Other Music

Two posts in the same day!! This is a movie called Other Music. Hilarious.



Description: An average day at NYC indie record store Other Music. Produced by Human Giant for the 2006 PLUG Awards

News

Amanda and I are engaged! I asked her to marry me yesterday night and she said yes.

:)

In other (far less important) news, check out this hilarious editorial in the state news. College boredom might explain porch attack; maybe was deserved. Totally hilarious. A teeny-tiny bit inflammatory but hilarious none the less. my favorite part? "Maybe the guy was just liquored up. Maybe my porch did provoke him. And maybe all those people at the bars aren't really wasting their time, but instead are out having deep conversations about eliminating war and poverty and inequality."

Also, I can't seem to find an article printed in the state news about All Season's Bistro being designated as one of the top 5 bathrooms in the country. It was in the statenews, but I can't find it on their online page. I did find a Newsday articlehere.

Ok, now as I type this blog, I've found the best restroom page and here it is. Vote for it. Go to the restaurant, buy a glass of wine and use the restroom! Amanda and I went there for a romantic dinner not too long ago. I ordered duck.

It gets better Ssh/Peaceful-ofiles! Here are some photos from the site.

I've done my buisness in THAT urinal before!!

Look at that floral arrangement. I've seen it!

Lastly, for my music recommendation for monday, check out Shortwave Radio on myspace and buy their stuff on itunes, etc. I've been listening to the four songs like 20 times. I'm gonna get Amanda to let me use her Itunes account so I can buy it.

re-make/re-model.

Sunday afternoon. A good time. Morning at IHOP. Always wonderful. I love pancakes. The above image was drawn by Matt Bergstrom and is found on his website "Pancakes Across America." I commend you, Matt and your quest to enjoy and illustrate this wonderful eat.


Concert last night with Kratus went well. I had some output/volume issues on a few tracks, and didn't think to change my end...thought it was the soundguy's end. It wasn't though. Once that got finished, I had a great time at the show. Highlights included;

My Heart Soars: sang a duet with Kratus, with some rather odd lyrics, but really cool arrangement. I love the flute part.

Footprints: a fun song with a nice pomp, pride and royal arrangement, as the arrangements grow more complex and the dynamic rises, I move my keyboard into a higher register, kick on the leslie and feel the warmth. great moment.

We Have Forgotten Who We are: supposedly written based off of a United Nations report? hmm. Great progression and when we go to the b diminished to b flat chord, I have my favorite counter melody in the entire show. Plus it has a blusey ending where I was able to do some glissandos. Always fun with organ.

Shadows: my part of the song doesn't really do anything for me, it's the end where it shifts and the singers and kratus sing "this is the way that i die." pretty strong and eerie.

A Light Exists in Spring: the single as we would say...I pretty much play tonic the entire song until the chorus where I go into these higher register chord changes on the guitar. I love just playing single note lines mixed into songs. Nobody needs to do chords. Plus a sruti box drone!

We Belong, Twilight, and The Sun Has Disappeared: I don't play on any of these songs but they all have orchestral, psudo-prog rock/rock opera overtones. And how can you not like orchestra/brass sections and a rock group??

--

After it was over, I met up with Mandy at the party and had a good time, despite getting a little panicky when I was sitting on a low couch and was surrounded by a sea of butts locking me in. I get a little panicky when I'm in a small place or I feel blocked in...definitely when I'm sitting down and butts are blocking me in every direction...definitely. Eventually got up and talked with people and had a good time. Before the butt-panic, Amanda and I went to go get some money to pay for a glass for the keg, and ended up at McDonalds and saw Tanya and Colin...had a breif meal with them, talked about the Monologues, and other stuff.

Lastly, after my last post attacking the editorial writer from Young Americans for Freedom, I thought I'd leave everybody with a link to this page...pancakes on the mind, Pancakes for Pinkos.

Ps. Listening to the first Roxy Music record all day. Big plans afoot!


And I guess, for fun I'll actually do something that refers to the band. Here's a pic from Bethanne's blog from 80s night.

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Also, RIP Don Knotts.

Vagina Monologues, Eno, Friday

Today is Friday. For the first time in a week, I have no specific music-related activity destined for the evening. Since last Wednesday (Feb 15) I've had rehearsals or performances or recording dates set. It's nice to not have anything happening.

Tonight marks the opening for the Vagina Monologues. Amanda has one of the monologues, "The Vagina Workshop" and I am excited to see the performance. The group has received a respectable amount of attention from local media, which includes this editorial in the state news, but also feature articles and a spot on local ABC entertainment show. She has been working long and hard on the events, and I am very proud of the cast, and very proud that MSU is hosting such an event. The main page for the Monologues is here.

Spent a while reading this Lester Bangs article on Brian Eno and his creative process. Most people probably think that I reference Eno as an influence because of his "ambient style" or this and that, but I am most interested in his process which is filled with very tangible moments of creative decision making. He seems uninterested in keeping his cards hidden and his secrets veiled, and I enjoy that. A lot of his theories (including the infamous oblique strategies) were used in the production of the current Beasts of Burden record.

Rehearsal yesterday was long, slightly circus-like, but very rewarding and enjoyable. I'm impressed with relative calm of many of the musicians, including Kratus himself. I ended up meeting Nate from Of the Sea at the rehearsal...he is involved with the sound reinforcement during the performance. We talked a bit about the trials and terrors of Pure Data or PD, which is a fantastic, but programming-based nightmare for myself. The program was created by Miller Puckette. The potential for PD is unbelievable, but my time is limited and my patience is too low. Frankly, my knowledge may be there, but it really IS the patience issue. I've been stalking other programs that can possibly get me the reality of the system I've come up with (i'll post the bitmap later). Bidule seems like a nice option. We'll see.

To yet again continue my pilfering of links from Brian Slagle I would like to directly paste in a recent cartoon from whiteninjacomics.com I was not familiar with this site, but I've started to check it on a regular basis, and this one in particular is quite funny to me. White Ninja Comics are written and drawn by Scott Bevan and Kent Earle.



Lastly, I've been digging older Liars stuff, and now, with pitchfork giving them such a high rating (9)...I can't help but admit that my interest has been stoked...I mean krautrock-ish realities, huh...link to review. And if you don't trust pitchfork...tiny mix tapes=5/5. link.

Laundry, space-out.

Here's what dictionary.com had to say about caffeine...

caf·feine also caf·fein (k-fn, kfn, kf-n) n.

A bitter white alkaloid, C8H10N4O2, often derived from tea or coffee and used in medicine chiefly as a mild stimulant and to treat certain kinds of headache.




Funny, it didn't really mention the fact that caffeine is used to simply get going in the morning, afternoon or whenever you need it. Basically, the coffee and tea didn't do it for me tonight, though...the rehearsal was great and I came home jazzed ready to do something.

Laundry was the answer. Almost 3 am, I'll be soon ready to pick up my laundry and go to sleep, which is really more of a nap, since I have to TA at 8:30. Did four loads of laundry...small loads...divided into reds/oranges, whites/socks, and two distinct types of pants; heavy and light pants.

I am not at all prepared for my composition lesson with Mark Sullivan, so I may cancel it out of respect for his time. Usually I at least read things we talked about the week before, but things have been far too busy for me to do anything. We discussed at length last week the implication of technology on the creative process and I've spent much of the week pondering it, but not really get anywhere. I was supposed to get in touch with Nate, a composition major and member of a cool act Of the Sea (who the Beasts and I are playing with in April), but haven't gotten around to it...as I said, too many rehearsals...

In case I haven't told you, check out Golan Levin's page which has links to a bunch of his installations. They are fantastic. Even if you aren't into mixed media projects you at least need to go...so you can tell your friends you've been to the website entitled flong.

Lastly, continuing a personal-new trend of link snagging, this week's special article in pitchforkmedia.com focuses in on honesty and the anti-image in indie rock. I am most fascinated with a fleeting statement that seems to reflect where I am right now. "The inevitable presentation at the core of musical performance imbues emo histrionics or Bruce Springsteen blue-collar folksiness alike with cognitive dissonance." Check out the article here.

February, 21st, 3006.

My work with the John Kratus recital requires me to bring my virtual instrument and guitar/fx rig, which equals in specifics the following items.

1. Dell Tower
(with programs including VST chainer application, mr ray and mr tramp electric piano plugins, native instruments b4, and native instruments hypersonic)
2. Computer Screen
(Acer, borrowed from Vince Spooky Perri of Binary Detroit)
3. Keypad, mouse, computer speakers/subwoofer and cables
4. Roland XP-10 synthesizer used only for midi control (powered by an 8-bit Nintendo power adapter)
5. M Audio USB MIDI cable
6. M Audio Sustain Pedal
7. Fender 1969 Reissue Thin-Line Telecaster with stock single coils
8. Boss Tuner
9. Electro Harmonix POG
10. Electro Harmonix Big Muff-Pi Fuzz Pedal (Russian Reissue Version)
11. Boss Compression/Sustainer
12. Danelectro Reel Echo Delay Pedal
13. Electro Harmonix Holy Grail Reverb pedal
14. Behringer direct box
15. Plenty of patch cables
16. Bottle-neck Slide

Basically, the point of this list is to show that moving all this equipment back and forth every day for each of the rehearsals (we rehearse every night except Friday this week) would be far too much trouble, so I've decided to just store the equipment in an undisclosed location in the music building, and move it easily back and forth in that area.

Rehearsal last night went for the typical amount of time, and I was home by about 12:55 or so. Not really itching to go to sleep I began reading Free Play, a book about improvisation by Stephen Nachmanovich. One might assume that I wouldn't be crusin' to do some quality leisure reading, but I've been trying to do more of that these days to avoid being too connected to my computer. However, this isn't very logical considering I'm running this Blog now... It WAS still easy to implement last night since I left my actual computer in the music building.

The title of this post comes from the fact that while doing some busy work on my computer today (I went ahead and set it up downstairs), I accidentally typed today's date as Feb 21, 3006. A simple accident, yes, but it made me stop and consider just where we'll all be one thousand years from now. Maybe all gone...I mean certainly everyone alive now will be dead, but what of the human reality? I can't say it scares me to consider the future...I've never been one to truly buy into the whole Phillip K. Dick-ian future...though I like his stories. Things like the clock of the long now make me think otherwise.

Didn't get much sleep so I'm pondering napping now until about 5:00 or so. Then, a dinner date with Amanda.