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.