Month: March 2020

Marla and I are having a quiet lunch date, so we can watch this film, that I’ve been looking forward to. If you go to salemcinema.com and rent one of their selections through the links they provide, the money goes to support Salem Cinema (Salem, OR), which is important. You can’t find movies like this without theaters like this. So, why not take a few mushrooms this afternoon? We are.

Okay, a lot of us are music nerds, but here’s a question I’m very curious about: favorite compositional music in the style of classical? Stravinsky or Bartók really do it for me as a listener, but there are hours and hours of compositions by people that I just don’t know, and have no experience with. Sometimes I turn on the classical radio just to hear something a little different, but I have no idea what I’m looking for (or who I should check out) in this area.

Anyone got any recommendations?

Cottage Grove High School allumi, early-‘90’s Edition: Help me fill in the gaps in this Theater Prop anecdote.

What I remember:

This painting was a prop for a play that I worked on in High School. I was a wanna-be theater kid, and I hung out with the crew that put on plays, largely as a way to make friends. I only ever made it on stage in one play, an adaptation of Wells, “The Time Machine.” But for all other plays, I did all backstage work: props, foley, set building, etc.

The particular gag with this prop is that it was added to every night, as part of the play. (There were a few of these “paintings,” but I only got the one.) The play was a bit of a farce, so the painter was an eccentric artist who would throw paint on haphazardly. Another gag is that he would paint for a moment, re-evaluate his work, turn the painting 180 degrees, and keep going.

More details, like who was in it, and the play itself, are lost to me. All I remember is that I helped with the play, and either walked off with this painting afterwards, or negotiated with the crew to keep it. I should add that I had nothing to do with the painting or making of this prop; I think I was doing off-stage sound FX and foley for this play. I just really liked the painting, and kept it.

It’s been many things over the years, as it is a piece of wood, but it’s mostly been in storage, in garages and similar places.

I’m astonished that the colors look as good as they do, after 25+ years of abuse.

Anyone from CG remember anything else about this play / painting / the theater kids at High School in the early ‘90s?

Many many moons ago, Douglas Hoffman and I booked an experimental show for a couple of touring bands. Unfortunately, the bands had to pull out. At first, The Twins were going to perform… then we were gonna do a webstream… and then… well, here we are.

As we all learn to cope with the New Normal, there are so many things that still need to be done. And as you try and solve new problems like what to eat and what to enjoy, why not order some noms from The Space Concert Club, and check out all the incredible live streams that people are doing, all over the web today. I might do a little Mini-Mutations jam later, if enough people are interested, but I’ve been doing a lot of streams lately. I’ll leave it to a vote: should I stream tonight?

In the meantime, support The Space, get some vegan food, and when all of this is done, The Olsen Twins Ghostlight Ensemble will make an appearance at The Space Concert Club, and it will be glorious.

And you’ll probably be able to stream that one, too. Because that’s how they roll.

Thanks again Order Space Food. Support Local businesses. And vote: should I stream a Mini-Mutations jam later?

The best part of having the studio setup now is that I can EASILY digitize tapes, and it can be done while I’m doing something else. I can pop in a tape, set it to digitize, do some dishes, read some comics, and when I hear the “click,” I turn around, hit stop, flip the tape over, and repeat.

This is not a project I hope to complete any time soon; I have FAR too many tapes, and really, most of them don’t really need it. But I’m selectively targeting mix-tapes, live recordings of performances, and stuff that I can’t replace anywhere else anyway else. Even that project will take a VERY long time, but at least I can listen to those mix tapes Cheryl Albrecht made for me almost 20 years ago.

The non-chore part of the day – in fact, a significant part of the day, really – was spent trying to record a song, which was one of those experiments that revealed the limitations of my home studio set-up, and my own skill in certain areas (and, of course, became a metaphor in so many, many ways).

Take after take was blown, as if I’ve never heard or seen a bass before, and was discovering how you could play it (and record it) as I was going. And let’s not forget the technical issues! Perfectly good takes went un-recorded, other’s were so poorly captured as to be embarrassing, as a wanna-be engineer. It was so hard to solve for certain issues I kept running into, and each solution deployed was not working. It became one of those puzzles that was so difficult to solve that at one point I had stop and clean my garage, and then later, stop again and take a nap, just to get a couple break from what was frustrating me. I almost tore down and re-built the entire studio, until it finally occurred to me that there was probably a short in one of my cables that was the real issue. (And, of course: it was.)

And, in the end, I actually finished the basics for the song, so it might work out, and maybe I can just relax and let it go, given enough time. It was trying while it was happening, but it was over now, and maybe I have something I can work with.

But for most of the day, it felt like it wasn’t gonna work, and that every action I was taking was not helping, and occasionally, making things much worse. Everything that could go wrong was happening, in spite of the best preparedness efforts I would deploy, or long considerations I would make before each attempt. I probably should have given up sooner; I could have finished cleaning the garage, or maybe put in some reading. But instead, I kept banging my head against the metaphor, trying to solve the problem, and not succeeding for most of the time I was working on it.

Certainly, I can hear the final product, and hear the time I put into it. So it’s not like I feel like the time was lost or something. I think I can put in some more work on it tomorrow, and maybe all the things that didn’t work today will start to feel like simple hours put in, and effort toward turning things around, and setting things on the right path.

Right now it feels like a sort of defeat. Tomorrow, it will probably feel like hard work. In a week, all I’ll remember is that it took me a few days to get that one song “right.”

At least, that’s the hope, anyway. Right now it’s depending on a whole lot of faith, which doesn’t always feel like enough. And it isn’t, in the moment. In the moment is hard, and it sucks, and you can’t change that.

All you can do is wait.

The Rest of The World: We are canceling big, annual cultural events happening later this summer, and we’re considering everything on hold until sometime in the fall.

‘Merica: We’re gonna open ‘er back up for Easter. We’ll be alright, with the lord on our side. Spring is here!

“The first example of interactive cinema was ‘Kinoautomat’ (1967), which was written and directed by Radúz Činčera. This movie was first screened at Expo ’67 in Montreal. A live moderator appeared on stage at certain points to ask the audience to choose between two scenes. The chosen scene would play following an audience vote.”

I get the Johnny Appleseed song (from the Disney movie “Melody Time”) stuck in my head a lot. When the song pops into my head, the lyrics are:

“Oh, the Earth is good to me
and so I thank the Earth
for giving me the things I need
The sun and the rain and the apple seeds
Oh the Earth is good to me.”

It seemed really DIY, but also had a bit of that bootstrap mentality to it that Disney loves so much. I liked the ecological angle, and it is a catchy tune.

I hadn’t seen that cartoon in over 30 years years. So I put it on tonight, living in the modern era where everything is easy to watch anything. And I came to discover the song I remembered was completely different. I had replaced, in my mind, the word “Lord” with “Earth.”

I don’t know why, how, or when, but I somehow eliminated the Christian message from this story. (A story that is, in its original form, a very Christian tale.)

Clearly — how’s that saying go? — my mind works in mysterious ways.

Growing up in Cottage Grove, there was a lot of time spent dreaming about the future, imagining what I would do when I left, imagining I was on stage, in a band. It’s hard to imagine, then, someone wearing my band’s t-shirt, sitting in Bohemia Park, in the year 2020.

Man, this week is really weird.

Last Sunday was my last “normal” day. After that, we’ve been “at home,” except to run errands / stock up. (Which has been very minimal.)

I’ve also managed to clean every room in the house, sweeping, mopping, the whole works. Cleaned the fridge, and my office.

Once the garage gets cleaned, and the yards are done, I might be in trouble. Or, rather, you will be: I’ll probably have a new radio show every day at that stage.

For several years now I’ve had a ridiculous number of velcro wraps, so I can tie up cables and whatnot at shows, or at home, when I want to tie up a cable, or pin down something behind a stereo or TV.

My real concern right now is that I will have tied down every cable and wire I can find, save for one that I don’t have enough velcro for.

I am stubborn. I am opinionated. I get into arguments online with people I don’t agree with. I am anti-corporate, anti-money, anti-closed-mindedness. I am anti-bland. I’m critical of art and performance and the expressions and the utterances of the world around me. My art is expressly political, and yet my own skills serve no political or activist function. I am a contradiction in so many, many ways.

But knowing all of you sharpens me, like a knife, and for that I am absolutely grateful.

Knowing you makes me patient. Knowing you helps make me more understanding. Knowing you shows me how silly arguing can be, and how defining myself by what I’m against is a narrow way of expressing ones self. Knowing you allows me to enjoy the moment, rather than move to consider the past and future obsessively. You help me see my own place in the world, and how I do make an impact, even when I don’t feel like I can.

I might be contradictory and inexplicable, pretty much all of the time, but it’s knowing you that allows me the chance to feel like I belong.

And for that, I thank you. So very, very much.

New Studio

Here’s what I did today: tore down my office tables and gear entirely, and built a little home studio.

I’ve certainly worked in / broadcast from worse locations, so meet the new Lava Lamp Lounge – Studio A. Since I’m not doing any live shows for a while, and since my own “home studio” is essentially any flat surface I set up on to record, I decided to use those turntables that kiisu gave me, and make this my home for the foreseeable future. (And: beyond?)

The iPad can be traded out for any other 1/8” jack device. I can also have a cord to swap out devices that need RCA and 1/4” jacks, too. I have a mic-stand / microphone that I can fly in, to use for situations like that. Tapes, CDs, records and digital… right now, I can play almost anything, and I even have that 16 Speed turntable and a reel to reel player I can hook up, if need be. (As I’ve said before: I dare someone to record a song on a format I can’t play.) It’s not ideal, certainly, and I don’t have real monitors or a real studio mixer. But it works, and I can swivel my chair around, stand up, and it’s there, ready to go. 

This will be where all future radio and podcasts are created and recorded, and it is also the same setup I use to perform live, with extra gear I usually can’t bring to shows. (Two turntables is just too much for the stage, given the space it all takes up.) So I can probably stream live, too. 

I haven’t figured out how to get the streaming sound quality to be as good as the recordings, and I think I might need some more sophisticated cameras / mixers / etc to really pull that off. (Possibly a second computer to manage taking the signal from the mix and putting it through to the streaming camera.) I’m pretty sure I can take calls and / or Skype too, but its not as easy as, “I hear the phone ring and I push a button and the caller is on the air.” I would probably have to hot-swap a couple of items to make it work, and I’m not sure I could mix music behind the call very easily, like I can do at a pro studio. I will be able to add delay or reverb, which will be fun.

It’s a start. I may try some broadcasting later, just to see how it works in practice. For now, you will have to settle for “room sound” on the stream when I do, until I can figure out how the pros do it.

(Also: anyone sitting on any old radio / studio gear that they need to part with? I could certainly use an actual studio board, or something a little beefier than my tiny six channel Behringer. Anyone wanna donate anything to the new studio?)

Hopefully this will help me get through feeling crazy for… however long this winds up being. 

Broadcasting

Artists and friends: Where are we with streaming services and delivering your work to fans? I have only ever used FB streaming, but it is decidedly “one-way,” and they get cranky about copyright. (Ditto for IG, but at least there you can have two-way interaction fairly easily. Can you add more than one person on IG, I wonder?)

I use Skype for straight conversations, and I have only ever used it for recording / playback, never for a live show. It seems like it might work, but I’m not sure Skype is ideal for a streaming / broadcasting service.

Marla used Zoom the other day, but it sounds like someone needs to either pay for the service, or have credits of some kind, to use it. But that allows any number of users to all interact, and I imagine there are other’s that don’t cost.

What I’m looking for: a free two-way (at least) service that I can use to send video / audio to any number of people easily (and publicly). I would also like to be able to “add” callers / viewers to the stream, and receive / capture the incoming audio so I can mix it into the show.

Preferably, I’m looking for a software / computer solution, and not a phone app, but I’ll be curious what anyone uses, and for what, regardless of the tech.

I’m almost to the point where my office is clean / re-designed, and I want to start broadcasting as soon as I am able. I have turntables, tape decks, and CD players (in addition to a number of digital options), so I feel like this would be a good time to get into regular broadcasts again. What are people using?

Unreasonable Opinions. 

I have a lot of unreasonable musical opinions. “I can’t stand arias. All country music after 1975 is crap. Shellac is good.” We’re all guilty of it, and we all say the most extreme inane untrue bullshit, partially informed by taste, and largely informed by how we FEEL at the moment.

What kind of unreasonable music opinions do you have? 

 

I have a lot of unreasonable musical opinions. “I can’t stand arias. All country music after 1975 is crap. Shellac is good.”

We’re all guilty of it, and we all say the most extreme, inane, objectively untrue bullshit, partially informed by a highly cultivated sense of taste, but largely informed by how we FEEL at the moment we are talking about that particular musical expression.

What kind of unreasonable music opinions do you have? I’m sure there are plenty of fun ones out there.


“Miller: A lot of people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidences and things. They don’t realize that there’s this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean. Suppose you thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly, somebody says, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate of shrimp. Out of the blue, no explanation. No point looking for one, either. It’s all part of the cosmic unconsciousness.

Otto: You eat a lot of acid, Miller? Back in the hippie days?

Miller: I’ll give you another example. You know the way everybody’s into weirdness right now. Books in the supermarkets about Bermuda triangles, UFOs, how the Mayans invented television. That sort of thing.

Otto: I don’t read them books.

Miller: Well, the way I see it, it’s exactly the same. There ain’t no difference between a flying saucer and a time machine. People get so hung up on specifics. They miss out on seeing the whole thing. Take South America, for example. In South America, thousands of people go missing every year. Nobody knows where they go. They just, like, disappear. But if you think about it for a minute, you realize something. There had to be a time when there were no people. Right?

Otto: Yeah. I guess.

Miller: Well where did all these people come from? Huh? I’ll tell you where. The future. Where did all these people disappear to? Huh?

Otto: The past?

Miller: That’s right! And how’d they get there?

Otto: The fuck do I know?

Miller: Flying. Saucers. Which are really? Yeah you got it: Time machines. I think a lot about this kind of stuff. I do my best thinking on the bus. That’s how come I don’t drive, see.

Otto: You don’t even know how to drive.

Miller: I don’t want to know, I don’t want to learn. See? The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.”

“Miller: A lot of people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidences and things. They don’t realize that there’s this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean. Suppose you thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly, somebody says, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate of shrimp. Out of the blue, no explanation. No point looking for one, either. It’s all part of the cosmic unconsciousness.

Otto: You eat a lot of acid, Miller? Back in the hippie days?

Miller: I’ll give you another example. You know the way everybody’s into weirdness right now. Books in the supermarkets about Bermuda triangles, UFOs, how the Mayans invented television. That sort of thing.

Otto: I don’t read them books.

Miller: Well, the way I see it, it’s exactly the same. There ain’t no difference between a flying saucer and a time machine. People get so hung up on specifics. They miss out on seeing the whole thing. Take South America, for example. In South America, thousands of people go missing every year. Nobody knows where they go. They just, like, disappear. But if you think about it for a minute, you realize something. There had to be a time when there were no people. Right?

Otto: Yeah. I guess.

Miller: Well where did all these people come from? Huh? I’ll tell you where. The future. Where did all these people disappear to? Huh?

Otto: The past?

Miller: That’s right! And how’d they get there?

Otto: The fuck do I know?

Miller: Flying. Saucers. Which are really? Yeah you got it: Time machines. I think a lot about this kind of stuff. I do my best thinking on the bus. That’s how come I don’t drive, see.

Otto: You don’t even know how to drive.

Miller: I don’t want to know, I don’t want to learn. See? The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.”