External Mind Drive: January 2007

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

I could Vomit Blood

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Of Things Being Absorbed

I'm sharp today. I feel pretty well connected to the burning desire components of the brain. Those that want to create, react and experience. It's impart, because of somethings I've been involved in creating, living and experiencing lately. For this post, I'm going to focus what I've been taking into my head in the last couple of days.

First there came the Stan Ridgway album "The Big Heat" I purchased it last week at Virgin. Being as it's the first solo album, and I adore the title track, it would make a great place to begin I decided. The album really interest me a great deal, and over the last week I've found myself steeling moments to indulge myself in it. The track "Walking Home Alone" has a particular attraction to me. I'm ready for a long road trip through the desert.

Next. Last night.

Amy, Marc and I watched "A Scanner Darkly". My GOD. I need to read the book. Why is it no one in my world ever told me I needed to read that book? Really? Where are my mentors on this one? I've never read anything by Phillip K. Dick. And if the movie adaptation of this work is any indication, I've really been missing out. I've spent the morning now reading the Wikipedia entry on Phillip, and the entry on "A Scanner Darkly"

As I read this morning, my ears were being tingled by more new to me sounds, courtesy the ever awe inspiring depths of my good friend Marc's record archive, or as it's been christened, The Marchive. Marc, who has been hearing me blather about Stan Ridgway for the better part of a year, all the while without actually owning any albums, was kind enough to search his well ordered collection and come up with Stan's "Party Ball"

and "Holiday in Dirt" These sounds speak to a new developing me. There is a depth of character that cares not for the confines of pop cool. There is a true attempt at expressing what condition the human condition is in, and I am totally fucking diggin it.

This weekend had me programming drums and expressing a lot of things. I feel really ready to dig into some serious new dimension of creation and expression. This is a good world if you can hold on. I gotta good grip at the moment. Which is great, cause in the coming months and year I'm really going to need it. In the next few months I'll be delving into long buried portions of my relatively near past, while at the same time applying newly discovered notions myself and of moral code to my future.

This is going to be a very interesting year, and I can't begin to guess where I'll be or how I'll be there by the end of it. For the time being I'm feeling ready

Monday, January 22, 2007

Laslo

Friday, January 19, 2007

Frustrated Inc.

Tried recording guitar last night. Left me in a funk. Starting to really hate the avliable range of sounds in an apartment setting. Starting to question my abilities as a guitarist. UG. These are bad things. I can't hit my recording groove lately. I can't find that magic spot of all consuming obsession.

Fear not. I go through this. I go through it everytime. I eventually trick myself and pull it back on course. I'm like that. I'll do it.

Thinking about a lot of things lately. Gearing up to make a serious push on the new SG album. Devin re-worked "the red state" early this week. Holy Shit! The guy is getting scary good. If nothing else the fear that he's getting way better then me at all this stuff is going to push me into high gear. Thats the good kind of brotherly competition for those keeping score at home. Makes me achieve.

Excited to get into some work with Hoagie again. Always a learning growing experience.

Also in going through the Singe artifacts it's been basically decided by devin and I that we will cut tow unfinshed nuggets of the era. One is a song that we'd actually worked up as a band in Plaything, it's referenced somewhere in this blog as a song called "get away" or some such. It was performed live once but had been all but forgotten except by me, it's a simple sort of rocker number. Also there was a song I found in the journals, that I was working on lyrically when I was in those bands, and then that I recall I started recording on right before I kicked into S no S stuff. I always liked the song, and judging by the fact that it shows up no less then three times in 2 different notebooks of the era I would say that it was a song I worked pretty hard on, comparatively.
For these two songs I'm looking to make pretty simple recordings that we can marry to the Transformation through decay album, sort of as a retrospective release with bonuses of two or three new recordings and some archival recordings baring any are good enough. The idea will be though to have Devin and I do our part, then send them off to ronnie to add his drumming and bass playing, he was always a fifth member of those bands anyway, and it only seems right to have him behind the board for completion.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

More Cellphone Cam Blur

Rewind and Play the Tape

Tuesday evening at 5pm... I rush out of work, hop in the van. Check the post of last friday entitled, "the stars are uspide down", it will give you an idea of the next 30 minutes. I was excited. I had a goal. Devin, as yesterday I had mentioned, was back from his trip to Kansas, armed with artifacts of my past. I was en route to meeting him and a few others at a local happy hour haunt.
Upon his arrival at the bar, he handed me a large bag.
The bag contained:

1. CDR, containing a QT video of my new second cousin. Which I actually was to distracted to remember to watch.

2. Three Journals - The very first "band" notebook I ever had, which has a black plastic cover upon which has been scratched "singe" On the back it has a list of "band rules"
they are something like this
a. no yelling at anyone sitting down
b. no making lovely eyes at Mike's bass (as if)
c. if you say something, say it loud enough for everyone to hear
and such and such...
One of the other journals read "plaything", and the other said nothing.

They were rather silly to look at after all, I really took myself and my feelings far too serious. I did find it funny that in the begining of the first one I wrote
"starting this notebook as a way of expressing something, or maybe just to remember. Or just so I can have something to laugh at when I'm old." Oh me! Does that make me old or jsut a dork?

In the Journals I was able to shed a bit of light on a few points, I know now that the Plaything songs I forgot were for the most part untitled. One I believe was called "reality is all in your mind".

3. Gameboy - yes, my old gameboy, complete with tetris. It's so vintage now.

4. Audio Tapes... nearly 10 in all. On them I have found much frustration with the format. It seems that either the devices they were recorded on had terrible problems maintaining a constant speed, or the devices I'm playing on them have terrible problems maintaining consistant speed. On them I was pleased to find the fourtrack Demo of the lost singe recording "peel", which I guess is actually more of a plaything song.
Another tape was mis-labeled as early Singe, when in fact it was an early plaything rehearsal, complete with Chris Leon on drums.

I managed to mix down peel, and then make a geuss at the proper tempo, in the end it's intersting to hear, but maybe not earth shattering, at least I have a document of it now.

There were some post Singe/Plaything Mastertapes, which haven't in my mind festered enough to be totally intersting.

After Devin handed me the bag, I took a few quick drinks with the gang and excused myself. I had to get home and dig in. It was a fun time, but I'm left wondering how much time I should put into my old band, when I really have a lot of work to do with my new one.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

View of a Room

I had a headache last night, it came and went and came and went. During one of the spells I took a moment to cellphone camera document the room as it appeared around me. I have a certain fondness for the total lo-fi aspect of these cameras. There is something left in the fuzzed out edges, kind of like a memory.

If you happen to be paying a particularly keen amount of attention to evolution of this blog, you'll note that it's not entirely about entertaining anyone but your dear author, and most of the time it's not even about entertaining him. There is something to being reminded of things as they were, or how it could be written that they appeared to be.

Irons in the Memory Hole

Monday, January 15, 2007

Revealing Old Glories

MLK Day

Devin is now in Kansas, and has been since early Saturday morning. He traveled for a visit with the family and with the intention of discovering long since stored artifacts of our early musical development, specifically those which center upon our young rock band, Singe, and it's younger brother Plaything.
I've only been informed via text message of one discovery and that happens to be of a master copy of a demo for a song called Peel, which I was certain was never recorded. I'm afraid that the tape is actually a four track demo, and perhaps not even a completed one at that, though apparently it does contain the initials, D, B, J, which would at least mean the recording has Joe and Devin involved.

I do still happen to have access to a functioning cassette four track, however, it is not variable speed where my old one was, and I most certainly recorded at a higher rate of speed in order to get a better quality from the cassette tape, though I'm pretty certain that would have been about the only concern for quality put into the recording it self, certainly no attention was payed to quality in the actual "engineering" of any of the recordings. I figure it should work to just attempt to mix the thing down to the computer, then go in and slow down the recording until I can ball park the correct key. It's also possible in theory to use the panning function of a tape deck, and record separate right and left channels on side one and then do the same on the opposite side of the tape and then adjust the speed of each track individually prior to mixing. The only problem there would be alignment.
I'm also a bit concerned as to weather or not the demo will contain vocals, and if it does not, will I actually have to record them now? dear god.
That will only be possibly assuming that one of my journals from that period actually contains the lyrics, and assuming even that, that I remember the melody. If you could call it a melody.
Those journals will be a very interesting item for me. I'm for the most part certain that they contain mostly song lyrics and other attempts at poetry. Most of it certainly god awful and juvenile. I'll probably post pictures of them later in the week though, because I take myself at least that serious.
He returns home very late tonight, so I won't be seeing him until tomorrow evening. I'm giddy.

Maybe more blog today. I feel up to it.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

The Stars are Upside Down

A reoccurring feature of this blog has been descriptions of how I manage to get to and from work. Well, things have once again changed. I leave work around 5:08 pm, after having loaded all 4 of my boss's dogs into his car. I walk across the parking lot to my company vehicle, a 1991 white ford aerostar van. It ain't much to look at, but it does provide me with an extra hour of sleep in the morning, as opposed to the subway and bus. I miss the public transit system often, but never between 6:40am and 7:40 am.

Once in my van I start it up, generally with out the key, as it's not necessary to start such a fine vehicle. I click the radio on, it's dialed into a.m. 1150, as that's the only station I listen to, on the way to or fro work. As I pop the un-keyed ignition into start the theme music to The Randi Rhodes Show begins to slink out of the one working speaker. I put it in reverse and begin to smile, cause I'm going home, and that is one fine feeling.

I work in the valley, as you may or may not know, and I live in West Hollywood. The Valley, for those of you fortunate enough to not have to know, is the San Fernando Valley, and it's separated from my lovely home in West Hollywood (weho from here on out) by what's called "the hill". I believe what "the hill" is actually and extension of the Santa Monica Mountains. "The Hill" is rather notorious for Los Angelenos, because it present a major obstacle in traveling from to and from certain parts of our major metropolitan area. It's generally considered that you can only get from The Valley to Hollywood, We Ho, or Beverly Hills by three ways, The 101 freeway through the Cahuenga Pass, Or through Laurel or Coldwater Canyon.

People of this opinion, especially if you are traveling between 4 and 7pm on weeknight, let me tell you, this kind of thinking is just plain wrong, it's incorrect, and it will get you nothing but gridlock and frustration.

I avoid all of those wrongful emotions daily, and claim for myself a few moments of LA escape, by heading south down vineland, all the way passed Ventura Blvd, and then turning right on wrightwood drive, which I follow all the way to the top of "the hill". When Wrightwood meets Mulholland, I trun left, and meander down that famous street, along the way passing the Universal City overlook, where some days I'll pull over and hop out, just to take a quick moment for me. I like to sit and gaze at the lights, which due to the manual manipulation of our measuring system called time, happen to be in full burning glory about the time I'm a top "the hill" during this season.

In looking at the lights it's pretty easy to see how the sea of lights could easily be mistaken for stars with the help of some smoke and mirrors. I miss the Western Kansas night time vistas. I really miss the feeling evoked by a sky completely filled with those glorious notions of things much more significant. Every star in that sky of my boyhood would continue with no thought to me at all, my role in the that grand scheme was impossible, and therefore comfortable.
From the top of Mulholland, the stars are all upside down, and I drove past many of them to get to the top of "the hill". I know in my mind that I can be significant to each one of those lights, I could force each to contend with me, if I were hell bent inclined. These man made imitations don't humble me in the way they should, individually, but together taken as one, as a sea of lights representing people multiplying and enforcing their whims and desire, without a great amount of thought being given to what might happen if we all got our way all at once. I get some vague feeling like the thing I just vaguely described, but I also feel an excitement, and a call to task.
I'll not delve all the way in here, but rest assured that it's important to me to participate in these moments for me.

After getting back in the van I meander further down Mullholand, until i hit Woodrow Wilson, where I again turn right, only to promptly turn left onto Nichols Canyon Road.

Here the street begins to resemble a quiet one way highway, which winds it's way down a hill that could be anywhere, and doesn't at all have to have the distinction of "the hill". I don't see the sea of lights very often from here. The AM radio station crackles, and sounds a bit warm. I often have the heater on. On rare occasion I'll even have a cigar, and think about my father, we used to smoke cigars together, though I have it on good authority that my sister has forced him to give up such simple pleasures. (good for you odd)
I love my drive home.
When I get down the hill I'm back on the streets we all know, and I'm generally home within 30 minutes. My way is faster, and it makes me happy.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

What Would I do Without Wikipedia

My brother Devin and I often send each other interesting reads on Wikipedia, with a general emphasis on isolated societies. In case anyone else finds they are in need of some time filler or fun, here are some links to articles we've found to be of interest.

Rapa Nui

Pitcairn Island

Micronations

Republic of Rose Island

Sealand

Republic of Minerva

Stanford prison experiment

Milgram experiment

Strip Search Prank Call Scam

Non Wiki:
Kleine-Levin Syndrome

Monday, January 08, 2007

Netfux

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Bends Ends

K, so I am in a new year. Is it the Fourth Calendar year of my blog? Wow. I think it is. I'm tired of the title, there will be a new one sometime this year. I'll make a small list here of things that I might like to see happen in this year. Look for it below.

I finished "The Last Cattle Drive" last night. I really enjoyed it. The book runs the entire length of my old home state, taking in some parts the exact route which we took the year my father and I biked across Kansas. Really it was a fun book for me to read.

The show we had on new years was good, I enjoyed playing it. I enjoyed starting the year a professional musician. Hopefully I'll end it that way as well.

Anyway, the writing isn't flowing today, I've got a lot to do and the IM window is a buzzing every 7 seconds.

Here's a small list of things I'd like to see happen in the new year.

1. Rename the blog
2. Finish blog entry started 2 years ago, a detailed description of the landscape of my boyhood farm.
3. Somehow obtain a new "number 1" guitar.
4. Return to Iceland
5. Play in the UK
6. Eat Healthy
7. Exercise
8. Read
9. Go back to Kansas
10. Skip 10 year High School Reunion