Jew lye, four songs.
Current mood: chill
Category: Music

In order to feel more of a piece, I've just uploaded my sixth and final song. This one's an oldie but a moldie, from waaaay back in my four track days:

July 4

Cleverly named after its creation date of--you guessed it--July 4, it originates from a jam session (or as close as I get, anyway) in 1996 at the townhouse I shared with then-roomate B, AKA Bongo. I had a few people from work over for dinner and drinks, as well as a few other festivities. A coworker brought her guitar-playing boyfriend, and I started playing the main part of this song off the cuff. The other fella, Rob by name, played some tasty lead lines, and fun was had by all. Eventually a drunken dark cloud landed and chased the fun away, but that's a tale for another day.

I recorded this in the Phineas Gage (later to become nailbiter) practice space about 3 months later, using precisely the same model four-track immortalized in the John Vanderslice song "Me and My 424." It represents the second of my five Ebow experiments. For those of you not familiar with this cool little gadget, it's a plastic device that acts like a violin bow by generating a powerful and narrowly focused magnetic field that drives the bejesus out of whatever guitar string you hold it over. You can create a pretty amazing variety of sounds, all of them otherwordly.

The first experiment involved using it in conjunction with a slide to obtain weepy, Moog-like sounds on an a 1995 vocal tune called Falling Down that may or may not ever see the light of day again. The second, a haunting and emotional track called Frank, recorded in August of 1996, was an attempt to do something that used one of Eno's oblique strategies: "Honor thy mistake as hidden intention." I played an acoustic 12-string track, an Ebow track, and then another Ebow track, attempting to harmonize the first one without really knowing it and accepting whatever came as the right thing.

July 4 represents the next logical step: It is an attempt to do something more orchestral, where I spent a little more time coming up with lines that worked together, as if composed. I didn't quite get there, but what did come is very pretty, and more than a little creepy. I don't think it would be out of place on one of the early Pink Floyd soundtracks, like More or Obscured By Clouds.

I used my then-main guitar, a heavily modified Japanese Squier Bullet, for the rhythm guitar and Ebow parts, and then used a trick I learned from David Gilmour: I took a guitar obtained for $5 at a yard sale by the aforementioned Bongo (christened "The Cheesegrater"), strung it with all high strings, but tuned it in the standard way. A guitar strung in this way produces a really shimmering and angelic sort of sound. I had a wanted to use an electric 12-string, but lacking the scratch to own one, I used the Cheesegrater to double the Bullet part and approximate the sound I was after. Worked great!

As I recall, I tracked and mixed it all in one day, using my guitar effects to add some reverb and slow, shallow phase to the Ebows. Many years later, I went to transfer this mix to CD, and discovered to my horror that there was a 20-second piece of silence right at the apex of the track. Where it came from, I don't know, but there was only one copy of the master, and this was it. Eventually I was able to transfer the original tracks to my current rig and do the mix you hear here. As a result of this being from cassette, there is some unavoidable noise, but I'm able to get around it and space out into the song, so I'd bet you can too. Plus which, some people like lo-fi better anyway.

The fourth experiment, a song from 2002 called Fragility that has been posted here twice, is much more purposefully orchestrated. I improvised an Ebow part, learned it, harmonized it, and then repeated the process with a different sound. The fifth and final one is the ambient tail to the song Look and See, recorded in 2004, which is still posted here. It represents the culmination and combination of all of these other experiments, and completely captures what I'd been hearing in my head for all those years.

Many years after recording July 4, I heard a song on an ambient compliation that hit me like a ton of bricks: the main sound was a pair of harmonized guitars strikingly like those of July 4. It turned out to be a song from one of Robert Fripp / David Sylvian albums, and was also the only song I remotely liked on the disc. It made me feel good that I had done something similar to a guitarist I grew up really liking, but had always felt was miles ahead of me compositionally.

I hope you enjoy this little stroll down memory lane as much as I do. I believe it goes down best in a darkened room, or a country lane in October, or a stormy summer afternoon...you get the picture. And I encourage you to pick up your creative outlet this July 4th. You never know what might emerge.

Currently listening : The Essential Fripp & Eno By Fripp Release date: 1994-03-11

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Tomatoes, twisters, torpedoes, and speedos.
Current mood: enthralled

I may have come untethered
Due to storms I have weathered
Into a new world have I been hurled

But apathy is atrophy
Atrophy is entropy
And entropy is the way of the world

You've come untethered
And there's a storm to be weathered
If you land in Kansas, that's as may be

For apathy is atrophy
Atrophy is entropy
But entropy won't get to me

I'm on a fact-finding mission to the love in your head
I'd once settled for a position, push gone shove, in your bed
Listen to me plead my position, never mind what I said
I'll be here after inspiration long since turned tail and fled

Truth is an allergy
Truth is, we're at the end of our energies
But I won't see apathy weigh us down

'Cause apathy is atrophy
Atrophy is entropy
And entropy is the way of this town.

Portland at sunset

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We fired one off, and it hit home.
Current mood: indescribable

There is a stereotype of being a supervisor that permeates our culture in all mediums: The hard-ass boss who fires people with indifference and a callous heart, and maybe even enjoys it a little.

Let me be the first to pop that particular bubble. There is never, ever anything fun about firing people. For me, at least, there is no way to do it without thinking of the impact it will have in that person’s life, possibly for months or years to come, regardless of how much they have it coming. I’ve seen people react in all sorts of ways: laughter, tears, indifference, anger, rage, and the worst of all, lengthy silence and visible pain.

Today, we fired a guy who had just started last week. He said something he shouldn’t have, and it cost him his new job. Let me get one thing completely clear here: We were completely justified, even obligated, to let him go.

But that doesn’t change the fact the I watched a grown man’s face crumple as the realization of what had just happened sank in. He asked quietly, with difficulty, if there was any other way out of the situation. When we said no, he said that he understood, stood up, and left the room, very clearly filled with regret and pain. The look on his face as the truth set in is one that will likely stay with me for a long time to come.

I once wrote a poem that contained the following line:

The memory of pain scatters, yet scars
A token reward for withstanding time’s barbs.

I used to believe this, but now I don’t really think so, at least not for emotional pain. It may be true of physical pain. For example, after 3 years between sessions, I can’t really remember what being tattooed feels like. I can’t quite recall the memory of my last bee sting, which occured while I was loading a half-empty keg into the back of Civic hatch--d’oh! The abstract, intellectual recollection is there to be sure, but an actual physical impression? Looong gone.

But emotional pain...some pain never fades. I can clearly recall the sensation of realizing that I had completely fucked up an art project that I excitedly had thought was just about done. I quietly started sobbing right there in the classroom. This was in 1977; I was 8. Sitting here typing this now, I can put myself right in that moment and feel that pain all over again. I can clearly recall realizing that a desperate crush I had in 1987 wasn’t going to come around to my way of thinking and see, finally, that I was the one for her. I wasn’t, nor she for I. But I sure do remember how much that hurt, and sitting here typing this now, I can put myself right in that moment and feel that pain all over again. I can clearly recall the shock of seeing my mother burst into tears and sob her hysterical sorrow on my shoulder at the news that her brother was in a coma with severe brain damage after being run down in the street like a squirrel. I doubt that the memory of that will ever fade to something I can’t quite recall.

Call me what you will: an old softie, a whiny pussy, maudlin, whatever. Judge me as you may. May be it’s all true. I believe that despite the differences we celebrate, pontificate about, and kill each other over, everyone really wants the same stuff: food, a place to call home, sleep, love, family, some satisfaction. But I have burning questions, questions that eat away at my contentment at the most unexpected times, queries that make me weary..questions that I can’t answer, and which kill me a little bit every time I ask them:

Why is life filled with so much pain? When does it end?

Currently watching : 21 Grams Release date: 16 March, 2004

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Cartography, topography, photography, and philanthropy
Current mood: confident
Category: Life

Somewhere around the Cumberland Gap
We realized we’d lost the map
We lacked the good grace of St. Christopher
On account of his being cussed by Jennfier
Who resented the trip in the first place
But was unable to say it to my face

As we overtook the town of Frederick
I looked askance at Rick
Said I don’t believe we needed the map
After all, we’re just a ways from Cumberland Gap

We rolled on past ghostly Antietam
The taxman robs me, but I never did cheat him
That’s just the American life we live
From those with less, I learned to give

Even if it makes me poor
Somehow I wind up with more
My grandaddy, well he drew me the map
And here we are at the Cumberland Gap

Grandaddy, he surveyed this land
We walked these streets, he held my hand
And said, work only with your mind
Or a broken body’s all you leave behind

Never escaping Cumberland Gap
Lost in its darkness with out a map.

Currently watching : Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Runnin' Down A Dream (4-Disc Set)

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At the end of the day
Current mood: disappointed
Category: Life

Living desperation
Desperate persperation
A perfect perforation
Won’t deter deterioration



First person with the correct answer gets a reeeaallly cool prize.

Ready? GO!

Currently reading : Chaos: Making a New Science By James Gleick Release date: 01 December, 1988

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Being civil wore me out.
Current mood: frustrated
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Regardless of speeches governments give
Common people just want to live
And here is the common bond
Between east and west, black and blonde

All from the cradle of life were born
Never mind the myriad creeds later sworn
Alike in our difference, you can be sure
There's nothing civil about war

All people are together in humanity
And yet forced apart in the vanity
Of believing the dogma we choose
Is a righteous weapon to use.

We bite the apple to the core
And draw the snake to our door
Of this much we can be sure
There's nothing civil about war

Drifting ever farther ashore
From the ghosts of those who came before
Drifting ever farther asea, away from our humanity
From the ghosts of those who live no more

From afar generals' motives seem pure
They are as brothers or even more
But seen up close, we can be sure
There is nothing civil about war.

Currently listening : Costello Music By The Fratellis Release date: 13 March, 2007

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Hit "record" and make a hit "record."
Current mood: amused

So I've been reading quite a few articles about the imminent demise of the CD, and with it, the "music industry." I have one thing to say about this development:

BURN, BABY, BURN

Having spent my entire adult life working in just about every possible facet of the industry, I've seen first-hand how much most of it resembles indentured servitude. Not that things were so much better in the 50s, 60s, or 70s, but at least during those eras, some record company execs actually still remembered that their job was in some way related to music. Were some of them exploitative? Yes. Did many of them see far bigger profits and salaries than the musicians they pretended to be helping? Absolutely. But at least in those days, guys like Clive Davis and Ahmet Ertegun had a serious passion / obsession with music and the people who made it.

Beginning with the 80s, fewer and fewer record company people shared this sort of vision, and more and more were interested only in units, sales, markets, and recoupable expenses. Through the 80s and 90s, indy labels became more desirable as the major labels, hereafter called "majors," became more restrictive--and invested less time and money--on new bands. All energy and money increasingly was spent on breaking a new band as the "next big thing," completely abandoning the idea of developing a band over a longer career. Using this model, fucking few bands from the 60s and 70s would have made the great work we revere today as timeless classics. Pink Floyd never would have made, let alone survived, Ummagumma to later make Dark Side of The Moon--their 7th studio release including soundtracks. Rush never would have had the opportunity to score their first top ten hits from the Moving Pictures LP--their 8th studio release. We would never know about Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, or Radiohead's OK Computer, or REM's Automatic For the People, all because they failed to have Top 40 hits on intermediate releases.

Think
about
that.

Some of the greatest music of all time, lost because of simple greed.

Think of how much music we haven't heard because of the way the majors routinely screwed bands for the last 25 years...scary, isn't it?

Luckily, music is tougher than cockroaches and more resilient than Stretch Armstrong. As it happens, the creative drive in the human character can't be crushed by these fucks, no matter how they try. An interesting thing happened in the early 80s, and I don't mean Reaganomics, even though that in itself inspired some pretty awesome music (more on that some other time). No, I'm talking about the rise of the independent (indie) label and distributor. The total lack of an outlet for anything not related to Foreigner, The Pointer Sisters, or Kenny Rogers drove many people to start labels of their own, with distribution ranging from mail-order to the back of a band's van. Since most indies couldn't afford the high-rent studio gear used by major acts in major studios, the sounds they created were new and unusual, challenging and often abrasive. Certainly they weren't the perfectly crafted masterpieces of albums like The Wall or the aforementioned Moving Pictures, but were interesting and fresh instead. An album like REM's Murmur was so strikingly original that the then 2 year old indie band scored the album of the year award in Rolling Stone's 1983 year-end issue.

As the majors became ever more restrictive, demanding charting singles, heavy rotatation videos, and lucrative tours, all the while allowing bands less freedom to be creative, indies grew both in size and in number. Distributors like Caroline and RED made underground music more readily available to kids everywhere, and saw their bands and music find their way into large chain retailers. Labels like Lookout!, SST, IRS, MetalBlade, and Touch and Go scored big success in the underground and college radio scenes. Bands like Green Day, NoFX, Slayer, Metallica, REM, Black Flag, and the Butthole Surfers had enough success on indie labels to attract the attention of the majors, who inevitably came a-courtin'. Most of these bands signed on with majors, many on their own terms, most notably REM and Green Day, who retained 100% artistic control over all aspects of their music releases.

Concurrently, the music industry began to phase out vinyl and cassette in the late 80s, replacing them with the CD. In doing so, they unwittingly ushered in the beginning of their own demise. Digital technology evolved to the point where the home listener could--and did--make a perfect reproduction of any CD they chose, aurally indistinguishabe from the original. This development spawned the internet library, in which folks like us gained access to each others' collections, albeit in lesser quality MP3s. The majors, instead of being windmills to adapt to these changes, instead built windbreaks. They sued everyone in sight, thereby ensuring generations of work for intellectual property lawyers and the heightened animosity of anyone who knows anything at all about the industry, and many who don't. What they never could understand is that many people who heard stuff they liked on burned CDs eventually went out and bought those CDs; I've done this many times.

The final bucket of fuel on the fire is the advent of affordable, high-quality digital recording gear. Instead of having to rely on an advance of many thousands of dollars from a major (every penny of which is typically "recoupable," meaning the band has to pay it back if profits from CD sales don't cover the cost) to track an album in a first-class studio with top producers and engineers, bands can now record in far more affordable local studios, many of whom have skilled engineers costing a fraction of those employed at Ocean Way or The Hit Factory. Better yet, with a minimum outlay of money, a good ear, and careful gear and recording choices, an indie band can record and market their own album, with results as good or better than anything done in the 80s by the great underground bands of the day. They can release a single to sell at shows and via the internet, maybe even get on iTunes, and see a significantly higher profit margin than they ever could have with a major.

Are these indie albums all going to be the next Murmur? No. Will any of them possess the stunning and pristine sound quality of a $300,000 album recorded by Nigel Godrich at Abbey Road? Probably not. But who gives a fuck? Some of my favorite albums have less-than-stellar production, but because of that, have a real identity and a unique vibe. The drum sounds on Murmur are really not so great. The bass sounds more like a guitar, and the vocals are half-buried most of the time. But what some engineers might call "flaws," I call "character," and in some cases "beauty."

The majors are sinking under the weight of the technology, industry, and zeitgeist that they created. They are now eating the cake they baked, and they are bursting at the seams. They set fire to the bank to get to the money, and got caught in the flames.

BURN, BABY, BURN

Currently listening : Captive By The Edge Release date: 15 April, 1994

6:39 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

restate basic assumptions.
Current mood: artistic
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

1) We do not truly know anything.
2) I exist to spread music to people.
3) By spreading music, I aim to spread joy.
4) It's always better to make others smile than the alternative.

I have reposted my Simon and Garfunkel cover from 2005, "The Only Living Boy In New York." I have not posted the lyrics, as I do not have permission to do so. But! for the tattletale amongst you, I do have permission to post this song here...in writing. And I can prove it. So don't get any funny ideas, okay? Okay. Now, having gotten that disclaimer out of the way, please do drop by and check out this song. Except for its use in Zach Braff's film "Garden State," Paul Simon's lovely farewell to his friend and musical partner Art Garfunkel is possibly the most unfairly neglected song in the entire S&G catalog.

Ever since I was a child, I've loved this song. I was, and still am, especially enamored of the choir-like vocal sections. I went to great lengths to not only recreate, but up the ante on these sections. I don't know how many layers of vocals they sang, but my friend Ian guessed about 6, that is, Paul and Art each sang three parts. I put down a total of 12 layers by triple-tracking 4 parts. Furthermore, I did different things for each bass part, so there's a lot going on there. I was tickled to read recently that the huge wall of echo on this section was originallly done by having S&G sing inside an actual echo chamber, rather than running their recorded parts through a plate or tank reverb, as most people did in those days. Who knew?

More than just being one of my favorite songs, this cover also represents a first for me: It's the first full band recording I've ever done in which I played every note on every instrument. I first layed the guitars down at Geomana Studios in June, engineered by the great Chris Finster. The drums were recorded last, at the new Revolver Studios in October, engineered by the fabulous Nalin Silva. That was an interesting night, because I hadn't played drums for about 14 years beforehand. I was also sick as a dog, and one of Nalin's friends arrived at the studio to observe. These things added up to a pretty shaky performance. However, thanks to the miracle of digital editing, the end result is pretty sweet.

Everything else was recorded by me in my old 1/2 duplex apartment. I tracked the vocals over a day or two, and the bass track in two passes. I'm particularly proud of the bass track, as I did no editing whatsoever to either performance. My friend John, whose outstanding bass playing you can hear on both "April, Stop!" and "Arcing Into The Ethers," paid me a great compliment by saying that my part's "not bad for a white boy."

The mixing, predictably, took a long time. I arrived at the mix you hear now on January 11th, 2006, roughly 3 months after adding the drums. There are things I would change now, but I figure that it's best left alone...plenty good. Plus, it's only a cover!

I hope that by listening to this gorgeous elegy to a relationship ending, you or someone like you may leave the experience just a little bit more enriched than before. I know I do. Or something like that.

Currently listening : Cowboy Bebop V.2 By Yoko Kanno Release date: 04 January, 2001

9:12 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

I ran until the run ran out.
Current mood: tired

Though you fell from the tree of heaven
And given ten will want eleven
You bloom into the perfect flower

I can see the madness in your eyes
And I feel the heat rising from your thighs
I don't know which holds more power

So we meet in your house on the bayou
No matter how I struggle and try, you
Occupy my being at every hour

In my dream you were my deceiver
I drank deep from the well of your fever
Oh, but the aftertaste was sour.

Currently listening : Marry Me By St. Vincent Release date: 10 July, 2007

8:53 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

axes and saws. mores and folkways.
Current mood: transcendent

The planks of an attic floor
Weave a tale of forgotten folklore
Creak in ancient harmony
Memories of life as a tree.

Wind sweeping across stone
Mouths syllables of phantasmal tones
Forming sentences, crafting sounds
The likes of people cannot pronounce.

In the setting aside of fear
It's all there for the ear
Of those who care
To hear.

Currently watching : Pan’s Labyrinth Release date: 15 May, 2007

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