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The return of the Bongo Liberation Front - firehorse departs and what did we learn?

BLF, uh huh, ahuh ahuh.

doot, dweet woop, doo dweet woop.

There are a few KLF fans out there who just sang along with me.

That was the fourth firehorse project and an excellent test to end the pilot with.

Thank you to MC, Fox, Theo, Steve, Steve, Bec, Sam, Simple and all the cellar dwellers who participated.

Soo....what did we learn??

Ahem. In no particular order.

1. I need more XLR inputs. The more people I added, and because we have mic's for everyone to talk through i need more channels.
I am in no hurry to buy any more gear so I am goingto see what clever solution I can come up with.
2. Walk into your heart is great as an acoustic song. Sure we have to work out the middle bits but even as Mr Wizard observed, maybe the way to do it live without all the extra instrumentation from the recording is to simplify it to acoustic.
3. That was fun.
4. My local streaming bandwidth is juuust enough to manage what I am running now.... :(
5. There's still a few leads and cables in our cable gear that need to go. Buzzing. No! Bad Cable!!
6. Facebook is throttling the living shit out of our posts. People are not seeing them or it's taking days. Straight up, FB is pay to play. I don't like it, don't like us being free content providers for a platform that charges us to access the user base we helped to build. Nope nopey nope nope nopers. Yuck.
7. The studio audience was awesome
8. Most of the tech worked. Niiice. Some more minor tweaks
9. We were able to replicate it - yeah thats important. Today a sound driver went bung so we were 5 min late but I was able to fix it because???

TESTING

Yeah its really worthwhile.
10. the songs got a chance to evolve a little with less restrictions. it was nice to do songs we aren't/haven't/won't/don't do in the set, for whatever reason. I also got to break a few rules. Niiiice.
11. we took some good times back during these up and down times. yeah, snatched back a little happy during the pandemic and all this negative stuff in the social and news media. A little happiness doesn't diminish the tragedy of the times, but it may help to bolster your mental immune system.

I'm stoked, this has been a blast and we're looking at what next. There's some good things to try.

The world is a bit freaky deaky, but it's chill down here in the stormcellar. We're doing what we do. Making stuff. Doing things.

You know where to come when you need a time out.

Firehorse session 4 this Week - LIVE Thurs 7 central US and 10am friday sydney time

To end the firehorse project we're gonna be gong 4 piece, thus I christen it The Stormcellar Collective.

It's Friday morning for Aussies and Thursday evening for Yanks.

Need a link to the studio audience? Ask a cellar feller :-)

thanks to steve for spotting art mistake 1

Firehorse 3 runs freeee & apologies to Michael Buble

Something's going right. If anyone other than Bec wants to know the sound chain issues we tested successfully today, let me know, otherwise I will spare you the techo talk.

Suffice it to say...yessss....sorted.

Except for some issues with the otherwise wonderful little yamaha desk. It doesnt have the feature to split the mix as much as I need, as we start to add players, yet I rate this little thing.

I didnt realise it had a USB output for sound and it's come in so very very handy, I rate this unit Mucho Goodo. I am resisting acquiring any more gear though at the moment so I am looking for alternative sound chain solutions.

For the first time we did a version of Walk Into Your Heart, live. Coo-ool! AND!!! I got to do a Jazzy version of Colour My World which the boys have forbidden! Muahaha! I'm FREEEE!!!

Ok so now we have to talk about the Buble incident. Now fortunately as the tape has been destroyed I think I am safe, but I may have suggested that I think Harry Connick Jnr is cooler than Michael Buble.

Yeah I know I know don't hate on me. I get enough of that because of my love for Nickelback - legit 'photograph' and 'how you remind me' are great songs, even if that dude is...you know what. I don't need a beef with them too.

Anyway, Mr Buble, you're a multi award winning international star with a great voice. If I suggested that you need to apply for a license before you can swear, it's a Canadian Joke not a Mr Buble joke, but it's made funnier by the fact that you're a very wholesome dude and the idea of you swearing alone is kind of the humourous juxtaposition.

Please don't hunt me like an errant moose.

So other than the now infamous Buble/Canada incident, the less we draw attention to it the better, everything went swimmingly.

Next week will be the final test of the elements and seeing what other tweaks we can make before we start opening the doors to the stormcellar a little more. Meanwhile Cellar Dwellers & FOTB know where to go and if ya don't then ask!

Come spend some time with us, in the morning Sydney sun/rain, where you happen to be.

Thanks to our studio audience and to our guests this week, Wing & Dr Rock.

Thanks you to S & S for donations. It's greatly appreciated.

As you can tell, this is cheering us all up considerably. There's lots of EEEK going on and we never minimise how tough it is out there.

What we can do is give you some downtime when you need it and that helps to bolster you as you manage the seasons of wild weather.

See you in the stormcellar soon.

Firehorse session 3 -10am Sydney Fri june 5 and 7 central US June 4

Streaming test show 3 tomorrow Sydney time, Tonight last night..some time..US time. Either way, take some downtime. At this time. I'm pretty sure it's 10am tomorrow my time but I don't know what time is your time. As long as we all had a good time.

I'm glad we had this chat

how can it be the end of the world when there's Mr Whippy?

i walked the dog

bright afternoon sunshine

like a screensaver park

in the distance Ice Cream Van chimes sounded

everything calm & still

the clock wound back 50 years

screens still yell at me

tell me the world burns

it's winter here I am warm and

the sun is still a kind of gold.

Excellent failures in stream 2

Nothing beats a live test for revealing the lurkin gherkin of doom. That's a thing now.

What Went Right

Gain staging issue spotted and sorted.

Drums worked well, need a little miking tweak.

Secondary transmission audio was Boss, some lag for vision, some frame dropping.
Interaction with cellar dwellers works hilariously.
Error is comedy as long as you smile while it all goes to pot.

Our first Streaming Donation, care of FOTB Mr S. from the rocky mountain state.

What needs a tweak

External audio for Theo
Levels checking for guitar, was too hot
Got to stay on the mic or go to a hand mic for me...but now I am runnning out of channels.

Sound input channels for Discord went kerpflooie
Graphics nope. Meh. Too hard to stage manage while doing my thing. Gotta simplify or hand it over.
People still working out how to get into the VIRTUAL STUDIO!! OOOH new term!! That's two for the day.
Havent worked out how to split the feed for the internal and extenral. do I even need to?

These questions and more, when we do it again next week! It's a blast. I'm not storing it. Join in.

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