Jamey Clayberg Music

Blogger-what?

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:29:00 +0000

I haven't posted in awhile I realize but this is due to two things. One, I've become more of a Twitter/Facebook user as of late, the small snippets seem a better match and take up less of my time, and Two, I'm in the process of re-doing my online "world" to better serve the needs of my life. I have a three-tiered goal this year of 1) Getting all the little (and a few big) projects done on my house (both to enjoy it and also make it sale-ready.) 2) Get my portfolio updated and super-tight (both because I need to keep it updated and hmm,) and finally, 3) Get my live show together and play play play (enough of this recording and sitting in the house bumming because no one hears it.)

So that's that, there may not be any blog posts here for awhile, and when there are again, the scenery may be very different (and hopefully much much cooler and more interesting.)

As Good As It Gets, YouTube style

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 01:19:00 +0000

Working on an acoustic cd, here's one of the tracks as it comes together.
Lyric of note: "there's a skel-e-ton inside of you." :)

JoshSpear.com

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:57:00 +0000

For a good long while Josh Spear.com has been inspiring me with the amazing posts they throw down on a seriously consistent basis. Music, design, art, "what's happening" in general is covered with clarity and a sleuthingly "me first" track record; I can't tell you how many times I've seen something mind-blowing on Josh Spear before seeing it on a million other blogs shortly after. The international bent of the site is a welcome addition, for inspiration and research the site is hard to beat. Check it.

Letterheadfonts.com Vintage goodness

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:15:00 +0000

Been awhile since I visited Letter Head Fonts and they've updated their site apparently. Zoinks! What vintage sign-craft fabulousness. The attention to detail and period accuracy is amazing. I can be a bit of an ephemera dork and these fonts are so right-on.

I watched this and my brain melted out

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:22:00 +0000

ProofHQ, online proof collab

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:12:00 +0000

Very interesting service, upload designs as they are being done and clients etc can access the proofs and make comments, I'm embedding a pic in this post for you design-y types to see how it works. More info at ProofHQ.com

YAR MATEY

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:55:00 +0000

My dude "field testing" a mask I'm designing for work.

"Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:20:00 +0000

Been re-listening to the audiobook of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell about what he calls "thin slicing," or those moments when your subconscious mind takes in details and information about something you see, and in an instant is able to arrive at complex and often accurate opinions about the thing or situation you are viewing. As a visually-oriented right brain guy I really resonate with this concept, and find the book to be fascinating and inspiring.

Highlights: Gladwell details a case where a museum tested an ancient relic for 14 months, and once validated bought the piece for millions of dollars, only to have several experts on antiquities express deep concerns about the piece the instant they saw it. It turned out to be a fake. That instinct that the experts had in an instant, a blink, came from much study and knowledge, but appeared in their mind as nothing more than a hunch, they could not explain why they felt that way. In this particular case an instinct from a persons subconscious turned out to be more accurate then 14 months of scientific analyses.

Gadwell also discusses the dark side of thin slicing, and ways it can be foiled, or swayed by other forces inside us. He talks about Warren Harding and the handsome, imposing presence he had. He LOOKED so presidential and powerful and healthy that people were persuaded he was appropriate for presidential office (yet he died in office of a heart attack and was widely considered to be on our worst presidents.)

I see this concept as explaining many mysteries in our life, from the business man who always seems to know exactly when to get out of an investment, to the reason extroverts and attractive people's success seems so often to be out of proportion with their ability or talent. There are a few areas in my life where I believe I strong thin-slicing ability, and I have always allowed myself to trust my "gut," but it's fascinating to see how those who trust only in analysis are rarely able to accept that kind of instinctual "know how" as valuable.

I highly recommend Blink if you find any of these ideas interesting.

Malcolm Gladwell, photographed by Brooke Williams

Christmas Madness: TURDUCKEN

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:17:00 +0000

WARNING: Video contains unrated footage of chicken, duck and turkey carcasses being assembled into a coma-inducing holiday meat-bomb.

While normally averse to putting anything in my mouth that has "Turd" in the name I must confess my yen to eat medieval-style fistfuls of meat from a properly prepared and cooked Turducken. Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like, a de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, stuffed with a de-boned chicken, with layers of suffing in between (that's a lot of stuffing.) Take a moment to soak that in.... Now that your mind is blown go ahead and watch the assembly of a majestic Turducken.

Oh and Merry Christmas!

The world around me, Dec 08

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:59:00 +0000

I practice what I call "Marking Time," which is mental note-taking. When I have a moment I want to remember, I tell myself to "mark this time," I repeat it to myself. I can recall several of these moments with more clarity than almost any other memory. For instance, I remember holding our first child in his room late one night and I can see the room around me (in my mind,) I can walk through the hall and see the bathroom and the living room and I can see my son in my arms sleeping. I marked that time. I noticed a few interesting shots on my phone this morning and thought I'd "mark" this time here electronically.

The Critter
My animal acumen is weak, I don't know what this guy is! The weird tail throws me. He was shuffling around my neighbours yard a couple weeks ago, I called G out to look at it and he ran up towards him. The critter shuffled away, not too excited by us but not taking chances either.

Sunset
This is what I saw leaving work the other night, I loved the overall cool blues with the fire-y center burning out from the sinking sun. Very cool. The flags in the background made it very movie-like.

Faucet
This is the faucet I installed on the sink I installed on the counter I painted next to the wall I painted (you get the idea.) Our house is ooold (1890's we think) and we have done a lot of (subpar) stuff to it. We aren't "restoring" it since thats not our style and is WAY too expensive. We are "facelifting" and it's a slightly odd mixture of modern-ish and vintage, which we love but any self-respecting interior decorator would get shivers down their spine. But it's ours, dang it!

The Fire
I had a nice moment last night with my wife sitting in front of the stove/fireplace pretending we weren't still watching Scrubs. I bought a load of firewood this year and we've been making use of it on these fa-reezing nights. Our stove is technically a Franklin Fireplace, which I don't think is original to the house but looks it, and I love the connection using it gives us to the past, different people over the last 100 years making a fire and staying warm in this structure, I wonder if any of them marked time and if they remember moments there too?

Rawk Show version 1

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:44:00 +0000

Would you like a side-salad with your crow?

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:17:00 +0000

It's sad how right Peter Schiff was, and even sadder how vigorously the talking heads chastise him for it.

The Jamey C Feed Roll (with crab and spicy mayo)

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:16:00 +0000

A few of my favorite blogs/sites I read (via Google Reader.)

General Info/entertainment:
Mental Floss Wee-bit nerdy but very entertaining blog, switched to this from BoingBoing after they lost their minds and started posting the same things over and over (and expecting different results.)

PostSecret one of my all-time faves, people write secrets on postcards and send them to this guy. Heartbreaking and eye-opening.

Seth's Blog Seth Godin is a marketing guru and illuminates culture and the web with serious skill.

Design-related:
Josh Spear A "what's hot" trend site that successfully meshes actual hotness and trend spotting with a slight dash of pretension.

Design*Sponge As a greeting card designer I have to keep one eye on what's going on with the forward-thinking trendy ladies out there (you know who you are.) This site does it best imho.

Yummy Fresh Grain Feed Lots of vintage 60's-ish design posted about here.

Font Feed Great font-centric design here.

Music-related:
Stereogum Less tunnel-vision snobbery than Pitchfork and always lots of posts here about indie music and such.

Music Thing Synth and gear tweaking-centric blog, I'm a sucker for interesting instruments and such.

Faith/Philosophy:
Revolution In Jesusland I don't always agree with this guy but I very much appreciate his socially-conscious look at faith.

I also read a bunch of personal blogs (friends and family,) maybe post them too sometime.

Pumpkins + Sword = Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:36:00 +0000

My boy G bought himself a sword at the Dogwood Festival last year so after the Jack O Lanterns rotted we tested the ninja-osity of his blade.

Time-lapse drawing

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:41:00 +0000

After playing an acoustic set at Love Out Loud I did a big ole' live drawing, took me about 40 minutes.

Live Drawing, Love Out Loud Festival 2008 from Jamey Clayberg on Vimeo.

The Cry of the Dinosaur

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:14:00 +0000

Every so often I catch (second-hand but occasionally first-hand) a quote from a seasoned business-person that catches me off guard. A senior leader of a Christian company says (at the urinal) they sometimes wish their company could just be a business and not a ministry too, a boss says he'd rather ask forgiveness then ask permission (after telling me to scan an illustration out of a magazine to put on a t-shirt), an employee of a media company threatens to fire an authors son if he doesn't comply with the changes they demand he make to his book.

But there's one quote I've heard over and over in articles, interviews, in person and in the back of my own mind.

"But this is how we've always done it!"

You've heard it too, or been given it as subtext, perhaps in subtle push-back from a co-worker when you mention a New Thing you think should be done. Let's call it The Cry of the Dinosaur. New ideas, experiments, combinations or opportunities get shouted down beneath it all the time.

Stability and familiarity are fantastic, they're comforting and evidence that things work well (the Dinosaur is big and meaty, he has survived just fine for a long time thank you very much.) And I'm self-aware enough to recognize I'm a risk-taker, and perhaps one of these days I'll jump out of my rut in an effort to stay flexible and get eaten by a bigger Dino; but I'd rather get chomped trying to find new life then slowly, painfully run myself into a pile of white bones at the bottom of my rut.

"Fiscal responsibility!" the careful business people shout, "We have employees to think about." The church leaders (clutching their three-point sermons) cry "We walk the narrow way, we need to carefully shepherd the congregation!" And finally (and most honestly) we all say inside, "Doing something new is scary and hard!" Which is totally and historically true.

I too stick to my rut, it's nice, I can run along with near-abandon, blissfully void of decision making, self-doubt, or failure. It's REALLY nice. But then the internet gets built, and gas gets super-expensive, and people stop reading books because they prefer movies and video games, and people stop going to church because it's rote and the traditional service format doesn't connect to their life, or the unflappable U.S. housing market takes a dive. The rut gets blown up, man, all the time, and the echo of our cry reverberates back in time through a thousand different states of "normal" that are gone forever.

"But this is how we've always done it!"

I'm not pointing fingers, the four pointing back at me are real and permeate my actions every day. It's a human thing. Maybe even a God thing. This is just a reminder (mostly to myself) to take every opportunity I can to do a Dino-check. Do I believe what I believe legitimately, deeply, or is it just an easy platitude? Is this the only way to promote this product, or just the way we've always done it? Should I eat this amount of pizza even though I'm in my 30's now? From time to time we need to shut our toothy jaws and pop our pebble-eyed heads over the edge of the rut, just to check and make sure there's not a bulldozer up ahead filling it in, or some tasty smaller Dinos running around up there we could get a mouthful of, or a world around us we could never imagine existed on our narrow, singular path.

Dinosaur drawing by Jon Huckeby

Evernote: For the creatively schizo

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:50:00 +0000

I've been living with Evernote for a bit and really really (did I say really) love it. Evernote is the first piece of software that works the way my brain fails to work AND built into Evernote are the means to harness the schizo-manic-popcorn nature of my mind. I can access my "stuff" anywhere I can access the internet, and I can add things to it with my Iphone. I'm using Evernote for three things; Research, Notes, and Document Storage. Me show you.

Research: I'm into way too many things. I love making music and design and art and film and writing and photography and etc etc etc. I want to work in, dabble in, monkey with and be involved in all of these things, but this does not a productive person make (alas.) I have files and documents and images, sketches, half-done book covers... In general, I can't ever find what I want to, I lose web links, I can't find that pic of the purple and gold cut-paper flower thing I wanted to remember, or the amazing interior I want to save for inspiration. Even when I save images or bookmarks, sorting through them can be counter-productive. In comes Evernote. Whatever I'm doing: browsing design sites, taking pics of locations I want to remember or compiling information about a subject I want to write about, I throw it into Evernote (into a notebook of like subjects,) tag it, and there you go. When I want to find it again I search by the name I gave it (if I remember) or by the tags I assigned to it or even just browse the notebook I put it in (click image below for a larger view of my "design" notebook.)

Notes: My wife thinks it's funny how I write lists. I don't know why, but I work things out making lists. I can get my lists off napkins and get them up on Evernote, I can even record snippets of songs I'm working on or record my father-in-law's astonishing snoring in the night at Red Rock Canyon and upload these files to Evernote for later use (hilarity and efficiency together at last.

Document Storage: My mind likes new, unexpected chaos. This means I can never find that manual for the delay pedal I bought a year ago, never find the list I wrote of songs I want to get posted to Pump Audio; the sad tale jumbles on. Evernote takes this problem and gives me a centralized place to store it all. What replacement water filter goes in my fridge? Search Evernote for the word "refrigerator," or browse through the "manual" tags or whatever. Found. Search the "music" notebook for lyrics to one of my songs? Found again. Me like.

Another amazing thing is the text recognition in photos. It doesn't always work for me (I have horrible handwriting) but it gets it right enough to make this a very compelling feature.

It's not perfect, but for me it's very near perfection; it's like someone asked me what I really wanted in an app and then built it. I actually feel less burdened by the many things I want to keep tabs on, and that gives me more creative "juice" to put towards whatever whim I'm chasing at the moment. So for that I have to tip my many hats to the good folks at Evernote. Bravo...

RJDJ Iphone Application

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:07:00 +0000

VERY cool app, plays music that reacts to the environment around it, so if you're on a noisy street the melody gets busy, if in a quiet room the melody gets simple and quiet. Nifty future-stuff there kids...

Alien Victory, Rodent Slain

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:47:00 +0000

Whilst cleaning out my Iphoto (in prep for switching to a new computer) I found this pic I shot a few years ago. Inspired by a Kirk Demarais pic of an action figure riding on the back of a deceased and upright squirrel. Yes, I'm afraid the mouse is dead, but we found him that way.

Bible design by Crush

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:20:00 +0000

From The Font Feed. Amazing design, a little challenging theologically in the concept but I bet a lot of people will pick it up who otherwise wouldn't touch the black leather with gold letters version.

"Graphic Content" show at JBU

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:12:00 +0000

My alma mater John Brown University had this great show in their gallery last month, so I grabbed a few Iphone pics. Very inspiring stuff, lots of bands and design houses I like were represented, and it was fun to see the silk-screen stuff in person; rich inks and the tactile sense of the paper and all. Coolio.

Jamey live at Love Out Loud Festival Oct. 4

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:46:00 +0000

I'll be throwin down some folky acoustic jams Oct 4th 6:30 at the Pontiac Coffee House in Springdale, AR (map below.) Charge is $6 and goes towards a great cause via Artserve International. There will be art on display and for sale and a couple people (including myself) are doing live painting on site during the music. Also playing are Fool For Now and Listener Project. Pontiac will have coffee and other beverages on sale. Here are some samples of the folktastic rawk I'll be delivering.

"I Found It First" download

"Under The Sun" download

"Faceblind (acoustic)" download

View Larger Map

The future's so bright...

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:29:00 +0000

Follow up to my last post about current slang and how RAD Rad was (and could be again.) In the middle of all this mortgage doom-rumble, violence and political brew-ha-ha I could sure use a news flash from this station, call letters R.A.D..

Closest thing to a rant on this blog

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:14:00 +0000

I don't usually (read not ever) rant or vent on this blog but if I see or hear the phrases "throw (insert name here) under the bus" or "I know, right?" one more time I think I shall blow a fuse. I propose a swift return to the slang of the early-to-mid 1980's with the use of (and not ironically) "rad," "bitchen," and "totally, dude."
(That's me on the left in the mid-90's ironically dressing 80's btw. And yes, I let the Peavey logo peek through the D in "RAD" because Peavey is so rad and you know it.)

Photo provided by Kirk Demarais from JBU Rock

Sharpie Mayhem and Stanley Kubrick

noreply@blogger.com (Jamey Clayberg) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:58:00 +0000

This may look like convoluted madness, but really it's the closest I've ever been to figuring out how my brain works, simplifying the tools I use, and (possibly) organizing myself easily and freeing up my mind to "do work." ROCK. This newly birthed "system" was partially inspired by this documentary about Stanley Kubrick's boxes. This system also ensures almost zero data loss, even if the house burns down. TIGHT.