it's a nice day for a white kitchen

In this day and age of granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, the guy who built out this Somerville loft I'm in thumbed his nose at the trendy and went with an all white kitchen. I like it. The island has the fake granite, though; I wonder why he didn't choose the same white formica for that. One thing i like about it is that it reflects the colors and the flavor of the day outside through the wall of windows on the opposite side of the room. Right now it's sunrise on a cloudy day, and with so many windows and so much white, I feel connected to the sky. Fortunately, being on the 5th (and top) floor, I'm not too connected to how brutally cold it can get in Boston - all heat coming up from below and all the sun coming in the south-facing windows keep it toasty in here.



The Brickbottom lofts were converted from industrial buildings: a bakery, a cannery, and a foundry. This loft is in the bakery, and the floors are the original red brick atop another foot of concrete. The ceiling is also cement, with the patterns of the 2x4s that were used to set it clearly visible. There are three large cement pillars that fan out towards the 14' ceiling that give a sense of the weight they support in this huge building. The walls that separate the rooms are drywall.

What with all the glass, brick, and cement, you might imagine how live this place sounded with nothing in it. I was a bit concerned about that. I thought long and hard about where to put the monitors and whether I'd even be able to mix in here. Recording, also, will be very difficult with the traffic and trains just below. There is also the problem of no symmetry in the space - there's a sleeping loft on one side of the room, the kitchen on one side, and the windows on another. My solution was to put the main monitors just under and in front of the sleeping loft overhang, which might cause bass buildup problems, but functionally, it seemed like the only solution. I will be trading my 5 Roland surround monitors in for a better stereo pair. I'm thinking about getting one of those plug-ins, or even a set of monitors, that analyzes the room for you and automatically adjusts the EQ. But I'm skeptical. Have any of you tried those plug-ins? They're very popular for small rooms, but I'm not sure how well they'd work in this huge live room.





I think for any critical recording or final mixing, I might make use of the studio at the Media Lab, and maybe I can just use this space for composing, producing, performances, and band rehearsals (there's another whole empty room here). I've also already started making plans to build an initial version of my Aurrery for burning man. Maybe we can use that room to build stuff for that.

------

In the continuing tradition of providing you with links you have probably already seen, winners have been announced for Science Magazine's 2008 Science Dance Contest. They selected winners in four categories: Grad student, postdoc, professor, and popular choice.

Weird Fishes

   
NPR is streaming Neil Young’s about-to-be released Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House.  I’m thoroughly impressed at how great it sounds. Not only is the performance by a 22-year-old Young incredibly assured, the sound quality of the recording is surprisingly solid. I’m not Neil Young expert, and I don’t have any technical details on the recording, but this seems like a nice document of Young’s transition into his solo career.  Apparently Young had a case of stage fright right before he went on:

Neil Young was horribly nervous before the performance and had to be coaxed from his hotel room by his manager Elliot Roberts and the minister of Canterbury House, Dan Burke. Burke tells NPR Music he remembers Neil Young huddled in Young's hotel room bed, too scared to perform. He told Burke no one would want to hear the Buffalo Springfield tunes or his new tunes. Young was afraid he didn't have enough material. But he was eventually persuaded to take the small stage.

_____

For some reason, Rick Astley shows up to personally RickRoll the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Here’s hoping this dagger, thrust home by the sad wizard himself, has finally killed off this internet meme.

_____

Radiohead - Weird Fishes - by Tobias Stretch

Really dig this Radiohead video. It won a contest. You gotta love Radiohead. Using the strength of their brand to crowdsource their videos. For a band that has repeatedly expressed their ambivalence about consumers and commerce, Radiohead are awfully good at marketing. I’m not kidding. I have no choice. I love this band.

_____

Try this simple, web-based drum machine. There are fancier online tools, including the already-linked Audiotool and another 909 emulator, but this is a quick, pleasant diversion.

_____

As I’ve settled into my role as the Saturday NAPper, I’ve started to read more about music, including local blogs. Naturally I read Ramon’s updates at the Free Press, Jeremy at Space City Rock, David at Houston Calling,  and ADR’s excellent The Skyline Network. But I’ve also added a few others to my Google Reader.

The Houston Press Music blog, Rocks Off is actually pretty good now. I blame new music editor, Chris Gray, who linked to this great footage of Led Zeppelin at the Sam Houston Coliseum in 1971.

Thanks to my friend Delaney I came across Houston’s Most Hated. I don’t know much about the blog, but I totally agreed with their take on No Age’s second record, which I now think is one of the year’s best releases.

Finally, Bring Back the Guns frontman and personal pal Matt Brownlie has started his own music blog, and it’s definitely worth paying attention to. He’s not written much yet, but he’s got much more eclectic tastes than I do, and he’s repeatedly turned me on to stuff I wouldn’t have ordinarily checked out. Like Steinski.

Free Dr Pepper

I came across a couple music related articles this week. The first is the Wall Street Journal's bit about how China has banned Chinese Democracy. This album seems to be getting more press because of its title than because of the music, which is just as well because the one song that I've heard is pretty bad. Mind you, I was never a Guns N' Roses fan and I continue to be mystified by their appeal, so maybe this album would be less offensive to your ears. The cynic in me says that Axl dreamed up this title years ago in order to create the kind of artificial controversy that sells records, since his audience is waning and not likely to buy his album simply because it's a Guns N' Roses album. His strategy will probably sell a few more albums, but not enough to offset the amount he would have sold in China. Seems like he would have seen that coming after Björk yelled out "Tibet, Tibet" last spring and got herself banned. No matter to the Chinese, though, because they can just as easily buy a pirated copy in their local hutong. Axl's folly will be a boon to Chinese pirates.

The other article was this New York Times' piece on a Saudi girl band.

This got me thinking that I should tie these two together somehow with an oppression theme. Unfortunately the extent of my experience with oppression is not being able to claim my free Dr Pepper because the Dr Pepper servers were overloaded or conveniently not available when they were supposed to be doling out free pop, so I don't really have much to say about it. Maybe Björk can write a song about that, so she can liberate the Dr Pepper to which we are all entitled.

Week 109: Ice T

Happy Thanksgiving.

There is an Ice-T song that every year gets stuck in my head around Thanksgiving time. Not the whole song, but just a line that goes, "But I don't celebrate bullshit thanksgiving. Sit up like some fool and eat turkey? That's the day your forefathers jerked me."

This has gone from being ok, to being bearable, to now just being mostly annoying. Pretty much anytime anyone says the word 'Thanksgiving' to me, I immediately break into that line in my head. This has been the case since I first heard that song sometime in the mid-90s. So it's been over 10 years of this, probably close to 15.

I understand Ice-T's sentiment, thanksgiving is probably my least favorite holiday, I'm not into excessive eating, cooking, football, pilgrims, or most of what this holiday seems to be about these days. I do understand the central sentiment. I am grateful for many things, many many many things, but I don't need a special day to be thankful. I'm thankful every time I kiss my daughter goodnight, every time I stare into my wife's eyes, every time I hear my mother's voice, every time I can still play a guitar, or walk outside. And while I do appreciate the sentiment, in Puerto Rico where I grew up Thanksgiving is a U.S. import, much like McDonalds, or being drafted for wars declared by presidents we had no choice in electing. So the holiday has some negative associations for me.

So it's not a time where I feel comfortable just stuffing myself full of food and laying on the couch watching football all day or whatever. On this holiday, I'm humbly grateful, and I would be happy having a modest dinner with friends and family without a lot of fanfare. But this Ice-T fellow, just keeps rapping the above line in my head over and over to the point where I wish I could trade it for Britney singing 'Oops I did it again' or just about any innane Teen Disney song.

Then I innevitably start thinking about Ice-T in Law and Order: SVU and I just laugh at what the Original Gangster turned into. He now likes to lay down rhyme "because it's fun."

So thanksgiving has been me and Ice-T for many years now. I like some of the guy's music, but come on, enough is enough.

Here's the song:


I'm sorry to have done that, but there is no other way. I am hoping at least one of you listened to it and has taken this curse away from me. And if one of you has and Ice-T sits at your Thanksgiving table next year, for that, I say to you from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

And Justin Thought He Failed...

I completely forgot my posting day!

It's like those dreams where I still think I'm going to miss my finals because the alarm didn't go off. This almost happened to me once in college as my math final was at 8am. I was going to wake up early in the morning and write all of my notes I was allowed to have in class and not only did I not have time for that, I barely had time for the test. I received a D in the class. And my Mom's a math teacher. sigh.

Let's see if I can post some more really old funny videos from youtube in this lame post, or shall I just continue with how lately I can barely keep up with my responsibilities and sometimes things just slip by? I thought kids were supposed to teach me patience? Man, I don't think I'm ever going to learn it.

So I forget to post. I was close to forgetting Halloween, and I forgot to invite a friend to this party and almost blew that friendship. I have yet to send out a mail to my extended family informing them of the store's opening, which occurred over a month ago.

But hey - I am thankful that I am not in that absolutely terrible spot I was in 3 - 4 weeks ago when all I was doing was working and not sleeping. I need sleep now because of that time, but I think that I might actually get it in a day or two. Exciting!

And I'm thankful that for four days, I'll only have the one job and the family, rather than two jobs and family. Awesome!

And dudes! I found the most interesting thing in the news that made me utterly thankful for Madeleine L'Engle books. Remember mitochondria? The only place I ever heard about it is from her books. Well... apparently they have been put into use to find bombs, but in the future they may help with things like cell phones and mp3 players. Isn't this bizarre?

Hindustan Times
November 24, 2008
MITOCHONDRIA POWERS NEW EXPLOSIVES DETECTOR
Scientists have borrowed the technology that living cells use to produce energy, namely mitochondria, to develop a tiny, self-powered sensor for rapid detection of hidden explosives.
The experimental sensor, about the size of a postage stamp, represents the first of its kind to be powered by mitochondria, the microscopic "powerhouses" that provide energy to living cells, according to the researchers.
In the new study, researchers Shelley Minteer, Marguerite Germain, and Robert Arechederra, from Missouri, US, point out that today's explosives detectors are expensive, bulky, and complex.
They suggest that the society needs smaller, cheaper, simpler detection devices, based on technology that perhaps could be incorporated into cell phones and portable digital music players.
The scientists have developed an experimental sensor built from a special biofuel cell, essentially a battery-like device consisting of a thin layer of mitochondria sandwiched between a carbon-based electrode and a gas-permeable electrode.
In laboratory studies using nitrobenzene as a test compound, the sensor showed a significant boost in electrical power in the presence of the substance, demonstrating the sensor's potential for detecting TNT and related explosives, the researchers said.

So, sorry for the missed day. Here's hoping the Thanksgiving is full of warm thoughts, filling food, and healthy doses of sleep.

What About Bob.

I have an overwhelming urge to make you see Bob Dylan in my light; so here it goes though I never felt more like I'm gonna fail. Dylan needs me to watch his back like I needed that cyst I had removed from mine an hour ago...

First ride to summer school after switching from Strake Jesuit College Prep to Mirabeau B. Lamar Public High School, picked up by two strange girls got hooked up with by my mom. One is all punked out and the other kinda hippie freak. I'm looking pretty Members' Only dumb myself. I ask what the Butthole Surfers sticker on the glove compartment means and what station is this. KTR Who? Hard Rain comes on the radio and hippie freak asks us to hush on account of it being one of her favs and she sings along. Bob Dylan. The Kikkers teased him. The Elitists own him. And I luv him cuz he, these two girls, and the Butthole Surfers said I could sing.

L.A. Photo Log

A cool place called the Wulf, across the street from a strip club with neon signage, in a neighborhood that very much reminded me of Houston's warehouse district. I was one of three audience members.

Photocell equipped audio installation art on the wall.

After the muzak, we hung out on the roof, which was decked out with a bar, tables, stools, plants, heat lamps, view of downtown, audio from a band practice space across the parking lot.

Echo Curio, on Sunset. There were gunshots at very close range during the first set. The proprietor went outside and saw a fellow running east past the venue. The music did not stop.

brickbottom

This weekend was Open Studios at Brickbottom Artist Lofts, where I now live. I spent yesterday walking around, and discovered that Ron Pownall, noted and prolific rock photographer, is here. I encourage you to look at his site - he's got some pretty awesome photos. One of the more NAPworthy details is that he worked a lot with Boston, which I guess makes sense. Brickbottom has been here for 21 years - I wonder if they did any shoots here.

Although I didn't get a picture of it, he had a camera in the corner with what looked to be either a very wide angle lens or a fisheye lens, and you could hear it snap every 90 seconds or so. I figured if he was taking pictures of us, we could take pictures of him.



It should be noted that any photos herein containing images of Ron's are strictly for your personal use and enjoyment. I'm not sure if it's copyright infringement to put up photos containing his images, but I'm going to go ahead and do it and hope it's not. He seems like a really nice guy.

I think this one looks a little like Justin:



The feel of his place was museum-like.







When I introduced myself as his neighbor, he took quite some time to tell me the story of the record cover for the Fools (see roughly center center on the wall in photo below) and how they got the free Apollo image of the Earth from NASA and digitized it and made the whole thing for like ten bucks.



On a separate note, the topic of last week's musical interfaces lecture was the electric guitar. My favorite part was the e-bowing discussion and the stories and videos of the Gizmotron, a promising but ultimately doomed device with little wheels that bowed individual guitar strings when the buttons above them were pushed. Another wacky highlight was the Glissando Guitar Orchestrae.


Glissando Guitar Orchestrae - 'F' Heart Drone extract from Planet Gong on Vimeo.

Right Way / Wrong Way: Particularity

It’s a truism in writing workshops and English classes that deft use of detail in creative writing can improve your poetry and fiction. I’d say the same is true for song lyrics. Seems like the best songs will always include bits of the particular alongside the more imagistic and emotional generalities that necessarily underpin pop lyric writing.

As Edward Tufte recommends in his information design presentations, you should intertwine the general and the particular. Your basic premises and supporting details should reinforce each other and interact, strengthening the framework of your ideas so that your audience is engaged and can remember what you’ve told them. Yes, Tufte was talking about speaking engagements, but the same advice is well-suited to songwriting.

Wrong way
The strength of details is so obvious to amateur writers that it’s easy to go overboard. When I was getting my creative writing degree, I slogged through a ton of workshops with classmates who would focus so thoroughly on details they couldn’t move the plot forward or articulate their themes. They’d get caught up in product placement. Like unskilled versions of Bret Easton Ellis, they’d go on about the trim options on the protagonist’s Toyota Four Runner without specifying how it related to his  mother’s death.

A skit on last Saturday’s SNL perfectly nailed the hilarity and tedium of using too much detail in your songwriting. That unexpectedly solid SNL moment, coming after Weekend Update, is what started me thinking about this subject. Because a great song should just about always include an entire UPS tracking number, right?

Right Way
Yesterday would have been the 110th birthday of the Belgian Surrealist,  René Magritte. Google celebrated in typical fashion by reimagining their logo as one of Magritte’s most famous works, Golconda, which is part of Houston’s Menil Collection.

Before I had ever heard of Magritte, I loved Paul Simon’s “René and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War”. I first heard it when I bought Negotiations and Love Songs from BMG’s music club.

I was 17, so surrealist art hadn’t yet caught my attention.   What did earn my attention was the way Simon painted this couple’s movements within a comfortable, prosperous, and new post-war West. The entire song is a litany of small pleasures that would have been magnified for anyone fresh from waiting out World War II in occupied Brussels.

René and Georgette Magritte
With their dog after the war
Returned to their hotel suite
And they unlocked the door
Easily losing their evening clothes
They danced by the light of the moon
To the penguins, the moonglows
The orioles, and the Five Satins
The deep forbidden music
They'd been longing for
René and Georgette Magritte
With their dog after the war

René and Georgette Magritte
With their dog after the war
Were strolling down Christopher Street
When they stopped in a men's store
With all of the mannequins dressed in the style
That brought tears to their immigrant eyes
Just like the penguins, the moonglows
The orioles, and the Five Satins
The easy stream of laughter
Flowing through the air
René and Georgette Magritte
With their dog après la guerre

This week’s release of Paul Simon’s collected Lyrics 1964-2008, is a reminder that his portrait of Magritte is only one example of Simon’s mastery. But his use of details here is particularly skillful, because it echoes some of Magritte’s own themes: his highly technical portrayal of objects such as hats and pipes (and menswear) separate and apart from their owners:

Side by side
They fell asleep
Decades gliding by like Indians
Time is cheap
When they wake up they will find
All their personal belongings
Have intertwined

It’s one of my favorite songs ever.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Paul Simon Pt. 1

Ron Paul Interview
Bob Barr Interview

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

I've Failed You

All I have this week is a couple YouTube links.

Week 108: Peter Gabriel

What can I say about Peter Gabriel that you who read this blog don’t already know? Not much I bet, so this is going to be short.

Just in case you are like me and somehow missed it, I’m just going to tell you that if you haven’t seen the 2003 concert movie, Growing Up Live, then you should. I hadn’t seen it until recently, and as much as I already liked Peter Gabriel, that video made it clear to me that his game has only gotten better. He now carries himself with the calmness and confidence of a high priest of music. It really is a marvel to see and hear.

Here’s a couple of clips.



And the one that’s been seared into my mind since I saw it a few weeks ago:



By comparison I recently saw on TV a concert movie of Phil Collins at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I like some Phil Collins stuff, I don’t completely disregard him or hate him as some do. But watching him right after watching the Peter Gabriel DVD was a little gross. The similarities are so many and at the same time they are nothing alike. I don’t even think that Phil is trying to imitate Peter, though the thought does occur. It is more as if they both had some similar formative experience and while Phil made ketchup out if it, Peter made seared tuna steak with ginger and peanut sauce over fresh leaf lettuce. Ketchup is ok sometimes, but not after what Peter has been cooking.

What could follow Peter’s show? Who could be the tiramisu?

When Capitalist Media Meets Socialist Art Event

Ana Belava keeps her cool while covering local art event for SuperStation WGN.





And something from Beetsolonely for the Lawrence Welk Show fan (and those yet unconvinced of its wondrousness).



Present Words
From Today's New York Times, The Anatomy of a Flop.

Do NOT Open Until Weekend!!!

Music in the Grocery Store

Where to start, really? The problems with grocery store music started long ago and seem to be US-wide. It seems like the places I shop always use the same formula - oldies from 20 years previous.

When I was a little girl, it was 50s and 60s music. The music from my Mom's high school and college days. A year or so ago, it finally happened, they started playing music from my college and high school days. Sigh.

I couldn't believe it. Songs I hadn't heard for awhile shouldn't be heard in the grocery store. A grocery store should never have played The Cure or, worse, Echo and the Bunnymen. That stuff wasn't even on the radio, and somehow now it's ok in grocery stores? No, it doesn't make it cool, it makes it sad. For some reason, the pain and angst and hard won glory have been reduced to fluff while you shop.

It's almost unacceptable.

Before one has a chance to get over it, in comes the holiday music. Normally, I don't mind the holiday music coming in a bit early as I just love winter holiday.

However, I think that now having visited Singapore, it's finally over for me. These aholes have already started the Christmas music over here - complete with full decorations in the streets!


I had no idea Singapore had full on Christmas, with no bothersome Thanksgiving to get in the way. But of course what this means is that in the grocery stores they are playing Christmas songs, with only 6 weeks to go until Christmas.

Not to mention the Christmas trees everywhere, the sales ladies wearing Christmas corsages, the lights in the streets, the holiday flavored drinks, etc.

I was already on the verge of despising the stores that played music without regard to the listener. And there's the crux of it. It's all about manipulation with the grocery store music and my memories are being exploited because of it. I'll take Facebook over grocery store music any day.

Some say that major chord music sells more than minor, so why Echo and the Bunnymen and The Cure are used, don't get it. They also say that songs with certain beats help you buy more.

I just want some good music to create an overall happy experience, which is something I, personally, generally strive for anyway. I recognize that some people like other music better, and vice versa, but this problem isn't about that. This is about using music in ways that just aren't appropriate.

I nominate some lovely classical of some kind, or some jazz would be awesome. Do not play Christmas music 6 weeks before Christmas happens, for many reasons not the least of which is that not everybody is a Christian who observes, so if you're going to do it, how about maybe 3 weeks before at the most. And probably the worst, I don't want my age revealed to me in the harsh daylight of a commercial retail experience. Everybody knows what it means now, and it's doing the opposite, forcing me to get out of the place as quick as I can, and NOT leisurely shopping to get everything you want to sell me.

There are so many ways they could be innovative and provide a nice time while shopping. Sounds like a fun project, really. I wonder if any grocery store chain is even thinking about it? Or will they always be using this same formula that was tired before it even started?

Rockin' at the Red Dog

A short note from Reno. A while back I read a short but informative book about the development of the psychedelic San Francisco music scene back in the sixties. Can't seem to find it in the library catalog at the moment, but I think it was called "San Francisco Scene" or "San Francisco in the Sixties", or something like that. One of the bands that really kinda kicked off the scene were the Charlatans, and one interesting aspect of their development was their frequent trips to a place called the Red Dog Saloon, in Virginia City, Nevada. Back in the days of the Comstock Lode, the silver and gold from Virginia City helped to build San Francisco.

Intrigued by the book, as well as the movie Rockin' at the Red Dog, I went to the visitors' center to ask about its whereabouts. A woman dressed in period costume was happy to reminisce. Unfortunately, several years ago, new owners bought the building and jacked up the rent, forcing the Red Dog to close. Here's the building. The right half is boarded up at the moment, while a new establishment is apparently in the left half.
One of the old signs is reputedly hanging in another local establishment, though I wasn't able to locate it, and one is hanging outdoors. Of course, they used to have tons of vintage concert posters. Also formerly in the saloon, but now at some unknown location, is the only three dimensional artpiece made by the dude who designed the Grateful Dead skeleton.

Don't have time to detail all the fun they had back in the day, of dressing up in olde tyme clothes, playing music and shooting guns indoors, but check out this and this. Here's the view looking out of town to the east:

so easy, even a baby can play it

this was on my flight last week.

Lost Someone

This song is my jam right now. I'm kinda busy and headed to San Antonio this week, so enjoy the JB, I'll post something longer next week.



James Brown - Lost Someone

Svenskar

You will now click this link and discover the wonder of Swedish Dansbands. "Why do so many of them have matching silly costumes?" you are asking yourself right now, aren't you? Well, apparently it was possible to deduct the cost of stage costumes from your taxes in Sweden, so long as you only used the costumes for performing. In order to secure these tax breaks, the dansbands got themselves the most ostentatious costumes they could find. Nobody would ever want to wear these things on the street, so there would be no question of their purpose. I'm guessing these guys didn't qualify, though.

Clearly we need a similar tax incentive in our own country. There has been a dearth of matching outfits in popular music of late.

Week 107: &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

THE DAILY SUN 2

One of the things I love about music is the way it shapes time and makes me feel like I can actually move back and forth in time, slow it down or speed it up, turn it around and go backwards, or any of a number of other time maneuvers and summersaults that make me feel like I actually have some semblance of control over it, which is more than I can say for my daily life.

One of the things that I enjoy the most, and that I call a free time maneuver sometimes happens when I play in a band. Let me see if I can describe it. Let’s say we are playing a gig or a rehearsal, and we are playing a certain chord progression or song. This could be a very loose arrangement, improvising over a vamp, or it could be a fairly strict composition with little room for chance. Either way one of the things I love about music is that even in the strictest compositions music is always flexible.

So we are playing along and I realize we are coming to a certain part in the music, say a turnaround in the melody or a change in rhythm, or maybe even a simple chord change. Right before this moment comes up I get an idea of something that I can do at that point, at that very moment of the change. Something unexpected, surprising, something that I would want to hear happen at that point, something that would enhance that specific moment, an accent, a harmonic variation, an adjustment to the tempo, a rhythmic inversion. It might work or it might not, either way it’s a chance that I like to take, sometimes more daringly, sometimes less so. Often times I know I’ll get a glare from the rest of the group, wondering what I’m doing, but not always. Sometimes it’s magic, sometimes it’s the way things should be. So I have to chance it, because it’s those moments that keep me sane.

I described it as very deliberate, but it all happens intuitively, in the blink of an eye. I get the idea, with some luck a measure before, but most often much closer to the moment when I need to execute it. Most times, the moment is upon me as I’m getting the idea so I just respond and do my variation. Most of the time, the rest of the band looks up at me, and everything continues on smoothly. If there is an audience, they might not even notice anything different going on.

But sometimes, just once in a while, right before the moment arrives, and after I’ve had the idea, in that micro-instant of a moment, someone else in the band does something that prefaces my idea in a way that seems as if she knew exactly what I was planning to do, and decided to insert her own idea as a lead-in to mine. It’s like she read my mind, and it gives me the feeling of moving backwards in time for a moment. Like when someone answers your question before you ask it. Or an even more accurate comparison would be, not when someone else finishes a sentence that you started, but the opposite, when someone else starts the sentence you were about to finish.

And sometimes, in those rarest of occasions, I realize that my idea was just a preface to something someone else was going to do, and that in that smallest of moments there is room for more. And it feels like the moment just continues to expand to allow more and more music. And if you can string together enough of these moments, you end up in another time, a time where you are one with time, you and the rest of the group moving through the time of the music in the way that you intended, even as you don’t know what that is.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen often. Not in music, even less in the rest of my life. The more general feeling is that other people in the world are intending a time that keeps rejecting me. Everyone else is starting and finishing sentences that I can’t begin nor end, that I don’t want to begin or end.

This doesn’t mean that there is nothing out there in the world that appeals to me. On the contrary, I find great enjoyment in much of what my fellow humans create. A good Brooklyn-Bronx game, almost anything Dizzy recorded, Garcia Marquez’s Amor en los Tiempos del Colera, Borges’ Aleph… And there are a few others. But most of the time the attraction is the attraction of interacting with someone else. They show me their music or their books or their sentences and I show them mine. And we nod appreciatively and I go to another time, and they are glad I’m gone. And I’m glad they are gone. I am me and you are you, and we are not together.

But there are those occasional magical moments. They happen often enough in my immediate personal life, mostly with Monica, but they hardly ever happen in the larger world. I never identify like that with someone I see on TV or in a movie or a recording or a book. Not when I see them talking on TV not when I read what they’ve written or heard what they’ve recorded.

Only once in a while does this happen. Only once in a while do I find someone out there in the world that is starting or finishing my sentences without knowing me. It’s very rare, but it happens. And it happened yesterday. Alfredo recommended that I might like this book, so even though I generally don’t take recommendations from Alfredo, today he is so old and tired that I don’t have the heart to say no and I take the book with me as I leave his dingy Staten Island apartment stacked wall to wall with newspapers and books. I was surprised to find myself in the ferry with the book still in my hand, so I opened it and started to read it.

After reading two pages I already felt like I had written this book or more accurately like I had written a version of it. Like this author had either read something I had not yet written and written her response to it or maybe like she knew who I was and had written a story about someone just like me. It’s a novel, but as I read it I felt like I was making the words as I read them. Like she wrote the story that I have been writing in my mind my whole life. I’m no stranger to déjà vu, but reading this book was a very strange version of it. If I was more superstitious I would worry that reading this book was going to cause some little girl to come crawling out of the well where she’s been rotting, and she’s going to come out through the pages of the book to kill me. But this book is a sweet romantic book about love, not a horror story. Yet, I can’t say that it is not a little scary to be reading the words of a stranger as if they were my own.

I couldn’t finish the book. I stayed on the docks reading it, but it was already late and I’d been up for a few days, and I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t stay up long enough to finish it. So I fell asleep on a bench and now the book is gone, along with that time. And there’s that prick Frank banging on the door waking me up to go deliver newspapers. Maybe today is the day that I quit this house.

But for now I’m going to lay in bed a little longer. You know, I want to tell you about this book; I want you to read this book. But I can’t bring myself to tell you what book it is because I sound like a crazy person, and I’m afraid it will get back to her who wrote the book. And if it does, I don’t know what would happen. I’m sure she would be terrified of me. I mean, I sound like one of those people like the Son of Sam that gets secret messages from some neighbor’s dog. But I’m not like that.

Ok, I’ll try being nice to Frank today. Have I tried that before?

Spirits

Present Phantom

My Fortieth birthday was awfully quiet. The usual calls from aunts, cousins, grandma were noticeably absent. No call from mom (although we might have beat her to it with Skype - we called her so she could see Clara cruising). No writing on my Facebook Wall. I passed into phantom on that decidedly futureless birthday, 4-0.

I did get an email from Kathy Power that made me smile. Kathy and I are exact birthday mates. She is my female counterpart on earth. Her email had no subject. The body was composed of mostly white space. "We're forty" it read.

Every so often in the past few months Tricia would mention that my birthday falls on a Saturday this year. She would suggest things we could do but I always let the conversation fizzle away. Not that I'm bummed about turning 40 - it's more that I've hardly noticed and as far as birthday wishes go, I think much more about Clara's first than my two score.

This is not to say that I no longer harbor ambitions. But I can't seem to help that the future in my mind belongs to Clara right now. As she grows I'm sure that will change. This moment is just that and life is long.

A Ghost from the Past

The Original de Schmog Fairy Tale is now available at all your favorite online digital music stores including: eMusic, iTunes, Last.fm, Napster, Rhapsody and many many more.

This is the Rudyard's Recording from 1992 featuring the Sprawl Horns and a dildo. I'm very excited to make this available and I hope you will download it and play it for all your friends (the cool new artwork was commissioned from Mr. John Cramer for a song. I hope you enjoy that too).




Here's the de Schmog Fairy Tale Orchestra Performing the Flames that Were in His Heart.

By

By the

By the way,

By the way, I happened upon a TheSkyLine.Net review the other day that references the Fairy Tale. While I wholeheartedly agree that the Live Fairy Tale recording has a better vibe than most of de Schmog's studio work, I don't recall (as the article mentions) doing anything extra to the recording back at the studio. We certainly didn't do any overdubs during mixdown. The rock opera was recorded live straight through. We even took into account that the reel-to-reel tape needed to be exchanged. The taping had to stop briefly but de Schmog did not. That's why the Middleture fades out and then in (Out is where you flip the cassette --cassette was the only previous form of release until this online distribution).

I love live recordings in general, more so apparently than the Skyline crew. de Schmog definitely had some live magic. I still feel lucky and proud to this day that we captured this so well.

New Spirit

A Review of the Exquisite City.

Heading To Singapore Lounge Cast

I can't believe how long its been since I posted a podcast, but since time is a big tangled web of threads, it was really just a moment ago anyway.

I'm enjoying calling all my casts a Lounge Cast. This one is the Headin to Singapore Lounge cast since I'll be heading there Thursday morning bright and early. Next week's post will be from there! 4 years since my last vacation!

Cryptacize Interview

Here is my interview with 66.6(repeating)% of Cryptacize, who I mentioned in my last post, and who are still on tour. This interview took place 2008-10-24 Fri in a car motoring from Oakland to San Francisco over the San Francisco Bay, by way of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. I rode shotgun while Chris Cohen (guitar, vocals) drove. Nedelle Torrisi (guitar, autoharp, vocals) sat behind me, opposite our friend Yasi. Percussionist/harmonica enthusiast Michael Carreira stayed in the East Bay.


So... how's it going?

NT: You've never done this before, have you?

I hear that you've been working on a record lately?

CC: Where'd you hear that?

I dunno, from the internet.

CC: You heard it from me.

So how's it been going? So you're recording in your mountain hideaway?

CC: We recorded in a lot of different places. We recorded at Nedelle's parents in Nedelle's brother's old room in Vacaville. We recorded in our closet. We recorded at my parent's house in L.A. We recorded at their cabin too, near Yosemite. We haven't had our apartment, so we've been traveling around and living in different places and recording where we could.

Are you recording onto laptop, I guess?

CC: Yeah, we've recorded it all in ProTools. Our friend calls it "Blow Tools". I don't think it blows, I like it.

So how is this album shaping up compared to the last one?

CC: Pretty bad. No, I'm just kidding.

NT: It's good. I think it's better.

CC: It's better? Are you asking when you say "shaping up", do you mean good or bad, or...?

Well, just in terms of, is it a new musical direction, or is it more of the same?

CC: It's a lot thicker. It's the same direction in a lot of ways, but it's been executed more thickly.

Like in terms of more overdubs, or in terms of using distortion this time...?

CC: Well, there was lots of distortion on Dig That Treasure.

NT: It was accidental distortion, this time it's intentional.

CC: We got new fuzz pedals. But yeah, there's a lot more overdubs, and kind of like a more fantasy approach, where we didn't know how to play the songs beforehand, except for a couple of them. The last time we recorded, we knew how to play all of our songs, pretty much, and then we recorded them together.

I understand [drummer/percussionist] Mike [Carreira] wasn't along for these various trips?

CC: Mike came out to the cabin to do his drum tracks a couple different times. He did a couple trips. And then we would show him stuff after we did it, periodically. Mike didn't really do any overdubs. A lot of songs actually just started with the drums, and Mike never really went back and did another pass at a song, he would pretty much do one take.

He was perfect from the start?

CC: Yeah, you might say.

So I guess the songs had to retain the same structure as your initial take on them because of that?

CC: No, because we chopped it up a lot after. A lot of the structure of the songs totally changed since Mike recorded his drums. And we did a lot of things that were actually loops and stuff, although you wouldn't necessarily know that.

So what stage are you at now? You've recorded all the stuff, have you mixed it yet?

CC: Yeah, we've been mixing it for almost two months or something. We're not quite done.

Is it gonna come out on the same label as last time?

CC: Yeah, same label, Asthmatic Kitty. We're gonna put out a 7", hopefully before the album comes out. We're working on something with Burning Star Core. He's gonna edit our album down to a couple minutes, so it's gonna be like a highlights reel, and that'll be a sneak peak of the album. A 'sizzle reel'. One side of it's gonna be that, and the other side of it hopefully, if everything goes as planned, is gonna be... well, it's a surprise.

And that will be on the same label?

CC: No. Actually, we don't have a label to put that out yet; we're shopping.

What are you doing for the videos?

CC: We're gonna make some ourselves; we got a camera. We were watching these squirrels at my parents' house. My parents bought a bird feeder and they filled it with sunflower seeds, and they put it on their back porch. But my dad was too lazy to hang it up in the tree, so he just left it on the porch, and then all these squirrels have come to eat it, and the birds can't get at it. These squirrels have these super-macho power struggles over food, and we have a lot of footage of that we're considering maybe somehow using.

NT: I was gonna make them lip-sync to one of our songs, because when they're eating their mouths are moving really fast, but if you slow it down, it can look like they're singing.

CC: Also, there are some really cute ones, like there are these little baby ones. There's chipmunks and squirrels.

NT: And they also do some dance moves sometimes that are really cute.

CC: And we also have some other videos maybe in the works. Our friend Darren Keen, a.k.a. "The Show is the Rainbow" is going to make one and this dude Donovan Vim Crony is hopefully gonna make a video for us too.

What exactly is the deal with this Danielson tour? You're gonna be in their backing band?

CC: We're gonna be involved somehow. We're not really exactly sure.

NT: I know we're gonna wear some cool shoes.

CC: Yeah, we saw pictures of the shoes the other day.

NT: Specialized shoes made by John Fluevog for Danielson.

But are you guys are gonna be playing as part of the Danielson band?

CC: We asked them if we could open for them; we have the same booking guy. Erik, the booking guy said that Daniel's putting together a new band, because the family can't go on tour so I was like, maybe we can offer to play in his band, as an incentive, if we played in the band for free.

Have you been listening to all their CD's just in case?

CC: Yeah, he gave us a list of the possible songs, so we're trying to learn all the words.

NT: I'm trying.

CC: Nedelle's trying. I'm gonna cram at the last second, cause I have to finish mixing our record...

NT: You should listen to the CD nonstop on the flight to the East Coast. I'm excited.

So that's the situation for the whole tour? You're opening for them?

CC: Yeah, he's taking us along for the whole tour. We're very grateful to him.

So what's the future after this next tour? The album comes out in...?

NT: April. We're just gonna try to get jobs again, and work on some videos and 7"'s and just fun things, but kinda just wait for the record to come out.

Did you have a lot of extra songs that you wrote and aren't using?

NT: We had one extra song, which hopefully we can arrange in a way that pleases all of us.

CC: And we have lots of tiny parts that we threw out.

You kind of have a bucket of those sitting around, that you can string together into songs?

Yasi: How tiny?

CC: Pretty tiny.

Yasi: Like a bar?

NT: Everywhere from a bar, sure, definitely... Like a little riff...

Yasi: Less than a bar?

NT: Oh, Chris probably has some that are less than a bar.

CC: No...

NT: Really? But you have real short things.

CC: They go by fast.

NT: Mine are mostly whole chord progressions. Chris has a lot of riffs.

CC: I have one that I can show you right now. Actually, this one hasn't been thrown out yet though, and it actually might already be a song, I'm not sure. I've been kinda working on it. It goes like [sings]... I think it might be stolen from the breakdown in "Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer. Like [sings]...

NT: No, that's not it, [sings]...

Do you have that problem a lot, where you write something, and then you're like, "oh wait, that's Ghostbusters", or something?

NT: I think we've had moments like that, not like ripping off "Ghostbusters" per se, but...

[Yasi whispers something to Nedelle.]

NT: No way, really?

CC: You've ripped it off?

NT: How did Conor just pull that out?

Yasi: Ghostbusters? I don't know, we didn't talk about it.

NT: That's weird.

What?

CC: Nedelle thinks that I ripped off the NPR theme.

NT: Yeah, the "All Things Considered", it goes [sings]...

Yasi: Yeah, yeah.

CC: It sounds like it when you sing it, but when you hear it, it doesn't really...

Yasi: No, I wasn't saying "yeah", I was saying "yeah" like, "I love that song".

CC: I actually don't love that song at all, but I guess...<