I'd like to point out that U2 was the first pioneer of the effect that I'm aware of when they released the video for Staring at the Sun waaay back in 1997. Be sure to watch in high quality (too bad they don't have HD).
You can see the effect I'm talking about as part of the Star Trek official trailer. It's most obvious at ~1:00 (the shots of the bad Guy), and ~1:17 (the bridge).
Of course, I thought that the movie was awesome, but that doesn't mean it doesn't deserve a bit of trouble for the pretty excessive use of the cool effects:
Finish organizing my photo collection (~17,000 photos). Get at least 1/4 of the way through tagging, rating, and eliminating duplicates.
Get a real start on organizing my old design/writing work files.
Create a good organizational system for ITP work files.
Rate 40 days worth of music.
Average one blog post every 3 days.
Stay on-budget every month.
Make some babies~!
Use my 'power tower' (ugh hate the name) Christmas gift. I have yet to determine actual numbered goals. Get more sexy! This involves about 45 minutes of workout per day in 10, 10, and 25 minute sections.
Eat well (almost no corn syrum, limited sweets, good snacks like carrots and nuts, more but smaller meals, drinking 2.5 litres of water a day).
Take 4,000 photographs, including 400 5-star photos. Post the best to Facebook/Flickr.
Consistently shoot 80% on freethrows.
Will Take Work on a Weekly Basis
Create a home inventory for insurance purposes, including all photos, reciepts and serial numbers.
Finish Ignition. This means professionally mastered and with a new website to promote it.
Start re-learning piano and/or theory (haven't set up specific goals for this yet).
Go on at least 25 hikes or other outdoor excursions.
Consistently (at least 2x a month) do little things for my wife that would make her want to date me if we weren't married.
Stay connected to friends via Facebook. Use it to get together with friends while we're still young and sexy.
Get a good, highly-productive routine going at work that encourages me to take carpal-tunnel saving breaks and keeps me alert through the day (this relates to the eating and exercising).
Will Take Work on a Monthly Basis
Begin to learn PHP in depth, preferably through classes that work pays for...
Set up a long series of doctor's appointments to check for just about everything one can be checked for, to deal with any problems I might have before they're problems. That is - abuse the fact that I have a job with semi-decent medical care.
Work on some way of respectfully resolving some core differences of belief between me and the in-laws.
Get out of town 8 times (including at least 5 to family).
Read a book a month.
Reaquaint myself with all the outdoors knowledge I had as a Boy Scout.
Learn to properly tune up my car.
One-Time Events:
Winter:
Pay taxes by Valentine's Day.
Visit my co-workers in San Francisco (I work from home 700 miles away and have yet to meet them).
Use our new toboggan.
Spring:
For the Prius: Replace scratched rear turn signal assembly.
Redo my homepage/portfolio again in such a way that it all actually works.
Create "A Ninja Wedding"
Create the Impulse Nine TF2 frag video
Summer:
Get to a water park.
Write a short (20-page) religous-political treatise.
VW Work:
January: Scrape off all the tar board from the floors and put down rust-preventing primer. Install aluminum side panels.
February: Install floor drains. Put down floor lining. Install side brush bars. Install larger brake fluid reservoir.
March: Create map pocket and cup holder in side panels. Install fire extinguisher holder.
April: Install Dynamat (weather permitting).
May: Buffer time.
June: Begin working with simple fiberglassing by making rear trunk covers.
July: Replace all the wiring with Jordan, adding circuits for all the new stuff to be installed later. Add gravel guards. Replace turn signal. Install air horn.
August: Powdercoat rims, bumpers, brush bars, gravel guards, and door panels.
September: Buffer time.
October: Replace rims and tires. Raise rear suspension.
Google has settled its suit and now has the authority to scan and sell the text of about ten bazillion out-of-print books. The good news for readers is that it's obviously that it will be much easier to find previously-difficult to find books. The only real losers are small used book shops, which was not exactly a thriving market to begin with.
However, I don't think that all is lost for those businesses, simply because Google will not take trade. Bookmans, for many people, operates like an unusually cool (but paid) library: They bring in books/CDs/electronics for trade, and walk out with stuff they're not tired of. They don't usually get out for free, though, because there's too much cool stuff.
So as long as used book stores stay smart about what they buy (in particular for collectors who want the real, physical item) and stay smart about how much they give and take with trade-ins, they should do OK.
One thing I'm interested to see in this is whether or not "indie" culture will start spreading more quickly across books. Thanks to torrents, iTunes and other digitalization in music similar to what Google is doing with books, anyone can access ultra-rare recordings. In the age of freely-accessible music, it is no longer remarkable to have heard highly obscure music. You can buy U2's impossible-to-find Celebration single on iTunes, or download a nearly-infinite number of indie bands from torrent sites. Indie music snobs can fill their iPods all the pirated lame early hip-hop, obscure classical that they only pretend to like to sound smarter, and terrible indie music (the more obscure the better, obviously). I wonder if they'll be filling up their Kindles in a similar way soon.
I tend to jot down blog drafts when I have an idea for an entry. These tend to be ignored – especially over the last few months when work has been difficult, and the first thing I’d like to do after a day of work is walk away from the computer. Certainly I don’t want to stay there and keep writing. So out of curiosity I looked up how many blog ‘drafts’ I had. 43. That’s too many. So I’m starting to take care of my backlog.
Normally, in a popular blog, this would be really bad because half of the new material would be created in a way that readers are unlikely to ever find it (several months in the past’s archives). Fortunately, I suppose, this isn’t a popular blog! It’s just for me! So I don’t have to worry about it. This is the benefits of loserdom – the only person that I’m trying to wite for is me.
This is also the case with the album I’m writing. Because it’s just me, writing for me, I don’t much care that it’s almost 2 years overdue. Precious few people know that it exists, and that doesn’t bother me in the least.
The disadvantage, of course, is that without someone hanging on my shoulder asking where today’s blog is, or when the album is coming out, the likelihood of a punctual work schedule is slim. But hey, if Guns & Roses can publish Chinese Democracy, maybe there’s hope for Ignition as well.
When I was teaching, I tried not to think too hard about how I was making an impact on the students' lives. The pressure would've caved in my already imploding head.
I know there's an influence, because I was for some reason thinking of a situation in which I have always wished I'd had a comeback. You know what I mean - ohh I wish I had said that instead of standing there like a dumbass.
This particular situation happened when I was still waffling between getting a music degree and a graphic design degree. I had written a mediocre song out on staff, and wondered what an "accomplished" music student would do with it. I gave it to one of the grad students that was teaching music at the time. I asked if he had taken a look at it. He had. I asked what he would do with it. He said:
Trash it. Start over. It's crap.
And he walked away.
I wish I had said (and I say to him now): I hope you slip on all that dream juice between your toes, jerk.
I have a certain amount of sympathy for the stresses of being a teacher and a student. I do. But in that situation, in which someone's confidence in their own abilities is on the line (and it was: I left the music program shortly after that), nothing justifies being an asshole about it. In some ways I'm glad I left, though, because the sheer snobbery in the program was palpable.
I'm not an advocate of state-sponsored arts just because I'm working on my 4th album, or because Tech Theater was the best thing about high school for me (OK, yes, I did get an awesome education), or because my last class at UA was painting, or because I have more Mp3's than I could listen to in six months of continuous listening.
Although that helps.
From a purely social engineering point of view, I am an advocate because I know how happy it makes people. There is a self-sustaining circle that goes like this: a happy society is a productive society, which can afford to institute programs to keep itself happy and healthy. The Arts make us smarter, get us to know other people, and generally improve society on a lot of levels.
Why do I post this (generally-accepted) assertion? Because a little bit of arts in people's day makes me, personally, gleeful. That's why I love Improv Everywhere, which is a loose group of musicians, miscreants, and like-minded crazy people who stage public events unannounced in order to make normal people's lives just a little more interesting, funny, and generally awesome. If anything, their involvement in events such as no-pants-day (which, to be fair, wasn't invented by them), and other surreal events make people look up from their text messaging and realize they are, really and actually, in the waking world.
This skit was done recently, and still, really, really, really makes me happy:
Climactic moment in Type O Negative's hit Love You to Death, where the singer soars with the lyric, "Am I good enough for you?" It was spine-chillingly glorious when I was a teenager, rife with self-doubt and insecurity. "You," in that line, became about a dozen girls I'd had a crush on through all of high school and later in college. I think my wife eventually was included in that thought, as well.
But it's not something that many guys past age 30 will find themselves singing. Then again, the line "I would do anything to make you cum," is repeated about a dozen times over a minute and a half in the following song, and that isn't something normally associated with the 'settled' man, either.
Also, success has its own draw away from inspiration. Back in 2000, when the Smashing Pumpkins were breaking up, Billy Corgan noted in Rolling Stone that "when we had no money, no nothing, there was nothing else to do but be grungy and be in a band. Now there are many other options: 'I could be skiing.'"
So I suppose it's not such a shock that many bands lose their luster well before age thirty. It's a rare band that's so happy with each other and so hungry for improvement that they stay together and relevant (U2 comes to mind).
I've had the longest blogging gap of the new year. I could have posted, but I've been dead sick. What's remarkable is that I actually managed to stress myself straight into illness. The stress source? My new computer, which ran fine for about three months with some weird RAID hiccups is now a $2,000+ paperweight.
Luckily, I managed to back up all of my work (both professional and personal) onto a new external hard drive, but I've been forced to go back to my old computer. This is a good machine; it served me well and it's now the wife's. It has all the programs I need to work. But it's really like stepping out of the Maserati and back into the Volvo.
It crashed on Saturday afternoon, and I literally attempted to reinstall Vista for three days straight, trying a bewildering variety of ways to get it to install, to no avail. I will be using Seagate boot disks to check the hard drives tomorrow, then I'll disassemble the entire machine (no mean feat given how packed the components are), and retry with my good friend, Sean. He's been kind enough to come down to Tucson to help out, though the trip also coincided with his SuperBowl plans nicely, so that worked out.
I pretty rarely pray; I consider it a bit presumptuous. But man, I am praying that I can get this thing working again.
One small bright side to these clouds is that I'm forced to sit at the computer with the recording hardware, so I've recorded a few more demos, and actually started re-recording Summer, which has been waiting for that treatment for about five years.
In the last few years, the file 'tag' has become very important - what's now called metadata. I don't know what the original file tag was; you could say that libraries were the first to extensively catalogue metadata, in that metadata is information about information. But certainly the most important one was the ID3, which was originally created for the MP3 sound file.
Way back when I downloaded my first MP3 file, in 1995, I had to create elaborate folder structures to sort out the organization. ID3 was a godsend. But then again, it was also a godsend when I got a 28.8 modem for my 486 66MHz, though I had to close all my windows in Windows 95 since the computer literally couldn't handle playing an Mp3. Simpler times, I guess. This was when Wing Commander II was very hot stuff.
Now that metadata has matured to the point where it is included in practically all file types, that information is being used to properly catalog, organize, and make sense of literally trillions of files. Some really cool stuff is being done with it.
Flickr organizes more than two billion images, and Facebook organizes four billion. Who knows what MySpace has. To put that into context, if you put those two billion Flickr photos into 200-photo, 1' wide folios, they'd stretch the same distance as a road trip from my home in Tucson to Milwaukee, or perhaps to Edmonton, Canada. For all of those sites put together, you're talking a third of the circumference of the planet.
Another site that's doing exciting with mass data collection is Last.fm, which collects data about the listening habits of many millions of people, though in my opinion they've not done as much as they could with the vast amount of data they've collected.
I mention all this because I've just posted the pictures I took at onto Flickr. I still have to tag and rate about 5,000 pictures in my archive, though of course I have no intention of posting all of them to Flickr.
I have already organized about 99% of my music collection, which primarily came from Maloney's when I was paid $2 an hour to organize their collection (of course, I also got to keep the collection, so it more than worked out for me). Unfortunately, Winamp really screwed me over in the data cataloging department: I'd been rating songs as I played them for about two years when it crashed (not being able to handle the 50,000 songs), and I lost the data. Rating music and pictures is tremendously handy when you have a lot of songs rated, because you can just pick a genre and minimum rating and hit "random." It's so wonderful because not only do you not have to DJ for yourself, but if you've been rating songs for a few years, you will hear songs you haven't heard in a long while.
I also still have many of my archived CDs to go through - and I guess if using Adobe Bridge is something I should do, I'll have to tag all those as well. I'm not convinced of its usefulness, though: I've had a system of directories going for quite a while now and even though I have about 90,000 (!) files in my photography, design, and music folders, I can find whatever I need in short order. So why bother tagging them all? Perhaps the best thing is to tag as I go, and figure that I'll have tagged anything I actually use over the course of, what, five years?
I keep telling myself that having all of this information organized will make me a bit more sane, and will make my general workflow faster. I suspect that the incredible amount of time it takes to organize all of it will take years to earn back in saved time later, but there's also an additional benefit of knowing it's all there. I've lost some good photos to trashed archive CDs, and hard drive failures. Ultimately, I justify all this work because of the peace of mind it brings me.
In any case, I'm very glad that I have a RAID configuration for my system with my new computer. I would just cry if I lost all this work I've done.
Because he was so right with his recommendation of Battles Mirrored, I've taken Jeph's advice about immersing my brain in Daft Punk for a few weeks straight, before I listen to their live mix album Alive 2007. When you really want to appreciate a well-mixed DJ album, it helps to know the songs that were remixed in its making.
While listening to my favorite Daft Punk album, Discovery, I discovered that the track Too Long (probably so named because it's exactly 10 minutes long) has the exact same beat as my dishwasher. I sat listening to them for about 4 minutes (before the washer changed cycles and so screwed up the rhythm), and the beats didn't phase at all.
For anybody who's not worked with music mixing or doesn't understand wave phasing, the very slightest difference in cycle length will show up in less than a minute, because that difference is multiplied by however many times the cycle repeats - if one wave is 1 second long, and the other one is 1.008 seconds long (which is an absolutely imperceptible difference), after a minute, the difference will be a very obvious half-second. It's like when you're in the left turn lane and the car in front of you has their left blinkers on and they sync up. It never lasts more than a few blinks.
This is why I am amazed that my dishwasher is attuned exactly to Daft Punk.
My government is willing to torture me, hold me in prison without telling me why, and ship me off to faraway lands where Amnesty International can't find me, in order to prevent other countries from torturing me, holding me in prison without telling me why, and shipping me off to faraway lands where Amnesty International can't find me.
Forgive me if I'm not swooning in affection for my nation.
Rachel bought me the U2 DVD of their Vertigo tour concert in Chicago. The liner notes say exactly one thing: "Do not become a monster in order to defeat the monster." It's like Friedrich Nietzsche as an activist.
I also got a chance to truly blast my stereo system, for the first time in years. Ozzy Osbourne seemed an appropriate choice, followed by the Foo Fighters.
In a perfect world, I think I'd work about 30 hours a week, and spend the other 10 hours of a normal work week taking classes. Actually, I had hoped to start taking these classes much earlier, right after I got my degree.
I would tell people I couldn't wait to get my degree so that I could start taking classes.
A few classes I'd like to take from this year's course catalogue from Pima:
ACC101 Financial Accounting
ACC204 Individual Tax Accounting
ART128 Digital Photography I
ART232 Digital Photography II
ART160 Ceramics I (Took this a long time ago, but I was awful at it, mostly because I didn't really have the time to do it properly)
ART215 Painting II (to finish the paintings I've already started)
AUT129 Automotive Electrical Fundamentals and Applications
BCT101 Principles of Construction
BCT114 Blueprint Reading
BUS100 Introduction to Busines
BUS125 eCommerce
CUL140 Culinary Principles (there are other cooking classes in the 'personal development' category)
DAR111 Typography
DAR115 Digital Video Editing
DAR122 Desktop Graphics: Adobe Illustrator
DAR124 Writing for Film and Television
DAR175 Cinematography
DAR215 Advanced Cinematography
DAR218 Introduction to Film Music
Early Childhood Education - basically everything not related to running a day care
ECE107 Human Development and Relations
ECE108 Literature/Social Studies for Children
ECE117 Child Growth and Development
ECE124 Math and Science for Children
ECE125 Nutrition, Health, and Safety for the Young Child
ECE211 Inclusion of Young Children with Special Needs
ECE240 Assessment of Young Children
Various EDU classes relating to getting my teacher's certification in Arizona
FSS126 Intermediate Basketball
FSS127 Advanced Basketball
HIS114 Japanese Civilization
HUM131 Mythology
IDE100 Introduction to Interior Design
IDE111 Fundamentals of Interior Design
IDE155 Space Planning I
JPN101 Elementary Japanese I
JPN102 Elementary Japanese II
JPN108 Japanese Anime
JPN201 Intermediate Japanese I
JPN202 Intermediate Japanese II
LIT261 Modern Literature
LIT262 American Poets
MUS127 Aural Perception I (took this a long time ago...)
Challenged myself to actually complete a demo this weekend. Came close - got a 5 1/2 minute demo, without bass. Given that I usually stop at around a minute and one idea, that's pretty good. Hoping to finish it up tomorrow afternoon, because I told my boss that if I didn't come in with a song, he'd have to fire me.
This is a list of things I need to do before I go back to my 12-hour-a-day jobs. I wanted to start in on them last week, but spent most of it working or being with my family.
Set up the stereo so that it has a line going to the bedroom speakers, for night-time music as well as wake-up music.
Finish sorting paper. I have a box full of mostly financial files that need to be sorted and filed. Finished in May
Find a new host for my homepages.
Empty out the 401k from my old school.
E-Mail and/or find a bunch of people I've lost touch with: Marla, Stephanie, Dave, Eric, Jen, Chris, and Joe at the least.
Do some credit card balance juggling. Yay?
Call PrivacySource; they have good services (relating to one's credit rating) but they charged a full years' service at once when they said they'd do it in increments. Turns out it's because of the way I signed up - but they were very nice and arranged to have it set up in payments and to refund the money. Yay for corporations that take care of their customers!
Update and/or dispute various information on my credit report.Done in May
Re-enter a few years' worth of financial data from the Discover card into Money. Done in May.
Look into getting the truck's gas tank cleaned. Performance Radiator does it for $85, but I'll have to detach it myself. 3-5 day turnaround.
Fix Leelu's clutch cable and starter.
Record the vocals for the song Caravaggio.
Record the vocals for the song Heathen.
Pick up the basketball game and holiday photos from Walmart.
Make a maintenance schedule for both vehicles: when to replace, fill or otherwise maintain everything in both cars (brakes, oil, as well as a list of all pertinent phone numbers such as tow numbers, insurance, et cetera). Finished in June (!)
Post and sell/give away our filing cabinet, ceiling fan, printer, and monitor. Sold!
Record our old cassette tapes into the computer.
Sell the cassette player, refurbished chest, small white chair, and large blue chair to Bookmans.
Use Bookman's trade to buy Rachel's computer.
Put on the VW's white seat covers.
Get at least 90% of my homepage set up.
Get my Impulse Designs page set up.
Update Outlook to include my friends' and relatives' birthdays.
Go through the boxes of sentimental stuff in the closet and purge.
Wash and waxbothvehicles; they haven't had a good wax in forever.Leelu
Make a cathouse for the kitties out on the patio.
Clean the patio.
Do the dishes.
Do some serious grocery shopping.
Vacuum the apartment.
Do the laundry.
Post my previous blogs to this blog. Finished in June (!)
I am becoming open to the idea of being more open.
I am going to begin blogging again.
I have decided to let my students add me, but will not add them in the interest of protecting myself.
I am so very close to being where I want to be: out of debt with a steady job.
I am re-opening doors I had shut with my Dad, with people I'd done business with that had gone sour, and within myself.
I am listening to a lot of Muse, GYBE!, Mogwai and Snow Patrol, because epic change should be met with epic music.
I am finishing a Design homepage that I can maintain and is up to standards - mine as well as the Web's.
I am going to start making mix CD's and post them in the same way that online blogs do.
I'm going to get my blogs together; MySpace for some reason won't let me date blogs before 2005, despite the fact that some of them were written in 2004. But I'll repost them.
I'm ready as I'm ever going to be.
Close eyes. Breathe in, slowly. Open eyes. Breathe out.
I've been listening to a lot of (usually) new music lately and thought I'd share.
The Waifs Up All Night This is a country album at its heart, but I like it because it's not so worried about being a country album as putting some amazing songs about wanting to do things as simply as they can but can't.
also: eels Souljacker, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations I Am Kloot I Am Kloot Gnarles Barkley Gnarles Barkley M83 Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness Fear Is On Our Side Jonas Kullhammar Quartet Plays Loud for the People Marc Almond Heart on Snow
In other news, school will be out soon, and we'll find out if I am to be a teacher in the fall within the next few weeks...
Rachel and I went on a brief road trip yesterday and determined our All-Time Top Ten. Here's mine. I think this list will probably last about a year or so.
Honorable Mentions: Unchained Melody Righteous Brothers Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad U2 Hope, Vol. 2 (with Matthias Sayer)Apocalyptica Your Song Elton John Believe Macha
10 SweetnessJimmy Eat World 9 RunSnow Patrol 8 Chemicals Notwist 7Rocket Smashing Pumpkins 6 MapsYeah Yeah Yeahs 5 Pyramid Song Radiohead 4Your SongElton John 3 The OceanLed Zeppelin 2 Mogwai Fear Satan Mogwai 1 Mysterious Ways U2
A Funny Thing Happened Today no. 9: DJ-ing for teenagers
Tonight I was the DJ for my friend Joe's fiancee's little sisters' party. It was, for the most part, music I don't listen to - rap and hip-hop. It comforts me that I managed to put together a good 4-hour set list of music I don't have more than a few minutes' time to check out and plug in. Officially, I can give myself credit for being a halfway decent DJ.
The most interesting part about it - the part the justifies a blog - is that I realise that there's a striking similarity between DJing a house party and a big club (like my old job at Maloney's). When the presents come out, you have to have the music people want to hear but won't really dance to. You can't have too many big dance songs in a row because people almost never manage to keep their insecurity down for more than 15 minutes (especially high school kids). There is an ebb and flow to be maintained, in every presentation of music in sequence: a rock show, on the radio, in a club, in a house, anywhere. Heh ... and in mix tapes. But if you want to know more about that, watch High Fidelity.
Recent books: Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Fight Club, White Teeth.
So I've totally started getting my work together on my music. I'm planning on going to a bunch of shows, and have been posting music on the main site a lot lately. So, yes there is now an Impulse Nine myspace site, where I'll be trying to use the calendar to go to shows (or at least say which ones I want to see).
And at least as exciting as all that is that I got a chance to rework Nine Inch Nails' song Only - and if you ask me, I did a damn fine job. You can find it here, and please don't forget to rank the song however high or low you think it needs to be ranked.
A Funny Thing Happened Today no. 7 part 2: Update on 'Mars' Dirt'
So I was trying to go to sleep - wasn't working - and thought about the mental image I had in my head while writing Mars' Dirt: a gritty scene on the sidelines of what could be in Cowboy Bebop's world, in which a man contemplates his own sad state on Mars and considers how valuable Martian soil used to be and how much he could've used that cash when it mattered.
And I came up with this. I'm going to put a noir-style spoken word over the second stretch between the stutter-muting (3:17 - 3:33) and the end (starting roughly at 7:30). It takes about 2 and a half minutes to read it, the way I do it.
"Red dirt. [inhales a cigarette]
As far as the eye or some enhanced binoculars could see. Not that the horizon's real far, here. Used to be I could take some of that dirt back home and sell it for about the same price per kilo as gold, maybe buy Mom something nice. Buy a ticket back, in any case. Mom is at the headrest, now. Barely knows who she is, nevermind who I am. Always used to get upset when I called in the middle of the night but I had a hard time with area codes before, now ... well forget it.
She's lived a long time .. and I love Mom, but ... .... [takes a long drag]
People live a long time, now. but nobody wants to admit the last 30 years are a waste. Half the kids I've met that have great grandparents - great-great grandparents - in the headrest don't even know it... parents don't wanna to show them. Can't blame them, really. I have a good excuse for not visiting but... would I if I could? I got a big heart but it only gets so big when it's always getting crushed. [inhales again]
Some of that red dirt could've bought some care. Now, it's all just dirt again. And she doesn't know who I am anymore. Doctor says she's got 15 years ahead of her. I do love my Mom. [inhales]
I'm not a bad person. I'm not a bad person. I just ... "
A Funny Thing Happened Today no. 7: NEW SONG, Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack, etc.
My wife was giving me an example of a person who is (1) completely certain of themselves and (2) dead wrong when she said a co-worker adamantly proclaimed that the Blues came from Jazz.
No. That's like saying that Sumi-e came from Japanese landscapes - yeah, they were done at the same time, and they had some similar ideas, kind-of, but ... no. You're wrong.
However ...
They do tag along together sometimes, and the best example I can think of is the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack(s). There's a lot of versions, and I happen to have all of them. Ranging from Pop to Jazz to Blues to the positively quirky, it's really completely brilliant - not unlike the show, really.
In working on my own music, I've been toying with this sort of cosmo approach to genres, shoving in whatever works for whatever reason, and I'm back to having a good time with music.
Today, I had a bad migraine and so sat down to play guitar ('cos I can do it with my eyes closed and sitting up and closing my eyes is the least painful position to be in, for me, when a migraine strikes). Came up with a song that I'll share here with Myspace's new Podcast ability. I'm hoping that with this particular song I will actually meld a bit of Blues and Jazz. Though in its current state, it's much more Blues than Jazz. I'm hoping that with some unusually Jazzy bass guitar, and a more complex rhythm track, I'll have that. (Even though it's already pretty much polyrhythmic; the three instruments are all playing different rhythms - but it works).
The song is named Mars' Dirt. Fair warning - it's (exactly) 10 minutes long and 12 MB. Aaand it's mostly noodling. But I'm happy enough with it to post here. It will be replaced, eventually, with the finished version.
I guess my investigation into Romanian and Eastern European folk songs (i.e., from The Historian, mentioned in a previous entry) will have to wait few more days...
A Funny Thing Happened Today no. 7: NEW SONG, Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack, etc.
My wife was giving me an example of a person who is (1) completely certain of themselves and (2) dead wrong when she said a co-worker adamantly proclaimed that the Blues came from Jazz.
No. That's like saying that Sumi-e came from Japanese landscapes - yeah, they were done at the same time, and they had some similar ideas, kind-of, but ... no. You're wrong.
However ...
They do tag along together sometimes, and the best example I can think of is the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack(s). There's a lot of versions, and I happen to have all of them. Ranging from Pop to Jazz to Blues to the positively quirky, it's really completely brilliant - not unlike the show, really.
In working on my own music, I've been toying with this sort of cosmo approach to genres, shoving in whatever works for whatever reason, and I'm back to having a good time with music.
Today, I had a bad migraine and so sat down to play guitar ('cos I can do it with my eyes closed and sitting up and closing my eyes is the least painful position to be in, for me, when a migraine strikes). Came up with a song that I'll share here with Myspace's new Podcast ability. I'm hoping that with this particular song I will actually meld a bit of Blues and Jazz. Though in its current state, it's much more Blues than Jazz. I'm hoping that with some unusually Jazzy bass guitar, and a more complex rhythm track, I'll have that. (Even though it's already pretty much polyrhythmic; the three instruments are all playing different rhythms - but it works).
The song is named Mars' Dirt. Fair warning - it's (exactly) 10 minutes long and 12 MB. Aaand it's mostly noodling. But I'm happy enough with it to post here. It will be replaced, eventually, with the finished version.
I guess my investigation into Romanian and Eastern European folk songs (i.e., from The Historian, mentioned in a previous entry) will have to wait few more days...
Random Thought(s) no. 12 & 13: Drugs, Jazz and Muzak
I don't do drugs more powerful than caffeine and a rare painkiller.
Today I realised that the closest I've ever come to tripping acid was when I saw Beavis and Butthead Do America's White Zombie sequence in the theaters when it came out. But isn't that close enough?
I heard a 4/4 meter elevator music version of Take 5 by Dave Brubeck in Taco Bell today and am having a hard time not stalking and murdering whoever did it. For those of you who don't know - shame on you - Take 5 was a very famous jazz standard, and one of the only songs commonly played on the radio that is in 5/4 time (that is, it has five beats per measure).
Currently listening : Americano By Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers Release date: 12:00 AM
A Funny Thing Happened Today no. 4: Stupid little quiz, interesting result.
This is something Daniel sent to me. Normally I don't bother with this kind of crap but I thought that the result was interesting.
These are 25 questions about things we see everyday or have known about all our lives. The survey originally said that 7 is average but if it is I'm afraid. Naturally, the quiz is meant to be taken without cheating or looking things up.
1. On a standard traffic light, is the green on the top or bottom? 2. How many states are there in the USA? (Don't laugh, some people don't know.) 3. In which hand is the Statue of Liberty's torch? 4. What six colors are on the classic Campbell's soup label? 5. What two numbers on the telephone dial don't have letters by them? 6. When you walk does your left arm swing with your right or left leg? (Don't you dare get up to see!) 7. How many matches are in a standard pack? 8. On the United States flag is the top stripe red or white? 9. What is the lowest number on the FM dial? (Don't look at that dial!) 10. Which way does water go down the drain, counter or clockwise? (Get out of the bathroom!) 11. Which way does a "no smoking" sign's slash run? 12. How many channels on a VHF TV dial? 13. On which side of a women's blouse are the buttons? 14. Which way do fans rotate? 15. How many sides does a stop sign have? 16. Do books have even-numbered pages on the right or left side. 17. How many lug nuts are on a standard car wheel? 18. How many sides are there on a standard pencil? 19. Sleepy, Happy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Dopey, Doc. Who's missing? 20. How many hot dog buns are in a standard package? 21. On which playing card is the card maker's trademark? 22. On which side of a Venetian blind is the cord that adjusts the opening between the slats? 23. There are 12 buttons on a touch tone phone. What 2 symbols bear no digits? 24. How many curves are there in the standard paper clip? 25. Does a merry-go-round turn counter or clockwise?
1.. Bottom 2.. 50 3.. Right 4.. Blue, red, white, yellow, black &gold 5.. 1, 0 6.. Right 7.. 20 8.. Red 9.. 87.7 10.. Clockwise (north of the equator) 11.. From Upper left to Lower Right 12.. 12 (there is no ..1) 13.. Left 14.. Clockwise as you look at it from the front. 15.. 8 16.. Left 17.. 5 18.. 6 19.. Bashful 20.. 8 21.. Ace of spades 22.. Left 23.. * and .. 24.. 3 25.. Counter
Missed: 7.. How many matches are in a standard pack? 9.. What is the lowest number on the FM dial? 11.. Which way does a "no smoking" sign's slash run? 12.. How many channels on a VHF TV dial?
I don't smoke, listen to the radio, or watch TV. So that explains that.
For the first time ever I'm recording vocals for my music. Which means I'll have to start getting over a general fear of singing. This is odd since I was in a boys' choir for a bunch of years. I guess the fact that it's been, uh, 13 years, I've gotten a bit shy. I dunno. I'll sing at work sometimes. We'll see how this goes. I'll post a demo when I get over it.
This has been a tough week, but this is not the place to complain about money.
The fact that I haven't posted in a while has a lot to do with stress. It's not that there wasn't anything interesting going on in my head, I just didn't want to work up the effort to type it up. Which is ironic, really, because the point of this blog is to get my ideas out. I digress.
I have been going through my demos for my new album. I haven't had a response to my music on the site I made for it. See the blog before the last. I've been listening to the seventy-odd song snippets and realized three things:
1. I like them. I genuinely enjoy listening to this music I've made. 2. I don't know if I like it because I made it or because it's good. 3. I also don't know if listening to it all the time makes it sound better - the abnormalities and mistakes just become part of what it is. Other times I get tired of them and I wonder if it's a sign the song is no good.
I need feedback, damn it.
Bonus points: Vu'un Tacjun, a song that won't make this album (doesn't fit the vibe at all) but probably the next.
I've updated my music site to include the public demo-sorting process for my fourth album. I'm inviting everyone I know - any anyone for that matter - to weigh in on what they think of the 40 or so song ideas and demos I have for the next album. Depending on how much feedback I get, I will probably post a song demo or two per week.
My rationale is that I would rather have bad advice than no advice, because I can ignore it and be in the same place I was when I started. I've got nothing to lose except pride - and anyone ought to be able to lose that.
My greatest fear is that I'll get no response. To any artist, acclaim and disdain are both infinitely preferable to indifference.
So, briefly, here is my thing on Mp3's: download the music, buy the album if it's good, and definately go to the concerts. If it's a small band, donate directly and download the music. They make more money that way anyway.
That said, I've been trying to complete my U2 MP3 collection. This ... is hard. Most people don't know just how prolific that band is. I already own all the albums on CD - that's easy. Oh, no, the U2 discography is much deeper than that. There's 125 songs on their 10 albums, there's more than 200 b-sides from the singles, 100 or so from various compilations and such, and I'm not even including any live b-sides or concerts or anything like that. If you include all that, these guys' discography includes about 700 songs, all told. I'm at 470. I need another 96 to feel like I've gotten the stuff I'm really anxious for - primarily it's the studio recordings, edits and remixes.
I can hear you think: "Why would I want the five different mixes of Please?"
To me, it's really interesting to hear all these different versions of the same song. It shows, if you look carefully, how the band felt about all of the different parts of the song. In the case of Please, which is from the 1997 album POP, there were different edits for the U.S. and European markets. The album version was quite different from both, and there was another 'regular' single version as well. Also, the live version was different from the other four studio versions. I think it's well worth my time, as a musician, to study how these very successful musicians make their decisions about editing, and that's how I do it.
Unfortunately, most of the remainder is out of print and/or hard to find. Up until today, I was looking for a remix of MoFo (also from POP) called the Matthew Roberts' Explicit Mix. The LP itself sells for over $100 It was a one-sided black vinyl promo-only single pressed in very limited quantities. Hell, I was lucky to get the vinyl 12" single when it came out. And that was an easy one.
Still, I think it's worth it for the above reason. And I don't feel too guilty looking this stuff up in Mp3 simply because I can't buy it from the band (not even in the 'complete' U2 from iTunes, which has a 'mere' 398 songs). And I'm a fan. That has something to do with it, too.
A Funny Thing Happened Today No. 3: Family Guy and barroom sociology
Tonight, while working as a DJ (as I do), I had some stuff to give away. But not just random junk - whole DVD's of The Family Guy. Five copies of the first and second seasons (which is volume 1), five of the third season, some shirts, and a bunch of DVD's with 5 "favorite" episodes. Wow.
I decided pretty early on not to let the staff have some because there was a lot more staff than giveaways - and to do trivia questions.
Now, that's all well and good but not interesting enough to justify a blog post. The funny part is how people act. I don't generally like doing giveaways because I inevitably end up acting as a referee.
It's not all bad - one guy who answered first and correctly thought I had the new 'Stewie' movie (which hasn't come out yet). He already had the set he had won and so gave it to someone else. That was really cool of him.
On the other hand, one girl literally tackled a guy to prevent him from answering a question (I didn't accept her answer - I don't care if you're right, you have to pay consequences for being a greedy bitch). Another guy actually won one - he got the 5-episode DVD - but kept bugging me to 'trade' for the box set. I told him to answer a question correctly like anyone else. And honestly - you got a free DVD, man, what are you complaining for? Doesn't help that he was attempting to crawl into my ear the whole night.
I feel very uncomfortable even when a good looking girl gets into my little personal space, nevermind a greasy lookin' dude who wants favors. I'm still a little suprised every time a girl thinks that grabbing my crotch or showing more cleavage will get a song (etc.).
Don't you hate it when you write a blog and it disappears into HTML 404 oblivion?
This is a boring blog entry. Fair warning. I'm also experimenting with making highlights and such so that my blogs can be read more quickly, just getting the high points. I'm debating whether or not to attempt to actively find friends on MySpace, so to make my little blog a bit more public.
On the plus side, I would like to have feedback for all of these little ideas and stories I have. In particular, it occured to me to start posting songs that I've been writing for feedback. I have about seventy song ideas and demos recorded already for the next album, not including the songs I have written out but aren't recorded yet (that's another dozen or so). It would be nice to be able to say, 'you know what, this idea isn't working' and just ditch it before I waste too much time on it. Also, having an active readership and feedback encourages me to keep writing.
On the downside, it takes time. And I really don't need any more excuses than I already have to not work on my at-home job, being graphic design. Also, when you've got little numbers like 'views', 'kudos', and comments and such, it's easy to qualify your work based soley on those numbers and comments. This is not good. Public be damned, I do what I do. No offense.
I wrote a song today. Well, sort of. This requires explanation. You see, I'm working on my 4th album (as noted in my profile thingy). But I'm a bit of a doodler - I have something like sixty or seventy one- or two- minute compositions that are neat little songlets but haven't really been developed yet.
Today was a co-worker's 21st birthday and, in Maloney's tradition, a bunch of us met at Maloney's to start her off right by getting some food and a tequila shot. I had lunch with her but didn't go out drinking. (This is related to the song) She - her name's Brie - had me listening to the Clash a lot lately, particularly Guns of Brixton from London Calling. I decided to see if I could compose a complete song in the time I had between when I left Maloney's and when I picked up Rachel from work - about 2 and a half hours.
And I did. It's very much a chill, psychedelic jam rock affair, which isn't suprising given the reggae influence and quick-as-I-can nature of the experiment but .. I am satisfied. It's called Vu'un Tacj'an which means "I am cheese" in Tsotsil (which is a Mayan language) - because of her name, you see.. Not that I know Tsotsil or anything - Googled that one.
I worked especially on the drums, which are often neglected to drum loops. Especially interesting, to me anyway, is the strongly tremolo'd ska rhythm part. Not gonna win any Grammys but it's a nice quiet little jam...
I'm working on two albums at the moment - seems to be the way I work best musically. The first to be done will be Ignition, which is Exhaust's sister album (link). The other is Black Action Soul, a harder rocking and darker album. It also has a lot of lyrics that are based on other peoples' lyrics. The thing is that they're all lyrics that I misheard as something else that I think is better. For example, I misheard "Black as your soul" (from Head Like A Hole) as "Black Action Soul" ... which is so much cooler.
Incidentally, I already know the next album concept after Black Action Soul .. I'd like to do an entire album of songs that work on their own but also could be played over and harmonize with other peoples' songs. Wouldn't that be wild? And don't steal my idea.
You can't do that in heaven / You can't get your head in You should know that well / You can't do that here.
I have a lot of U2 music - MP3's, albums, singles, you name it. I have a lot of their concerts, in particular the ZooTV tour. Tonight I got home from work (~3 am) and played one of the concerts. By the time I got to Love Is Blindness, one of the last songs, I was yet again entranced.
Every so often I question myself over why I have these concerts - they're not all very well-recorded - and I just figured out why. Wow.
The one troublesome thing about having a job that involves creativity - being a DJ or a musician, for example - is that if you aren't excited about it at least on some level, it's almost impossible to do a good job. Most jobs, you can go in one day feeling fairly unenthusiastic about being there but the job can be done.
I, obviously, was not feeling particularly keen on working tonight and so I used one of my old sets (thank God we use MixMeister and I save my sets).
So there's a conundrum: would I want a relatively menial job that I can consistently do well in, or a creative job that I can usually excel in? Well ... I'm not quitting either DJ or design so ..
Name: Steve Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States About Me: I like to think about things, and I occasionally like to write what I think. See my complete profile
Currently listening : 
Currently listening : 
