While my synth virtually weeps

Greetings from the other side of February. In short: I did it! I basically stuck to my original plan of one new song a day for the first ten days (with one skipped day for good reason) and then edited for the rest of the month. I even finished a few days early. The first draft was done on the 21st, the first printing was done on the 26th, and the discs got mailed to rpmchallenge.com on the 28th. w00t! Also on the 26th I built The Chicken for the upcoming CockSlap show. Over-all a busy and successful month.

So, the new album.
It can be heard here at last.fm,
and there's a Facebook music page here.
Physical copies will be limited and, for now at least, only available in person.

Hopefully you can take the time to give it a few spins and don't forget to leave me a comment letting me know what you think.

Until next time, sleep tight and don't piss on the electric blanket,
<3 Uncle Jubb

Feb-tastic!

Well my dears, it's been awhile since I've talked about my music here, and oh so much has happened that I need to step into the way back machine to recap. Last July I ended Banter/3.1 as I reported here. Soon after I began working on a new live show entitled Horses Changed My Life which was to be part music, part storytelling, with some sort of film in the background. Then, as many of you know, in November my Mac crashed, leaving me with access to none of the work I had done for that show. As of this writing the data issue is still unresolved (anyone got a spare two grand for recovery?) Then along came xxxmas, and despite always striving to be naughty, santa brought me the new version of Pro Tools that I asked for. However. It requires 1gb of memory and my old pc only had 512mb. At that point I had a bit of extra scratch from working my ass off over the hollandaise, so I bought a barebones kit and built a new computer. And just in time, because February is going to be a busy month.

First, I am taking the Recording Project Month Challenge. The idea is to write and record an entire album in the month of February. I ain't scared. After all, I did record Beyond Beautiful Mountain in only three weeks. My plan is to write a new song every day for the first ten days, and then edit the shit out of them for the remaining 18 days. A tease of the new sound can be heard here. It's the last song in the player, appropriately called A taste of what's to come. The resulting work will be the first album by Something Like Banter & the Cybernetic Inevitable All-Stars.

In CockSlap news, we have a show coming up at AS220 on March 4th. Be there. Trust me. We are currently building The Chicken which is an interactive beast controlled by you the audience! You won't want to miss this exciting opportunity to be a part of the CockSlap experience.

"Well, what about the horses?" you may ask. Horses Changed My Life is now going to become a feature length silent film with an all original soundtrack. In many ways it is going to be the sequel to Sweeping up the Popcorn only this time set in a record store. Pre-production will begin in March after I get past the enourmous amount of work I mentioned above.

So, as you can see, I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me. But, that's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it.

Dear Mr. President

In honor of our new leader I was able to get away with an all black playlist at work today. This was actually more difficult than it would seem, but keep in mind I have a very limited palette to work with, and loose guidelines about current popular music being played at certain times of day. Again, seems easy right? However, we basically do not play rap at all, so as popular as say T-Pain may be, it would never get played in the store. (Not that I'd want to, it's just an example.) The mornings are a little easier, and to my liking, because we can play a bit of Jazz and Blues. So here, with commentary, is the list:

Herbie Hancock ~ The Joni Letters It's Herbie, what more need I say?
Buddy Guy ~ Skin Deep An excellent disc, and the message of the title track made all the more poignant by the significance of today.
Tracy Chapman ~ Our Bright Future I haven't had much chance to absorb this album yet, but what I've heard has been decent.
Al Green ~ Lay It Down My biggest coup of the day, the Reverend was playing as Obama was being sworn in.
Keyshia Cole ~ A Different Me This is where things start to get crappy.
John Legend ~ Evolver Although, for some inexplicable reason, I really like this album. I think it might be because it doesn't have the standard lame guest rapper thing. (correction: Andre 3000 is on Green Light, but I'm ok with that)
Beyonce ~ I Am... Sasha Fierce Dear Mrs. Z, please go away.
Seal ~ Soul The man can sing, and is surprisingly well suited to this type of material, but the song choices are mostly horrible.
Jennifer Hudson The fact that I'm qualified to say that this is one of the worst Idol related discs out there scares me. "Ima hit you with my pocketbook"!!?? Seriously? Are you secretly 85?
Alicia Keys ~ As I Am Gotta say, I don't mind this one. I'd never go out of my way to listen to it outside of work, but she's ok. On a liner notes aside; pictures of a pretty lady in a tight Miles Davis t-shirt surrounded by top-notch keyboards are ok by me.

If I had more control over the music I could have put together a bangin' list, but I worked with what I had.

p.s. Mr. President, I hope you do an excellent job. I wish you the best.

Top 9 of 8

2008 has been odd. The first two months were spent living in NYC, raising my lifetime out-of-RI living to nine months. The last eight months have been spent working at a record, nay, toy store that I've had a twenty year history with. Along the way I've seen some shows, listened to some records (presently side 3 of Exile In Guyville), and generally thought about music, as I tend to do. And since this tends to be the time of year for lists, here's mine.

First, my criteria. The list is mostly recordings purchased in '08, but not restricted to recordings that came out in '08, and performances attended and I stayed away from anything I've typed about before. So..

9) The Police & Elvis Costello ~ Great Woods, July 31st
tie
9) David Byrne & Brian Eno ~ Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

The Police/Costello show was epic for many reasons. For starters, I don't think I've ever known six months in advance that I was going to a particular show. Ever. Kyle texted me in January saying "Clear 7/31" He then informs me, by phone at this point, that the show is a birthday gift. So, the months pass, the show is thought about, forgotten, and suddenly here. I was in the situation of being the least responsible person, so I drank myself silly and got to see an artist and a band that I'd never seen before. Hot Damn!

Dear Brian,
Thank you for throwing us your scraps.
p.s. Tell David he did a pretty good job too.

8) The Residents ~ at the Fucking Mall!!!
As if my third Residents show wasn't a strange enough event on it's own, the show was at Showcase Live at Partiots Place. Yup, the giant fucking mall around the stadium formerly known as Foxboro. The notion started to really sink in upon hitting the parking lot and driving past all the huge brand stores, looking for the cinema multiplex.

7) East Village Opera Company
This disc was in the first employee purchase I made at my job. I adopted it for awhile as a pet record to sell at work. They (EVOC) then put out a new album this year. The combo of me selling the first album and having a new one earned them a header card in our mostly laughable classical section.

6) Dinaresade ~ Traditional Syrian
This one song from the box set Time of the Templars has been an iPod staple. There was a stretch this summer where I listened to this song almost everyday on my walk home from work, whistling out loud and drumming on my man purse.

5) Banter/3.1 ~ Medicinal Reverb
Oh no you didn't! Oh yes I did. While putting your own album on a year end best of list can seem a bit hokey, MedRev earns a place here for many reasons. First was the amount of time and effort that went into recording and mixing. Second, it is one of my proudest accomplishments ever, and certainly the best "album" I've recorded. And lately it has become an album that I simply enjoy listening to. One of the pleasures of making music is creating something that you enjoy.

4) My Morning Jacket ~ Evil Urges
Generally speaking, if someone tells me I should check out a certain band or album I don't listen. And yes, that sounds snobby, but I tend to be very good at discovering music on my own. However, Al mentioned My Morning Jacket and after listening to one and a half songs on MySpace I bought Evil Urges on vinyl. What a simply delicious album. Anyone who sings about sexy librarians and the interwebs is ok by me.

3) Mudcrutch ~ Mudcrutch
Of all the LP's I bought this year, this one is hands down the best object. Simply holding the thing is a pleasure. The artwork gives it the look of a lost album, which in a sense it is. Mudcrutch broke up in the early 70's without having recorded, and got back together to make this album. And the music kicks ass too. A bunch of old guys who know what they're doing layin' it down live in the studio. Sign me up!

2) An Evening of Charles Ives' Music ~ Central Presbyterian Church, NYC
Anyone who makes the mistake of mentioning Charles Ives in my presence is likely to get an hour long lecture. To say that I'm obsessed with Charlie is perhaps the understatement of the year. In January I got the chance to see an evening of his music at the church where he used to be the organist! Not only did that fact make it a special evening, but the performance was the best live Ives I've seen yet.

1) Patti Smith ~ Horses
One day at work Al handed me a pin that said "Horses changed my life." I deemed this most excellent and proceeded to wear it to work on a regular basis. Since this would frequently cause people to ask how horses had changed my life I came up with a series of mostly true stories involving horses and my life. This became the basis, or glue if you will, of a new, Banter related performance that I bagan working on. Now the truth of the matter, of course, is that the pin was a promo item for the Patti Smith album Horses which I don't believe I had ever heard. So a dl and an LP later I can say that is a truly outstanding record.

Well, there it is. The moments that effected me the most this year. Happy Listening.

Lost in the supermarket

or at least in the comfort of my own home. Lemme 'splain. Like a refugee, I'm writing this from my old PC because my Mac won't turn on. I'm taking it in to the Apple store on Sat, but in the meantime I have no idea what to do with myself. The whole ordeal is scary in a few ways. Obviously there's the potential data loss, including basically all of the data for the new show I've been working on, but it's also scary how at a loss I am. I mean right now I'm doing exactly what I would be doing if the Mac was working; smoking, listening to music, & blogging/interwebbing. Yet I feel lost doing it. Part of that must be the anxiety over what the end result of this may be. Oddly, the PC which has been f*'ed for years, is behaving fine. So, I'm listening to Zeena Parkins ~ The Opium War. It's a radio play about well, opium, in NYC during the teens. Delicious Avante-Garde Over-the-Topness.

A journey of a couple of discs

Two very good friends of mine currently live in an apartment that I once inhabited. A lotta shit went down in that apartment, and it's more than a little surreal visiting them. ("See that nail in the chimney? That was there when I lived here. I had a picture of Zappa hanging on it.") The other day they stopped by my house and ended up borrowing a few discs, including some Bowie and Sebadoh. I realized after they left that those discs were all in my collection at the time I lived there, and are now making a journey into an apartment where they too once lived many years ago. I find it interesting that those same discs will fill the air within the same walls some thirteen years later.

*a note about the title: When I first started the Project I made an attempt to keep a journal about every single discs I listened to. Needless to say, that task failed. However, the first entry started like this: It began with Rabih Abou-Khalil. Theoretically, it will end with Zuco 103. A journey of a thousand plus CD's. The Great Listening Project.

Lessons from the Project pt. 1

Over the last two years, three months, and seven days since I started the Great Listening Project I've learned a few things. Some of them are completely inconsequential, others have had profound philosophical impact. This new, semi-regular series will highlight those insights.

Tastes change. And of course I mean the obvious "I used to like Anthrax, now I like Radiohead," but I also mean that how we react to and interact with music changes. The criteria by which we deem something "bad" or "good" evolves as well. One inevitable result of listening to music all the time is an increased knowledge of at least the basics of theory and how music works in general, which leads to an appreciation of more technically sophisticated musics. But mood plays a part as well. Think of the way a specific song, album, etc.. can attach itself to a specific life event, be it "good" or "bad." And that opinion can change as one's feelings towards said life event change. Sometimes too it's just a general feeling. As I mentioned here, I've been feelin' the rock on vinyl vibe which means I'm more receptive to the Clash and Olivia Newton-John than I am to the William Parker disc I'm listening to right now. Another factor is surroundings, what you're being exposed to, voluntary or otherwise. Also, the process of discovery adds to a personal database of information, including who got what ideas from whom. "I used to think So & So was great till I heard Such & Such." And sometimes you just wonder "What the fuck was I thinking?"

Tastes remain the same. Some opinions really are forever. There are songs, albums, artists, etc.. that I will just plain dis/like for the rest of my life. Some of them because of their association with less than pleasant life events. For example. And all of the above factors (knowledge, surroundings, life events, etc..) can also influence the permanence of an opinion. Knowledge can reenforce an initial feeling. "See, I was right. This is good/bad." Same goes for being surrounded by people who share similar tastes. "We both, all, etc.. dis/like this. See, we're right."

Personally, my opinion seems to change from "bad" to "good" more than the other way around, and once something is considered "good" it tends to remain that way. Which could mean that I have no taste and think everything is ok, or that I seek the good in what I'm listening to.