meal or something and anyways, the tofu got forgotten and get piled on behind a can of corn beef and some celery while she went and did alot of this thing called music.

Then…at first there was nothing…nothing but tofu. Then there was enzymes, which exploded into fur, which ate the celeries, which gave it eyeballs then…

ZAPPPPP!!!!

So her royal madness zapps me to life (Devina it’s your fault and I’m onto you) and I call her “ma” which I thought was rather deserving. She, like all dysfunctional mothers, proceeds to put me up for adoption and when she fails proceeds to send me to some art exhibition at the request of one

Dom McEiben. – (You’re on my list too buster!!)

Somewhere along the way one Indie T.Peh wants to make me a musician (EUGH!!) and her Royal Madness wants me to wear black and be ninja. I hate black! It goes really bad with my luxurious green hair.

Then Karl Goodloe suggests that I be LICKED and Devina Jimenez volunteers me to be EATEN?!! How rude are you lot?

I’m on to you lot you hear me?! All of you! Do not mock my existence.

Only Jerrod seems rather nice because he said to give me a name, which I rather like the idea of. So..minions?! or whatever you are I demand you give me a name and I demand it now.

Or I shall be creating more parallel universes and dump each of you lot in it seperately. I hear it’s scary…this parallel universe thing.

Very very scary.

So there. Gimme name or I shit parallel universes at you lot.

Delayed Broadcast from Song Summit and outside of Supanova

23 June 2010 Tags: , , , , , Yunyu

So Song Summit. I had received questions from mates at Supanova about how it all was ranging from a smart arsed “How was Hill Song Convention?” to a more demanding/scary “Where are you?! Why are you not here at Supanova????!!!HELLOOOOO???!!!”

This is rather the first year I have missed Supanova. The fact that it’s held on the same weekend as Song Summit peeves me greatly because Supanova is my once a year all time favourite gathering place where I catch up with my all time favourite human beans.

All was not lost though, I managed a dinner catch up with the beloved Coolshite guys who essentially do a very good job hosting supanova. Great to see that everyone was well and had projects coming up

In case you don’t know in all the other times of the year the coolshite guys host a pop culture podcast that reviews all things in the film, tv, literature, comics universe. If you haven’t been there already, you should check their work out. I’ll know if you didnt. 🙂

Bruce from Coolshite, who is so very clever with wordpress, gave me a crash tutorial at a pub involving napkins and pens. Napkins….ah the very fabric of civilisation I’m telling you.

Snuck a 7.45am breakfast with the lovely and talented Marianne De Pierres about a secret project we both hope to be announcing soon. Good to see that she’s been well, her hair is now purple (it was pink last month) and that her humorous crime fighting novel “Sharp Shooter” is doing well on the Angus and Robertson charts at #1 under the non-scifi pseudoname of Marianne Delacourt. Check her work out here

Her usual hunt of science fiction novels are http://www.mariannedepierres.com/books/ Dark space was a fun read for me.

So on to song summit…

Song Summit is a music industry gathering hosted by APRA | AMCOS + the NSW Government. 3 days of music commerce stuffed full of songwriters, agents, managers, publishers and labels. I thought it might be good to share this with the minions of what goes on backstage…the stories are long so I’d do it over a few posts.

The first night was was mainly celebratory with lots of speeches, claps and I find myself perking up at Peter Garrett’s speech about the visual arts Resale Royalties scheme. I thought it was a novel idea that basically says that if you were Van Gough and you sold your sunflower painting for a mere 5 bucks first round and it sells for 20 mill later. Well you get a cut if you didn’t cut your ears off and was still among the living.
Read more http://www.petergarrett.com.au/175.aspx?print=Y
That’s promising…and a reason to keep breathing Nothing to do with music on a cursary look,but if you did write your music on paper and that got traded around abit, I’m imagining that this would apply somewhat?

I had spent the night before coding CSS (or attempting to) so by 9pm my neurons had pretty much congregated into a large, throbbing purple boil just above my hippocampus and leaked out through my ears. The “no longer news” doom and gloom speeches about the music industry didn’t really help. Early home time. I need energy for the next 48 hours. Maybe that’s why they put red bull in the gift packs. Thoughtful but I have to keep that ox bile away from me. I’m already a stranger to sleep. More on the next day coming up.

Still writing and wrangling with code

19 June 2010 Yunyu

Ah…the life of a muso/ DIY code monkey wannabe.

See I thought I left all that programming crap behind in Uni and I could do this piano girl thing full time.

piano
So if you happen to be reading this from the main site, and not facebook, well, here’s an interim website quietly launched. I’m not quite done yet though, so you need to be patient with your royal madness – who is really not a very good CSS monkey.

Meanwhile…there are things a brewing. Shh…there’s a long awaited piece of paperwork that I’m waiting on before I announce the arrival of a secret, not so secret anymore project..
There’s photos from the video shoot coming up too…
Oh yes…and shows are on the way.
Apologies for all the mystery. I promise it’s not long now. Meanwhile the answer for everything else…is always and ever will be.

42.

Back to code world amidst an attendance in Song Summit where the track “Disconnected” has been selected by a panel for review.

I wonder what happens when songs get analysed and dissected. Will 45cc of pure adrenalin stat bring tunes back to its original perkiness?

Internal Assasinations….and other things.

21 April 2010 Tags: , , , , , Yunyu

Dear minions,

First off, happy not so new year, and then the gong xi fa cai, and the very belated merry happy easter celestial zombie offspring day…now that we’re all mostly caught up. Hope you are all well, and thanks for checking if I’m still twitching from time to time. I’m appreciating the facebook pokes, tweets and general updates in your world. Keep your stories coming.

The first order of business is that we’ve got the emo bunny in check. For her crimes of hijacking the blog post she has been wiped by the Internal Ninja Muse Squad and has been placed in the attic. The rest of us are thick in the middle of bon-fire celebrations…yeeehaaar! Feel free to join us…offerings are welcomed
internal ninja muse squad

Now as long long promised, we also bring you…Updates! Updates Updates and answers to the long evaded questions of “How IS your album going?”

It’s taking a millenia and three quarters and counting…I’m painfully aware of that. But hopefully, some details I’m waiting on are locked in blood soon, and I can start telling you stories I’ve been bursting to for a good while now. As mentioned the writing bit has been long loooong finished, what remains is that we’re thick in the performance, production and recording of it with some songs practically done, some three quarters through, and some we’re still hiding away from….AND you will soon see why. I blame the voices that go “WHEEEEEEE!!!” in my head.

So here are some discoveries I’ve made in the process of album creation that are fun to share and won’t kill the concept album surprise when it’s finally all done.

1)This album is starting to feel like a long running thesis. I’ve just stolen a look at the number of news/historical and musical references and sound samples tied to the album and now realise that the little worm of a list has grown into a mammoth python of sorts. I’m enjoying the process…slow as it is, but I’m realising how much this feels like a thesis we never meant to write. Still, I’m looking forward to sharing the long list of references once this is done. Tis very good minion fodder…

2) While I think that it is good to write in a multitude of different genres for ONE concept album, one has to be able to perform it too. This means getting into the headspace of different genres of singers and trying to pick up singing in the said style very quickly, while not sounding like an overly schizoid voice actor with a million voices. Make sense?
This means it’s important I still sound like me so there’s a connecting voice throughout the album. I guess it’s kind of like variant type of method acting and in the words of my dead panned manager/producer Lee McIver ” as long as it’s not methodone acting.” (ahaaar..haaar…very funny Lee).

My latest project includes climbing into the headspace of a 75 year old drug addict/ ex-hollywood wannabe who now lives in an alleyway as a lady of the eventides…. I remember that it was difficult to write her into being as a songwriter who only quite recently discovered the interestingness of Jazz (2.5 years ago to be precise). Now, I’m finding it even more of a challenge to sing her into life…or at least deliver a performance good enough to do the wonderful production justice. So practice, practice practice…and a lot of blind faith, a sprinkle of delusions…and alot of listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday – for the purposes of this ONE song. ( You’ll hear of this in another post)

3) In a similar point to point no.2, I’m discovering that the songwriting bit is positively the eeeeasiest bit in the making of this album…everything else is an exponential up-hill climb from there. So there have been periods of re-learning, unlearning and then fast-tracked learning of in the realms of the implicit and explicit. Oh, and trying to wimp out by giving challenging songs to other singers wasn’t an allowable option. The result was that I was frog marched to take a whole heap of vocal lessons…and history lessons, to get some genre deliveries in context. The lessons are coming good, my tendencies to sound like a banshee has been minimised, (this possibly a good thing for the life forms that work with me). Also, no more sandpaper throat from incorrect technique.

On top of all that, long lists of listening homework to do, depending on the genres, which seems to keep the muses very happy…which is always good.

All this prep work builds up to a certain math-rock-like song written with a time signature of

33/8 ( for verses)
3/4 (waltz – for chorus)
2/4 (Swing- for bridge)

This – for all the stalling and procrastination in the world – will need to be recorded.
The song was last seen lurking in the back of everyone’s minds last week like an especially sick and perverse AI in the Ultimate Boss Stage….The Kraken…the Horror…

4) The fourth point is simple chemistry… Coffee. Coffee + Your Royal Madness = B A D. I recently found out that trace amounts of caffeine makes me hear time funny and I speed up like a speedy speedy rocket..Weeeee!!!!

So just like that….a lifetime ban of my all time favourite beverage at all live sessions.
Un-bloody-believable.
Oh the humanity…

5) As I much as I thoroughly enjoy the whole lengthy process of making the concept album, working with an awesome team of people etc… etc….I’m finding the whole process quite a lonely one as I can’t talk about too much “making of” stuff with my dear minions in real time while I’m creating it. This lack of sharing it is proving to be very un-fun because Your Royal Madness is really very egomaniacal and craves minion attention at all times. So there, something to consider the next time I attempt another concept album…

So this is it for now minions, some sneak peaks, some revelations. More on the way. Till then…

Your Royal Madness,
Yunyu

The day nothing happened

13 April 2010 Yunyu

First this…the blog below was written a few days ago but comes up here so that I will always remember that making albums aren’t always about peachy day-glows and creams…it’s important for me to remember I think, because I remember too many good things about music. This is not generally a bad thing, but there’s a half senile perky self in me that needs occasional sombre reminding about the ups and downs of the album process before she self combusts into pink happy puff powder….

So here it is below:

Today was a day of no happenings… Nothing wanted to happen…and nothing did…despite everybody’s best efforts. Everything was a fail, so I’m lying here, a temporarily defeated meatbag and feeling very much at the bottom of the world. Attempts to blog ended in a long afternoon of dreamless sleep…this was after 2 coffees…one of which I do not remember drinking. Maybe I was just a little more tired than I thought I would be…for it had indeed been a very strange long day.

The day itself started early at 5am. It involved a rather long journey for the zither and myself. First I had to drop my zither off at the city studio a good few days before. 5am on the D-day, I am on the 1 hour train towards the city, trying to make the 8am taxi I booked to pick the zither and me. All for a 9am start for recording.

Well – the recording space is only 10 minutes away, but you know…I have massive transport related paranoia…especially with taxis in Sydney CBD peak hour…because I think that even when we book them, they tend to explode, implode, discombobulate or travel into parallel universes that do not involve a pre-agreed pick-up point.

Anyways…9am – we are at the said space and there is a mysterious noise in the room. We didn’t make much of it at first, thinking that it was probably the lights (yes…space has lights that make noise). Long story short, which at some point involved a confused but earnest techman and clueless bureaucrats with clipboards, no-one could find the source of the noise. So at 12 noon the results were clear

Sound in room : Your royal madness and her poor producer Rob
ONE : ZERO — no recording for us

I had to laugh (because there was nothing else to do) while poor Rob looked like he was about to go on the red highway on his wrists.

So the zither and I hijacked another taxi back to the city studio. The day was proving to be very long.

My manager, in an attempt to make my day end on a more positive note, invites me to have a play on what was supposed to be a fun piece of music software…he knows that invoking the inner techmonkey is my version of retail therapy.

So 2 coffees (and an imaginary one later), I’m all revved up to go…except we discover that we need something else for the software to work…so….This is the point where I declare day = Massive FAIL and head home.

Thing is…in the context of things, things didn’t go that badly. They really didn’t. Chaos…colossal bouts of stinking, rotting congealed chaos is normal in a recording session. Days like these aren’t really that out of place and at most times I’m ok with it. The album is going slow…but taking sure steps towards the finish (more in next post) so I’ve got nothing to be bitter about. The video clip is finally leaping along so all is good. It’s just…well…today I’m feeling a little worse for wear. Maybe it’s me coming out of an unusually bad and lingering bout of flu that brought the rapid fire coughs, that invoked the long forgotten asthma attacks. Maybe it was holding day jobs, cross training and music all at once. Whatever it was, I found myself slumped into a beanbag 3pm in the afternoon, drained of all positive life force, afternoon tv playing…in an uncharacteristically defeated meat-bag mode.

Then mum called. Her timing was impeccable.

“Everything ok?”
“Yes mostly…except recording didn’t happen today…
“Well it happens (after she nods through the tale), by the way your crazy father is in tears…thought we’d call you”
“WHY?!! Oh my gawd…who died?”
“No…no…*insert repeated cantonese version of touch wood*he’s well, just sleeping off his business trip.”
“then what? anything serious?!”
“your mad MAD father just had a very vivid dream about you playing to a huge full house, and your albums selling out by truckloads…though we’d share it.
“…”
“Strange dream isn’t it? ….Still if it happens I won’t be surprised you know..I can’t wait till you finish…you’re putting so much into this…”

My reaction? Short story really…

…..I’m your royal madness’ puddle of stupid tears….
I’m your royal madness’ over- reacting emo worm
I’m your royal madness’ weepy blubbering idiot self…

A quiet assured vote of confidence is needed on most days…and on a grey day like this…I needed it more than I realised.

Fight another day won’t we?

Dream well. Till next time.

** Update: Your royal madness back to her perky deranged self and is working on a blog that details upbeat album developments. She is currently laughing at her other weepy self for breaking the emo meter 3 days ago.

Your Royal Madness…

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