Connected, disConnected, kebabed and generally thinking about the good and bad aspects of the Connect Festival

Phew!
Just wondering if the colossal amount of doner kebab Just consumed is going to kill me. (Not to self: double dose of pravastatin, atenelol and aspirin tonight)

Seemingly endless bus trip back from Inveraray (why go via Dalmally and Tyndrum? What was wrong with the Rest and Be Thankful as on the way up from Glasgow?) featuring two accidents (not to us) and a diversion via Dumbarton. But at least the driver dropped me off at The Botanic Gardens.

Incidentally, there was a splendid piece by Ian Jack in today's Guardian about Stefan King's plans to rebuild the old Botanic Gardens station. All the westenders protesting against the project should read it forthwith.

Right, so Connect: DF Concerts' 'boutique' festival at Inveraray, aimed at the thinking, drinking, older punter with cash to spend on massages and malts. A staggeringly good musical lineup (if you share my tastes), generally, though with some anomalies: why the dance tent? Few among the target audience care to shove their head inside one of those tarted-up Vauxhall Novas you hear blasting their windscreens out at traffic lights, and then bang their bonces violently against the dashboard - my interpretation of modern dance music; but then, I still find myself referring to 'discos'. And why Inveraray? Culzean was already (I imagine) booked up for Retrofest, but there are other castles nearer Glasgow. Castles less prone to wetness and with fewer big nasty trees.

(Note: my years in Shetland have left me with a dislike of trees when experienced en masse. in the isles, they're considered sinister, and probably a sign of trowie activity)

Still, the publicity was great, the press office helpful, and there were so many great bands playing, I decided to hop aboard the Citylink bus for a day's Connecting. And I was glad I did. I had a really great time, mainly because of the company (thanks, Dave and Lucy!) and the fact that, for the first time in years, I could have a wee festival drink. Also, the imbibing was civilised and excellent: The Loch Fyne Whisky Bar and the Ale Tent both offered magnificent, and cheap, pints and drams, albeit in plastic. And no need for tokens! The food, too was pretty good, though the HIE 'Highland food' tent was on the small side.

But the mud was awful, the weather patchily murky, and the distances having to be covered on foot seemed massive. The weather militated against some of the music, too: Vashti Bunyan was way out of context amid the drizzle, though it was delightful to see her. Emma Pollock, kicking things off at the 'Guitars and Other Machines' stage was terrific, benefitting from a sound mix which was consistently, throughout the day, far, far better than the so-called 'main' Oyster stage. The Hold Steady, on the Oyster stage, were a terrible disappointment - sloppy, hurried, full of mistakes and with a dreadful, murky sound. But they're huge favourite of mine and maybe I was expecting too much.

Back at the 'Guitars' field, Rilo Kiley were spellbindingly, jaw-droppingly magnificent. Jenny Lewis was dressed, it seemed, as a Playboy Bunny, minus ears. They were like a bitter and twisted Fleetwood Mac, circa Rumours, only with real lyrical depth, and it should be said, filth. Just wonderful. And next week's Tom Morton Show album of the week, if you're interested.

Apart from that, Bat for Lashes was an almost exact cross between Kate Bush and Bjork, Teenage Fanclub sounded exactly like Teenage Fanclub, and I had to go on what seemed like a 15-mile hike to catch the bus back to Glasgow. Glad that I wasn't camping (lots of complaints about the conditions, toilets etc) but sorry to miss the Sunday line-up, which is even better than today's.

So, in conclusion: Let's 'fess up, Geoff and DF: this is a carbon copy Belladrum, only nearer Glasgow. You've used your muscle to get one of the best lineups of bands I've ever seen advertised, but the mistakes made all seem to involve thinking you could just scale down T in the Park and add a few bells and whistles. Belladrum, remember, was a tiny event, the vision of one man, Joe Gibbs, in his own (large)garden, and it's grown organically (thanks, largely to Robert Hicks)over several years to its current, very comfortable, very sorted size. Trying to start at the size Belladrum is now was understandable (hey, after all, you're in the business of making money)but I think you have to learn how to do this kind of festival in a quite different way from T. This isn't shrink-to-fit. It's nurture and grow.

Having said that, and despite everything, I had a ball, obviously.

Thanks to Patrick Vickery for the interesting news that Belladrum's rocktastic Italian Garden was very nearly sold, a few years ago, as a site for organic gardening...

Shooting off sooth again after a great week

Fantastic week with Sandy and Elaine here for a wee break before they head off to Malawi to work at the Billy Riordan Memorial Clinic for six months.

Managed to get (supervised by Elaine) the clay pigeon launcher assembled and then it was an all-male trip to some deserted croftland to shoot those nasty clay suckers out of the sky. Fortunately Sandy knew a bit about shooting and was able to instruct us all in the basics: such as, standing so you don't get blown over backwards by the kick of an over-and-under 12-gauge.

Great meal at Busta on Tuesday, and Sandy and I cracked open my new bottle of 22-year old Clynelish, which will be the subject of a separate post over on Nippy Sweeties, in due course.

Now it's time to sleep, or try to. It's always a problem when there's the prospect of a 5.30am rise to catch the early flight to Aberdeen. Necessary as tomorrow we have The Proclaimers live in session on the show, in front of a highly select audience of listeners. Then it's off to Glasgow to tidy Magnus's flat after its major summer renovations, and before he and his pals return to 'study' or whatever it is they do at universities nowadays. I'm catching the boat back north on Sunday, hopefully with a Honda Silverwing motorcycle, but I'm keen to catch most of Saturday at the Connect Festival in Inveraray if I can. A lot will depend on the weather, but after The Hold Steady's disappointing latecomer set at T in the Park, it would be good to see them in full flight.

Cycling in Shetland and insuring a 19-year-old

Three days in a row (seeing as Magnus, in his new post-driving test state of grace, has taken possession of the Berlingo) I have been cycling, which has been both very enjoyable and face-searingly sore.

It's the wind, you see. Even when it's calm in Shetland, it's windy. Our neighbour Bruce, no mean racing cyclist back in the day, describes meeting an experienced velocipedalist in tears on the Hillswick road, basically pedalling furiously against a headwind to stand still. Yesterday, three of us decided to cycle to Drew and Vivienne's barbecue/spit roast, a distance of about six miles. It was delightful on the way there, the wind at our backs, spinning along beside Ronas Voe like we were Tour De France riders pumped full of EPO and steroids. On the way back, though, it was a different story. You know the kind of wind that makes your teeth sore, and your hair ache?

Mind you, I felt less pain than I might have, having consumed two glasses of Rioja and some fantastic food. And while I would never drive in such a condition, I did feel able to wobble along on two wheels, being punished by the breeze for my indulgence.

And I felt a lot less pain than I did just a few minutes ago.

I was trying to get a quote for Magnus to drive an R-reg Audi A3 he's being lent for six months. A year's insurance, I was informed, was going to cost £2653.

I'm just going to tell him that he'll have to get on his bike.

Dr Livingstone's excellent guide to turning your old LP tracks into MP3s

This was sent to the TM Show by listener DAVID LIVINGSTONE, after I mentioned on air the sudden popularity in dedicated 'USB turntables' for recording old vinyl albums onto your computer. This is how to do it for free, (almost) if you already have a record player. Cheers David! Pesonally, I use a SoundLab DLP32S deck with Stanton cartridge through a NAD amp and into a Philips CD-R recorder. Bang the CD onto iTunes and Bob Dylan's yer uncle!

Recording albums & stuff - D.I.Y
--------------------------------------

No need to buy a USB turntable if you already have a reasonable one in a
stereo separates system.

As you can't plug in a turntable into your PC directly, since the
cartridge normally only outputs a few mV (millivolts) which is not
enough to record from, it so needs to be amplified.

So to get a stronger signal, take a tap off the tape output phono leads
from the amp (or at the input to the cassette deck end) using phono
T-pieces (see pic attached) and then direct this to the line input of
your sound card in the PC, via standard phono leads. You can buy them up
to 10m in length on eBay.

The input socket on the sound card is probably a mini jack, so you'll
probably have to find a suitable - stereo phono to stereo mini jack
adapter - from Maplins, eBay, etc, etc. see below


Then using software like Audiograbber (free and a good MP3 ripper too),
Audacity or Goldwave, you can 'record' from the PC's line in source, and
tweak the levels (in the sound card's audio control panel or the Windows
mixer one) to get a reasonable sound level.


Of course, if you are recording an album from vinyl, it will be in real
time - ie the length of the record. And the WAV files are huge -
obviously getting on for a full 700 Mb (~70 mins) though, so plenty
memory helps.


Further refinements with software like Groovemechanic can clean up the
recording if you want, before splitting it up to MP3's.


A handy benefit of doing it this way, you can select the required source
on your amplifier - from the tuner, video, mic, auxiliary or other tape
deck, even minidisc, etc, etc as your input source and it works the same
way (ie it's the signal that would be recorded by the cassette machine)
and will be available as the Line In at the computer.


The Audiograbber programme is great - you can set it up to record from
the line in source with it's built in timer - as I've done on numerous
occasions with these Radio2 concerts on Saturday nights.


Just set a bit of an overlap, to start before and finish after the
concert - and it'll even shut down the PC on completing. So after a pint
out, you can come home to a file all ready to be burned onto CD.

Though doh, I've sometimes forgot to change the preset station on the
tuner to Radio 2, and so recorded 1 hour of Robbie Shepherd or similar
from Radio Scotland .....
(Tom says: "Thus educating yourself, David, in the excellence of Mr Shepherd's oeuvre")

Also, you can record from the BBC streaming 'Play it Again' facility,
with this software, things er--r like your programme, by changing and
setting your sound card to record from the 'Stereo Mix' source.

But the quality isn't the best especially at busy times with internet
congestion, etc. and you are always be best to record direct via the
radio tuner.


I don't know about the legality about all of this, but it's all for
personal use and as usual there is a whole industry and underground with
some very smart people out there ....... so destroy these electrons if
you chose to accept your mission. If I end up in the clink, you are an
accomplice.






phono to mini jack Adapter
http://snipurl.com/1o7ck
(well recommended and cheap eBay seller)


Audiograbber - free and basically a MP3 ripper
http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/

(the real geeks don't use MP3 files, but FLAC, .ogg files etc, etc )


Goldwave audio file editor
http://www.goldwave.com/

but Audacity is a good free source equivalent
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/


And a very good plugin for Winamp, Windows media player, etc to improve
the sound of MP3s on PC's is DFX Audio Enhancer

http://www.fxsound.com/


Hope this hasn't done your head in!


Good luck.

Leaving Aberdeen in the broad daylight...

....which is a reference to a song, in case you were wondering. Anyway, I am, later on today, by steamer, and touch wood, the forecast is pretty good for the crossing to Shetland via Orkney (not that I'm getting off at Kirkwall, but with a bit of luck it'll be a nice sunset over Scapa Flow).
It's gloriously hot in Aberdeen at the moment, with people disporting themselves in that very Scottish way, in ill-advised semmets and peculiar bustiers. And that's just the men. Let's hope the weather extends to the northern isles and lasts the weekend. Or even beyond!
Experienced one of Aberdeen's treasures last night - the Meze House cafe in Rose Street. Probably the best humous in the UK, followed by superb kofta kebabs with enormous quantities of rice and salad. It's a bit of legend in the north east, and if you're into Turkish cooking, you must try it. It's unlicensed and cheap. You can bring a bottle but they do charge hefty corkage, and I have a (possibly unfounded) theory that alcohol is looked upon with mild disapproval by the proprietor. Who's called Mohammed.