Long overdue website update

A new front page for my website. Contains photos, videos, old song lyrics, piano bars and pubs, music hall links - take a look: London Bobby

Tiptoe through the tulips, the dream, the nightmare

Terry Smith gets into showbiz and discovers the plusses and minuses.

The deam:

The nightmare:

Who's the dummy?

I always wanted to be a ventriloquist and in my teens spent a few weeks of my hard-earned apprentice's pay to buy a superb figure. I never really worked hard enough to master the art so Humphrey has spent most of his existence in the case. Dummy.

Click here to see my page.

Band-in-a-Box, but which box? Not a Mac.

BIAB for MAC

I have been buying Band-in-a-Box since the Atari version, back in the last century. The last version I bought for Windows was around 2004, it did everything I wanted. Then I switched to Mac and I found I had to keep my old PC laptop going to use the program.

I worked the piano bar on cruise ships and I had my laptop on the piano, BIAB running, earphone port plugged into an amp, and the display where the music stand would be. As it played the backing instruments the notation was presented to me with lyric and chord symbols close by the melody line. It was so easy to read and play that I could play anything! All the standards, Sinatra, Elton, Croce, Billy Joel, bossanovas, anything. (I turned so many passengers on to BIAB that I seriously considered becoming a rep and signed with PGmusic to do that. However, the ship frowned on it so that didn't go anywhere.)

The fly in the ointment was that I was using a PC, subject to annoying interruptions in service. So I switched to Mac and bought BIAB for Mac. The computer was steady as a rock but the program was rubbish compared to the PC version so I struggled on with the PC until I retired.

Yesterday I blew $89.27 usd and upgraded to the latest Mac version, highly touted on PGmusic's website. I thought surely in the last few years they must have fixed some of the most glaring deficiencies, and the price is the same as the full-featured Windows version. What a disappointment. The interface is still clunky, the lyrics still come up in a little box in the control area, hard to read and nowhere near the melody line, impossible to sight-read during a live performance. Basic conveniences that every other program now has, like "Open Recent" in the drop-down file menu, are missing. Yes, the RealTracks sound great but the old midi sounds were quite adequate for the piano-bar environment.

Apple is a major player in the sphere of music and so is BIAB. I am surprised and disappointed to find Mac marginalization at PGmusic.

London Bobby

Time traveller from the last century

Can't be everywhere.

I'm missing a regular weekly treat, the Corktown Ukulele Jam at the Dominion Hotel, 500 Queen Street E., Toronto. This week the theme is Gordon Lightfoot and I love his music. It's a hoot, this jam, close to a hundred ukulele fanatics turn up with instruments. It starts at 8PM, be early or sit at the back.

They have a quiz on their web page identifying ancient pictures, last week it was this one, from 1954:

First thing I did when I got to Canada was to have the jacket made, I wanted one that would look good on TV which was black and white at the time. I never did land a TV gig wearing it but finally got thirteen weeks with CITY-TV wearing my pearly suit, in black and white, in 1972 just as colour came in. They used a little b&w remote system in a van, sold the van and cameras etc. to Venezuela right after my series finished.

London Bobby, time traveller from the last century.

First sight of Canada from a DC3

1951, the RAF sent me to Canada to learn to fly. (In Gimli, Manitoba, where they have wide open spaces with nothing of value to damage when we crash.) We crossed the Atlantic in a DC3, stopping at Iceland on the way to refuel. I spent ten months learning to fly a Harvard in Gimli and came back to Canada as an immigrant when I was demobbed in 1953.

Gimli is now known as the Air Canada gliding school, it is where the jet landed that ran out of fuel at 30,000 feet. See Gimli Glider, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

London Bobby

Time traveler from 20th century

Time Travellers from the last century

I'm glad I am not the only dinosaur on the block. The man with the best possible career as a pianist excluding Iturbi and Liberace is Sid Wright, still active and starring in "The Three Pianists" concert. He is 89 and not a household name but worked in London solidly and simultaneously on radio, TV and in clubs for half a century.

I have just reconnected with my favourite entertainer of the 70s, Adam Timoon. Here he is playing Malagueña just a few weeks ago. He use to pack Adam's Inn at the Seaway Hotel when I was working at the Barmaid's Arms, both Toronto hotspots. Click here: Adam - Malaguena

London Bobby

Time traveller from the last century

My geekability is slipping

Before I chucked it all to become a pub pianner-basher, I was an engineer. I designed things, control systems, complicated stuff. So when personal computers came along I was in there, bought a TRS-80, went to TMUG meetings, learned to program in BASIC . But now I don't want to be a geek, I wanna be a user and record music, edit videos without having to delve in to the operating system. I don't want to know what an iDisk sparsebundle is or why I should have to worry about it.

I have an old car and I like to keep an eye on other owner's problems but I think I am going to give up. I thought it it was just computer geeks who confuse me but here is advice from an owner:

Re: Reatta quits running when it reached operating temperature

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Yes the crank sensor can be replaced,with out pulling the balancer, I have done it on the 1989 and the 1990 years. It may be different on the 1991 . Use brass feeler gage to set the clearence to the inner fins.You have to turn the crank to get the balancer set so you can slip the crank sensor threw the fins, there are gaps in the fins or rings what ever they are called. Some use a match book as a feeler gage. The unit must be set to clear all the fins or it will rub and damage the sensor. nemo

__________________

About the only term I understood was match book.

London Bobby

Time traveller from the last century.

When is it time to quit?

I have seen video of great artists performing when they were really past it, disappointing and somewhat upsetting when their previous great performances are still fresh in your memory. So I try to monitor myself. Voice: not too bad, appearance: not bad considering extreme age, piano technique: not as slick as it was, memory: senior moments occur, comedy: good! stage movement: lousy. So I had a committee meeting with myself and decided if impresarios still want to pay me, if anybody still wants to see me, I would still perform. So I am back in Toronto and not retired yet. My next gig is at the Nexus Piano Bar in Brampton, it is a particularly good restaurant in my humble opinion.

http://www.nexusfinefoods.com/

Fine dining at a reasonable price, nice ambience, a large saltwater aquarium and a grand piano, it's hard to beat the Nexus Piano Bar. I'll be playing there Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week, 6:30 to 9:30PM.

I would be tickled pink if you come.

The Three Pianists Concert

No grumble today except, perhaps, that my video camera is about three generations out of date in, it seems, about two years. The vicar's wife bravely held the heavy old Sony Camcorder for an hour to make this video. Thank you, Jette, and we excuse the shaky bits and love the selection of shots.

The Three Pianists Concert

It worked! How can I tell you about this and still be my usual humble self? We were sold out and the audience gave us a standing ovation. That's it. Now it is over I can relax.

Heather Bellene was most impressive, she gave a faultless performance. Sid Wright was loveable as he gave us a review of his life in music. I bumbled about in the beginning but got into my stride quite quickly because the audience was so supportive. I suppose, living in Spain, they must be starved for entertainment in their own language. They were wonderful to play to.

So we made money but, to tell you the truth, I enjoyed this so much I would have paid for the privilege to do it. Now for the next concert...

The Three Pianists

Never mind The Three Tenors, have you heard The Three Pianists? Artists are Sid Wright, accompanist to the stars who was at the Talk of The Town in London for sixteen years, Heather Bellene, concert pianist and London Bobby, pub pianner basher. First concert will be in Spain, Mijas Costa, Friday January 29. Right now, five days to go, busy with last minute promotion, rehearsal and production details. Nice feature article in The Costa del Sol News with this picture nicely displayed. More details: www.thethreepianists.com