Down In The Hole

THE SATURDAY BOY: Passing out Wolf Tickets ...

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:48:51 +1000

THE SATURDAY BOY: Passing out Wolf Tickets ...:

Needle. Wolf Tickets. Ray Banks.

That’s all you need to know, right?

Oh, hello.

If you’re here, I’m assuming it’s because you’ve heard the news that Your Humble Narrator will be staining the next three issues of Needle with a novella/novel type thing called Wolf Tickets.

I know, what a shocker, eh?

Bit of background for you: back in the good old…

"TOM WAITS EDITS MOJO 200! It’s MOJO’s 200th birthday! And who better to celebrate this most..."

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:41:32 +1000

“TOM WAITS EDITS MOJO 200! It’s MOJO’s 200th birthday! And who better to celebrate this most auspicious occasion with than Mr Tom Waits? So, from the mind of one of the planet’s true originals comes this special issue anniversary issue…”

- Covers

Ning Now Charging To Run CrimeSpace - CrimeSpace

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:29:00 +1000

Ning Now Charging To Run CrimeSpace - CrimeSpace:

As you all may already know, Ning, the company whose servers and software power CrimeSpace, has decided to start charging for the service. You can read the previous discussions on this here and here, but it all comes down to this:

CrimeSpace will continue to run on the Ning Network and I am happy to pay for the service.

Nimrod, the World’s First Gaming Computer | Wired.com

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 22:18:55 +1000

Nimrod, the World’s First Gaming Computer | Wired.com:

Tristan Donovan, a U.K. writer who has contributed to Edge and The Guardian, has just released a new book called Replay: The History of Video Games.

While other history books have covered the topic, Donovan’s 500-page tome is the most exhaustive and wide-ranging history I’ve read. It’s especially notable for its extensive treatment of the history of European game development, which has been noticeably absent from other books.

Vince Keenan: Book: Memory, by Donald E. Westlake (2010)

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:02:43 +1000

Vince Keenan: Book: Memory, by Donald E. Westlake (2010):

Hopefully Vince doesn’t mind me sharing this. But I’m half way through my second David Goodis novel and this feels like a perfect followup.

The story behind Memory is fascinating; Westlake wrote it in the early 1960s but because it was, in the words of his friend Lawrence Block, “a lengthy serious existential novel by an unknown writer,” it failed to find a publisher. Block, one of the only people to have read the manuscript, recalled it in the wake of Westlake’s death in December 2008 and brought it to the attention of Hard Case Crime.

Back On CrimeSpot.net

Thu, 27 May 2010 10:08:00 +1000

Because it rocks. Because you want to read everything on it. And if I didn’t get back there, no one would be reading this either. That’s how much it rocks.

CrimeSpot. Sing it. CrimeSpot!

Blood, sweat and years: Getting fit at 40

Tue, 25 May 2010 13:40:03 +1000

Blood, sweat and years: Getting fit at 40:

When did the midlife crisis become so sweaty? As my late 30s do a disappearing act, I thought it would be the time to cut loose with inappropriate cars, clothes and scalp carpet. Instead, the majority of my nearest and dearest have taken to exercise, and I don’t mean walking the dog via the pub. I mean serious, athlete-level training regimens and born-again fitness zeal. I now know more marathon runners, yoga practitioners and gym bunnies than at any other time in my life.

The poetry of pop

Thu, 20 May 2010 15:12:00 +1000

The poetry of pop:

“The consumers of music are definitely less lyric-literate these days,” he says. ”We live in a cut-up, fast-paced world now. But I still think songwriters are as interested in lyrics as they ever were.

”The lyric is a weapon and as a songwriter you have a few of them: the melody, the sound, the voice. But every songwriter knows if you have a good lyric, it’s an advantage.”

Guitar Gear: Catalinbread Formula No. 5

Wed, 19 May 2010 23:15:00 +1000

To keep myself writing more regularly this time round I’ve decided to annoy you all with posts on guitar gear. Guitars, effects, amps, you name it. Expect these to be extremely sporadic, though, as there isn’t a lot of gear that actually inspires me to write.

This effects pedal does, so we start here.

Catalinbread’s take on raunchy tweed is out and I have myself one of them, ordered from Tonefactor.

I’ve had a minor obsession with tweed pedals. I have a Lovepedal Les Lius, a Clark/Barber Gainster, and my own clone of a big box Clark Gainster.

The Les Lius isn’t so pedalboard friendly without a gain or tone knob and while it’s pretty much on the money, there’s a raspiness I don’t like and a slight lack of touch sensitivity. It feels like it’s dragging is the best way I can describe it.

The Clark/Barber Gainster is more useful in that it has a gain and tone knob, but I find myself too aware of the op-amp nature of the circuit. It also doesn’t have the bloom that the Les Lius does. My clone pedal is a lot smoother and open (lots of vintage caps/resistors) but for some reason I just couldn’t get enough bass out of it. Probably more to do with my electronic skills than anything else.

Enter the Formula No. 5. Exit all other tweed pedals.

It’s small, looks fantastic, and has a gain/tone/level knob. So, pedalboard friendly right out of the box. Also comes in a mojo hand bag for added olde-worlde flavor. And check out the text on the PCB. I won’t spoil it for you.

As has been said elsewhere (on one of the FN5 news threads here), the gain starts at about 3 on a Tweed Twin (correct me if I’m wrong), so you won’t be getting any sort of a clean sound without turning down your guitar’s volume. But the secret here is to use playing dynamics. Play lightly with your fingers or dig in with a pick and you’ll have a wide range of sounds.

Take the gain up half way and you get a touch more low end as well as a wider range of crunch to work with. Dig in and you get some nice harmonic bloom, which is further accentuated with the gain on full. Actually, I think the whole range of the gain knob is useful and interactive with the tone knob as well.

Full gain and tone full left and you get a great tweed/psuedo fuzz going. Tone on full and you get some added gain which can sound a little mushy on full gain but never piercing, pretty much like a real tweed amp would.

I tried stacking it into a DLS and found some the most heavenly high gain tones I’ve heard from pedals yet. The DLS puts a nice rounded lot of mids on top but still contains the FN5. Nice work there, Catalinbready-people.

For me, Catalinbread has a best-of-class Marshall pedal, and now they have a best-of-class Fender as well.

I know they aren’t marketing this as an amp-in-the-box like the DLS, but it almost feels that way to me. It probably doesn’t make for a good ‘foundation’ sound as the DLS, but on its own it nails tweed tone. Only issue I could see some people having is the lack of clean tones. But since the pedal works well with a clean amp, this doesn’t really seem to be a problem for me.

Spinetingler Has Given Me A Goal

Mon, 17 May 2010 11:06:00 +1000

This last week saw me creating this blog, joining Twitter and linking my Facebook account to all these online social shenanigans. My reason for doing all this was to ‘get back out there’ in the world of crime fiction.

And the universe has given me what I have asked for:

** Please note: Spinetingler Magazine has reopened to fiction submissions as of May 13, 2010. **

http://www.spinetinglermag.com/submission-guidelines/

Time to get onto my butt and work on the story I’ve had kicking around in my head for the last few weeks.

Really, none of this is rocket surgery: write story, get it published. I’ve been here before, I’m just blogging about it to make it real. That way I can be completely embarrassed if I don’t come through with the goods.

David Goodis: About Bloody Time

Wed, 12 May 2010 14:11:00 +1000

It’s only been five years since I started reading crime fiction seriously, let alone at all. Seeing as I only read about twenty books a year, all I’ve been able to do is dip my foot into the waters of the crime fiction ocean. My toes have been wet by hard-boiled private investigations, serial killer thrillers, rom-com bounty hunters, police procedurals and mafioso misadventures.

But the one sub-genre of crime fiction that keeps pulling me back in is noir.

The possibility of an ordinary man or woman going down the dark side of the street unwillingly, or with big ideas of a better life, is fascinating and makes for damned compelling reading. Which is why I’m kicking myself for taking so long to get around to reading David Goodis.

Last night I finished one of his earlier novels, 1947’s NIGHTFALL (aka CONVICTED or THE DARK CHASE). I picked it as my first David Goodis almost randomly, although having it freely available through the iPhone’s Stanza app helped.

Being on the iPhone, I only read the novel in dribs and drabs, but I never for a moment lost the thread of the story. Even if I had a break of a week between reads, as soon as I started I was right back in David Goodis’ world. And every time I read, I found myself captivated by the moral complexities of the characters, the psychological bent to their actions and the author’s view of the world, and the thought that maybe it could happen to me too.

Towards the end, Goodis expertly weaves in all the threads binding the characters together and I read the last quarter of the book on the edge of my seat, even if I was lying down in bed or standing in a queue.

I suppose I dragged it out a couple weeks more than needed, but this was because I am painfully aware that he ain’t coming out with any more books to follow. I’ll jump onto another Goodis novel soon, but I’m stretching this ride out as long as I can.

Hatadi's New Home

Tue, 11 May 2010 14:22:00 +1000

Looking over at my well-worn and semi-retired Blogger blog, it’s painfully easy to notice that I haven’t posted in almost one year. And before that, the posting was pretty damned infrequent.

I could blame work, moving house, travelling overseas, not writing, not making music, spending too much time playing computer games, drinking too much absinthe … but only one of these would be true.

Yeah, you got me. It was the absinthe.

Rather than trying to force discipline onto my inconsistent personality, I thought it might be easier to start a new blog at some new digs.

Same name as the old one, same guy writing. Here’s hoping he writes more.