no further significance

"Si un problema tiene solución, ¿para qué preocuparse? Si no la tiene ¿para qué preocuparse?"

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:29:54 PDT

It's obvious to end a long period without any writing by discussing what makes me want to write. It's obvious and it's what I intend to do.

I suspect that I write in order to find understanding within myself and from others. When I want to process my thoughts in a clear and categorical way, I put them into words. When I've settled on those words, I like to be able to look back at them or share them with someone else. It is the same with music. I put sounds together to express beauty and to discover how different concrete and abstract ideas relate to one another aesthetically.

I've used this blog to journal my thoughts so that I could look back at them. I've used it to share some thoughts that my mind has fixated upon to the point where I've constructed an idea or opinion. And the same goes for music that I've shared. This is a place where anyone could go to react to me and my way of seeing things. It is not the best way to get to know me from scratch, but it is an easy way to share--easy not necessarily being best, but it's still better than nothing, I think.

So lately I've been writing more personally and sharing music through e-mail again. I've also had opportunity to play a lot of live music, which is quite satisfying. I've still been writing music as well, but I haven't been recording quite as much lately. I usually need a reason to get things into a finished form, so I have lots of half-ideas floating around waiting to be used and adapted to any good purpose.

I guess a lot of my writing has gone into music for the band I've been playing with lately. We just recorded some live demos that represent our sound pretty well, so hopefully I can link to some of that soon.

I wrote the above words last weekend but I didn't post them because I wanted to record some vocals for a guitar piece I wrote last November to go with them, but nothing was working. So anyway, here's another sloppy 5am cover of a Starflyer 59 song from The Fashion Focus that I just recorded. I enjoy this song now more than ever. It might sound a bit melancholy, but I'm actually quite happy to be singing it. I imagine I'll probably record something that sounds happy soon.

download mp3

a few drive-by concert reviews

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:42:55 PDT

Jason, Christina, and I went to Chicago to see Damien Jurado and Jeremy Enigk at the end of May. It was a great show and I got a pretty good recording of it. I still haven't had a chance to touch it all up and get it on a CD, but I've worked on it a bit as it was a gorgeous show. Damien played a lot of new stuff and told a couple of good stories. Jeremy did some amazing solo acoustic renditions of some old Sunny Day Real Estate stuff and rocked hard on some of his new solo stuff as well.

I saw Bill Mallonee with Brent later that week and was pleasantly surprised to hear such a seasoned songwriter and performer at such an intimate venue. He was a great guy and he let me play one of his guitars after the show. It was an old beat-up black archtop guitar with almost no sustain. It was an inspiring guitar that seemed like it knew more about music than me. Bill is one of those musicians that had never seemed particularly great to me on recordings I'd heard, but then after seeing him live, I would certainly call myself a fan. Lots of stories and good music from a guy who's been making music for a long time.

And finally, I played a show this weekend in Muncie as a part of the band, Timberidge Historical Society. We were opening up an album release show for Ben's friend Carl, who plays some excellent tunes in his band/solo project "Council, Idaho." So Ben had written some songs, but only had Alisha to play with him (there are about 5 more people who usually play in the band), so I was happy to jump in and contribute everything I could to help bring the songs alive. It was a great time and we are hoping to play a few more times this summer. I got to sing & play guitar, play banjo, and play accordion. You can hear a studio version of the song I played accordion on (Magellan) the band's myspace page. I'm not on the recording, but for the live show I mostly transfered the cello and organ parts to accordion. I'm pretty hyped about what we'll be able to do with all of this. It came together in practice really well in a short time, so hopefully we can transfer that to some shows soon. The show on Saturday was just a taste of what we might be able to do in the future, so I'm quite excited to keep working with them.

There's only one everything.

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:37:51 PDT

Best empty

As much as I can remember, I spent most of last week in my room making and listening to music. I had just finished up the school year and I didn't feel like doing anything in particular, so I just did what I do when left to my own devices. It was productive in it's own way. I think people mostly left me alone and it was all good.

Unfinished conversation

This week seemed to be nearly the opposite. I pretty much spent all week not alone. Normally busy friends and distant old friends came out of the woodwork and it was difficult to spend time with and talk to everyone. It was just as enjoyable as last week but in a completely opposite way. Last week there was barely enough time to do all of the nothing I wanted to do, and this week there was barely enough time to all of the things I wanted to do.

. . .

I like it when there is a juxtaposition of nothing then everything. There is so much perspective because you get to know the space that you have to work with and then it is filled. It is so much better than everything then nothing, which is usually just confusing and frustrating especially when you don't realize you're taking something for granted that shouldn't be.

Terribly thoughtful

Right now I feel like whenever I have a sense of everything-ness, I shouldn't try to hold on to it too tightly. Someone showed me this weekend that I should be available to give whatever I have away and it'll come back in another form later. And maybe whenever you've got nothing, there's no use in forcing anything because the best things are surprises? I still don't know where the everything-feeling comes from exactly because I don't feel like I ever deserve it or cause it, but whenever it feels forced, it's a counterfeit that feels even emptier. And even this doesn't sound right because I don't think there's an exact logic to it.

And I feel down to the ground

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:09:58 PDT

Last night I took Michelle to Bloomington for a Caribou concert to celebrate her 16th birthday. I wasn't really familiar with Caribou, but I trust her taste in music and thought it would be fun. I was blown away. I don't remember how I spent my 16th birthday, but I know I would if I were her. It was such a fun and intimate show because, although there were maybe 150 people present, there was no stage and they encouraged us to crowd right up to them. It was like a less destructive version of the crowd at the end of the Smells Like Teen Spirit video dancing around musicians who played their hearts out. At one point during the final song, the drummer handed one of his sticks to the guy right in front up him to wail on the cymbal with him.

(So I was entertained by the opening act, but I wouldn't purposely go see them again by myself. I'll give four words to describe my impression of them: disinterested robotic monkey magicians.)

I had read that Caribou is the solo project of Dan Snaith, who happens to have his PhD in mathematics, but he brought a solid band with him for the show. They also had abstract visualizations (think fractals and trippy colorful patterns) projected behind them always synced up perfectly with the phrasing and tone of the music. To me, the live performance really showcased the intense danceable grooves set up by the drums, which were perfectly supported by driving basslines, laid-back guitars and whispered vocals. What I've heard from the records is all over the map and with a lot more electronic stuff and samples going on, but it's still quite fun. Here's a good live video of my favorite song(s) from last night:

Twins / Bees

and always no sad ends

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:00:20 PDT

This is an old favorite and I wanted to try it out. It's sort of late, so this could probably be better, but that makes it fun.

download

card games and old friends

say goodbye, it's no life
we never realized
where we've been
the sad end we never realized

card games and old friends
and always no sad ends
card games and old friends
you mess it up
you mess it up
you mess it up

no surprise, different lives
express the world on time
sad ends, to the bad ends
we never realized

card games and old friends...

It gives me hope that I'll always be able to pick up wherever I left off with any old friend over something quaint and timeless. It's always had a bittersweet quality to me because sometimes things get messed up and spending time with a friend isn't as simple as a card game.

I also enjoy the lyrics because when questioned about the meanings to any of his vague songs, Jason Martin would usually reply something about how he just wanted it to sound good and that he doesn't even remember what it's about. He said he's written songs and then later realized that he just stole lines from advertisements. This one seems to have a FedEx reference in it, which is funny to think about in context of old friends separating and reuniting.

pop music is not a crime

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:39:28 PDT

Occasionally when the endless stream of new things at my usual corner of the internet gets boring, I'll check out Google Reader's recommended feeds. Usually it just gives me some lackluster webcomics or local news feeds. Even if the process is fruitless, I like to figure out how the recommendations were selected given the rest of my web history.

This week I got someone's personal blog as a recommendation for the first time and I couldn't figure out why. What's worse is that I thought I recognized her from the picture she'd posted but I couldn't place where I knew her. Anyway, it turns out that she just works at CollegeHumor.com and I had just watched Michael Cera's interview on the Michael Showalter Showalter there (Showalter is a complete jerk, as always). I probably don't know her, but she did have an interesting post about music that reminded me of some of my friends. I pretty much like any time that anyone says anything articulate about music, even if I completely disagree. It is easily my favorite thing to think about. So here's the post in its entirety:

If I may expound for a moment on the topic of music.

Sometimes I feel like an imposter, asserting my love for music without being able to claim even half the musical knowledge shared by some of my friends (Adam, Amanda, Pavla, Jakob, oh I don’t know, EVERYONE). I wish I could participate in the (seemingly) compelling conversations between Adam and his friends, discussing the pros and cons of bands while I’m simply learning of their existence. Always discovering new sounds, introducing new bands, new ideas.

But then I put on a particularly favorite (albeit well-worn) album, and find myself completely lost in the music, enraptured to a point where I am shocked by the depth of my love. That’s when I am reminded that it’s not necessarily the number of bands you’re familiar with, the amount of lyrics you have memorized, the multitude of concerts you’ve seen, or the relative obscurity of the band currently being discussed. Granted, those details can all be fairly accurate indicators of love. But for me, it’s the feeling that washes over you and completely consumes all your senses when you hear a track that moves you. When you hear a song that sparks a memory so intense that the nostalgia is overwhelming. Or when a song fits your current place in life so profoundly that its very presence in your world brings a clarity and perspective otherwise lost. That is what I think it means to love music, and that justification allows me to stand by my claim. Although that doesn’t mean I’m not ashamed when I have to ask Adam, “wait, is that a real band?”

I’m sorry if this got too ‘real’ for anybody. I promise more mammary jokes tomorrow.

Anyway, I've been in situations where I have had a difficult time relating with other people who love music because I have an idiosyncratic music library. But I thought this was nice because it didn't mention the names of any bands or any concrete musical characteristics. To me, music is more about nostalgia, getting lost, finding clarity, and being shocked by your own feelings than about stylistic factors or momentary hipness.

a song about a museum

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:10:26 PDT

New song recorded (before noon!). For now, I'm calling it "about a museum". Lyrics:

download mp3

jess 'n her brother are gonna go to the new show at the museum tomorrow.
so let's wake up early & see as much as we can.
it'll be lots of fun & maybe we'll buy some rock candy.

cause there's always...
T-REX, BUGS, & OL' ROCKS!!!
T-REX, BUGS, & OL' ROCKS!!!

c'mon. we should head on over on the C-T-A.
then we'll walk around on this beautiful day.
all the signs for the new exhibit are as enticing as can be.

cause there's always...
T-REX, BUGS, & OL' ROCKS!!!
T-REX, BUGS, & OL' ROCKS!!!

admission wasn't cheap but we'd all saved our money.
& besides, the giant dinosaur behind the ticket counter
was big enough to convince us to come in.

cause there's always...
T-REX, BUGS, & OL' ROCKS!!!
T-REX, BUGS, & OL' ROCKS!!!

we really saw some pharaohs in a fake pyramid.
we examined bugs & watched a video on cicadas.
but the best part was the new exhibit on...

mythical creatures from around the world
their stories are all real, but they were only half-true.

cause there was almost...
SPHINX, MERMAIDS, & CYCLOPS!!!
MAN-APES, DRAGONS, & CHUPACABRA!!!

Notes about the recording:

Jason told me to add hand-claps when I described my idea to him (he wanted to supply them, but he's in Chicago and I'm at my house).
Outside, one of our cats (Skip) brushed against the microphone during the recording (0:51).
Skip also politely meowed a little toward the beginning (0:20-0:30) and at the end (4:15).
You can hear the other cat, Choo-Choo, scratching her claws on the house's wood-siding (1:20-1:28).
This is the first time I've intentionally incorrectly conjugated a verb for a lyric, but that's rock 'n roll for you, right?
This recording is only the second time I'd ever sung this song, so I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to deliver all of the lines yet. Some of them are quite awkward and need an edit, but the recording was not cut except at the beginning & end--so what you hear, is pretty much exactly what happened. :-/

Enjoy.

How do I reach these keeeeds?

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:42:39 PDT

I know Google Reader displays the recordings that I embed at the beginning, but it is supposed to be at the end. It has a story to go with it, so you have to read first to fully appreciate it.

So today a woman told me that she wanted to sign her nephews up for guitar lessons to keep them off the streets. She says she's tried everything else and even if they are kept at home then they just fight with each other. The hope is that at least one of them will see that they are good for something other than fighting and smooth-talking if they really enjoy the idea of making their own music. Apparently their mother has given up on them to some extent (& no mention of dad), so the aunt is making it her mission to get them involved with something other than violence and/or girls. So far her ideas include computers & music, hoping to find anything that will convince them that they don't belong on the streets (they're already in alternative schooling after being expelled). She's convinced that one of them is going to make the guitar "his own" and find a new path.

Working in a "community arts school", I know that some of my students don't come from great circumstances, but this is the first time someone has ever laid it before me that I am supposed to be some sort of last hope for saving a kid from being a drop-out living on the streets. On the one hand, it really makes me feel good about teaching and it makes me realize that if I don't put in the effort of being the best teacher that these families can afford, then I could be putting a brick wall in front of someone's dreams. But I also know that I personally can't provide motivation to a student who doesn't already have any. So my constant goal is finding the right way to inspire a student to learn by discovering what they care about and how that relates in some way to the guitar.

Today I had a student tell me that even though he has a busy week ahead of him, he will be practicing his hardest because he was embarrassed about how badly he played for me today. I keep telling him that he is making more progress than he can see and to just relax and have more fun with it. It's funny because he is really one of my most motivated students, and his technique is such a clear expression of how stressed out he gets about life (even life as a 5th-grader)--his hands are always way too tense and he doesn't realistically assess his mistakes and progress. Whenever he messes up slightly, he gets more tense and tries again with more intensity, though often his problem is that he isn't relaxed enough. It's my goal to be able to teach him how to enjoy something for it's own sake rather than merely acting by stress and fear of embarrassment. Seeing someone's personality through the way they make music is always intriguing to me.

One of my favorite lessons is when my seven-year-old student, Maddie, wrote a song she named "bubbles". She's one of those kids with more personality than most adults. I love how after she finishes and I'm telling her what she's supposed to practice, she makes fun of the way I say "eleven."

Here's a recording I made of her playing "bubbles" while I was writing down what she was supposed to practice for the week:

It was 55-degrees outside at about 4am!

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:41:54 PDT

The weather is finally nice enough that I can get out and run like I really mean it. Through the winter, I've done some push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks to try to keep in shape, and I've tried to run maybe twice this year (though the weather has always been too cold, too windy, or too wet to really make it work). Tonight, however, is the first real workout where I felt like I could just run to the point of absolute exhaustion.

So I was outside tonight from about 3:30 to 4:15. I ran two miles after doing 25 push-ups and 30 sit-ups as a warm-up. It's a far cry from the five miles I was running two or three times a week last fall, but I plan to be back up to five miles by summer.

Running is a relaxing way to think for me. And I don't know if this will make sense, but it seems like the most natural way to chill out and just take things as they come. You just have to be patient and put up with whatever barriers that your mind tries to give you to convince you to freak out and stop. You just stay in touch with the rhythm of your breath and the strain on your muscles and ignore the part of your mind that's telling you to stop doing what's best. In the end, I'm convinced that reminds me what the meaning of patience is.

So it's not only a healthy work-out, it's completely therapeutic for me. I know I'll be feeling the pain tomorrow, but I feel like I can get through everything that I have to face right now by just taking life as it comes. It reminds me of a song by Spanish composer Fernando Sor.

El que quisiera amando
Vivir sin pena,
Ha de tomar el tiempo
Conforme venga.
Quiera querido;
Y si te aborrecieren
Haga lo mismo.

('He who wants to love and yet live without problems, must just take time as it comes. Take someone to love; and then, even if they hate you for it--just take time as it comes.')

Made with natural and artificial flavors

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:14:39 PDT

This is probably the final mix for the end credits song. I found a name for it, too:

by a fireplace in Indiana

INFP

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:05:16 PDT

Here's another old electronic music experiment with parallel notes from current thoughts. They tend to ramble, and these are things that I'd usually only write to myself and not share anywhere, but I'm realizing that that might not always be the best idea. This has all been churning around in my mind for awhile, so it is good to get it out of there because now I'm in the mood for something funny and spontaneous rather than something analytical and occasionally angsty.

Awhile ago, Tim was talking about the four-word personality types and I was a bit cynical because I don't like the idea of categorizing people so neatly with four either/or descriptors. Anyway, I recently gave in and took a little personality test to find that I'm something of an INFP "idealist." I think the way my idealism comes off most is in how I usually feel empathy for contradictory points of view. Two people can be in heated disagreement, and often, I'll see where both of them are coming from and how they are miscommunicating (to themselves and to the other person) instead of who is right and who is wrong. The composition I've included lays bare a little bit of my idea of how people interact with one another in any type of friendship or relationship. It's not exactly about communicating with words, but actions.

It might be along the lines of the brief relationship advice from Randy Pausch's "last lecture" where he told girls something like this: never listen to what a guy is saying to determine whether he's good for you, only what he does for you or to you. What he said resonated with me because I hate it whenever people (myself included) aren't genuine and authentic with what they feel for someone else in their actions and their words. Sometimes it seems like good girls end up smooth-talking low-life guys. As some sort of "idealist," I'm tempted to see things in terms of my ideals rather than reality, so I have to fight that tendency if I want to stay authentic with people.

I'm upset to admit it, but I think I fade in and out of being genuine with people depending on how comfortable I am around them. At first meeting, I tend to keep my thoughts reserved and therefore am not as genuine as I could be. After I feel that I know someone, I'll open up and share everything with them on a very real level. The comfort that is brought about by sharing my thoughts with someone makes me take the relationship for granted and I just assume that we are good friends--I set up an ideal state in my mind and let the relationship run on cruise control. But if that ideal state is upset at all, it is difficult for me to reconcile it with reality and I fade out of authenticity again, and therefore damage the bond. As I'm trying to type out this cycle, I'm realizing that I've done this to pretty much anyone I've had any sort of relationship with on any level (friends, family, etc.). Ugh. Here's hoping that I haven't burned any bridges with the good people I've been close to in the past.

Anyway, I was a bit bummed out when I made this composition because I had recently found out that one of my friend's dad's had been caught having an affair. The music was mainly supposed to be cathartic for me and I didn't expect it to last much longer than the moment in which I made it, but whenever I go back to this recording I find that it still holds some meaning to me. Even though it is sort of depressing, it's oddly encouraging because I made it in a moment of clarity that has explained some other things about life to me. I enjoy that sometimes when I listen to it, it sounds cynical and bitter, and at other times, it has a tinge of melodrama and romanticism. I'm just blabbering on and on now... so I'll stop talking about what I think of it.

On this section of the project, I recorded four statements and the keyboard would play a different word for each key that was pressed. First, I played each statement dryly to orient the listener to what was being said. Then to form miniature musical pieces, I played with the syntax to link the words with their own musical grammar. This was really just an improvised experiement and I'd like to try it again because I found that sometimes chaos best expressed the meaning in a statement, and other times, the ordered repetition worked. Originally, the track only included the voice, but I added part of another song I recorded in the background to make it fresher and more listenable.

Here's the track and the existential statements, which regardless of how true they are, I've had fun thinking about:

download

No one is immune to being let down.
You can change no one but yourself.
To trust is to be vulnerable to the sharpest pain.
Trust is thrust upon all at fragile birth.

Credit problems? I can help!

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:18:19 PDT

I'm still working on that piece for the end credits of Jason's short film. He showed me some of the footage to give me an idea of its tone. Everything is much more understated and natural than my mind had pictured from the script. My previous demo ideas were a bit too melodramatic and sentimental with the melody, so we talked about making it more atmospheric and minimal.

I tried out some new things and whittled away at my old idea until only this much remained. Although there is some lo-fi self-indulgence, this new demo is more polished and ready for use than the old sloppy one, so they don't exactly work back-to-back, but I wonder if the link between the two is perceptible?

Enjoy.

download mp3

Every streetlight reveals

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:24:12 PDT

I've been working on this post for awhile, but I think I've figured out what I want to say now. So Justin recently sent me an article about a music critic who lost his hearing in one of his ears and now has auditory hallucinations. His description of the way he used to hear music struck me and made me wonder about what it is that I hear in music:

I don't know how you hear music. I imagine that if you like music at all then it has, in your head, some kind of third dimension to it, a dimension suggesting space as well as surface, depth of field as well as texture.
Speaking for myself, I used to hear "buildings"... three-dimensional forms of architectural substance and tension. I did not "see" these buildings in the classic synaesthetic way so much as sense them. These forms had "floors", "walls", "roofs", "windows", "cellars". They expressed volume. Music to me has always been a handsome three-dimensional container, a vessel, as real in its way as a Scout hut or a cathedral or a ship, with an inside and an outside and subdivided internal spaces.
I'm absolutely certain that this "architecture" had everything to do with why music has always exerted such a hold over me. I think music was the structure in which I learned to contain and then examine emotion.

I'd like to figure out if there is any such metaphor for the things I hear in music before losing it. It's only a guess, but if I had to say something right now, I think of a total musical episode as the subjective experience of being in a car. The concepts will obviously translate to other places other than a car, but they make the most sense to me when they are all together on the road. That is, in good music, I sense "driving".

Driving works into the types of musical perception that are most important to me: harmony, rhythm, and timbre. I can't help but hear the moods derived from one's thoughts in harmonies--this part really doesn't have to be in a car, I guess, but one's mood is often reflected transparently while driving. The movement, bumps, acceleration, and stopping of a car ride all relate directly to rhythm. It's cliché to say that rhythm is movement, but there is a sort of pressure to it while driving. I think the superhuman speed of a car intensifies all of those feelings to a level that makes them musical to me. And timbre translates to texture and values of light and darkness, which like most perceptions, are especially poignant to me when in a car.

There are a few people that I have spontaneously and extemporaneously sung to while driving--I rarely do this while stationary, but it also happens some if I'm walking or moving around. If I'm moving, there's almost always a song going in my head. I'd like to think that the total aural experience of the engine, the road, and the sights mixed with thoughts of those in the car are compositions.

I always love making music with others more than solo, but I'm always extremely eager to hear how someone processes the sounds that I make or to listen while someone makes music on their own (although usually my mind engages into someone else's music to the point where I'm experiencing something completely personal that I'll want to share). Likewise, anyone who has ever been with me on a road trip has a special place in my heart and in my memory because driving with someone else in the car is always more fun than driving alone.

song demo for end credits

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:22:01 PDT

Yesterday, I was asked for "a very simple little guitar instrumental" to play during the end credits of a movie. After reading the script, here is my first attempt at getting any ideas out. The demo is a bit sloppy and rough in spots, but I'd appreciate any feedback about what you hear as always.

download

It was a mess of good years

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:49:35 PDT

This is the playlist of CDs that are going through my car (see earlier post). It's just a little game that I'm playing to listen to some older CDs that I wouldn't have listened to otherwise with some timeless classics mixed in. It has been interesting to reevaluate some music that I haven't listened to in ages and it has been hard to take some old favorites out of the car. I could honestly listen to a couple of these CDs until the day that I day and never get tired of them (that is an unverifiable claim until I actually do die, which will hopefully be after I accomplish something worthwhile for someone I care about).

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (1990, 1991)
They Might Be Giants - Apollo 18 (1992)
10,000 Maniacs - MTV Unplugged (1993)
MXPX - Pokinatcha (1994)
Natalie Merchant - Tigerlily (1995)
Puller - Sugarless (1996)
Keith Jarrett - La Scala (1997)
Godspeed You Black Emperor! - f# a# (infinity symbol) (1998)
Jimmy Eat World - Clarity (1999)
Scientific - From the Nest of Idea (2000)
Unwed Sailor - The Faithful Anchor (2001)
Brandtson - Dial in Sounds (2002)
Elliott - Song in the Air (2003)
Pedro the Lion - Achilles Heel (2004)
John Pizzareli - Knowing You (2005)
Oppenheimer - Self-Titled (2006)
Christopher O'Reilly - Second Grace: The Music of Nick Drake (2007)
R.E.M. - Accelerate (2008)

After this is all said and done, I'll put up a few comments for each album to give a glimpse of how my mind processes these sounds now.

As one last note, when I was coming up with this list, it reminded me of the song "It was a very good year" that Sinatra made famous. I've been working on my own version of the song and I was hoping to post it with this list, but it's still in progress. I'm on spring break though, so hopefully I'll append it to this post soon.

You Might Think

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:39:39 PST

So today I met a six-year-old who wants to take guitar lessons--I was assessing his musical aptitude and desire to learn. So I did my usual routine and asked him if he has a favorite song or favorite type of music. His mom said, "What about your Cars CD?" He smiled sheepishly and said, "Yeah."

I was surprised and asked, "Oh, you like The Cars?"

His mom laughed and said, "No, the soundtrack from the movie Cars."

I laughed, too, and the little kid will be starting lessons with me soon.

Concert Review - Freezepop - 02.15.08

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:51:01 PST

I have said that Freezepop is the most entertaining band I've ever seen live and I'll say it again after seeing them live for a second time at Fountain Square's Radio Radio in Indianapolis. If you're unfamiliar with the over-the-top pure frivolity that is Freezepop, you should check out this track from Guitar Hero 2 as well as some of their other tracks on myspace. If you think their music spares no expense at being the ultimate in brightly-colored neon pop music, their live performance is so much more.

Freezepop – Less Talk More Rokk (Guitar Hero 2 Mix)

The first time I saw them was at an electronic pop music festival in Ohio where they stole the show and overshadowed nearly every other act. I hadn't listened to them since this concert, but I remembered all of the songs they played when they brought them out again for this show. Also, the songs I didn't know yet were so easy to catch onto by the end of the night that I was completely sold. They played their biggest hits and crowd-pleasers, a little bit of old stuff, and a lot of stuff from their new album, but they made this show unforgettable by closing with "The Final Countdown" (complete with crowd-chanting "na-na-na-na") and Journey's "Don't Stop Believing", both of which sound better with a female vocalist and dueling keytar-players. Their show is just as sugar-coated as their music, and it definitely satisfies my musical sweet tooth.

devouring everything in its path

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:58:48 PST

The resolution to my car sitch: I tried to get a small car loan so that I could have a reliable car that would last me several good years instead of only seven good months. However, because I've never borrowed money from an official financial institution, the fact that I had a precise, viable plan in my mind for repayment wasn't enough for them. If you've never had a credit card, I recommend getting one with a small credit limit and paying off the balance every month so that it never accrues any interest. That's what I'm doing now to establish credit, and it is so simple and easy that I wish I'd done it sooner.

So I've settled for another cheap vehicle with lots of character and charm: A 1991 Honda Accord EX coupe with a wonky transmission, funny tricks for the window and key, and a loud "muffler" with an over-sized exhaust pipe. But it does have cruise control, a power sunroof, a CD player, and good heat/AC, which are some of my favorite options. So I'm making the most of it for the time being, which is helping me move on in spite of the fact that I'm not in the situation I was hoping for.

This is becoming unexpectedly enjoyable in a few ways. Since the car is a '91, I decided that the first music I listened to in the car would be time appropriate for when it was new, Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, which also came out in 1991. I'm going to see if I can go chronologically through each year with each CD I listen to in the car. So this week I'm looking for a good CD that came out in 1992 and next I'll be replacing that with a CD from 1993 and so on until I go out and buy a new CD in the car, listening to it on the way home and thus freeing it from the vicious cycle I've set into motion.

Another way of keeping it interesting is by naming the car. As I've said, my last car was a '92 Chevy Cavalier with "The Heartbeat of America" emblazoned on the floor mats. So it was often called "Heartbeat" or "Euphorxenia." My new car is another story entirely; this greenish teal mode of transportation from 1991 Japan is obviously a doppelgänger for the lovable Yoshi, who debuted in Super Mario World, which also coincidentally came to America from Japan in 1991.

The resemblance is uncanny.

They sound similar, too!

Spare time = Car time

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:08:33 PST

If I were the king of the world
Tell you what I'd do
I'd throw away the cars and the bars and the war
Make sweet love to you

I've spent way too much time working on cars over the past 4 weeks for all I have to show for it.

My Chevy Cavalier, the Heartbeat of America (christened Euphorxenia by Fia), is officially gone -- a junkyard paid me $200 for it and towed it away after all of my repairs only made things worse. Fortunately, I only paid $200 for the car, so the 10,000+ miles in 6 months were well worth it. In our short but sweet life together we hosted road trips to Iowa, Chicago, Lexington, Urbana-Champaign, Danville, IL (home of Royal Donut), Evansville (one that I was not present for) and countless trips around town. The cassette deck (held together by a guitar string) played the song Wolves, Lower by R.E.M. hundreds of times while delivering as many pizzas. It will be missed.

Also, I recently have spent some time getting the 3000GT running again so that the old beast could find its way to a home where it could be fixed up instead of killed slowly. I drove it around today, putting in a new battery, repairing a tire, and cleaning it out, but the 16-year-old who was the high bidder on eBay was told by his father that he couldn't have the car. We're hoping that one of the other bidders will be interested in a second-chance offer, but it is a bit discouraging.

So tonight, I'll be borrowing my grandma's car again, and tomorrow I'll be carpooling with my sister again. Hopefully I'll find that affordable and dependable cool car sometime soon. So while I'm looking and trying to move on with my life, here's a piece I wrote for live classical guitar with recorded synthesizer track in Advanced Electronic Music last spring. It's supposed to be a conclusion leaves you with a feeling of things wrapping up even though it hasn't quite moved on to anything else yet... sort of my current car situation.

life + electricity (synthesized), part 3 - wrapping up...

¡Viva Resistor!

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 01:06:52 PST

Here's an old project I made for an electronic music course I took last year. It is one of the few remaining documents of the music made by the band Resistor. The music in the project is inspired from a jam we would play called "I just don't see (how it's going to work out)" or something like that. So music writing credits might be shared with John Busacca and David Kissick -- imagine three guys passing around various guitars, a bass, taking turns on the drums, and whatever other instruments we could find (sax, piano, synth, chimes, woodblocks) until the song ran into the ground.

I titled my project "Minimal Ode" when I turned it in, but it's mostly "I just don't see." So this is the droning seven-synthesizer version of "I just don't see (how it's going to work out)" as Minimal Ode.

Good People

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:42:46 PST

I've been teaching Roger guitar since he was in fourth grade and now he's a sixth-grader (my longest standing student). He's always been one of my favorite students because he's a little Hispanic kid named Roger and his parents are extremely supportive of him. His mother and father will almost always sit in on the lessons, and occasionally his grandmother will come as well. His father will usually just stare off into the distance thinking, but he usually chimes in once or twice to tell Roger that he needs to be working as hard as I tell him to ("That's right Roger, you need to practice"). His mother just knits quietly through the whole lesson because she only speaks a little bit of English. She usually speaks through Roger or their other son Ricky.

Well anyway, they gave me a Christmas present yesterday that completely blew me away. Apparently, all of that knitting Roger's mom had been doing was create to a scarf for me. I've never owned a scarf, and maybe worn a scarf two or three times in my life (only to play in the snow), but this one is so nice that I will wear it every chance I get. It is unbelievably soft and warm and though you can't tell from the pictures, it is long enough to wear in a couple different ways.

As an ode to my sis Fia's blog "Finely Wrought," here are some pictures in the style she does to show stuff off :

Every jumbled pile of person

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:54:31 PST

This song is not by me, but it is performed by me. This lyric is way too much fun NOT to sing:

Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of.

Where your eyes don't go.mp3

So I'll be posting new and old recordings on here. I don't think I've always e-mailed everything to everyone, so hopefully there won't be too many reruns. Plus, they might even be remixed from the last time you heard them.

Talking a lot, not saying anything.

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:05:22 PST

I've been writing a paper for my contemporary Spanish literature class that is particularly interesting to me. All of the post-modern stuff we read is pretty funny, so I wanted to craft a thesis around that impression. However, I didn't want my paper to come off as a junior high book report where I just highlighted all of the funniest parts of what we read. So I wrote about comic irony's absurd triumph over logic in contemporary narrative. It sounds a little pretentious, but that's because it's an oversimplification and we can just call that an extra layer of irony. It is more fully developed and less overbearing in the paper though (and in Spanish).

So to help me funnel the funny into an academic vocabulary, it was good to talk with my friend Brent Aldrich, artist, who let me borrow a book he's borrowing from Herron's library called Between Artists (subtitled: Twelve contemporary American artists interview twelve contemporary American artists). I've read through a bit of it, but I found this part about Allan McCollum's Perfect Vehicles to be most interesting:

Allan McCollum: You go into somebody's home and you see something funny in the objects they value, and it makes you uneasy. Let me say that I don't think the Perfect Vehicles are as funny as other people do. I do understand that they're funny, but I don't think they're as funny or ironic as other people seem to think they are. And while I don't necessarily look at them and have what you'd call a religious experience, I do look at them and think that I might, maybe, if you know what I mean. I don't make them with the kind of irony that people seem to project onto them because I'm actually very suggestible. If I see an object that someone else values to the extreme, I'm moved by that. As I said before, I would have a hard time throwing something away that someone else valued, even though I didn't understand why it was valued. So I suppose the Perfect Vehicles can appear as comedic to some, and I recognize that they do. But this always hurts me a little bit. To an outsider, the overvalued object seems silly and is made even sillier by the owner's emotional investment in it. But I want my work to amplify the poignancy of the estrangement from belief that we suffer in the face of the unfamiliar values of others.
Thomas Lawson: No, I think that's where the poignancy is: they're absurd and funny, but you know that they also refer to an idea of value.
McCollum: Maybe what you think of as "funny" I think of as "poignant." I must feel that the poignancy increases as the sense of the comedic increases.
Lawson: I can't bear to watch situation comedies because you can see the jokes coming. At a certain point, I can't take it any longer. Is that poignant?
McCollum: Well, look at the tragedy of being an alcoholic and the number of jokes ridiculing alcoholics. It's funny and it's not funny because it's tragic, and maybe there's a difference between the way you and I look at things, too--you favor the comedic over the poignant. There's something tragic and poignant, it seems to me, about looking to an object to have meaning when obviously the object is just functioning as a symbol. There's something sad about that because it means that what you want, you don't have; all you have is the substitute, and that can be seen as basically sad.

I think McCollum's Perpetual Photos project is much cooler than Perfect Vehicles though:

When a picture frame containing an indecipherable image is seen in the background of a television scene, a snapshot is taken of the television screen. The indecipherable image is then enlarged photographically, and put in a new, larger frame.

Welcome to 'no further significance'

noreply@blogger.com (Joseph) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:55:41 PST

Instead of just e-mailing things out to people, I'm trying to make a public space for people to visit.

no further significance.mp3

So check back often for original and appropriated text, pictures, audio, and MoRE!