links for 2010-04-05
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“A year-old music blog. (Wow, time flies.) Dallas based, but needs a transfer to Montreal, stat. First to scoop “Creep” by Radiohead. OK, scratch that: like I said, they’ve only been doing this a year. But if Radiohead ever records a second track named “Creep,” they will definitely scoop that one.
No affiliation with the prog-rock band Muse, especially after The Resistance. Contributors are co-workers Patrick and Fred, the lives of whom are otherwise so packed to the gills that you should have no doubt that The Muse encroaches on their work day. They only really agree on Deftones; Fred otherwise describes Patrick’s musical interests as “strum strum hippie yodel.” Just as Patrick describes Fred’s as “terrible.” Yet somehow the two reach a daily armistice; the written, ever-evolving text of which is known regionally as The Muse in Music.” -
“These are signs seen primarily at Tea Party Protests.
They all feature “creative” spelling or grammar.
This new dialect of the English language shall be known as “Teabonics.”
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“Though it looks kinda boring and unspectacular, this is easily the best example of the dish I’ve had to date. Never mind that the rice and beans were perfect, which in itself is an odd occurrence. The tortitas were the right balance of nopales, tortas, and chile sauce. Even though it was a quite mild sauce in terms of spiciness, it was rich with flavor, the kind you just want to spoon up and drink. Plus these tortas were soft and pliable, though they kept their form. Too many as of late have been quite hard and tough to eat. Not at Lencho’s.”
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“Three weeks ago the hard drive in my MacBook Pro went bad. So far as I can tell, I didn’t lose a single byte of data. Here’s how:”
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“A tribute to the slowness of anxiety, by Instructor of Music at California State University, Fullerton Paul Bailey. His introduction speaks of his distress over the current economic downturn, but the music itself is absolutely timeless.”
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“See, Dr. Drew never met Corey Haim, the police haven’t determined what substance (if any) killed him, but Dr. Drew is pretty certain he knows what killed this total stranger—that’s how great of a doctor he is. He can diagnose and determine cause of death just by hearing someone’s name! He’s basically Miss Cleo but with a medical degree so people (wrongfully) take him seriously”
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“So why don’t I charge? A large part of it is that composing is something I do because I want to, and because I really am passionate about it. Call it a “hobby” or whatever, but it’s what I enjoy doing, and once you start monetizing that, I think it becomes more of a job than something you do as an escape. Don’t get me wrong-I like my day job, I like being a physician, etc. But you can like your job and still get paid for it. For me (and I stress, this is just what works for me), charging for my music is not something I’m interested in. I’d feel like a prostitute. We don’t parent for money, right? I also don’t compose for money. QED.”
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“Now let me give you a marketing tip. The people who can afford to buy books and magazines and go to the movies don’t like to hear about people who are poor or sick, so start your story up here [indicates top of the G-I axis]. You will see this story over and over again. People love it, and it is not copyrighted. The story is “Man in Hole,” but the story needn’t be about a man or a hole. It’s: somebody gets into trouble, gets out of it again [draws line A]. It is not accidental that the line ends up higher than where it began. This is encouraging to readers.”
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“I was pretty confident that ‘In C’ was going to have a life, even in the beginning,” he says. “It was a pretty startlingly original idea in its time, and it just came to me. It developed out of a lot of interests that I had at the time. Being able to get this piece written on a piece of paper and still have such a vast potential, I think, is an unusual accomplishment. I saw that, but I didn’t realize how pervasive the influence of that piece would be over the years.”
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very reasonable take on educational reform by the union rep of deb’s middle school
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“Black settlers from what is now Sonora, Mexico, helped establish the first settlement in 1781. The labor of Tongva Indians helped raise the plaza’s church in the 1820s. The histories of L.A.’s Latino barrios and Chinatown also begin at the plaza, which was the site of one of the great crimes of Los Angeles history, the Chinese Massacre of 1871.
In 1909 the City Council banned free speech in public areas except for the plaza — which became a gathering spot for anarchists and radicals of various stripes, including the Mexican revolutionary Ricardo Flores Magon. Chinese nationalists founded a military academy there in 1903 to train men to fight the Manchu dynasty.”
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“Having 80.8% of the alphabet available is significantly below the 99.9% full letter uptime reliability we strive for. Since identifying the root case of this issue, we’ve started bringing vowels back to Gmail, so you should see them back in your account within the next few hours if you don’t already. In the meantime, while you may still see this issue in Gmail’s web interface, both IMAP and POP access are functioning normally. We’ll post an update as soon as things are fully resolved and, again, we’re v3ry s0rry”
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“Minimalism taken to a new level.
Unfortunately for Eastman, he did not live long enough, and these works have been resurrected with great effort.” -
“THERE IS NO MAGIC FAIRY DUST WHICH WILL MAKE A BORING, USELESS, REDUNDANT, OR MERELY INFORMATIVE SCENE AFTER IT LEAVES YOUR TYPEWRITER. YOU THE WRITERS, ARE IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE EVERY SCENE IS DRAMATIC”
Bookmarks for January 12th through January 19th [del.icio.us]
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Bookmarks from January 12th through January 17th:[del.icio.us]
- Brian Eno: “Recorded Music Equals Whale Blubber” – hypebot -
“I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time…” “It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you’d be stuck with your whale blubber.” “Sorry mate – history’s moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it.” – Brian Eno in The Guardian
- THE KNIFE -
“Commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma to write the music for their opera based on Charles Darwin and his book ‘On the Origin of the Species’, The Knife decided to make this a collaborative process, working with artists Mt. Sims and Planningtorock for the first time, to capture the huge width of the Darwin and evolution theme. They extensively researched Darwin related literature and articles, with Olof attending a field recording workshop in the Amazon to find inspiration and to record sounds. ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ is a unique musical project. Richard Dawkins’s gene trees have formed the basis of some of the musical composition, artificial sounds have been mixed with field recordings, with the music inspired by everything from the different stages of a bird learning its melody, to a song based on Darwin’s loving letters about his daughter Anne. These are compositions that challenge the conventional conception of opera music.”
- Thoughts on the Naughts:San Francisco Classical Voice -
“Along with this development comes the emergence of “alt-classical” (alternative classical, an abbreviation with all the cachet of a computer key): This world of music existed for decades, but in the naughts (the decade of 2000–2009) it became newly visible thanks to decentralization and the lack of a dominant “mainstream” style in classical music. Imperfectly named, as is always the case with descriptive terms for large artistic phenomena, alt-classical represents the merging of genres of music, as well as the undermining of distinctions between “high” and “low,” classical and popular, along with an infusion of music formerly on the margins.”
- Los Angeles News – 2009: ODE TO THE MUSIC MAN -
“While most of this story’s respondents are Flaherty supporters, Paul Bailey, an adjunct professor of music education and theory at Cal State Fullerton (and one-time band director at John Marshall High School in Los Feliz), has this to say: “Talk about the forest for the trees: Teaching a drum line does not make a music program. I can easily see why an administration would reassign a music teacher (no matter how successful and well meaning) if they were unable and/or unwilling to field a marching band. Like it or not, the marching band is the most efficient way to get a large number of kids to participate in music. It’s unfortunate, but at the end of the day a music program should give musicians a variety of experiences and not focus on the specialized competitive agenda of one teacher.”
- Facebook | Sahar Saedi: what do you think about the musicianship classes? -
“I have had some really great professors both in csu fullerton and in el camino college and I feel that both of these schools which I have attended, have some very strong aspects to their music programs. However, I have one complain about the musicianship classes of both of these schools and I want to share it with you and ask for your insight. Unfortunately, in el camino college we had a very poor sightsinging class. There was absolutely no direction given to us as to how to learn to sightsing. We were given a few melodies that we would get tested on on our exam which by the time of the exam would basically be memorized, thus would not be sightsinging.”
- Tom Swafford: Violinist, Composer, Arranger! -
“My goal is to create clear music that communicates directly and genuinely. I don’t like slick music that has been edited and perfected artificially. I like all the subtle nuances, scratches, ‘mistakes’ that happen naturally and I think that this is a big part of what makes music expressive. “
Bookmarks for December 27th through December 31st [del.icio.us]
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Bookmarks from December 27th through December 31st:[del.icio.us]
- Doctorow, How to Destroy the Book | Electronic Frontier Foundation -
“When I buy an audiobook on CD, it’s mine. The license agreement, such as it is, is “don’t violate copyright law,” and I can rip that CD to mp3, I can load it to my iPod or any number of devises—it’s mine; I can give it away, I can sell it; it’s mine. But when you buy an audiobook through Audible, which now controls 90 per cent of the [downloadable] audiobook market, you get a license agreement, not a property interest. The things that you can do with it are limited by DRM; the players you can play it on are limited by the license agreements with Audible. Audible doesn’t do this because the publishers ask them to. Audible and iTunes, because Audible is the sole supplier to iTunes, do this because it’s in their own interest….”
- how to make a living playing music | Ol’ Danny Barnes -
“i hear so much complaining about this subject, i just wanted to lay my practical experience on you. free. first, three pre-conditions: 1. if you are a very materialistic person, skip this article, i don’t think you are going to like what it says. 2. if you don’t have the music where you want it art-wise, you might want to go work on that, this article isn’t going to help you much either. you will be better off by practicing and studying and working on your music instead. you will need to get the art pretty close to where you want it, before you should worry about making much of a living out of it. 3. determine if you are actually called to be a musician. if you aren’t called, all the gyrations in the world, won’t make it work. if you are called, no matter what you do, it’s going to work. this determination will solve most of the problems you are going to encounter. “
- Mixed Meters: Could Terry Riley’s In C Be Accepted As Classical Music -
“I fantasize that someday In C will be programmed on regular orchestra concerts. Yes, getting this piece into the standard repertory is a long ways off. If it happened, In C would change from a “minimalist classic” into an actual piece of classical music. That would provide strong evidence that classical music has some life left in it.” A chamber orchestra would be just the right size. Before the intermission the program could be, maybe, a Rossini overture and a Mozart concerto. And the second half would be a 35-minute performance of In C employing all the performers from the first half. Great concert! Of course, during In C the conductor should sit in the ensemble and play an instrument, provided he or she is capable. Otherwise tell the conductor to sit in the audience.
- Militant Locationist Rant « 90042 -
“Recently in our humble corner of Los Angeles, a brewery opened. Which is great news to anyone, (especially myself) who enjoys what Benjamin Franklin said was, “proof that God loves us.” Microbrewing is something I have supported for a long, long, and expensive time. Having a new microbrewery nearby is a wonderful thing. The only problem is the name. And what is in a name? To quote Shakespeare, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Maybe so, but out of the millions of names to engrave on your mast, the brewers of this new brewery have chosen to name their venture after a location here in Northeast Los Angeles. It’s good to represent, right? The name of this new establishment is Eagle Rock Brewery. Great, Eagle Rock is a fine place; home to many of my favorite festivals, restaurants, stores, and newspapers. The only problem is the brewery is not located in Eagle Rock 90041, but in Glassell Park 90065.”
- Lefsetz Letter » Blog Archive » Gleevec -
“I’m still reading the responses to my “Leukemia” missive. I appreciate the good will. But I’m reading slowly not only because the missives are all personal, directed specifically to me, but because I’m learning so much. I heard from Steven Page, formerly of the Barenaked Ladies. Did I know that Kevin Hearn from BNL had leukemia? Steven copied him on the e-mail. Turns out Kevin had CML too. Before Gleevec. He had a bone marrow transplant, and it worked.But it’s not. [snip] Because some guy who wasn’t in it for the money, who was willing to sacrifice everything for his passion, put together the pieces to come up with a breakthrough drug that allows me to live.”
- UbuWeb Sound – Marshall McLuhan -
“Marshall McLuhan appeared on the Dick Cavett Show in December of 1970 along with Truman Capote and Chicago Bears running back, Gayle Sayers. Both Capote and Sayers participated in the discussion with McLuhan. This recording was made on reel-to-reel audio tape in 1970 and directly transferred to computer in 2005. Unfortunately, the exact date of the show was not noted, except that the show did take place before Christmas. All commercials and breaks were removed from McLuhan’s appearance.”
- The annotated world « BuzzMachine -
“Tweet: A view of our annotated world: Hyperlocal is what’s around me and how I search that There are eight million stories in the naked city and soon every one of them will be available on your phone through visual, aural, and geographic search and augmented reality in our newly annotated world. Every address, every building, every business has a story to tell. Visualize your world that way: Look at a restaurant and think about all the data that already swirls around it — its menu, its reviews and ratings and tags (descriptive words), its recipes, its ingredients, its suppliers (and how far away they are, if you care about that sort of thing), its reservation openings, who has been there (according to social applications), who do we know who has been there, its health-department reports, its credit-card data (in aggregate, of course), pictures of its interior, pictures of its food, its wine list, the history of the location, its decibel rating, its news… “
colon nancarrow on crack
MUSIC DADA (bara no kodoku) by ALONE TOGETHER
i found this track by the sound collage artist alone + together (yuki ota) on the soundcloud mp3 service/website. it made me think of colon nancarrow and what a time kyle gann would have trying to transcribe this.
i also want to point out that you can now “like” posts on this site. especially if you “like” what you hear please click away and i’m interested to see how it works as a feedback measurement tool (besides looking at page views)
i’m also going to be experimenting posting music on this site and others using the soundcloud service/website. right now most of their site is dance music, but there are some interesting groups like live improvisation, sound collage, and drone music.
if you are making music, for now i have created a few groups to post tracks;
an alt-classical group for DIY art music
and post-whatever group for all the music that doesn’t easily fit into either the art music or pop music continuum.
overall the site has a few hiccups (it can be pretty slow) and the search system is pretty rudimentary, but it seems like it could be a useful way to share music along a variety of similar interests and aesthetics.
if you check it out please let me know what you think at http://soundcloud.com/pbailey
and on a final note last week’s (oct 9-10) ImprovFriday+1 files are now up and shane cadman’s piece for the mighty noah bailey dowell was a very special standout this week. steve layton also made remix that afternoon of shane’s piece and the glitchy ostinato opening of my music for controllers III called chorale (the mighty)
check them all out at http://improvfriday.ning.com/
Music for Controllers III and IV
still trying to get my head around live improvisation using digital sound sources and controllers. these next two tracks were improvised live using ableton live/ korg/nanokey, buddha machine (iphone), and the korg kaossilator
Steve Layton also made a nice mashup of my Music for Controllers III and Shane Cadman’s very beautiful piece: “For the Mighty Noah Bailey Dowell”. Shane’s description of the piece follows:
“I know Noah Bailey Dowell and his family from a church we all used to go to. He is known as “The Mighty” and he died on 10.3.09 after a battle with a rare form of cancer – he was not quite 8 years old. He and his family are an inspiration. They are all mighty indeed!. This piece is for Noah. I don’t know what else to say.”
Shane Cadman
100909 – For the Mighty Noah Bailey Dowell
Steve Layton
listen and come join the fun at improvfriday.ning.com
Music for Controllers I
finally getting around to joining the ImprovFriday fun. here is my first submission. Music for Controllers I created using ableton live, buddha machine (iphone), korg kaossillator and nano-key Be the first to like. Like Unlike
Bookmarks for September 6th through September 20th [del.icio.us]
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Bookmarks from September 6th through September 20th:[del.icio.us]
Retrace Our Steps (Emusic Review/John Schaefer)
i was very happy to see that WNYC’s John Schaefer wrote a great review of Retrace Our Steps for the E-Music website.*
“Composer Paul Bailey winningly describes his ensemble as an “alt-classical garage band.” With 4 singers (two of whom also speak), strings, winds, piano, electric guitar, vibes, and electric bass, it’s as good a description as any. Retrace Our Steps is his “secular oratorio in 4 acts,” and while the opening notes of Act I and of Act IV sound like they might have come from Arnold Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night, the dominant musical references are to Philip Glass and Michael Nyman. Bailey’s pulsing, tonal chamber music is married to texts by Gertrude Stein, Guy Debord and Jenny Bitner. All four acts are highly rhythmic affairs, but each has its own character: Act I insistent, Act IV a more reflective cousin (a neat trick since the rhythm seems to be the same); Act II with a stinging electric guitar part leading the way; Act III with an elegant combination of vibes and rocking strings and guitar. Rather than providing a narrative in a traditional oratorio sense, Bailey gives us a series of aural snapshots dealing with isolation, alienation, and the irony of modern communication (that when it is so easy to communicate, it is still so hard to communicate effectively). A further irony is that this message is carried by some immediately accessible music; if the message is that instrumental rock and new classical music are not so far apart, that message comes through loud and clear.”
and last week WNYC recently replayed the original show that featured my music.
*i’m not sure what is going on but it looks like Act II hasn’t been uploaded properly on the emusic site. If you have had problems and have downloaded an incomplete track please email me and besides giving you a link to Act II, i’ll also be happy to send you a special “surprise”.
and of course you can download the whole album right here for free at anytime
Retrace Our Steps, Act 1
Retrace Our Steps, Act 2
Retrace Our Steps, Act 3
Retrace Our Steps, Act 4
(download graphic libretto)
(download Graphic Libretto and Mp3′s)
Bookmarks for June 26th through June 29th [del.icio.us]
Bookmarks from June 26th through June 29th:[del.icio.us]
- Los Angeles New Music Ensemble – looks like there is a new music group in town. welcome aboard! “The Los Angeles New Music Ensemble (LANME) is an organization created to promote new music, collaboration within the arts, the commissioning of new works, and the creation of multimedia presentations within innovative live performances. To further these goals, LANME is dedicated to learning and playing the best and most exciting new chamber music around.”
- New school board members ready for challenge – LA Daily News -former John Marshall High School colleague Steve Zimmer is interviewed as he prepares to become a school board member. “Zimmer admits that scarier than dealing with a billion-dollar deficit is the idea of not being on the campus of Marshall every day. It will be interesting to see if someone immersed on the ground level can translate that experience to doing a good job on the board,” Zimmer said.” As a teacher, Zimmer has also been a very active member of United Teachers Los Angeles, which has prompted some to believe his vote will always follow the powerful union’s stance. I don’t accept that voting on the side of the union is siding against students,” he said “
- laboratory tests of vegan restaurants in la | vegan food and living in Los Angeles -
very interesting blog post that tests a number of LA restaurants to see if their food was really vegan. (fyi: i’m not and my wife is a pescatarian) although there were some meals that were obviously misrepresented as vegan, it seems the biggest culprit might be the mislabeling and mistranslation of food from the taiwan to us markets.
- A Chapter from The Listen: Music for 18 Musicians – these excerpts are being touted as a new type of music criticism and a new way to attract audiences. i hate to throw a bucket of cold water on these ambitious young writer/composers, but the excerpts are overwritten and seem musically naive, trying to impress a faculty advisor in grad school. hence exhibit A and B: “
- And now melody. And now melodies. The melodies here being the playings-out of the harmonies. The harmonies being the on-ringing of all the melodic notes” “
- The harmonies are one harmony that absorbs the up-till-now waves of the other harmonies, that absorbs the leftover pulses. This accumulated on-ringing describes a recognizable environment… —a single addition to the bottom of the harmony—acts as a diaphragm, allowing this environment to open and to breathe in”
- this play by play description doesn’t work for me and its certainly not the way i would want people to read about my music. i think a better tack would be to try and distill what makes these pieces great.
- You balance the budget – Los Angeles Times -Try your hand at closing California’s budget shortfall, estimated at $24 billion. It’s not easy, but it can be done. Cut spending, raise taxes and/or borrow to get the state out of the red. For each choice — drawn from proposals from across the political spectrum — we’ve tried to give some sense of the effects. As you craft your proposal, the Deficit Meter will show your progress.
- The tragic end of Michael Jackson: The Jeruselum Post – very tragic michael jackson quote that is further proof that fame is not a replacement for love “I am going to say something I have never said before and this is the truth. I have no reason to lie to you and God knows I am telling the truth. I think all my success and fame, and I have wanted it, I have wanted it because I wanted to be loved. That’s all. That’s the real truth. I wanted people to love me, truly love me, because I never really felt loved. I said I know I have an ability. Maybe if I sharpened my craft, maybe people will love me more. I just wanted to be loved, because I think it is very important to be loved and to tell people that you love them and to look in their eyes and say it.”
- I’m in a band… -via S21, i’m glad to see other composer/performers starting their own groups
- Just Released: “New World Ardor”- NetNewMusic – willam houston’s new (and very enjoyable) post-apocalypse party music. reminds me of john oswald’s ‘plunderphonics’
Mosaic (Music of Jon Brenner)
there have been some great online discussions over the break about the “big” issues over at the NetNewMusic site; the purpose of music as art? is music a commodity? what is the role of technology in music?
currently i’m interested in using technology should help us to augment the possibilities of our lives (some call it augmented reality). its been interesting discovering the many examples with musicians exploring live looping, controllerism, mashups etc…
along those lines i’m going to introduce you to my friend jon brenner’s obsessive take on technology. his approach is pretty simple in which he uses everyday items (bicycle and coffee machine) to “assemble” songs piece by piece and like the mosaic on the right using a field recorder and protools.
as you will hear his results are pretty amazing!
enjoy!
espresto
presta pesto
tour de forte
shifted cadence
spoken chorus
caffeine machine
latte
also as a bonus is jon’s modular mashup of my fearless leader, overcoming tourism and lloyd rodgers the little prince
leaderless fear
welcome (beta)
welcome to the new site. this is a conglomeration (is that a word?) my old blog and and the info and music from the pbe site. overall i’m hoping the new site should make for a much better browsing experience, so let me show you around the new digs… the rest of the site is [...]
222
Since January 2008 there have been 222 homicides in LA county. I’m not sure what to do about it, but I can’t stop thinking about it. It started when I came across the LA times Homicide Report (blog). For over a year reporter Jill Leovy and Rueben Vives had a simple and horrendous task, to [...]
learning a new instrument
this spring continues to be a steady progression of ups and downs. the flu was a 5 week body blow to start the year and this past week (welcome spring!) allergies have been kicking my ass. that all being said, i’m finally back to my routine of transcribing, writing and arranging except this time (instead [...]
i'd offer you a mint
my apologies for those who turned in to listen to the radio interview today. unfortunately mr. perlich became ill and was not able to conduct our interview. once we reschedule i’ll be sure to post the new time and date. thanks for concerned calls and emails i was happy to hear there was so much [...]
musicianship toolbox, part 1 building sightsinging fundamentals
musicianship toolbox part 1, building sightsinging fundamentals so you want to improve your ears? what to do? where to start? here is a simple exercise to get you started the first skill you to develop is the ability to sing all the diatonic intervals (2nds-8ths, ascending and descending) by being able to sing these intervals [...]
leaderless fear?
the pbe hiatus is finally over. in rehearsal tonight we realized that 3 months was the longest break we have ever taken since we started in 2002. i’m glad to be back to it preparing for a club show at mr. t’s bowl (our favorite venue) on feb 20th. we are very fortunate to have john mahr covering keyboards during eric hendrikson’s personal leave.
reh went well tonight, we started in on quite a bit of music that we haven’t performed that much and ended up with quite a bit more music then we can use. so far the setlist is starting to look something like this:
chaconne, john brenner (great modular piece)
bonedance, lloyd rodgers
fearless leader, pb
life’s too short, pb (tentative, 2 of 3 singers confirmed…)
national anthem, radiohead (cover)
this spring we are also working on adding doug hein’s orlando and john brenner’s leaderless fear to our repertoire. one thing that i have noticed about programming is that a concert of 5 or more pieces by most any composer can be a real drag (especially mine). i try and not program more than 2-3 of my own pieces, and when planning this show it became clear that when you pick the top 1-2 pieces from a variety of composers it quickly can become a pretty exceptional show.
anyhow, its great to be back in the game and with last night’s great rehearsal i can get up to the mountains for a few days in much better state of mind. school starts in a week and our budget has been slashed 10%, so i sure hope i still have some classes to teach. (remember life’s meant to be endured not enjoyed)
so while i’m away please help yourself to any or all the following;
its new, it fun, and free!****
and its an secular oratorio based on texts gertrude stein, guy debord and jenny bitner. while i was making it, i decided that it would be much more interesting and informative to have a graphic libretto instead of program notes. it was such an obvious idea and was surprised to find that nobody else seems to be doing this. so check it out and let me know what you think.
retrace our steps, act 1
retrace our steps, act 2
retrace our steps, act 3
retrace our steps, act 4
assorted live performances from fall 07
life’s too short (092507)
fearless leader, lacc, 100207
11/25/05 (with real quiet, 102507)
11/25/05 (with real quiet, 102507)
you can also support the pbe by purchasing our first album; music from summerland (2002)
download full album ($5) google checkout or paypal
(****at least for you early adopters. i’m trying something new and going to give this one away until CD#3 comes out (life’s too short, fall 08). i think giving away the new stuff and selling the back catalog isn’t a bad idea. so try it out and if you like it, i bet you might like my previous CD music from summerland)
Life (We Cannot Retrace Our Steps)
my long life, my long life
RETRACE OUR STEPS is essentially a secular oratorio; a collection of thoughts, feelings, and opinions about modern life (consumerism, idealism, and alienation)
Traditionally oratorios functioned as a musical sermon, coordinated to biblical calendar to enhance the worship service. by setting these conflicting themes in a non-narrative format allows the contradictions and grey areas to become illuminated.
Instead of creating an “official” set of PROGRAM NOTES to accompany this recording (like the ones you are reading right now) I decided that a GRAPHIC LIBRETTO would far better bridge the gap between the trepidation many people feel today when listening to ART MUSIC (music meant for contemplation)
listen and download RETRACE OUR STEPS I-IV:
act 1
retrace our steps, act I
act 2
retrace our steps, act II
act 3
retrace our steps, act III
act 4
retrace our steps, act IV
download graphic libretto and retrace our steps mp3′s (66mb zip file)
do you know?
in my long life do you know because I tell you so, or do you know, do you know retrace our steps, act IV> Be the first to like. Like Unlike
in my long life
in my long life, in my long life, life is strife life is strife Be the first to like. Like Unlike
what made it live?
has it not gone, what made it live has it not gone because now it is had retrace our steps, act IV Be the first to like. Like Unlike
but do i want?
but do I wantwhat we have got? retrace our steps, act IVtext by guy debord Be the first to like. Like Unlike
plagarism is necessary
The meaning of words participates in the improvementplagiarism is necessary progress implies it retrace our steps, act III Be the first to like. Like Unlike
ideas improve
the greatness of art begins to appearat the dusk of lifeideas improve retrace our steps, act III Be the first to like. Like Unlike
2007 listening lists
2007-in regular rotation lcd soundsystem-sound of silver blonde redhead-23 modest mouse-we were dead before the ship even sank the knife-deep cuts radiohead-in rainbows real quiet-tight sweater (music of marc mellits) apparat-walls digitalism, idealism we are scientists, with love and squalor nin-year zero 2007-great tracks radiohead, 15 steps lcd soundsystem, all my friends blonde redhead, 23 [...]
