Ho Ho Ho

We'd like to throw out a huge well done to Mr Hoodee for completing this years Bury ST Edmunds 2 km Santa run for the East Anglia Children's Hospice charity.

We're hoping this out of character burst of exercise will make him lay off the drum kit for a few days!

The Good

Finally got our collective butts around to getting a full electronic drum kit installed in GCHQv2.0. Many thanks (as ever) to Simon Edgoose, from our percussive squadron, for making a custom rack to attach it all to (only had a limited space to squeeze it into) and helping us set it all up.

This means a fond farewell to our Drum Kat which is on it's way to another drummer contact and plenty of reasonably quiet practicing of our rather meagre drum chops.

The bad

Mood is a wee bit sour around GCHQv2.0 at the mo due to losing over half a months worth of work because of a single lousy email that never arrived at it's destination. Mr Hoodee was so furious that water was condensing around him from the air giving him his own cloud of steam.

As a team that makes it's collective living from the joys of technology, it can still be a bastard some times and perhaps not something to be totally relied on blindly all the time.

And The Ugly

Here's a quick preview of lensmaster Richard Ecclestones latest snap for Future Music.

4 Mr Hoodee's, oh how we shivered.......

Moog looks nice tho!

8 years is a long time in this business

We've been getting a bit nostalgic about the loss of GCHQ, or since the post yesterday, so though you might enjoy this.

Yes that's MR Hoodee with his low tech set up (even for then!) in the bedroom that GCHQ would eventually grow above - nice curtains we thought. The fact he managed to produce quite a few released records from that set-up still tickles us today, especially when someones moaning about a powerful plug-in or the 2 hours of sample time on their soft-sampler !-P

Quite a landmark for the Groove Criminals that interview, as it was the first time we met Eckie (who did the shoots) and Mr Sellers who wrote the piece and ended up getting MR Hoodee into journalism - although we have forgiven him finally.

So there you have it - slightly embarrassing but you gotta start somewhere !-)

P.S funnily enough MR Hoodee also got a tune on the Future Music cover CD a couple of years before we got together and started making samples for them - will see if we can dig it out....

Goodbye GCHQ

Okay we didn't get to post before October (see post below)!

Things have been very busy here over the last month and we're just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel that runs through sample mountain. Of course such a large amount of concentrated studio time has left us all pretty much ill and grumpy but pleased with the amount of work we've managed to churn out under some pretty impossible deadlines.

Time also to finally say a proper goodbye to GCHQ or as you can see in the pic (from my camera so sorry about the quality) the loft space above Mr Hoodee (and misses) bed room in their now rented out cottage.

We finally had to shift the 2000 or so records that were being stored up there (not fun) and when it was finally clear it looked so cool we just wanted to move it all back in!

That loft, boiling in the summer (you can see the hole we knocked through the roof to blast the hot air from our air con) and freezing in the winter was really the place we turned from doing this stuff as a hobby into doing as a job - notice I didn't use the the word 'professionals' there !-) and as such will always be looked back upon fondly.

Still, upwards and onwards, GCHQ mk 2 (currently under the working title of 'the beat bunker') continues to grow and due to the current financial climate has become a much more permanent dwelling than we were expecting. Next job is to get a new workspace (Thomann have a cracker on their website) in there, new command chair and sort out our rather overflowing rack space. no doubt some pics and frustrated words about having to rewire everything for the 3rd time in a year will appear up here before Xmas.

Before we go we'd also like to extend a welcome to the Groove Criminals extended families' 2 youngest members -

William Nathan Edgoose and Daisy Olive Rose Seelig, both born within the last 2 weeks and doing well, as are their respective proud dads! Well done guys !-)

It's art you know...

Wotcha

Just a quick post as we're up to our necks in loops for pretty much the whole of Sept!

Had a great week away and managed to catch 7 days of sunshine - fab! Back to the grind however.

Here's another great pic taken for FM by our mucka Eckie.

Strap-on action baby - yeah!

Cough - that's enough of that, got some new toys and other bits and bobs to tell you about when we get more time (hopefully before October!).

Til then GCHQ out.