Tom Hall – News

Saturday August 29th 2009, 6:47 am
Filed under: This & That

Well I’m on the train headed to Stansted Airport to begin my journey back home. I really have mixed feelings I must be honest. I’ve enjoyed playing alot the last 7 weeks and have met some amazingly friendly people and also caught up with alot of old friends, it’s been action packed and feels to me like it’s gone to fast. I’m even more into what it is I do creatively with a mass of ideas of where to go next. AXXONN I also feel stronger about with great confidence that we’re headed down the right path for now. On the other hand I’m looking forward to getting back to Brisbane for a few more AXXONN shows, some studio time and some writing and of course catching up with friends.

Anyway I’ll post on here more when I get back to Brisbane, no doubt a few recaps and a little bit about the tons of stuff I have to get done in September before I head of OS again.

Noise Out!! seeya soon…

Outside the famous Rough Trade records

My last London meal

London

Thursday August 27th 2009, 6:09 am
Filed under: This & That

Ok so I’m back in London now as mentioned in the last post but I just want to recap on Rotterdam.

……………………………………..

I spent a lot of time in the studio in Rotterdam, in excess of 60 hours in 6 days and two of those day were only 6 hours. I completed two tracks and recorded many hours of sound from the amazing synths, you’ll be hearing the results for the best part of the next year I would imagine, they’re very beautiful, rich and full of tone and I really am looking forward to what becomes of them.

On my final day I thought I had better take a walk around the direct area I had spend many hours inside of and took the following photos.

………………………………………………………………………………

Ok now back to London – Today 26/08/09

Below my adventures in Kensighton Gardens and Hyde Park

These guys rule!!

Desire Lines everywhere (I have a thing for desire lines)

Awesome!

WTF? is with this one…

This pic is for my Dad. It’s a big patch of Blackberries right in the middle of Hyde Park and quite naturally growing too, my Dad has spent a solid part of his life trying to eradicate them from my family property in Tasmania, here they’re a tourist attraction ;-)

London’s not big, I randomly bumped into a good friend from Brisbane, too weird.

Pie of the day (beef) = Super Tasty

Rotterdam to London via Nottingham

Wednesday August 26th 2009, 10:20 pm
Filed under: This & That

Back in London now for a few days with only one place left to go and that’s home to Brisbane. We (Ian and I) had a tormenting trip from Rotterdam to Nottingham on Monday, equating to about 15 bus/train changes and comical amount of missed ones and loss of fares and a total travel tim of 14 1/2 hours, ridiculous!

BUT we finally made it to Nottingham to a very well put together show featuring films screenings, performance art, electro-acoustic improv and us, it was very enjoyable with my only wish being that I wasn’t falling asleep half of the time.

Now I’m back in London (slept up with a nice 4 star hotel) and about to head out for some sight seeing.

Max/Msp/Jitter

Friday August 21st 2009, 8:01 pm
Filed under: This & That

So I’ve taken the leap that I couldn’t do so many years ago and have committed to learning Max/Msp/Jitter. I was first introduced to it when studying in Japan way back in 2004 – as I was thrown in the deep end of audio there, it was a little hard to get my head around why you would want to spend days making a multi-tap delay when Ableton Live combined with free VST plugins could already do it.

So it’s come to a stage where I’m requiring a higher level of image/sound integration with my live performance and Jitter is the key, however I must learn the fundamentals first so they can all work together Max + Msp + Jitter — these will still be combined with Ableton and will be purely used in live performance for Jitters video processing capabilities

For those who aren’t sure what I am on about checkout this Max Wiki Page

Here’s a little Buffer/Indexing Patch I made yesterday

36 in 3

Friday August 21st 2009, 4:01 am
Filed under: This & That

I’ve been in Rotterdam a few days now but all I see is the WORM studio, I’m not complaining this is a studio to die for, especially when you’re a synth nut like myself. I’ve done over 36 hours in 3 days now.

So for the first two days I just went nuts sampling/playing/patching and recording all the various synths (I’m in no way finished doing this) and today I’m been composing, working on MAX/MSP and a little sampling earlier today.

At this stage there’s two tracks in the pipeline.

OK, how can I get all of this back to Brisbane?!

ARP2500

Modular anyone?

ARP2500

My only glimpse of ‘outside’ from the studio

‘a little beauty’

Frankfurst to Amsterdam to Rotterdam – Damn!

Wednesday August 19th 2009, 3:20 am
Filed under: This & That

OK so the last 4/5 days have been pretty crazy/fun/unforgettable/forgettable, Frankfurt felt like a drug crazed sex city, it’s got a gruesome red light district smack in the middle of the city (first street you come to after leaving the central station) that seems to be a magnet for the junkies…..really it was a bit much. I’m sure there’s more to the city, but in 2 days I wasn’t able to find it. I did however eat some of the best food I’ve had on tour/in Germany so that always scores high in my books.

You might get the impression I like these a bit….

View from the Hotel room…

Schumacher’s 1995 F1

So there’s a few things I like in life…. above is one of them (i.e. fast cars)

maybe #6?…..I forget

Leaving Frankfurt Central – Amsterdam bound.

Amsterdam

OK so I really didn’t get to see all that much in Amsterdam, the red light district, some ‘green’ cafes and a few canals, was only there for about 36 hours so once you take sleep out of that it doesn’t leave much time.

On the way to Amsterdam (yep that’s a castle on the hill, fully functioning)

Amsterdam = Graphic

Obligatory Boats/Canals/Central Square/Pigeons

Angus Beef = The Best

Flying the Tamarri Flag!! Go Flanno!!

….another canal…. later these confused the s&*t out of me

this +

this = DISASTER!!

Ironically the last photo I took in Amsterdam – I think the message is getting clearer ;-)

Rotterdam

Just got to Rotterdam yesterday and now I’m straight into a 12 hour/a day studio session for the next 7 days (it’s easy as I’m surrounded by some of the best synthesizers to ever be made).

A nice piece of wall art here in Rotterdam (maybe the best i’ve seen on tour)

Me with a Gnome holding a very suspect object.

Rotterdam – coloured ???

…like glass

One of the best meals on tour – easily

Henry’s Home

Just one of the synths I have at my disposal – the legendary EMS VCS 3 ‘The Putney’

more synth pics soon

Berlin to Hamburg to Frankfurt in a Heart Beat

Friday August 14th 2009, 7:31 pm
Filed under: This & That

Wow I just woke up after a massive sleep stint, something like 8am Wednesday I woke and didn’t get to sleep until 11pm last night (Thursday). This really is the epic days tour.

In that time I went from:

– BERLIN to HAMBURG by bus —

– played a show in HAMBURG (Wed. night) —

– then caught the train straight to FRANKFURT –

– spent the day sightseeing in FRANKFURT –

I spent a lot of time waiting for transfers etc. at various stations but on this tour I’ve found the perfect way to fill in time. I’m teaching myself MAX/MSP/JITTER – it’s really not that hard, it’s just time and being smart about what you want to do/make/sound like.

Berlin Dayzzzz

Tuesday August 11th 2009, 11:23 pm
Filed under: This & That

Just been cruising around Berlin the last few days…we played on Friday night, it was OK. AXXONN got asked to turn down which was hard to take after Italy where we were asked to turn it up.

All you can eat German breakfast

Me & Christian (my German host)

Germany – First Day…

Sunday August 09th 2009, 2:04 am
Filed under: This & That

Centre of Town

Freak’n Australian Tourists…

I was in love this building, old but modern, beautiful but brutal

still in love with it…

Lion Slayer….yeah

Still digging that building (I have about a million more photos of it too)

Geezers in Berlin

Couple of Party Boyz

…more Geezers

Tough

Once was a wall….

‘CHANGE’

Unlimited Refills = Sweet

Germany, straight to the point!!

and closes the my first day in Berlin, Germany

Final Days in Italy

Friday August 07th 2009, 9:58 am
Filed under: This & That

Just got to Berlin a day ago….here’s a recap of the final days in Italy (i miss you!)

The last thing I laid my eyes on in Italy – a pizza making vending machine (I thought nothing could top the hot fish’n'chips vending machine I once saw in Japan)

Racing down the highway at warp speed to catch out flight from Milan to Berlin

Pitstop

Le Harmacy = D.I.Rad

Me Solo

The line-up (one of the tightest noise/sound shows I’ve seen in a long time)

Ale = Supercollider Gold

Painterly Noise

Diego – Great Vocals

Micky ‘the Rotten’ = Black Metal Goodness

He also asked me if I knew Strigborg – I’m never ceased to be amazed by how World ‘in-famous’ he is and how little known he is in Australia and even less in Tasmania.

Valentina – here parent half finished house was the location for the final gig in Italy – the Police came half way through the gig after much brutal noise (I thought by Australian standards and considering that it was a Tuesday night that it would be shut down for sure but instead….) and they asked her

“who’s home is this?”

she said “my parent”

they said “who is your father?”

she told them, they then said “have a good time/party!”

and then said “later on, when people are leaving and driving home be careful driving along this road because it is narrow and we understand that people might have had some drinks”

I’ll swap Italian Police for Oz Police anyday, ours seem to have nothing better to do than book people for J-Walking, Not wearing a helmet or shutting down house shows.