demo #17: suicide

in completing this track, i have now filled up both sides of a 100-minute tape and have therefore completed my first demo. as mentioned last week, the topic of the final track is suicide - following the character that felt unheard.

i guess that the character must have committed suicide in a wave of hopelessness, but i've kept a distance from the character and instead decided to insult it for being defeatist. the song is meant to broadcast a type of dark humour that people will either appreciate or condemn.

like the last track, this track was written out in the old house and slowly appended to until i felt it was complete. i even had the piano part notated, properly, in my notes. recording the final piano parts meant sneaking into my sister's room again; as it was christmas holidays, and she was going to be home all week, i finally just asked her if i could use her keyboard, and while she initially made a fit, my parents eventually made her let me use it. that was unexpected all around - she thought she was going to get me in trouble, but was instead forced to share. i told her that it would only take a few minutes because it was scored, and i was right.

i've incorporated parts of the kurt cobain suicide note into the track. the reason i did this was to incorporate the aesthetic of reading a suicide note into the song; i could have picked some other suicide note, it was the aesthetic of the note that was important and not the author or contents of the note itself, but i went with this one because it's recognizable. it also serves to obfuscate the messaging by adding another layer onto it. it can be interpreted or ignored, at your own choosing.


that really takes me to the end of a long demo tape. what am i going to do with these demos? a lot of them are written as rough ideas. the initial intent was to get ideas down to show to a drummer, but that idea seems impossible. are they good enough to send anywhere? well, i could try, right...

i heard that my aunt knows the new bassist for hole, melissa auf der maur. i don't know what concrete advantage giving her a tape may accomplish, but maybe it might land in interesting hands if she gets a demo. or maybe not. but maybe. so, maybe i'll send her a copy to listen to.

otherwise, i don't know what else to do with these demos besides listen to them. so, i think i'm going to take a few days to do just that.

maybe i'll make some liner notes or something when i send the tape out...

superman's dead?

well, i start my christmas holidays today. i want to finish the demo up first, and then i think i want to take some time away from the recording room. maybe my parents are right, maybe i do spend too much time down there. maybe i'd benefit from doing a little more reading. i might change my mind....

have you noticed that there's a new our lady peace single out? it's everywhere.

it's a little poppy, but it's also kind of dark in it's theme. what's he getting at there? the death of noble ideas? the end of the noblesse oblige? while a little more polished around the edges, it's not that far removed from the sound they explored on the second side of their first record. i do kind of hope that the rest of the record is a little less glossy, though.

a little worried about the math exam

i think i've mentioned here that my math class had absolutely no instruction in it, and i think in the end that that may have been a poor fit for me, academically.

he gave us the choice between handing in very long weekly assignments as a portion of the grade, or just having the final count for the entire grade. i do well on finals, so i saw this as a useful fallback from the start. then i just flat out forgot to do the first assignment, i guess i was distracted by other things, so i decided almost immediately that i had no choice but to cut my losses and just go for the final. once that decision had been made, the way i saw it was that if i was going to have to read through the text myself anyways, then i'd might as well put it off to the end of the semester and read it all at once. it seems like it took a little longer than i thought it would; i didn't really get to the last chapter. this would not have happened if i was in a class with instruction, as i would have followed along with the teacher in class and then done well on the final with minimal studying. yet, i should also admit that it would not have happened had i started studying a day or two earlier. nonetheless, i guess i just did not have the interest in the topic (grade 10 math) that is required to succeed in a class without instruction.

i did well on the stuff i knew how to do, but that was only about 80% of the test. that means i need to prepare myself for a B in math, which is something that nobody expects from me. on the up side, i suppose it means i'll go back to a class with instruction for next year, which i probably need to keep my attention focused.

a B in math is terrible for me, but i'm expected to get Bs in french and i think that's what i managed to get this semester. i should get a good mark in exploratory, because i can drop the F in pointilism and just average the As in computer science and design. as for english, i don't know - he gave me a good mark on the midterm, but i get the impression that he doesn't think i belong in the enriched class and i kind of have the expectation that he'll B+ me. that would again be an unexpectedly low mark for me, but i'm bracing for it.

demo #16: viewless

i became aware, this week, that my 100 minute master tape was getting close to full. this is just a tape that i've been dubbing demos on to since i started. if it's getting full, i guess i'm finishing a demo. if i'm finishing a demo, why not put a big epic part on the end?

my pile of written music had two musical frameworks left in it, and in fact these were two of the more intricately written parts, including notated overdubs - i had put off the most complex pieces until i understood what i was doing. i decided that i could put them together into a large ending catastrophe, with a plotline. the first one could be about somebody who is feeling unheard, and the second being about that person committing suicide.

i wrote the core of the music for the first part in the old house. it began with the guitar solo in the middle, and largely as a distraction when i was teaching myself how to play some parts from siamese dream. i distinctly remember putting the tab book for siamese dream down and picking up a piece of paper to write out the new tune i was jamming on. the song slowly grew around the guitar solo, developing many extra parts. i would add to the tablature score from time to time, when i was sure that a part had been permanently added. i've kept fairly close to the score in this construction.

the vocals have been adapted from an idea that i had written out at the old house, which was initially to try and animate a point of view for the victims of colonialism. i've adapted the idea by splicing it with the perspectives of somebody feeling unheard, to the point of entering a crisis point. you can still interpret it in the initial sense, if you desire, by interpreting my voice as that of the unheard, but do recognize that i've also consciously modified the intended context.

recording this track properly required me to make better use of the equipment in the studio, including using live mics on the amp distortion rather than just lining the guitars and basses in.




i decided that i had time to complete this track this week, and then study for the exams when it's done. see, i think it makes more sense to record first and then study because then i don't have to focus on remembering what i studied through the recording. if i wait and study after i'm done recording, like i did, then i'll be more focused and it will be fresher. i should have time to finish the other track after exams are finished, on thursday. i have two on wednesday, and one on thursday afternoon.

final thoughts on the grapes of wrath

so, i handed in my essay today - handwritten - and at the end of the class, i asked the teacher why he insisted i read this text. it seemed to me that it was promoting the same kinds of views that he was critical of in animal farm.

"i wouldn't agree with that characterization of the text."
"isn't it universal?"
"it's standard, but i think it's wrong."
"how so?"
"well, you'll notice that steinbeck makes heavy use of religious imagery, and is always quick to tie the struggles of the migrant workers to their sins."
"i think i decided early on in the text that this was just character development, and that the narrative harboured an underlying criticism of this thinking as....simple."
"i think it's very heavy-handed, myself. so, you see, there's a very conservative reading of the text, too."
"and all that stuff about collective ownership of property?"
"sure. that's fine. did you notice that he argues that men are worth less than livestock? that's a very old conservative argument."
"i guess this is a catholic school...."
"bingo."
"dude. is this scripted?"
"enjoy your holidays."

"actually, come back, because that's not the reason i assigned you the text."

i had to shuffle my bag a little in turning sideways. he walks towards me.

"i've noticed that you tend to make a liberal use of southern slang when you intend to mock something. that's something that you really ought to grow out of. i thought the text might make you think a little bit about that. did it?"

"well, it didn't help in breaking down stereotypes. i think maybe i see that there are larger forces at play."

"enjoy your holidays."

i still have exams to write next week, but classes are basically done for the semester. english, you can't study for. i read all of the books. for french, i'll need to spend some time practicing verb conjugation, but you can't really study for the comprehension part. i'm kind of a little behind in math, but i think i have time to catch up. and, there's no exam for the exploratory course.

finishing the grapes of wrath

upon finishing the text, i think my takeaway is that it should be viewed solely as an attempted historical reconstruction. the politics presented are meant to document those that existed amongst the migrant workers, and amongst the people the migrant workers met. if i was reading the text looking for some deep insight into the political forces that caused the migrants' struggle, it is because i fundamentally misunderstood the mandate of the text. if they themselves did not understand the causes of their struggles, how could the author demonstrate those causes and still narrate their story fairly, without mocking them?

in fact, there's some evidence of mocking. the fruit seems to make them sick, and they seem not to understand that the probable cause is that it's been sprayed. did that "medicine" kill grandpa? there's actually a lot of examples of this, but the narrative seems to be left choppy on purpose, to prevent intruding into their story.

if steinbeck were to delve into a deeper understanding of causes, he would have intellectually segregated himself from his characters, and literally lost the plot.

this may have been a part of the reason that the reverend was left underdeveloped. it seems clear that steinbeck wanted to use the reverend as a sounding board, but he was shut down early in the text. steinbeck scolds himself by pointing out how quiet the reverend has been, whenever he's reintroduced. then he takes him out of the story at a point where he could have been louder, only to reintroduce him in order to kill him off completely. but, see, there's a point where john says that he expects to see the reverend again - once again indicating that steinbeck intended to use this character to speak.

was the reverend silenced so as to not interfere with the story of the migrants? and, if so, is there an unedited version with deeper dialogue?

i would post the essay here, but he wants it done by hand. he says we'll spend enough time typing when we're older, and that we're still young enough that we should be practicing handwriting.

demo #15 - permission

this is a new song that i wrote this week, after being told i should be studying instead of recording. i think i can determine my own schedule, thank you. i mean, i appreciate the concern, but i'm on top of it, it's fine. i'm really more frustrated by the kid gloves, and reacting by mocking the concern - it's really more of a twisted joke than a denunciation of authority.

i've never been a very rebellious kid. no, honestly, i haven't been. i've gotten in my share of trouble, but it's never been out of rebellion. i'm more of a practical joker that just likes to shit disturb and mess with people's heads, for the fun of it. i guess that in order to rebel against an authority, you first have to acknowledge the legitimacy of that authority, and that's something that i've only ever done intellectually. when i've broken rules, it's always been that i've just sort of not cared that a rule exists and never to flaunt some rule maker. for me, it's really never a question of rebelling against authority because the mere idea of authority has always been clearly preposterous. if it's preposterous, it is right that it be ridiculed and laughed at and made fun of, right?

it is possible that i would rebel a little harder if i had stricter boundaries, but my parents have set boundaries for me that are wide enough to be almost inarguable. in the rare circumstances that they try to be authoritative, i almost always agree with them, anyways. so, i've spent most of my life interpreting authority as a set of rational, and at times obvious, suggestions to contemplate in making a decision.

when i was done, i brought my little sister in on backing vocals for the track, because i wanted to show the result to my parents - i thought that this would be comical, that they'd take the mocking lightheartedly. i decided against this, in the end.


well, now i do need to get to doing some school work. i have to finish reading the grapes of wrath by tomorrow, which should be easy, and then get to working on that essay, which needs to be done - by hand - by wednesday.

the middle section of the grapes of wrath

just as a reference point in the text, i've now finished up to the end of chapter 20, which is when the joads are being sent south - minus the grandparents, noah and connie. the main narrative seems to be that tom is running up against a hierarchical society that demands a level of submission that he finds difficult to accept, while the rest of the family is falling into a hopeless despair.

i should be taking notes for the essay. the theme about the lower classes in society feeling resentful over legitimately disrespectful treatment by the higher classes is something i want to pay closer attention to, as it could be an essay topic. i suspect that i could explore this theme historically, and then draw larger conclusions afterwards. it would give me an excuse to read up on some history texts, anyways, and an excuse to make the essay more speculative. i'm getting more freedom because i'm in the enriched class, and want to take advantage of it; i like freeform essay writing, but can't stand any attempt to force me to write an essay in a specific way. they want to treat an essay like it's a fill-in-the-blanks children's book, rather than the advancement of a thought.

listen: if you want me to give you my thoughts on a topic, just let me scrawl them out. i'll do your introductions and conclusions for you, i think that's a reasonable request, but let me go to town in the middle. don't try to structure my thoughts for me. no thank you.

so, i want to pick an exotic topic that allows me to write freely around the enforced restraints. i'll enjoy the process a lot more that way.

as the text has carried forwards, i find that the two narratives i spoke of have become less distinct in terms of analysis and historicity, with the narration getting more plot-driven and the dialogue getting more philosophical. i'm still finding that it's plot-heavy, but it's balancing out substantially.

another theme i could potentially explore would be the displacement caused by automation, whether it is worth it and what can be done to ease the hardship. the novel tends to prioritize a return to agrarianism, and seems to advance the idea that the fix to the problem is an agrarian collectivization. but it seems to me that the benefits of mechanization are very great and that the goal strived towards ought to be to find ways that everybody can benefit from it. i would resist the idea that the poverty is being caused by technology, and instead point towards an unfair distribution of the benefits of that technology. eventually, in the depression, the owners of the technology realized that they had to share, or they'd be overwhelmed. i guess the lesson we should learn for the next time is that when you have a shift in technology that leads to unemployment, a part of the profits of that superior technology must go towards the displaced workers - or they may become desperate and revolt. this sounds like another topic with a history that can be explored.

the character of the reverend struck me as important from the start, but as the novel carried on i started to wonder if it was just an expected part of a midwestern story. can't have a story about rednecks without a reverend, johnny? is that it? i think there's the start of some symbolism being built around the reverend, but he's either keeping the development for later or it isn't coming at all. there's several points in the text where steinbeck seems to be scolding himself for not using the character more, which indicates that the plans were there (they are....) but not necessarily that they're going to get carried out. i kind of suspected that the reverend was going to do something awful, and that would be a reflection of all of the faith leaving the society. knocking out the cop was a different twist, one that suggested some hope that the faith could be regained. but, i had higher hopes for the reverend. that's not what steinbeck was initially getting at. he could have represented something more abstract around the death of christianity - both in the migrant population and outside of it. maybe he still will, but i just get the intention that steinbeck is broadcasting that he's censoring himself, perhaps because he doesn't have the confidence to really write it down. he doesn't think that he can animate this character the way he wants, so he's avoiding it; still wants to do it, but later. i bet he bails on it, rather than finish it.

speaking of which, you can also tell that he dropped characters because he was bored with them. not connie; connie disappearing was a conscious plot development. but, the other dropped characters were just left at the side of the road. they could have been developed further; but, he didn't want to, so they were just dropped.

i have a better handle on what the text is now, and what it's trying to get across. i still wish it was heavier on analysis, but it has picked up in the middle and i don't expect that the end will pick up much more. i suppose that's another possible essay topic.

demo #14: mosh pit song

i spent a little bit of time with matt during the week. i kind of wasn't expecting the idea of the band to come back up, but he wanted to talk about it a little bit more so i kept an open mind about it. i brought a dubbed tape that i've been adding to along to show him some of the things i've been working on on my own, to see if he'd like to approach any of it. i also brought an unamped guitar just to jam.

he repeated the assertion that he was surprised by how slow the tempo was, and wanted to do something faster. he started talking about how he wanted to get the crowd excited so that they were all worked up and slam dancing, and then maybe send them out into the streets to start a revolution. he also came up with a band name, dukes of anarchy, and a logo that would look something like this:

"have you read the grapes of wrath?"
"no."
"i'm reading it for the independent study, and it's just kind of topical with what you're saying. wouldn't the end result just be chaos, though? people aimlessly breaking things?"
"yeah. yeah. that's the point."
"but then what?"
"then we get laid."
"k."

see, it might seem that i should be a little bit cautious about continuing to jam with this kid, but i know he's just trying to be "cool". he has this idealization of punk rock as being the in-crowd for freaks, and is talking in the ways he thinks he needs to talk to fit into this group. i've seen the media that has put these ideas into his head, too, and i think it's largely fantasy - that these nihilistic teens he's looking up to are really just a marketing invention, and the punk subculture is largely just a fashion trend. but, i also realize that he's actually approaching the punk subculture as a fashion trend, and the idea of inciting a riot as the hip thing to do. what that means, when you add it up, is that his rhetoric is reflective of a tactic to win acceptance in a group he's been told exists by media, and liable to modification relative to the actual realities around winning group acceptance. further, i like the idea of being involved in a political project - if maybe not on those exact terms. i decided quickly that we could talk about the riots after we've written some riot-inducing riffs.

we did not get a lot done, but i brought a number of riffs home with me and turned them into this week's song. the lyrics reflect the discussion i had with matt and are meant solely as placeholders, until he develops some to replace them, or i eventually do.


it's late; i should sleep. i need to get back to the steinbeck tomorrow afternoon.

beginning the grapes of wrath

i should be taking some notes on the text anyways, so why not post them here?

i've read the first ten chapters so far, and i find that the narrative is split. the sections of pure narration seem to have deeper philosophical interpretations, while the narrative seems to be attempting a strict historical interpretation. this may come off as campy at times, but i don't doubt it's intended historicity and am willing to keep an open mind about it's accuracy. i suspect that it may be exaggerated to assert crude stereotypes, but broadly accurate nonetheless.

i guess that there's two kinds of stereotypes. there's ones that are developed maliciously for some external gain (like slavery), and then there's ones that are arrived at through careful empirical observation. now, it's important to realize that humans are individuals and may not perfectly, or at all, reflect the trends. but, acknowledging that humans are not to be defined in aggregate does not rob the aggregate data of value as crude representation. when you're writing fiction, i guess you need to make the choice between whether you're writing a complex, multifaceted novel that attempts to explore all viewpoints or are focusing in a specific viewpoint and narrating it strictly from that perspective. it's important that the broad literature reflect a level of diversity in viewpoints, yes. but, that actually implies that singular viewpoints should be considered.

so, you have to look at the stereotypes in the novel as being a singular expression of data that was arrived at in aggregate. as such, it may be an exaggerated representation of an underlying reality. so, i both trust the intended historicity and am confident in it's accuracy.

i'm just feeling that it needs more pure narration in order to remain compelling. it is not the historical accuracy of the day-to-day lives of these people that truly interests me, but an analysis of the causes of their struggles. i appreciate the attempt to make me understand the world through their eyes, but i feel it's only useful in building empathy for an analysis of the problem, and i feel that has already been established. so, i hope it picks up in analysis for the middle section.

it's a rusty razorblade on that suitcase

so, i picked up the new bush record...

i'm aware that being a bush fan is holding to a kind of a tenuous position in the rock subculture, as they are immensely unpopular in the independent music community. i tend to lean towards this independent music community, so i think i need to develop a defense.

i'm going to use a dialectical approach, in not denying the validity of the criticism and arguing instead to appreciate it for what it is. yes; bush are a calculated, corporate rock band. yet, despite disliking the culture around it, i think there's a valid artistic space for high production rock music. nor do i think that a taste for bush is inconsistent with my tastes for other high production rock bands like soundgarden, nine inch nails and the smashing pumpkins.

of course, i have plenty of criticism for corporate rock culture in it's worst excesses, but these exist largely on an artistic level. these criticisms are valid, but they simply in no way negate the existence of the corporate rock band that uses resources effectively to create compelling music. this category has existed for as long as it's been demonstrable. that's a false binary that the smarter-than-you indie kids tend to fall for every time.

bush is something else that i was first exposed to via guitar world. a tab for everything zen appeared in one issue, and while the riff looked kind of boring, the lyrics printed underneath it caught my attention. then, i noticed that there was a slide guitar part, had fun jamming on it and wanted to hear what it sounded like. they didn't play that song on the radio in ottawa. so, i went to the music store and had to buy an imported copy of the tape, because they weren't being manufactured in canada, yet. it was a few weeks later that they got really popular, so the guitar world article must have been exploratory advertising.

i ended up enjoying the record, but i always interpreted it as fundamentally british and could never really understand the comparisons to seattle bands, like nirvana. i think it's because the production is so obviously brit-pop. it doesn't have any dark, churning moments; it's so bright and very clean. if there were american bands with clean production like this, they were punk bands like the pixies and bad religion. that's what nevermind was actually aspiring to. but, i wouldn't even make that connection. i've just always thought of them as brit-pop. consider the drumming in machinehead, for example; this is just so obviously british.

when i heard they were working with steve albini, i got a little bit worried. it seemed as though they were caving in to the media narrative as being a nirvana copycat, as though they thought they had cornered a market. this is when corporate rock gets terrible - when it starts seeking out target demographics as explicit attempts to tap into specific markets. i was consequently approaching this record with low expectations, half-convinced that it would be full of the worst radio anthems.

while a few of the tracks were clearly singled out and designed for mass broadcast, the record overall is actually surprisingly abstract. albini's raw production techniques are clearly on display in the guitar tone, but he was just as clearly not the final decision maker in the sound design process, which is very cleanly mastered. this combination of glossy processing over raw amp distortion really brings out the harmonics in the guitars, especially during the sections with multiple guitar overdubs. this effect is amplified even further by the liberal use of dissonance over the record.

the lack of disciplined songwriting on the record may be a consequence of a lack of preparation, which is another problem endemic to corporate rock, but in this circumstance it gives the production team a huge amount of space to fill in the spectrum. beyond the layering of guitar harmonics, which by the way is also very british, they also bring in some fairly written baroque-ish string sections. at other times, they fill the spectrum with reverb on drums and vocals in ways that take inspiration from the developing british form of trip-hop. this all culminates in a carefully written result, even if much of the writing and arrangements ultimately came from the production team. it is easy to criticize them for relying so strongly on this production, but that is again to miss the point that the producers, in this case, have produced a compelling result - that corporate rock can fulfill an artistic mandate.

unfortunately, these artistic mandates are subject to market discipline, and in the end i fear the band may regret not paying more attention to the available market research. my immediate perception is that people cannot connect with these songs due to their abstraction, that they are disappointed in the difficulty of the record and are choosing to move on. a band that is scorned like this will not survive a decline in popularity. but, at the least they can say that they made a really good record.

demo #13: guh

it's late on a saturday night, and i'm uploading the track for this week now so that i can get some reading done tomorrow. i have about three weeks to complete this, so i'm going to try to get a third of the text done on sundays for the next three weeks, then write the essay afterwards. 

here's my new tune:



i don't watch a lot of tv, but i happened to catch an episode of "touched by an angel" this week and it really hit me the wrong way. i've been noticing recently, maybe because i just studied animal farm, that television really operates on an entirely different existence than what is presented. what i mean is that shows come with characters and casts but are really about pushing down messaging that is invariably state propaganda.

this underlying purpose of media as a tool of control really saturates the corporate press. you can see it in music videos, films, novels - it's not just tv. but, just about anything christian-themed on tv is just so heavy-handed and obvious that i can't even turn it off in my mind. i just get these, like, DANGER seizures.

i just had a really angry, visceral response to the episode i saw and felt the need to vent a little. it's actually one of those moments where i kind of regretted the vocals the moment i recited them, but i'm holding to them because i think it captures something.

musically, the track had been sitting for a little while, without vocals. i initially wrote it as a kind of marketable jangle-rock ballad, but decided in the end to dirty it up a little bit. the lead guitar section in the bridge is something i developed while practicing sweep-picking, but slowed down substantially to create a psychedelic effect.

i also spent the week listening to the new bush record, and i'm going to review it in a new post.

demo #12: sound art collages & computer simulations [the grapes of wrath starts next week]

it's another late night, i guess...

this track was improvised over the last week in the basement studio as a sound collage experiment. i kind of wish i had some fancy toys down here, like a sampler or a wave editor. but, my computer upstairs only has windows 3.1 on it and i wouldn't know where to begin in actually using it to make music.

the experiment started by realizing that i could hear some bleed on the tape i'm using to record, and wondering what it would sound like if i just took every tape i have and pasted it over top of itself. i still buy all of my music on cassette because i have a walkman and don't have a discman, so i actually have a big stack of cassettes. i was curious as to what it would sound like, so i did it, and the result is the warped, noisy sound that saturates the track - like a really nasty wind storm. i tried to randomize the process a little bit in order to make it more dynamic.

once i had the collage bounced to a single channel on my 4-track, i had to sneak into my sister's room to use her synthesizer, again. the part is entirely improvised. in fact, i only played it once. it's meant to give off this kind of eccentric, carefree attitude in a situation where something more sombre is required. one might imagine an old man dancing outside in a category 5 hurricane to a soundtrack that only he can hear. or, perhaps a religious lunatic rejoicing in the midst of a nuclear attack.

the rest of the noise is multiple tracks of guitar noodling through multiple effects patches, mostly high feedback.

i also used the mastering process as an instrument, purposefully shorting the signal in such a way that is meant to represent a collapse in consciousness. think of it like this: if we exist in a computer simulation, what happens when the power goes out? or at least flickers a little?

this is the first track i've ever written that is like this. again: i wish i knew a little bit more about how to use technology to make sound. i guess i'm just learning, still. i'd like to do more sound art projects like this, though. hopefully, the sophistication of my collages increases as i get to understanding the technology better.



how about school? and things?

i'm actually glad that we're done with animal farm, because i don't like my conservative teacher's take on it. or, at least i think he's a conservative. i'm not sure why he's insisting i read the grapes of wrath. i haven't read it yet, but isn't that a left-wing take on the depression? maybe i'll figure out his motives over the next few weeks....

the eleventh demo, and a young person's take on animal farm

wow, it's late! i've been up all night reading. the early morning hours are always the best for reading, as the light is artificial. you'll never see a monk out on the beach, will you? no: reading is a task meant solely for solitary darkness, in beds, alone, away from prying eyes...

the assignment was a chapter per day over two weeks. but, these chapters are so short; if i'm going to sit down and read, i'm going to sit down and read a few dozen pages, at least. so, i read the first five chapters last sunday night and the last five chapters tonight. what are my thoughts?

well, i'm told this is a satire of a revolution that occurred in russia almost eighty years ago and that created a communist state called the soviet union, which does not exist any more. i've actually had a longstanding interest in history, albeit mostly ancient history, so i have read books on world war one and have heard of this bolshevik revolution and consequently do have enough historical context to make some sense of the satire, even if the details are rather blurry. while i'm just barely old enough to remember the event of the wall coming down in germany as a concert and cultural event, i have no recollection of the cold war or the soviet union, itself. as such, i'm interpreting this novel as historical fiction, rather than as anything currently relevant.

this is, however, maybe the first time that the instruction in english class is both interesting to me and providing new information for me. i'm so used to these english teachers telling me things i already know, or trying to explain things that are just blatantly obvious. but, i'd never heard of this leon trotsky, before. so, i wouldn't have been able to understand the book, or even make meaningful sense of it, without the instruction from the teacher.

he's both excited and apologetic; he maintains that the text is historical, but he seems to think it isn't relevant anymore, since the fall of communism. he's been quick to point out that orwell is a socialist, but he claims he "won't use it against him". he says the book used to be important because it teaches kids that socialism is impossible because it contradicts the conservative concepts of human nature that have been proven correct through experiment. it follows then, in his estimation, that the book no longer needs to be taught. worse, he claims, is that teaching the book is just needlessly exposing kids to communism.

the context of the text (and the fact that i am legitimately interested in the symbolism) aside, i think the major thing that i'm pulling out of the story is orwell's obvious contempt for the intelligence of workers. it's not clear whether he wishes to claim that workers are legitimately stupid or merely uneducated to a point where they are incapable of fending for themselves, but this seems to be the key assumption he makes that colours the rest of the text in a specific way. if these animals were not so stupid, might the outcome be different? and, is it really a justified assumption?

but, do i accept the premise that this is all inevitable? my teacher has been talking a lot about "human nature". i'm not convinced that this is something that even exists. i mean, we just did shakespeare and talked a lot about free will, so what is this "human nature" that apparently contradicts it? i asked him the other day if he meant that "human nature" is an actually real thing or just a tool of literary analysis, and he paused for a minute before saying "both" and quickly moving to the next question. i recognize this as a dodge...

i wonder if the point that orwell was trying to make has more to do with the nature of the society - that a farm produces a natural order that can only be abolished by escaping the farm. perhaps, then, the real criticism is not about humans and more about technology, and perhaps the conclusion is that if we want technology then we have to accept that some of us will be slaves - or at least will be until the technology advances.

and, of course, i have a song for you, too. i'm just late because i was reading.

this song has also been written out for a while, now. i definitely wrote it in the old house, because i remember jamming on it in the middle of the night in my old bedroom. but, i also remember writing it around my guitar effects processor, so it would have have to have been written in early 1996.

the track was initially just meant to sound creepy. you'll note that it's kind of a gothed up blues riff, followed by a noisy grunge riff, followed by the same gothed up blues riff, but grungified. the overwhelming musical influence on the track is kurt cobain.

lyrically, the lyrics are just a reflection of the mood of the track. i guess i felt that the song was very moody and kind of schizophrenic, so i constructed something like an x-files episode around it. i think it's a little too much to reference stephen king, although he was certainly an aesthetic influence.

there otherwise isn't much of a back story for this song: it's really just an outgrowth of playing on my back, late at night, with the lights off.....and reacting to that atmosphere, conceptually.



i'm going to need to catch the bus in a few hours, so i should try and get an hour or two of sleep, at least. but i can sleep when i get to class, too...

hallowe'en, drugs, pumpkins-hendrix covers & orwell

i've actually never really been too excited about hallowe'en. i kind of ended up stuck in the middle of a lot of politics about hallowe'en at an age where i shouldn't have been old enough to understand it, but did, and it just left me kind of jaded about it. weirder, it isn't just my mom's favourite holiday; on some years, it's the only holiday she celebrates at all! i never had any pressure around christmas or easter or anything, but it was essential that i looked good on hallowe'en...

i don't think my mom is actually a satanist, but she's probably not that disparate in mindset from your typical laveyan. i just don't think she knows who lavey is or what the church of satan thinks; i do think there's probably a lot of potential overlap. and i'm just a no bullshit atheist and have been since i read the bible a couple of years ago. so, my memories around hallowe'en are something along the lines of humouring my mother while she insists i get dressed up as some silly superstitious nonsense...

i was a platypus, one year. grade three. i insisted upon it. see, i had an interest in australian biodiversity, at the time. monotremes are truly fascinating creatures. and, echidnas are far less unusual looking. i really dislike stupid koalas, though. we went a few blocks and came home because i had a stomach ache. anyways....

i've been a big kid for a few years now, so i spent hallowe'en this year with friends. i didn't wear a costume. we spent most of the night roaming an area of southern ottawa called barrhaven, eventually meeting up with some friends of my oldest friend (jeff) up on the top of a hill. they were smoking something up there...

i've done enough research on the various drugs to know that they're pretty much all bad. tobacco is bad. alcohol is bad. cocaine is bad. meth is bad. heroin is bad. acid is less bad and more scary. e is not bad, but you never actually get e, you just get things that are bad, so you should treat it like it's bad. the only one that's really legitimately harmless is marijuana, and that's the one they were smoking. so, i tried a little...

nothing. jeff's friend, kevin, said that he didn't feel anything the first time, either. next time, he said. will there be a next time? i'm not sure i'm willing to suffer the coughing for a next time, frankly. if there is a next time, i guess i'll get back to you on it. all i'm going to remember from the night is that i spent it outside in cold weather.

do i have another song for you? of course i have another song for you...

so, i'm trained as a blues guitarist. everybody knows that the way to prove you're a real blues guitarist is to do a cover of little wing, to leave your own mark on the tune. that's just how it is.

however, i feel a little bit of a generational disconnect with jimi hendrix. i mean, i love hendrix and everything; that's kind of obvious, if you listen. but he died ten years before i was born. so, i just feel like little wing needs a bit of a punk rock update, in order to imprint my own mark into it, and i thought it might be neat to merge it with a more contemporary piece - the opening track on the smashing pumpkins' double disc opus.

so, i've rearranged the pumpkins tune for guitar & bass (and cymbal). specifically, the piano was rearranged for guitar and the strings ended up rearranged for bass. it's a little messy, i only actually played it off the sheet once, but it's just a demo, right? it segues right into the punk rock version of little wing. i tried to focus a little less on the guitaring and a little more on really making the song punk rock. so, instead of getting a twelve minute guitar solo, it's more of a layered kind of build up into an eventual slam dance.

it's not meant to be disrespectful. as though jimi wouldn't cringe at the thought? but i legitimately just wanted to update the track a little and put a new generation's mark on to it. and i don't know if the vocals come off well or not. but it's ultimately just a demo...



moving forwards? well, we got our copies of animal farm handed out at the end of the week, but we haven't started it yet. it's been really hyped up. so, i think that might be how i spend the rest of the night.

demo #9 - terrorists

this is another song that i've had written on paper for a few months - maybe a year, but not two.

i wrote the lyrics to the song over the summer, while watching news reports about the bombing at the olympics in atlanta. it's not only about the olympic bomber. it's also about the oklahoma city bombing, and about the ira and about these christian militia groups that seem like they're popping up everywhere and just seem like they want to kill everybody in the name of their religion. why are these christians so hateful? why do they hate us?

i think i'm also taking a lot of influence from bono on this particular track. u2 is something i really grew up with, and has been a big influence on me for pretty much my whole life. my sarcasm here is maybe a little bit more punk rock than anything u2 ever did. but, i think this is fundamentally their messaging.

it's really scary, though. what if these groups take over? i hear they want to enforce biblical law and take us back to the dark ages. they don't seem to be really popular, at least. but, i can't help but feel that our freedom is really under attack right now by these christian extremists.



that was a bit of an epic recording process. it's not the only lengthy track, but it's the longest one, so far.

i had tests this week, so i found myself in the room downstairs venting. it was less about procrastinating, in fact i think i did well on the tests, and more about stress relief. maybe think of it like getting a massage. and, i mean, i'm only in grade 10 - i don't need to spend all my time studying. i can do well on tests with minimal serious preparation.

my english teacher has been hyping up animal farm all year, so i'm a bit excited about it. right now, it's late and i should try and get a little bit of sleep.

demo #8 - the boogeyman

this one would have to have been written in grade 7, because i was still living with my mom. that would make it from 1993 or 1994 and probably the oldest song i have.

when i was a little younger, around ten or so, there was a nightly routine around sunset where my mom would yell at me to go lock the door before the boogeyman came in to get us. but, she'd be a little dramatic about it. kind of a...

mom: shhh. do you hear that?
me: it's getting dark, maybe it's...
mom: it's the boogeyman! go run and lock the door before he comes in and gets us!

so, i'd get up and run to the front door and lock it, peering out to make sure there was nobody there.

i don't think i ever thought a boogeyman existed, but i didn't grow up in an affluent neighbourhood and i was well aware of the dangers of straying too far from home after night. i didn't understand much about drugs or gangs at the time, i just knew that sometimes people died of gunshot wounds outside and didn't want to be stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. it was legitimately important to block off entrance points.

the run had a bit of a rush of adrenaline-based fear to it, because the hallway was dark. getting to the door and back could at times be a little scary.

i've grown out of that, but i still think about it sometimes. the song is a memory of the experience.

overall, life is indeed fairly peachy

it's early on a sunday morning, and i have a new song for you. but, let's just talk a little bit first and put the new song in a separate post afterwards.

that was a bit of a busy week for me. things are starting to turn over at school; i'll have some tests coming up this week, before we swing over to the second part of the semester after hallowe'en. we're going to be doing animal farm in english class for the first few weeks of november, and then i need to focus on my independent study, which is not so independent - the english teacher has insisted i read the grapes of wrath, so it seems like i'm stuck with it. i think he could have picked something worse for me. the exploratory section has switched out of pointillism and into computer science, so i'm not going to be skipping the class any more. french class is still boring. and, my gifted math class is carrying on with no instruction whatsoever that i can discern of...

something else that happened this week is a new korn record. so, what's my story with korn, so far?

korn is something that i was exposed to via a guitar world magazine that claimed they were poised to become the next nirvana. this piqued my interest; while the claim has already become sort of cliched, there was something about the presentation in the article that led me to take it a little bit more seriously. so, i picked up their first record some time last year (mid 1995) on a total whim...

...and did not initially like it at all. i could hear the claim that they were picking up a grunge aesthetic and running with it, but i didn't like the funk or hip-hop aesthetics and i found the vocals to be really hit or miss - they're either effectively harsh or just openly absurd. after multiple spins, i developed a kind of appreciation for the disc. but, i don't feel that i ever clicked with it the way i was hoping i would.

i read an early review of their new record that was overall very negative but claimed they were moving more in the grunge direction that i was looking for, so, i just picked up this record, life is peachy, on a whim, as well. i'm honestly still processing it, but i think i've decided that i like most of it, at least. i certainly think it's a lot more interesting than the previous record, anyways.

see, what i'm finding interesting about the record is how bizarre it is. the syncopation is pretty twisted. there's all kinds of weird effects. it's full of dissonance and broken harmonies. so, it actually offers a fairly open landscape to explore. people are starting to label them a metal band, but i don't really understand that - and i'm certainly not interested in approaching them from that perspective, or in listening to metal. i hear grunge on the record. i hear punk. i hear industrial. and, i hear some hip-hop, too. the hip-hop is exotic for me, but this is otherwise a good intersection of my musical tastes. but, metal? where? and, why? and yuck...no thanks....

i don't know if their proper fan base is going to enjoy this or not, but i think it's a huge step forwards in a more interesting and abstract direction.

demo #7

there's another new track up today..

this is a kind of a tribute to my favourite band: the first track is a kind of a re-interpretation of the coil remix of "the downward spiral", whereas the second part expands the lyrics out. it's consequently a sort of a remix of the song, conceptually, if not actually.

i think that if i ever find a drummer, i'll want to change the lyrics. but, they're ok for now as a proof of concept, even if they're really ultimately just kind of silly.



i have to spend the rest of the night memorizing some shakespeare. what a stupid waste of time. and, what a horrible way to ruin the enjoyment of something that i would otherwise be interested in. why don't we leave drama class in drama class and let english lit be english lit?

i actually know the answer to this: because the lowest common denominator can memorize lines better than it can write essays. it's a conscious attempt to make the curriculum less challenging in order to inflate marks by rewarding hard work instead of ability; essay writing is hard and rote memorization is easy, so we substitute drama in place of english and then curve everybody up. well, almost everybody, anyways. i'm the exception that would rather write the essay and would certainly be graded higher if i did because i won't be fucking bothered to do the manual labour. i don't even feel that this is the right place to question whether this should actually result in the union punishing the teacher or not - i'm in an enriched class for gifted students. like everything else about this school year so far, everything about doing this is absurd to me.

but, i need to hobble together enough of an outline of the thing for a disinterested B. ugh. this is fucking torture...

did i hear this on the radio today?

my dad caught me sleeping in today and gave me a lift to school. i was planning on going, and i was even only going to be a few minutes late, but he may be on to me. busted?

i don't think he'd bust me, though. he'd prod. he ultimately wants to figure out what i'm thinking, because he knows he's better off convincing me that he has a good argument than ordering me to do something. he's not going to yell at me to go to school, he's going to try and convince me that going to school is a good idea. apparently, teenagers listen better when they agree with you; i can accept that claim. and, he likes to remind me that he used to be one. sometimes, i wonder if he still is one.

see, it's not that i disagree. i understand the value of schooling in an abstract sense. i just think that the particular classes i'm taking right now leave a lot to be desired. i'd be a lot more keen if i gave a fuck. i guess that's a tautology, isn't it?

this song was playing on the radio, and it took me by surprise a little. it's one of my favourite records. but, it didn't strike me as single material....?

demo track #6

this is another track that i wrote in the old place, so that would have been probably in 1995. it's one of those songs that becomes increasingly complex over time, as more parts are added to it. in that sense, it's maybe not one song so much as it is many songs crammed together into one song. i remember rewriting the tabs over and over as i expanded the song's complexity.

that said, i also did a lot of effects-based improvisation in the process of recording this track. that is to say that the notes were written when i started but the end result really wasn't. this track also features some synthesizer work which required me to sneak into my sister's room to record, as well as a slowed down recording of a toilet filling up. this is my first use of both technique.

the lyrics to this song were also largely improvised and shouldn't be read much into. the lyrics for the chorus have been sitting around for a while, but i never found a good way to expand them into an actual song. stuff just ended up coming out, at the last minute kind of thing.

that said, i had a lot of fun with this track and i hope i'm able to make more music like this in the future.

sneaking in to use my sister's keyboard

i'm home early today. it was a very conscious choice for me to get here before anybody else so that i could sneak into my sister's room and use her keyboard. fuck pointillism.

i've been working on this song for the first part of the week and it's kind of proggy and weird - lots of guitar effects and a big open space in the middle. i'm going to record a toilet flushing this afternoon, too. i think it will sound really cool if i slow the tape down as far as it can go. it will be this slow water rushing effect - a good backdrop for guitars and keyboards.

it might seem obvious that i should just ask to use the keyboard, but i've done that before and i get weird, possessive responses. i'm breaking some kind of unwritten rule that i don't understand. whatever. i'll do it when she's not around, then. people are very silly creatures, really.

i just need to get a few quick chord stabs in. i think i can bounce the fade later. i've only got an hour, so i need to run and do it..

demo track #5

good afternoon! i have another song for you :)

this is another spontaneous construction in the studio, which i wrote up one day after school. i was a little bit frustrated about how a teacher was talking to me and decided to take it out on my guitar. we'll have to write the piece of shit a good essay, won't we?



and, how are things going? well, i think i've been clear that i'd rather kind of skip over this year. you'd think a high school teacher teaching a gifted class would be intelligent enough to know not to judge somebody based on their appearance. how did he get this job, if he's that stupid? i kind of get that i'm supposed to be incentivized to get a haircut or something, but i'm really not. i'm just disappointed that i don't just have to deal with this moron on a day to day basis, but that he's ultimately going to pick my letter grade. it's not inspiring, it's depressing. of what value is a grading system when you're being graded by shallow idiots? is this going to carry on for the rest of high school, or is it just a bad teacher?

ironically, this probably wouldn't have happened had i been allowed to attend the regular courses like i wanted to because my appearance wouldn't stand out nearly as much. there would be other kids that act and dress and think like me, so i wouldn't be singled out.

whatever. if he's going to curve me down due to my haircut and send me back to normal classes, that's kind of what i want, anyways.

it's lunch time. i'm being hollered at to come down and eat.

the new weezer record is a horrible disappointment, but not a horrible record in totality

as you don't know me, i should begin by pointing out that i was never a really big weezer fan. i certainly enjoyed the blue record, but it wasn't in any way a pivotal record in my life. i actually had to overcome a lot of internalized opposition to it before i could even give it a chance.

it was that stupid buddy holly song, which for a while in late 1994 and early 1995 (grade 8) just saturated everything. it was in constant rotation on muchmusic. it was on the radio once an hour. it was in people's walkmans, on people's shirts - you just couldn't get away from the stupid thing. as such, it became incredibly annoying. it was worse than that, though - as they were the cool thing, and i was anti-cool, i had an aesthetic obligation to dislike them.

what ended up happening was that i asked my old neighbour to dub me a copy of the most recent collective soul record (so that i could teach myself how to play gel out of the guitar world tabs because it was a really neat solo) and he put a copy of the blue album on the other side, without really thinking about it much. i realized there was a tab for say it ain't so in the same magazine, so i checked it out and actually had a lot of fun playing it. still, on first listen the record didn't really click. it came off as overly simplistic and kind of stupid; worse, it sounded like it was recorded through a tin can.

it turns out that i liked that collective soul record a lot more than i thought i would, so the weezer record was given more chances than i would have otherwise given it (as the tape had to rewind, anyways). what eventually ended up swaying me was the epic track at the end, only in dreams. i had to work backwards from that track. i also found that surf wax america reminded me a lot of geek usa for some reason.

somewhere around the 10th listen, the record finally clicked all at once and it ended up with some heavy play, afterwards. but, the truth is that weezer really wasn't in any way a natural fit for me and that i had to carefully work out it's aesthetic boneheadedness in order to get to the tasty marrow of harmonic complexity. so, you should keep that in mind as i describe my initial reaction to pinkerton.

the very first impression of the record was that it was incorporating a wider sound and that was a net positive. the first thing you notice is that the production is a lot cleaner and the second thing you notice is the use of things like synthesizers and percussion, which would have been very out of place on the first record. the presence of acoustic ballads (as well as some unexpectedly urban takes on rock music) allow for more tonal variety. so, the higher production value immediately jumps out as a net benefit and the immediate impression is that this is a more polished, produced record - and that that is a good thing.

on further listens, though, it becomes apparent that the disc is frontloaded to the first couple of tracks and that the songwriting takes a nose dive around the point that the tape flips. the vocals also begin to reveal themselves as hard to listen to because you feel embarrassed for the singer for singing them.

even recognizing these flaws, i think the record is salvageable by merely cutting it down a few tracks. i suppose you could argue that it would be very short, but that's a better outcome than publishing filler that is so bad that it makes you feel uncomfortable just listening to it.

as mentioned, it took a long time for the first record to click for me. should i be cautious with analyzing this one? i just don't feel that i'm going to come around to it the same way. but, if you were to trim it down a little, i would passively enjoy it well enough. i'm left to conclude that this is a mediocre record that has it's points of interest but simply doesn't impress.

track #4: neglected

it's sunday morning and i'm actually uploading the song early this week. i've been up all night again and am actually looking forward to a lengthy sleep.

three weeks into the school year, and how are things going? frankly, i'm just not really interested. i'd rather hang out downstairs and jam.

i don't want to suggest that i've developed some kind of anti-intellectual streak or something. i'm still in favour of education in an abstract sense, i'm just not really sure that it's really for me. i know i'm still young though, too, and i don't want to close doors and then one day wish i hadn't closed them. that's what the adults tell me, and i think it's good advice. so, i'm continuing to go through the motions with the least amount of effort and participation that i can possibly apply.

i've actually gotten in the habit of sleeping during morning classes. well, i'd be figuratively sleeping through them if i wasn't literally sleeping through them - it's french in first period (which i just can't pretend i'm interested in. i'm sorry. this is just inefficient and pointlessly redundant, to me. why can't i take science for the whole year, instead? i don't even have science this fall, i have to wait until next semester :\) and math in second period (which is just a free time slot - he literally just writes the chapters on the board). i tend to wake up halfway through math, then catch up on both subjects in the second half. because i can, i guess? i have english after lunch, and then exploratory - but i've gotten in the habit of skipping exploratory. they're literally expecting me to sit in a room and draw pictures made out of dots. it's fucking ridiculous. as busy work, it belongs in the fifth grade. "i'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything". so, i'm basically boycotting it and almost daring them to fail me....

we're looking at your university application and seeing you have As in math and science, but failed grade 10 pointillism. we're going to have to reject your application. i'm sorry.

right now, my head is just in my guitar and not in a classroom. why fight that? i mean, why not just self-lobotomize while i'm at it? if i'm getting something out of the music, and nothing out of the school, why immerse myself in the less fulfilling option? it's just masochism, really. i'm only fifteen, but i'm old and wise enough to realize that there's no inherent purpose or meaning in existence and consequently no use in torturing yourself for no good reason.

so, i've been coming home from school early and locking myself in the room until the sun comes up, then dragging myself to school and sleeping when i get there. if that's the choice i'm going to make, what do i have to show for it? what concrete results are there?

this brand new song developed out of a jam with myself, while inspired by the smashing pumpkins concert last week. it was actually very spontaneous; i just happen to have been recording, and i went from there. it was a situation where i really just let my fingers run loose on their own for the bulk of the recording....

the lyrics were likewise very much stream of consciousness, and the truth is that there's not much use in applying a level of thought to them that i didn't apply to them, myself. it was just what came out. i mean, songs have to have vocals, right? it's just what songs are. unless they're slow songs, i guess. but all rock songs have vocals. by definition.

track #3: i did your mom

i got home from matt's yesterday morning and went right into the basement, a little bit inspired by the concert. they played an extended version of silverfuck that went on for like 25 minutes; matt and his sister were both getting bored and fidgety, but i found the musicianship to be rather riveting. i know i can't play drums like jimmy, but i think i can play guitar a little bit like billy. i'm inspired to, anyways. he's such a big influence on my guitar playing!

i spent quite a bit of time jamming with an effects pedal, and that is probably going to be the next song. that's brand new! i already had the structure down for i did your mom, though, so i went back to that yesterday afternoon.

this is one of the oldest songs that i have. i think i wrote it one day after school in 1994 (in grade 8), half as a joke and half as an emotional release for getting teased. i've had it notated on my shelf, now, for two years, although it has evolved rather substantially, including quite a bit over the last few days. the entire middle section is pretty spontaneous, although i think you can also tell that the root of the guitar solo had been practiced many times. i spent a lot of time just jamming as i was recording this, which i think you can hear in all of the sounds at the very end.

the vocals are really intended to be funny and creepy at the same time, but i was only in grade eight when i wrote them and i think they're kind of immature, now that i'm in high school. nobody talks like that anymore. but, that's also why they're funny. i mean, i'm not writing music for grown-ups, i'm writing music for my peer group. maybe when i grow up i'll write music for grown-ups. for right now, this is really funny and creepy, and funny because it's creepy and creepy because it's funny.

i didn't really sleep last night, so i'm super tired. i may actually get enough rest that i can go to school fresh tomorrow. wouldn't that be crazy? who does that.....?

my first ever concert - the smashing pumpkins!

it's early in the morning, but i'm relatively well rested. i got picked up early at matt's after the show. i kind of wanted to get out of there...

and, with hair. thankfully.

i actually didn't have the slightest interest in shaving my head, but i was under quite a bit of pressure to. it hit me completely off guard. it's something to do with corgan shaving his head? i don't know, i wasn't able to make full sense of it. it can't be as simple as "i'm going to see a band with a bald singer, therefore i should be bald, too." - even if that's the most sense i could make of it. but, people did nonetheless shave their heads! i dunno. maybe i can be iha, then? i like my hair!

or, maybe that just reinforces my point about aesthetics? irony aside, how about this instead:

"i just want to be me." - billy corgan

eh?

i enjoyed the show, but i don't have any kind of reference point to compare it to because it's the only concert i've ever been to. well, actually that's not really true. i'd been to concerts with my dad before, but it was stuff he enjoyed and just happened to drag me along to: blue rodeo, jeff healey and i'm sure all kinds of other things i don't remember. these were at bars and open air festivals, though. this was legitimately the first concert i'd ever been to in a hockey arena.

was it far away? absolutely. was the sound bad at points? yeah. but, i actually had a decent view, if not the best sound, because i was off to the side of the stage.

as an aside, i'm pretty sure that a good percentage of the set was not actually being performed. but, that only takes away from the show if you can tell, and most people probably couldn't. they had all kinds of stage props on top of it that recreated scenarios in the videos (tonight tonight, rocket), so it's not like the question of whether they were actually playing or not was really central. that is, the show had a theatrical component to it. there were also several points - jams - where it was clear that they were playing, too. or, at least, billy was because he was obviously openly improvising.

dad and i talked about it on the way back, and he's glad i had fun but he also suggested that seeing a band in a smaller space is a lot more enjoyable. i think i can see what he means. i mean, it would have been better, for sure, if i had a more direct view. it would have been better if i was more directly in the stereo spread. it would have probably been better if there weren't thousands of people screaming, too. i can't compare yet, though, because i don't have the experience.

i'm glad i went. i knew all the songs. i sang along. i rocked out. i bought a hat. and now i can say that i've been to a concert....

it looks like somebody put some footage up already, how about that:
https://archive.org/details/tsp1996-09-13.ana1

i'm going to be recording for the rest of the day and all day tomorrow. maybe i'll finish a new song?

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/1996/09/13.html

new adventures with an old favourite

it's always a magical day when a new rem album is released. i've been able to experience this four times now - out of time, automatic for the people, monster and, now, new adventures in hi-fi. you don't know me, though, so let's start at the beginning...

it was actually leonard cohen that wrote the song that i liked - first we take manhatten. i realized this after the fact. but, i misunderstood the radio announcer, who must have been referring to the song that played previous to it. so, i went to the public library looking for the rem record with this song on it. this was in 1989, when i was eight years old, and two years before rem would, ironically, actually perform a cover of this tune for a benefit.

i checked out all of the cassettes that they had at the public library - murmur, document and green. none of them had the track i wanted, but i liked the latter two enough that i dubbed copies of them onto a 90 minute tape before i brought them back (at eight years old, i found murmur to be a little bit too opaque). they both got massive play on my basement ghetto blaster for the next several years.

the initial reason that i found myself attracted to these records is that they seemed to transmit something to me that i was lacking in my life, which was a kind of intellectual guidance. i don't mean in terms of the lyrical content, which i did not understand well or at all, so much as i mean in terms of the aesthetic. i was an aloof child - bookish, introverted and very distant. i was naturally curious, but what i'd learned - even at that age - was that the people around me were not of much use in answering my questions. i was the kind of kid that knew the capital city of every country in africa, and the name of every moon of saturn. the reality is that the people around me couldn't even name the planets in order. they were constantly disappointing me in their inabilities to answer my questions, and in their own disinterest in the answers to them. so, i longed to be a part of something that would quench my curiosity. my aunt, who was then of university age, happened to overhear me listening to them (to her surprise) and she told me that this was what university students listened to. i grasped on to that. it was a way to connect with what i perceived was a higher culture.

to put it another way, i might not have understood everything that they said, but i knew they were smart and i knew that smart people liked them and so it made me feel smart to listen to them. you'll have to forgive the pretensions of an eight, nine, ten year-old child.

of course, the fact that these are very fun records, through and through, helped a lot, as well.

out of time dropped when i was ten, and i actually found it really disappointing because it seemed to shatter my perceptions. losing my religion was such a smash hit that everybody knew the song, which burst my bubble around them. worse, the band seemed to be being silly on purpose. it didn't seem nearly as smart anymore. i've gotten to know the record better since then, but i've never dropped my preconceptions - i've always ranked this near the bottom of their discography. it's funny how often a band's biggest hits are on their weakest records, isn't it?

when automatic for the people came out the next year, i had found some new favourite bands and had developed somewhat of a distance from rem as something i liked when i was younger. however, i gave the record a very careful listen and ended up absolutely smitten by it. i still didn't fully understand the themes explored, but the music captured me in ways that rem hadn't been able to, previously. few records have been more influential on me than this one.

by the time monster was released, i'd gone through the alternative rock portal and come out a pretty different kid. i had initially taken a pass on nirvana, although i did come around to it near the end of the nevermind cycle (i greatly preferred come as you are to teen spirit). rather, it was actually siamese dream that pulled me through the gates and turned me into a proper teenager (speaking of which, i'm going to see the smashing pumpkins tomorrow night. first concert ever!). that sounds like a perfect confluence, right? except that something seemed amiss about the record. it was just so glossy, so distant. after the raw, honest delivery of automatic, monster seemed like they'd retreated behind a thousand walls of emotional deflection. monster is by no means a poor record, but it is a very contrived one. it's almost not an rem record so much as it is a record by rem pretending to be another band - like it's their sgt peppers moment, but without bothering to tell us about the charade. i think i admired it more than i actually enjoyed it.

i intuitively look for patterns in everything, and so i was expecting them to bounce back on the new record. the single raised expectations, for sure. i've now spent the better part of the last two days listening to it, and what do i think?

well, i do think this record is a return to a more organic approach and that is very much welcome. the production is a lot more real, which is probably what i missed more than anything else. apparently, the tracks were mostly recorded at sound check. however, this is offset by two complementary tendencies. the first is that stipe is writing from a further distance than he did in the past, as though he wasn't able to completely drop the experiences of writing monster in character. the difference is that his new character is himself. this is kind of meta. but, he actually does a good job of explaining this, himself, throughout the course of the record; this analysis is actually broadly interpretive. the second is that the record picks up an experimental strain that they had previously left somewhere in the 80s and that i'm actually glad to hear them pick back up as it gives the record a much broader palette of sound. purists should really embrace the evolution, rather than complain, as it's actually an ideological throwback and return-to-basics. this record manages to do what almost nobody else has ever managed to do, which is to return to basics and artistically evolve at the same time.

it's hard for me to say how this record will be viewed in the long run. if it doesn't have the kind of smash hit that the last few have had, it may get overshadowed by the more successful records. that said, serious fans may also come to see it as their absolute pinnacle. perhaps a good historical parallel is to pink floyd's animals - a record that is often referred to as "lost" but that core fans almost universally see as their best record.

it's very early in the morning, and i've been up all night again. right now, i need to get ready to go to school; then, i need to find a way to get some sleep when i get home. i'm totally psyched about the pumpkins show tomorrow night.

but, i had to say something about rem this morning. the legacy of this record is not clear to me, and may ultimately depend on whether the history is written by fans or by sales figures.

the song from yesterday...

i'm just home from school, after taking a detour to the mall to pick up the new REM record. i haven't listened to it yet, but boy am i excited to!

how was the first week of school? well, it's kind of what i expected, but kind of not, too. the classes are full of the kids i expected that they would be full of, but it seems like "enriched courses" are the same as normal courses except that the teachers are less involved in the class. in math class, the teacher doesn't write anything on the board, he just assigns readings and homework at the beginning of the class and then goes into the other room to do his own work. in english, we read by ourselves instead of together. i guess the assumption is that we can all read? i'm not really getting the chance to be irritated by anybody, because everybody is ignoring each other. in fact, i actually kind of like this as it lets me retreat to my natural introversion. i'm no longer feeling like i need to put on a mask to communicate with others because that communication is no longer expected. right now, i'm not really finding myself missing the normal classes, but we'll see how long that lasts for.

it's kind of weird at lunch, because i know i'm never going to actually want to talk to any of these people. a strange truth is that the classes are almost all boys. the one girl i might want to talk to seems to be perpetually hiding behind what appears to be her boyfriend, and completely disinterested in conversing with anybody else. the guys at the front all want to talk about sports, even though none of them are actually good at sports. i don't really understand that, and i'm not at all interested in getting to know them. there's one kid in the back named ryan that i kind of get along with, as he's sort of punk rock. i think his parents were from pakistan, but he's culturally absolutely white - he doesn't even have an accent. i'm going to guess i'll probably be hanging out with him most of the year. if he doesn't get sick of me, i guess...

they put me in "exploratory" at the very end of the day, which is dangerous - i may very well skip it. it's not that i don't like art. clearly, i do. it's that i can't stand these directed outlets of official expression. i do not at all need this; i play an instrument. i read recreationally. so, it's just patronizing to me. pointless. a waste of time....

right now, i'm very sleepy as i did not sleep last night, so i'm going to give you a quick write up of the song i published this morning and then crash until the morning.

this is a brand new song that i wrote in my basement. it was actually intended to be a demo for a band with my friend matt, who wants to learn how to play bass and also wants to start a punk band. the vocals are really rough and based on something that he would say, but were written more as a placeholder than anything else. unfortunately, he thinks the song isn't fast enough. i guess he wants all of the songs to be really fast. that seems kind of silly to me...

i like the song, though - even if the lyrics are not meant for me. it would be a good pop song, played forwards. but, i don't want my solo work to be pop music. so, i took the song and pasted it on top of itself backwards, thereby creating my very first backwards guitar solo!



i don't know if this band with matt is going to work out. i really do think that this was a pretty good pop song before i ruined it. but, he's just all about conforming to a kind of pre-packaged identity and i'm not really sure it's one that i'm really that into. i mean, what's the point of starting a band if you're not interested in anybody hearing it? if you just want to play dress up and pretend? there's just a distance in maturity, i guess. he's not taking it seriously because it isn't real to him. he doesn't actually seek a real audience; it's just another rpg.

maybe i'll put aside some things for him as they come up. but, i think this is the last thing that i write explicitly for him.

new song #2...

this upload is a little bit late, but i had to sneak into the computer room to do it, which meant waiting until everybody fell asleep. then, it just takes so ridiculously long to upload on this 14.4k modem....

but, it's finally done. here it is right here...


i have school in the morning, which means i need to be on the bus in a few hours. so, i'm going to need to sneak back into the other room and get a little bit of rest. i don't really want to sleep on the bus, i take public transit to school, but sometimes my body makes that choice for me. i'll need to talk a little bit more about this tonight.

external links to recorded music

this is my very first recording!

i initially wrote this song in the wee hours of a morning in 1995, where it was recorded for future use by notating it on loose leaf (using a mix of tablature and chord blocks). it was slowly mutated into a final form over the next few years through solitary performance, and was eventually recorded in the summer of 1996.

the dream in the song is something that actually happened, although the concept was exaggerated for the track. there is a clear underlying misanthropy. but, it's more hands-off than the term usually implies. the song is not about starting fires, it's about not interfering in fires that are burning. all young people contemplate ways they can make a difference and "save the world" - literally or figuratively. but, is the world really worth saving?



i've also set up a youtube channel...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXlH5Ds5mqClkdAUFJwQCNQ/

there is no code to get into enriched classes, but i wish there was one....

happy new year!

well, it's not really the new year, i guess, but it kind of feels like it. the roman calendar is heliocentric and resets when the sun reverses course and starts coming back towards us. how did we escape the victorian era without reconfiguring the calendar to the start of the school year, anyways? there are new beginnings to be found in the innocence of youth. yet, maybe such a concept of yearly rebirth was a little too pagan.

it's labour day tomorrow, which means i go back to school on tuesday. i'll be starting grade ten. it's not just a new year, though: i'm also being sent to nerd school. yuck :(. this is not consensual!

it's a little bit of my own fault, though. i tend to fool around in class. a lot. while i get almost solid As, the kids i'm distracting are not doing nearly as well. one may kneejerk into blaming the kids with the lower marks, but i've actually been fingered repeatedly as the root cause of the distractions. so, i'm a kind of an enigma. they haven't been able to figure out what to do with me; while they ought to expel me based on my behaviour, they just can't justify it because i'm an A student. what happened around the end of last year was that a cabal of teachers conspired with my parents to take me out of advanced courses and put me into enriched classes. the argument is that i'll be less bored that way, but that, more importantly, i won't be so much of a distraction to the students around me. everybody should win out...

...except that i know that the reality of it is that i'm actually going to be even more bored because i'm going to have to hang out with the nerds all of the time. the thing is that the nerds aren't really nerds. if they were legit nerds, i'd probably like them. the legit nerds are all in the advanced courses. what the enriched class "nerds" actually are are really the rich kids and they're actually mostly wannabe jocks. these are the kids that walk around in sports jerseys but can't make the school team. the only reason that most of them got separated out is because their parents demanded they get special treatment. there was no testing. there were no interviews. entry to enriched classes is dependent solely on maintaining an A average and being recommended by a teacher, which only happens with outside pressure. there are plenty of students in the advanced stream with higher grade averages.

how do i get out of this? well, i didn't have the choice. my parents would never do this to me under normal circumstances, but the cabal of teachers was absolutely insistent and they ultimately relented. the only way out of this next year is to get Bs this year. nobody's going to care, right? nobody's going to check my grade ten marks, right? i'm already thinking about a scorched earth policy...

what about the last week?

well, i picked up the new pearl jam record, no code. to be entirely honest, i'm kind of still processing it. i'm not too young to remember early pearl jam, but i'm pretty close; i was ten years old when ten was released (oddly enough...) and not really a fan of what i interacted with. i liked jeremy, but it was a distant appreciation rather than an active experience. i didn't like the other singles nearly as much. you have to understand that the headspace i was in at the time was not very open to anything that might be interpreted as "heavy metal". the reason is that i was growing up with a set of influences that saw metal as the refuge of violent drunks and uneducated losers. it took me a few years to realize that i was actually conflating an idea with it's anti-thesis and that my inability to differentiate between pearl jam and guns 'n' roses (and grunge and glam, more generally) was really just youthful ignorance on my behalf. in fact, pearl jam was exactly the kind of rock band i could get into, i just didn't realize it. i was eventually able to get into vs a little near the end of it's run, but it wasn't until vitalogy was released that i was actively converted into a fan. on some level, and notwithstanding my age, i may be a better actualization of what the band really desires as a fan. but, that itself - combined with my near violent aversion to 80s metal - makes me a very atypical listener. i actually tend to prefer their more experimental tendencies, as well as their punk sensibilities, over the cliches and muscular riffs. of their four released records, i like ten the least! but, the thing i like about pearl jam the most is actually the lyrics.

i'm finding this new record to really be pretty good on the few listens i've had over all night civ 2 sessions. it's kind of uneven, though, and i'm not sure how it's going to ultimately hold up as a result of it. vitalogy was also uneven, but it wasn't as pronounced. see, the flip of that is that some of the high points on no code are just that much stronger. the irony is that this exaggerates the weakness of the weaker tracks, which makes it less cohesive, overall. i'm still enjoying the record, mind you. i just wish they had cut a few of the slower tracks out. i don't mean the artsy ones, i mean the rural ones: off he goes & around the bend, specifically.

something, i did listen to a lot of in the early 90s, though, was REM, who were definitely my favourite band. so, i'm super hyped about the new REM album. i didn't like monster as much as their older stuff. it seemed kind of shallow, to me, in comparison. it didn't breathe or flow and kind of got boring under the monotony. but, i really really like the new single...

i don't know who the female singer is, though. is she actually singing or is she just an actress?

i've also been spending a lot of time in the recording studio in the basement. on the last update, i wondered out loud whether i should keep waiting for band members or just go ahead and start recording on my own. i've decided that i will be recording songs on my own with the intent of teaching them to other people when they're done. in fact, i have already finished my first song! in my next post, i will provide links to stream my very first song, recorded in my basement studio over the last week.

the logistics around finding ways to create some supersexy swingin' sounds of my own

that was a lot longer between updates than expected, but i have good news - the room is finished and i've largely taken it over. i've been trying to find some friends to come down and jam but have been completely unsuccessful in convincing anybody. well, the truth is that there are at most three people on the planet that would admit to being a friend of mine, and none of them seriously want to play music. one of them is a skateboarder kid that i've known since the third grade and just listens to trendy hip-hop. we don't have much in common except that we went to a small school and have just kind of clung together as a consequence of it. there's some concept of trust there, at least, and sometimes that can be mutually reassuring. the other is a bmx kid that's into punk rock (sort of - i question his authenticity), but he has the attention span of a gnat and just could not make it through anything. i'm only really friends with him because of the assigned seating at school and, ironically, because i'm old friends with the other kid. they have a lot more in common with each other and get along better with each other. i'm kind of more of a conduit. i don't begrudge them - good for them. i'm happy i helped them find each other. it's more that i don't really know why i stick around with them, except that there's safety in some numbers. the other option is to turn myself into a sitting duck for bullies. again: at least there's some concept of trust with these two. but, they're the kind of teenagers that want to play outside on their boards/bikes or stay in and play video games. there's just no interest in any kind of art. i did ask the bmx kid already to try out the drums, and he just kind of laughed at me, as though he was obviously incapable. he said he didn't want me to yell at him for sucking. to be honest, i think he's right to react that way!

that's not to say that they don't respect my craft on some level. you have to remember that, while i'm only 15, i've been playing guitar for a long time, already. i can pick up just about anything in the style i like, which is broadly categorized as alternative/grunge. i'm truly pretty impressive for my age. but, for them, that's more intimidating than reassuring, especially considering that they can't put it into context. further, i don't have a reputation for patience. so, they can tell ahead of time what this is going to be like - i'm going to yell at them for not being able to keep up, and they're going to get frustrated and give up. then, i'm going to pout. again: they're right. that's exactly what would happen...

the third kid is a little more promising. he's a big marilyn manson fan and seems to legitimately want to start a punk band. i don't really like marilyn manson, but i am a really big nine inch nails fan and i like punk, too, so surely we can find some common ground. the problem is that he's kind of flaky. he wants to play bass, but he's more concerned about the image involved in getting a "goth guitar" than he is in getting something that sounds good. he's also stood me up a few times, already. so, i don't know if i can really rely on him. he seems like the type that would get bored and give up really easily if it doesn't immediately work out. i don't think he really wants to just jam...

i'm kind of thinking that it might be a better idea to just start recording on my own. i mean, none of these kids can play anything. at all. i can probably play drums better than the bmx kid, anyways. i'm sure i can play bass better than the goth kid - that's not even a serious question. i have this room here, and i'm in it quite a bit. why am i waiting for other people? why don't i just record the parts myself? if trent reznor and billy corgan can do it, why can't i?

speaking of the room, perhaps i should describe it. i wish i had a camera, but i wouldn't know how to get it on the internet, anyways. dad says you need a 'scanner', but i don't know what that is.

i've had a subscription to guitar world for a few years, now. it was a christmas present. well, she offered me national geographic - and i do legitimately like to read up on science - but i requested the guitar world because i thought i'd get more out of it. so, i had about fifty magazines to cut & paste into a collage to spread across the wall, which is now full of alternative rock icons.

in one corner of the room, there's a table with a luxman receiver connected to a tascam four-track that was borrowed from my dad's friend, larry. the tascam connects to a mixdown tape deck through the luxman. larry also left an acoustic guitar and an mxr phaser down here. he said he doesn't play van halen any more and the phaser is cheesy, otherwise. personally, i can't tell the difference between his phaser and the flanger in my multi-effects unit but i'm told there's an engineering difference in the effects.

as for my guitar setup, i really have everything i need to record in a small space. i'm on my second guitar, now, which is an entry level ibanez with a locking bridge. i moved up a little while back from your standard piece of shit hondo. the ibanez has a three-way selector switch and a very clean signal, which are things that i like, but there's also a knot in the neck that was lacquered over at the store and has become somewhat of a splinter hazard. there's some fret wear, too. believe it or not, sometimes the problems with the guitar make me miss my old hondo! but, the important thing is that it sounds good through the signal path, which is into a zoom 1010 multieffects unit and out into a cheri practice amplifier. the amp came with my first guitar, whereas i purchased the multieffects unit in 1995 with combined christmas money.

there is an electric bass on the table behind the recording devices. there are no speakers in the room, but there is a pair of sennheiser 440-II headphones. dad said they're awesome headphones and i should 'baby' them so they last. there are two microphones in this room, connected to sponges to deaden the sound. and, there is for real a drum kit in the other corner of the room along with a selection of sticks and a pair of brushes. the space in between is very cramped - we could fit at most two adults in here, and at most four kids. nor is there any ventilation (as it was designed to be sound proof), so it gets very hot with the equipment, very fast. i'll admit that i've overheated and had to leave the room a couple of times...

so, i've been down here all night playing guitar for most of the month. sometimes i'm practicing other people's music, and sometimes i'm playing my own. while i haven't started to do any recording yet, because i want to wait to find people to play with, i've been mapping out a number of songs using a combination of tablature and notation on some left over loose leaf from last year. i have a lot of music already written, some of it going back to 1994. i even have some notes that i wrote back in 1994. it's all carefully organized in a binder, waiting to be actualized.

but, am i ever going to find anybody to jam with? what if i don't? i'm really seriously considering just starting to record by myself. then, maybe, i can teach the parts to other people, after. do you think that's a good idea?

i also picked up the new white zombie record, which is a remix record. i'm not a really big white zombie fan, but i do enjoy their other records and i reasoned that experimental remixes of white zombie songs would have to be really amazing to hear. so, i was hoping it would be a little more abstract, like those crazy nine inch nails remix records that i really like. on first listen, i found it to be too techno for me but it's grown on me a little and i think that it's really flat out demented qualities may prove it to be somewhat of a keeper, in the long run. what do you think?