Mainly Recording

I feel like I got a lot done today.

I assembled a few copies of Remora’s Mecha as I’d run out of them & I had one I needed to get out.

I got the stems off for Remora’s “Protector of Builder of Airplanes” off for final mixing.  Which means the album is close to ready.  I just need to figure out how to release it given sales potential.  Which is something I hate to think about.

I recorded a Remora track for a potential compilation appearance.  It’s a bit of a blend of “Regular Remora” & “Mecha Remora.”  It’s simply titled “58.”

I also recorded a Muscle Mass bit.  Not sure how interesting it is.

Talked with Ben Collins quite a bit with helping him get things figured out for starting his own label.  Pretty excited about it.  I hope that he’s more successful than I was with my first release.  The first is always the hardest, but he knows a lot more than I did back then.

Talked to Sarah June & she successfully moved from California to Michigan, but is waiting for all of her stuff to show up in the moving truck.  We are going to be doing the free EP of hers soon & she’s going to have a new snazzy video as well.

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One Response to Mainly Recording

  1. GoddakkAttack says:

    I thought it said “MANLY recording”

Working on Music

Worked a bit on some keyboard parts for The Pointless Forest.  Looks like I’m going to be going with the SK-1 through the Nanoverb as it sounds good & is fairly compact.

On the Poit comic I ended up writing a second story for the pictures.  So same images, two stories.  Sent them both off to Dave Sim for his input.  I don’t know if I’ll opt for one over the other or release them both or what.  It does make me think about trying to do more with the 100 ways to tell a story idea.  Trying to figure out exactly how to do a project like that in a way that people will actually both participate in & be entertained by.  Because of course I have the 100 ways to tell a story comic & it does get a little boring.

Did some work on re-recording of Remora’s  “Protector of Builder of Airplanes” & sent it down to Brian McKenzie to check out since he’s acting as producer on the record.  Added a bunch of keyboard stuff & re-tracked the vocals.  I wrote some robot drum bits for it, that I originally foresaw as sounding like jazz drum brushes on a snare; that probably don’t need to be used.

I wrote a new Muscle Mass (my dance music project, if you can call anything I do dance music) song.  I guess I should record it before I lose it.  I might even try to write some lyrics for it & see if anyone wants to hear it.

Through the holidays Plumerai is selling every song they’ve released for $5 as a digital download.  From 2005-2010, 29 songs including one brand new unreleased track. http://darushka4.bandcamp.com

Thorn1 has a brand new track you can listen to called “Wake up, Princess, that night the snow fell.”

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The Past is Back

Weird bits from the past washing over me today.

I spent several hours doing some landscape work today.  Digging holes for making a parking pad for my car.  It’s been about ten years since I was doing a lot of work landscaping.  It felt kinda good to be doing that much physical work again (for those not in the part of the world I am, it’s frozen clay soil right now).  But it did also make me feel like I needed more food intake than usual.

I got an email from an old co-worker that another co-worker had a heart attack on the job a couple nights ago & had to go into the hospital for an emergency surgery.  But the whole thing with it is, the guy is literally 70 now.  Maybe he shouldn’t be working an over night physical labor job.  It seems like it takes a lot of bad decisions to need to still be working at that point.  So I’m torn on what I think & how I feel about it.  Because I know the guy has made a lot of bad decisions to screw-up his life & while I don’t wish him ill, I do hope this can maybe be the thing that forces him to calm down & relax & enjoy being alive.

I got a message from a friend of mine that she Googled an old friend of ours looking for a Facebook page or whatever.  Instead she found out that she was in jail for attempted murder (stabbing).  Which on the one hand seems insane, to have somebody you think of as a friend & know they drifted that way, because clearly it could’ve been me that drifted that way.  Just a few worse life decisions on my part would’ve caused it.  Because though she was clearly always a bit of a handful, I think most people would classify me as the same.  I think anyone who knew me in high school would be as surprised to find out I’m alive & have never been arrested as they would be to find out I was dead or in jail for some drug-related violent crime.  It’s sad.  I suppose most of us have been thrown away at some point by different people in our life & I really wish we were in a culture where people have an easy path to redemption after being discarded instead of going deeper into the darkness.  & at a certain point, we’re all part of the problem.  Because we all just walk away saying, “It’s too hard,” or “This person takes too much out of me.”  I guess I’m lucky that I’ve been self-destructive instead of externally destructive over the years.  I don’t know, I have a dozen or so friends from over the years that have ended up dead or in prison & it’s a shame that I just forget about them 90% of the time.  Humans really should communicate with each other better.

Did some more work on the mini-comics today.  Did more work on the next few QRDs.  Posted about the current QRD on some newsgroups.  I guess that’s it.

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One Response to The Past is Back

  1. GoddakkAttack says:

    when i moved returned from Deutschland the first time to NC, I found out that the kid that lived across the street and who was generally a jack ass amongst us 5 year olds tried to rob a convenience store and got his face shot off by the clerk. It sorta made sense that’s how it would turn out.

COICA, QRD Overload, MySpace, Poit, Cap, Dreams

So there was some “piracy” oriented news I read today.  Google announced they are going to do some stuff to make it harder to find pirated things by not putting them in their search spectrum if they are reported.  Also Paypal froze payments to Wikileaks which is what they would be required to do if COICA passes.  So interesting.  Even if a decade too late.  But I do like the idea that people can’t claim to accidentally download things any more.

I found a couple blank DATs still in shrinkwrap.  Does anybody want them?  Free if you pay the postage.

I’ve gotten so many emails about the new issue of QRD that I didn’t have time to answer them all today in regards to the next three issues.  I guess that’s why they bothered to make a tomorrow.  I still haven’t done my share to promote it yet as far as getting it listed on newsgroups/forums & such.

I got an email from Johnny over at Record Heaven (my Swedish distro) about us trying to set up a special little community for label owners to swap & trade ideas.  I’m not 100% sure how to work it.  One of the things is of course labels telling stories that may or may not be true & folks having their own agenda.  But the bigger thing is how do you make a community that people actually use these days?  It’s hard to know.

It seems like I’m not getting as many readers since moving the blog onto the Silber site & off of MySpace.  At the same time, I don’t think I’d have as many readers if I kept it on MySpace either.  I wonder if I can have MySpace autofeed off of this (I know it can work the other way)?  Does anyone know?

Speaking of MySpace, like everyone I’m having problems with it trying to run a ton of javascripts that crash, but today I started to get the same errors on Facebook.  I suppose sooner or later the internet will go back to just email at this point as far as what is actually useful.

I was listening to a guy who makes a living off of his YouTube videos on NPR today.  It made me wonder if his story of himself is functional or accurate.  Because I know sometimes people alter their stories to get better media coverage.  When the guy talks about having an apartment, but no electricity & using his computer in the hall of the apartment building I just have my doubts.  It’s a good story.  But I imagine it is a fiction.  Just like the Mecha press release that claims the record was made using the computer of a war machine….

I wrote the text for my Dave Sim collaboration (Poit).  I think I might do something where there’s a fairly experimental choose your own adventure possibility as a format.  I need to run it by Sim first of course.  If he doesn’t go for it, I’ll use the experimental format for a different comic.

I seem to have somehow lost my signature black & gray knitted cap.  I’m really picky about winter caps (most of them are either not warm enough, fit my head funny, or just dumb looking in general).  It’s been missing since Saturday & I feel 90% sure it’s in the house somewhere, but after a couple of hours looking for it I haven’t found it.  It’s kind of strange how much value I can put on a piece of clothing.

Last Night’s Dream:
I find a glob of silver paint spilled out on the floor.  It looks like a Hershey’s Kiss.  I scoop it up with my pallet knife & put it on a canvas.  There’s a stain on the floor.

It’s 1998 & I’m working at Michael’s Arts & Crafts.  I think I’m getting fat.  I weigh 107 pounds instead of 103 pounds & can no longer quite fit between the back wall outside & the tractor-trailer that is supposed to be parked exactly against it.

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QRD, SSI, Star, CD Baby, City of Lost Children, Dreams

So I did some work towards doing some more issues of QRD in the future.  Sent out some more interview requests to labels & sent out some more for another set with guitarists.  Also did a bunch of minor tweaks to the articles in the issue that went up last night.

Got a little more done today towards using SSI for the Silber site so I can update it more easily.  It’s looking like it should be able to come true.  Just a matter of finding the time to paste in & upload a million files so they’ll connect to the SSIs & then I’ll need to figure out exactly what to do about that all the html files will be shtml files so some back links from other people won’t work.  But I’m still excited by the prospect.

Did some work on the layout for the comic with Kurt Dinse.  I wasn’t paying attention & the panels aren’t drawn to my standard specs.  They’re squares instead of rectangles.  So I need to figure out if I want the images slightly distorted or if I want the comics a slightly different size.  I’m leaning towards the slightly different size.  Oh, I think the title is simply “Star.”  It’s had a lot of titles over the two years since I wrote it.

So I have this minor complaint about CD Baby.  On the one hand they do direct deposits into the Silber account on a regular basis & that is awesome.  On the other hand there’s a fifty-fifty chance of them telling me I’ve received the money & that makes keeping my account balanced a bit tough.  But having extra cash is hardly a complaint, except that it makes the paperwork for paying royalties a little tougher.

Martin Newman posted a piece on Nostalgia Equals Distortion about City of Lost Children that makes me think, despite my fond memories, I might not like it if I saw it again.

Last Night’s Dream:
Something’s wrong with me.  I can’t control my throat.  The sounds that come out aren’t words.  They’re just primitive whispers & screams.  From here on out I’m alone.

I’m working at a Roses with John & David from when I worked in the video store in the 1990s.  Though I never cared for them too much as people, it’s kinda nice to see them again & know they are still alive.  I’m supposed to be setting a plan-o-gram (the things that come down from corporate telling individual stores how to setup their shelves) but there’s no places designated for the stock we do have & we don’t have most of the stock that it calls for.  In fact the only thing that we do have in stock that’s on the plan is a double VHS collection of Aladdin & Return of Jafar.  What we do have is a ton of this action figure/storybook/ DVD set for The Time Machine.  So I go put the plan-o-gram on the manager’s desk (which strangely is not in a separate room, but just behind a rack of shelves) & then just setup the Time Machine & Aladdin stuff the way I think looks best.

I’m working in a greenhouse potting plants.  Digging my hands in  the cold, wet, black soil.  It feels good.  It feels like home.

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QRD & Six by Seven

The new QRD is up featuring 18 interviews with indie label owners.  I hope you all find it interesting.  It includes Kranky & Exotic Fever & a ton of folks, even Silber.  Took a lot longer than anticipated to get it done, but I think it’s a pretty solid issue.  Only a week late.  I had to re-do some of the ads on the side bar (not bothering to update the back issues).  I think I’ve abandoned soliciting for ads at this point.  Which is also abandoning the idea of trying to make money off of it.  It’s just not a good time to try to get people to part with their money, even if it’s only $10.  But it seems funny that the other folks who can’t sell their ads either aren’t interested in running trades.  I really have no idea how much recognition QRD actually has.  I suppose not doing any reviews & focusing on interviews with people that are fairly underground isn’t the best way to build a fan base.

I went to the post office today & waited in line only to realize I’d forgotten to put an address on one of the packages.  Made me feel a little bit dumb.

Got some stuff going on the comics today.  Artwork in from Kurt Dinse & it looks like Jeremy Johnson is going to put an attempt on Ultimate Lost Kisses #12.  Looking like I’m going to have quite a bit of content at some point in the near future.

My article/review of Six By Seven’s The Way I Feel Today just went up on Delusions of Adequacy.

I’m too sleepy to type in the dreams from last night.  I’ll try to get them in tomorrow.

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QRD, HTML, Star Wars

So I did more proofing for QRD today.  Three more interviews to do & then make the cover & the html coding & then I’ll let you guys know when it is up.

Doing some work in the shadows towards re-working the headers throughout the website.  We’ll see what all happens.

I watched some Star Wars Clone Wars cartoons with my nephew & have come to the conclusion that the Republic was just as shitty as the Empire.  The Clone Wars seems to be on some level about whether robots or clones function better as a slave class.  You’d think the “good guys” shouldn’t have a slave class?  So apparently Jedi=Sith=asshole?

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One Response to QRD, HTML, Star Wars

  1. GoddakkAttack says:

    obviously they weren’t open minded since the Jedi’s sole purpose in SW movies are to keep the Sith’s from existing…no possibilities of co-existence because they were afraid of them despite the rhetoric of not giving in to your fears.

Video, Bad Acid, Dreams

So I was taking care of my niece & nephew today & we shot a little video about Stormtroopers & Snowtroopers. But the miracle is I got the hookup between my camera & my computer to work. It stopped working after my hard drive crashed & I needed to put in a new one about a year ago now. So I guess I may start doing some video stuff.  Here’s the video if you are interested….

So some of you may know the magazine Bad Acid that was coming out in the UK because it was indeed pretty cool. But they just put out their last issue & now they started a podcast & this installment is basically 50% Silber. Very flattering.

Last Night’s Dreams
I’m at a swimming pool with my grandmother & she’s literally running around the pool.  She slips & falls & I run to see if she’s okay & when I lift her head the blood is pouring out of one side like a watering can & I’m trying to hold the blood in & it just keeps making a bigger & bigger mess.

There’s a girl who is working for me in some capacity (intern maybe?) & the level of attraction is such that I feel like us trying to do anything together other than making out is wrong.  I wonder if she already has a boyfriend & if I’d be an upgrade.

I’m trying to design & build my own simple synthesizer on a piece of circuit board.  I have no idea what I’m doing & just put the electronic components on in  a way that’s visually pleasing.

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Sold A Painting, Money System, Bad Music, Remora

So I had to make all the little stand things for my paintings today & I managed to get it done as well as finding a new piece of appropriate cloth to put over my card table display (you’d think tablecloth, but I don’t have that kind of money).  Also found a jar to use to let people do a fish & sort mini-comics experience.  Got to the gallery, re-did my display with all the stands.  My pieces seemed a conversation starter by sheer volume (49 paintings all on two inch by three stretch frames) & visitors kept getting directed to me while I was busy drinking beers & talking to people.  I actually sold a painting too (the silver one with a bunch of diamond slashes in it & a little comet on it for those of you keeping track).  It made me feel pretty successful.  I did the paintings as series that kind of tell stories (helped along by narrative text) & I may try to make some of them into comics.  Anybody have a CMYK laser printer with good front to back registration that wants to help me out?

The past three days I’ve had two social events besides my typical Silber oriented socializing & it makes me feel good to get out of the house a little & see how “the normal humans” live.

There’s this ongoing conversation that I keep having with people about music, comics, & fine art.  Basically all three of those communities (to which I am associated to a certain degree) are very insular & made up of poor artists trading money back & forth.  For the communities to really stand a chance at survival we need to import money from the folks who make money.  We need to make art for lawyers & computer geeks & accountants instead of waitstaff & college kids because we need fresh money in the system.  The two groups I’ve come up with targeting are antique doll collectors & classic car collectors.  Now all I have to do is figure out how to make art targeted that way.  This paragraph is approximately 50% joke.

So I saw this video today that’s going around:

I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it.  I mean clearly it is pretty awful in a certain way.  But it makes me think that maybe all of the horrible singer-songwriter stuff you see on an open-mic night might be the performers & not the songwriting.  & also it reminds me that when the music & lyrics are thoroughly separated that most lyrics are pretty freaking awful (as I’m sure mine are).  & it reminds me that I was never impressed with the music on The Wall.  & that if you are going to do a cover song & don’t have the chops or equipment to pull it off, you should alter it into something thoroughly your own.  I don’t know, I get the vibe that the bass player should be singing the song & the drummer should be there & no guitars at all.  Strangely a few years ago I saw a band at this quality level playing a bar & my feeling after seeing them was overwhelmingly positive because I realized that despite being a hack musician in certain ways, I am really pretty happy with what I do now & have no interest in working in a cover band made up of people in their fifties.  It also made me feel happy for the fifty year olds that get to play in front of people & for the people in the crowd that have a good time regardless of the music playing.  Because music isn’t the center of the universe whether it’s good or bad.  Music is about communication & even if the music you hear is awful to you, if it makes you start talking to somebody about it then it has helped to make the world a better place.

Talked to Brian McKenzie (Electric Bird Noise) a bit today & I’m going to be getting more in touch about finishing up everything on the new Remora album.  There’s one song he’s flying over to me because I am 100% dis-satisfied with the vocal performance.  It was the last song written for the record & I didn’t even have a demo with vocals recorded to listen to fifty times to figure out exactly how it should be sung.  Even now I’m still not sure.  The song is called “Protector of Builder of Airplanes” & is a narrative sequel to “Nevada Smith” & I’m not sure how you sing a song to indicate that you are 30 years older than on a previous track.  Maybe I’ll smoke some cigars before singing it or something.

Last Night’s Dream:
My hands are covered in probably an inch thick coating of red wax.  I’m trying to peel it off, but it’s hard because neither hand is free.  As I finally get my hands free I realize that I’ve been pulling off the skin & they are now just a bloody mess of unusable flesh at the end of my arms.

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Promo Research, N=D, Photoshoot, Dream

Today’s the first Thursday of the month, which means I got to earn a little extra cash doing medical billing.  Of course getting paid is a totally different matter than earning money.

Got in some research from one of the interns on radio stuff & sifted it into the database.  I also did some research on some more bloggers (got about a dozen more, mostly folks associated with Morc that I wasn’t already in touch with).

Jason Young (Guttertrash, Veggie Dog Saturn) wrote a piece for Nostalgia Equals Distortion about the band Cavity.

Went to see Weather Machine & my son Andrew play tonight.  Also did a photo shoot of the two of us spitting blood, which was lamer than anticipated.

Last Night’s Dream:
Working on a puzzle that on one side is essentially a collection of dots & on the other side solid colors.  You have to do it on a glass table so you can tell if both sides are correct since the pieces are so visually similar on each side.  I think if I solve it I get a free wish or something.

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