Powderhound Session 2008.5

Me & Flemish Economist headed upto to Cypress the other night. Accelerting up the mountain we hit heavy fog. A pattern of heavy fog then perfect visibilty hit us as we drve through the clouds. It looked like we might get some heavy fog on the slopes .. fortunately it was fine.

First run was the SkyChair. Oh dear, the snow was heavy and a little bit crunchy. It took a couple of runs and a switch to the other mountain to find the great snow. Thanks to a huge hockey game in town the slopes was empty. We saw the same people all night... hahhahaa.

With the good snow - we got some great runs in. I achieved my own personal world speed record whilst optimizing our goodtimes - we figured out it was best to just fly down the empty mountain. Around 10, after a good 3 hours we headed back down to the city. A perfect Wednesday night out.

Spring In The Air

Spring is certainly coming, the days are beautiful and there's a sweet organic smell in the air. We spent the day cleaning up the garden - getting the fall leaves cleared for the crocus and daffodils that are poking through en masse. Spring is great in the hood - the streets are lined with cherry blossoms and people plant loads of flowers on the boulevards. Here's a too a good growing season.

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People are at the beaches, taking walks, flying kites ... perhaps watching the shadows of the clouds float on the mountains. The coffee shops are full of friends soaking up the sun and chatting with each other. Neighbours that haven't been seen for months are out and about moaning how the winter sucked and how they're super glad it's now sunny.

Manchester News

Wheels Of Steel

We finally made some sense of carrying around our vinyl for years by buying a turntable. We picked up a kool Sony model for around $100. Last night was vinyl night, 80's Manchester -vs- 80's Seattle. 1st track to bless the player was the Acid House classic ... Stakker-Humanoid, which sounded great! followed by some John Peel Sessions: Joy Division and some Stone Roses 12inches ....

So how is it all sounding? The modern albums sound amazing, full sounding. The Stone Roses debut album sounded stunning! ... Balanced, warm, rich bass - I haven't heard it sound this way for 15 years. 60's albums - The Doors - sounds a little lo-fi. 70's - Donna Summer - sounds freaking fantastic ... where did those tight rythmn sections with punchy bass go?

Made In England.

There's nothing like an early morning jetlagged blog post. Arrived back in Vancouver yesterday. The trip was lots of fun ... the wedding was fantastic, spent some *quality* time with my family and had a few great nights out with friends. All in all - ace.


The wedding in Manchester Town Hall was brilliant. Lots of old friends showed up, the speech went down well and, erm, my mate married a very nice person. Happy times for sure. The post wedding party was monstrously long and far too much fun - these things need to be done. The Town Hall was very beautiful - practically a cathedral inside. Our friends DJ'ed at the wedding party - good times getting down some Manchester Classics and ol' skool Acid House. Given the guests it was like old times hanging down The Hacienda & The Venue.

The remainder of the week I had some nice days out with the family - visiting Blackpool (lol - well you have to really), exploring the countryside and shopping in town. When I go back I always stock up on 'graphic looking' Primark t-shirts for $10. The weather was sunny all week - which was nice :)

The flight home was fine. Got some great piccies of England from 34,000ft, Greenland, The Rockies from 36,000ft and sweeping piccies of The Puget Sound region as I landed in Seattle.

Pre-Wedding Malarky

Arrived at FishKid brothers, admired his new porsche .. enjoyed a cup of tea then, oh dear, went to the pub. Had a nice meal - super starving - and a couple of nice English bitter's. The barmaid told me she didn't because she was a strict veggie, I said - me too. Why? They filter the beer through a stern fish's bladder. Yum, that's why it tastes sooo goood.

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So here we are back at Bones, just about t get ready. I've been told that the speech comes after much celebrating - lordy, lordy .. it's going to be a laugh. Moments go I took possesion of the rings... It's a beautiful day for a wedding here in Manchester - it's quite warm and sunny. The whole thing is going to be *ace*.

Back In England

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The tripover was good - but long. Left Vancouver and drove to Seattle Wednesday morning, dropped my car off at Madame Andalucia's, had some lunch then she took me to the airport. Flight was late so I chilled out in the bar and enjoyed a few pre-flight beverges. Boarded the plane - window seat. I'm having great luck at meeting interesting travel companions on the flights - this time was Mic. a Irish font designer from Microsoft. We had a good laugh all the way back, talked fonts, the merit of debug mono-spaced fonts and all things graphic design. We enjoyed a few beers, he fell asleep so I checked out the arctic stars flying over Greenland listening to the new Black Mountain album - epic.

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Landed in London. Delayed getting of the plane as the the steps were'nt correct. Finally got off in T4 followed the signs for T1 connections until the bread crumb trail of signage evaporated. A quick stop at the info desk fixed me up ... a long walk, a train ride (what!) and another long walk to T1. By this time I was over 2.5 hours late for the Manchester flight. No worries, they got me on the next flight (it's regular). A nice 35 min short flight, a delightful tour over the Peak District before landing ... topped the flight of nicely. My brother met and in grand tradition forgot where parked..

Great to be home. Wedding tommorow!

Da Best Man

Heading to Manchester to deliver a speech at my mates wedding - FishKid. It'll be a great event at the Town Hall (above). Everyone will be there, GarlicDalek + Tats will be heading up from BigSexyLand in London to Dj .. so all signs point to a great wedding.

It's been hectic lately so I haven't had much chance to put my speech together, so like anyone in a pinch I refer to Google. I fired up the search engine and entered "best man speech +template +last minute" which gave me some ideas and lots of laughs - there's a ton of funny videos out there. There's no shortage of material to talk about with him - I've known FishKid for 21+years and we've shared far too many mad adventures together - the problem is which to pick... mmmm... I'll probably start with what is referred to as an "cheeky icebreaker", then compliment his great wife, roll into a bunch of gags about him and before I totally embarass him -- slide on into his great qualities ... then the toast... ta-daaaarrr.

New MySpace Track

I've added a new track to my >>kormacurry>>sound>>system mySpace site.

The track is called Lighthouse Park, named after one of my fave Vancouver parks ;} It features a lot of synth strings. Interestingly enough ... prior to putting this tune together I watched a documentary with Paul McCartney and he was re-collecting his days and about some of his past arrangements. One part he discussed how to get the best out of a string section .. paraphrasing here ... "They love playing pieces with lots of movement and flow - sweeping". Now I'm no John Williams but I got his point, so when I sat down at the keyboard for a "DIY Session" I remembered this lesson, and imagined myself giving a score to a string section and how they'd like to play it -- the result - Lighthouse Park. As the track progresses, you'll hear a progression across multiple octaves .. when you listen to this.. think of the dudes down there in the orchestra pit playing away -- smiles on their face. Hopefully :)

Check it out here... CLICK ME