And so the Fringe ends

On the last weekend of the Fringe we were lucky to experience some fine comedy and inspirational music.

On Friday night we saw the American comedian and ex-’Whose Line Is It Anyway’ stalwart Greg Proops. After being thouroughally entertained by Jason Byrne a few nights previous, Mr Proops had a lot to live up to and for the most part he did somewhat deliver. I say ‘most part’ as at times during the show Greg Proops seemed to lose the momentum of the audience’s laughter and … well die up on that stage. When he was funny though, I was reminded of that sardonic wit from ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway’ that greatly amused me then.

Saturday night we returned to see one of our favourite fringe comedians from previous years, Ross Noble. As always we were provided with a barrage of surreal comedy from gangs of rickshaw ‘Hell’s Angels’, to the theory that the Universe’s rate of expansion can be explained by the rate of expansion of a monkey. Always a favourite, yet another to see next year :).

The final show this year was that of some fabulous acoustic music last night from John Renbourn and Clive Carroll. Held in the Famous Spiegeltent, the atmosphere was intimate and extremely laid back with an audience size of about 30 people. Clive Carroll started the show off with some stunning playing, performing a couple of Irish folk songs, one even suggested by an audience member. Next the maestro himself John Renbourn came on stage to play a series of pieces ranging from folk to blues to Jazz to Calypso. Watching him perform was simply mesmerising. The show was rounded off with Clive Carroll joining John Renbourn on stage to perform a few more songs in which Mr Carroll was given some ground to let his fingers fly. My God that man can play.

All in all, a trully inspirational and magical gig. Live music is something I love greatly and when performed by musicians of this calibre it is unforgettable.

I was inspired so much in fact I recorded some noodling in DADGAD tuning on my acoustic. It’s such a lovely tuning I may record something a bit more concrete.

Current Favourite Song: np: Don Ross - Robot Monster - I Think of You

I’ve recorded a new tune!

Tonight I recorded some music for the Guitarist Home Recording Collective. The task was to record a piece in a minimalist style for which I decided to record a solo guitar piece recorded in one take around just three chords. Picking up my Nylon string resulted in a piece entitled Pure. More info can be found in my Music section.

Pure

Another first :), this time for the Guitarist Recording Collective. This piece was recorded for the August 2003 task which was to record a piece in the Minimalist style, whatever ‘minimal’ means to you.

I opted to record a piece using only a solo guitar using a small number of chords with minimal amount of fuss ;). In other words recorded in a single take on a single track. Chords wise I decided to play around with just three, Em, G and C. With a wee bit of ornamentation ;).

Recording was done using my old trusty Sanchez Nylon through a Shure SM58 into the Behringer Mixer into my Dell laptop running of course Cubase SX.

Pure [Download MP3 - 3.14MB]

Yet more Fringe fun!

Yay more bloggage! I could get used to this ;).

Last night we, Kate and I, went to see without a doubt the funniest show we have seen this festival, possibly even the funniest of any of the festivals previous! Last night we saw the Godlike Jason Byrne. Having seen him 3 years running we were looking forward to another curse filled, high energy show from the Irishman, and he certainly didn’t disappoint. What made the show so unique and ultimately undergarment-moisteningly hilarious was the audience participation and Jason Byrne’s use of this fact. Within 5 minutes of getting on stage Mr Byrne was heckled from the front row by a disgruntled scouser who had come earlier only to find the earlier show was cancelled. Combined with the American who actually lived in Paris, the Zoologist who’s father was an ‘honest working farmer’, Jeremy the ex-stockbroker and the student who dropped Physics to study Stage Management, Jason Byrne had the majority of the audience near to tears with his quick wit and comedic improvisation. At the end I think he enjoyed the audience as much as we enjoyed him. A true Comic Genius. YOU MUST SEE HIM LIVE!

Current Favourite Song: Audioslave - Audioslave - Like a Stone

More Fringe Fun and some random links!

No updates to the site since last time, but I am working on expanding the Music section with some exercises and music theory :).

Instead I’ve had a great weekend of Fringe Fun yet again. On Friday night Kate and I went to see the Joe Finch Jazz Trio, a young group of very talented musicians who played a set of their own music and impressed me greatly. Live music is just simply the best!

Saturday night we went to see the one and only Bill Bailey who had thankfully decided to put on an extra show due to the others selling out. Mr Bailey was everything I had hoped for and a wee bit more, weaving politics, religion, chunky kit-kats, and a joke that began “So Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit walk into a pub…” into his routine. His musical comedy was of course top drawer too, with a hilarious tribute to one George W. Bush and reworking of our National Anthem. Thoroughly recommended, I hope he comes back next year.

Last night, braving the town centre after the Edinburgh Derby, Kate and I went to see the campest comic around, Craig Hill. I had seen Mr Hill previously at the Edinburgh comedy club, where he was acting as the host for the night. I was greatly entertained then and so was looking forward to seeing his whole set. Dancing onto the stage in his leather kilt the camp level was set to 100% as Craig Hill proceeded to amuse us greatly with observations on life and people, well mostly scottish people. Being a scot myself of course I had a alight avantage in understanding the context of the humour, but I think most people ‘got it’. In addition to the stand up act we were also entertained with some singing from Mr Hill in the style of Shirley Bassey, Julie Andrews etc. all performed in a scarily accurately way and with great humour. Yet another recommended comic, see him if you ever get the chance.

Browsing around the web the other day I came across a trully fantastic resource for Mathematics and Physics at Wolfram Research. To be honest I have forgotten just about all of which I learned at University ( though I’m hoping it’s still there in some deep recess of my brain! ), but I was simply amazed at the detail on the site, covering for example Advanced Quantum theory and the Maths required for the theory. A great resource for the University level student or those wishing to remind themselves of what they once knew and enjoyed

Current Favourite Song: Don Ross - Passion Session - Tight Trite Night

Some Minor updates and Fringe Fun

Since yesterday I’ve updated a few areas of the site. One, I’ve renamed source files and organised the source tree a bit better for a tidier approach, cheers for the tip rick :). In addition, sorting out Greymatter’s weblog archiving capabilities wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. So now I have shiny, though rather empty at the moment, archive.

On a seperate note, my girlfriend Kate and I went to see the Baby Wants Candy improv group last night in the Edinburgh Fringe. The show consists of an entirely improvised musical the title of which is suggested by a member of the audience. Last night we were entertained by the musical entitled ‘The Big Flying Red Brick Banana’. What can I say, the show was simply side splittingly amazing, and brings a smile to my face even now. The performers in this group are seriously talented and if you’re up for the Festival I definitely recommend you go see them.

Current Favourite Song: Dream Theater - Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence - The Glass Prison

markmcguigan.com is finally launched!

Hi and welcome to markmcguigan.com. After many months of adding a bit here, tweaking a bit there, I’ve finally got my site in a decent enough state to launch :). Admittedly though, there are a few sections that need completing and some that haven’t even been added yet.

So what do I have planned for markmcguigan.com? As it stands just now the site only provides a little info on who I am, the gear I own, and some of my music. I intend to upload more of my music once I have recorded it of course ;); and even have sections on exercises and theory to share some of my knowledge ( however helpful that may be ). In addition I’ll be creating a section detailing my work which will act as an online CV (do you really care?) and possibly other sections with weird and wonderful snippets of info. Plus of course what you are reading now will probably become my blog/news/updates area, once I’ve got my head round the archiving code in Greymatter.

Early days yet I know, but with time I hope to create a nice little site that will be my own and one that others may appreciate. If anyone spots any spelling/grammatical errors the drop my an e-mail so I can fix the mistake. I’m a programmer after all - not a writer! Oh, and I’ll ensure everything is valid XHTML once w3.org comes back!

Well that’s it till the next update, thanks for popping by :)!

Current Favourite Song: Paul Gilbert - Burning Organ - Bliss