Confessions of A Studio Owner, Pt 28: The Compressor’s Useless Facts

 Compressor, News  1 Response »
Aug 152010
 
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Confessions of A Studio Owner, Pt 28

The Compressor’s Useless Facts

I don’t have much this week I’m afraid. The band have been well behaved (the kitchen is as usual a shit hole) so I thought I would offer up a few nuggets of information that may be useful at times of trouble:

1. Does your studio have stinging nettles around the fire door? Want to get rid them? HOLD YOUR BREATH and you won’t get stung!

2. Filling your car up with petrol but can’t remember which side the cap is on? Look at the petrol gauge and you’ll find a small arrow telling you which side the filler is!!

3. Want to save money off your electricity bill? Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a boil. Our bodies expend a large amount of calories keeping us at a steady 98.6 degrees, enough to boil water or even cook pasta.

4. Keep your clients happy….keep their rooms warm. The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you’ll have a bad dream. It isn’t entirely clear to scientists why this is the case, but if you are opposed to having nightmares you might want to keep yourself a little toastier at night.

5. Can you hear ok in the control room? Are you scared? Your ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid than when you aren’t. The chemicals and hormones released when you are afraid could be having unseen effects on your body in the form of earwax. Studies have suggested that fear causes the ears to produce more of the sticky substance, though the reasons are not yet clear.

6. Are you depressed….don’t bother tickling yourself. It is not possible to tickle yourself. Even the most ticklish among us do not have the ability to tickle ourselves. The reason  HYPERLINK “http://health.howstuffworks.com/question511.htm” behind this is that your brain predicts the tickle from information it already has, like how your fingers are moving. Because it knows and can feel where the tickle is coming from, your brain doesn’t respond in the same way as it would if someone else was doing the tickling.

Quick way to measure your height….The width of your armspan stretched out is the length of your whole body. While not exact down to the last millimeter, your armspan is a pretty good estimator of your height.

Why doesn’t your dog cry? Humans are the only animals to produce emotional tears. In the animal world, humans are the biggest crybabies, being the only animals who cry because they’ve had a bad day, lost a loved one, or just don’t feel good.

Is your engineer right or left handed? Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. This doesn’t have a genetic basis, but is largely due to the fact that a majority of the machines and tools we use on a daily basis are designed for those who are right handed, making them somewhat dangerous for lefties to use and resulting in thousands of accidents and deaths each year.

If you go to bed with an itchy bum you WILL wake up with a smelly finger

TTFN The Compressor

 Posted by recordpr at 6:28 pm  Tagged with:

Confessions of a Studio Owner 27: Kitchen Pickers Bigger Knickers

 Compressor, News  2 Responses »
Jul 312010
 

C27: Confessions of a Studio Owner:  Kitchen Pickers Bigger Knickers

Not long ago, a band entered Compressor Towers with a female lead singer. She arrived fit, healthy and pretty….let me put it like this….you wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers!

One month and an album later, she left pale, lifeless and 20 lbs heavier. She would often knock on the door and ask for Nurofen as she always seemed to have a headache (I have a glass pepper grinder on my desk full of them which I use to grate on my cornflakes.)

To put it bluntly, there’s a lot of sitting around making an album….so she sat and gorged on chocolate for the month whilst watching movies. She entered as a fantasy and left a vision of a belly dancers nightmare!

Talking of weight, the Compressor isn’t as young as he was once and it would be fair to say that my chest had slipped a little. In fact, I would say that I had become very, very large. To give you an idea of how large…..I was lying on my back on my bed….when my wife (who at the time was at a rather unethical angle clock cleaning) stunned me into silence when she declared that she couldn’t see my face. I’ll let you join the dots.

One of the upsides of being a studio manager is that you get time to research things. So I set about researching how and what I should do to lose weight and after about 6 months of research I was stunned what I learned. To put it in simple terms, I lost 50 lbs.

As always the Compressor is here to serve, so if you’re gut has got to the point where you can’t see your willy …then read on.

Here are the Compressors 7 Golden Rules to Fat Burning.

RULE 1: Never allow your daily calorie intake to be less than 80% of total daily energy expenditure (TDEE)

Guess what everyone does to lose weight…..they stop eating!! WRONG. You need to know how many calories you burn every day….this is easy to work out. Did you know that you have a daily calorie rate that you need to operate (called your Basal Metabolic Rate) and this is defined by your lean body mass ie your weight minus your fat. Did you also know that we are completely programmed to hang onto our fat at all costs? If you drop below 80% of your TDEE your body will store the fat and burn the muscle…invoking something called STARVATION MODE. Check your lean body mass once a week on a set of Tanita fat scales (from Boots.) If your LBM is heading South….you have a problem and you’ll bounce back with change!

RULE 2: Never aim to lose more than a pound a week

A gram of fat is 9 cals….making a kilo 9000! The problem is, when you burn fat, your body also burns glycogen…normally on a 50:50 basis. Meaning…you need to burn 18,000 calories to lose a kilo of fat. OMG! No wonder it’s twice as hard to lose weight as it is to put it on. If you follow Rule 1 above, then assume you do a bit of exercise everyday and burn a total of 3000 cals per day. If you eat 2400 you’re on track…..but that’s only a saving of 600 cals a day….or 4200 a week….ie LESS than a pound a week of fat. Take your time….take a year to lose 50 lbs and it will stay off!

RULE 3: Eat 5 to 6 meals a day

Eat small meals every3 hours. It speeds up your metabolism and stops you getting hungry! Simples.

RULE 4: Use exercise to create calorie deficit

If you don’t exercise and your TDEE is 2200 calories a day… you can only reduce your calorie INTAKE by 440 calories a day (20%) to 1760 without breaking the  80% rule. Why not burn an extra 1000 calories doing an hour on a bike? Your TDEE will be 3200….meaning you can eat 2560 calories (ie …800 calories MORE ) and create a higher deficit of 640 calories…and stick to the 80% rule!! Exercise and good eating is a win win!

RULE 5: Ensure your diet comprises 50% complex carbs, 25% protein and 25% fat

Mix it up. Eat Pasta, spuds, brown rice, porridge and wholemeal bread for your carbs

Chicken, egg whites, natural yoghurt and fish for your protein and olive oil for your fat. Complete your day with unlimited veg and salad (but try and eat ROY Green…red, orange, yellow and green veg to get a bit of everything.) Plain chocolate, red wine and a couple of pieces of fruit are your treats.

RULE 6: Drink water

Water helps everything. Drink at least 2 litres a day.

RULE 7: Monitor your progress weekly

Monitor your weight and fat count (and therefore your lean body mass) weekly, same time same place. Remember if you lose LBM, your losing too much weight.

Conclusion:

Your body doesn’t know the difference between a diet and starvation. After millennia of famine and drought our bodies hate to burn fat. Exercise, eat regularly and drink loads of water. Stick to the 80% rule and you’ll find the 6 pack in no time.

TTFN

The Compressor.

 Posted by recordpr at 9:54 am  Tagged with: , , ,

Part 26 of the Confessions of a Studio Owner: Buy British….

 Compressor  2 Responses »
Jul 242010
 

Part 26 of  Confessions of a Studio Owner: Buy British…. Where Quality Comes First

Ah……the strike at BA…..what to do? Currently paid twice as much as their Virgin counterparts, the cabin crew are asked to get real and take some pain…and they strike…in the middle of a recession….with volcanoes….during the World Cup….nice one! A whole generation will never fly BA again and will now fly Ryan Air even if they only have outdoor toilets. Why are union executives always scousers…with tans? When I hear them on TV, I think of British Leyland (there you go….another British!) going on strike because a dinner lady was sacked after stealing a bacon butty.

Compressor advice to British Airways staff: you need to get back to work so you can pay your rent. Once back, look for another job. Trust me, if you don’t you will either a) lose your job anyway as BA will have gone bust b) gone bust yourself as the bank will repossess your home. Principle and pride killed a lot of people…do the right thing and be a scab because you’re days are numbered….seriously….the Compressor knows what he’s talking about.

Which brings me onto other British suppliers…namely British Gas and British Telecom (we’ll leave BP for another day.) I have the misfortune of having both providers at my other studio in the UK:

British Gas bought an electricity company a year or so ago that had gone bust (called Bizz Energy.) Unfortunately, Bizz Energy was the supplier of power to Compressor Towers. They were cheap….but there was a reason. They didn’t seem to have any staff. I asked a hundred times for a reading but all they did was keep sending out estimates….then they went bust. British Gas took them over, did a reading and then sent me a bill for £14,000! Well, I don’t know what you would have done, but I shat myself. I genuinely thought it was time to ‘turn the lights out’ as I couldn’t see a way out. I’m not usually one to moan, but I feel there has been a slight injustice here. OK, I negotiated a re-payment plan, and I’m now down to £4,000 and I’ve been paying £1500 per month (which of course includes my current usage as well!) Additionally, I am still bound by a contract that has me locked in until the end of this year. Meanwhile, if I was a new client to British Gas….I can get a rate 25% lower than the one I’m currently paying….that can’t be right. Like BA….I can’t wait to leave British Gas and I will happily try Scottish Power or another firm that offers a lower rate. I will NEVER go back to British Gas as I believe they have rogered me….please do not go there.

British Telecom supply our lines and broadband. Compressor Towers suffers from low speeds when the kids get home from school and log onto the interweb and do the myface thing (or more likely xhamster.com.) This affects bands (who are using their lap tops), producers (who are trying to transfer files) and me….because I can’t watch empflix.com at my desk if the broadband is clogged. BT had called up asking if they could come and show us their new servers which I thought could be a good idea for my studio. The subject of my slow broadband came up…and BT recommended I had my own BTnet line, a private network that would enable lightning speed porn….I mean bandwidth! One condition…..it HAD to be wifi compatible to which they agreed. If I signed up the same day they would waive the £8,000 connection fee! I was sold….and looked forward to speedy times ahead…or not. The line was installed two months later, the router turned up by DHL….then we waited for the engineer…and waited…and waited. Eventually, he arrived….took one look and asked me which computer would I be plugging into the router….as BTnet didn’t do wifi?

And so the shit fight began. BT denied that they had done anything wrong, but luckily I had all my emails as proof that BT were idiots. SEVEN months later….I still have the router….I get bills for £4,000 which I ignore….and I get called once a week without fail asking me if I’m happy with my BTnet service. I’m not racist, but these guys are calling me from Manila…and they don’t speak English properly. This week they called me….asked me about my unpaid bill…then transferred me to Mumbai…where they proceeded to ask me what I wanted? I cannot tell you how dumb this company is….they have f@£$%d up every step of the way…and as one employee told me ‘we’re so big now, the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing!’

The irony is a) BT called me to sell me a server and ended up selling me a piece of shit router that never worked b) British Gas were my supplier through Bizz going bust. I can’t wait to leave both of them as they are ‘kin useless!

I hope my experience can be used by you to your advantage

TTFN

The Compressor

 Posted by recordpr at 10:27 pm  Tagged with:

Confessions of a Studio Owner: The compressor Turns 25! Time for some Charity!

 Compressor  1 Response »
Jul 062010
 

Confessions of a Studio Owner, Part 25.
The compressor Turns 25! Time for some Charity!

Recently, I had a visit to the studio from an old mucker. I was looking forward to a moan about declining studio rates and how everything was so unfair…BUT…..instead of a nice cup of Ovulate and a catch up,  I was forced to endure a sermon from my ‘friend’ lecturing me about his recent achievements for charitable causes, and wanted me to cough up some cash. He had completed the London Marathon and raised a £1000 for some charity that helped one legged transsexuals (or similar) which of course was admirable, and I was very impressed….although by the 45th minute, my nostrils were starting to flare as I tried to hide my yawn. But f*@k me, after an hour of being told that I (THE COMPRESSOR) should do more for good causes my patience snapped. In MY office, an inner sanctum that people beg to enter to hear my words of wisdom, I was being reprimanded…ME! I wanted to talk about A&R bastards…or…..how I was inventing a virus to stop producers working in the box!

‘I don’t like to talk about it….but I give something back every day’ I said.  ‘Let’s look at the definition of charity. Charitable giving is the act of giving money, goods or time to the unfortunate, either directly or by means of a charitable trust or other worthy cause. Most forms of charity are concerned with providing food, water, clothing, and shelter, and tending the ill, but other actions may be performed as charity.

OK, let’s go through this point by point shall we? I provide goods (my studio and my guitars), shelter (my accommodation at my studio) food (my catering) and my time (free by the way as I earn bugger all from Compressor Towers) to the unfortunate and poor (you should see some of the bands that come through my door.) I charge a rate that doesn’t make any money and they leave my studio with something they keep for ever (their music.) Basically, I give…they receive….If that isn’t charitable behaviour….what is? So put that in your running shoes and piss off!’

My counter speech had done it’s job and had shut the idiot up….or not. He was pressing for more:

‘I shaved my head (for £3000), lost 40 lbs in 3 months (for £15,000) and did a very silly, very long race which also raised some dough for a cancer charity…but, I could still do more…I should do more….I WILL do more.

‘As the chosen one, a leader of men, the people’s poet….I’ve been thinking what the Compressor should do to give something back to society. Why not offer up my unique insights into life, work, marriage, studios etc for free? Surely that is a worthy effort? I will become a type of life coach to studio owners…..giving them a beacon of hope in this storm of uncertainty…..none of us make any money…if I can keep a smile on their faces…that will be charitable effort. My advice will cover so many areas….

‘Compressor Tip 1: Have you flown 1st Class in BA? Did you get given a pair of the pyjamas they supply you with to sleep in? Wafer thin, they guarantee you a very comfortable night’s sleep. They also ensure that when you wake up to the sound of breakfast being served, if you happen to be lying on your back (as I was) with a huge hard on, the whole plane will be able to see your home made tent! The hostess (and I kid you not) didn’t know where to look. Compressor Advice…..beware thin PJ’s on a plane…..

‘Compressor Tip 2: Have you been into a public toilet, walked into a trap, and been greeted by a sight that could only be equalled in hell? Human waste everywhere but the pan? Did you walk out of the trap and wash your hands as some pathetic effort to clean yourself? You see someone walk in…enter the trap…and walk out (like I did) in disgust….

‘I did that!’ I exclaim…which results in a torrent of abuse from said attendee. Compressor Advice…..think before you speak!

‘Compressor Tip 3: Have you ever put a porn video on late at night when her-in has gone to bed…..spanked the monkey….gone to bed….only to receive a call the next day at work from the wife because your 3 year old daughter is sat in front of the TV….watching Tranny Grannies Squirting Olympics III instead of Barney the Dinosaur? Well I did, and it wasn’t funny…..she threw my video away! Compressor Advice….if you’re going to jod your rod….clear up afterwards!

‘Compressor Tip 4: Have you carried out Example 3 above, then having cleared away gone to bed only to be greeted by a waiting her-in…who’s right up for it? Do you a) say you have a headache? b) give it a go anyway knowing that it’s not going to be pretty? c) man up and tell her the truth risking being called a total pervert? Compressor Advice…give it a go…but keep the lights off so you can picture the porn start you just watched.

‘Yes, I can see the future clearly. The Compressor is going to be a Life Coach for the next year….’

My friend sat there shaking his head in total disbelief and without saying a word, stood up and left the building….there is so much I can teach him….for example he should change his plumber as I know (whilst he’s been out running) his wife has been getting her waterworks checked weekly by Brad the Rad!!!!! Charity begins at home.

TTFN

The Compressor

 Posted by recordpr at 9:24 pm  Tagged with:

Confessions of a Studio owner, The Compressor Part 24, Stand Up

 Compressor  Comments Off
Jun 172010
 

Confessions of a Studio owner, The Compressor Part 24
The Compressor does Stand Up

Guitarist Jokes

Q: How can you tell a guitarist is at your door?
A: By the Dominos Pizza hat.

Q: What do a guitar solo and premature ejaculation have in common?
A: You know it’s coming and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Q: How do you get two guitar players to play in perfect unision?
A: Shoot One.

Q: What would a guitarist do if he won a million dollars?
A: Continue to play gigs until the money ran out.

Q: How do you get a guitarist to turn down?
A: Put some sheet music in front of him.

Q: What do an electric guitarist and a vacuum cleaner have in common?
A: When you plug them in, they both suck.

Drummer Jokes

Q: How do you tell if the stage is level?
A: The drummer is drooling from both sides of his mouth.

Q: How can you tell a drummer’s at the door?
A: The knocking speeds up.

Q: What’s the last thing a drummer says in a band?
A: Hey guys, why don’t we try one of my songs?

Q: What do you call a drummer that breaks up with his girlfriend?
A: Homeless.

Q: How can you tell when a drummer’s at the door?
A: He doesn’t know when to come in.

Vocalist jokes

Q: How do you tell when your lead singer is at the door?
A: He can’t find the key and doesn’t know when to come in.

Q: How many lead singers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One. He holds the bulb while the world revolves around him.

Q: What is the difference between a soprano and a Porsche?
A: Most musicians have never been inside a Porsche.

Q: Did you hear about the female opera singer who had quite a range at the lower end of the scale.
A: She was known as the deep C diva.

Bass Joke 1.

A man gives his son an electric bass for his 15th birthday, along with a coupon for four bass lessons. When the son returns from his first lesson, the father asks, “So, what did you learn?”

“Well, I learned the first five notes on the E string.” Next week, after the second lesson, the father again asks about the progress, and the son replies, “This time I learned the first five notes on the A string.”

One week later, the son comes home far later than expected, smelling of cigarettes and beer. So the father asks: “Hey, what happened in today’s lesson?”

“Dad, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to my lesson; I had a gig!”

Bass Joke 2

A tour manager comes across the guitarist and bass player fighting at the side of the stage and pulls them apart asking what the problem was.

“That bastard detuned one of the strings on my bass”, says the bass player, “And we’re on stage in five minutes.”

“So what’s the problem?”, asks the tour manager.

“He won’t tell me which string it was he detuned”, said the Bassist.


 Posted by recordpr at 11:30 pm  Tagged with:

Confessions of a Studio Owner Part 23: Waiting for Bono.

 Compressor, News  1 Response »
Jun 112010
 

Confessions of a Studio Owner :

The Compressor is Waiting for Bono.

It’s a crazy business. In theory, a producer books for a few weeks. That should mean one invoice….I count the money and wait for the next booking. How can it be so time consuming being a studio manager? Well of course, firstly I have to string things out otherwise my wife would make me get a proper job. Secondly, I have to write this blog…which takes me days! So we put in place loads of procedures and policies to cover every eventuality. We have a policies for recall sheets, faults, software upgrades, cleaning, health and safety, accommodation (we even have our sheets and duvets filed in order of size!), air con, security…..you name it…I string it out. That’s before we get to financials, VAT, coffee, clients etc. There’s always something to keep up the impression to my missus that I’m critical to the operation.

Every time the phone rings….I hope it’s Bono: ‘Hi Compressor, we’ve been looking at your studio and we would like to book it for our next album…..at full lock-out rate….for a Year….with full accommodation and catering…..for 10 people….or £1,000 per day to be precise. Would that be OK?’ Hang-on while I have a jod….and then I wake up…and it’s not Bono on the phone, it’s Music Maker magazine (talking to me as if I’m their best mate) asking if I would like to take out an advert before the deadline expires later that day….a unique special offer…..like last week and the week before. ‘IT”S A CRAP MAGAZINE…Piss off!’

However, most of my time is spent staring at my spreadsheet, shaking my head!  I can never believe how small the gap is between my revenues and my costs….. I sit there everyday shaking my head!

This day in particular was no different…..I sat there staring at my lap top. Anyway, out of the corner of my eye I sense movement. A bird is sat staring at me…a wren to be precise. We stare at each other for about 5 minutes until I stand up and try and catch him, and fail. We have no windows in our office……so how the hell did this bird get in? I devise a plan….which involves a kid’s fishing net, a didgeridoo, some masking tape and 4 cushions…all of which inexplicably happen to be by my desk…which is about to work when the studio assistant opens the door and walks in, allowing the wren to escape out the small office into our very large lounge, with very high ceilings.

OK, we now have a problem. The wren is flying around the lounge, and starting to crap. Three hours later and nothing has changed….and it’s time to go home, but we can’t as the wren will set the alarm off. Finally, we catch it in the net and I take it downstairs and outside. I place it on a wall and urge it to fly away. Instead it hops down onto my shoe, and stares at me…..as if to say…please can I come back in?…it’s cold out here and it’s warm in there!

With a heart of stone I refuse and lock up the studio. The next day, I’m sat at my spreadsheet again…shaking my head….waiting for Bono, when the same bloody bird lands on my desk. I am not making this up. It’s the same frickin wren! Shit. I fnd myself saying, in a David Attenbrough voice…Even here there’s life…..

This time though I see where it comes from, a tiny hole in the roof of my office. Well, three hours later the wren is caught, it’s taken outside, it sits on my shoe…but this time…..the hole in the ceiling is stuffed and another day…another box ticked.

Until the next day, when my wife asks me to take a bag of rubbish from the garden and stick in our skip at the studio. I pull up at the studio and open my boot, when a mouse jumps out of my car and runs up my arm…..turning me into the proverbial elephant. I am Dr Doolittle….

I sit at my spreadsheet, waiting for Bono….

A month later, the engineer complains about a smell in the control room. A smell of rancid milk, no less. We sniff everything, until eventually we find the source, coming from a sound hole in one of near field speakers, a Quested to be precise. Opening up the speaker reveals a dead, decomposed, stinking mouse…..lying in a little nest. It had made it’s home in a monitor! When we turned it on, it must have died of a heart attack! What an end…..death by Indiebanditus!

So, another day goes by. The excitement of the wren and the mouse has left the building and I find myself once again talking to Music Maker about how we don’t advertise, and never will….with them…..praying for THAT call to come

TTFN!

The Compressor

 Posted by recordpr at 11:22 pm  Tagged with: ,
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