| i still don't give a shit about animal collective |
[23 Dec 2009|02:44pm] |
I generally do not do year-end retrospectives, but some some reason I feel compelled to share this. Here are, in no particular order*, my Favorite Records of 2009 That I Didn't Help to Make:
Andrew Bird, Noble Beast
Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca
The Mountain Goats and John Vanderslice, Moon Colony Bloodbath
St. Vincent, Actor
Sunset Rubdown, Dragonslayer
The Mountain Goats, The Life of the World to Come
I expect this list will surprise no one.
Best record that, despite its quality, I still did not care about: Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest.
Best remaster that wasn't the Beatles in mono: Devo, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! and Freedom of Choice. Holy living fuck, it sounds like these were recorded yesterday. I can't find any information about who actually did the new masters, but I'd like to shake their hand.
Best remastered Beatles song in mono: "Strawberry Fields Forever". It's kind of the best thing I've ever heard, as far as engineering goes.
Worst mastering job: Dethklok, Dethalbum II. I understand that metal should be loud, but when you compress the mixes to the point of ear fatigue, you're doing it wrong.
Most anticipated releases of 2010:
Owen Pallett, Heartland
Peter Peter Hughes, FANGIO
Best concerts:
The Mountain Goats, The Society for Ethical Culture 3/27/09
Bamberger Symphoniker-Bayerische Staatsphilharmonie, Jonathan Nott conducting: Debussy, La Mer, Bartok, Piano Concerto No. 2, Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, Avery Fisher Hall, 5/21/09
Dirty Projectors, Bowery Ballroom, 11/22/09
The Pixies, Hammerstein Ballroom, 11/25/09
The Mountain Goats, The Bell House, 12/2/09
*Actually, this may be in chronological order (by release date).
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| november like a train wreck |
[30 Nov 2009|09:22pm] |
Hi everybody. I have no new song for November. This was not a great month.
A little perspective so I don't sound like a total downer: I posted the first song from this ongoing project a little over a year ago, and I have written thirteen more songs since then. That's not nothing, and there will be more songs.
That's all.
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| ex post facto |
[22 Nov 2009|12:12am] |
I have been posting about recording the first song I wrote in the month of June for around six months now, and I'm so glad to be able to finally present that recording to you today. Here, without further ado, is "Stasis".
I know in my last post I said I would be recording October's song soon, but you ought to know better than to expect promptness by now. I really should stop making promises my Pro Tools can't keep. I really do want to get on that, though - November was mostly spent working on other things, but as of this week I've got some more free time. Still, no promises.
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| love comma labor of |
[29 Oct 2009|02:27am] |
After getting nothing done last month, I am glad to report that I just finished a new song a few minutes ago. I'm pretty anxious to record this, so unless my schedule fills up I'm going to try and do that next week.
Side note: the problem with writing mainly at night is that, almost invariably, you will get hungry around 2 AM.
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| just like chris legh's blues |
[06 Oct 2009|10:01pm] |
There has been some silence for a little while here - the long and short of it is that I failed to write a song for September. I was working a lot, and by the time I had a chance to sit down and write, I realized that I had absolutely no ideas to write about. In the two days of the month I had time to write, I was only able to come up with half a song that was no good at all.
After having a few days to mull this over, I'm still pretty disappointed. The original intent of this ongoing project was to write one song per month until I turned 24 (which, realistically, meant until the end of September). I would be less disappointed if I had failed to write a song in some earlier month, but I missed a song in the final month before my self-appointed deadline.
Having said that, this doesn't mean that the project as a whole is a failure. After all, the ultimate goal was to have an album's worth of songs written by this point in time, and I think I've succeeded in that. Since I started writing again, I've finished 13 songs. That's enough to make one very short album, and when you factor in songs I'd written before starting this, a thing approximating real album length starts to take shape.
Here's the problem, though: half of these songs deal with one story, and the other half have nothing to do with that story. They certainly would not fit on the same album.
The solution to this problem: write two albums.
So that's the new plan. There are more songs on the way, and maybe a few surprises. If you've ever said anything nice about these songs, or even just listened without commenting, thank you. I hope you'll stick with me.
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| moving right along |
[02 Sep 2009|08:42pm] |
I promised to have new recordings for you soon, and now I'm very pleased to announce that I have two new demos to share with you. I recorded these yesterday, and gave them quick mixes today.
From July, we have "Ballast". From August, "Wrecking Ball".
Parts of June's song have been recorded, but it needs more instruments that I haven't had a chance to record yet. It's about halfway there. The other half will be recorded in the near future, or whenever I become a better accordion player.
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| terrible band name: fictitious ficus |
[28 Aug 2009|02:07am] |
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After a couple of nights of steady work, August's song is done. It has been too hot to record anything lately, as recording means I have to turn off my ceiling fan and shut the window, but the heat seems to have finally broken today. I should be setting up some microphones in the near future.
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| staying afloat |
[31 Jul 2009|11:10pm] |
Coming in once again at the last minute, I've finished my song for July. I won't be able to record it until after next week, but record it I shall.
Somehow, after all these years, this is only the second song I've written in the key of A.
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[17 Jul 2009|12:27am] |
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Just a quick note to say that I've added my old demo, Things That Don't Work In Space, to my Bandcamp page. If you're reading this, you've probably already heard it, but I figured it couldn't hurt to put it up there.
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| moving house |
[13 Jul 2009|12:02pm] |
This has been in the works for a while, but last night I finally sat down and filled in the gaps: I'm moving my files from box.net to Bandcamp, a site dedicated to hosting music and only hosting music. I really like their interface, and the fact that you can download files at a whole bunch of different bitrates/codecs (this is very exciting if you're a nerd like me).
From this point on, you'll be able to find my songs at minortechnicality.bandcamp.com. All of the links to songs in my older entries have been updated to their new Bandcamp locations as well.
I wouldn't make this announcement without having anything new to share, of course. Yesterday I attempted to record May's song, mostly successfully. I say "mostly" because I was forced to stop before I was ready. I started recording and got one decent take, which I saved and then attempted to beat. Shortly after, though, I broke a string. After taking a break to restring the guitar, I was able to record for another 15-20 minutes before the same string broke again. Yes: after going years without breaking a string, I broke two in the span of about 45 minutes. At this point I was out of strings, so I had to stop.
Luckily, I still had the take from before my strings broke, and that is what I will present to you now. I'd like to record this again at some point, as there are some rough spots, but in the meantime, here is my song from the month of May, "Latent Image". It's worth noting (if only so that I remember later) that this is the first song I've written in DADGAD. Those of you listening on laptops may want to put on headphones - my laptop speakers can't really handle the low end of the guitar in this one.
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| re-bort |
[03 Jul 2009|07:43pm] |
I've been forgetting to post this for a couple of days, but here's a bonus song for June. (Some of you may be asking how there can be a bonus song when I have yet to post the first song, and to you, I say: magic.) This song is called "The Space Shuttle Has a Self-Destruct Switch" and that's also what it's about.
This is a true fact! The charges are in the booster rockets. The switch itself is in mission control. It's designed as a fail-safe for the first two minutes of flight, before the boosters detach, if the shuttle goes way off-course and looks like it's going to crash into a populated area.
So there's my very quickly written song about that. Recording for this month's other song is about halfway done, and I hope to make more progress this coming week. Have an excellent weekend.
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| japan-only |
[23 Jun 2009|01:10am] |
June gets a bonus song! I saw something tonight that inspired me to write a second song for this month, which I wrote from start to finish in about an hour and 20 minutes. I haven't written anything that quickly since "Eastern Standard vs. Central European", and that was five years ago.
Anyway, I will do my best to have recordings of all of the songs I owe (four, now!) as soon as possible. This new song has nothing to do with anything I've been writing, and I'm kind of irrationally excited about it. I hope some other people will like it too.
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| making good time with my bare hands |
[17 Jun 2009|05:49pm] |
Approximately three minutes ago I finished writing my song for June. I am pleased about this, because at this point in April and May (i.e., the 17th) I hadn't even started writing yet.
I know that I've been failing to provide recordings, and I'm sorry. Right now I owe recordings of songs from February, May, and now June. I haven't forgotten! I am hoping, truly and sincerely, to have these recordings all squared away by the end of the month. Next week is going to be more surreal than usual at work, but hopefully I'll have a chance to set up some microphones before we move into the second half of the calendar year.
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| the penultimate minute |
[29 May 2009|01:57pm] |
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May's song: done. I'm hoping to have a recording sometime next week. I haven't forgotten that I still need to record February's song, either, so if all the constellations align, maybe I'll get that done too.
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| backfill, part 2 |
[19 May 2009|11:47am] |
Continuing in my quest to fill in my three-month backlog, I had a few minutes yesterday to sit down and record another demo. Here's a quick and dirty recording of March's song, which I decided to call "Tokens and Charcoal". It's another entry into our ongoing story.
Two down, one to go.
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| backfill, part 1 |
[12 May 2009|07:10pm] |
I had a brief chance to do some recording today, and since I'm already three songs behind on that I jumped on it. I was hoping to get to do all three, but I only got through one. I'll probably rerecord it at some point, because the guitar sounds weird and I didn't enunciate some parts very well, but it's one more song that I have a recording of.
This is April's song, and it's called Drydock. I still need to record (and name!) the songs from February and March, but I wanted to do this one first because I happen to like it quite a bit. I hope you like it too.
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[30 Apr 2009|08:26pm] |
Today I triumphed over an allergy attack (or cold?) that left my head feeling like a ball of glue to finish writing a song for April. It would be ridiculous to even think about recording anything in this condition, so unfortunately for the third month in a row you'll have to take my word for it that songs are being written.
On a better note, this marks the halfway point between when I started this project and my semi-arbitrary deadline in October. I'm glad to have gotten this far without giving up or missing a month, and it makes me feel a bit better about my ability to get to the end. It doesn't even feel like six months have gone by. If you've been following my progress, thanks for sticking with me. I will have more songs for you to hear soon.
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[01 Apr 2009|03:32am] |
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I thought I was going to end up with nothing for March, but I ended up writing a song today and finishing it right before I had to leave the house this evening. Failure averted for another month.
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[24 Feb 2009|10:46pm] |
Friends, I believe I've just witnessed the sweetest thing in the world while getting off of the train a little while ago.
Like many people who've been riding one train line for a long time, I know exactly which door to use in order to leave the train directly in front of the exit closest to my house. There'll often be a few people waiting by the door. Tonight, I was waiting behind a woman who I'd estimate to be in her late 50s.
As we pulled into the station, I noticed that there was a large, gruff-looking man of about 60 waiting by the wall opposite the gate. This exit is exit-only, so I could not figure out what he was doing there. He had a bluetooth earpiece on, so I guessed that he'd decided to make a phone call before going up the stairs and out into the cold night.
The woman ahead of me leaves the train, I leave the train. She goes through the gate, I go through the gate. We turn towards the stairs, and the man who had been standing there walks towards them as well - or so I thought. He ended up standing alongside the woman ahead of me, and with infinite gentleness, they entwined their arms and held each other's hand, all the way up the stairs to the street - without needing to say a word.
What more can a person ask for in this world than to have someone who'll meet them, silently, at the train?
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| progress |
[24 Feb 2009|04:12pm] |
February's song: finished!
Do I have a recording to share yet: damn no!
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