Week 1 - Ritual Howls

So Tim, you might not remember from the other day when we had our class introductions but my name is Ben I have been doing bands for maybe the last 10 years or so. It's been a pretty cool ride but I don't think that being in a band going forward is something that I'd really like to make a go at. While I have never done the whole tour the world thing, I have done enough touring about Australia with my own bands and with others to know that travelling all the time to make a living isn't for me. The lifestyle of being a broke product of the entertainment industry is fine though, it's just that I know I enjoy the security of a home base. The instability of not having a consistent job, possessions, or relationships was fine when I was 21 but not so much anymore. Making music and recordings these days seems much more appealing as I still get to participate in the creation of something unique but it's also a shared experience with others. Bands often become stagnant and stale with time but I have found that when working with new individuals from project to project it taps in to a whole new creative well that I wasn't aware existed. I often feel as though I come out the other side a better musician as a result. All from the comfort of Melbourne.

That said, I do see myself continuing to play in bands for a very long time. The feeling of playing live is something I have never experienced in any other aspect of my life and I do still enjoy travelling and touring with bands (I am going to New Zealand in April to play shows) it's just that these days that's definitely not a priority or a focus for me. There's every chance that I get bored in a few years or end up in a situation where being a touring musician becomes appealing and I just fuck off again.

It's worth noting that I don't think I'll actually end up trying to make a fulltime go of being a recording engineer of music either. Last year reminded me that for the most part musicians are the most unreliable idiots in the world. I should have already known... It's difficult to maintain a professional manner when you're dealing with people that are there to fuck about and bask in the fading sunset that is the rock and roll lifestyle. I understand that early on I will work with young artists that are still not aware that going to a studio actually means doing work so they will inherently be a pain in the arse. I actually worked on a podcast last year for a freelance client and it was so refreshing to work with a group of people that weren't hung over, wanted a great product and took pride in addressing the little things. The bonus being that at the end of it all I was still able to feel as though I had used my audio skills to create something that people enjoyed.

It actually sounds like I am fully dark on being a musician, playing in bands and recording people. I am definitely not, I love it. I just now know I don't want that to be my main source of income.

What I would really like to do is continue on studying after SAE. I have been eyeing the Masters of Architectural Science at the University of Sydney. The main reason being is that the architecture elements will go super in depth on acoustics and spaces which really caught my attention when we touched on it at SAE, unfortunately it was only for like 2 classes though. For whatever reason the nature of the relationship between sound and the space within which it lives just seemed to really interest me. I understand that for most people that might sound horribly mundane though. It also delves into spacial audio. I feel that within 10 years any engineer worth their salt with have to be well versed in the world of spacial audio. If that's something that I can specialise in now when everyone else tries to grapple with it once it becomes something they need to know in 10 years, then I am getting ahead of the pack. The only draw back at this stage is do I actually want to go and live in the disgusting shit hole that is the capital of Australia's worst state? That's not me speaking as a Victorian or a resident of Melbourne either. I have only lived in Melbourne for 5 years and I am originally from Canberra, so I have spent a lot of time in Sydney. I just generally despise it as a city, it's residents and it's state government that seems to show complete disregard for the creative industry. Hopefully RMIT develops a Masters program or something.

Here's a song called Scatter The Scars from a record that I have been absolutely hammering so far this year. The record itself came out mid last year but I only got around to listening to it in December. It's by a band called Ritual Howls. It's nothing new in terms of sound but it's a pretty good stab at the 80's new wave/post punk stuff that was happening in Britain. Which is an era of music I am pretty fond of. Reminds me quite a lot of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry.