ok, no. i need to maximize my opportunity. she's had a month minus a few days. i don't see any use in leaving it there an extra day.

so, i'll go on monday to see if it's done. if it is, great - maybe she wanted the weekend. if it's not, i'll have to take the forms and bring them with me on tuesday. and that'll be the stunt day.

i mean, at that point i'll have ruled out two of three possibilities, and the third will be remote.

so, it will really be an out-of-options decision.

the one thing i'll have to play by ear is if i go in there on tuesday and he decides he wants to set an appointment within a few days. but that seems unlikely. he's either going to fill the forms out or he isn't, at that point.

he might want to set an appointment for april, but that's too late.

you have to keep in mind that these people get paid by the half hour, right. so, it's like....even if they're not going to fill it out, it's worth their while to string me along.

which is basically what i think is really happening.

now, i guess if i go in on monday and she says something like "it will be done for sure by wednesday", i'll be kind of stuck. in that scenario, i guess i'll want to walk up to the odsp office and see if i can get a second set of forms.

actually, maybe i should do that anyways.

yeah.

ok. so, i'll go there first, and if i can get a second set of forms then i'll take that to the doctor on tuesday. you know, if i can get it filled out twice i can maybe take the best of the two, even.

but i can't wait longer than tuesday if neither comes back. regardless of what she says.

rip leonard nimoy

again: an important generation is entering it's twilight. spock was an awesome character, and he did it well. somehow, i don't quite think spock will ever truly die.

thoughts on the new screaming females record

sounds solid to me, i don't know what people are complaining about.

i'll suggest that the record sounds like there may have been some time spent away from jamming, in the sense that it's a bit more ordered. reviewers that have never written a song before generally tend to get this backwards by applying some kind of intelligent design theory to the ordering of sound. when it comes to this kind of rock music, "sloppy and messy" indicates that a lot of time was spent on it and "snappy and catchy" indicates that you're getting something a bit more raw. the reason is that the songs come out of the basic architecture of chords and riffs and grow and morph into big, sloppy messes. it essentially never works the other way around. this is really true of all music, but rock as an artform is especially inherently deconstructive, chaotic, unraveling...

it's normal for a band to release a disc or two like this over the course of their career. they work themselves into the discography and make a place for themselves. sometimes, they indicate a band is falling apart, but it's usually out of practical realities, and i don't get that impression, here.

the key thing about this band has always been that guitar tone, and there's really been no loss in it's crunch.

no call this week....

i'm just getting annoyed. i don't want to have to do this, but i feel as though i have no choice.

i have an appointment on tuesday (with a different doctor). i can't tell him what i'm planning because i need an element of surprise, so it's not really a factor. if i'm done this mix by monday, i'll do the suicide attempt then. otherwise, i'll give myself a few more days to get the mix done and go whenever it is - wednesday, thursday. it's just that if it goes wrong, i don't want a half done mix sitting here....

i *do* expect to be at least almost done by monday, so i'm looking at wednesday at the latest.

yeah, it's clicking. i'm back in "the zone" with this.

and, while i really, really want to do something regarding this guitar concerto idea, i'm realizing that trying to work a fuzz/sustain guitar solo into this mix is going to be difficult to the point of maybe being impossible. that may have to be left out of the final, and quarantined into it's own space.

there's just only so much sound that can exist in one space.

i mean, i'll get *something* in there. the beginning build up, for sure. but it may not be much more than that...

the final product is going to have something like 250 instruments worked into under 14 minutes.

so, yeah, it's coming up on two months. but i'm not slacking. it's just complicated.

by comparison, the last hybrid live/electronic piece i completed (in october) that took me this long (all of august and september) was only about 150 instruments over 19 minutes:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/to-spin-inside-dull-aberrations


when you consider that i've actually got several mixes of this thing, it's more like 1000 parts over the last two months. so i'm not slacking. dammit.

the biggest thing i have so far remains that first movement. i'm not going to count the tracks right now, but the source files take up 40 gb of space of audio. i'm guessing there's something like 500 tracks worked into these 18 minutes, a large amount of it in guitar overdubs.

^ that took two years to build. although i should add that i had a job at the time.

it's starting to come together a little - i've got some horns worked in - but the sound is a lot more saturated than i realized it was going to be, so this is going to be a fairly delicate operation, requiring a lot of weaving. i've got some space at the top, but i want to keep these orchestral sounds out of the way of the bass, which is actually bleeding pretty far into the mid range due to the heavy fuzz. it's just, like, way too much stuff. i've overextended this to a ridiculous extreme. i mean, i'm trying to mix 120 orchestra pieces into what is already a crowded space...

i'm toying with the idea of throwing a techno-orchestra mix up, but i'm not committing to it until i get to a transition mix. i mean, if i end up having to mix 90% of the orchestra out for the final, it will make sense, but i don't want to put up an extra mix for the sake of a lone oboe or something...

it's going to be just flat out ridiculous, though.

releasing inri002 in the alter-reality

so, i'm currently transitioning into inri003 in the alter-reality.

this is a "mix tape" composed of snippets from the first two demos. it didn't actually seriously exist until late 2013, but it's being dropped into the alter-reality for the summer of 1997. this is the only way to get the early material on a physical media; the first two demos are not, and never will be, for sale. mp3 only.

(to clarify: i was between 15 and 16 in these demos. a young 16, for the last of it. so, it's easy to understand why they're not for sale.)

but, this "mix tape" compilation of snippets *is* actually for sale because i can present it as worth listening to. it's what i'm presenting as my actual debut release, and unofficial 0th record. now, it's a quirky listen, to be sure - a lot of instrumental passages and weird guitar solos spliced together, often with little context. i'm a bit of a zappa fan; he did a number of records like this that were composed of just bits of sound, cut out from elsewhere. mike keneally followed up on this through the 90s. that's the thought process i had in compiling it then. but some listeners may be more familiar with this approach through flying lotus, or some of his influences. it ultimately goes back to varese, but it would be absurd for me to compare this to varese...

but, this is the path out of period 1.1. inri004 will go up in about two months, and usher in the synth pop phase. there won't be any further alter-reality updates until then.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled-a

most of the way through the week. ugh. i hope i get a call tomorrow or the next day.

i mean, i'm not going to just walk in and start popping pills. i'm going to need to get a response first. but unless it's "here. done." or "it'll be done tomorrow.", it's going to get messy...

like, for example, if she tries to give me the forms back? no. you said you'd fill them out. you've wasted my time. i don't have time to find somebody else. so, there are going to be consequences for that.

fucking weather. i really don't care if it's hot or cold, it'd just be nice if it could keep it steady so i'm not passing out...

i'm getting half a stomach ache. which is weird, considering that the reports are not indicating spring. but, it's a specific wrench. and my stomach is never wrong. i think what it's telling me is that the absurd cold is over, that this morning is the end of deep winter, if you will, and the beginning of a warm up to normal winter.

but we could be in for a pleasant surprise, too.

from what i can gather, it's a biological response to shifts in atmospheric pressure. i guess the high pressure could always come back. but when it gets like this, it really indicates seasonal shifts.

walls update

jessica
hi.

i've got a point form conclusion at the end. this'll be the last time i bug you about this. i just want to get my final conclusions across.

so, it looks like the worst of it is probably passed. i started off saying the walls were badly insulated, then backtracked a little when i plugged the doors and noticed a difference and am now going back to where i started, with the shift in tone to the unusual nature of the current extreme cold. they're not badly insulated relative to the expected climate, but they can't handle this weather, either..

it really seems to depend on what the temperature in the unheated part of the basement is. i think i tricked myself into thinking the walls were better insulated than they were; it seems like the temperature in the basement had risen, at the time, to something more reasonable, which slowed the heat flow out. so, it seemed well insulated when it was really just not a large enough temperature difference for serious leakage.

as the temperature has fallen over the last week and stayed low, the leakage has increased. it has reversed during brief warm-ups. i still think weatherproofing the doors are a good idea, but the temperature difference appears to be a basic, irresolvable problem from inside the unit. that is to say that this unit is heating the entire basement through convection, and so long as that is true and it is very cold then it will be expensive.

it wasn't quite as cold overnight tonight, and it was very stable around -16/-17, so i tried to turn the heat down a little. it took about four hours to go from being a little warm in here to feeling the cold radiating off the walls (which is actually the heat radiating out). so, the temperature outside is not the dominant factor in being able to reduce the heat. the basement temperature has to also increase before the unit temperature can come down.

it's a temperature *difference* thing, of course. if it wasn't so cold, there wouldn't be so much flow. judging from the fact that i didn't really have to turn the heat up until the temperature got below -20, i think that, under a normal winter, and with normal heat sources, ambient heating may even be sufficient. it's just that it's been so unusually cold...

i'm coming from ottawa, where it is often much colder than we've seen this year and last year. these are my first two years here. it seems badly insulated.....relative to what i'd expect for ottawa. and i'll say that if we start getting cold like we've seen the last two years here regularly, this is going to be structurally expensive. i'd argue that you'd have no real choice but to heat the unfinished part of the basement to a basic point (5, 10 degrees, something like that) in order to stop the flow out of here.

but, all factors considered, the walls seem to be able to keep the heat in so long as the temperature outside is not below -15 or so for a significant period of time. once it gets that cold, the walls leak hard - because the basement is unheated. heating the basement with a cheaper source would reverse the issue. but that seems to be rare here.

so, yeah - i started off saying the walls were badly insulated. it's more like they can't handle this weather, but are ok under regular circumstances.

so, final point form suggestions on ways to reduce leakage:

(1) there are big gaps in the doors, and blocking them helped a lot, so weather-proofing the doors would likely make a big difference.
(2) there appears to be a missing plastic strip around the outside of the bedrooms that would likely reduce a low-lying draft if replaced.
(3) the walls are unable to stop leakage when it is very cold, which is the result of a big temperature difference between the inside of the unit (heated) and the unfinished part of the basement (unheated). this appears to be structural, but (once the doors are blocked) is only noticeable when it is unusually cold.

the landlord
I am working on putting a new furnace into the unit next to Paul's unit. I have dropped the temp in that unit since it is vacant and this also affecting the temperature in the basement below. Hopefully within 7 days we will have the new furnace heating with cheaper heat that I can afford. I plan to put a new front and back door with good seals when I can. If you are cold let me know and I will jack the heat up in the unit above the open basement. Please be patient, money and time are available at a slower pace. I have one vacancy also.

jessica
i'm not cold, i'm just trying to get you information regarding the unit from inside of it.

the landlord
Thanks

some new cover art...

the inside of an abandoned mall somewhere in the rust belt.

american ruins.

this is some fun in photoshop (not my creation).

i think it speaks for itself.

i need to stop giving etas. i slept a lot over the last few days - shifts in the weather tend to make me drowsy, and we're warming up a bit. temporarily. i'll get sleepy when it gets cold again, too. soonish....

for me, the best climate would be stable around 20 degrees. vancouver. seattle. portland. england. something like that.

this is the important week, coming up. the doctor has the papers. by next monday (march 1st), i will either have them completed and ready to mail or i will be forced to generate a crisis. there's no further adjustments or wait-and-sees, it's time for action.

given that i'm planning around a suicide attempt over the next few weeks, it may seem like a weird time to quit smoking. but it's just been far too cold out; bundling up for that kind of weather every hour or two just hasn't been appealing. so, i'm actually at two weeks now. and it seems like it might legitimately hold, this time. the in and out has really lost it's appeal...

we'll see if that changes when the weather warms up. but, for now, i prefer my warm blanket and don't foresee any forthcoming desire to work the constant trips outdoor back into my daily routine.

i'm an adding an extra mix to the single, which will make the disc flow a little better (by alternating live and canned mixes) and take it up almost to 80 minutes, further justifying the two-cd set. it's going to be the complete mix, but without added lead parts, meaning it will combine all the pre-existing sound before it's converted into a concerto. i'm thinking it should be up in the next 12 hours or so.

my ears can be so remarkably sensitive at times. i've spent the last two days neuroticizing over a 1 db treble boost, and setting all kinds of playback levels and latency settings to be sure about it....

i think i've mentioned before that the songs only sound ideal in a minimal volume range, which is generally very loud. i've just resigned myself to this. i mean, the reality is that reproduction is so impossible to control that freaking out over a treble roll is just absolutely absurd. people are going to be listening to it on everything from the beats eq to fucking dolby noise reduction, and it's all going to completely negate my production decisions. i can't even tell you to listen to it flat, really, because the response out of the amp or pc speakers (or, god forbid, cell phone. seriously. don't do that. i'll track you down, take that cell phone out of your hands and beat you over the head with it. never. ever. not my shit, anyways. at least find some phones...) or whatever you're listening to it on is almost certainly not flat relative to my signal.

there's things that mastering companies can do to kind of stabilize it. i don't seriously have access to that kind of equipment. i can fake it with some plugins, but it's not seriously comparable. and, there's a problem with this, regardless - it's a generic gloss. you'd probably want to film me reacting to somebody else trying to master my material, because i'd likely just snap. i'm far too much of a control freak. in fact, i probably wouldn't even let it happen. i'd have to be sitting there in the room, and it's going to take a handful of engineers because i'm going to end up murdering the first few....

for right now, the compression i'm using is very responsive to shifts in volume. so, even when i control for gear, i need to hit that sweet spot to really get what i want. and this isn't the first time i've thrown myself for a loop in losing that sweet spot, then needed to spend a day or two reapproximating it...

you want to talk about the future of music? brain waves. fuck the gear. just let me send you raw math that you can download directly into your skull. it's the only end solution possible to get around it. and fucking bob ludwig can fuck off.

i'd much rather be hated and despised than loved or admired. love is mostly an illusion, driven by the false projection of idealized fantasies on to reality. love is solipsism. but hate is a real reaction, a legitimate interaction in objective existence.

i've been scatter-brained the last few days around this mess with my disability, but i think i've got a basic tone down. i'm actually a little bit stoked at the moment, and feeling a bit of extra drive...

the sad truth is that this was the second highest selling single in the us in the 60s. the only thing that outsold it was i want to hold your hand. and while it's depressing that that tune is the biggest beatles hit, it's even more distressing that this outsold all the anti-war music. by leaps and bounds.

the 60s, as they have been sold to younger listeners, are mostly a lie. the beatles were very popular. but you need to go way, way down the list to get to dylan or mitchell or anything else with any kind of social conscience. the reality is that it was a fringe counter-culture.

but, you've probably never heard of this before, have you? the counter-culture was fringe then, but it became dominant because the fringe had the balls (with all due respect to the women involved) to stand up against the market and wave it's freak flag high. now, the 60s mainstream is lost in obscurity. you wouldn't recognize more than half of the most popular songs of the era, but you'd recognize all kinds of stuff that didn't sell at all.

people complain that the market doesn't respond to a counter-culture anymore. but it never did. building a counter-culture is not a profitable business venture. if it sees a financial reward at all, it's not going to happen for years or decades. it's about changing attitudes.

i got the impression that the doctor i saw today was finally taking me seriously. if i'm making progress, i'd rather play the process out than freak out. it's just that i'm running out of time.

i've set a mental deadline for the first. i have an appointment on the 3rd. if i get the papers in time, great. if not, the third is the proper opportunity....

i'm essentially certain at this point that i will be overdosing on aspirin at the windsor city health centre on the afternoon of february 17th. i do not expect the doctor i am going to see to take me seriously, and, as such, i expect this to be a necessary step. in order to pre-empt any malpractice by the staff there, and ensure they are held liable for criminal negligence should it occur, i would like to clarify a few facts about what is going to happen before it happens.

1) i will not be armed with any sort of weapon, and do not plan on harming anybody except for myself. should reports surface that i was armed, these reports should be understood as false.
2) i will not consume any aspirin before i enter the center.
3) i will inform medical professionals that i am about to consume the aspirin before i consume it.

2&3 together will provide ample time for an ambulance to arrive. should the ambulance not arrive, or should it arrive too late, the only conclusion will be criminal negligence, and i will expect that the relevant staff be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

4) my goals tomorrow are not to kill myself, but merely to draw attention to the high level of incompetency in the psychiatrists that i'm dealing with. i've spoken to several, and they all believe i am bluffing when i claim i am suicidal. but, i am not bluffing. the fact that i am not bluffing is the key point i need to get across. if there are professional consequences for gross incompetence in misdiagnosis, i believe they are appropriately enforced, in context. but the important point is that i'm able to get to a doctor that understands that i am not bluffing.

abstractly, i am reversing the work or die ultimatum that the market places on all of us and directing it at the doctors. they have the choice to diagnose or be held liable for the consequences. and, i'm a smart, and creative person - i can ensure that there are dramatic consequences.

the severity of these stunts will increase until the papers are filled out. i will broadcast certain aspects of the stunt before they occur, but not so much as would prevent them.

the one thing i want to make clear is that i have no intention of harming anybody else directly, through physical means.

however, the threat to myself will increase with each stunt as the necessity of diagnosis becomes increasingly clear and the liability for the doctors becomes increasingly dramatic.

i want to be clear that the only acceptable outcomes from my perspective are getting the papers signed or committing suicide; there is no third option.

so, this is all entirely preventable, if the right choice is made to fill out the papers.

no....no....i need to be disciplined in this....

everything i'm doing is way out of time, so it'll just be fitting when this comes up out of time. i've got a demo down, but i won't release it until it gets together in sequence.

i can say that it looks like i'm going to have enough material for a narrative driven release dated to 2015 or 2016, though.

yeah. i'm taking a break to do something a little simpler.

this could very well go down like a lead balloon, but i think it's kind of necessary right now.

if i'm not making people angry, i'm not doing this right. this recent wave of inoffensive, vanilla folk makes no sense to me. it's fucking elevator music. and it's the antithesis of what folk music is.

this is going to be electric folk, i don't really "do folk", but it's in intent a folk tune, and going to come with a bit of a divisive message. i'm pretty sure i'm right. even if i'm not, hopefully it makes people think a little....

it's going to be a little weird, though, because i can't number a 2015 release from 2002. so, it's going to be unavailable for sale. for a long time. maybe it's better that way.

i've been putting aside new ideas. i mean, i have several i've thought up since i moved down here, but they've been put in sequence. this is ultimately going to be put in sequence, too, in the sense that it's going to be shelved. but it's going to become irrelevant if i wait two, three years to do it.

i've been thinking recently that, when i get over this 2002 hump, the music moving forward is likely to be more conceptual. i'm kind of out of my instrumental rock phase, in the sense that i think i'm coming up on completing everything i could do in the genre - i've made all the statements i want to make. which is tied into the sense of closure i'm attaching to the end of the discography. i expect releases dated after 2006 to be almost entirely conceptual. and releases dated after 2013 to actually be mostly literary.

i think this is an intersection that all modern musicians get to in their lives because the nature of modern music is so deeply juvenile. the last few generations have been struggling with this as they've entered their mid 30s, and especially into their 40s. i have the benefit of learning from those errors a little and getting out in front of it. there's no use in hanging on to the past. you will suck if you try that. you must grow up..

there's a long way to go before that's relevant. right now i'm just focusing on this track as a throwaway. i'd expect it will eventually end up in a single dated to february, 2015. but i can't tell if it's inri070, inri110 or anywhere else in between there.

it's amazing how easy it is to lose a week for no apparent reason. lol.

i've been playing with a bit of a jokey folk song, but it's a conceptual thing and i'm not sure about releasing it, yet. this would be something brand new, which i'm supposed to be putting aside for the moment. but i'm toying with jumping the queue...

i'll have a clearer sense of what's happening with my life on tuesday, although i'm not expecting any kind of reactionary measures until the first. what i will say is that if i don't get this thing moving, i may have to jump forwards significantly. i'm very overdue on it, and it's kind of screwing up a lot of things.

i suppose it's just more proof that nothing's ever really going to get me to give a fuck. i mean, i'm looking at a mountain of work to complete before a near certain suicide attempt within weeks and i can barely get the energy to get off youtube. that's not even slacking, really, it's just honestly not caring.

it's not like i haven't done anything with this. i've got four polished mixes over the last two months. that's really not bad. if i didn't have a surplus of ideas, i'd be done already, really.

i think it's also partially that what i'm about to embark on in finalizing this is flatly quite challenging. i mean, this is going to be some fairly advanced guitar work. and, i don't mean in the lamer scale-running shredder sense. that would be easy. i need the result to be more developed and more expressive than that.

which means i need to find the right tone, to begin with, which could itself take a week. i'll make decisions when i get back on tuesday. for now, i need to actually get some work done over the next 36 hours...

uploading untitled (orchestral mix) to youtube

i don't want to put you off too much with the description "orchestral mix". i think the general revulsion to orchestral music that exists today is half the result of "classical music" being terrible for much of the last century and half the result of the average person nowadays being borderline clinically retarded, and having the attention span of a squirrel; most people probably won't read this far into the comment, sadly enough. the tune is in an overture style, which is usually as close as orchestral music gets to being "popular music". it was initially written as an alternative rock song (with proggy/jazzy touches), converted into a techno song (both in 2002) and then converted into an overture (in 2015). so, it's structured in a way that makes it not entirely alien to pop music. further, the instruments were played by a computer, so it retains the feel of electronic music. it's really not that scary. give it a try with headphones....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spsIaRkKM9I&feature=autoshare

well, ok, it doesn't make sense for me to have a link on the front of the page that doesn't go anywhere. so, this is back to being public. but that also means i'll be more careful about putting the stubs up. it's falling in a transition period.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/untitled

it took me a few days to get my head around this, but it's starting to take some shape, now. i often get too many ideas at once and need to kind of relax before i'm able to make up a plan that can get them all out in a way that makes sense.

so, i'm just about done the introductory collage. i'll be doing some live guitar parts tonight, and then that will be that. i'll then be able to take that and mix it in, which will finalize the first third of the track. the next step will be to mix in the various sequenced parts. this is going to be both heavy and crucial, as we're talking about roughly a hundred parts mixed into a handful of buses and carefully sprinkled over something that's already pretty full. i'll then need to do a number of highly kinetic guitar parts to finish the final mix. the last thing i'm going to do is take those guitar solos and work them into the orchestral version, along with any necessary overdubs, to produce the guitar concerto.

i think i can reasonably get the mix ready for the lead sections by the end of the weekend, and maybe even start laying them down. but that's going to be a lengthy process. i'm moving the eta on this to mar 1.

the closest i've done to something like this is the first movement of proverbs, which i'm also willing to call a guitar concerto. but, this is going to be a bit more ordered. and it actually took two years to complete. this is already 90% of the way there, so it won't be nearly that long, but getting the exact notes is going to take a few takes.....

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/first-movement

grargh...

i need to clarify a point, because i'm working against something that is so engrained that it's considered almost crazy to even question it.

if you're a younger person listening to this, i don't want to alienate you or anything. i had diverse tastes when i was younger. there were plenty of artists i enjoyed that had a mean listening base at least a decade older than i was at the time, and it didn't really bother me. what bothered me was that so few people my age had any interest in it, or seemed to stigmatize it as "old". i never really understood that, and it just struck me as immature. so, if you can see through that kind of bullshit then good for you - and i can legitimately relate, too.

but i need to be clear that i'm not a young person, and i don't write music for young people. i'd imagine the proper listening demographic ought to be gender and race neutral, but decidedly middle-aged. it's targeted towards people in their 40s and 50s.

it's partly a reflection of the culture, but it's more of a reflection of me. now, it took me years and years to become cognizant of this; i don't want to present it as something that's been obvious from the start, because it isn't. but the reality is that it wouldn't have ever made any sense for me to write for young people, because i've never understood young people. i suppose artists are often isolated people, but i take the stereotype to a different extreme. how can i write for people i can't converse with? that makes no sense. i've never asked anybody on a date before in my life. i've usually had either zero or one close friend in my life at a time - and usually zero. so, how can i write about experiences i've never had, to a generation i've never interacted with? but, i've grown up listening to music written by people that are today in their 50s and 60s. so, i've had some communication [even if it's one-way] with the older generation. i've had essentially no communication with the younger generation.

it happens to be that the younger generation(s) have not defined themselves as artistically inclined. i think this has to do with the economic circumstances that have asserted themselves since 1980, and became devastatingly retarding in the 1990s. but, that's not the point. i'm not clinging to an older demographic out of a perceived decrease in quality - although i do perceive that decrease in quality. i'm clinging to the older demographic out of an inability to relate to people my own age, and to people younger.

so, i run into these suggestions of a more sexualized presentation to appeal to a younger demographic, and it's just, like "this is not the reality i live in". i don't want to present a judgement. it's just not how i perceive the art being disseminated. i want tips on how to appeal to an older demographic that has moved on past their breeding years.

or, the question of acting as a role model. i'm side-stepping this; this is not music for children but music for grandparents, so it's just not a meaningful question.

</rant>

i sort of mentally skipped my young adult phase. i was 15 going on 12, and then i was 17 going on 37 and 25 going on 55 and 30 going on 80. one would have to expect a person that matures like that to live a bizarre life, and i have.

the point is that i'm explicitly trying to not appeal to a young audience, which is so unusual in the industry today that it's incomprehensible. to understand certain things, you have to understand that.

but it's maybe something else that we ought to expect the collapse of the market to bring forward. young people have historically paid the most out. that's probably not true anymore, and becoming less true every year.

untitled (slow mix)

the slow mix is up...

this is a slower, "ambient" version of the track. mix finalized on feb 10, 2015. 

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/untitled-slow-mix


the final mix is next, followed by the guitar concerto, which is starting to gain some more shape.

i was hoping to have this done by the end of december. it's currently seeming more like an end of february thing :/. but it takes how long it takes...

i've made a change, here.

i've been uploading things as i'm done them, and having it update here via rss. so, anybody can hear things the minute they're finished. now, the reality is that none of you are listening to any of it anyways...

...but i've changed this so that uploads are subscriber only until the release is finalized. so, for example, i'm working on this untitled techno tune right now. i've got two more mixes left, i think. there's currently nine mixes up. at the moment, only bandcamp subscribers can access those nine mixes. when i finish the release and publish it, it will be fully accessible for streaming (and purchase) by the general public.

it appears that the rss feed will stop updating these, so i'll have to post them manually. what that means is that i'll be posting a lot of links you won't have access to unless you subscribe. but, eventually, everything will be accessible....

a little taste of the *actual* future of the music industry.

putting the price through the roof like this provides a strong disincentive for file-sharing. also, if file sharing does end up happening, it ensures that the few people that are actually paying are making up for the lost revenue. that's how markets work, and how it's gotta be if people want to just steal shit...

the result is going to be less sales, but a higher price attached to the dwindling sales. and, you're going to see other things happen as a result of that. artists are going to stop focusing on marketing to the masses and start focusing on marketing to the upper middle classes. this should have a positive effect on the quality of the music, but will likely come at a price of social consciousness. that's a balance we're going to need to grapple with.

the reality is that if there is no market in the masses, there will not be a product produced for them. the idea that a decrease in demand will lead to a sustained increase in supply is incoherent. if demand for popular music falls, musicians will seek out other career opportunities. you can't build an industry on the capitalization of pipe dreams.

so, i'm getting enough to work with that i've decided that there will, in fact, be a "slow mix". day or two on the eta.

i ended up losing the better part of the last two days to cleaning. i'm back at it today. hopefully, i'm able to tie up these loose ends relatively quickly...

suggestions to save on heating

jessica
hi.

i want to be clear that these are ideas to save on heating, not requests for maintenance. i've been here long enough to draw some conclusions.

the way i see it is that the basement is designed in such a way that it doesn't really matter what the source of the heating is, it's going to be high. about 70% of the basement is unheated, and the insulation is incomplete. so, there's going to be tremendous heat loss unless the unit is better insulated. i'm not talking about the windows, i'm just talking about the walls bordering the unheated areas. if it's -10 outside the walls, and there's cracks under the walls, that's just going to leak and leak and leak, whether you put a furnace in here or not.

so, insulating the walls (and the place where the walls hit the floors) would be the first thing i'd do if i wanted to cut heating costs down here.

second, i might want to look at putting stops on the doors, as well. for the back door, it's just constant leakage. again: if it's -10 outside the door, and there's a 2 inch crack under the door, changing the source of the heating isn't really going to be the factor that makes the big difference in costs. it's blocking the drafts. with the front door, there's nothing to separate the cold coming in through the entrance, so it's going to suck the heat out as well. it's not realistic to put an extra door in, but putting a seal on the front door would probably also be huge.

third, it might be worth your while to run a vent from the furnace into the currently unheated part of the basement. that would both reduce costs fighting the draft into here and reduce costs fighting the draft into upstairs, and any stacking moving the air up [which i'm sure must exist].

i've had to turn the heat up a little, as the air in the unfinished part of the basement has plummeted. if the insulation through the walls was better, i'd be able to keep it at a lower level...

the landlord
Thanks, I am concerned as you are....I will considered your suggestions and will act on these as soon as I can with timing and financial recourses. Right now I am  not able to act on doors until spring. I want to put new doors. Just keep warm the best you can. I will talk to you when I come by.

jessica
as i'm sure you know, it's going to get freezing this week.

i've crammed some towels in the cracks around the doors. it's obviously not as good as a rubber seal (and that back door is especially, like, *not* meant to keep out drafts), but i think it's at least a good experiment to try to see if it really helps or not. logic suggests that if you can feel a draft through a 2 inch crack up two sides of the door then obstructing it any way at all should make at least some difference. that said, i don't think towels are exactly the best at trapping heat, either. but i'll let you know if it actually keeps the heat in a little better; if it makes no difference, that indicates it's really dominantly a wall issue.

basically, i think this place was constructed with the assumption that the basement would be heated. just consider the walk back to the fuse box. that's a perfect sink for cold air, right. the only way it makes any sense to put a half-insulated wall right there with a bedroom on the other side is if it's taken for granted that the heat is on in the whole complex. otherwise, it's just a structural nightmare: the unit is heating a cold air sink.

so, let's hope the towels make a noticeable difference and the doors can consequently provide a noticeable decrease in cost.

(pause)

hi.

i don't want to bug you about this too much, i just want to update on the effects after blocking the doors and turning the heat up a little.

it seems to hold the heat in pretty well just about everywhere except the second bedroom, so i think putting weather stripping around those doors is a very good idea.

the second room has ceramic baseboards, and the first room has wood baseboards. the walls are about the same temperature in both rooms, so i think the walls are probably ok but that the baseboards in the second room are leaking. now, i don't want to jump to conclusions about conductivity because i think the situation is complicated by various factors, i just want to point out three observations:

1) the wood baseboards are closer to the ground and forming a better seal. so, it seems like they're doing what they're supposed to, while the ceramic ones are not.
2) the ceramic baseboards in that room are much, much colder than they are around the foundation. that is, the ceramic baseboards in the second bedroom are very cold whereas the ceramic baseboards in the kitchen are not so cold. so, there's exposure, there.
3) if you look around the basement, you'll notice that most of the walls have these black, plastic stoppers around them that form a seal to the ground. that black plastic is missing on that wall. it's just paint.

i'd have to *guess* that the cold ceramic is a symptom rather than a cause, and that the causes of the draft are the missing plastic around the outside and the incomplete seal on the inside.

it's of course going to be a lot easier to run some plastic around the wall on the outside than to replace the baseboards, so i'm just pointing that out as a possible approach.

other than that, i think the weatherstripping on the doors is the key good idea, and that the walls themselves are actually not particularly drafty, excepting the cold air moving in under the walls on the far side.

concerned about lack of response

To: infocchc <infocchc@cmha-wecb.on.ca>

jessica
hello.

i need a way to get access to the windsor city health center to confirm an appointment on feb 17th. i do not have access to a phone. can you confirm that i can get access through this address, or deny it?

the only other way i could contact the center is to walk, but it is a lengthy walk and it is very cold out.

cmha
You had an appointment Fe b 2nd but it was a snow day centre was closed. No future appointment was made with the nurse. You have an appointment With the doctor on the 17th of Feb.

jessica
thank you, that's what i needed confirmed. i didn't know if the centre was closed (although guessed it was) and didn't want you to think that being unable to make it on the 2nd cancelled the appointment on the 17th.

i don't have a phone number, but i have a voice mail box. i just don't carry the number around with me and never remember it. contacting me can either be done via this email address or via this voice box, which sends a text message to this email address.

i'm not really feeling this ambient workthrough, either. the piece is a little too structured for it; i've had to cut the tempo in half, which defeats the point (building backing tracks for the final mix). and, to be honest, i'm not sure how i could work even more sound into this, anyways; as it is, i've got something like 250 tracks to work with in the mix down, and most of them are never going to make it there.

i don't want to just do it for the sake of doing it. i was mostly focusing on the intro, and it's created a contradiction: i need to slow it down considerably to kill the energy in the "bass", but that also means i'm killing the energy in the "guitar", which is what was driving me to do the mix in the first place.

that means i'm more or less going to have to restructure it, but then i'm forcing it, which rarely works out well. and wasn't what i intended.

i haven't abandoned it yet, but i do think that this is the likely outcome at this point.

yeah. i think the right approach is to do this last.

the ideas my brain is giving me seem better suited for the techno version. so, if i do that first, it will open more space to think lyrically.

that means i'm moving to the ambient/synth mix, next.

i'm having second thoughts on that guitar concerto....

as i was mixing it, isolated pockets jumped out at me as good places for acrobatic licks. i thought to myself, "i should go to town with this.". but, i'm not hearing a good way to tie it together.

i want to avoid overdubbing a "boxy" solo. there's certainly enough going on in the track already. so, i want this to be free and expressive, rather than based on repetition. the track is already based heavily on repetition...

the way i write for lead guitar nowadays mostly involves listening. i'll put the piece on repeat for hours, allowing thoughts to coalesce in my mind. then, i'll go about the process of converting what i'm thinking into a playable part.

i spent most of yesterday listening, and my brain is just throwing boxy patterns and sort of cliched lines at me. it was those cliched lines that jumped out at me, and that i think could be used to good effect. but, they need some flow to make it worthwhile, and i'm convincing myself that the piece doesn't really have the space for it. it's less that it's a mechanical techno song and more that it's just already full of notes and colours on those notes.

i'm going to listen some more this morning, and will make a decision around when the sun comes up. i need to clean this morning, i'm past due. if it doesn't come to me clearly, i may turn to trying to write it out as somewhat of an aid.

but, i don't see the use in just piling on flashy riffs. if i don't get some more lyrical phrasing (or at least a semblance of it) in the next few hours, i'm going to put it aside. i may revisit it, though, before the single is closed. it's an idea that i want to work. i'm just not entirely confident that it's going to...

untitled (orchestral mix)

i wanted some orchestral textures in the final mix, so i started playing around with some midi files and decided to do a full blown orchestral version. mix finalized on feb 7, 2015.

--

i just finished this orchestral piece. but it's going to be an even longer wait for the next video, because i've decided i must work this into a zappa/keneally style guitar concerto. i'll then take those guitar parts and put them into the final mix. but it pushes it back at least another week.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/untitled-orchestral-mix

the orchestral mix is uploading; the rss will update.

i've decided i absolutely have to turn this into a guitar concerto, as well. so, that's the next mix that's coming up: the orchestral mix with a guitar solo over it.

i think the guitar concerto calls for a specific influence from mike keneally...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stiRLvlGIaI

stunning record, btw. highly recommended.

creating a bandcamp subscription service

so, this is the way i'm doing this...

if you want to buy a specific thing, buy a specific thing. i'll make a few bucks off of it.

but if you want to pay my rent, i'll take that too :)

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/subscribe

yeah, i'm fishing for big donors.

listen. i consider what i do to be significant art. $800 for a painting is pretty cheap. $800 for 100 paintings is practically giving it away.

i think that that may be one of the longer term changes in the collapse of the music industry. that's how this used to work before it was commodified: artists had to rely on donors.

does that open me up to suggestions? well, i dunno. pay my rent, and maybe we can talk about it.

but, music can't be free. musicians have bills to pay. so, we can either all pay a little, or the wealthy can pay a lot. and the latter is likely to lead to a deficit of access, if it takes off.

i don't have any plans to take down the per-album purchases. but if things continue as they are, we may have little choice but to look for wealthy donors and tell the masses to fuck off.

bandcamp just set up a subscriber service...

well, there's (almost) fifty of you. i think a couple of you have bought a few things. you tell me: would you pay for a subscription service?

my concern with this is that i plan on releasing a very large amount of music in the next 12 months, as i push through the discography. i know i'm behind schedule, but i'm on the cusp of a very fast string of releases. but the fact that i'm behind schedule is kind of what i'm getting at. if i assume 25 releases over the next year at an average of $4 a release, that's $100. now, what if i only finish ten? see, then i'm ripping people off. and, what if i get more than that done?

if i was in a more conventional circumstance where i expect to release a record and a single or two every 12-15 months then i'd see the option as worthwhile. as it is, i'm uncomfortable with the uncertainty.

i already have a "pay more" option that provides the ability to send me cash if you want to send me cash. btw, feel free to send me cash if you'd like. i don't push the point, i want you to enjoy the music, but i could certainly use it.

you tell me though: would you put money down up front for what could be hours of music? i'm not going to tell you to wait, if you'd like to do it right now :)

the more i think about this....

...would i pay this down? no. well, there's maybe an artist or two i might put it down for. but, that would be the extreme exception.

i like the idea of having the kickstarter-type option, though. i'll think about this later...

actually, i'm going to sleep on this. lol. as soon as i wake up...

i'm hungry. but it's done. i just need a final pass after lunch. expect the rss to update within a few hours.

for real this time.

i think the ambient version should come through comparatively quickly. a day or two. then the payoff comes in tying it together, and finishing it off...

i'm still alive. i really think this ought to be done by the next sleep. really. seriously.

it's close. and i've got a while before sleep, still.

this melodic line is eating so much of my time. it's the same line i spent two weeks on for the first vst mix, comparing guitar synth outs for. and i suspect it's going to be messy when i get to the ambient mix, too. then, when i mix the final i'm going to have fifty parts to squeeze into thirty seconds...

i'm stuck between a pizzicato string part, a harp part and a full string section. and i'm considering just blowing it up for a simple vibraphone line. but the point is that it's supposed to be overblown, so i want these intersecting strings and horns.

so, i've got lots of hair to pull out, but i expect this to be done in a few hours.

when it clicks, i'll know it.

this is something composers could really not do until recently, swapping parts in and out like this.

you have to think beethoven was just like "this is going to be a harp" and that was the end of it.

did he ever write anything for harp? never mind, back to work....

reacting to a criticism of the time machine

"this sounds like it was done in fruity loops."

lol. those are live guitars. also, the drum machine work is highly geeky. while a passive observer might hear a warp records influence, it's actually very influenced by phil collins. it was scored out linearly in classical drum notation...

i haven't worked much with fruity loops, but i think it would have difficulty producing a detailed, scored piece like this. the time signatures are shifting all over the place.

fwiw, the first part was written in noteworthy composer (which is an ancient scorewriter, sort of like finale) and sent to vst in cubase. the second and third parts were constructed in a wave editor out of heavily cut and processed samples from the first part.

sigh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuJ0sP57ywU

i keep saying this is almost done, and it keeps not getting done.

i've got a temporary mix uploading to the scratchpad. it's close, but still a ways away - i really just have to convince myself of some levels, and mix in the orchestrated jazz guitars that transition the track. well, it's not going to be guitars, it's going to be cut up strings and horns. there's no guitars in this mix, but i'll be using aspects of it in the final mix (which has lots of guitars).

i'm uploading it now because there's a possibility that my appointment today may not end well and i think i should get up what i've got done.

as always: comments or suggestions are encouraged, but expect me to ignore you.

it just takes a long time to mix, like, oboes and flutes and stuff. instruments come up and out of the mix. i mean, it's a hundred fucking pieces, here, i'm not slacking it's just that thick....

i'm sorry, but the reality is that your 80s metal guitar gods were really mostly second rate players and musical hacks that couldn't pass a first-year theory test - and you should have realized that a long time ago, unless you're equally clueless. the best of the bunch was john petrucci.

genres. pfft.

you know why the beatles were so awesome in the second half of their career? because every new piece they created defined a new genre. even the pieces that weren't really influential exist in their own space, just waiting to spawn something.

this has never really been replicated. not at that level, anyways. but it's not like it's impossible to replicate. sure, they had unlimited resources, and it helps. but we're in a technological space now where virtually anybody has possibilities that far exceed what they had, if you're willing to use technology to sub in for the orchestras. anybody can plug a moog into a vsti, and there's forty years of new synths to plug in on top of it.

if there's one thing i could say i aspire to, i think it's that. i don't want to exist in a genre. it helps with marketing, sure, to package something that fits a set of cliches. but fuck that. i want every piece i write to define a new genre, to exist in a unique space.

i hope i've been moderately successful at this. at the least, it's what i think the narrative ought to be, one day. "blender rock". sure, but it's out of the necessity to box something i don't want to box.

the most interesting genres are the ones that don't exist yet.

if you can create ONE genre nowadays, you're considered brilliant. but this is a contradiction relative to what we have in front of us. the task of a creative mind in this endless array of creative possibilities must be to take advantage of it. i'm not going on a marxist rant about contradictions in capitalism.

but, a record like sgt. peppers that spawns a dozen genres is just unheard of. that's what a younger set of ears is going to hear: how absurdly diverse those records are. it's like almost outside the realm of what they're expected to even contemplate.

ok, i think i'm done the arrangement, excluding minor tweaks. it's huge, though (more than 100 pieces), and is going to take some to mix. part of that is going to be isolating certain sections...

i had to scrap a few things that were there, which cost me some days, but i'm thinking either this sleep or the next is pretty much certain.

contrabass (15)
violin (14)
viola (14)
cello (14)
french horn (9)
flute (8)
trombone (7)
trumpet (7)
english horn (6)
oboe (6)
bassoon (4)
clarinet (3)
piccolo (2)
timpani (2)
harp
koto
agogo
melodic toms
tubular bells
glockenspiel
piano
music box
orchestral drum set
+ choir

so, that's 120 + choir. 200 people?

it's a little exaggerated. some of the parts could be played by the same person, but the score isn't acknowledging it. it's not written to maximize people in that way.

but it's not likely to go down too far. you're not squeezing this under 100, with the choir.

"so, why don't you ever play shows, j?"

i know, i know, i could rearrange it for one person. but that doesn't sound like a lot of fun, to me. i'd rather sit in my room by myself and orchestrate things to ridiculous extremes than cut them down to hobble together something for the sake of it being "live".

i'm sorry if you'd like me to see it differently, but i don't.

i'm aware that it's been a while since i posted a new tune - about a month and a half, and it's going to be another week at minimum before the track i'm working on comes up.

i have a few excuses, but the short answer is that the track i'm working on has turned out to be sort of complicated to mix. i'm working almost entirely with existing sound. it's really the mixing that's been very slow.

that being said, i've actually got more than enough material cobbled together to complete the ep, it's just the final mix that's a ways off. there will be an orchestral mix up here within hours, followed by a synthesizer/ambient mix in the next few days. i'll then have to take those dozen mixes put together over thirteen years and finally mix them down into a final mix - while adding some final touches in the guitar work.

so, something is coming, and it's actually going to be pretty gigantic for it's 14 minute frame. in the mean time, you can try and digest some of it's constituent parts by checking out what's done, up to now, of the associated ep.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/untitled

missed the appointment today..

To: infocchc@cmha-wecb.on.ca

hi.

my legal name is jason parent, but i go by jessica parent or jessica murray. i refuse to pay extra for a phone on top of the internet; i consider this to be an unnecessary and frankly obsolete expense in the internet era.

i had an appointment today at 11:00 am with the nurse. i intended to make this appointment, but fell asleep around 8:00 am and have only just woken up now. my normal sleeping pattern is to fall asleep early in the morning; i was trying to pull an all-nighter to make the appointment at 11:00 and unfortunately failed to do so. so, i apologize for not informing you, but it wasn't intended.

now, i suspect that the nurse was unable to appear today due to the weather. that is, i suspect that my appointment was cancelled, anyways.

i have an appointment with a doctor on the 17th. i'd just like to reiterate that i have every intention to get to that appointment. further, if the nurse would like to reschedule the "check-up" that was scheduled for today, my schedule is truly wide open.

i'm not certain that this is going to reach the proper audience and would appreciate some acknowledgement that it has or can not.

jessica

rip edgar froese

a large and influential generation is entering it's twilight. the whole world will be different soon....

i feel this is the best place to post this...

if i actually end up killing myself over the next few weeks, please note the following requests/instructions.

- NO RELIGIOUS CEREMONY. this is extremely important to me. no superstitions in disguise, either. the best way to ensure that you avoid all religion is to just not have a ceremony at all.

- so, no ceremony at all, please.

- i do not want a gravestone or any other physical memorial.

- i don't care what happens to my belongings.

- i would prefer to be composted. if this is not possible, or too expensive, then cremation is the second best option. if it's cheaper to just toss me on some logs, and cook some marshmellows on me then i'd prefer that option; there's no use in supporting the cemetary-industrial complex. no, seriously, just find a cheap way to burn me, i don't give a fuck as long as there's no markings...

- i don't want to be left in an urn or something. not because i particularly care about what happens to the ashes, but because i want all physical memory of me to be abolished.

- i would request that my internet presence not be disturbed. should it look like suicide is imminent, i will contact somebody regarding this.

============

these are all longterm goals, anyways. i suppose it's useful that they exist somewhere.

it's easy to understand why i don't really care about the details. the key points are:

(1) no religion
(2) no physical place of remembrance
(3) i would like to be recycled as effectively as is cost-efficient.
(4) my online presence must remain undisturbed.