Monday, February 22, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Something to tide you over until I have time to do a real post
Watch this: epic-length (70-flarking-minutes) teardown of The Phantom Menace. If nothing else, watch it because the reviewer sounds a little like Strong Bad.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The uke abides
"Grace":
UPDATE: I gave up being such a lazy jackass for Lent* (the fact that I didn't update with this a week ago should tell you how well that's going), so here's an attempt to explain this song.
I've been playing the ukulele for a while now (exactly a week to the day after "Rise," so what should have been the first week of SoTW Year Two, and yes I have OCD). So far I'm not any good at it.
I can't really explain the title of this song except to say that like pretty much everything else I do it involves cartoons and insomnia and misplaced ambition, and that's it NOT a reference to a people's name. What I can tell is that like "Chord Storm" this evolved out of something I would do while I was practicing, and in fact I had originally (drink!) planned to post them together, but didn't have time. The idea was to do a lot of different styles-- so there's a funk section, a drummed section, a metal section, a blues section a folk section a sort of minor key flamencoesque section and and fast, surfy, tremolo picked section, not necessarily in that order and I may have forgotten one. Which is why it ended up being so long.
That said I'm kind of disappointed in this song. There are some good ideas in it but I don't think my playing is very good in it, and I had some problems figuring out how the pieces should all fit together, and just getting a good take of it in general. I think it's one of the songs I've did that definitely could be a good song (I'd list "Dread" as probably the best example of this tendency) but isn't quite there yet. Which is fine; part of the idea behind Song of the Week in the first place was to generate ideas like that. I can tell I'm getting there, though, since I was practicing this one a couple days ago and I think that what I played then worked better in terms of like musicianship and arrangement to how this one is being. That sentence contains either too few or too many words.
There was no song last week because my guitar string broke halfway through recording Sunday and it took till Saturday for me to get out to the store. Totally getting over this laziness thing.
*Lent is sort of like Catholic New Year's Resolutions, except that it lasts 40 days instead of two weeks, and instead of "giving up smoking," you're "giving up smoking for Lent."
I've been playing the ukulele for a while now (exactly a week to the day after "Rise," so what should have been the first week of SoTW Year Two, and yes I have OCD). So far I'm not any good at it.
I can't really explain the title of this song except to say that like pretty much everything else I do it involves cartoons and insomnia and misplaced ambition, and that's it NOT a reference to a people's name. What I can tell is that like "Chord Storm" this evolved out of something I would do while I was practicing, and in fact I had originally (drink!) planned to post them together, but didn't have time. The idea was to do a lot of different styles-- so there's a funk section, a drummed section, a metal section, a blues section a folk section a sort of minor key flamencoesque section and and fast, surfy, tremolo picked section, not necessarily in that order and I may have forgotten one. Which is why it ended up being so long.
That said I'm kind of disappointed in this song. There are some good ideas in it but I don't think my playing is very good in it, and I had some problems figuring out how the pieces should all fit together, and just getting a good take of it in general. I think it's one of the songs I've did that definitely could be a good song (I'd list "Dread" as probably the best example of this tendency) but isn't quite there yet. Which is fine; part of the idea behind Song of the Week in the first place was to generate ideas like that. I can tell I'm getting there, though, since I was practicing this one a couple days ago and I think that what I played then worked better in terms of like musicianship and arrangement to how this one is being. That sentence contains either too few or too many words.
There was no song last week because my guitar string broke halfway through recording Sunday and it took till Saturday for me to get out to the store. Totally getting over this laziness thing.
*Lent is sort of like Catholic New Year's Resolutions, except that it lasts 40 days instead of two weeks, and instead of "giving up smoking," you're "giving up smoking for Lent."
And this is without mentioning the vampire squid
Long but worth reading; his science is so tight it must be acknowledge'd.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
More video things
My favorite is the Wes Anderson one; he's been ripped off so much I can almost see that one really happening.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
It Came From the Infernets, Part i...
Seriously you guys you gotsta be watchin Lost. Otherwise you won't be able to laugh at things like this:
Friday, February 5, 2010
[Insert Meta-Reference to Lack of Recent Blog Activity]
"Chord Storm":
Words later. Tired.
UPDATE: Actually, I'm not sure there's much to say about this one. I was just playing with chord shapes until I hit on ones I liked. Unlike most of my songs there wasn't a lot of thought in it-- it sort of grew organically and I decided to go ahead and record since I felt like it was done. The hardest thing was just finding the time to do it*.
*My sister has the uncanny ability to be in every room of the house at the same time. In practical terms this means a lot of background noise, which is the main reason** I haven't been able to do these for the past few weeks.
**Along with school. Never go to college, kids.
DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: Mixing (made it louder, EQ).
DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: Mixing (made it louder, EQ).
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Mi crÃtica del seis palabras
del parodia de los superhéroes, protagonizada por Ben Stiller, Mystery Men:
S'allright, but just watch this instead.
UPDATE: Acting off some critical advice, I went ahead and streamed The Specials, which is not only a much better movie (not that it's some kind of competition), but it pretty easily blows (almost) every other superhero movie out of the water. If you haven't seen it (and, let's face it, you haven't), go out and find a copy.
S'allright, but just watch this instead.
UPDATE: Acting off some critical advice, I went ahead and streamed The Specials, which is not only a much better movie (not that it's some kind of competition), but it pretty easily blows (almost) every other superhero movie out of the water. If you haven't seen it (and, let's face it, you haven't), go out and find a copy.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Best song of the year so far!
"Toybox":
Sorry, apparently 12:00 AM means something different to popular blog publishing platforms than it does to humans. Anyway, here's the song. More later.
UPDATE: I changed my mind. Figure this one out yourself.
DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: Mixing, esp. louder electric piano in the beginning.
UPDATE: I changed my mind. Figure this one out yourself.
DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: Mixing, esp. louder electric piano in the beginning.
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