considerations and other malarky

Thanks to everybody that came out and supported The Peddlers and The Beasts of Burden yesterday night. It was a nice night of music, friends and beer of some sort.

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Three records to chat about today.

Picked up this record at FYE on Woodward in Royal Oak. It's a great music store. Expensive, but has a lot of stuff. It used to the only Harmony House left after all the closings, and then it switched over to FYE too. They have this great deal on used CDs that I take advantage of when I'm in the mood. Buy 3 used, get one free. It ends up averaging about 4.50 a CD or so. And the used section constantly changes because people are constantly getting rid of stuff. In this case, I found this CD "Early Morning Migration" and decided to buy it depsite not knowing anything about it, what genre it was, or anything. It looked interesting, it was cheap (which would lower my overall amount too), so I went for it. Turns out it was electronic music. I had kind of thought the cover looked electronic-ish, and I was not only pleasantly surprised, I really have enjoyed this record quite a bit. The concept was to create rhythms with sampled non-instruments and create musical response from that. The composers, Honig and Packard, use this boundary to create slow, mellow, reflective pieces that tend to focus on the more somber side of things, or the more relaxed, depending on your mood, I suppose. The record flows nicely back to your silent environment upon completion, and leaves the listener refreshed. (PONTIFICATION!!!)

The next album is At War With the Mystics...the new Flaming Lips record which is yet to be released. Completely not of my own volition, a student of mine gave me an advanced copy of the recording, raving about it, and I gave it a spin. It's incredible. The music is dense, as per usual, but seems to be even more layered and carefully executed. Chirps, vocal samples, noises and odd beeps appear throughout the record with sirens thrown in on "Mr. Ambulence Driver" for fun. The record also has a significant amount of rockish styles to it, as opposed to the overtly-dub-electronica element which was splattered all over Yoshimi...Highly recommended. Go to your local record store on April 4 and pick it up. I'll be going.

This third record I came across at Flat Black and Circular while looking for a record by Nobukazu Takemura. The record, entitled "Komischer Pitch" by Jan Jelinek is quite a musical feast of neo-kraut-rock. Musically, it may sneak through to some listeners as really mellow electronica, but don't let its connection to the history of the artist, or the time at which it was created confuse you...it's krautrock through and through. Great krautrock. I hate that term, but it gets the point across. The allmusic review is here. Highly recommended.


I have many considerations for 2006. Here's the list...in no specific order.
1. Pay for stuff. The usual thing, but this time amplified by my pending marriage. A marriage I am very excited about, but still nervous about financially doing things. I have payments on different things, including student loans, that will kick in soon after I finish here at MSU. Plus, if I indeed have to take this summer class, that'll be a real kick to the cash flow.
2. Be employed the entire summer. This may be more difficult than initially planned as well. I have a 2 week teaching job at a gifted and talented summer songwriting program that I am very excited about, and this will provide me with good teaching experience and some financial flow, but not enough to sustain me for the coming months. My goal is to teach private songwriting lessons, which I am hoping a music school will be interested in doing. It is a promising new field of private instruction, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm ready to try it. Because of this two-week job, plus if I am taking a month-long summer class. It will be difficult to sustain a 9-5 job for the entire summer in Dearborn. I would love to work again at Ford Motor Company as a photo assistant...it just depends on their amount of work. I am still on file to be employed there, technically.
3. Listen to music more carefully. I am growing more concerned every day with the world's choice of passive music listening, and instead of spending my days complaining about it, I've decided to reform my own habits and listen to music more carefully than I currently do. I still listen to albums all the way through quite a bit, but I feel as though my listening has slipped some and become more of a surface listening than deeper more careful enjoyment. Perhaps I am simply aware of how I've always been when it comes to listening, but I feel it is time to change.
4. Savor my engagement. Everyone says it can be a stressful time, or that it can be the last great time before your life ends. I think the truth in those statements lies in the type of people saying the statements, and I know for one, that I can't wait to be married and get on with my life. However, being engaged is great and I want to enjoy it and experience the path with ease.
5. Consider politics and social situations with less fatalistic viewpoints. This is a difficult one for me. I am constantly watching and reading and experiencing the world around me and oftentimes find myself wandering off into this cryptic world where I seem to know how everything will be, how it's going to get there, and how much everything is "a shame." Worthless.
6. Enjoy entertainment. These days I find myself expecting entertainment to be better described as musings on some aspect of life. Entertainment certainly can be this, but it is not something everything should be compared to.
7. Go out to eat less. Enough said.
8. Tell the people I love and respect how thankful I am for them as often as possible without making them feel like I'm going to kill myself. Also pretty clear what I mean. I think we all avoid some of that kind of thing because we don't want to see it become trite, and because, like I said, we don't want our friends and loved ones to think we're saying our goodbyes or something.
9. Talk to my grandparents more often. As an adult, I never knew my grandfather on my father's side because he died when I was very young. My grandmother on my mother's side passed away last summer and I knew her very well, and continued to learn about her until the day she died. My two surviving grandparents are alone in their places of residence, and I want to talk to them more about the past and give them the opportunity to talk about whatever they want.
10. Student teach with confidence and commitment to the students. This is a big goal of mine. I really want to get the most out of the student teaching experience. I really want to feel as though, despite my limited duties, that I've really connected and helped students along with their own growth with the subject.
11. Try to appear less revolutionary with music education. I'm sick to tears about being considered this revolutionary guy trying to mess with the system and be a rock guy bringing yeast into the loaf. I'm tired of being the guy who always points out how crappy music educators can be sometimes. I mean...my opinions are still the same, I'm just tired of being the kid saying all this stuff. It's not going to change the people who don't agree with me. The only thing I can do is be the best person I can be in the classroom I have. I'm not really a revolutionary guy anyway. Just somebody who wants to see everyone get as much out of music as they can.
12. Finish the current and begin the next Beasts of Burden Record. Self-explanatory. I love the band and how it is working and I want to continue recording and playing live shows. Also, I want to continue to experience the discomfort of working outside of our expected field of musical style, and continue to enjoy the outcomes.
13. Continue thinking about a few electro acoustic records I've been working with. This year may mark the release of another electronic record for me, this time far more in line with modern compositional techniques and the like...more in the same vein as electro acoustic composers working with programs like PD, maxMSP and bidule.
14. Read more books and breathe more slowly.


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Let's keep it coming. Remember the song "Venus in Furs" by the Velvet Underground? Of course you do, you're probably reading this thinking 'this guy can't remember it, I'm older than he is for heaven's sake!' Ok you probably are...but the question at hand is do you know the damn song!?! Ok, you do know the song...good. Well, Reuters reported today that things aren't so good for the wearer of some shiny boots of leather. A South-African Dominatrix has decided to call it quits with her attempt at living in the local vicarage. The Pretoria News spoke with the Femme Fatale about her Sunday Morning clash and she had this to say to the Man she was waiting for according to Reuters, "It is a long story, but basically I am tired of fighting, really tired. They can take their manse back, in fact they can shove it." Sister Ray was unavailable for comment.

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Lastly, Reuters also reported on this Workaholics Anonymous program. Luckily, I am not plagued by this kind of addiction. In fact, some may say, especially after reading this blog, that I have the opposite of a work addiction. I think that has a term, doesn't it? I'm too lazy to look it up.

Rock Show Tomorrow.

Mike Vasas and the Beasts of Burden sputter like great asteroids and explode during the impact of the giant rock hitting the earth. Pun Intended.

I'll probably upload a normal post soon...

Happy Birthday Mandy!

Today is my fiancé's birthday. Happy Birthday to her.

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Pitchfork Media featured reviews for two Judee Sill records, which were some of my favorite records that I purchased last year. Like most reviews, pitchfork went for a biographical underpinning to describe the music lightly. And with every review, words fail description of the artist, though the most notable songs are mentioned. Her voice; mellow, simple and with an odd drawl, is always glorified and decorated with multiple voice tracks; doubling, triple-layered, monophonic and polyphonic tapestries. Her songs are filled with rich illusions and imagery, yet the over-arching emotional craft that delivers these messages is honesty.


Pitchfork also featured a review of the newly re-released "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" by Brian Eno and David Byrne. The record, which I also heard and purchased for the first time last year, is significant for many reasons. Mostly because it was one of the founding recordings that defined sample/loop audioculture. For better or worse, samples/loops are here to stay. The Pitchfork review can be found here. What is fascinating, to me, about this record is the fact that it immediately stirred up emotions, discussions and comments about the implications of art using other art as a structural centerpiece. A Rolling Stone article that attacked the record exists here and here. Interestingly enough, the article makes reference to a song "Qu'ran" which after initial pressings, has disappeared from each subsequent release of the record. Yes, it is still not avialable on this latest reissue either.

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Prince released his new opus on Tuesday and here are some reviews for the record collected on the Big Brother-like site metacritic. My general thoughts on the record are that of enjoyment and wonder, but shock and awe, as many politicans love to say, was not mixed into the bag. There were a few songs that had some pretty hilarious lyrics, and the record overall is really fun, but I feel as though the necessity to answer the question...namely "does it sounds as good as classic prince"...is a worthless, time-wasting experience. So I won't. Does it sound like classic Prince? Who cares! It's a good record! It's not the same as the previous record. He's doing what he wants and it's pretty fun and musically stimulating...so whatever. Favorite lyrical moment "fine from head to pumps."

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Sadly, Reuters reported Thursday that Addwaitya, the unproven oldest tortoise in the world, died this last week at 250 years old. Retuers mentioned, "Historical records show he was a pet of British general Robert Clive of the East India Company and had spent several years in his sprawling estate before he was brought to the zoo about 130 years ago," West Bengal Forest Minister Jogesh Barman said." It was also reported that the tortoise died of liver failure due to massive consumption of this premium malt beverage.

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So, it's Saturday. Birthday time for Mandy, soon we will head to IHOP for a pancake dinner...lunch. Maybe work on the record some tonight?

Out of Space

The release of the new Loose Fur record was yesterday. I'm going to buy it today at FBC. Didn't have time yesterday to get it. Pitchfork gave it a pretty acceptable review. It'll at least give you an idea about it. Buy it here. I wandered over to the Drag City website today and noticed that one of the info pages had a youtube video...check out their music video. That's right. A Loose Fur music video.



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I've worked quite a bit on the record today. Did some more keyboard work, and integrated what I've been doing in Bidule into the songs. Drones, additive, subtractive, generative and granular synthesis/processing. What this means for the record, and for those who'll hear it, is what I am hoping will be the space between synthesized textures and natural organic sounds. The place between the two is eerie no-doubt. I'm finding out that resynthesis and experimental electronic music (or what is often referred to as electro-acoustic music) is really a polarizing style. I don't just mean this in the manner that this type of music will be really good for some and really bad for others, I mean that it seems as though a lot of electronic music is either really funny, and odd in a slightly-joyous way, or really dark, reflective, sad or scary. I can certainly find examples of it not working like that, having a middle so to speak, but more often than not, I see it kind of working in that polarized fashion.

Words about it though?

Cross the Border now has a drone back in, although I do a little bit of granular pitch/etc processing occaisionally. The drone is the drone soundbed I've used on a few of our live shows with the song. Still need to do the AHHHHH backing vocals. Main vocals too.

Early Departure features some granular/looping/buffer processed vocals. These are just in the background occaisionally becoming clear, but mostly adding thickness to the mix. Main vocals still not recorded. These buffer/loops were taken from a demo version of the same song, back when it was still called "100" and the style was different. I really am excited about using a loop/effect from an outside source that happens to be a loop from a recording of the same song. Wierd. Also added a granular processed loop in Bidule that sounds much like a mechanical factory at work recorded from about a mile away. Drop that in real low in the mix. Open up the mix. Main vocals. Guitar? Classical too ethnic? Guitar in intro at all? Not sure.

Makeshift now has organ, bells, guitar parts galore and an ebow-thru-POG effect. Guitar solo is good but not final take. Eventually lay it down. Twice as many bars as before so the solo needs to have a larger, sprawling statement without being too obvious or arrogant. No vocals yet. Pretty rockin' as it is. Eb to G7 to cminor to D7 to G7. I still love it.

Selfish Circles now has organ. Maybe redo piano/vocals. Piano sounds murky. Recorded too low. Not enough use of the bits in digital...Too much hiss. Could do it if I head back to Lowell in April when Eric has time off. Maybe not. Could do it with a piano here locally too. This song may not fit as is. Needs something.

Slavery has some new guitar parts. In pretty good shape.

New Regime was messed with quite a bit today. Dropping in organ or synth or other stuff in place of the guitar laying out the chords against the G. Not working out. More time to think. No vocals as of yet.

Still need to redo guitars in Bread Beard Read. Muddy. Fuzzed out Pyschadelic Shack guitar needs to be redone. Excited about it at the time so I wasn't very accurate. Can be.

Listened to One Day during a break. My favorite romantic song.

Rescue Team got the majority of the treatment today. Added hammered dulcimer parts, piano, new fresh organ (jazz setting, nice leslie speed-up), and an entire army of guitar parts. Acoustics, electrics, guitars with delay, guitars with distortion. It's sounding pretty open and clear still, which is good. I spent quite a while on making sure each guitar tone is perfect. Some may not be still. Dulcimer part in second half at the quiet-before-the-storm part. Usually would just be one electric guitar...I like the dulcimer in there a lot. Becomes far more moving. I really enjoy the fact that this song's most powerful sections occur when there are no words. The emotions being conveyed at my end are very powerful, but the listener doesn't have to know what I'm saying, they add their own energy to the experience.

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The harvest festival in Bolivia is getting going again. I find it interesting to think how many "harvest festivals" are occuring around the planet with things other than produce. Is The Riv every Thursday night a harvest festival? "Hundreds of villagers dressed in traditional ceremonial dress of bright red ponchos and shawls gathered in the highland village of Pillapi to show off 32 varieties of potato, swap tips, dance and share a typical potato picnic." It sounds a lot like East Lansing nightlife to me. Reuters.

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The 13 gig drive that is on this old Mac lappy just straight up ran out of space while working on Rescue Team. I guess 3 versions of some songs, finished completely, plus a good 4 songs that have over 50 tracks where we can mute and solo things to make other versions of the songs was just too much for the old thing. I'm backing up the harddrive to another portable harddrive I have, and then I'm going to delete the versions we aren't using for the record.

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In more crazy news, a 21-year-old fell 11 stories in Moscow and survived, or so the commies said. The Reuters article didn't go into how exactly a 21-year-old woman would fall out of a building from the 11th floor, or why she was in a "relaxed" state during the fall. Personally, if you were to ask me, a thousands of other card-carrying pro-americans, this is probably just a bunch of commie-malarky. It never happened. I don't believe it. Seriously. That's crazy. 11 stories is, according to Reuters, supposedly 114 feet. And just to clarify, I have nothing against Russians, even Russian communists...sarcasm people!!

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Good Morning

Let's start with this photo of a volcano. It comes from a website that allows you to keep a good distance but constant view over a volcano. It's ripping up the internet charts. Reuters did a story on it today. You can go to the website directly if you just click this link!

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It's been a few days since I posted due to some craziness on many fronts. Firstly, and most importantly, my online course in Educational Psychology ended yesterday night, so I was putting all my ducks in a row before that class ended. An online course that didn't fit the traditional rule of logic for online courses, the scheduled featured great readings, practical discussions with other students and a compressed timetable. The course, which started in January with all my other classes is officially finished. It's an odd reality but nice to be completed before the semester is over. More time to work on Dr. Taggart's course-project.

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The record is coming slowly. On the previous Thursday, I brought material to both Dr. Mark Sullivan, my composition teacher/guru, and to Brian Richard and Ryan Malinich from the band. All were excited and interested with the material. Some of the music posed some questions from those involved, including suggestions, reworking thoughts, etc. Useful to consider. Finishing a record like this isn't easy.

The main issue that is rubbing us the wrong way is that this record is setup to go in whatever direction works. This direction never was intended to be defined in advance. This type of aleatoric definition of overall sonic theme is very exciting in theory, not so in practice. It's still exciting to be involved with, but somewhat painstaking. I don't mind, I suppose...but these decisions are careful, and lead a production of the song directly to hell, where there is no hope of return.

A few versions of songs from the record already exist. Cross the Border's first version was rock-laden, filled with grungy guitars, twangy rhythms and bloodied vocals. For some, this would be THE version of the tune. The guitar solo was pretty usual tone wise, lots of distortion, fast runs, messy slurring. The drums in this track were accurate, up-tempo, hard and angry. The song left little room for movement, little space for free-movement within the environment. The second version featured the same drums and bass but completely new instrumentation. A simple, clean electric guitar chunking along with the bass, a delayed warm solo tone from Slagle playing throughout. This version did embrace the drone, which was in this case a warm string pad mixed with a portamento-intense round analog synth arpeggio. The version suddenly had plenty of space for movement. The song was now living within a larger atmosphere where the listener was free to move about. The guitar solo rarely sounded like a guitar. This was the point. Nothing but an extended use of pitch shifter, bleeps and odd noises, this sound intrigued me, but seemed completely without connection to the recording. I still think that the odd anti-solo fits with the song, a sound entity that certainly makes plenty of sense within the environment. If you were to encounter this sonic being within this atmosphere, you wouldn't be terribly surprised. Or so I thought.

The new version of Cross the Border worked to embrace all these different sounds, but to further the cohesiveness of the environment and the song. New drums recorded...slower, softer, more reflective until after the break. I enjoy the hard hitting style of the drums usually, but this song needs that quieter vibe. In many ways the drums actually have more energy because of the dynamic change. When it does burst into the louder quicker tempo, the listener has a point of reference as to what is quiet and what is loud. The guitar playing along with the bass is replaced with a rhythmic-drone part on the wurlitzer ep-200. Sounds great. Acoustic guitar throughout allows for rhythmic elements without adding to much mud to the track. A grungy guitar plays very quietly and sparsely for the majority of the track. Slagle's mellow echo guitar returns...but to use it in the whole song? Also additional percussion help derail the rock-only vibe of the earlier versions. Bongos, shakers and handclaps help move the entire environment into a larger more open space.

So that's Cross the Border...only 10 or 12 more tracks...hmm.

I think this happens with a lot of bands set on deconstruction and editing. At least I hope so. I find comfort in reading blogs like Radiohead's where things are posted like "furiously writing, working out parts. cracking up. not much time left. Unsure about everything." Not that it makes me happy to see someone 'cracking up' but at least I know I'm not alone. That happened to also get reprinted today in pitchfork, granted it was to discuss Thom Yorke going solo.

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Her Gnomes will be taken soon. Call the UK and protect them. Reuters here.

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Two more editorials were posted on Monday after break a week ago in response to the Vagina Monologues article written by YAF member Katie Wilcox. Since then the backlash has died down, though I am proud to be at a place where so many people felt it important enough to write in and attack this ridiculous editorial. Here's the update.

The original Wilcox/YAFF editorial. A statenews Staff editorial intending to counter the wilcox article published same day. Response editorial on Tuesday. Response Editorial on Wednesday. Response Editorial from castmember Claudia. And yet another editorial. After this, two more were written by an East Lansing Resident, and a journalism major. The last three were written by telecommunication, information studies and media graduate student social relations junior, and a RHA racial, ethnic and progressive affairs director. Holy vulvas, Batman!

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Picked up the Glenn Kotche solo record Mobile last Friday from Flat Black and Circular. They are one of my favorite record stores that I've ever been to. Wazoo in Ann Arbor is great too, John Kerr is the man down there and he is a nice dude...made me some cool mixes of old oop acid psych rock records.

Anyway...to Mobile. I think the record represents a lot of the content that really excites me about music right now. Rhythmic but not devoid of musical meaning. Musical without being self-serving. Beautiful without being hedonistic. My favorite track is the Monkey Chant. Buy the record.

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Frontier Ruckus recording sessions didn't go as planned this past Saturday, as Smalls, their drummer, had to return to Kalamazoo for the weekend, and without a drummer the sessions wouldn't be practical. Matt and I agreed that the best thing to do is simply plan another Saturday or Sunday to get the sessions completed. Still very excited about the entire experience. Want to give the band an honest but GHOSTLY feeling. Singing saw will be very eerie. Matt's vocals should be clean and clear. Lyrics deserve to be right there in the forefront.

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Rehearsing with David Menzo today as he gets ready to perform as a substitute Beast on a few shows. Menzo is a music ed major here at Michigan State and writes music and performs/records his songs by playing everything. He recently played percussion, guitar and sang in the Kratus extravaganza that happened a few weeks ago. I like his music. Check out some of his music here.

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Saturday picked up some great shoes from Scavenger Hunt and discussed Talk Talk while listening to Spirit of Eden. I thought about their sound for a while and Sunday listened to Mark Hollis solo record which was passed along by Slagle. All music said it may be the most quiet and most intimate record ever made. Based on all the music I've heard, I may agree with that. Since music critiquing shouldn't try to speak for the larger reality, my official comment on the subject would be "it's one of the most quiet and intimate recordings I've ever heard." Or something.

Banned from Rome and Other News

A woman has been banned from Rome for 5 years for gourmet-meal-bill-skipping according to Reuters. The woman, who has only been officially indentified as D.N., supposedly has "skipped out on her restaurant bill so many times that she has been banned from the city." Though not officially mentioned in the article, and sneakily misdirected by saying her place of residence was in a suburb near Rome, D.N. actually is D.H., or known to the world as Daryl Hannah!! Sadly the truth is out despite a shoddy misspelling of her name on the welcome to Rome sign. It's Daryl with ONE R, Italians.

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Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef, has quit South Park citing "inappropriate ridicule." South Park, famous for being a show that never ridicules anybody, surprised the cartoon vocal performer when script called for making fun of Scientologists, something Hayes found difficult to complete, considering Hayes is a practicing Scientologist. Hayes, evidently, is not familiar with the amount of scrutiny South Park creators have gone through to make sure the show is free of any kind of "inappropriate ridicule" which would include Homosexuals, Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. It seems as though the "inappropriate ridicule" factor first became obvious to Hayes when needing to make fun of his own religion. Back on planet earth, South Park creators seemed positive bidding him a pleasant farewell according to Cnn.

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Since news reprints seem to be the only content for the day, check out this little bit of news. Reuters reports on a Mexican couple fighting with each other. "A Mexican couple were recovering separately after a marital spat got out of control and saw them firing guns, throwing knives and hurling homemade bombs." [I hope that these so called "homemade bombs" were built together before the family was unhappy.]"The husband told reporters he was glad his wife had suffered burns, while Contreras [his wife] said she was only sorry she had not 'hacked off his manhood' during the fight."

Please, please people! The proper term these days is "severed with shock and awe."

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My record for the week is a compilation-CD I recently rediscovered, 2004's "The Best of Blind Willie McTell" put out by the Yazoo imprint. All Music Review here. Blind Willie McTell is one of the greatest non-regional blues musicians I've ever heard. Plus, it astounds me that his playing with single note runs and rhythmic string picking was done mostly on a twelve string guitar. No easy task. A must for anybody interested in blues that has nothing to do with the Southern white blues-rock tradition, although the record does feature a song which was later covered by the Allman Brothers.

Holy Blood! Holy Sh*t!

Can't society leave an honest poet alone? Dan Brown, author of the cult-classic, not-so-famous, definitely-not-made-into-a-movie or optioned-for-millions-of-dollars book "The Da Vinci Code," is being sued over pilfering concepts and ideas from a historical work "The Holy Blood, and the Holy Grail" which was written by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. Dan Brown was reportedly "shocked" at the legal finger pointing, though I regret to inform you that at no time was Dan Brown "shock-and-awe'ed" by the accusations. Bloomberg news wire goes into way more detail than I feel like going into. But what's the deal with all these authors getting accused of dishonesty? It's almost as if they make up stories that aren't true just to entertain people...just like TV.

Condoleezza Rice may or may not play guitar, but she now has a guitar to play Freebird, Smoke on the Water, and Cat Scratch Fever. Reuters discusses the gift, which was not only that of the devil's favorite instrument, but features a coca-leaf inlay which is the main ingredient in cocaine, a drug invented and ingested by people who have low morals and don't deserve any help from the government, but should simply be jailed, or possibly forcibly removed from the country... The gift was given by Bolivia's new president, Evo Morales. The instrument, which features the infamous drug-related coca-leaf inlay, is intended to be used to play evil music where young people thrash their hips in a sexual manner and enjoy the carnal hedonistic pleasures of whatever those rock people do. Evo Morales, which sounds very close to Evil Morals (the motto of the rock movement) came to power in Bolivia (which sounds pretty damn evil, if I say so myself) because she wanted more freedom to produce this item which is only used to create drugs, not for anything natural like teas and medicine. Condie strummed the instrument and said "I'm a musician, you know." She placed extra emphasis on the word musician which is roughly translated to mean "drug addict, loser, wierdo."

Although I do not have a photograph of the infamous coca-leaf inlay'ed guitar, I do have a photo of this cocoa-derived guitar. Sweet and filled with candy carnal knowledge. The candy can be purchased from Chocolate by Design, Inc.You can order online or go to New York, where the buisness is located...in sunny Ronkonkoma. This town happens to be the place that will most certainly inspire a record entitled "Rockock-coma!," which I predict will be about a man or woman who gets so deep into the seedy world of rock that she/he will endure a rockock coma, where the only thing uttered from the main character's mouth is the phrase "oh yea, party."

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I ordered Mobile, Glenn Kotche's solo record, on Friday from Flat Black and Circular. A week and a day till the new Loose Fur record...oh yes. Every post has something to do with Wilco.

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This past Saturday, I went out to my old stomping grounds, Kalamazoo, to work more on the upcoming record with Brian Slagle. All the percussion tracks were already completed, many of the songs were just about finished. A few songs needed to be redone from scratch because we all decided we either wanted a different vibe, or it made sense to try it again in a more precise fashion. Because we didn't record the record to a click track, this meant redoing the songs from scratch. Not a problem, because I am not too fond of the "figure out the one best take of a song, and that's the only way it'll ever get done" approach. Each time we'd go at it, in recording, rehearsing, or in live performance was something different...sometimes dramatically different. And that was fine with me. Sometimes, though, a click track would've been nice because it would've made deconstruction easier.

We worked first on "New Regime." Spent a while woking on the single octave-fifth-octave arpeggio...trying to get it to sync up and be perfect...had a lot of †rouble. This bit runs throughout the †rack, with no changes. Easy to loop, difficult to just do constantly. Eventually, we settled on recording guitars first and then went back to the repeating synth line. First guitar part very simple, constant chopping wood feel. Second guitar part much more spazz. Flavor. Third guitar part matched up with sync-arpeggio synth. Solo=Brian playing guitar through fuzz factory, analog delay, and super shifter. I adjusted pedals and knobs as he played. Really odd sound...definitely looking to embrace "modem-dialing" sound.

Cross the border took up a decent amount of the day, adding keyboard (wurlitzer ep-200), acoustic guitar, electric guitar with tremolo, and brian's soloing. Brian went for a similar tone from the previous version we recorded. I hate to say it but guitar stylings were...tasty.

Acoustic guitar and classical guitar parts in Rescue Team, Early Departure...redid guitar parts in One Day...the acoustic ones.

Tuned up my twelve string acoustic, popped in acoustic pick-up and plugged it into the POG. G string higher octave broke so it was only 11 strings. Through the POG we ended up with a sound that I supposed would be a 44 string. Crazy indeed.

For the rest of the afternoon/evening we watched an episode of the Office and had some pizza then back up and worked on a version of Drop in Temperature we'd forgotten about. Sounds pretty fun. Two acoustic guitars, organ, synth, boy choir, harmonium, the usual.

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Sunday Amanda and I did a 3 hour class which culminated in both of us becoming CPR certified. YES!

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Lastly, keep an eye on this rising star. Wafah Dufour is actually a close relative of her famous Uncle Osama Bin Laden and is going to shoot up the charts soon. Billboard had this to say.

Until Tuesday folks...

Three-Ten. O'Six.

Yesterday, we left for Royal Oak so that I could attend a doctor's appointment. Arriving early, we visited a few shops in Royal Oak. A vintage clothing store and a classy shoe store. Both expensive. Amanda and I were surprised how little shoes the shoe store had. Mostly just a nice display setup, but little merchandise.

We stopped at a Big Boy on the way home. Water tasted horrible. I just found in Prevention magazine an article about the realities of nasty water taste. In the bit they mentioned that rotten egg taste/smell is dangerous. Well...we've ingested it. That's what it was. The taste of the water actually ruined the rest of the meal, too. Nothing was enjoyable. We headed to the car and back to the freeway.

After a trip through foggy rain-mist that covered the region, Amanda and I headed out to Meridian Mall for some shoe-searching. Not much to speak of, many of the places seemed dead, slow, probably due to lack of college students and it being a thursday. In general, the shopping experiences for the day were that of a rejected child at Christmas. Still had a good time, though.

Talked to Jenny on speakerphone with my new mobile phone. Admittedly...very awesome. I'm a nerd.

Not reading Reuters properly, I thought this article was actually saying the two biggest billionaires were Bill Gates and Jimmy Buffet. Definitely a different dude: Warren Buffett. Both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have enough (estimated) money combined, 92 billion, that they probably could do some serious hunger-ending. You can do your part, though, at the Hunger Site. The site actually donates money for every click. This may seem ridiculous, and frankly, despite snopes and about.com verifying the legitimacy of the sites, it does seem too good to be true, but it isn't. Now, if only Bill and Warren could survive on, say, 1 billion a year each, and donate the other 90 billion...

The Buddha himself is probably disgusted with this latest news info. From reuters "Itsushi Ehara, 73, chief priest at a temple in the western Japanese prefecture of Hiroshima and also head of a nursery school, paid the 15-year-old girl 80,000 yen ($675) to have sex in a hotel in downtown Tokyo, a police spokesman said on Friday.'I could not resist my lust. A lot of stress built up from running the school,' Ehara was quoted by Kyodo news agency as telling police." This was in the oddly enough section, though it should be in the "interesting that religious leaders think 'stress' is enough to do things like that" section.


John Stirratt and Pat Sansone, both current members of the post-rock-post-alt-country-genres-are-stupid supergroup Wilco, are at work on another Autumn Defense record according to a recent email from sister Laurie, head of Broadmoor Records. Since both previous Autumn Defense records, and the split EP with Hem, are fantastic, I am waiting with much anticipation. I am actually just concluding a full-album listen of LP 'Circles' as I type this blog. The concluding one-two power-punch of "Iowa City Adieu" and "Circles" is rare these days. Listen to other tracks and become their friends on myspace.

Old news yes, but the continuation of the infamous Conan O'Brien Finland connection has escalated into a trip to the country. Cnn article here. Below is one of the comparative pics.


And now, of course what would this post be without a video. This is Conan in Finland, purportedly, rubbing his chest and throwing a head of lettuce into the crowd shouting in a language other than American...supposedly the Finnish actually speak something else besides what we do.


Wow.

And anyway...what happened to Paul Thomas Anderson? I am about to embark on the film journey known as Magnolia. I only watch it every year or so due to my guilt over not completing it in one sitting. Some movies are OK to watch and stop and go, but I never feel that way about his movies. Even Rotten Tomatoes hasn't really said anything since late March of 2005 on the subject. An adaptation of Upton Sinclair's "Oil!" was the rumor then. What's awesome (yet sad) to me is the fact that the usually very active ptanderson.com website has now turned into a haven for selling cancer sticks. IMDB for him. Maybe the adaptation killed him. Speaking of Adaptations killing our brothers...don't forget Charlie Kaufman is at work on a "scary" movie with Spike Jonze and the info (or lack of it) can be found on his fan site. Charlie Kaufman, of course, definitely made fun of PT Anderson in a mock interview that was closely based off of the interview found in the published script of Magnolia. You can read that spoof here.

They need to make up and just be friends.

Ok I'm out. I won't post Saturday or Sunday. Peace.

Springen Sie Bruch: Mittwoch

Serious Mac users. Every Mac user is. Anyway...

And then it was wednesday. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday were filled with Wedding plans, visiting, phone calling, scheduling but now all our work has paid off. We have visited and told everyone we had planned on telling during our break (including friends, relatives, sworn enemies of the patriot act, etc). We have scheduled an appointment for engagement photos (Thursday at 1). We have visited every banquet hall we had intended on visited, called all of them as well for pricing, visited the ones we liked, and have settled on a hall. We have called and reserved a date for the church (Emmanuel Lutheran), the pastor. We have invited all the people who will be on our bridal party, although I still need to tell Matt about the finalized date. We have even done some preliminary reserach on DJs along with asking Eric of the Beasts about possibly doing it a few weeks ago.

Anyway, the date is set, and is May 11, 2007. All the rushing and working has paid off, the hardest part is done, and we did it with little pain and anguish. Relief.

In other slightly related news, the runaway bride has run away again.

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On Monday, through all our zaniness, I had forgotten to link over to clever titles are so last summer, a blog by bethanne, who did a nice entry about the Beasts of Burden and I. It is very supportive and if you go to the blog about the beasts and i, you can click all her links and go right on back to this blog. Cross-linking...OH YEA!

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Dangerous Kite-flying seemingly abounds in Pakistan according to Reuters. "Action under the Anti-Terrorism Act would be taken in case of deaths due to ... dangerous kite-flying string," he was quoted as saying.

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Somehow I missed this article. "San Franciscans already recycle more than 60 percent of their garbage, but officials hope to turn into energy the 6,500 tons (5,897 metric tons) of dog waste a year -- nearly as much as disposable diapers, according to the city." Link to the article here.

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In other feces-like politics related news, Tom DeLay still wins Texas Primary despite being indicted for all of his crap. 61% of the votes for the Republican primary. Hmm.

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Glenn Kotche's solo record, Mobile, of percussive minimalist-soul searching experimentation came out yesterday to little fanfare, which is a shame. His previous works Introducing Glenn Kotche and Next are both fascinating experimental works. All Music did a nice explanatory review of Mobile which you can check out here. Now the question is...can I find it without buying it online?

Wedding Plans!

Today is Monday of Spring Break, and the time has come for Amanda and I to work on Wedding plans. We've got halls to call, things to book, and lots of details to decide on.

The photo above, is actually designed by a guy who does Lego Wedding cakes. Not interested in eating it at our wedding, but pretty cool anyway you slice it. His name is Eric Harshbarger and he is a professional Lego sculptor.

Marc Bolan and T. Rex have become my new obsession. The records "Electric Warrior" and "The Slider" rarely leave my car, are ripped to my mp3 folders for my computer, and are on Amanda's Ipod. My pick is Jeepster, though I really enjoy "Life's A Gas" on Electric Warrior, and on the Slider it would have to be the title track or the opener, "Metal Guru." Incredible stuff.

In a statement that I wholeheartedly agree with, Mr. Tom Cruise and Mrs. Common-law Wife Cruise Katie Holmes are labeled most tiresome according to Reuters. Both for their privacy, and for my flat out annoyance, I don't think they should get any press anywhere...for an entire year if possible.

Enough about this. Glenn Kotche's next solo record called "Mobile" will be out tomorrow. Here is some information (cool for Drummers) on his website. His myspace has some of the recordings from the new record. I love that "Jam Band" is one of the things listed as genres he falls under.

Bye.

Cutting the hair

Tomorrow I head back to Dearborn for Spring break filled with Wedding plans, grading, employment stuff, etc.
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Next week Amanda and I will get engagement photos taken to send in to your usual places to announce the engagement. In preparationg for these photos, I made myself an appointment at Douglas J for a lawnmowing experience. My hair has been cut.

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Two more editorials today complaining about Wilcox and the YAFF people. This time the new editorials were written by an East Lansing Resident, and a journalism major.

This comes with the other articles which I will link again right now, even though I did it yesterday.The original Wilcox/YAFF editorial. A Positive Staff editorial published same day. Response editorial on Tuesday. Response Editorial on Wednesday. Response Editorial from castmember Claudia. And yet another editorial today.

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I love "borrowing" articles from Reuters to include in my blog, and this is one of them. They note the award winning (Oddest Book Title) collection of words for 2005, which is titled "People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It." Buy the book.

Supposedly it beat out "Rhino Horn Stockpile Management: Minimum Standards and Best Practices from East and Southern Africa," though I'm not quite sure how. I mean if you have to choose, what would it be? This book was not available in most online stores.

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For 30 dollars and the cost of staying and living somewhere in Chicago for two days and you can go to the Pitchfork Music Festival at the end of July. 36 acts. Inluding some of my indie favorites (the National, Jens Lekman). Woul be cool to go. Though, it would be cool to be able to have this wedding all planned out. It's exciting, but nervous-inducing. I think positively though...or try to. It'll be all good!

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Must get my amp fixed. It's an old Music Man. Acting up lately. Must get it repaired before next show and/or recording date.

Gum on The Bay, Under the Weather, Editorial Update, Kosher McDonalds.

Helen Frankenthaler has a painting called "The Bay." It is a prize of the Detroit Institute of Arts. It is exepensive to insure. And now, some little chap has stuck gum on it. The 12-year old chewed the gum first and then stuck the wad directly on the painting, which according to reuters, is worth an estimated 1.5 million dollars. 'Museum curators expect to be able to remove the gum residue with a solvent once they have researched the chemicals contained in the gum, assistant contemporary art curator Becky Hart said.

"In the scheme of things, this is upsetting, and it will make us review our policies. But we're confident that the painting will be OK," Hart told the Free Press.'

But what about the kids gum? He'll never get that back! It was long lasting too, probably could've kept it a while.

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Today has been a pretty nasty day. IF it wasn't for the round ball-like pellet snow keeping me goofy (I mean...ball-like snow! come on) I'd be even more grumpy. Just feeling tired and achey...have a headache, about to take a nap.

Composition lesson today talked more about expectancy theory and information theory in relationship to drones and/or soundbeds. Some good ideas and important things taken out of it. Worked a while on Early Departure.

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Another two editorials attacking the anti-Vagina Monologue YAFF editorial. That's five total. I'm glad to see people standing up for what's right.

Original editorial. A Positive Staff editorial published same day. Response editorial on Tuesday. Response Editorial on Wednesday. Response Editorial from castmember Claudia. And yet another editorial today. I have not left out any positive supporting editorials because there have been none. Assumedly because people are smart enough to have seen through the BS that was that article.

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So the story bouncing 'round today is that of the offical first alteration of the original McDonalds logo, for kosher eaters in Tel Aviv. Some enjoy it because it provides the consumer with an easy notification of the prepared food designation. It has caused some disagreements, though. "Roi Gerstein was unmoved. 'I do not like this change because I am used to the red sign,' he said, adding that kosher burgers without cheese were 'just not tasty.'" I feel you Roi. I haven't had a tasty burger from McDonalds in a long time. Read the Reuters article here.

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Album of the week "Chocolate City" by Parliament. The Pop Matters Review can be found here. Not quite as popular as Mothership Connection, and not with as much indie-cred as some of the earlier Funkadelic records, CC is pretty great. Nice grooves throughout. I love driving with it. Bernie Worrell's keyboard lines are fantastic.

Boycotts, Books, Bootlegs, Birthdays, Clap Your Hands, Cats

The Sex Pistols have boycotted their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Stuntlike, yes, anarchy-causing, maybe...Financially sound decision making is more like it. Turns out the Pistols of Sex are boycotting it due to insane charging for tables at the event. And we're talking about, yes, the Sex Pistols themselves being charged. From a link on pitchforkmedia, I was taken over to this wonderful scrawled letter which is the official declaration. HOW PUNK!

Ann Arbor will play host to two of my favorite indie groups within the next 40 days. First, but later in advance...at the Blind Pig. Clap Your Hands Say Yea will be working their way into AA on April 7. I'll be there.

Also, as listed today in PFM, The Books will be playing on March 15 at the University of Michigan's Museum of Art...for free. Probably can't get tickets but if you could here's some info.

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The show at Temple Club's Red Light Lounge last night went well. I was very happy with how it turned out. Not a high attendance, but not awful either..it was a Tuesday night. I went first and had Eric Bredin along to play mandolin and blues harp on tunes. I played some old songs "I'm the One" "News Reporters" some songs off the upcoming record "One Day" "Cross the Border," did some covers "New Morning" and a rather ragged version of "Lovesick Blues" and I debuted a new song, tentatively titled "A thousand years." The song is up in the air so far musically, and frankly, it'll probably go through some more lyrical change as the song develops for now, check out the lyrics to that song by clicking here.

Pops and Matt Carlson did a great job and I liked their unreleased material, covers, and honest style. There are a lot of songwriters toting acoustic guitars running around, and basically if they are honest about what they do, then I usually connect with it. So I'm happy I've found some friends like that.

Frontier Ruckus was missing their Banjo player, but their set was strong, was surprisingly more rock than usual, and overall quite enjoyable. They are my current band-of-the-moment-you-need-to-check-them-out type thing.

We recorded the show, sort of. My portable harddrive was acting up, or really the Macintosh was just grumpy because of the ram it took to burn to a usb drive, especially since it was working hard to capture the three drives, which totaled 200 gigs. Basically, it kept farting out, so I didn't get anybody's complete set, but I was able to record a decent amount of all of the acts. I will sift through it, and throw some of that material on this blog and elsewhere.

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My grandfather is 88 today. He is one louder. See, not 87. When you've got 87 under your skin, and you're all the way up, all the way up. Where can you go from there? Nowhere, excactly. So what my Grandpa does, 88, exactly. One louder.

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My sister and my brother-in-law are trying to potty train their cats. Literally. Like have them use the toilet. Just like in Meet the Parents or Fockers or whichever one it was in. When I first heard about it. I thought it was a joke. But, no it's for real. Here's a how-to guide. That's only the beginning. There's plenty more. Google it and see for yourself. But anyway, so they're trying to train their cats to do their business in the toilet and not use the litter box...well that's only lead to them crapping all over the house. Crapping and hiding it too. It took them a few days to figure out some of the places the cats had crapped. But have no fear, Jenny and Dennis because although the common knowledge about cats is that they are arrogant and unresponsive...this Russian Clown by the name of Yuri Kuklachev has an entire TROUPE of trained cats. Doing all these crazy tricks. I'm sure they all crap directly in the toilet. So don't give up.

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And finally... Little Mozart is a bitch. Nothing specific, I just realized it. A total bitch. A real loser. Composer or not...big deal...I care little for his abilities. He's a jerk. Like horses. I'm sure Mozart is some kind of rare ungulate mammal. Whatever, little Mozart sucks anyway you slice the four-bar-phrase, neopolitan-using bread. He sucks. Enough said.