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🎶January’s Monthly Notes🎶

Any just like that January is done. It’s amazing how quickly the feeling of ‘Oh shit, the year is getting away from me!’ starts creeping in…

I kicked off the start of 2024 with a lovely little play at a private party on NYD – always a great way to start the year. Here’s video evidence of me actually smiling in the middle of a set:

Unfortunately my audio interface was playing up which caused a few frustrating glitches (it’s back to the suppliers for some warranty repairs).

Despite a good start to 2024, I’m already behind on my album preparation, mostly due to my above audio interface issues that resulted in me not being able to work on any tracks that make use of my hardware synths (Moog Sub37 and Novation Peak)….that’s all of them! Oh, well I’m just going to have to double the prioritisation on that goal in February.

The weekly releases on Bandcamp (R.A.W. 2024) have been going really well, with the last two being posted from the Colorado mountains where I’ve been getting a spot of snow inspiration – which requires ‘wearing’ the snow at times:

And now, it’s back to Sydney to crack on with the track releases, album preparation and a whole bunch of live streaming that I will be kicking off again…it’s been a while. Keep an eye on the socials for those live streams of old tracks that I’m rehearsing, new tracks I’m road testing and then a bunch of improvised live jams too!

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🎶December’s Monthly Notes🎶 – aka 2023’s Monthly Notes

Whew! That’s 2023 done…

Just checked my last Monthly Notes post and it was from July in Greece…I’ve been slack, or maybe I should say, otherwise occupied outside of things musical.

2023 was not a bad year musically with plenty of live gig opportunities along the way. The photo montage below gives a sense of all that fun. The 2 disappointments were not getting to do my solo Playa play at Burning Man (live set played out in the desert at sunset on the last Friday) due to a little bit of rain, and not getting over to Seoul, Korea for my frequent flier renegade tour (more on that later).

I hit many of my targets for the year with live shows and also keeping up my Release A Week (R.A.W.) weekly releases of ‘finished’ tracks to Bandcamp (the final few will be done in the 1st week of 2024 after a live gig opportunity scuppered my plans to finish the last few days). R.A.W. 2024 is kicking off from next week!

The one illusive goal for 2023 has been the completing of my first Steve Pottz full length album – Alive (working title). I have all the tracks largely finished and am in the ‘tweak to prepare for mix/master engineer’ stage (my worst!). The album consists of half the tracks from the last 10 years of producing and the other half from the last 2 years or so, all of which I have been fully road testing in my live shows. The aim of the album is to capture the essence of my live gigs in a studio album….tricky? Yup! So after missing my 1 July deadline for release, and then my ‘end of year’ deadline, I am once more needing to set a completion goal. And that is ~ 1 July 2024 for an albums release party in Sydney…watch this space (AGAIN!).

Other than all things musical, this last year was someone framed up with my prostate cancer diagnosis, treatment (surgery), and now recovery (all is going well). Didn’t really have that in the 2023 music program and it didn’t help the goal hitting process, but it certainly does hone one’s attention on the key things that matter in life. 2024 is gonna be full on, I am projecting. Thanks to all those who contributed to my Movember fund raising campaign, together we raised $ 2,845 ! Channelling my inner 80’s ski dude below:

So that’s the quick recap of the crazy year that was 2023, some ideas of what’s coming in 2024 included. More to follow in future posts.

Happy New Year!

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🎶July’s Monthly Notes🎶 – Hot Tunes in Greece

July was spent in Greece, primarily on Crete. Musically, it was all about getting my album tracks finished to the point where I can hand them over to the Mix and Master engineer. There’s something about working in boardshorts and a singlet, whilst sipping a beer in a Greek taverna, that lends itself to the detailed work that is needed to take a track from ‘Done’ to ‘Ready to Release’:

In reality, I think it was the fact that I had paused all other music activity for the last 7 weeks that has allowed me to focus on the final tasks for the album – no daily splurges (daily idea generation), no weekly BandCamp releases (R.A.W.), no compiling and rehearsing of any live sets, and no chasing down new opportunities for some live gigs (in Greece or back in Sydney).

So, all that is left to do on the album is those bits that I could not do remote from my home studio – mostly all the hardware synth (Moog Sub 37 and Novation Peak) parts (the baggage allowance doesn’t let me take the heavy guns on the sabbaticals unfortunately). The plan is to have that all done by the end of August to hand over to the Mix and Master Engineer.

….AND prep for a live gig I have coming up in Sydney on 11 August:

Grab your tickets here!

…AND prep for Burning Man 2023, to do more of this:

Busy month ahead!

Later…

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🎶June’s Monthly Notes🎶 – Worakls stole my Track! (almost)

So, it was 5:30 in the morning and I was getting ready to head out for my morning training run, and I put on my Bluetooth headphones and selected my Daily Mix #5 from Spotify, first track Question Reponse by Worakls, an artist I have only recently discovered (another live electronic muso!

So, imagine my surprise when it sounded really familiar, just like something I would do, although a bit more tweaked and better mixed than I would do. Then the Rhodes electric piano starts, and it’s exactly MY RIFFS! F#@king Hell! The dirty French f~%ker has stolen my track! How the hell did he mange to get all the parts to rework in such a cool way, where did he steal it from….and, I admit, I was just a little bit chuffed he’d thought my track was worth plagarising!

It was only in the lift down from the apartment when the track fizzed out as the bluetooth connection was lost that I realised my headphones had connected to my iPad that had started playing my track Bluez, at exactly the time I pressed play on Spotify on the phone (with volume off!)

With over 350 tracks produced in the last 10 years, I sometimes forget some of the cool tracks that warrant a rework and to be played live. This is one of those tracks – Bluez from November 2014:

We’re still in Crete on the #mustfinishthealbum sabbatical, with progress going fairly well on getting the 12 track album ready for the mix/master engineer when we return. Here’s where all the magic happens:

A much reduced set-up, which is coming with its own issues when I need to tweak the parameters on the Moog Sub37 part….and it’s resting back in Sydney (add it to the Todo-when-back-in-Sydney list).

So that’s about all the news for now. Back in Sydney from 1 August when the focus will shift to crafting my sets for Burning Man 2023 which will only be 4 weeks away….Eek. And somewhere along the line I will need to catch up my BandCamp Release-A-Week (R.A.W.) production…I’m about 8 weeks behind schedule on that – last quarter of 2023 is gonna be BUSY!

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🎶May’s Monthly Notes🎶

The G.O.A.T.?

Well it was for me. Last weekend’s set at our first Cirque de Nuit was (for me) the greatest of all time (so far). OK, so there’s a few caveats! I just finished putting the video together, you’ll see what I mean – what an amazing crowd:

Thanks to all those who supported, not just during my set, but also for being such an awesome crowd the whole night! And thanks too to my co-organisers and music providers – Go South (Anet), Funkytronic (Jean-Marie) and Goldilocks (Chris)…what a team. Jump on Facebook to follow our community page for plenty more news of some crazy circus fun to come – Cirque de Nuit.

That’s about it for the month’s news. Cirque de Nuit planning and doing was pretty much it for May’s music news…that’s more than enough.

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I’m (still) Making an Album!…just a bit later than planned

So, this was always a high likelihood of happening…the Album release is being delayed!

I’ve got the tracks selected (an extract from my ‘Pottz Music Machine, my production manager is on the left) and have made a good start at getting them ‘release ready’. But…there is no way I will make the deadline I set myself.

Why? Well, a few things. For one, I have had a lot more live performance opportunities than I thought I would in this first half of the year, and I will always prioritise the live playing ahead of everything else music-wise I am doing! The live playing has really helped the album process as I was able to road-test a bunch of new tracks that were candidates for the album and have them ratified on the dance floor. The second issue I have is around the mixing and mastering process. I did not allow enough time for that and also over-estimated how readily the engineer would be able to drop what they were working on and dedicate plenty of time to working on my 11 track album. Then, of course there’s the cost for that! Current market conditions aren’t really allowing for that spend right now.

So, I’ll reset with a release date somewhere in the last quarter of this year. It is still happening this year…just a bit (lot) later than planned.

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🎶April’s Monthly Notes🎶

It’s all happening at Cirque de Nuit!

I’m super excited to be teaming up with 3 good friends and purveyors of fine music on May 20th, to put on a night of DANCE, MAGIC and MYSTERY. Our playground will be Boogie Mountain (previously the infamous Kit and Kaboodle), right here at the Pottz Point Hotel (well that’s what I think it should be called).

There will be DJ sets from: Go South (Anet Redmer https://soundcloud.com/gosouth), Funkytronic (JM Guitera https://soundcloud.com/funkytronic) and Goldilocks (Chris Kreis  https://soundcloud.com/goldilocks_syd), and of course, a Live set from me, sprinkled with dance, magic and mystery. If you’re not already on-board, head over here and grab your tickets: https://undiscovered.events/cirque-de-nuit

Ok, so that was not strictly April music news, but it’s the main focus right now. April kicked off with one of my best ever live sets played at Sunset Town’s – The Good, the Bad, and the Burners event. 4 amazing days spent on the most spectacular site, with equally fantastic people….too good. Here’s a snippet of my closing track (full set can be seen here – https://youtu.be/uHrEBEZf7BQ):


In others news – I’m still making an album – just a bit later than planned.

Burning Man 2023 is all booked in for this year, so the annual Playa set preparation will be starting very soon.

That’s it for the April Monthly Notes update – Ciao!

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10 Year Work Anniversary at Fine Tune Pty Ltd

Wow! Today is my 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY working extremely hard (for meagre pay) for Fine Tune Pty Ltd. Ten years ago I swapped out my corporate office for a music studio.

And the worst thing is that my boss is withholding all my long service leave (not even sure that’s legal!).

So it’s on we go, nose to the grindstone. I’ve played at a bunch of parties so far this year and loving getting back into the Live groove.

Right now I’m working hard on my set for the Easter event – The Good, the Bad and the Burners! Get your tix from this link.

Also, the album is coming along (fairly) well…albeit a little behind schedule with all the live playing, but that was always going to take priority.

So, it’s a short, sharp musical notes post this month…work to do!


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I’m Making an Album! THIS is why…

I played a set this last weekend where 80% of the music was brand new….just produced and made it to the ‘Release to BandCamp’ level. I spend 2 weeks putting together the raw stems I would need to improvise these tracks live….and then did it!

The goal, to real-time road test if any of this music should be on my next album. Some are ‘sure-ins’ (a), others not (b), and then others are likely to be in, but need work (c). And the hurdle to get in???

Well…

  1. Did I have a shit load of fun playing them live?
  2. Did the result of improvising that track live represent what I want to put out into the world musically
    and..
  3. [Most importantly] Did other people ‘get it’!

See which of these tracks do you think were in the (a), (b) and (c) categories above…

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🎶February’s Monthly Notes🎶

Playing, but working…Live!

So, my monthly Musical Notes for the end of February is out a bit late. However, it’s all the best reasons…February ended, and March started with me playing Live at 2 house parties.

At the best of times, I have trouble convincing people I meet, that I actually do WORK! Especially when I post videos (like the one below) and photos of me very much PLAYING!

What’s not obvious in the 1.5 hour set of live music is…

  • the decade of very serious work practicing to learn how to improvise real time
  • the decade spent working out how to use the technology and hone production skills
  • the 3 years spent developing a technical set-up with a workflow that allows real time jamming of original music
  • the ~8 hours per track of work to produce the original music…times 18 tracks = 144 hours
  • the 1 hour per track to convert it into a live-jammable structure = 18 hours
  • the 16 hours work to test rehearse the live set to make sure the computer doesn’t f#$k you up half way (it does that).
  • the 3 hours strip studio and test set-up the day before.
  • the 1 hour pack down to move the gear.
  • the 3 hours manhandling all the gear and sound system to the GoGet and set-up at the venue.
  • 2 hours pack down, ship gear home and carry up 3 stories
  • 1 hour reestablish studio gear
  • 1 hour tidy studio.

But, I’m not complaining!

All of that work is TOTALLY worth it for 90minutes of live performance, especially when the crowd really get what you’re doing and show their appreciation as they did this last weekend!

So, enough waffling! It’s back to work…all that new music ain’t gonna produce itself!

(PS. My new album is still planned for release 10 June 2023)