every week i answer some questions.

Richard, again, asks:

do you think the 12 months of the year were named with the northern hemisphere’s seasonal patterns in mind? did you still picture santa claus delivering gifts in the cold winter or did you imagine him flying around in the summer time? did being in the southern hemisphere make you disbelieve in santa claus sooner than the average northern hemisphere kid? your starry night skies are different from ours. does being in the southern hemisphere make the average person more worldly down there? more in tune with the cosmos?

ok richard, its clear you have a pathological obsession with the differences between the northern and southern hemispheres. i think its time i asked you some questions. did you lie awake at night as a child wishing you were from ‘down under’? did you have posters of olivia newton-john covering your bedroom walls? do you think that any of the character actors from the simpsons did even a vaguely passable imitation of an australian accent on the ‘australian’ episode of the simpsons? honestly, those accents were so bad, the whole episode may as well have been in spanish.

you are obviously very curious about australia. this should clear everything up:

do you realise that despite the term ‘throw another shrimp on the barbie’, a lot of us refer to shrimp as prawns? and that prawns are actually not bad on the barbie? did you know that shrimp on the barbie is the name of a comedy film (using that term very loosely) from 1990 starting cheech marin of walker texas ranger fame? did you know that cheech & chong are coming to melbourne as part of the 2009 melbourne comedy festival?

can’t wait.

Lynton asks:

“Live from Doom” – is this from the fabled “live” Faux Pas gig?

“live from doom” is the fourth and final track from the waterfalls EP that i released digitally (and for free) a couple of months ago. its a live recording that originally made its debut on this very blog, in august last year. i posted it online about an hour after i recorded it.

this is how i made that song. i have a thing attached to my guitar called the roland gr-30, which is a special pickup that slides under the strings of my guitar. it takes the notes that i play and converts them to midi data, which can then be understood by my computer. my computer can then use notes that i play to control whatever virtual instrument that i want it to. at the moment i’m using it a lot to play sax solos on my guitar (true) but for ‘live from doom’ the guitar is controlling a few virtual synthesisers – a couple ambient ones, and one fuzzy lead synth. so all of the sound in the song is being generated by just me playing the guitar, live.

the live faux pas gig alas remains nothing but a fable, for more information please see my previous blog post, “why there is no faux pas live show.”

send your questions to asktim@iamfauxpas.com. i’ll quote your first name on the blog unless you request anonymity.