Library Studies - Computer - Music
In 2006 I decided to enrol in a Library Studies course at Adelaide TAFE. I love books, I love reading books. I love looking at books, and organising them, categorizing them, sorting them. You know, you can sort books by height, or by colour, or more properly by subject, author and title. I really love books. And I love inormation. A few years before my library course I realised that I was suffering from information overload. I just did not have enough time, or enough room to sort through and organise all of the data and software that I was accumulating.
Anyway, to cut a long story short - I enrolled in a Library Technician course; for which I needed a computer and access to the internet. I had a computer, or two - but I really needed to get a pc - an ibm-compatible computer. I had thus far avoided anything but an Apple Macintosh; but I succumbed. My son helped to assemble a computer of sorts. Then one day I came across an old friend from a band a long time ago. He was shopping at the local Kilburn supermarket; lived only a handful of streets from me and was a pc whiz. Greg, my Alien frend.
He showed me this wild computer program that let you produce music on your pc. Well, I had been doing that on my Mac for a while - but this was somehow different. Soon I had produced a song, and another and another in quick succession. My library studies soon were a vague memory. I would bury myself for days and days at the computer, producing the strangest music that you, and I, have ever heard. It wasn't lonng before I was getting knocks at the door and phone calls in the middle of the night. "Could I produce something for a band that needed a demo?" or "Could I write something for Joe?"
Then, one day Frank knocked at the door . . .
I could write a book about the day that Frank knocked at the door. Suffice to say, by the end of that day I was engaged to produce cds for six bands: the Kings of Reggae - a reggae band; Dot Comma Dash - a techno dance outfit; Deep Chill - slow ambient lounge music; Silicon Strings - classical and punk influences; Cyborg Trance - synthesized beats from another planet; and Pilgrim Soul - a more conventional guitar band, with a leaning towards techno.
I then spent a very busy period producing these albums, digitally. At the same time we began experimenting with some video programs so that we could make some video clips of each song. I had never made a video clip before - so this was a very steep learning exercise.
You can listen to these first cds <here soon> and you can watch their video clips <here soon>
A compilation cd Made in Kilburn was released, along with the DVD version. One day various members of each of these bands took over the studio and came up with a fusion band, called FLuX. They produced a cd in three days and called it Three Day Wonder. In quick succession more and more bands were added to our little 'collective' of creative souls from the northern suburbs.
My personal situation has always been precarious. I lived with my young son, who was in his late teens at this time. I also had (shared care of) a young daughter who was not yet at school. Money was always tight and work was always part time and irregular. I hadn't had a phone connected for a year or two; so getting connected to the internet was always a remote priority. At times we had had the electricity - or the gas, or both - disconnected. In due course we made a move to Northfield, where we were able to get the phone connected; get a dial-up internet account and eventually a broadband connection.
Our collective of artists and bands are now called the Radio Curly Collective and we have our own internet site at www.radiocurly.com - although we call ourselves an internet radio station, we are not really a 'radio station' - but could be with a few more changes to our code. We also broadcast our video clips all over the internet. In the past five months we have registered over 60,000 views of our video clips.
My internet skills and activities are directly related to getting Radio Curly published on the web. In the next few pages I will tell you the story of how Radio Curly got onto the net; how we have progressed, and; how our future plans are developing.
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