God Damn Maria

I spent about nine hours today trying to get the mix right for Good Night Maria to no avail. Tomorrow I'll work on my entry for 60X60, which is a call for sixty second long works.

New Directions in Blogging

This year has already been off to an interesting start, but before I delve into that, I have an announcement regarding this blog. This will no longer be just about the listening projects. While I will continue to make the occasional post about that (currently Thelonious Monk, for those who care) this spot on the interdial will be more of a catch-all blog for me. Now, to re-cap the year, and illustrate what has led to this decision.

The year started in NYC. I was there to take a Pro Tools certification course (which I did) and to find a job (which I didn't). So, it was back to RI. This was obviously not an easy decision to make, since I really liked the city and was hoping to stay. I guess I had unrealistic expectations about being certified. Like "Here's your piece of paper and here's your job." More like "Here's your piece of paper and here's your t-shirt."



But, I did learn some things about my craft. I also realized that yes, I do want to live in NYC, and that what I really want to do is just make music all day. (Well, maybe go for a walk in Central Park every so often.)


So here I am, back in the Shitty-by-the-Sea, jobless and broke. What's a bloke to do? Step one is obviously to find some form of employment. Currently I'm looking at a dazzling lack of options. Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can find a job somewhere as a butcher. (I'm actually not kidding.) I have absolutely no experience in this field, but I've been interested in developing a more personal relationship with the food I eat, as well as learning more about animal raising/slaughtering practices and making better choices about the food I subsequently eat. And besides, I really don't want to wait tables ever again. Of course, I'm also looking into RI studios. So far most seem to be run by the one or two people who own them. I have gotten one "Thanks but no thanks" message, and one studio does want me to send them a demo reel. One advantage RI does have for me is that I can better afford to take a low-to-no pay position, provided I am getting some income somewhere.

What does this all add up to and what does it have to do with the alphabet? Well, to answer the second question first, nothing. I just happened to already have this blog. The biggest thing to come out of all of this is I've decided to finally get serious about having a music career. The over-all quality of my music has made such improvements over the last four months and I feel like I can put out a product that is uniquely me while at the same time being something that people might actually want to listen to. I've been working hard on my new album, Medicinal Reverb, and should have it ready within a month, and I have to say, I'm very proud of it. Also, I've been making a renewed effort to get gigs, which has already resulted in two upcoming shows. I've also been thinking a lot about promotion and different things I can do to get my music out there. The new focus of this blog is a result of that thinking. Here I will track the ups and downs of this journey. Who knows, maybe some day you can say "Dude, I've been reading that blog since he only had four readers."

A milestone

Having been away from my physical cd collection for a few months, I didn't notice right away that I hit a milestone recently. My cd's are held in two shelf units, and as of the second Mingus disc I moved on to the second shelf! Zoiks.

It's a shiny day and the dog shit smells like strawberries

I think it may be true that every line in 50 Gallon Drum by Buck 65 may make for a good blog title.

Anyway, last week I spent several sunshiny days wandering around Central Park listening to the dozen or so Charles Mingus albums I own. To say that Mingus made some good music is like saying that sex can feel good. "Gee mister, are you some kinda rock-it scientist?" No great surpirses for me, Mingus really has it all. From the raw power of Haitian Fight Song to the heart-crushing beauty of Self Portrait in Three Colours, and sometimes all within one song (Scenes in the City.) The only real discovery for me was realizing how little I knew the album Mingus Dynasty. I was left with one question; How is it that I relate so strongly to the music of a mentally disturbed black man from half a century ago?

Side project

So for a few months I've had a side project that I haven't even mentioned here, but I'm almost done with. This post will be a review of the whole bloody thing.

I got all kinds a' tapes
When I was at WRIU I would frequently tape my shows. As a result I have literally hundreds of hours of these shows. In 2001 I created a show called Last Century in Jazz, the idea being to present a chronological review of the first one hundred years of Jazz. I organized the show by decade, spending a few weeks exploring each before moving to the next. One of the great things about these tapes for me is I used a lot of music from the 'RIU library, so there's a ton on music that I don't have otherwise.

Goodbye Sunny :(
Late last summer, my car died. I was able to borrow a car that only had a tape deck, so I decided to listen to Last Century in Jazz since it represented the chronological approach that I find so interesting. I found it fascinating to listen to the arc and growth of the music over the years. The one thing that seems to expand the most is the over-all variety. Earlier Jazz does have variety, but one needs to listen at a very fine level to hear the differences between artists or sub-styles. Casual listening will only reveal a general rikky-tikky-tik sound. Similarly, as the music drifts towards noisier, free jazz styles, the same subtlety of listening is required to hear more than just skwonk-skweedly-squeal.

To pat myself on the back, I played lots of good shit on that show. That's been the main treat in listening to these tapes. In a world where time is not an issue I would love to back-up and catalogue these shows, if for no other reason than creating a cd/record wish-list. (author goes in search of Marzette Watts...) There have been so many times that I've been blown away by a particular piece of music and then thought "Oh yeah, so-and-so" when I heard the announcement saying who it was.

"Apparently there's some chaos going on out there in the world, so you want to watch out for that.."
My show was on Tuesday mornings, 9-11am. This meant that I was on the air the morning of the Sept. 11th attacks. I had no idea what was happening and went about my show in the usual fashion, i.e. getting stoned at 8:30am on my way in and making inappropriate wisecracks on air "What would a guy with a name like Steve Swallow want for someone to hold against him?" Even after I had some idea of what was happening I still made cracks like the one in bold. This is the show that I listened to most recently and it was extremely hard to listen to. That's pretty much all I can say about that. There are only two more shows before the infamous "Mutha-Fucka" incident, and then this side project is over.

OK, that's all for now. Two blogs in one day after four months of silence should be enough.

What a slacker...

Jeez, it's been awhile. I'm not even going to attempt to talk about any of the music I've listened to since my last post, but I will give an update on where the project is and make a renewed attempt at maintaining this blog, once again!

Prior to the holidays I listened to Olivier Messiaen, including all the discs that Christopher has. I also managed to *coughs*get*coughs* a seventeen disc Messiaen set around that same time. Now, one of the problems with classical-type stuff is ordering things chronologically. It's not as easy as rock records where, say for example, Rubber Soul comes before Revolver, period. First of all individual discs may have compositions from across a number of years. Also, there's the problem of revisions. For example, does one listen to the Turangalila Symphony in 1948 when it premiered or in 1990 when its final revision was published? I ultimately decided to do Messiaen in three chronological sweeps. First up was the four disc organ works set. These disc represented his complete organ works up to the point they were recorded, presented chronologically, so they had their own logical time sequence. Next I went through all of the discs Chris and I have, doing my best to organize them in a reasonable order.

At that point it was mid December and I knew I was a) getting an iPod for xxxmas, and b) moving to NYC but not bringing my cd collection for at least a few months. I decided that I would move the project to the digital realm, starting with the Messiaen set. Since I had a bit of time between finishing the physical Messiaen discs and when I moved to the city I pushed forward with the actual collection. I made it up to Paul D. Miller (better known as DJ Spooky) After I finish the Messiaen set I will resume with the Miller disc, Viral Sonota. (and I'll try to review that one here)

As for Olivier: wow. Truly amazing all the way through. Yesterday I listened to the entirety of From the canyons to the stars.. while wandering around Central Park in the snow. Interesting to listen to music that at times imitates the sound of wind blowing while being outside on a windy day and having to wonder if it's the music or reality. There's also something wonderfully surreal about riding the subway with the sound of organ music blasting directly into your skull. Oh I'll stand clear of the closing door please! Of course, sometimes that doesn't work out so hot, like the time I was trying to listen to a particularly quiet and beautiful passage and a two piece mariachi band set up right next to where I was sitting.

The good Judge Robert presiding... (pt. 5.7 of 5)

(Hey man, I'm a Douglas Adams fan, I know how many books are in a trilogy ;-)

The oughts.
(or: When PRO-gressive becomes RE-gressive)

The first post-Bruford Crimson disc, The ConstruKction of Light seems to say "Hey, we were cool back in '74!" Even to the point that a couple of the songs are updated version of pieces from that era. The ep Happy With.... seems to start things looking up again, but is nowhere near as mind blowingly different as VROOM was. And finally, The Power to Believe, while being the best of the three, is not going to be making it into my heavy rotation anytime soon. At this point "danger" seems to be just a well defined setting on a rack of effects. That being said, I wish I had seen them on that tour and would certainly go see them any time.

Perhaps Prog Rock is like Punk Rock in that if you become too good at it the music loses the chaotic edge that is essential to its definiton.