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posting from the laptop
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Apr. 22nd, 2008 @ 11:38 pm
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because my awesome, expensive, redundant, top-quality desktop PC is currently a paperweight. /me cries. not that i've lost data or anything, its just that I'm so maxxed out already right now i don't really have time to take two days to rebuild my system. blarg!
 Current Mood:  crappy Current Music: eerie, deafening silence. |
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Mar. 18th, 2008 @ 05:42 pm
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Its been a damn long time. Here's some stuff.
Stuff I'm smiling about
- Radiohead. I never got Radiohead back in the day when everyone else did. Welp, I finally got it. Wow I like me some Radiohead.
- Spring. Its here. Yay.
- Practice & study. I'm making time for it again. I'm practicing a lot and loving it. Watch for performances with increasing frequency.
- Pootie Tang. I forgot how damn funny that movie is. If you notice odd jibber-jabber in this post, it isn't because I've lost my mind, its because I watched Pootie Tang last night.
Stuff I get sad about
- Being lonely. I guess it happens to the best of us.
- Lapsed friendships. I've lost too many friends to inertia, to weird unspoken stuff, to "well i'm just too embarassed to call now its been so long"... Hopefully I can sack up and take the initiative to reconnect with some long lost peeps.
- My insecurities, and the ways they manifest themselves in my behavior. I've done a lot of personal work over the last years. I've made some huge strides but still have an incredible amount of work ahead of me.
Stuff I can't believe
- Amy Winehouse. I've been aware of her as a pop culture icon and haven't really checked out her art until now. Holy crap. She's a cole toni. She's a baddy daddy lamatai tebby chai. Seriously. She is unbelievably amazing and her album is brilliant. I'm a complete fanboi. I'm tempted to go on and on about her. Seriously.
- China. Fucking dicks. If there is one culture on this beautiful blue earth that deserves a little protection and compassion, its Tibet. What the fuck did they ever do to you, China? Of course nobody will stand up to China and tell them that what they are doing is wrong. That's a canapan, all the way down.Current Mood:  indescribable Current Music: Amy Winehouse |
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Oct. 31st, 2007 @ 06:12 pm
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crap, its been way too long since i've written here. well, this one is just a hit & run, hopefully more later:
quoting Trent Reznor from an interview in New York Magazine
"I think it's just an awkward time right now to be a musician. The reality is that people think it's okay to steal music. There's a whole generation of people, that's all they've known. I used to buy vinyl. Today, if you do put out a record on a label, traditionally, most people are going to hear it via a leak that happens two weeks — if not two months — before it comes out. There's no real way around that. I'm truly saddened because I think music has been devalued, so that it's just a file on your computer, and it's usually free. But we can't change that. What we can do is try to offer people the best experience that we can provide them. Will it work? I don't know. But I think it's a great way to get music out to people who are interested. At the end of the day, all I care about is the integrity of the music, and that the feeling of those who experience it is as untainted as possible. I'd rather it not be on an iPod commercial. I'd rather it not be a ringtone that you have to get with a free cell phone or any of that bullshit."
word.Current Mood:  okay |
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Jul. 16th, 2007 @ 01:19 pm
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 I'm currently at the SourceTree Tree House Build in Breckenridge, CO. We're about halfway through and I'll say its been pretty amazing so far. I've gotten to meet and collaborate with a bunch of people who I have only admired from afar in various online communites, and also spend some great time with the local folks who I don't get to see as much as I'd like.
I am humbled and amazed to take part in software design discussions where we are using terms like "human dignity", "nurturing", and "abundance" and where we are examining incentive systems in terms of moral, economic and social imperatives. Where a user usually has to accept a "terms of use", we are implementing a "code of ethics". We are co-creating a commons in the truest sense of the word. Geek Gene develops open-source software. Just about everything we build is in the spirit of OSS, its just that we haven't been very good about actually sharing the stuff we build. An important thing that is happening this week is that we are actually opening up, documenting, and sharing Congo. Today we begin orienting a couple new developers, Adam and Alex, and I'm excited to see how it goes. Something that I am excited to finally share is a description of what Congo is. Many of you have asked me many times to describe Congo to you, and I'm sure you have gotten either a very short general answer, or you have gotten an hour-long ramble of me trying to explain it. Well, compliments of AB, here is the best description I've seen so far.
Current Mood: indescribable Current Music: Wilco, Sky Blue Sky |
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gettin down
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May. 5th, 2007 @ 07:11 pm
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at the prince prom. chad is hiding behind holly. what a fun party. :D
* i swiped this pic off someone's flickr. i don't know them, but they were obviously at the party. thanks, dude!Current Music: prince. duh. |
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surveillance....
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Apr. 3rd, 2007 @ 11:28 am
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...there are 32 CCTV cameras within 200 yards of the flat 1984 author George Orwell lived in London...
http://www.psfk.com/2007/04/big_brother_kin.htmlCurrent Mood:  worried Current Music: ltj bukem |
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blogging, events, worldview and i <3 xkcd
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Mar. 22nd, 2007 @ 10:41 am
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well, after a long winter's hibernation, i return to the livejournal.
public journalling is wonderfully cathartic at times, and it freaks me out to no end at other times; particularly when i get reminders in real life that people actually read these things. i actually wrote a really long 'year in review' sort of entry back on dec 24 while i was stuck in colorado due to storms, but couldn't see clear to inflict it on you, gentle reader. to sum it up in a few words, last year was a long series of disappointments punctuated by a few very bright moments.
its been an eventful year so far. my dad died. my dear sister is having a baby. i quit the band. i'm fucking broke. i'm crazy about a girl (or maybe just plain ol' crazy). i'm immersed in frustrating work day and night right now, rebuilding something i've already built several times, and have been under a lot of pressure to finish it immediately (ok, weeks ago). i'm (gratefully) finding solace in the company of friends and lovers.
sometimes i'm so sad i can't take it. other times i'm so happy i think i'm going to pop. the state of the world makes nihilism seem an attractive option, if the easy way out.
i'm still trying to find my place in this mixed up world and make sense out of the jumbled mess of knowledge, skills, talents, desires, hopes and fears which have accumulated in me over the years. i'm feeling like the rehearsal is over and its time to get on with the show. but then there's a part of me that just wants to sleep late and make art all day.
Some great xkcd strips:
http://www.xkcd.com/c163.html
http://www.xkcd.com/c149.html
http://www.xkcd.com/c138.html
http://www.xkcd.com/c90.html
http://www.xkcd.com/c39.html
http://www.xkcd.com/c37.html ; i do this!! i thought i was the only one!Current Mood:  hopeful Current Music: imogen heap |
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goin nowhere, slowly
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Dec. 23rd, 2006 @ 05:24 pm
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so much for travel. i'm sure you all know about the crazy blizzard that hit colorado. when i left the house early wednesday morning to go to the airport, it was cold, windy and snowing a little. by the time i got to the airport it was snowing crazy. by the time i got back home (without my already-checked luggage which i was told i was not getting back), there was a foot of snow everywhere.
i won't go into the details, but suffice it to say i won't be dealing with travelocity ever again. i'm a patient, understanding, compassionate cat, and still they pushed me beyond the brink of what i can withstand in terms of crappy coustomer service. fuckers.
i'm postponing my trip for a little while. the best flights i could get were on xmas day (and i don't want to put my family through that), had two connecting flights (!!), and were more expensive (!!!!!!!). fuck that (and fuck you, travelocity). so rather than inconveniencing everyone, having my trip cut short, probably getting stuck in some other city, and not getting to do the fun stuff i wanted to go do (nyc), i'm just going to wait. this has been an expensive trip already. i decided to "splurge" and just get a shuttle to the airport, in order to not inconvenience my friends to give me a ride (tho i had several very kind offers) at 5 in the morning. well, that kind of backfired when i had to turn around and come back home. i tried to use the bus to save some money, but it was an hour and a half late, no deal there.
so, i was stuck back at home without any of the stuff i put in my luggage (you know, toothpaste & stuff like that), a buried car and a shut-down city. i had enough food, but nothing good (since i had pretty much cleaned out the kitchen in preparation for being gone two weeks). mmmm pasta.
i got myself all dug out yesterday, got to the supermarket and got to the liquor store ;-) i have been able to get some work done, which has been nice & kind of a bonus since i was expecting to be less productive. still plugging through on rebuilding the server mentioned in the last posts, hopefully will finish that sometime this weekend. its been tough to motivate, so i've been watching movies, the research channel, and reading. woo hoo.Current Mood:  disappointed Current Music: wefunkradio |
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down for maint^h^h^h^h^h the count
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Dec. 19th, 2006 @ 09:50 pm
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yah, that server is really hosed. thanks again, spry.
today i had a feeling of impending doom, a looming dread that i was (perhaps for days) sending emails to people and they weren't getting them. or that they were getting them, but i wasn't getting their replies. it was true (and i'm not sure which one). as i kind of suspected all along, it was an intermittent problem that was letting some email through, and apparently eating other emails. fucking awesome. the kind of problem that isn't totally obvious, but that leaves intuitive folks like myself wondering if something is wrong. i sent messages to people who generally get back with me right away, only to not hear back. and while there is never a good time for such a thing to happen, this is a particularly non-awesome time. i'm getting on a plane in the morning, i've left more loose ends than i'm happy about, mostly because of this server fuckup. we've spent days trying to repair the thing, and now we are just moving everything over to a brand new server at a different data center, as quickly as we can. i hope we can sue spry, i'm generally not the litigous type but this kind of thing makes me so angry. i want to punch them in the face. pow! spry, pow!
anyway, i'll write from the road!Current Mood:  aggravated |
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down for scheduled maintenance...
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Dec. 18th, 2006 @ 02:47 am
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just a quick follow up on "scheduled maintentance" -- turns out that that big storm in the northwest hit right during this maintenance, and now (long story short), i lost all the work i did in the hours before, and now that server is all fucked up anyway.
its times like this when i usually turn to the marketing page of the company providing this service to me, and read their promises of full nightly backups, redundant power supplies, diesel generators, failsafe systems and so on, then i wonder why our server was just simply gone for about 16 hours, then when it came back, it was royally fucked up. thanks, SPRY, good job, guys.
so, in this blog i have now name-dropped TWO virtual server hosting companies who will soon be losing my business. this makes me laugh. dude must have been googling "rackforce" and "crappy" to find my comments.
will be hitting the road soon for some east coast adventures. :-)Current Mood:  annoyed |
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Dec. 15th, 2006 @ 02:05 am
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foiled again. i set aside some time to work on a particular server for a particular client who has been a little neglected lately, and the server is down all night for scheduled maintenance. nice timing. ok, so i'll blog.
last friday night right around closing time, i found myself in my car, trying to exit downtown denver after playing a gig. i knew it was going to be a zoo, so i carefully planned a smart escape route. about halfway through said route, i encountered a police barricade blocking the road and forcing me to go back the opposite direction i wanted to go. great. approaching a green light, a happy group of revelers stepped right out in front of my car, not looking. i almost hit them. they barely flinched, kept walking, and then they REALLY almost got hit by the guy in the lane next to me who was going way faster than i was. he locked up his brakes and skidded trying to avoid them. very close call, and the happy drunk kids were a little more fazed that time, but the whole thing was still apparently very funny. ugh. it took me about a half an hour to escape. during that time, more people walked out in front of my car, one guy lunged at me pretending to attack while i was waiting at a red light. i'm surprised that there aren't more bad accidents in lodo on the weekend. i'm not surprised there is so much violence. someone remind me again why alcohol should be the one recreational drug that is okay?
i got to hear rose hill drive play live the other night; totally random. i was at the new tattered cover / twist & shout compound on colfax (holy crap! i didn't even know they moved.) went into the bookstore first. while waiting for my friend to pick up some books i ran into some other friends (larchick!!) who told me that RHD were doing an in-store at twist and shout right then. so we wandered over & heard them play. it was loud. damn good, but i could only stay in the room for one song, i had no earplugs on me (note: i need to devise a way to always have earplugs on me.) those are some young kids who are really killen it old school, it was a hot little show. the new twistentatterd complex is pretty cool. both places have more or less retained the vibe of their old locations, and it is positively insane that they are right next door to each other. danger! and this was only a pit stop on the way to ethiopian restaurant. ohh that food is so good!!
saturday night will be a special trio performance of the MLBand @ conors in boulder. check this show if you can, i'll be holding down the bass and letting mikey step up & soak up some limelight. it's sure to be funky as hell, and the last MLB show for a while, at least until february. then sunday evening i'll be waging art with art compost & the word mechanics for the last time til next year.Current Mood:  sleepy Current Music: elgar - enigma variations |
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Dec. 6th, 2006 @ 01:41 am
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it is difficult for me to describe the overall state of jim right now. it includes pretty much all the major emotions and mental states, then all mushed together in a haze of sleep deprivation.
i have been getting very little sleep for a couple of weeks now. there are a few reasons why, some of them not so good, and some of them very good. it is right around this time of night when i should be settling in to bed (ok, probably an hour ago), but i feel like i just had coffee or something. i can't sit still. i'm totally amped right now. i think i need to get more exercise. no, i know i need to get more excercise. ***blasts talking heads cd & dances around like a freak wondering what the fish think about all this***
operating in a state of exhaustion is a trip. i have actually had some pretty special experiences performing music in various states of exhaustion and sleep deprivation -- the ego has no energy and just gives up, gets out of the way and allows you to be great. probably not the healthiest way to achieve greatness, but... anyway. i drove over a curb yesterday, i just kind of zoned out & drove off the road. i think i was examining the denver skyline while driving by. sweet.
it is so amazing to me that after being me all these years how much there still is to learn about myself... i'm experiencing abundant accumulation of personal insight recently, and i mean really important stuff on the level of who i really am, what i believe to be the true nature of reality, what love really means to me, what my creativity means to me and all that. its not been all sunny, but its honest and it is some of the deepest clarity i have experienced. i don't think i'm ready to share all of it here, but i'm on the road that never ends so there will be plenty more...
but here's a good one:
up til now, i never realized that a big part (if not the totality) of the traditional (american/anglo/western) concept of love is "desire to posess"... i realize how much i do not feel that, and i realize the trouble and suffering that trying to live up to that expectation has caused me (and others) over the years. i realize that what i have so many times experienced and interpreted as fear of committment was not really that at all, but simply lack of the expected "desire to posess". it is deeply ingrained early on, culturally... the little valentine's day hearts -- "be mine". linguistically... you learn early that if you "like" someone that you want them; you have to have them -- you don't have to talk about love for very long before you realize that most of the words you are dealing with are posessives. it is the simplest little idea, but just to be aware of it is to be free of it, and it is a heavy burden suddenly lifted; i have been living with such internal conflict for so long and a simple little thought one afternoon has made all that turmoil go *poof*. well, i'm glad that's over.
and i suppose this is just a belated thanksgiving nod, but while i'm taking time to celebrate my journey of self-discovery, i have to acknowledge that i am merely a dim reflection of the brightness of those who i am so blessed to be surrounded by, and that all my fears, trials and troubles amount to nothing compared to the abundance of love and light in which i am so fortunate to bask. love love love love love love.Current Mood:  peaceful, but pretty hyper Current Music: talking heads - naked (really loud) |
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work, play, zappa, mastering, holidays
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Dec. 1st, 2006 @ 12:16 am
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its been a while since my last update here, i've been super busy the last few months. it has been an energizing and productive few months. i've adoped some new approaches, some different priorities, and it has been pretty positive. i'm taking on less gigs, trying to leave my nights and weekends free for more leisure-type activities since i've been working full time.
just to follow up on my last entry, i did attend the zappa plays zappa show and i'm glad that i did. it was one of the best shows i've seen in a long time, perhaps ever. it was the first night of their tour but i would not have guessed that if i didn't know. i am always impressed when a band gets up and plays for three hours straight, not to mention it was all difficult material. napoleon murphy brock was the star of this show. he pretty much sang all of frank's parts AND all of ike willis' parts, all the while dancing around like a freak. the core band was excellent, and the guest artists were incredible. it is always humbling and inspring to see steve vai. it was also the first time i had seen bozzio perform live. if this show passes through your town, go see it. even if you aren't a zappa fan, just go see it.
i just got home from blue tower studio, where i was mastering joe for nothing's first CD. what a great young band. i wish my band when i was that age was that good. as i've said before, i learn so much every time i mix or master an album, and this was no exception. i'm rarely comfortable mixing (and especially mastering) on an unfamiliar set of monitors, but the monitors at the studio are on the fritz, so we had to bring in something else for these sessions. we rented some tannoy LGM monitors and i was truly impressed with them. i've only ever heard the smaller tannoy nearfield monitors, and i've never been impressed with them. these LGMs have incredible impulse response, and considering that they have just a single full-range driver, just incredible sound. really accurate and the stereo soundfield was better than i've ever heard in that room. i brought in a few of my favorite CDs to audition the speakers before getting down to work, and i just wanted to sit and listen to my nitin sawney disc all night. it made me long for the days when my home stereo was a pair of really good studio monitors. i had to sell my nice monitors a few years back, and i realize now how much i miss them, and also why i don't listen to music as often as i used to. i had literally forgotten how exciting and emotional it can be to listen to music when it is reproduced that faithfully. listening to 64k internet streams or mp3s or even CDs on a less-than-great home stereo system... a lot gets lost in translation. i think the band will be very happy with their first album. congratulations to JFN on making a great first album.
mastering is fun. i'm also pretty good at it. for all the abuse i've put my ears through over the years (and i've gotten a LOT better about using hearing protection over the last years), i can hear a lot. i could easily see myself tempted by a career as a mastering engineer. i enjoy other types of engineering, but the subtlety and nuance that good mastering can impart on a recording is nothing short of amazing. i listen to what those songs sound like before and after mastering and there is just no comparison. not that the mixes were bad -- to the contrary... blue tower does such a great job recording that as long as the tunes are arranged well and played well, that the mixes come together easily and it is a joy to master that kind of recording. i did wind up remixing a couple of the songs, which doesn't bother me but it did make for a looong session tonight. my ears are fatigued. i could tell at about 9:30 that i had better hurry up with the mixing because my ears were starting to get tired. ear fatigue is a really strange phenomena to experience. it is hard to describe. when you work too long past total ear fatigue, you need to keep turning it up louder but turning it up louder doesn't really help, it actually makes it worse. i can tell i'm a little bit "out of shape". a six hour session tonight was just at the brink of being too long. i used to happily mix for eight to ten hours.
i'm headed back east for the holidays and looking forward to that. i think i may be able to connect up with some of my colorado friends in new york, and i look forward to that, i love seeing friends out of context. i look forward to exploring NYC with stone and aziza.
more to write about, but its been a very long day and i am sleepy.Current Mood: sleepy Current Music: joe for nothing EP |
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up late, indian food, projects, zappa and a social life
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Oct. 14th, 2006 @ 03:50 am
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i am up waaay too late. but i'll go to sleep soon and not have to set the alarm clock for the first time in a very long time.
yummmmmmm awesome indian food tonight with good friends. nice to have a friday night off, and to find a new indian restaurant.
not much new to report, working a lot on projects, mostly the denver open media project. what a cool project, and its moving along. DOM is doing some very cool things, and we are building some innovative new tools to encourage and enable public participation in media.
musically, wedding season is drawing to a close, and the MLBand is slowing down a little to work some new material and some new personnel. fun gigs with vegas & the reals. i'm really lucky to get to play with the number of excellent musicians that i do. two nights at the tugboat with tori & birddog next weekend. look out steamboat!!
i'm going to the 'zappa plays zappa' show this week. i never got to see FZ while he was alive, and that is one of few regrets that i have. very much looking forward to the show. 75 bones for a ticket, so it better frickin' knock my socks off. ha! i'm sure it will.
i'm starting to try to carve a little more time out of my schedule for more fun stuff. i don't get out enough. i don't consider playing a show 'getting out', but it sort of feels like 'getting out' so i sometimes build this false sense of having a social life when i really don't.Current Mood: okay |
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achille lauro
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Aug. 10th, 2006 @ 02:40 pm
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i had a rare night out last night. i went to the larimer lounge to hear my friend's band for the first time.
wow. i think achille lauro is my new favorite band. not, like, my favorite local band, or my favorite band where i know the guitar player, but my favorite band. its like portishead, lamb, massive attack and queens of the stone age all rolled into one. that doesn't really do it justice, of course its more than just a few influences mashed together, it is very original, very deep, extremely dark at times, very trippy at times, totally crushing at times. very very good band. they be makin' fools cry & shit.Current Mood: contemplative |
| » keeping track, stage fright, the ritual, perpetual novelty |
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one of my quirks is that i am a bit of an archivist. i get sad when i go somewhere cool and don't have a camera, or play a cool show and it didn't get recorded. i like having records of things. maybe its because i studied accounting. i journal. i have details on every musical performance and recording session i've done. i'm glad that i do this. actually i'm pretty sure i inherited it from my mom, she's the same way.
i started keeping track of my musical performances in 1997. i recently compiled all that info in one place and learned that i have done 650+ shows over the last nine or so years. i also see that i have already done more shows this year than i did all last year. i'm on track to have my busiest year ever. i just had my busiest month ever, and wouldn't you know that it coincided with my busiest month ever in my professional life. (note to self: get more sleep)
people often ask me if i get stage fright or get nervous before a show. i used to get real bad jitters, but now i don't. when people ask how i beat the stage fright, i just show them my list of 650 shows. i'm actually more nervous to play for a couple friends in my living room than for a packed theater. i used to get anxious on shows if i felt like i was under-rehearsed or unprepared in some way, but that doesn't even faze me anymore. i mean, i always do my level best to be ready for a show, but sometimes it just doesn't work out. especially now that i am so busy with geekgene and my consulting clients. often i arrive at a show not having touched an instrument all day. that kinda bums me out, but it also really makes me play outside of the box -- i can't lean on the bag of tricks as much, and i often find that i play more from inside me than from my fingers when my fingers aren't cooperating. i do like to at least warm up for 45 minutes to an hour, bare minimum. back when i was doing just music full time, i would start preparing for a 10:00 show at about 4:00. actually the day would often be dedicated to preparing for the show. now i'm lucky if i can just make it to the thing on time without forgetting any gear.
the "show day" ritual goes something like this:
- sleep in
- have a nice breakfast
- read for an hour or two, preferrably at a park or somewhere outdoors
- stretching routine: shoulders, arms, hands and fingers
- practice for a couple hours (scales, arpeggios, technique drills, all with metronome)
- same stretches again
- early dinner (performing, especially singing, on a full stomach is tough)
- more practice, another hour or two (this time focused on repertoire for the show)
- do instrument & equipment maintenance (change strings, check instrument setups, fresh batteries, make sure i havent lost any cables etc..)
- pack everything up
- long yoga session
- shower, get ready (it can take an alarmingly long time to pick out a shirt sometimes)
- load out & go do it!
its been a veery long time since i've actually been able to pull this off. there have been times when i've had my druthers and spent the day getting ready, and then by the time i get to the show i'm pretty much cooked; it can be anticlimactic. there have also been times when i haven't played in three days and i show up and play my face off.
i've recently felt like i'm at a plateau. i've been practicing really hard for almost a year now, becoming a guitarist again. it has been great, and i've grown in leaps and bounds, but that kind of growth and development just isn't sustainable without the time & energy to dedicate to it. i currently feel like i'm just playing the same shit over and over. now, of course anyone who is listening certainly won't get that (unless they have been listening closely at the last 50 shows), but most of it sounds totally cliche to me. playing so many shows that are 100% improvised has been a great platform for me to further develop my voice on the instrument, and it has also been incredibly challenging to maintain the "perpetual novelty" which is the ideal in that music. i was on an art compost gig recently and seth asked me to start off a piece, and i just had nothing. i was out of ideas. it was my fourth or fifth night in a row of playing out and i was just totally depleted. i eventually came up with something, but it was a struggle.
Aug. 9th, 2006 @ 01:38 am
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| » miss you already josh |
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just the same old stuff but a lot different now: grander is dead. his bro is hurt real bad. car accident. upon hearing the news, i had to pull off the road (i was driving to keystone for a gig) so i could safely weep hysterically. had to play a show with the worst load-in ever*. had to put on a happy face for my band and the audience when i really just wanted to cry more. its hard to believe it when you hear news like that, like its a trick, like you didn't hear it right the first time. you need to call other people to corroborate, because it seems so impossible.
now that the hysteria is over, i'm just sad. sad, but also feeling very blessed to ever have come into contact with josh. i don't feel all that different, but i'm seeing the world through different eyes. i can't explain it. everything looks different -- literally. when i was driving home from keystone on I-70, it was the most unfamilliar road i've ever driven. when i got home, my house didn't look like my house. i look around now, and everything looks different.
here's wishing josh peace and serenity, christian a speedy recovery and the whole family love and strength.
* worst load-in / load-out ever: fondue restaurant @ keystone mountain
1) load gear from cars into gondola station
2) load gear into gondola cars, ride up gondola
3) unload gear from gondola cars at the other end
4) move gear from gondola station to NEXT gondola station
5) load gear into gondola cars, ride up gondola
6) unload gear from gondola cars at the other end
7) load gear from gondola station to performance space.
repeat in reverse order for load-out
Jul. 6th, 2006 @ 06:37 pm
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| » Flying Dude |
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holy shit!!!!
Jun. 29th, 2006 @ 04:15 am
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| » obsession, hiromi |
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i'm not often so moved by an artist's work that i obsess over it, although it has happened a few times. in recent history i can only come up with a few:
- portishead
upon hearing the self-titled portishead record i proceeded to listen to nothing but that for several months. i literally listened to it all day. i had 2 copies of the CD, and a tape that stayed in the car. i would wake up in the morning, put on the CD, then go to work listening to it in the car, then listen to it all day at work. i still really like it and listen to it often, though i did take a long break from portishead after this time period.
- tony furtado
i think that roll my blues away is one of the greatest records of acoustic music ever made. this record was my first introduction to several artists who have proven to be important influences on me: tony, kelly joe phelps and mike marshall. kelly joe and mike each deserve their own line item in this list.
- kelly joe phelps
what can i say. kjp is the best at what he does. i've kind of lost track of him, haven't heard his last recording(s?), or even seen him in a few years now, but i consider him to be one of the best songwriters in americana. kelly changed my life. i had all but stopped playing music until i saw him play a show. i immediately went home, destroyed one of my guitars turning it into a lap steel, and the rest is history. his influence on me and my music is indelible, and for that i am truly grateful and blessed to ever have crossed paths with this man.
i am moved to write about this because i have become rather enamored with the music of hiromi uehara. she is a berklee grad (please don't tell me she's still an undergrad), and has a couple records out. her first record, another mind is a tour de force of mostly aggressive, highly-arranged "modern jazz meets dream theater" or something like that. very good, and pretty intense. she's in good company with berklee faculty in her group, and cameos from anthony jackson and david "fuze" fuzenski (sorry if that's misspelled). this record spun my head around a few times for sure. she has a second record that i haven't ever heard.
its her third effort, spiral that i'm listening to over and over. its like she has grown up 10 years since the first album, like she has nothing to prove this time out -- anyone who isn't convinced that she is a badass from the first record, well, they won't ever be convinced. hiromi has developed a sense of melodicism that is sublime and uniquely hers -- its a meld of classic and futuristic (something like harold arlen meets chick corea, but better than that), and it has an opportunity to reveal itself in these compositions. there is as much advanced harmony and odd meter stuff here as on the first record, but its not nearly as show-off-y and is rarely frantic.
ok, here's the deal. hiromi, i want to be in your band. i play bass and guitar, both very well, and i can read ok (for a guy who never went to school for music).
Jun. 18th, 2006 @ 04:38 pm
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yay, summer is here. actually, my summer draws to a close already. i have the next couple weekends off, and then it is weddings every weekend until october.
i went down to the highlands square street fair yesterday and had more fun than i thought i might. saw some good friends, ross, micah & shawn, heather, dave, roger, tori.. feels like a neighborhood around here. i got to hear John Common -- wow! what a great band. my friend jed is the keyboardist in JC's group, and i'm glad to finally have heard them, they are really creative and cool.
working my face off. i have a couple new xerosphere clients, some new and exciting developments at geekgene, and startling offers on the table from a couple unexpected sources. if i had my druthers, everything that is on the table at xerosphere would come through, and i'd be able to split my time between xerosphere and geekgene about 50/50 for the coming months.
i'm tired of working my ass off for no money. there is another part of me that wants to just accept one of these offers of full-time employment, deal with it, and enjoy financial stability for a while. that would be really awesome for a while, but i know that would get old really fast. even if i close 25% of the business in my sales pipeline at xerosphere, i'll be doing just fine.
Jun. 18th, 2006 @ 12:01 pm
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