I don't want to get rid of this so...

I'm keeping it around for, at first I thought advice, but after taking a good look at some gorgeous scenes through my camera lens, this seems like an ideal place to highlight some of the impressive scenery around here. Plus, it'll be way easier highlighting photos of the region than regaling you with my boring, unqualified opinion of how to approach music. 

A gorgeous little something I snagged on the way home from work.

Also, all the photos mentioned before are now up and available for retail in the downloads section.

A Day Closes

These were beautiful vistas of a late evening sky just before dark. I was filling up my truck when I saw the sky and ran to catch glimpses of it before it faded. The pictures are now sale in the store. There's only one up now. I'll have the rest up in an hour or so when I get off of work.


Cheers!

-Mark

Also, as you may have noticed and probably predicted that the new website wouldn't be completed. Due to a lack of funds I've been unable to bring it up to speed as soon as I'd like. Realistically, I'll have it up and ready midway through September. Once again, and I doubt it'll be for the last time, I apologize for the delays, but can assure you that work continues.

***New Website Under Construction***

It's been a long few years, and blogger and I have had a good run. But all good things must come to an end.

The translation literally reads: May blogger find peace in knowing that despite being defunct and irrelevant, someone still kind of cares.

As I've committed more time and resources to not only the development of my originals, but my technical education in sound design and videography, better web design has also made its way into the repertoire. Blogspots will always have a soft place in my heart and I'll probably keep this active for limited use, but it nevertheless a fact that my gaze has been drawn to the vastly superior, more easily customized websites of my peers.

I like WordPress, but who would wear these? Seriously?

Therefore it is hereby decreed in characteristically nebulous fashion that at some undetermined, wishy-washy date during this up and coming July, the grandhighmusicoverlord blog will graduate to HendersonRoofing.org, my band's official namesake, as the new, slick corner of the internets that will be home to all my new recordings, downloads, tour calendar, and general updates. It will ultimately be accompanied by a youtube partner channel for original videos as well, especially now that I'm being graciously permitted to use cameras that excel above mine in every conceivable way.

Yeah yeah, I know some of you think this is an over-the-top way of excusing myself from writing twice a week and posting new music while I upgrade. And you'd be right. But seriously, this is a time-consuming process amidst a time-consuming career. You remember how I wrote and recorded Dance That Noise Away in less than twelve hours over two days? That like, never happens. And even if it did regularly I still wouldn't have time for it alongside everything else.

So bear with me, and in a few weeks I'll have the new website posted.

For all the good old lean years, and all the in-between years. <3

And blogger, I feel like I was just getting to know you finally when it came time to move on. Our typically tawdry romance was unexpectedly blossoming when the winds of change blew away the petals of our love and like a drifter with a wayward heart I left for the next best thing I saw. I hope you'll forgive me. I hope this doesn't tarnish the sweet times we had together. If it's any consolation, I still like you better than facebook.








photo attributions:

(the rose) By Eike Sauer (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

(wordpress buttons) By Lisa Risager from Denmark (WordPress 10th anniversary  Uploaded by palnatoke) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

(blogger tombstone) By Corpse Reviver - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7229483

Correction of dates

So, as hard as this may be for some of you to believe, it's time I confessed the truth- I have erred.

No, I didn't 'overstay' in Vegas, nor have I lost all my savings in one of my airports ten thousand slot machines.

I have, however, failed to schedule properly. You see I promised perhaps a little carelessly in the last blog post that my music would be up today, so certain was I that there was adequate time. Which, under normal circumstances would be true.

Alas, as some of you may remember, my little brother is getting married. I'm happy for him of course, his fiancé is nothing short of lovely, but it's inconvenient timing to be a best man at a Mormon wedding ceremony two states away while writing in a very time-consuming style of music.

I'm not bitter of course! No no no, not in the slightest. As I piddle away the time on my phone here, I genuinely look forward to raising my glass of orange juice or overly chlorinated city water in an over-the-top toast to mini-me and his wife to be.

But seriously Stephen, I'm all for short engagements but couldn't you have at least given me one more week before getting married so I could've kept to my word that I now won't be able to keep because of this event you warned me about three months in advance?!

Short story- next Saturday's the day. It's lovely visiting family. I need to manage my schedule more effectively, and it is so weird how I feel like I'm in a prologue to Fallout New Vegas. Cheers!

Podcasts, Choral Pieces, and Barometric Headaches.

I think that's the only thing I don't like about living next to a mountain. I have no clue when the next lightning storm is going to come and bring on the weird feeling that every sensitive part of my body is slowly being squeezed to death. It feels like that one girl from Golden Eye is getting a thigh workout on your cranium.

It's so lovely until it strikes...your nervous system.

It's the first time in my life I've considered the possibility of using painkillers long-term . Sounds like a familiar story prologue eh? Especially in this prozac-loving state. No worries though, I haven't taken an addictive substance that actually left me dependent yet, so I don't foresee any problems (though admittedly I've never had alcohol, or anything aside from stuff for a couple surgeries). Besides, now that I'm being forced to take the stuff, maybe I'll finally get around to easing the inflammation in my jaw! But onto more relevant things. Musical things even.

I'm trying to be all this, and the organ. It's a pain finding tie-dye pants my size.

I'm trying my hand at a choral piece. Again. I don't know if you've ever tried to write, sing all the parts for, record, mix and master your own choral works without the use of auto-tune, but it's frustrating as hell. Especially when halfway through editing a freak storm appears out of nowhere and begins an all-out assault on all those places that will forever cause you to regret the months you dedicated to cartilage-reducing sports growing up. However, I think I've figured out the worst of my problems.


It's not so bad once you get into the swing of it and nail the melody and first two harmonies, though figuring out alto lines is about the dullest job imaginable. The hardest part for me is creating repeated tracks to mimic the sound of a full choir without cloning. Every time I do it I seem to find myself a little flat, or grating, or off in tone and color. That happens when I try to blend my sound with pre-existing tracks while listening to said tracks. I'm saying tracks a lot. Kind of a fun word don't you think? Tracks. Tracks tracks tracks. If you want it's also fun to imagine some stodgy old fool with an aristocratic accent repeating it over and over again for several mintues as he makes the weighty decision whether or not to make it a part of the latest and greatest in cutting edge linguistic evolution. "Tracks.." he said for the twenty-millionth time, knowing each utterance brought his language closer to its new destiny, one whose history and origins virtually no one outside his field of expertise would care to study...and rightfully so, because that's boring as all get-out. It's not even that important a word."

Anyway, in experimenting with solutions to the problem of choir imitation quality, I've noticed that if I memorize the line and sing it as a solo track (hehe) where I can hear only myself (and if necessary the main melody) then the quality tends to be considerably better. I think the reason for that lies in the fact that mistakes and oddities in the sound are immediately apparent and corrected when I'm hearing only my voice and the main melody in playback, whereas if I pretend to be merely another voice in a throng it's easy for me to get distracted by the voices 'around' me and lose track of maintaining my own quality. Probably one of the many reasons I couldn't stay longer than a year in Rosalind Hall's Men's Chorus.

My favorite thing to do when she walked by was stiffen and yell out, "ALL HAIL
HER MOST ROYAL HIGHNESS, QUEEN ROZ!" She's quite the fan of the nickname.

Finally, the podcast. I've never done podcasting and neither had the author of the podcast. There's aren't podcast courses in college, No podcast trade school. It's such a recent invention of the evil financial empire in disguise as a benign, inventive computer company named Mac (like some silly, innocent Pixar character), that academic circles have yet to write a formula for classes that'll justify the addition of another 5000 page, $2000 book (without binding or holes, you'll have to pay extra to get the hole-puncher and a binder large enough to cram Professor know-it-all's ego into it) to their racket in school libraries.

So we struck out into largely uncharted waters with a rather different approach to the structure of the podcast. No spoilers here, sorry. Trade secrets. The audio was simple enough. My bedroom is more of an office space than living quarters, so I casually removed my bedding, dusted everything, vacuumed the floor and prepared some beverages and snacks for my inevitably stressed-out visitors, and went to town. I had three different mics ready, all facing each other in a circle so we could send and receive facial cues, keep things lively. I had two computers running Sonar X2 simultaneously to meet processing needs, got the audio about where it needed to be to prevent peaking, and then post-edits were pretty easy. Cut out all the white-noise in the background, shift the position of the voices so there's no uncomfortable overlap, and shwalla. The first Space-Cast podcast was born. If you'd like to listen in to Dan's take on some interesting modern board games, the link is here: MDH studios-hosted SB! podcast. 

Retired visual description of the 'Space-Biff!', aptly represented by professional cheek-muscle-tenderizer Adam Jensen.

And finally, new song this Saturday! I'm uploading one of the four projects I've been working on to my sound cloud, adding it to the store, and linking it on my fake facebook business page, haven't decided which one officially, but it will be there, so await with baited breath for the pretentious, life-altering music that will transcend the notion of genre!

Photo attributions:

-lightning: By original data: Sebastien D'ARCO, animate: Koba-chan - original source is Image:Lightnings sequence 2.jpg, animated by me., CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1044915

Two Blog Posts a Week? The Overlord Blog brings a dream-come-true to billions by upping the weekly dosage.

It's been brought to my attention more than once now that some tiny fraction of a fraction of humanity actually enjoys the whimsical nonsense I throw up here on a sporadic basis, one friend just yesterday even going so far as to suggest that an increase in articles is in order.

    "Looking heaven-ward from the cold stones of Brooklyn, from the ashes of his life, he swore a                                                       mad oath of vengeance, knowing surely his day would come."


Reacting in much the opposite way I normally do to the overly common internet meme above, I was surprised. This blog, once intended to be an advertising platform, has been reduced to the state of pseudo public journal over the years, and I've rather enjoyed the lackadaisical feel of it all. Since I don't put more than an occasional post on facebook or anywhere else, the expectation is that one or two email subscribers will read, not comment or really take interest, and I'll take some small satisfaction in the process of writing an article. Then that's it. The buck stops there. The drums roll, the curtains fall, and I completely forget I have a blog until the next time I get a hankering to jot a piece down.

In short, I believe the following photograph, courtesy of Jerzy Opioła, aptly highlights the direction I take the blog, an approach often used by vloggers and youtubers in hot pursuit of the almighty dollar.

C'mon, vacation isn't supposed to be *more* exhausting. Why would you go to Mincol or Zdiare with much more promising destinations available just 1080 meters away?

However in lieu of recent comments and at the suggestion of my more successful blogging peers, I've agreed to hold myself to two blog entries per week, One on Tuesday, another on Saturday. But that's it. No more than that. And I reserve the right to ramble about any kind of impertinent, unrelated crap I want to in each of them. That being said, on a relevant, even close to pertinent note, my intention with the majority of future articles will be to keep things tied to music, specifically what I write and record, but also related commentary grounded in national conversation, present events, etc etc.

You might not like to think so, but my toiletry is a consistently relevant conversation.

PEACE! Until Tuesday that is. <3

The Moon Boys hit Velour June 30th

Now that all's relatively well and settled in, I've gotten back into the swing of things with the Bowie tribute band I was graciously permitted to join. A little to my surprise, we're already headed into paid gig territory with a job down in Provo at the end of the month and, get this- several megaplex movie theaters.

My lifelong dream of seeing Billy Joel play Billy the Kid by
concessions as I go in to watch a Western may soon become a reality.

Believe me when I say I'm with you on this. Combining the magic of a movie-going experience with the often bizarre but relentlessly catchy tone of Bowie isn't exactly what I would call a recipe for a successful entertainment atmosphere (cult-favorite Labyrinth aside), but be it far from me to advise people in charge to not pay the delicious amounts they will for us to do short, back to back shows in an attempt to...make concessions more exciting I guess? Though to be fair it would be fun to hear Billy Joel sing, "And they sit at the stand and slide cred through my hands, saying why in hell's name are you here??' as passersby stare wide-eyed in confusion.

$50 hot dogs have never been more exciting.

Before this turns into an overdrawn rant about setting contrasts and where they clearly don't work, let me go back to what the title implies and say I'm tentatively excited to go back to the Velour. It's been a few years since I've had the privilege of sinking into the half moth-eaten ball of fur they call a couch in the VIP room and basked in the glamour and spotlight of Provo's most lavish bathroom-stall/1960s upper-middle class living room- styled concert hall (I really do have fond memories of the place, hyperbole notwithstanding). It promises to be a fun time and happy reunion with people whose company I already miss dearly. 

The show will feature a band led by the director of The Strike, and of course Major Tom's group of hardened music veterans (and me) paying homage to Prince and everyone's second or third favorite cross-dresser in the 70s. 

Another inexplicably unknown band at the Velour dreams of making it big in the 21st century music industry without substantive training or a degree.

Once again, into the breach.

PayPal is awful.

Becoming a merchant of my own wares is teaching me a lot about independent work quickly. One being that PayPal is everywhere. Two being that it is downright awful. In response to my growing disdain for that site, I've customized the store to accept credit cards at long last. Cheers!

The Studio @ Audio West

There are a few impossible things I used to imagine growing up. Joining the NBA, dating Natalie Portman, attending Harvard, working in a Sony-level recording studio and becoming a rich person before retiring to some tropical paradise.

Seriously, when you're this tall ^^, it
gets super boring super fast.

I never joined the NBA because by my senior year in high school I'd realized basketball wasn't for me, despite being hunted down by the school's assistant coach. I never did get to date Natalie Portman, which is okay because I wasn't really interested and later found myself dating an international extreme sports athlete instead O.o. When it came time to go to better colleges, I met the dean of Harvard's theology school (very classy gentleman) and refused his invitation to attend because I didn't think the degree was worth 30 years of debt whose payback rate was the equivalent of house payments. On a really nice house. I've been exposed to upper class living long enough to realize how blissfully content I am living in a nice apartment instead of a home that's too big even for me. A lot of childhood dreams have either morphed into something more realistic or been met by an unexpected twist of fate.

Finally putting this beast to use on a flat surface was tear-jerking.

And while I'm not working at Sony (and frankly, I have no desire to,) it just so happened that yesterday fate was kind enough take that second to last dream and offer me a great opportunity to work in the nicest recording studio I've ever been in (yes, I've seen all of BYU's recording apparatus and I'm sorry, as far as sound goes Audio West takes the cake). You'll recall the freak miracle the other day that led a David Bowie tribute band up north to call me up and invite me to become their sound-engineer, computer technician, background vocalist, etc etc. Well as I said before the group is tight, and now tighter than ever. The lead in the group was so impressed he bought a sizable amount of time to practice and record at Audio West and holy shlamolie.
What an experience. It was so nice being in a space
where I didn't have to compensate on my software with ten
thousand different sound effects to coax a believable
reverb and tone quality out our band's recording.

Avoiding the commercial music program feels justified.

Our leader, 'Tom', and I are going to parse through the audio, do some mixing and mastering over the next few days and see what we can start making together on the sound engineering front. Promises to be a lot of fun.











And thank you person, for letting me use your basketball picture. By Steve Lipofsky Basketballphoto.com - http://www.basketballphoto.com/basketballindexz.htm, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41413717

Changes to the Store

I've been inspired, like many have, by Radiohead.  Their music so deliciously accentuates and emphasizes their lyrics and accompanying themes without sounding forced or preachy, as if writing music were merely a matter of placing notes and words into appropriately adjoining slots on a piece of staff paper. They've been nothing short of a delight over the years, not only for their unique sound and particularly well organized music, but also and perhaps especially due to their relentless insistence that they create and handle their music their way, with no exceptions.

Thom Yorke's darker themes appropriately lit by navy blue.

Despite difficulty in recapturing some of their confidence after their split with Parlophone (and some roof collapses along the way), their sense of individuality and creativity has risen, rather than plateaued over the years, and their desire to maintain that sort of momentum in writing became apparent after they parted ways with their parent company and attempted to deviate from their more regular pattern of recording and writing. 

The ball is actually a virus afflicting most users
with irrational sarcasm and reckless hate.

Admittedly, this is increasingly common in the world of music, as artists see less and less use for their work to be advertised by a gluttonous company sapping 90% or more of their revenue in lieu of the powers that be online, youtube, reddit, etc; moreover, excellent music hardware, software and education has never been more accessible, with companies catering to every class and walk of life. 

Already boasting a considerable base of support from their earlier years and continuing their now atypical trend of philosophical perusing, Radiohead some years ago, unbeknownst to me, had decided to release an album titled 'In Rainbows' and rather than release it exclusively in retail, they made a downloading service allowing fans to pay any price they chose, including nothing.

There's something magical about downloading this
from wiki-commons.

The point of this in-cohesive ramble being, I've decided to remove the price tag on my downloads. Since I haven't figured out a pay-what-you-want system, it's all going to be free. 

Also, still working on not three, but four or five different songs now and I'm in the middle of a move, the end of school, figuring out four different work schedules (for four different jobs), tying up loose ends at BYU and so forth. In short, things will move a little slowly for a bit, but by about May I should be moving along at a strong pace again.

Cheers!

Mountain Filming

Having learned a great deal from the colossal number of mistakes made in the first music video (like rendering the visuals blurry in an attempt to get my camera designed for documentaries to shoot like a Zack Snyder film), I've been chomping at the bit to get back at it and capture scenes with better focus, coherence and skill. To start, I began looking into what Steven Spielberg learned at film school, and started taking 'classes', if you will, from a variety of reputable online sources like RocketJump.

Great day for filming. Terrible sans sunscreen.

So, in taking my filmography education to new heights, I thought I'd do the same with my next music video for the song entitled Invictus. It was disappointing at first, finding the setting much warmer, brighter, and generally more pleasant than what what the screenplay calls for. A stroke of misfortune augmented by getting burnt to a crisp and nearly falling to my death multiple times, the last time only being avoided by a fortuitous tuft of grass I was able to grab onto mere moments before being hurled down a steep ridge.

Despite all these momentary setbacks and near-death experiences the plot for the story being written with these beats and scenes unexpectedly ended up requiring a brighter, happier set of angles in order to contrast with the real meat and substance of what I'm hoping to convey. And wouldn't you know it? Not two days after initial filming, a huge snow storm came and completely covered the same area that had just been filmed, appropriately blanketed with a towering sheet of gloomy clouds and darkened skies.

One of several happy moments where I nearly died.

Now the new, even more hazardous plan is to return to location as soon as possible to capture the refreshed scenery that so perfectly depicts a contrast to the first set of captures, and get some fun new scenes of hanging precariously without ropes from precipices with a damaged right shoulder and arms whose strength is generally not up to the task. It promises to be exciting adventure, to say the least, even if the film proves to be spotty at most.

Will he stand triumphant, or crumpled in a heap of his own gore?

In the mean time I've found myself working more on the three songs I'm locked into, and I've been hired by a Bowie-Tribute band! That wants to tour Germany! No seriously, get this- I had an old bandmix profile set up like, five years ago. It's a shoddy little site barely anyone has heard of and at the time my puerile brain thought it would be a monthly jackpot of gig-producers. Little did I know the site (which I can no longer access, btw, I have no idea what's still on my profile), was merely saving up the half decade of silence to enable me to work a bunch of goofy old men who've all been in the business for 30+ years and are intent on actually making some decent money in the process. I got a call from one of these gentlemen who had somehow stumbled on my archaic profile (I didn't know what he was talking about at first, it had been so long) and he asked me to join them in the above-mentioned adventures. Well, how could I refuse? So here I am now, a background vocalist, saxophone player and videographer for one of the most tight-sounding groups I've ever performed with. Never thought I would utter this unthinkable phrase, but- thank you bandmix. Thank you.

"Oh BAAABYLON, oh BAAABYLON we biiid thee farewellll....we're going to the mountains of Prooovo slash hellll"

Now we'll have to see what all these exact angles look like in a snowy wasteland where I can't hear potential predators coming and will fall several times more easily! Woohoo...

Leaving BYU

Decisions have been made, papers filed, rooms cleaned, jobs acquired, and now the time to move on is finally at my doorstep.

I've regretted the decision to come here in many instances, but these past two years have perhaps given me the most cause to reconsider my choice, as I've found myself pressured by increasingly difficult cultural tides. However, being unable at first to articulate my doubts, to convince myself that I wasn't merely being weak, I was persuaded over and over again to stay despite my reservations. 

When reason finally came to and awoke my senses to the greater personal perils of staying, I was still hesitant. Unsurprisingly, I found counsel from those urging me to stay gave me even more reason to leave. Some, incensed that I would even consider leaving to begin with, would go so far as to say, "Maybe you're not worthy of the honor of attending this school." Perhaps they're right. Rather than embrace what I found disagreeable here, I started coming up with my own version of the ninety-five theses. I could've worked harder in certain classes that in no way reflected or fed into my career goals, but I didn't (though admittedly that's my own fault). What's worse, I've even gone so far as to subvert the personal philosophies of a number of fellow students both within and without my major, persuading them that disobeying a select number of school rules (such as beard-prohibition) and failure to embody localized ideals of perfection does not bear any eternal consequence. 

At about this point, many ask, "Why not leave then? You don't have to be at this school." And you know what? They're right.

There's a misleading philosophy that's taken root in the hearts and minds of a number of my church-going fellows, a belief that attendance at BYU is so strongly correlated to finding eternal marriage and creating a family in accordance with doctrinal discipline that failure to attend here and acquire a degree (or a spouse) is tantamount to damnation, a permanent blocking from all that matters most in the orthodox LDS perspective. What a tragedy this becomes for those who had better opportunities elsewhere, when the opposite of that deceitful thought is demonstrably true virtually everywhere the saints live in the world. What a tragedy for those who graduate from here unmarried, feeling endless despondency because of an ideological misdirect, despite the great success they've accomplished for themselves.

I was led on by this same undercurrent of young adult thought in the church and came directly to this school, not for a moment considering opportunities left and right, dotted all along the east coast that would have better suited my goals, my personal culture, and frankly- my doctrinal espousal to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

You see, BYU is a fine school. It's an institution of repute because its teachers are excellent, its coursework most often rigorous and rewarding, its culture unique, its degrees positively life-altering. Despite my complaints, I can hardly say that the teachers at the music school are unqualified or less than exemplary. Ray Smith is arguably the best teacher I've had the privilege of working under in my entire life. Dr. Saville is a teacher whose class and discipline is a force that often without words compels those around him to reach higher standards. These are rare and exceptional qualities in teachers, and I'd be a liar if I said that I'm not loathe in parting with the school to also be leaving these extraordinary gentlemen and women. I've wept openly with them at the prospect of losing them as teachers.  

I say all this because ultimately it's not the school itself I struggle with or against. It's a small fraction of my own people. A select few of my fellow mormons and their accompanying culture that defies the doctrine I believe in. That culture bears the mark of, among other things, a relentless insistence that all around integrate. I refused. And while normally this isn't an issue (I'm terrible at conforming, mostly for neurological reasons), here it became a hotly debated matter for a few. With some, arguably the majority in my circles, firmly taking my side and defending me while others have, mostly without going out of their way, made my life a little less than comfortable. I found myself having a weird reputation as a philanthropic rogue, who while basically a good person was also a lost soul. And because my religion and my schooling here are often uncomfortably interconnected, this rather awkward social development began to interfere with my academic life. I don't think this would be a severe problem for most people, but this sort of thing exacerbates my struggles with aspergers to a degree that is painfully difficult to cope with.

People know this and some leaders have asked me to fight on. The call to soldier on despite the fact resounds strongly with me. A lot of people with aspergers are babied, molly-coddled and patronized the majority of their lives. That ease of living that comes from giving up hope in progression is a lifestyle I feel nothing short of the purest hatred for and I have for the most part resisted the attempts of a very select few to goose-step me into that lumpen sack of regressing humanity. Leaving in a way feels like surrendering to that idea, which is in no small part why I stayed here three years longer than I wanted to. But, having spent the majority of the past year studying out the sources of my problems and identifying other options as equally positive routes towards education and career-development, I realize now that that isn't the case. 

I am soldiering on. My departure won't be one back to family, safety, seclusion, a disability check, or any free rides. The work I've selected is challenging and rewarding, the education trying. Leaving isn't moving from work to dawdling, but rather a removal of uniquely detrimental social entanglements from my pursuit of higher education and hard work. 

So it's a bittersweet thing, for sure. But I expect in the end the bitter will pale in comparison to the sweet. 

A Child Dreams of Flying

New Track- A Child Dreams of Flying.

I feel like this track deserves some explanation, because it's clearly not as cleanly cut as the others. My mission this year is to produce as much music as possible, to write as though writing bears the same brutish tendency to chain its victims that meth does. So rather than spend countless hours editing and practicing each piece to near perfection, I'm contented to work on a song for a few days max and then move on to the next thing.

Music, as with all acquirable skills, is like a tree. It can become huge, but only gradually.

Now that might seem counter-intuitive, and in the present marketplace it certainly is. People have had their palates for music shaped in much the same way the porn industry has so masterfully and asshatedly skewed man's vision of what an ideal woman is- nothing more than a brainless set of perfectly symmetrical curves exaggerated by photoshop and airbrushed to perfection by similar software. We're constantly fed the same thing every meal, brainwashed into believing it represents the ideal and many casually accept that ideal as fact. Though admittedly, I undergo a similar process when I listen to my own music over and over. I suppose the main difference is I don't have to be told whether or not it passes a series of tests required to enjoy it.

You'll like what we TELL you to like, you hear? -Music Intelligentsia

To sum up, my music will inevitably sound a bit rough over the course of the next year, with few if any exceptions. And honestly, I'm looking forward to that.

Invictus

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul."


That up there is arguably William Henley's most valuable literary contribution to society. And it has absolutely nothing to do with my music.

From unconquerable prose to unconquerable bed head, Henley was the definition of a man's man. 

But the inspirational word that so aptly summarizes this gem of poetry does. Years ago, almost a decade now, I was visiting with two friends of mine. One of them was in dire straits, and our mutual pal, a well-respected theologian-to-be, asked her to consider and remember this phrase: 'Color me invictus.' You see life at the time had been heaping up on her in ways that would be overwhelming to most anyone. Crushing even. My friend insightfully pointed out then that sometimes when life is seemingly going to pulverize us with the sheer force of its weight, the only choice is to stubbornly fight and declare 'I will not yield!'

I was in awe at the time, both at my young friend's precociousness and at the power of those words laced with ancient Latin, translated into the word- unconquer. There's a force in language that English can't claim any exclusive rights to, and occasionally when I explore and dabble in other languages I'll be singularly impressed by a moment like this, in ways that English can't quite seem to duplicate.

The cult of the new rarely values what's past, assuming the future always holds the greatest value. I doubt nuke victims agree. 

So it was fitting in my eyes years later, to rearrange those words and their usage into my own prose as I explored things that are deeply personal to me, that I have no intention of ever sharing with anyone except a very few people. I say that partially because the notions in here are extremely private and I'd rather not have them out for public speculation. I've done that in the past, and it's never led to anything good. The other part is hopefully a less selfish one, in that I think art is best served in such a way that encourages self-reflection and careful thought. Ideally, to me, if a person sees art without knowing precisely what it means, perhaps they'll consider and recognize what it means to them. It's an exploration I personally believe to be one of the most valuable, and least sought for.

When life gives you bad practice rooms, grab life by the throat, throttle it, hide the body somewhere and do this.

I hate the practice rooms at BYU. Boasting worse ventilation than the men's locker rooms, sub-par pianos, poor lighting and no sound-proofing, if I didn't know these rooms were on a church-run campus, I'd say they were straight from a hell designed by 16th century monarchs looking to torture their more disappointing court musicians.

The ugly face of HFAC outer darkness.

It's a bleak picture to walk into after the euphoric triumph of passing the school's aural exams and making it into the school of music. For all the hype associated with the school and its subsidization via tithing funds, one would think the facilities would've been upgraded by now to help meet the unique challenges associated with 21st century competition in America and elsewhere. Alas, 'tisn't the case.

And while that might be distressing, discouraging even for some, I think I've found a way to account for most of the problems associated with the fact that these facilities were designed to coerce performers into more realistic careers as teachers.

Rather than blabber on endlessly about my solution, here's a few pictures that highlight my ideal practice room in a few deceptively short steps.

Stick a chair over there...

Put a laptop with your favorite affordable DAW over there (make sure your ram, CPU and hard drive are sufficient)

Then stick an audio box up there so your compy can talk with your mic. I like the Roland Quad Capture.

Throw in a quality dynamic mic, some amazing German headphones to account for all the noise and shwalla.

And suddenly, things were sounding a lot better. And the tuba blaring in the room next to me was only coming in at 15 decibels instead of 110. All told, this set up probably cost me a little more than a thousand dollars. The laptop didn't break 800, the quad capture was about 250, the mic I got for free (though usually those guys run around 500), and that's it. I could set this up in my truck if I wanted to because it all can be crammed into a 2x2 foot space. You could literally set this all up in a bathroom stall. Though I don't recommend it. If people get uncomfortable at the sound of other people's turds dropping audibly, I doubt they'll care much for your attempts at finding yourself creatively in the local porcelain palace.

DRAGON PUNCH!

'I work out every SATURDAY!'

Well this was fun. I don't often get to be in videos, mostly because the theater department at my high school was about as enticing as a double date with Freddy Krueger and his favorite lover Jason. 

Obviously this has nothing to do with music, with the sole exception of that toned down 80s flashback to toy/game commercials of the longer-haired, shorter-shorts days hailed as great by everyone who was high on one of about 500 different kinds of narcotics at the time. That music being the product of my less than two hours' worth of exertion. Which really isn't saying much. Have you heard standardized guitar licks for commercials in the 80's? It's not like they hired Van Halen for every shoot you know. If they had I would've muttered more than one or two choice words after being asked to do this particular job.

A rare, to-scale canvas rendering of the famed guitarist.

But fortunately it wasn't the case, and proved to be mildly more challenging than writing a riff for a be-bop solo. So there you have it folks, what I'm going to call my acting debut (since I'm sure as hell not going to call the 'Bavarian Butcher' my first foray into acting). 

Cheers!

Acting Debut and Video Editing

Psych, no debut here, but the video's complete. I just finished recording the music for, editing, and mixing a silly ad for the undeniably rad board-game reviewing website, SPACE-BIFF!.

Space-Biff!, in all its unfettered, board-gaming glory. Evolution is an awesome game btw.

That's not the game we did a video for, but my goodness. Evolution is awesome. If you want an amazing, reasonably accurate paleontological experience then look no further (with the notable exceptions of Greenland and Neanderthal), because this game's got it all.

Before this turns into a review for a board game, let me just say what a blast it was acting and editing once again for the same bit of film. Obviously there was a different director and clearly a better camera at work, but it was still fun. It helps that the director is my best pal in the universe and I'll pretty much do anything he asks short of cutting off my generations forever. 

Cause' you know...I want one of these! And not just for the bathroom stall.

There was music involved too...I did write and record it. But I won't be posting it here because it was uh, very much not a stand-alone piece. Yeah, that's how I'll put it. The director, no less than the great Dan Thurot (Thur-OHt), told me he loved it, but it's not a style I do all the time so I'm not as comfortable spreading it all across the internets like I would jelly over toast on a particularly hunger-inducing morning. 

But when it's up I won't stop you from watching it, nor will I shy away from admitting the music is my own. Dan told me it'll be up sometime this week when he does a review for the game DRAGON PUNCH, and then I'll also post the link here for your viewing pleasure, heh.

El Camino High School Music Program

I've heard a smattering of times that it's good to remember where you come from. I wonder out loud to myself, "Why is that? Is there some sort of special advantage to be had from remembering one's origins?" Certainly, there's value in determining the original source of one's success in order to replicate it. But why carry a homage to something that has perhaps only sentimental value, or worse, is a poor memory of distant hardships long left in the dust?

I may never know the answer to the latter two questions, because this was a damn good school for music.

"If you can make it at El Camino, you can make it anywhere", said the principal, despite knowing the metaphor was wasted.

El Camino High School was in the midst of the beginning of its golden era in the music program when I first attended. A great new band director, Mr. Glaser, had been slowly but surely building up the scene for some years prior to my arrival. The choir was...well you know, it was a good enough choir. I tried it once. Fun times. The theater department was interesting, as were its students.

The right face is your face. The left one is your face once you've joined a high school theater department.

Anyway, the programs for jazz and classical respectively were chugging along at a locomotive's pace, unwavering, building up to a strong hum semester after semester, and in 2001 I found myself caught up in the swirl.

When I first tried the sax out in my middle school jazz band, I got in because the band teacher pitied me. He wanted all older middle school students to have a shot, and I was grateful to get one. The music we played soared through my veins and gave the distinct impression that some part of me was beginning to fly for the first time. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that I had many dreams back then of soaring over the clouds. It was also a great time for my physical health. The teacher relegated me to the lowly task of bari saxophone, and cured my asthma for all intents and purposes.

Move ahead one year- coming to El Camino I was much more well-equipped to introduce myself to their world of music, and initially I was O.K. So you know, pretty awful, but still in tune half the time, as long as it wasn't a D or very high or very low, etc etc.

And then something magical happened. I'm not sure when the combination of Mr. Glaser's teaching us to be unafraid and my urgent desire to make something new lit a fire. You see, Mr. Glaser's students, by and large, were fearful of soloing, with the exception of one or two other kids. So when I volunteered for every single song, he permitted it, even encouraged it. At first things were pretty shaky, but gradually, almost imperceptibly, a raging flow of music and creative ideas exploded from my head along with a surge of unspeakable joy. I had become linked to music and creation in a way I had never really experienced before, and to this day it remains one of the most beautiful and happy memories I'm capable of recalling.

Caveat: Improvisation also leads to neural-electric overload. 

I guess what I'm driving at is that as long as Mr. Glaser or his legacy remains at that school, it will be, in my opinion, the finest school of music the San Juan Unified school district has to offer. Because unlike virtually every institution I've been to, no one I've met has fostered creativity, fresh thinking, and innovation while still recognizing the value of tradition like Mr. Glaser has.

Dance That Noise Away Music Video Complete

Alright it's up! At long last, the reason behind my massive canker sores and raging colds comes to a conclusion. I might get to sleep for an hour tonight.

As was mentioned before, there were a ton of things to learn from this project. Perhaps mostly how to improve for next time. Using less auto-focus, having way more prep time, using better lighting for slow motion shots, not being late for the shoots you planned to the point where one of your extras is starting to lose her health because you've held her to the point where she isn't taking her meds. You know, things like that. 

Perhaps a more positive thing that was gleaned from this situationally ambitious project was what I'm capable of producing in a very short period of time. It took me approximately twelve hours to write the song, record it, mix and master. It took another twelve to sixteen for the filming, cutting, editing and final production of the whole video. Granted, there were a lot of flaws remaining in both due to the time constraints; nevertheless, the process illuminated interesting new possibilities. Like uploading a simpler song per day while working on more ambitious songs and videos in the interim. 

I doubt I'll actually be able to upload a song per day, but to do so with increased frequency is certainly an ambition of mine now that I've gone through this rather fun process once. So pull out your aural filters and get ready for a McDonald's speed production of day old music, because that's the next experiment on my docket. 

Video Coming Tomorrow Morning! (Or uh, today, since this post was finished by this morning)

All the work, delaying irrelevant homework, juggling two jobs and full-time school in such a way that allows me to spend a little time on the projects that actually matter is about to pay off.

Will the camera's potential energy go kinetic at any moment? That's what I wonder every time I haul that thing on my PC.

The editing is finished, the recording is properly mixed, the quality raised to HD. There's only a few more things to add and then, tomorrow morning at long last, my terribly amateur video will make its way from my brain's womb out into the open, probably looking as hideous and lizard-like as most babies do at that point.

I'm keenly aware that nothing will come of this. I could barely get half my friends to come out to goof off with me for the final shoot. At best it'll be a fun inside joke between pals, at worst someone on reddit will notice it exists.

For me the victory comes in finishing the project. It's the beginning of the most important of processes, one where all the wheels of the kinds of creativity I value most turn endlessly and at breakneck speeds to produce something new and different. You see this is all very much new to me, and I don't look at my creative output at this juncture as anything financially viable as much as I view it as a hopeful learning experience that may at some future date open up avenues to opportunities that will translate into something more substantive. 

 In the meantime, my room is clean, the homework is done, I've got work, there's a beautiful girl in my life and things are good. =)

I'll be up bright and early tom-...oh it's one in the morning. Well, I'll be up in a few hours and after work I'll finish the video and upload it for your viewing pleasure/disdain/whateveritisyoutubersliketodothesedays.

G'night.

Music Video Final Cut

I've been up for three hours calling in all my extras, what a logistical nightmare. Ridiculously, almost everyone can make it, which shocks me to the core to be honest. I'm still not sure it'll be enough, but with the miracle of select camera angles it shouldn't be impossible to create the illusion of a huge rave.

The last scene I need to shoot that requires other people is happening today at ten pm. WOOT! I can't tell you how gratifying it is to attempt to cram a bunch of people into the same awful office space for a satirical take on modern music videos. Promises to be lots of fun.

So no more spoilers. All I needed was to vent my excitement somewhere without giving away the entirety of the video.

Seriously so excited! I had a concept, wrote out a screenplay, experimented with and revised the screenplay, did a lot of the filming myself already, got my little brother to help with scenes I needed a cameraman for. It's been rad. Just rad. As an utter newb to the industry, I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. After today all that'll be left is a few edits, one scene and a smattering of beats I can mostly do on my own. Cheers to the miracles made possible by modern home studios.

Sue Young's Anti-Writer's-Block Book

I have a secret love affair with my mailbox. Every now and then when no one's around and it's late at night I'll wander over and start slowly rotating the lock over my little square of joy. Right three times, left twice, then gently, oh so gently I slide it back until that timeless, barely audible *click* sounds. I take a moment let go of the breath that's caught in my throat and whisper at the edge of the door, 'What have you got for me today beautiful?'

Well she didn't disappoint the other day, I'll tell you that. The rest is between us...

Admit it. You're jealous.

The Comprehensive American Rhyming Dictionary is a rather brilliantly designed piece of work that acts as a fine augmentation to the process of any poetic creation. Whenever I'm struggling to find a word that rhymes with another and requires thematic cohesion, this is where I go. Obviously, it's preferable to read a lot of good literature and pick things up that way because you learn more about context. Still, this is a nice, distant second in a pinch. Especially if you're pressed for time like I am more and more these days.

Sue has come a long way since her debut work, the "Comprehensive Middle-High English Rhyming Tome".

There are several people who have tried to capitalize on this concept. One might think this would be both an easily sell and execution in a world increasingly saturated by artists trying to become the next big thing through their poetry and prowess. And while I'd argue the former is true, most authors digging away at this niche have struggled with the the fundamentals of organizing a dictionary of this variety.

Damn technocrat hit the thermostat so I'd pass the hat to mah hobie cat and we'd tit for tat cuz that's where it's at, pullin' out from underneath him Sprat's welcome mat. NOW DROP THAT BEAT *bwaaaahh*

As you might have surmised, every author runs into the same problem with setting this type of dictionary in alphabetical order- that order does not account for rhyming whatsoever. Whatever word comes after 'umbilical cord' in Webster's isn't going to rhyme with umbilical cord. So you've got a lot of mashed up, garbled nonsense put together by a number of would-be authors who probably sniffed out what they thought would be an easy opportunity, got to the hard part and buckled under the pressure of actually trying to make something cohesive, intuitive.

Sue succeeds magnificently through a rather ingenious blending of onomatopoeia in alphabetical order, and then putting every conceivable word under that onomatopoeia in alphabetical order as well. It might seem tricky to navigate at first, because looking for words based on sounds, word-endings and beginnings rather than standard word structure isn't what any of us grew up doing. But trust me, a few weeks with this beauty and you'll be thinking in terms of prefixes and suffixes no problem, putting M&M to shame more than he already has himself.

Cheers!

Sad Day on The Freeway, A Productive One At MDH Central.

Thousands of officers in their vehicles took to the I-15 today to honor their fallen comrade Doug Barney. It was quite a sight. I've never seen such a vast showing for the death of a single individual before in person. It started with a host of roughly 40 police motorcycles riding in lines before a steady trickle of police vehicles began pouring in from every exit south of Murray.

*Insert something tasteful here*

I was awe-struck by the scope of the procession and maaaaay have been slightly late to work because of it. But I'll live.

I got home later that day and jumped back into work on a song I'm really getting into. Here's a small sample of it. Sort of reminds me of a certain Queen classic, but I can't help myself. Queen was rad.


Yeah, every time I hear it, there's a small voice in the back of my head screaming, "WEEE WILL WEEE WILL ROCK YOU!"


P.S. That app up there is pretty awful. Sorry about that. If it's giving you trouble just hit the refresh button and remember, I in no way suggest you use podsnack. I'm pretty sure there are like, 10 better options out there, but I was lazy and wanted something quick today so I settled for this heap of insidious crap because it at least didn't have malware.

Cheers!

'He's Mister White Christmas, He's Mister Snow. He's Mister Icicle, He's Mister Ten Below'

I've wondered if my attempts at writing a legendary Christmas song the likes of which hadn't been heard since 'I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day' weren't curtailed by bitter weather (lacking sufficient skill and life-experience aside). I love the snow, personally, and I even get a sick pleasure from rainy days and Mondays (yes, even combinations of the latter two). But for some reason my ability to experience the thrilling rush of joy that Christmas is for me gets cut short some when I can't feel anything underneath my shins. It's pretty much the pits.

This is what my legs feel like. Pizza boxes included. 

The truth is that despite living in Montana for two years, getting saturated by the east coast's humid freezes, and surviving the frozen valleys in Utah, I'm still a west coast baby who craves constant sunshine. A Californian, to my increasingly great shame as I notice disaster after disaster from that part of the country make headline news. 

Unless I was allowed to live in the middle of that giant sequoia tree. That's the only exception.

All that being said, there's good reason to write music in this oppressive atmosphere. I usually find when things are unpleasant outside and I'm increasingly frustrated by futile attempts to write philosophically grounded music inside, that my capacity for whimsical fun increases by a factor of roughly 2 billion. It's true. I measured it on a scale that I invented myself. The scientific article documenting our research team's findings will be shortly published and distributed on JSTOR under the heading,"Why All Nutritional Data is Subjective."

I take a lot of my inspiration from a selection of C.S. Lewis books that no one's ever heard of in order to keep the hipster mystique alive.