Daniel's corner of the web
Daniel Porter
30 Year Old Sydneysiders home on the web
Homepage: http://www.thisismywww.com
Posts by Daniel Porter
Last song you hear before you leave the… wherever
Nov 1st
Unfortunately for me it’s the house of a morning. As my son enjoys watching ‘Playhouse Disney’ it means it will either be a ‘The Wiggles’, ’Johnny and the Sprites’ or even ‘The Doodlebops’ song. Now as I am hearing more of these songs I’m actually appreciating how well crafted some of these songs are. As 1/2 of the Wiggles were a rockabilly/rock’n'roll band before they were, listening to the music you can hear the rock’n'roll influences showing. Johnny and the Sprites, some of his songs remind me of Broadway musics… and guess what.. ‘Johnny’ was on Broadway with Aveneue Q. Doodlebops… will again, repetitive songs that are usually played twice an episode. Dan Zanes is also on that channel… he has some pretty cool stuff and is touring Sydney for the Sydney festival it appears… so we will see him at some point then.
Mind you, I can also have songs pop into my head after someone says something something the triggers a memory (yes I relate songs to memories), as soon as I get home I have to find it and listen to it.
But yes.. it’s quite annoying where half way through the day you start to remember songs and start to sing them…. people look at me strange.
First Birthday & Naming Ceremonies
Oct 22nd
Well I can not believe that my son is now 1 Year old. It seems like only a month ago he was born. I saw a picture that my cousin took of my son and myself on Saturday. I can look at the photos which my wife/parent etc take, but seeing a photo of my son and myself together taken by someone else apeared different… or it’s the fact that he has changed soo much in the last week.
When he was born he looked very much like my wife. I can see more of my features in him now and more every day. I’m just glad that he is healthy.
We had a naming ceremony for my son, not a baptism. My wife and I aren’t really church going people. The last time I was in church was for my wedding almost 5 years ago. Religion is something I don’t talk about often, more for the fact that I don’t really have any.
The events leading up to and part way through the ceremony/birthday party for my son were lets say testing… but we got there in the end.
Unfortunately today I’ve had a constant headache, I don’t know if it’s heat realated or if I might be getting a flu. I hope it is the earlier as I’m now going to 3 days of training for work, which should be fun.
Lack of sleep = creativity
Oct 18th
….. NOT
I seemed to think that most of my songwriting ideas came just before I was about to go to bed in the early/late hours of the morning, or after 11pm at night. I didn’t know if it was because I was physically exhausted and I was so relaxed that ideas just flew out of my head..
Well myself, in Mythbusters style decided to test the theory <spoken in Robert Lee’s American accent (yes, he’s an Aussie)>Does lack of sleep equal creativity?</Robert Lee’s voice over>.
Adam: So for this Myth we need to test if lack of sleep makes someone more creative
Jamie: Well that sounds kind of simple..
Adam: Yes and no. So what we have to do is deprive a songwriter of sleep for say a week and check out the quality and quantity of their output compared to their previous week. The only downside for this myth is that there is no baseline, but I hope the result will be quite obvious, either there will be an influx of songs or there will be next to zero.
Jamie: Sounds like a plan
So I stepped up to the plate…. for one week I slept for about 3-4 hours a night… by about the 3rd day my work and creativity were slacking. Although there is no hard evidence for this, for me it doesn’t work.. if anything it just makes me grumpy and edgy which affects everyone around me… So for me, this Myth was definately ‘busted’.
Best time to write a song for me… you guessed it, when on the throne… and after a good nights sleep. I just seems to be the location where I can think of one liners which can turn into songs… it’s not the nicest location to come up with ideas and I hope to move away from that option.. but hey.. if it works…
Thunder, Lightning & Dreaming….
Oct 15th
The other night there was an electrical storm over our house. Now I sometimes get an overactive/creative mind when I dream… especially when there is stimuli before I go to bed.
I’ve had nightmares after watching ‘armagedon type’ movies.. like Armagedon / Deep Impact (even though in both the earth survives). I will have dreams that are similar to the events int he movies and it will feel like I’m living through it.
One of the scariest things that did happen involved Jeff Waynes version of ‘The War of the Worlds’. I went through a stage where I would listen to the double CD almost continually. Now those who are familar with the story will be aware of the Fighting Machines and also aware of the Red Weed. I’ve had dreams where I’ve had fighting machines chasing me and I’ve tried to wake up from these dreams however haven’t been able to.. or if I did, I feel straight back asleep and the dream continued (eventually I worked it out to myself having too many blankets on in bed overheating me. With the Red Weed, I’ve had instances where, it’s not the Red Weed, but lava (which is red….) has engulfed where I am and I”ve had to go to the roof of the house to survive, seeing loved ones perish in the dream as well. Finally before it was my turn I woke up.. the old story they say if you ‘die’ in a dream you die in real life… how many dreams have you had where you have fallen and actually hit the ground???
Anyway, back to the thunder/lightning. Well I had a dream that the storm was much worse and there were lightning bolts hitting the next door neighbours back yard. I could see it hitting the ground and kicking up dirt. It was really savage. I also remember some metal which was sitting on our fence which was ‘attracting’ the lightning.. I don’t know how it came into it, but somehow a kangaroo made it into my dream as well.
I’ll have to find a book or something about dreams to see if there is any meanings to any of these dreams..
