6.25.05
Q: How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?
(thanks John)
6.22.05
Recently, it seems inspiration has arrived mostly via DVD.
1. The Machinist
2. Orson Welles "F For Fake"
3. THX 1138
4. Diplo "Florida" OK, not a DVD but there is a bonus DVD in the paskage which I haven't seen
5. Neumann M-147 (x2) - definitely not a DVD
6. Shuggy Otis "Inspiration Information"
7. seeing the original Star Wars again after making the terrible mistake of seeing the newest one
8. Walter Murch - got to see Return to Oz, the only movie he ever directed
9. End of the Century
10. "the Wire" DVD box sets
6.11.05
Two dreams from the past two nights:
In one, I am changing a baby's diaper and I sing it a song to keep it calm. I think, "this is great - I am going to have to change a lot of diapers, so every time I do it, I can come up with a new song to sing - creative exercise, plus what a great way to get this kid into music!" I was singing a lot better in this dream than I do in real life though.
In the other dream, I dreamt a Bob Mould song he never actually wrote (music and everything - it sounded like it could have come off the first Sugar record), entitled "I'll Never Flip On You." The bridge sounded a bit like the BeeGees.
I usually don't remember my dreams - don't know why these ones should stay with me.
The MCI 416 is slouching toward its rebirth, thanks to a total rebuild of the power supplies, master, and monitor sections, by Bob Alach up in Massachussets. Nikhil came up yesterday and we made some headway into unravelling its mysteries. Mostly we cleaned every connection we could think of. This console is going to sound great. 32-year-old transformers, meet ProTools HD.
It is hot and nasty here. Every year Summer's arrival is a revelation of ugliness. I've lived in this region my whole life and I never get used to it. Poor Stapleton - when they came over from Glasgow, they got to enjoy our bonus week of Springtime weather, and then last week Maryland Summer totally CLOBBERED them. Niko the bass player said it was never this bad even when he went to Egypt as a kid. Maybe this suffering is contributing to making Great Art; in any case their record is turning out awesome.
Ten Very Good Things
1. Nil By Mouth (is this the only film Gary Oldman ever directed?)
2. Lungfish "Feral Hymns"
3. David Byrne's blog
4. 3 mics on a drum kit
5. the last 16 bars of "Spiders" played by DropSonic at the Sidebar - it's all I got to see of their set
6. Stereocean at the Sidebar on the same night
7. Pierre Sprey recording with 2 - 4 microphones and no mixer, directly to analog tape in his house. I am just surfing around now finding out about his label Mapleshade Records and everything I am hearing sounds amazing
8. the Star Wars series is finally over
9. India Rasoi Restaurant
10. Spoon
6.04.05
Hear me roar ...
In celebration of the unforseeable, the unmanageable, the un-quantizable, long live the MOMENT - and those who are sharp enough to recognize and document it.
I have been working predominantly in ProTools for about 3 years now, and as I have gone deeper and deeper into the PT milieu, I have been more and more willing to slice and dice, quantize, pitch correct, etc, etc, in the service of rendering a Platonic version of whatever song is in question - particularly if a performer's vision is a bit bigger than his or her abilities at a given moment. Why not use the technology, right? As a performer I have certainly been thankful for the helping hand of technology more than once when my meager powers failed to live up to my vision of a song.
BUT ...
Channels did some recording this past weekend, and right now I have to say that when things are really cooking, there is no way to improve upon a real, honest-to-God full-band take. It's the coolest thing there is, when everyone is actually playing together - and I mean on a deeper level than grids and waveform displays will reveal - it's unbeatable. It makes me so happy to have rendered some versions of our songs, and listen back to them and realize how driven they are by feel, rather than strict measurable tempo. Of course that has so much to do with Darren being such a one-of-a-kind amazing drummer, but it goes beyond that too. I am recording a wonderful Scottish band called Stapleton right now and I am seeing the same thing. The best stuff we have done is almost 100% live to the recording. Okay, anyone will have to punch in a note or few at times, but you know what I mean. Attempts to quantize performances have uniformly rendered just "good enough" results, to be shortly followed by live takes that just plain ruled. Music made by humans should sound like it is made by humans - and under the right circumstances, humans who are more alive in the moment they are making it.
I know I'm ranting, it's just that the technology is seductive, so when you can get your head out of the solitary, egoistic ProTools processes and assembly-line thinking that they (unwittingly or otherwise) promote, and back to the beautifully slippery and social essence of music making, it's pretty liberating.