Constantine

Good news, folks -- Keanu doesn't actually totally suck in this one! Keep your expectations LOW, and it's a fun summer movie in February.

Premieres

Last night was the premiere of Newman's new work, The Rivers of Bowery, and tonight, my arrangement of Isaac Albeniz' Asturias will be premiered at Texas Lutheran University, with Keith Dye conducting. My very best wishes to the ensemble -- I can't wait to hear how it goes!

The Master Speaks

John Corigliano is the featured story in this month's issue of NewMusicBox. I've been too busy to read it, but that's no reason why you shouldn't!

Guitar Improv in E (60 B.P.M.)

I've been feeling kinda restrained lately -- my creativity too boxed in. I've needed an outlet. Here it is -- no preparation, just one live pass of guitar with minimal editing. All the effects were done live, on-the-fly.

GUITAR IMPROV IN E (60 B.P.M.)

NOTE: this was all created with just the lowest open string on one guitar.

For the tech-heads out there: I'm using an E-bow on a Fender Strat, into a Weeping Demon wah pedal (under my right foot), to a Digitech Whammy pedal (under my left foot), into a POD PRO amp simulator, and adding some reverb with a T.C. Electronics Fireworx box (standard setting 193 called "Echos Of Echos"). That's it -- no harmonizers, no layering, no post-production processing -- this is all live.

...and miles to go before I sleep...

I've got a TON of music and audio to produce in the next few days, so postings may be... unusual...?

Gotta run!

Hunter S. Thompson R.I.P.

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
- Hunter S. Thompson

Life in the Big City

This kind of day could only happen in a major metropolitan in the United States. Check out my Sunday:

8:15 AM - got up early and headed into the studio to work on an electonica demo.
12:30 PM - go back home to shower and change.
2:00 PM - meet Nicki at "Big Bowl" -- an uptown stir-fry joint where her friend Arik is having his surprise birthday party, thrown by his fiancee, Mary-Kate. Arik is a playwright and a dog-walker. Mary-Kate is a songwriter and a nanny. The party is primarily comprised of musicians, writers, and dog-walking clients. Arik shows up with Mary-Kate's birthday gift on his forearm -- a freshly-inked tattoo. We brought him a bottle of wine. Turns out Arik doesn't drink.
5:30 PM - Nicki drops me by my friends' Rich and Inger's place. I play Rich the demo I finished this morning, and he makes some excellent suggestions. We bundle up, toss their two-year old and head out to dinner. We decide on a sushi restaurant called "Tank". A two-year-old in a sushi restaurant. You can imagine what took place...
7:30 PM - Rich and I jump on the "el" train and ride downtown to the Chicago Theatre to see the Pat Metheny concert.

UNBELIEVABLE. They play their entire new album, and it is absolutely extraordinary. I'm quite positive I didn't understand a note of it, but it is totally incredible.
10:30 PM - hang out at the theatre for a while - Rich has a great contact for backstage passes, so we're waiting to see if his cell phone is gonna ring.
10:50 PM - doesn't appear that Rich's cell phone is gonna ring.
11:30 PM - hop back on the "el", and ride to Nicki's apartment. Her sister Jesse is visiting, so I stop in for a glass of wine and a few rounds of Yahtzee...

chaos on ebay

Well, soon my Chaos Theory distortion pedal will be gone... our time together is ticking away rapidly as the ebay countdown continues... I've had numerous second thoughts this week as I've considered it's sentimental value (as well as the buzzsaw sound!), but sometimes you have to let something go in order to move on...

sigh...

String Station

OK, the seminar was totally fascinating. Ed, Elliot, and George were all so personable and brilliant, it was really inspiring to be there. And there are a million things to tell about their talks, but what I really want to mention is this recording session they'd set up as a demo of surround sound technology. There was a drummer/ percussionist mic'ed in surround, and this extraordinary musician/inventor named Jim Bartz. Jim has invented an instrument called THE STRING STATION -- it's a patented, 40-string surround sound instrument, and he's the only person in the world who can play it. And he DOES play it -- it was absolutely mind-blowing to watch him play this free-form/new-age/improvisational music, and the colors and sounds he was creating were just fantastic. He was truly his own surround-sound ensemble, and I was absolutely mesmerized.

At the very least, I urge you to visit his website -- talk about a man following his vision! Truly amazing.

Legends of Recording

In the midst of impending deadlines, I'm headed to an invitation-only surround sound seminar at Pressure Point Studios, hosted by recording engineer legends: Ed Cherney (Michael Jackson, Dave Matthews, Billy Joel...), and Elliot Sheiner (The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, The Flaming Lips...) and my engineer/producer idol, George Messenburg. It should be a great glimpse at some serious cutting-edge technology. I'll let you know if there are any interesting tales to tell!

interesting concept

I have a dear friend whose blog is plagued by spammers who post sex ads all over her comments pages. They're like overfed city birds, repeatedly dive-bombing the proud edifice of her insightful thoughts and creative notions with their vile whitewash, until the whole page stinks of pidgeon poop. I feel very sorry for her...

But what is interesting was the most recent text that was offered as a link to some kinky website -- it was actually rather insightful:

"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious."

Kinda makes you stop and think...

Who knew you could actually learn something from these promoters of porno?!?

yeah... but can he moonwalk?!?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Scott Wills.

Totally, utterly sick.

Zappa's quote of the day (2)

Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not Music.
Music is THE BEST.

(is it just me, or does he look alot like Milt Allen?)

ebay

Threw a couple of autographed BCM posters up on Ebay... I also put up the distortion pedal I used for my lead/solo sound for every Chaos Theory performance in 2004...

* Calypso Bay *

Thought I'd post the featured tune for that Calypso-themed game I was working on... you might remember that the budget got slashed on this project, so it went from writing for live musicians, to coming up with everything on a bionic shoestring (in other words, for free). So I'm playing everything on the track, but the bass guitar and rhythm guitar are the only "real" instruments -- the steel drums, timbales, and drumset are triggered samples, and most of the percussion toys are time-altered loops. The basic Calypso beat has a strong downbeat on "one" and a strong "pickup-to-three", so it's got a real forward-leaning, lope-y quality to it. With all the layers of percussion loops, this was a very tweaky track to keep groovin'.

Enjoy!

Metallica - Some Kind of Monster

Let me first establish that I LOVED Metallica back in the day. RIDE THE LIGHTNING and MASTER OF PUPPETS were IT when I was a little pre-pubescent headbanger, and even though they haven't put out a decent album in years, there has remained a soft spot in my steel-belted heart for James, Lars, and Kirk (and Cliff (R.I.P.)). So I came to this documentary ready for anything -- with as much sentimentality and sympathy as I could muster -- I really wanted to enjoy this experience.

IT SUCKED. SUUUUUUUUUCKED. 2 and a half hours of my life I can never have back. As a glimpse of the band members, as a glimpse at their "creative" process, and even on it's own merits as a film, it SUCKED. You could see the structure of the documentary these filmmakers were trying to make, but the band was not articulate enough to express themselves, and the filmmakers were not adept enough to capture the elements they needed in order to tell the story they wanted to tell. At rare moments, it comes off like a real-life Spinal Tap... but mostly you're either bored or cringing. And the only lesson to be learned from this film is that money is no substitution for inspiration.

So it's time for me to let them go -- since they refuse to embrace their post-mid-life-crisis lifestyles with quiet dignity, I need to honor my cherished memories (and dented eardrums) and let them drop from radar. Pretend that they don't actually exist anymore, and remember a happier, more hardcore time. Before the haircuts. Before radio airplay. Before the abomination of LOAD and (oh sweet jesus no) RELOAD. Before the Napster Wars. Even before Jason.

When Metallica were young, hungry and HEAVY -- not old, bloated and uninspired.

Now if only the flashbacks of witnessing this film would stop haunting me...

what now?

It's really strange -- now that all the frantic binding and folding and shrink-wrapping of scores and parts is finished, and the last of the fall-out from the Midwest Convention has fallen out, I find I really REALLY want to be writing again. I'd kind of felt unmotivated while all that fuss was going on, so it's nice to once again feel that itch to create. I'm not sure what I'm going to do though... I don't have a commission for the fall, so I'm considering doing some chamber music. Perhaps writing an augmented sax quartet -- perhaps sax quartet with electric guitar?

Zappa's quote of the day

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
- Frank Zappa

GREAT weekend

O.K. -- I just had a great weekend on so many levels, it boggles the mind. For starters, I went to a going-away party for two friends at a club called CRUSH. That was a good time...

So long, Jason! Best wishes!

then on Saturday, we went to the IMAX theatre at Navy Pier to see James Cameron's Aliens of the Deep. Absolutely amazing what's LIVING down there...

Elton John wanna-be? No, 3-D optics...

I also finished up all the scores and parts for TRANZENDENTAL DANSE OF JOI -- so within a few days, it will be available from Hal Leonard!

But the coolest thing of all might've been finding out that Nicki actually LIKES the Dixie Dregs!!!

It's true. Impossible, but true.

It's Friday!!!

EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!

calypso

FINALLY was able to square away time yesterday to start writing that Calypso tune, and I think I've got a melody that I like now. Everything I'd come up with so far was really trite and stupid sounding -- as my fellow composer, Jerod Tate, always said:

"There's a fine line between simple and simpleminded."

Harmonically and rhythmically, Calypso is actually not all that complex, and the style is so bastardized that it's difficult to isolate a "pure" style for that idiom. But I'm on a roll now and just have to come up with a bionic ensemble that sounds realistic -- it's very easy to make something sound "phony" by not paying attention to the natural limitations of your instrumentation. So even though this whole thing will be MIDI (well, except the guitar and bass...), I've got to crack the orchestration books and do my homework so that I can come up with realistic parts for my "musicians". I'll even think through what each percussionist's arm and leg is doing!

this one's on me

Here's a recent email from a noted band director of a Southern University... he's always been a big supporter and had expressed an early interest in TranZendental Danse of Joi. This was so funny I had to share it:

"It was a mid-December day. This old fart band conductor was
strolling through a zoo of vendors in a Chicago dungeon, when suddenly, he was recognized. This young vendor belonged to a group known as BCM, but was known to the old fart as the Four Marketeers.

The young lad spoke first. "Joe! Oh man, I must apologize. I haven't sent you that music yet."

And the old fart replied in his fake southern accent, "That's okay. Send it after the first of the year." He spoke in a friendly manner, but those around could tell that he was wary of the young lad's apologetic tone. It sounded just like the one he hears every day from his wife back home--"Oh baby...not tonight...how about the next three nights in a row." Just as back home, he sensed disappointment on the horizon.

But the young marketeer continued. "I'll mail it to you January 1!"

"The post office is closed on January 1," replied the old fart with disdain.

"Okay, then January 2."

"January 2 is on Sunday." (he decided not to end the sentence with d*ckhead)

Finally the young lad dropped his shoulders and said, "January 3." The deal had been struck....or so the old fart thought.

Everyday he sat in an old rocker next to the mail area waiting on his package....knowing that it's arrival would prompt a Danse of Joi. For four weeks he has fasted and has tried to have Courage and Compassion. However, it appears that the young marketeer has stuck the old fart in the Asturias with a plethora of broken promises.

In celebration of the young marketeer's organization skills, the old fart will be performing Chaos Theory on February 25 for the GMEA District 2 Honor Band in Norman Park, GA. It does appear, however, that the 500 students and band directors will not get to have their Danse of Joi. What the hell, it's held at a Baptist Assembly anyway.

Greetings from the nursing home."

Sorry for the delay, folks -- TRANZENDENTAL DANSE OF JOI SCORES AND PARTS WILL BE FINISHED VERY VERY SOON!!!

Happy Birthday Nicki!

Happy Birthday, ya PARTY ANIMAL!