Definitely a first:

11:14 [doggers] ok
11:14 [doggers] need to remove distraction
11:14 [doggers] as i have work to do
11:15 [doggers] -!- doggers [dogboy@freebsd.cx] has quit [Quit: bbl]

GNU/screen is one of those applications so immensely useful I seriously wonder how I’d function without it. This post isn’t a tutorial (see here for that), I’m just documenting a particular aspect of my configuration for personal reference as much as anything else.

I use alot of tabs in screen, usually on a per-host and per-task basis. It’s handy therefore to have a proper statusline informing me which host I’m on, or which task is current. As the former changes often I have a couple of bash functions that include the appropriate escape to set the name in screen:

# Set hostname in hardstatus line in screen
if [ "$TERM" == "screen" ]; then
function ssh() {
echo -n -e “\033k$1\033\134″
/usr/bin/ssh $@
echo -n -e “\033k`hostname -s`\033\134″
}

function telnet() {
echo -n -e “\033k$1\033\134″
/usr/bin/telnet $@
echo -n -e “\033k`hostname -s`\033\134″
}

# We’re on localhost
echo -e “\033k`hostname -s`\033\134″
fi

So here’s what it ends up looking like with a few different sessions on the go, with each of the screen names having been set depending on where I’ve ssh’d to. My actual .screenrc is here - there’s not much to it, and it’s mainly bits that have been pinched from elsewhere, such as the hardstatus formatting. One thing worth noting though is that the escape I use for screen is now ‘\’ as opposed to Ctrl-A, this saves a bit of typing on my behalf.

Two word summary - fucking superb. Me and Fletch were a bit skeptical at first, the venue was some back-street no-sign art studio affair that had a fucking atrocious ‘avant-garde’ band playing as we walked in, and we then proceeded to pay top whack for room temperature bottles of Budwar whilst we waited for Duracell’s set. After a few ’songs’ they finished, so as the crowd cleared we made our way to the front only to be told that he was playing in a different room altogether. Arse.

Despite that we still managed to muscle our way more or less to the front to watch this French kid - in a t-shirt that said “Laptop Hero” - do his stuff. He kicked off with tracks from ‘Space Harrier’, played the theme from ‘Ninja Warriors’, and then finished with the second-level theme from the Amiga (fuck yeah) version of ‘Turrican’, which was definitely the highlight for me.

There’s something that still gets me stoked about the music from old-school games, so to see someone show their mutual appreciation musically in the most physical way possible (i.e twatting drums) was definitely worthy. He needs to cover something by Rob Hubbard, and considering that in one interview he singles out Commando on the C64 (a game that Hubbard did the music for) as inspiration I reckon it’s definitely on the cards.

Go see this guy if you can.

Update: There’s a write-up of the Manchester gig here, along with a few photos.

Just in case you’re not on the mailing list and don’t check their website too often, here’s their most recent news:

The Evens, “Get Evens” and the Make-UP, “In film/On Video” DVD are both now available in record stores and on the Dischord website. These two are the latest in a string of releases Dischord has presented this fall. In case you blinked sometime in the last 3 months, we released new records from Channels, Soccer Team, The Aquarium, Joe Lally and French Toast.Dischord Records, in conjunction with Inner Ear Studios and Ruffian Records / Swim-Two-Birds Studio is sponsoring a program for young DC bands called The DC Free Recording Project. Together we are offering free, short (five hour) recording sessions at Inner Ear Studio to young, DC area bands/projects that have not yet had experience in a professional recording studio. The sessions will be engineered by Hugh McElroy from Swim-Two-Birds Studio. To participate Bands must be from the Washington, DC area and play original music. Go to http://www.dcfrp.com for more details.

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