Rest in Peace...

From Variety:

Mitch Mitchell, drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience..., was found dead Wednesday morning in a hotel room in Portland, Ore. He was 61.

Studio

Since I now am a happy daddy, buying new equipment is not going to happen. I alternate between selling everything and getting the most out of it, and this post involves the latter. To the best of my recollection, here's what I have:

*Moog Little Phatty
*Hohner Pianet T
*Johnson J-Station
*Ross Flanger
*Ross Phaser
*Boss Bass Flanger
*MXR Distortion+
*Alesis Multimix 16
*Pearl Drum-X module
*Peavey ED-300 amp
*Roland Microcube amp
*Roland KD-7 Kick Drum pad
*Roland KD-5 Kick Drum pad
*Roland FD-8 Hihat pedal
*Roland CY-8 Cymbal pad
*Slingerland drums
*Paiste/Sabian Cymbals
*Yamaha RHP-80 pads
*Yamaha RHP-120SD pad
*Yamaha Drum Rack
*OLP MM1 Electric Guitar
*Ibanez Acoustic Guitar
*Various microphones

Hrmm. I think that's it. At a glance, I'd love to get rid of all my electronic drum stuff, along with that Peavey amp. Everything else still has its place. For now.

Gustav

We got out before it hit. Spent the week in north Louisiana and missed most of the carnage that followed. By the time we returned, the power in our area was restored and the gas lines were short to nonexistent. Food has been a problem though. The grocery stores are still opening late and closing early for the most part and there isn't much to choose from when you go. The staples are there, so it's a hamburger helper lovefest these days.

Overall, we were pretty lucky. We had more than one family member willing to take us in when we fled, unlike some folks. Our house sustained little damage, just a few broken shingles, when some friends had trees destroy their home. We had power restored the day we returned and cable the day after, while some friends are still without power. So we did OK.

I'm tired of hurricanes. Katrina and Gustav have changed Baton Rouge. New Orleans gets the press, sure, but the impact on BR and its surrounding areas is undeniable. Who knows what the ultimate fallout of this one will be? For now, everyone is really tired and either ill or feeling that they will be soon.

We did the right thing for once by evacuating before it got bad. If not for Emma, we probably would have stayed as we did for Katrina. Living in the middle of nowhere in north Louisiana for a week just drove home what I miss about being there. It's not much different, but it feels so in a way I can't really articulate. I miss it a lot.

Stuff

I own a lot of technology, most of which I seldom use these days... My Moog, Pianet T, Yamaha edrums, Alesis recording interface have all been gathering dust since the baby was born. When I have time, all I want to do is play my good old acoustic drums. That's just the way it is. Every now and again I look over my possessions and attempt to simplify. What is it that I am actually using? Macbook: every day. Xbox: every day. Nikon: at least once a week. Flip video: a few times a month. Outside of those things, everything else is a paperweight. Some things, like my old videogames, I keep for sentimental reasons, but even those are just taking up space. Even so, there are some devices that I think would make my life easier and that I'm pretty sure would not end up on the dust pile:

1. Iphone 3G. I never bought an ipod. I have had the same crappy cellphone for more than three years. I am intrigued by the media features (great for showing off baby pics!) and I don't want to carry around more than one device. It's pricy, and seems to have a shitload of problems right now, so I'm waiting until the smoke clears to jump...

2. Kindle. I love big expensive hardback books. Rather than doing away with those, I see the Kindle as replacing my paperbacks, which would save shelf space in my house (always at a premium) as well as allow me to read one-handed while holding the little one. As of now, reading is impossible with her in my arms, even sleeping. It's just too awkward. Being able to turn pages with one hand is the main draw here. As it stands now, I can only read when I am alone, which is pretty much never these days. Price is the main problem here, too, but it keeps going down. Maybe by Christmas...

Hrmm... seems like there was one more. Oh, well. Maybe it'll come to me.

I could have told you that

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7518888.stm

Revelation

I am an unashamed Journey fan. Have been since I was a kid, and I have followed the band through their many attempts to get moving again after Steve Perry vacated the front man position. Yesterday they released a new album, Revelation, with yet another new singer, Arnel Pineda. They are getting a lot of mileage with the press out of that guy's rags to riches story, which is fine... The good news is that anyone who caught them on the telly and decides to give their new CD a chance is in for a treat. I've liked bits and pieces of their post-Perry work, but this one is a step above anything they've done in at least ten years. Pineda brings it. It's as simple as that. He sings his balls off, and the rest of the band sound like they are trying to match his enthusiasm which is something they have been lacking for a long time. Damn good.

late spring cleaning

I just finished shredding ten years worth of detritus and am left with a short list of creative projects that have languished for many years. I have a bad habit of saving every scrap of paper I have ever written a phrase or drawn a stick figure on and my next step has to be to brutally weed this accumulated mass. What am I keeping them for?

I imagine that buried in all the shit is the germ of a good idea. If I am especially lucky, maybe two. It's time to find out. Not only to find out but to take the next step... which is the recurring theme of this thing.

Taking stock...

I am an artist that hasn't finished a comic in eight years.

I am a drummer who hasn't drummed in 2 months.

I am a songwriter who has never finished a song.

I am a gamer who never finishes any games.

Hrmmm...

append to last entry:

oh, and I get to keep that old SC-750a warhorse of a case in action. Good times.

screw wireless

After trying to budget and figure out if I needed G, A, or N wireless, I spent $14 today and ran a cable through my wall to connect my Media Center PC and Xbox 360. Works like a damn charm. Thanks to Jess's dad, it looks good, too. This is something I have wanted to do since we moved into the house, and it feels good to finally be done. The media server and wireless printer are safely tucked away in their own closet , with a cat6 connection to my router. Pretty sweet.

Finally! Some things to write about or things about which to write or...

When I last posted I was but a man... now I have become one of the wretched and sleep deprived parents of the world, with a lovely daughter to dote on and love all my days. Nice work if you can get it, but this sort of forum is all about the naval gazing and I feel that must continue. To that end:

I have a homebuilt computer in an enormous Supermicro SC-750 tower that has had little to do since November of '06 (pronounced aught six) when I purchased my Macbook Pro. Igor became my studio workhorse, which lasted for a while, but the 'book soon took over those chores as well, leaving him in a lurch really. For the past year he has been little more than a doorstop.

Tivo's monthly fees have finally changed all that. In an effort to thwart yet another attempt to nickel and dime my monthly income away, I decided to turn Igor into a Media Center PC. This has worked out surprisingly well. Igor is a Pentium IV 2.4 ghz which is fairly low end for a Vista box, but he's performing like a chance. Even if he sometimes forgets he has a monitor connected (he is 5 years old... well, parts of him are 10!)...

Overall though, mission accomplished. Tivo functionality for the price of a TV PCI card. None too shabby. Now if I could just figure out which protocol to use when I update my wireless network...

Yep.

You Are 66% Evil

You are very evil. And you're too evil to care. Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

How Evil Are You?

The Rentals

Not sure why (my guess is the Moog) but I am all about the Rentals these days. I have been listening to the debut and the EP nonstop, and have taught myself to play Friends of P on my Little Phatty (not as dirty as it sounds), which is quite an accomplishment, as it represents the first time I have picked out and played a melody by ear. A simple melody, sure, but I'm still pretty excited by the prospect.

Last night I took it further and worked out the violin part on my M-tron, then managed to switch back and forth between the two when necessary. It sounds really good, and the rest of the song is easy enough that I may record all this just to prove I can.

The main thing is that I'm playing again after about six months of nothing. Pretty exciting!

vaguely disturbing...

saw a school bus driver talking on her cellphone behind the wheel yesterday...

from a press conference Tuesday...

THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute, that's not a diss on the front row, is it?

Q Not at all, sir.

Emma Madison at 22 weeks...

uh oh

A couple friends and I went to a driving range last night and hit a few (around 180 balls or so) and it looks like we are hooked. Whether we'll improve is up in the air, but I am mighty surprised at how much fun we had. And how sore I am today just from swinging a club around.

Tools

I have a running bet with a friend. We are both creative people who are inherently lazy and can't seem to get anything done anymore outside of work, and we both say we want that to change. So by June 30, 2008, we shall each have created a good example of our particular interests: a five minute or so animated short for me... a painting or two from her. I suppose the key here is that it should be something we are actually proud of and not just crap we threw together to meet the deadline. I have started my usual gathering of tools that is the standard accompaniment of these endeavors. To that end I now possess the following:

Photoshop CS3 (for backgrounds and various visual manipulations)

Toonboom Studio 4.0 (the nuts and bolts animation software I will be utilizing)

Painter 8.0 (for experiments and possible limited rotoscoping)

A variety of reference books (to facilitate the actual process of animation)

A Wacom tablet (to draw the damn thing)

Aside from Photoshop, these are things I have owned for years (almost ten years for the Wacom) and have used almost never. (Except the books. I do love to read me some books.) It's fascinating to me how I pretty much have acquired everything I set out to acquire when I sat down in 1999 and decided what was necessary to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. Never mind that a pencil and piece of paper would probably work just as well. My lizard brain would have none of that. (Though a pencil and paper is where this project will start without a doubt.)

I guess the point here is that I am out of excuses. I have everything I could possibly need to make this thing happen. As usual with these pep talks I have with myself it comes down to an idea and my execution being the deciding factors.

Let's see where I am in eight months.

Slumberland

It is thought that 140 years ago today, Winsor McKay was born. An incredible artist, he is also pretty much the father of film animation. The following is his first film, completed in 1910. The colors you see were painted on the frames by McKay. This film was the result of a gentleman's bet that he could not produce 4000 drawings in a month. The last two minutes you will see are the results of his efforts. Astonishing and incredibly inspiring.

There are times when music affects me in such a way that I physically hurt, damaged by the emotion of the piece. The pain is double because I still feel deep down that I am incapable of producing such a thing myself. Trying to prove myself wrong is a constant exercise in frustration...

No A/C...

Hopefully Monday will see this turn around, but for now, I am hot as hell and not feeling too great...

Click to hear!

Who am I?

lately...

I have been contemplating the one man band scenario a bit more. Basically taking my laptop and Moog into tiny venues and playing a few tunes, a la Thomas Dolby. This would involve me singing, which is quite a leap for me, and a bit of work coming up with simplified arrangements of a few tunes. Or completing 4 or 5 of my own. Hrm.

Bioshock LE arrived today...

Childhood's end...

So I'm going to be a dad soon, and I find myself taking stock of things. There are many aspects of my life that aren't what they could be at the moment... these are things that can be changed fairly easily, though. My marriage and family are good. The job is fine. The rest comes and goes. Musically, I'm dead in the water, and the weird thing is that I'm OK with that. I haven't played in a couple of months and I don't see that changing unless a band finds me. I'm just too tired after the last couple of years to bother looking anymore. I keep my hand in it, noodling on the piano and synth, but nothing of consequence these days. I am seriously considering selling everything: drums, guitars, microphones, recording equipment... all of it except my two keyboards and just stopping for a while. I've done this before. After I quit my first band in the mid-90s, I didn't seriously play again for five years or so. I came back to it refreshed and recharged but have been unable to sustain anything for more than a few months. I have even stopped listening to music for the most part, which is a little strange, too. Tomorrow I will see Rush for the first (and possibly only) time. No doubt it will be an incredible show, but I'm doubtful I will come away inspired. At this point, it seems more of a fitting end to a long, frustrating chapter of my life. Guess I'll soon know.

inspiration...

Band issues...

Two situations I've dealt with in the past year, repeatedly:

1. Music I love to play, but no personal connection. Basically, assholes who have weird little Napolean complexes run these projects. Usually they are older with no musical success, but attempt to exert control over things in such a manner that you would think they had a room full of platinum records and a proven track record of top 40 hits. Two very promising things imploded because of this bullshit last year, and I am sick of it.

2. This one is worse though. In these situations I enjoy hanging out with the people involved but am unmoved by the music. It sucks because I have a lot of fun at first, but see no future and am less likely to put in the work needed because I am indifferent to the music. So I bail, and basically lose out on some friendships because of it.

The only thing that is going to make me happy is to start my own band. But then, won't I just be one of the little Napoleans I hate so much? Maybe it would work better if I make it clear what my expectations are up front. No one does that, and it always leads to problems. Seems simple enough.

I am disappointed today because one of those guys (#1) who is obsessive compulsive to a ridiculous degree "recorded over" an incredible day's work from the last time we played together. If that's true, then he's a bigger jackass than I imagined, but no doubt he has it and just doesn't want me to have it. Either way: some of the best playing I have done on tape is lost to me. It just saddens me.

Another new addition...

Please welcome a Hohner Pianet T to my growing collection of keyboards. He joins his big brother (Little Phatty) in a steadily shrinking recording room. Isn't he cute?

new things

I have decided to simplify. I have been selling equipment I don't use anymore on ebay in an effort just to clear house. It's working. Along these lines, I am looking at what I have and what I actually use. Simplicity is definitely the order of the day, so more stuff will go before it's over. At the end, the house will be less cluttered, and with any luck, so will my process for creating.

I am debating on whether or not to buy another 4 track cassette recorder. I was almost convinced I should, but last night I just used my laptop and Garageband and got more done than I have in months. A small mixer would help, just so I wouldn't have to plug and unplug and replug, but it's not necessary. So my choice might be made. I would like to pick one up on the cheap to transfer my old tapes, but I'm not sure there's much on them worth saving really. For working, GB is probably the way forward.

Last night was the beginning of my next project. I completed an EP a while ago. It was a short collection of instrumental tracks. I think it came to around 11 minutes and it sounds pretty rough, but there are ideas on there that I really like, and I wanted to get them out. Even if it's in the extremely limited fashion of a few burned CDs to close friends, that music has been released. So I can let myself move on to other things.

Doing just that I spent the last year trying to join/start a band, and out of a half dozen false starts, partially succeeded twice in finding projects that were musically challenging and satisfying. Both of those imploded after a couple months and took with them my desire to try again. So now I am not playing drums. I just have no desire to play at all.

It will come back. In the meantime, I am concentrating on other instruments and voice. This new project will reflect that. I am using my Moog synth, an old Roland sampler for drums, my acoustic guitar, and my fake mellotron and nothing else. On top of these, I am attempting to sing, but I am a long way from happy with the results. Maybe that will change. No one else will hear it if it doesn't.

I have a list of songs I want to try. I will hopefully add one or two of my own. This is doable, and should be fun, if last night is any indication. As always, playing music for myself first. Covers maybe, but no compromises.

Before and after...

Drummer's Translation Guide

"Hey, we love your playing!"

-Shut up and play what we tell you.

"Welcome to the band!"

-We can't afford to pay a session guy, so we need someone who will play for free. Oh, and shut up and play what we tell you.

"Help us pick out a kit for the studio so we can save time and you won't have to carry so much stuff!"

-We're going to ignore your recommendations and buy you a kit that is more expensive for no good reason, smaller than you need, a different wood than you prefer, set up however we want. And you're an ass if you don't like it, because we're making your life easier. All you need is stuff to hit anyway, it's not like drums are a real musical instrument and drummers might make informed choices based on musical knowledge or past experience.

"Yeah, we're gonna have to disagree on that point."

-You're out of the band.

*SIGH*

Analog bliss...