Falcon Ridge Folk Festival

I have recently returned from spending a little less than a week on the road, attending the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. One of my favorite bands, Gandalf Murphy, played some five times over three days. I discovered that, despite having travelled across the country, I was by no means the most dedicated fan at the festival. I took the above photo of a fellow who, clearly, took his recordings very seriously. He is holding a chair over his camera during the rain to protect the camera. The very nice young woman seated nearby is holding an umbrella over the fan to shelter him from the rain. I have never before seen anyone use a chair as an umbrella. Naturally, I asked the obvious question. And, yes, he is an engineer.

The scenery was stunning.... when it wasn't raining.... which happened rather a lot. We were wet and covered with mud by the end of each day. Heck, a few times, we didn't even get out to a decent seat without first being covered with mud.

This is a shot taken in the "dance tent" where some people danced and some people sought shelter from the rains. I especially enjoyed the umbrella with the christmas tree lights on it.

The Hit!!!

Well, I finally got a copy of The Hit. It's out now as a "Criterion" DVD, so I thought it was as good a time as any to take the plunge. Unfortunately, as with most of the films to which the Floyd have contributed soundtrack music, this one is a real piece of crap. Oh, I know, there was that Fractal documentary that was pretty decent. TLAMLIL was a gem. The Magritte documentary wasn't at all bad. But, the others are all really pretty awful. And, true to form, this one didn't fail to spoil my evening & waste my money. The characters are all insipid, unmotivated, uninspired, and poorly written. The very worst thing that an action movie can be is boring - and believe me - this one is so boring as to actually be tedious. The Committee is an excruciatingly tedious movie. But, even it has Arthur Brown in the middle to wake the audience back up - and to let you know just who exactly is the god of hell fire. (It's Mr. Brown.) This movie has a tedious conversation near a waterfall - right in the middle of what might otherwise have been a decent chase.

As to the subject of the music... I guess any contribution by Mr. Waters is highly doubtful. This thing was released in 1984, so that fits with Mr. Clapton & Mr. Waters working together. But, the credits (above) clearly do not emphasize any contribution that Mr. Waters might've made. Even Mr. Clapton only features on 2 or 3 minutes of guitar doodling used for the opening titles. It's hardly enough to brace oneself for the tedium that is soon to follow.

My advice? Seek out a copy of "The Last Mimzy". At least it comes with the promotional film right on the DVD with the feature film. Now, that's worth spending some money.

Shutting it down.

It has been my pleasure to share live recordings and other weirdness here over the past 2 years. However, the fact is that the folks who run Rapidshare are, well, idiots. I could rant on about it, but I won't.

Just know that I regret having to make the decision to scrap this whole project. Hopefully, though, it hasn't been a complete waste. I have enjoyed these recordings - and did not make very many of them myself. That means that I have benefitted from the kindness and effort of many, many strangers. I hope that I have been able to pay that debt forward a little by sharing these goodies with you.

Shine On You Crazy Diamonds. Maybe we'll bump into each other at a Roger Waters concert. B-)

New times coming...

As you probably now, rapidshare arranged new rules - since 1st july. The impact on uploaders simple - smaller storage (i used more than 200gb, now it is restricted to 50gb). I dont care that i am not benefited for uploads (rapidpoints for downloading rapidshare files are canceled as well), but i want to provide stuff (and i want to do), we have to change system here as well:

1. No more reuploads. If you want new stuff, i cant revive old stuff because of limit mentioned above (i can have only 50gb of live links on my account, maybe it will be necessary to reduce it on 10gb)
2. imagine it as 50GB HDD, when new stuff shall coming, old stuff has to be deleted so:
we can make agreement:
a) how long shall i let the stuff uploaded (a week or two? or?)
b) how can you select what you want (for example we could let you know what stuff we donwloaded recently, or we can settle som kind of vote, etc...)

We get this stuff because someone shared it, so we would like to share it forward. So please help us to provide better services :) Any suggestions are welcomed.

Peace