I sent the masters for Victory Chimp out to Drag City yesterday, not sure when it will come out. There's still a lot of work to do to get it ready, they usually like a 4 month lead time. I've just been listening to it for the last month-and-a-half but I haven't changed anything in it for a month-- so it is done. And on the other hand, I can't find a perfect excuse to scrap it all and forget it.
I realized, looking back at some of these posts, there's a blank gap (N.B.: that'd be a gap that is actually blank and not filled in with some bullshit, exposition &c.) between talking about planning and doing one specific thing in music to finishing. That is to say, the finished product is the demonstration of the execution of the process. But a second-by-second description of each decision is impossible-- for the same reason I still cannot shoot a jump shot in spite of looking at a thousand examples and how-to books &c. Clank.
Here are some various notes that I made to describe certain things I needed to do on various tracks:
82: to come into my/all the way
Aug Age: time compress original to live version length
Music level halved: "As her lover..." to "Fantomas runs..."
Duophonic: cut hi right channel (standard curve)-- 16 sample delay
First Night: Instruments doubled after final sound effect
Powdered Glass: POV change pitched up 3
insert new readings into last complete master, not individually as tracks
4 octave jump D to D
Vib Low: On, Vib Up: On, V/C Dial: C3, 8888/80838, Perc: On, Vol:Soft, Dly: Fast, Har: 3rd
Hebephrenic, 16 Beats: A-F-/-F#-Bflat-B-D-A-/-G-D#-G-C-D#-B-E
Day Jobs: edit clean original top and end, music at -12 db, retain staccato middle section
4 section stereo spread, (l-r) Baritone, Bass, Ld Tenor, Tenor- 4 part harm, 8 voices per line
1000 Saints: bass +2 db to suppress treb between pts.1 and 2
Dr. Griffen, new voice: "I stole it this morning..."
Pause for venue changes
Process phrase "ski boot ruse" use 12/8/12/9 if after sun goes down otherwise reset figures
Spec Ven: revert to mix from compilation six
To wrap this, I think I'll take a look back at all the pre-recording VC posts and do an exegesis on them. Maybe find a better way to talk about what was done. Or there's always the sheet music, can't argue with that.
It is recorded that "The Clapper" (a device that turns lights on when you clap you hands together,) was issued US Patent #5493618 on July 9, 1986 and first sold to the public on September 1, 1985. I did always think of it as an eighties thing, like the foam rubber beer can holder.
However, the concept was initially revealed in 1963 by Lee Boschen, though not patented. He sets forth the mechanism in his book "Computer Circuit Projects You Can Build." He calls it the "Sonolamp"-- a name I actually like better.
What made me check the background of "The Clapper" was a viewing an old episode of Columbo. Specifically it was Season 4, Episode 5 (1975)-- "Playback." Beside Peter Falk, of course, it stars Oskar Werner and Gena Rowlands. Rowlands plays a rich paraplegic who is treated like a hothouse flower. Werner is her conniving husband, and the head of the electronics firm that is owned by Gena Rowland's mother.
Their mansion is drowning in tech gadgets: video surveillance, digital watches and, most importantly, doors that open when you clap your hands.
The first picture shows Werner using the clap doors. In the second Columbo is doing it. This picture also depicts the penultimate moment in his standard process of patiently trapping the killer. Peter Falk is always so good to watch in those old episodes; really, he's good in almost everything. Especially in "Wings of Desire"-- his was a very reassuring presence.
Falk:You got robbed, but that happens. Let me tell you something. I'm going back now thirty years! New York City...pawn shop, 23rd and Lex...the guy gave me five hundred dollars.
One of the really dangerous elements of TV watching is the formation of an imaginary personal bond between a viewer and a person on TV. One day you're watching and the next you're fantasizing about shopping with the person or something. For most people this is mild, runs a natural course (no idol stays on top of the ratings forever)--however, in some cases bad things happen.
I've been watching TV for a really long time and have been both skillful and lucky enough to have avoided this sickness in all but 3 cases, as of today. I cured myself in the previous two cases by giving my TV away and not watching for a period of up to 1 year. Earlier, it happened for me with Mary Richard's friend Rhoda (the actress Valerie Harper) and Sabrina the Teenage Witch's Aunt Zelda (the actress Beth Broderick.)
The way this illness progresses is: I watch the show they're on and really get into it. Then I start to really get into the actress's character, like I start wishing the character could be a real person I could meet. This fills me with some bad feelings about myself. In an attempt to rationalize I reason that the actress is real and the character is not. It is only the genius of the actress that is bringing the depths of the character alive. Thenceforth the blood-brain barrier be breached. The fever takes hold.
It has happened anew after watching many episodes of "Sarah Silverman Program"-- now I am right back there again with "Sarah Silverman" and the actress who portrays her (actually, the same person.)
In sum: she terrifies me. That is the common theme which puts her in the lineage of a Rhoda and a Zelda: hypnotic fear. This is not a category of misogynistic fear. I simply believe these particular individuals would and could rip me to shreds, ruin my life. Just everything that I imagine about them as "real" people makes me believe that they can do this easily-- and then I think I feel something like love for them.
Terrible, ugly state of affairs. For public consumption, let me add that I am old so I could easily get away with saying that is the reason she terrifies me; I could avoid the whole the topic with an "I don't like her and I don't care for that sort of humor cuz I am old"-type-of-thing. But that isn't the truth. I like her show and the various other appearances by her of which I have partaken on my TV.
Luckily, I know where this comes from: my Mother. This dark agape exactly parallels the entwined fear and love in my bad relationship with her. She has black hair, also.
I know the steps to take to get back to solid ground, by now, though-- I'll be A-OK soon enough. And even better-- with the advent of internet viewing I can still watch some undangerous TV shows but must just avoid any with Sarah Silverman for a while (and Rhoda or Zelda, just to be safe.)
It is creepy and I hate to admit it but one can't ignore these things and let them fester; it's embarrassing and disappointing but I needed to get it out there.
I do so dislike the Olympics but I love the World Cup. It's the world's game and anyone in their little ratholes, in their Dakotazona, in their wherever &c-- to anyone looking at the event incredulously and with shock, doubling down on ignorance of the green pitch & scoreless games, I just have to say: it happens every four years. In spite of denials this is the part YOU are playing in the World Cup, that's all that is. You can't escape it.
It reminds me of the crazy poll numbers Obama had right around his inauguration, like 70% approval or something. Yeah, that made sense (well, it mades sense if you know how racist this country is, i.e.: it's a national: "some of my best friends/a credit to his"...should have been embarrassing but at least it was hilarious.)
Soon enough the country woke up and went back to pissing their Depends to shreds. Can we yet safely ask to them to change their diapers! What holds them there in the fetid cotton? Hypno-helmet or gentleman's agreement? Cosmic cube or just sleep deprivation?
Also, it is 10 years this summer that I quit Royal Trux. I guess that kinda ended it, kinda. But what keeps me up nights now is wondering if someone like Gambit or Captain America would be allowed to donate blood. Could the 'Super Soldier Serum' be contagious that way? Or can mutations be spread that way?
Who knows? We have a sickness for answers in this country, I know, but it's harmless to ask questions such as these and demand absolutes. It might even be constructive. In these cases (and not the others) someone knows, it's in the big Marvel vault.
I heard "Lookout Weekend" by Debbie Deb on the weird oldies station here, right after "Tallahassee Lassie" by Freddy Cannon and just before "Rock and Roll Gangster" by Aalon Butler. It is an oldies station that has totally collapsed chronological and regional boundaries.
Anyways, I remember Debbie Deb from a time when dance music was a little more rough hewn and underground-- but not because it wanted to be. Research shows that Debbie Deb was not only just the singer on that tune but in fact she was an auteur, a pioneer from Brooklyn to Miami of freestyle.
However, she was not a skinny person so the record company used a fake DD to promote the records.
Fake DD:
Real DD:
This exacerbated her low self-esteem and so...
She made little, if any, money from her hit singles, and was so hurt by the experience that she stopped singing for years.
I take a different perspective on this, I'd be happy to have someone else have to do stuff in my place to promote things--I'd like five well-designed representatives. I remember when Royal Trux were getting ready to promote their 6th LP and I told the band that only the female singer would be appearing in any videos and promo pix for this record. To my surprise they were pissed off. I could only shake my head. Y'know some people are better at some things than others but if you work together, pool your talents, and share the rewards it works out for everyone. But no...the twist was in the brain, as usual. This led to destruction. I still made good money. Dopes.
Now...Debbie Deb is BACK, by the way. There's been a revival of interest in the genesis of freestyle: Pretty Tony, Lisa Lisa, Nocera etc. She's got new records and is performing live as herself. Nice to see a genius get her due.
I forgot the PIN to one of my accounts, one that I'd been using almost every day for two years. Saturday comes and it vanishes from my memory-- well, not the numbers, I had the correct numbers (it turns out) but couldn't get the sequence right. However, even the individual numbers I entered didn't feel right. Again, I insist, dementia will be a blessing at the end; the feeling of forgetting like that was good, like I'd never had the stress of carrying that little number series around in my head. It had just never existed.
On a few of these VC tracks I did a thing where I made a midi file of a song from the 80s and used that as a sequence to trigger a large array of samples, including text from the book. Or another approach was to play the actual 80s track into the trigger section of a gate then send a sine wave thru the I/O section. I'd repeat this with another track and another sine wave at, say, a 7th below the first or something. Repeat until I had 5 notes playing with the duration etc shaped by the dynamics of the original 80s track.
So I'd have a handful of these sorts of musical pieces, these process things where the 80s were like a breeze through it-- and then I'd exert some control editing them together with a text segment to make some kind of radio show that didn't bore me.
First it was text, then it was a plan, then it was music, now it's a "record."
It's gonna be nice to forget all that, a few months from now. While getting the mastered version approved I hope I can just enjoy it. Actually, I think if I can remember how the track came about exactly that might be a failure and I'd have to redo it.
No process is precious enough to have to keep the result regardless. The ultimate benchmark is a comparison to the original text version: am I carrying that across? And it seems like it was written by someone else, the book, especially after I spent so much time going over it and all of the notes I had from when I was writing it.
If I ever saw Joni Mitchell face-to-face I believe I would fall down at her feet and kiss her shoes.
If I ever saw Jay-Z walking around...I know I'd like to have one of those black fedoras with the stingy brim so I might subtly tip my hat to him.
Actually, I believe I did see him once on the J train. For a while when I lived in Bklyn and used the M train they were working on the tracks and so only one train traveled one direction at one time on a certain line so I ended up on a J train. Anyways that's when I saw him, on that J train. He really seemed to stand out, had an aura about him, even though in some ways he looks very unassuming; and this was before he was famous, mind you, I saw a picture later and was, like: "I saw that guy on the J-train."
The moniker Jay-Z is also an homage to the J/Z subway lines that have a stop at Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn.
Evidence aside, those are estimated responses. I know how I reacted when I saw Lou Reed walking up the street in Soho: I ducked into a fucking store until I was sure he had passed. And no it was not a store that sells "fucking" that is just an emphatic adjectival interjection.
Oh, and then, I worked with David Briggs on a record (he produced a bunch of Neil Young records, etc, if you're not familiar with the name) and he was very sick at the time and died not long after. It came about that the band got invited to go out with all his real friends when they were to scatter his ashes at sea off the coast of California-- on Neil Young's big sail boat, if memory serves. Well, I could not go and do this. It just seemed wrong, I mean, I thought that we had gotten close, true, but these were people he had really known all his life and it just seemed wrong for me to intrude on that. They were keeping a promise. They probably thought we were assholes for not going.
This is why being able to go back and examine and explicate this text has been so enriching, it's nice to be able to resolve misapprehensions (or should I say put down the first pass toward a resolution?) I have had--or have been coerced into considering that I should have, or have been thought to have had-- about decisions and choices I made. Patience works and I can be proud of what I did then and also feel free to trust my instincts still-- EVEN IF by the perception of any present moment the things I decide to do seem anti-strategic and cause me to feel a weird form of guilt for not being able to justify them, or for not deciding to simply drop an A-bomb on the situation every time (guilt I ignore, of course.)
Sorry, sorry, this is an inarticulate by-product of working on this project.
But it DOES lead me to believe that I am getting close to finishing this because these are concerns and memories etc that come up and then pass to actually feeling resolved and "dealt with" in the piece. They don't cause any delay in the process of aligning the piece back to its original formal origins nor cause me to question how I have handled the different elements of it or even make me desperate to conceal something that appears personal.
[update--4.17]
failed to mention that if I ever met Nick Lowe I would try to make him laugh. what an honor it would be to come up with something on the spot that he thought was funny. i had totally forgotten that in 1979 "Cruel to be Kind" actually peaked at #12 in the US charts, in what i didn't know then were the waning days of, well, all remaining restraints on the reemergence of the Confederacy, let's just say...he also looked tall which i could relate to, most of the rock bands were not tall, at the time.
A little side note...
An engineer I had the pleasure to work with recently (Phil Brown) introduced me to this set of plugins compatible with a variety of digital recording software.
A range of things there: reverb, busses, virtual synth, &c&c-- all very light, too.
The really great thing is you can download a fully functioning copy quick and test it out with no restrictions. Anyways, if you're interested in this kind of thing...Stillwell Audio
If I were to judge by much of what I've been hearing as I wrap up the mixes for the VC project it turns out that Cabaret Voltaire was the most influential band of the 80s for me, despite what I have ever said-- chop a few other things in...well, just play all four of these vids simultaneously and you'll get the idea:
Adjust the volume until they're all about even...then mix it around some...
Other than that, the rest of it sounds like the 2nd side of Quicksilver Messenger Service's "Happy Trails" LP merged with a Hanna-Barbara soundtrack.
Ada Lovelace Day celebrates the achievements of women in technology and science...
Sometime around 1933 the golden age movie goddess Hedy Lamarr invented a radio-controlled torpedo. Sadly, she soon discovered that the radio signals used to guide the weapons could be easily jammed since they were broadcast on but a single frequency.
Several years later, after meeting the composer George Antheil, she revived the idea and developed the concept of frequency hopping to solve the problem of signal jamming. This early version of frequency hopping used a player-piano roll to bounce the radio-guide signal between 88 frequencies.
Unfortunately, given the technology of the day, this idea was unwieldy-- too advanced to be feasible. Lamarr and Antheil did manage to secure a patent for it.
It was not until 1998 that the wireless technology developer Wi-LAN acquired a 49 percent claim to the patent from Hedy Lamarr. Frequency hopping serves as a basis for today's ubiquitous spread-spectrum communication technology.
Getting ready to leave to do some recording in an outside studio, another "hex-man" is gonna be there and we'll do some stuff. Next week is solid work at my own place, hopefully finishing this.
I was thinking of THE best live shows I ever saw and I made this list. These concerts I recall really were inspirational and made me want to "go pro" as they say:
Queen, 1978, "News of the World" tour, Forêt National, Bruxelles, BE (first concert ever)
Talking Heads, 1981, Meriwether Post, MD, "Remain in Light" tour, first 'expanded' version
The Art Ensemble of Chicago, 1982, DC, 9th Street Concert Hall performed "Urban Bushmen"
Flipper, 1983, 9:30 club, DC
The Gap Band, 1984, outdoor concert at University of Connecticut
Meat Puppets, 1984, 9:30 Club, late show of "Meat Puppets II" material
Junkyard Band, 1984, 9:30 Club
Black Flag, 1985, WUST Music Hall, DC, Bill/Kira/Greg/Henry period
Dirty Dozen Brass Band, 1985, Fort Reno Park, DC
*Alan Vega/Suicide, 1987, CBGBs, NYC
*Pharoah Sanders, 1987, Sweet Basil, NYC
*ESG, 1988, Pyramid Club, NYC, they wore black formal dresses
*Elliott Carter (plus unnamed musicans) 1988, New School Chamber Hall, NYC a retrospective of his work with music and onstage discussion with the composer
*Pharoah Sanders, 1998, London, Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
*Television, 2002, UCLA
The last 6 I put in as "inspiration in reverse"-- they were artists that changed my life! on record that I finally got to see live. And thence was blown away and so I felt vindicated or something (like I'd been on the right track.) I might have some of the 80s dates & venues off a little. I've never seen an opera live (watched tons on VHS, DVD, TV etc.) or attended a symphony (watched tons on VHS, DVD, TV etc.)-- nor have I seen Lou Reed nor Ornette Coleman, two of my biggest heroes-- too scared?
I saw a lot of sh&t between 78 and the late 80s and then I tapered off going to shows, really just because I was playing shows all the time. And I saw a lot of amazing bands that we were opening up for (like Sonic Youth and The Fall) or who opened up for us, like The Goo-Goo Dolls who opened for US in London mere months before they got huge. Weird, but they were good live. So there are a billion other shows that I saw that were great, like Mission of Burma, Andrew Cyrille, The Rolling Stones in 82, Jimmy Buffet, Pink Floyd at MSG and The Feelies... but I had to draw the line somewhere.
This reminds me that I can't wait to get back to the city again and start seeing shows. I've been in exile for like 10 years or whatever.
As I mentioned I've been watching a lot of Simon and Simon as uh "research" and stuff for Victory Chimp. My feeling about it is basically that it was better than Dynasty. Here's the opening with the Barry De Vorzon theme song:
My relationship with my own brother isn't really bad, we just don't talk or see each other very much...of course I wish we were as tight as these guys. Hey, he lives in Southern California (so that's a start.) I suppose I'd be the "Rick" since mother likes "AJ" best, mister preppie-- (although she is actually pretty cold to him too on his own terms.) Truly, though, I might have passed for AJ back in my childhood days, being then no stranger to the hair dryer or khaki pant.
One thing I have noticed is that the cases that made it into the show were predominately the ones they didn't get paid for. They must have done a lot of boring stuff to pay the bills but those jobs were not shown on TV.
The Kardiac Kosar bad magusaean shadow could be lifting. Nets fall to Cleveland by 19 points. The spread was 9 1/2. I did not bet this game. I had a feeling. And then...
Several former Cleveland teammates visited Zydrunas Ilgauskas in New York on Tuesday, hoping to persuade him to re-sign with the Cavs and help them make a run at an NBA title. Ilgauskas was traded last month to Washington in the deal for forward Antawn Jamison. Ilgauskas bought out his own contract with the Wizards, freeing him to sign with any team after 30 days.
Look Out, Cleveland, the storm is comin' through, and it's runnin' right up on you-- but in a good way...
Two months ago I had a complete A-Z rough mix of VC, every word. Then I went into each Chapter (there are 48, dividing one of the chapters into 3 parts) and worked on each individually (but not consecutively) to get them to a level that I enjoyed listening to as a self-contained piece of music. Then I put them all back in line and listened to how they worked as a whole. Then I started to make changes to each piece to reflect how they worked as part of the whole.
Then repeat the process: rewrite, record, get other hex members to contribute, take it apart, put it back together. And I'm finishing up that cycle.
Very influenced by sports radio, I'm even making some changes to reflect the ways it will all be misunderstood, that actually matters a lot in terms of $$.
Conceptually, I somehow have moved from Dark Shadows & Toto to Simon and Simon & Miami Sound Machine. I'm haunted by the melancholy image of Dick York guest starring on Simon and Simon in 1983 after battling back from his addiction to prescription pain killers. 9 years later he would be dead.
My soft deadline is late March. Once I get back to having another A-Z rough mix in the next week or so I'm going to take everything into someone else's studio for final recording or re-recording, mixing etc-- polishing, I guess...or Irishing. That's when I put the subliminal/masked stuff under it all (as required by the law...)
Also, reading this new bio of Louis Armstrong (entitled "Pops")-- just to stay in touch with reality (and out of the 80s.)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP)-The NBA's worst team was getting one easy basket after another in transition, hitting outside shots, getting key defensive stops and celebrating a rare victory.
Simultaneously, this article appeared:
Tulsa, OK (Sports Network)- The Arena Football League has planned to announce its relaunch for the 2010 season on Wednesday, guests will include a few of the league's high-profile names, including Cleveland Gladiators co-owner Bernie Kosar.
Now, the Florida Panthers' next home game is March 3rd (Kosar is/was part owner of the Panthers) and that day the Nets just happen to be playing the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Given the possible adjustments Cleveland will still be making after whatever trades they get into, and given the likelihood of a big spread in that game. I might take the Nets that day. Of course, you can't really pick until the night before but I'd say the signs are auspicious, to say the least.
Manchester, UK...in fact, Greater Manchester... is to me like New Orleans or Seattle or Miami or Memphis might be to somebody from an other country: a phantasmic universe, a holy wellspring:
Headquarters of the World Chop Socky League
Chetham's Library (where Marx met with Engels)
John Cassidy, Irish expat sculptor
10cc
The Fall
The Hollies
Joy Division
Van der Graaf Generator
The Smiths
The Mindbenders
Happy Mondays
Buzzcocks
I could go on. I think there was a great comic book store downtown.
At any rate, to intensify my longing for this magickal place I follow the exploits of the football team Manchester City (which I gather is like "Mets" of Man U.) Therefore I constantly read: King of the Kippax-- C'mon you Blues, the City is ours...
I know it is in English but I don't know what Kippax means, or most of this:
I thought our three stars stood for 1) us giving the rags our players so they could win a trophy 2) For giving them Busby 3) loaning them our ground (cheers Tony) 4) Our lights so they could play in Europe - oh that's four, and still counting.
Now then Keith, take your songs about Shankly, the 96, Russian submarines etc, and your missiles and you can stick your fuckin flares up your arse.
Loved this game SPY vs. SPY-- I played it on Nintendo.
The black crow and the white crow are out to beat each other before the time bell rings. Find the needed objects by digging through drawers, closets and furniture in the house. Foil your opponent by setting creative booby traps in the various rooms.
I'm to the point now where I am WATCHING the espn webcast of their radio hosts doing the shows. It's bad, people. But it is helping me to work on the VC project-- in fact, i keep the radio feed on while I mix or record; and I have 2 CD players going in the other room (each randomly playing thru a different disc.)
So, yes, things are going OK. Not that there haven't been some little bumps in the road. A "great" college QB who clearly isn't good enough to play in the NFL is going to be in some weird religious ad that will air during the Super Bowl. I guess it makes sense to capitalize on the peak of his popularity outside the Post-Bellum theocratic states. Although he resembles Kurt Warner in the respect that he thinks "science" is optional, it doesn't sound like he'll make the pros-- so why not go out with a boom (much like the dynamite)?
It's been a topic on the shows lately but I think it'll go away soon. I did panic & send a couple emails begging the hosts not to talk about politics-- BEGGING... it's one of the reasons I'm so hooked on sports now, no "politics" (in that special very stupid American sense) just sports and games-- for the most part.
I worried about that bald eagle they released during the national anthem on Sunday, afraid it was gonna land on Manning's head and jab his face. What a disaster that would have been. Do we really need vicious birds of prey flying around before these games?
Later, I thought about Joe Montana, and how I don't remember him EVER saying anything religiously creepy or political even though he went to Notre Dame. And to me he was the greatest QB ever. The new coach at that school, by the way, is a pro-choice Catholic.
