catching the bus up woodward to see guerilla toss at the old marble bar

the backstory for this evening was mostly related to the question of whether getting to this bar and back, through a part of detroit i'd yet to enter, could be done safely. in the end, i believe i was overly cautious: the bar is perhaps on the edge of scary-town, but it's also a block from campus. it may take a few trips for my nerves to calm, but i do not believe that i am putting myself in any danger by going to this venue, so long as i do not stray too far in the other direction. that said, i would obviously prefer to go to other bars to see shows...

===

the first act consisted of a woman playing guitar. it wasn't very interesting. if it was trying to be atmospheric or ambient, it wasn't; if it was trying to be technical, it wasn't, either (at all). it was actually to the point where a little bit more proficiency could have helped it succeed in being better, as ambient music. bluntly: it was some generic country/roots riffs played through a reverb pedal, masqueraded as some kind of art. i don't mean like morricone. i mean like garth brooks. again: i don't know how this kind of thing gets booked.

i tried to suggest to the guitarist that she needs to add more to what she's doing in order for it to not be boring, but the suggestion was received poorly. so, i moved on.

===

guerrilla toss came on considerably earlier than i expected, which allowed me to make the choice of whether to stay for the headliner or not. when i got home, i realized that they had done their "normal set" at third man records, down the street, a little earlier in the day (i didn't know that was taking place; if i did, i would have went). it seems as though they refrained from recycling their set. i had been listening to their most recent record for a few days up to the show, but the choice to not recycle the set meant i didn't know much of the material. they may have actually played some new material - i don't know; i've bumped into them a handful of times over the last couple of years, and i've had a mixed reaction, but i wouldn't exactly consider myself a fan. my decision to go to the show was more experiential: it just struck me as something that would be good live.

in fact, my immediate impression was that they sound a lot better on record than they do live. i've checked out a few live recordings (including footage of the early set...) and the issue is actually persistent and obvious: it's the open room. this is a band that has a very tight, compressed sound. it has a lot of complexity all over the spectrum, but it's rooted in a very busy and very squished bass/drum combo. so, you basically want to see them in a closet. a basement would be ideal! any kind of space with any kind of reverb at all is going to hollow them out, and make them sound blurry. you don't want to give them any space at all.

there's some mixing decisions you can make to balance it out, of course - and they seem to refrain from making them. but, more than anything else, it's the open ceiling. and, that's actually something more general to keep in mind about the bar - it would be good for anything ambient, but bad for any kind of punk.

i'm not knocking the show. don't misunderstand. it's just that the acoustics were very unfriendly. and, they seem to be making that error repeatedly. see them in an enclosed space, if possible. and recommend it, too - if you get the chance.

here's a full set:

they were done a little after 11:00, so i figured i'd get time to at least sample the headliner. but, rangda took a good while longer to set up; i'm guessing that they probably came on around 12:00. i didn't have to catch the bus until 12:23, but i didn't know how long it was going to take to walk back to the stop or how safe it was going to be, so i took the safe choice and left about 11:45....

frankly, i wasn't really impressed by the samples. nor am i at all a fan of ben chasny or richard bishop [i'm a little more familiar with chris corsano]. if it was ten degrees warmer out, or an hour earlier (or an hour later) or i was more comfortable in my surroundings or ... then i would have stayed and sauntered down to a coffee shop and hung out for the night. but, as things were, i was experimenting with the feasibility of getting to this bar and back before the last bus, and setting those parameters was more important.

maybe i missed a great show. but, i suspect that i just missed some aimless jamming by some guitarists that have never previously impressed me very much.

here's the vlog for the day:

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/03/09.html

some kind of pilgrimage in the snow to julia holter in ferndale, and back

i nearly missed this show by passing out early in the afternoon, but i was able to get there right before the set started. apologies to the opening act, whom i will probably catch with psychic tv in a few months. this was not an intentional snub.

the issue was made worse by the fact that it was a messy night in detroit, and the venue is a forty minute bus ride away from the downtown core. that likely slowed me down an extra half hour, both from having to walk a little more slowly and from the bus moving at a slower pace.

but, it's not as though i arrived at the venue late, either. this was an early start to an early night.

=====

i bumped into somebody in the smoking section that was on his way out, and he decided to share a little - which was much appreciated. he was voting for trump, based on the logic that the country is in debt and a good businessman would help fix the debt problem.

"first of all, the country is not in real debt, it's just an accounting identity..."

this produced a puzzled glance.

"...and, second of all, this is a guy that's declared bankruptcy repeatedly. so..."

he knew how to answer the second part, even if he didn't know how to answer the first.

"bankruptcy is something that rich people do to help them out of taxes and stuff. it doesn't mean he was actually broke. it's all a scam."

"that's true. but, the same argument leads to the conclusion that the country isn't broke - that it's really just a big tax scam. and do you really want to make a tax cheat president?"

somebody else butts in, before he can respond.

"i'm afraid trump will start a war because somebody will look at him funny, or something. he's unstable. it's scary."

"really? i think he might argue that the military budget is a waste of money. i think the most pro-war candidate is actually clinton. and if you really want to vote for an anti-war candidate..."

"....but sanders is saying he's going to take on the banks and stuff. how's he going to do that? he can't actually do anything he says he's going to..."

"actually, i agree with you. i think if sanders was really serious, he would have started a third party and tried to take congress. it's the congress that has all the real power."

"but, nobody will vote for a third party!"

"then, you're right - nothing can change. not if you can't see beyond the status quo. not if you insist it cannot."

i escaped the conversation at that point, and went in for a beer. and, they do have good beer at the loving touch - those raspberry blondes. mmmm.

====

her set was very good; her material is very strong, and she's just simply very talented. i'm only familiar with two of her records (tragedy, and the newest one), and i think all of the material came from one of those two discs. her band was composed of what were obviously studied jazz pros (drums, bass, violin), which gave the set a bit of a loose feel; this was actually a net positive over top of some of her more structured material, although a big aspect of the opening up of those tracks had to do with her keyboard shutting off mid set and needing to be rebooted. those old nord leads sound great, but they're getting to the end of their life cycles. hey, i can empathize with being a little bit skeptical about just buying a new keyboard. but, her synth actually really kept dying during the set.

so, when the synth crashed, the band would need to take over until it came back in, and then she'd need to bring them back in. this is of course perilous for any performing artist and could have been an absolute disaster. but, through luck or talent it actually worked out very well on this night by inserting these jazzy instrumental improv sessions into what are very high-end pop songs.

i can't predict when her synth will die; certainly not any better than she can. but, i would suggest seeing her if you get the chance.

here is a full set:

here is the day's vlog:

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/03/03.html

fighting with nicotine at pop 1280

this is a late review, which i initially intended not to do at all, but i do think that i need to, after all.

the reason i decided to not do the review was that i intuited that the band realized i was there, and tried a few antics with the intent that i would take notice of them. that's pretty shitty, and i felt that the proper response was to pretend i never went.

but, that would leave a gaping hole in the show review list, which is just punishing myself. but, i will not take note of any of the things that were meant for me to take note of. and, i would prefer it (moving forwards) if bands and venues would continue to allow me to be the unimportant fly on the wall that i want to be. this is a waste of time, otherwise. it's being written solely for historical purposes; i will stop publishing these writings altogether if i start to think that i'm developing any kind of an audience.

----

this was actually a really screwed up night (see the vlog, below), with all kinds of broken plans as a consequence of some bad advertising. i was actually hoping to take advantage of the scheduling to hit two shows, but the scheduling for both shows changed at the last minute, and i ended up only seeing most of one of the shows that i wanted to see, rather than both of them. it's life. things have worked out the other way more than once and will again more than twice.

---

the first opening act for the show that i did get to see was entirely pointless, and at the end of the set it just left me wondering why the bar owner decided to waste anybody's time with it. it was all muzak covers. just a total waste of time. i don't know how a band like that manages to even get booked...

---

this was the second time that i saw brothels. the first time, the show seemed really loose and haphazard - as though the songs were still being written. but, there was some potential if they could polish it a little. on this night, the songs seemed really compressed and a little too generic-punk-rock for my tastes (although the guitar tone was quite nice). the last song of the set, though, hit the middle point that i think they want to be aiming towards, hitting upon this incesticide-era sweet spot (think something like hairspray queen). abstract and noisy, but catchy and fun, too. the bassist claimed it's a side project for everybody, and they just don't spend much time with it. that's a shame, as that last track was hitting on something.

as far as i know, there is no media for brothels anywhere on the internet. so, i do wish i had caught that last track. alas...

====

the topic in between sets was trump and how to stop him, but the patrons didn’t seem to be particularly left-leaning, either. they seemed to realize that there was something unsettling about trump, but they didn’t really seem to be able to articulate it. the impression i got from them was more along the lines of the perception that the policies are already decided upon, so while trump may seem like an outrageous idiot, it wouldn’t really matter if he won – because the same legislation would get passed, either way. see, this is not an uninformed view, relative to the last thirty years of american politics. clinton and obama (and to a lesser extent, carter) have all carried on with the same basic republican game plan. so, why would anybody think it would matter if trump wins? this is a dangerous mindset, but it’s also a rational one – blame the people that brought us here, not the kids reacting to the situation!

so, quotes were thrown around, but as little more than frat-house shock value: “he actually said that!?”. the consequences of the words neither rung true nor false, but simply hollow. it was just another reality show, to be viewed from a distance with a gaped jaw rather than participated in. 

but, something that got a bit more of a response was a discussion of the economic consequences of the proposed wall, and the idea that it will lead to massive inflation. a sampling of the response:

“i was hoping to get off ramen noodles after i graduate. shit. i guess i’ll need to put it off until i get promoted?”

that generated a laugh, and it was reflective of the general disconnected approach to the political process, the relegation of reality to fiction – the hyperreality that sets in when a guy that plays a joke on tv runs for president, and it looks like he might win. but, it also reflected the level of resignation that people seem to have to their place in the class hierarchy – even as they acknowledged the absurdity of the situation. if this is all you’ve ever known…

====

pop 1280 played a set with a split personality. when they were on, they were on. but, for whatever reason (no sound check? well, who do you blame for that?), half the set was out of time or out of tune. the singer was having a particularly bad night; he was having a really hard time staying in time. so, the takeaway was pretty lacklustre. the track i caught was probably the high point of the show, so take that as you may. for a variety of reasons, they didn't come on until after midnight; i left after about a half hour (i probably only a missed a song or two), because catching the bus was just more important than staying for a band that was having a bad night.

here is a full set:

and, here is the vlog for the day, too:

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/02/26.html

i finished the wipedown of deathtokoalas - as much as i can - from youtube on the 9th. i went on some adventures at the end of last week. i've been editing all week (i admit i was distracted by the democratic party primaries on the 15th). i'll be pushing through with editing until i've got everything i have uploaded, but i'm at least back on schedule.

when i get that done, it's going to be another week or so of clearing off rants from canadian online newspapers over the 2015 election cycle. this will be a faster run, i think, because it should be totally cross-linked.

i do believe that this is the last deletion operation, and that i should be able to get back to what i was doing by the beginning of april.

this has been lengthy. it will be about three months, in the end. but, the takeaway is that i really actually seriously have quit smoking cigarettes. and, that's worth a few months of low productivity in the long run.

it's something i had to do, eventually. and it's almost done.

if you're curious as to what i've been up to over the last two months, the place to catch up is over here. i should be back to the music pretty soon, though.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCinQSeEtF0vSN1XVhQGfwKA

season 4

this is actually fairly urgent...

the power went out this morning, and it seems to have fried the heater in the living room. this happened some time last summer, and it wasn't a big deal because it was summer. but it's still winter. so, that really can't be allowed to sit.

the last time it happened, you just changed out the electronics. but, i need to ask - is there something about the wiring that could be modified? i mean, that's twice that it knocked out in an electrical storm.

04. death to deathtokoalas (dvd 4)

11/12-03-2016: all-nighter in ann arbor, to see tortoise

concert footage:


review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/03/11.html

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

09-03-2016: all deathtokoalas reply threads are now redacted (and guerilla toss in detroit)

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG0g-SWrs_I

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/03/09.html

music in picture segue:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/i-did-your-mom

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to the query of why she isn't in a band (and if she wants to be in one)

things are continuing to move a lot more slowly than i'd like, but i ran into a conversation at the bar the other night that i'd kind of like to address.

if i'm such a shit hot musician, why don't i start a band?

and, it's really hard to explain to people that i just haven't met anybody i could work with. i've tried a few people. and, they all suck.

like, i don't want to just put together a band to be cool or make money or some other pointless thing. if it's not the way i want to do it, i don't want to do it at all. and, that probably means it will never happen, but i'm not particularly upset by that.

i'm somebody that actually values recorded music as of much greater value than live music. i know that's some kind of heresy, but i don't really give a fuck. it's really not of any great sadness to me that i can't get a band together; i'd really rather you listen to this music over headphones, in a quiet space, anyways.

recorded music has a sense of permanence to it. there's a sanctity to it. the cool kids don't understand that, but that's ok - it's not meant for them. i'm not loudly broadcasting myself as a nerd by some kind of accident. the accident was that people misinterpreted me as some kind of hipster. no. i'm a nerd. and, this music is designed entirely for nerds. if you're not a nerd, you won't appreciate it.

i mean, it would be fun, don't get me wrong, if i could find the right drummer, mostly. but, everybody i've found that has the right training wants to do metal, and everybody that i've found that's interested lacks the talent. my needs are just very specialized - i need a jazz/fusion drummer that wants to start a leftield progressive punk band.

but, like i say....it's not what i *do*. it's something i might like to do one day, circumstances permitting. but what i actually do is make recorded music to listen to over headphones. the reality is that essentially none of it was ever written with the intent of being performed, and most of it probably never will be.

and, that's not something to shy away from or be ashamed of.

water pressure - pipe frozen somewhere in the basement?

hi.

there appears to be an issue with the water pressure. it comes in and out, which is not the end of the world - so long as it comes back, and it always does. but, it seems to be dependent on the weather. it seems to slow down a lot when the temperature comes down. that relationship has held this morning. so, i'm left to conclude that maybe something is freezing over....?

i'll let you know if the pressure comes back when it warms up over the next few days.

(pause)

yeah, i think that what's happened is that the heat upstairs was turned off, and the pipes somewhere in the basement have frozen as a consequence of that. i'm leaving the water running (cold) to try and de-ice the pipes.

it was very nice last weekend. but, it's been below zero for the last several days. and, there's no source of heat in the basement. so, if you don't have the heat upstairs on, it gets very cold in the basement (causing me to turn my heat up to buffer).

what i'm getting across is that i understand that i have a lease responsibility to prevent the pipes from freezing. i've had the heat on in the unit. but, it seems like the heat is not on on the main floor. so, i need to deflect responsibility for any burst, frozen or broken pipes.

(pause)

i let it run for a few hours and turned it off because it wasn't making any difference. also, the pressure is the same for both the cold and the hot; one would think that a frozen pipe would affect one more than the other, unless the frozen pipe is on the way into the building. i still think the dominant factor is like the heat coming off upstairs.

i'm just pulling out a correlation with temperature and making a guess. it should warm up on monday. i'll let you know if the pressure comes back before then.

03-03-2016: trudging through the snow on little sleep to catch julia holter in ferndale

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Hj5_bT2yY

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/03/03.html

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

26-02-2016: grouchy from not smoking, or just a shoddy night all around? (pop 1280 in detroit)

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIdRom9QCiU

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/02/26.html

music in picture segue:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/fuck-the-dead

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to posters that marked her as a spammer for deleting their replies

so, i've done enough testing that it's clear to me that a lot (most...) of the posts that i'm making on youtube are invisible to everybody except myself.

that goes a long way to explain why the hit count came down. and, this is very sneaky - because i experience no signs of censorship. i can see my posts. if i go back to the page, my posts are there. i get no error message. but, if i log out of the site and come back, i can no longer see the posts.

that is behaviour that couldn't possibly be designed with anything other than political censorship in mind.

let's see if i can jam this....

i may have been targeted specifically because i had a habit of removing posts made to my posts. but, let's be clear about a few things.

(1) it was my post. i had the functionality to remove the responses to my posts. and, frankly, i believe i had ownership of those posts. no rules broken, there.
(2) i was actually very enlightened in the way i did this. i'm trying to save the conversations i had. that means plenty of people didn't get deleted - and there were plenty of interesting back and forths.

now, of course, some of the morons that ended up with deleted posts may disagree. but, that's a function of their idiocy - and the problem in the first place. just because they don't realize they're buffoons doesn't mean i have a responsibility to listen to them.

it's just another symptom, really. youtube was perhaps too good for it's user base, for a while.

i don't feel i have a choice but to stop posting here, seriously. they've reduced the platform to something that is essentially useless for anything but trolling. but, if that's what they want, they can get ready for some of it...

what i'm saying is that i may have gotten a very high number of complaints, because i deleted a large number of posts.

but, if you saw those posts, you'd understand -  they were personal attacks, baseless insults, unsupported arguments and just flagrant idiocy.

the difference is that i didn't cry to an authority figure. i just removed the posts. then, the people that were posting nonsense and insults complained that their posts were being removed, and i'm the one that ends up getting silenced - while they keep on posting stupidity.

should i have reported them instead of taking matters into my own hands?

no.

the system was designed so that people could police their own content, and that was actually an ideal way to do it.

1) the owner of the video could decide if they wanted the thread there or not; if the owner of the video removed the thread, it appeared only in google+.
2) the owner of the thread could decide who was allowed to comment on the thread, and which comments were allowed to stand.

this allowed for people to moderate their own content - this is the anarchist ideal of self-moderation. it's easy to see why i liked it...

but, people didn't seem to understand the system, or thought that they should have the right to comment on other people's posts, whether they liked it or not. they weren't able to get the abstraction of personal property rights. so, they complained to authority figures, who had to step in - and i'm the one that got punished for it.

again: it's not a situation where i wish i had reacted differently. it's a situation where i'm learning that this is a bad platform, and that i need to adjust to it's failings.

the other option was that my content, while it existed, would not have been the pleasant conversations that people became accustomed to seeing my name attached to. instead, it would have been full of people posting personal insults, back and forth name-calling, strawmen arguments, unsupported arguments, stupid memes - everything else on youtube, essentially. and, then i would have stopped using the platform quite a long time ago. it was either that i cleaned these threads up and pissed a lot of people off, or that i didn't use the system at all.

and, you just have to laugh, right? people wanted in on my comments because they were high profile enough to be noticed. but, that relied on my ability to screen the garbage out. in the end, the garbage i screened out seems to have ganged up on me and has gotten me declared a spammer, out of spite.

but, i wouldn't have had anything worth noting if i had let anybody and everybody go ahead and vomit all over my posts.

in the end, i got nailed for using the system as it was designed, and actually succeeding in making it better, and the youtube comment system has remained a nest of absolute stupidity. if anything, it's worse now than it's ever been.

i can't regret that. rather, i have to point out that i'm a victim of stupidity.

listen: this is how the world works, right?

where's the alternate history where everybody listens to jesus, agrees and goes to smoke a fatty in the park?

mass idiocy is normal. intelligence is always persecuted.

they hate you when you're clever....

the reality is that any other outcome would be unheard of - astonishing.

really, i should be content in realizing that i'm lucky that i haven't been lynched, yet.

i'm almost done in clearing the page down. i should get close to 1500 pages in the end. it's probably 1500/2000 or so. i'm sure the lost ideas will regenerate elsewhere, eventually.

it's now been six weeks without smoking, btw. and i'm feeling like i'm over it.

youtube just pushed down a character limit.

i think it's as clear as day that they are shutting down comments - for political reasons. they want this shut down before the election cycle heats up.

as time consuming as this has been, i actually waited too long to do it and have lost much more than i wanted. the last few days of vlogs have dealt with this topic. i've got over a thousand pages off, and have quite a bit more to go, but i've also lost a lot of really interesting conversations.

with the character limit? it's over. it's useless. i'm moving to my own space - there's no other solution.

it's going to be a while before i get back to work, unfortunately. but if i had doubts about the worth of this, the character limit has reinforced the need for me to be doing this asap.

youtube, as we know it, is on the verge of collapse. it's been too successful in spreading ideas.  and, it's getting shut down.

bernie sanders may very well win the election. that is a failure of the propaganda system.

the result is just pointless clutter. and, i'm not going to pull back from it out of aesthetic - i'm going to push it hard, to demonstrate how bad it looks and why you should change it.

so, i will need to post five separate posts - part 1, part 2, etc.

nor will it allow me to post it as replies.

i am trying to post a comment on my own page, and it will not allow me to paste the entire thing in.

character limits?

wow.

getting worse and worse by the day, youtube.

do you know what character limits accomplish? they force users to copy and paste a long reply into multiple shorter replies.

it's an incredibly pointless, utter dick move.

here's a tip: if my post is too long, don't read it. zero fucks given. and, if i post too many long posts, and you don't want to read them? maybe you should unsubscribe from my feed.

i can't even believe, really, that this is seriously a thing. it's so horrifically backwards and so remarkably stupid...

j reacts to the realization that she's being actively censored

i wasn't crying censorship before, but i'm noticing that a lot of my posts disappear when i log out. meaning only i can see them. see, that's sneaky - it means i don't actually know that i'm being censored.

and that i don't know how long i've been being censored for.

listen: i don't want my content on somebody else's channel. that was never my intent. my intent was always to have a feed of content.

comments are content.

the cross-link was just incredibly useful.

i've explained this already: i'll be vlogging my comments. yes, it's stupid. but, don't look at me, i'm just adjusting to a stupid system.

but, i'm not just figuring out that the videos are down and the content is evaporated - i'm figuring out that i'm not getting posts through. it's pretty random. and, when something like this is random there are two possible causes:

1) error. which is exceedingly unlikely. this is youtube.
2) active censorship.

i wanted to avoid that conclusion. i really did. but it's unavoidable.

i've been posting comments here for the last several months, hardlinked to google. flip through the page (or the koalas page), open a few links and tell me - how many of the links bring you somewhere other than the comment they're hardcoded to?

it's probably not google, exactly.

google has probably allowed full control over my profile to somebody at some ministry of information.

i'm not sure if my status as a canadian gives me more or less rights, here.

disappearing to detroit for the night

i hit my first post-smoking show last night, and how did i do?

well, i did have a few. three. although, i regretted it immediately and i walked out with no cravings. chances of a relapse - in the form of buying a pack - are zero.

the vlog for the night will come up at my site on feb 24th at 12:30 am. in the mean time, i'll do a written review here (which will get moved to the appropriate places, in time).

---

i ended up a little irritated at ritual howls, but i really ought to be irritated with the bar, instead. this isn't the first time i've seen the bar try and combine shows like this. they'll get a local band in on a touring band's bill, then essentially give the show to the opening act. and, i'm not exaggerating. the bar legitimately really seems to be very strongly biased towards the local bands, and essentially treats the touring acts as a kind of burden to deal with. it's this "we let you play here, you should thank us" kind of attitude.

the problem is really in the marketing. if you bill a show for a touring band, people expect they're going to be the focus. if you bill a show for a local band, people will expect they're the focus, too. what is really shitty is to bill the show for the touring band, and then go out of your way to co-opt it for the opening band. you're not doing that local band any favours by pissing off a possible new audience.

it's consequently really not fair to attack the opening act for setting up late and then acting like it was their show - it's the bar that enables this. this then forces the headliner to cut their set short.

but, it does mean that i was irritated and less than objective about the set as it was happening.

were ritual howls any good? the actual truth is that they really weren't much to take note of. at their best, they were yet another joy division knock-off. they weren't horrible, or anything - they were legitimately mildly enjoyable, but they were very much the archetype of an opening act. so, i would have absolutely preferred to have them play a shorter set earlier in the night, to allow for a longer set by the headliners (who have well over an hour of material). and, the fact that i've seen this happen twice at this bar, now, means that i'm less excited about going there.

they had a chance to allow a substantial touring act to play a lengthy set; instead, they gave the floor to a mediocre local act.

i need to acknowledge, though, that they brought their own crowd, and they made them happy. it's this scene of kids that is all about grasping on to an aesthetic. so, what they're interested in is time capsuling this forty-year old sound as a kind of a fashion trend. the less original you are, the better. they catered almost perfectly to this audience.

but, there's truly not a whole lot to take not of in what they're doing - it's a competent instantiation of a formula that's been done to death for decades.

we got a roughly fifty minute set in from disappears, who i think are a well enough known entity that there's not really much use in being descriptive. they did what they do, and they did it well. i was in the correct state of inebriation to enjoy it, and i did.

it just would have been nice if they weren't cut short by by bylaws and if i didn't have to catch the bus at 1:10 - although i'll point out that i would have certainly missed the bus to stay late, too.

there are longer and fully professionally recorded sets on youtube, but this is the closest to what the show was actually like. i caught some audio that will come up on my vlog next week.

here is my audio from the show:

 

here is a full set:

here is the day's vlog:

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/02/16.html

16-02-2016: getting out of the house (disappears in detroit)

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYm9Tu1qxPk

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/02/16.html

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

update: i have less than a year of posts to clear out of youtube.

but, that's just part one of a three or four part process.

it's slow. but necessary. and i need to be clear: i'm done with the youtube comments section, once i'm done.

the koala central command would like to request your help in tracking down our prime fugitive, deathtokoalas.

we have managed to take over her page and will soon have succeeded in erasing all of her comments. our koalas are hard at work in accomplishing this task. however, she, herself, remains at large.

this individual has recently changed her name and identity. she is considered armed with wit and dangerous to communicate with, so please approach (verbally) with caution.

we believe that she will continue to communicate from the following known pseudonyms:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCinQSeEtF0vSN1XVhQGfwKA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0re8yuNEZyCde7CQpK0QNw

(https://plus.google.com/b/115697117379871673298/+jessicatemporarydeletion/posts/EWD3zvKoQDB)

i just want to point out that, in line with what i'm doing to wipe my profile down, i'm removing access to subscriber stats. and, i'd hide the hit counts, too, if i could.

see, the lesson i'm walking away from this with may not be what you're expecting. i learned that my previous approach generated what i'm suggesting is the wrong kind of interest.

what does wrong interest mean?

well, i still have 350 subscribers at the koala profile. there were at most five people (i think less) that followed me to the vlog site. i'm not selling units. these are people that are neither interested in my music nor my opinions. they seem to have really just liked my hair. i'm honestly not exaggerating.

i don't want to generate a group of followers that like my hair. i know that this is a thing that people do, but it's really kind of scary for me to think about. i don't have profiles at flickr or snapshot or whatever is being used nowadays for pictures. instagram? i don't even know what the sites are.

i write essays. i write symphonies. i've recently gotten into the habit of recording myself ranting. but, i don't do modelling - and i really don't want to, either. sorry. it's just not what i want to be selling.

so, by taking that information out altogether, i can avoid these kinds of people and avoid these kinds of conversations.

everybody will tell me i'm wrong. but, if you follow my reasoning, i'm actually right for exactly the reasons they claim i'm wrong. deductions require assumptions. and, if you change your assumptions in certain ways, you can sometimes modify your conclusions without recalculating anything.

i just wanted to make it clear that this was done on purpose, and that i'm hiding the information to reject the issue altogether, rather than to hide what the stats actually are.

13-02-2016: understanding the causes of decline

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

end section post:
http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.ca/2016/02/i-just-want-to-point-out-that-it-was-at.html

j reacts to an analysis of her own decline

i just want to point out that it was at this point that i can trace the beginning of a decrease in my hit count. the changes in youtube have not helped and make it almost impossible to reverse the problem. but, this is the real root cause of the decline.

i talk about this in the vlog for feb 13th. but, it's very disappointing - depressing, really - to truly be cognizant of what has actually happened...

my metrics were consistently increasing up to this point. i peaked at over 3000 hits in october - substantial, and enough to think i'm growing and am breaking through something. yet, by the middle of 2015, my hits were cut down to almost nothing. what happened?

well, it seems as though people were not actually interested in what i was typing. rather, people were interested in my profile picture.

i consciously picked that profile picture because it was a "bad shot" - i was very badly hungover. i liked the irony of this, in juxtaposition to the world of fake media images. it was a kind of fuck you to selfie culture.

but, it became it's own fake media image. i had dozens of comments directed at it. the reaction that was most instructive was to point out that the nature of the commentary fit the picture well - and this is why the hit count increased so much, and i ended up with so many upvotes on my comments. it wasn't that what i said affected anybody, or caused anybody to think about anything. people weren't indicating any kind of actual solidarity. it was merely that people found my picture amusing, and wanted to see it near the top of the comments. it didn't really matter what i was saying, so long as it vaguely fit their preconception of what they imagined i ought to be saying.

other comments, in hindsight, were more illuminating than i realized: suggestions that i look "emo", or "black metal", for example. this was both completely wrong and entirely void of any substance - it was merely extrapolated from the fact that i was hungover. it seems that a false perception of who i am was projected from the image, and it was that false projection that was getting upvoted and generating views.

it also generated negative comments. much of this was at a low level of discourse - crude insults that can be broadly summarized as claims that i was "ugly", and often in ways that forced me to research terms i hadn't seen before. this was annoying, but it wasn't what forced me to change the profile picture.

what forced me to change was the misgendering. you can imagine how that might be irritating. i didn't upload the picture thinking that it made me look "emo" or "metal" or anything of the sort. rather, i thought it just made me look like a hungover female with a overactive gothic dye job. i really didn't need or want this kind of abuse.

so, i changed the profile picture to a more recent shot of me as a blonde with a bit of lipstick. my intent was to prevent me from being misgendered. and, this seems to have worked.

in the process, the false projection of me as "emo" or "metal" or whatever it is that people made out of the black dye job and hungover eyes [in truth, i mostly listen to instrumental music, although i once listened to a lot of socal punk, which is how i dress - tshirts, jeans and minimal makeup] evaporated. as people were more interested in how i looked than what i thought, the attention that i was generating dried up. i also think that my newly unambiguous self-gendering alienated young girls that thought i was cute as much as it alienated dudes that found out that i was actually seriously queer, not just faggy in a metal kind of way.

again: i've never liked metal. i don't even really like rock music, in the broadest sense. the only rock music i've ever liked is some early psych and the anti-rock strains of punk/post-punk and grunge. rock culture has always sickened me. i'm a very bookish nerd. i'd rather hang out in the library.

i have a degree in mathematics. i've studied deep into degrees in physics, computer science and law.

nerd. total. and, not afraid of stating it.

but, that's not what my hungover picture suggested. and, so, everything came crashing down when i changed it....

i don't regret this change, and i would do it again. rather, i think i learned an important lesson. i thought people were actually interested in what i had to say about things - that admittedly surprised me, and i should be less naive about things as i move forward.

in the broader scope of things, it doesn't do me any good to get thousands of purely social-media level hits from young girls that are misgendering me (and would be freaked out to actually see me) or guys that i'd never talk to. the truth is that i'd rather have friend-level conversations with those girls and get hit on by those guys (if they're old enough). the reality of everything being backwards was not useful to me in getting an image out. it was, and may unfortunately remain for some time, much more of a hindrance to me.

and, did i even want to get an image out? was i gunning for subscribers and views? the truth is that i didn't ever care. i wanted people to listen to my music. and, neither teenage girls nor metalhead/emo guys are (on average) going to be interested in listening to my blender rock.

moving forwards, i should perhaps target my audience a little bit more carefully. it was maybe pointless to bother posting insults on the emo band's site, as nobody interested in who i am or what i do is going to post there. i should perhaps be focusing more on music that i actually like and less on trends that i do not. my discography channel will deal with this, while my vlog channel will focus more on my ideas and opinions of things.

the reality is that this is all still experimental. there's no understood model. and, in a real sense, i'm trying to accomplish the impossible. i get all of this. but, i've learned a few things along the way and hope that i can apply them.

but, it was the profile pic change that killed me. and, that's a really sad reflection of society - style meant everything, substance meant nothing.

https://plus.google.com/b/115697117379871673298/+jessicatemporarydeletion/posts/YdtY8RVDqAH

http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.ca/2014/10/blog-post_15.html 

all hail our koala overlords!

i mean, you gotta understand that a big part of what i'm doing right now is saving the comments before they disappear, rather than deleting them.

almost everything on youtube will eventually be deleted. when google+ and youtube were integrated, that didn't matter - the comments remained on google+. even when the video was removed. i would not have moved here, otherwise.

but, now there's a link to "view comments on youtube" that just goes to a 404.

if i don't do this, i will lose all of the comments.

and, so why keep commenting here at all?

like, i need to be clear.

i haven't lost a couple of comments.

i've lost hundreds of threads - many that carried on for months, with dozens of people.

hundreds of pages worth of writing.

hours - days, weeks - of my time.

and, i'm not happy about that.

if you're a heavy user of the comment section on youtube, take a flip through your google+ profile. it's no doubt a bloodbath.

this isn't a safe place to type.

so, it's kind of wrongheaded for you to think i'm destroying my profile.

i'm saving my writing.

i've cleared off the first six months of 2014. and, even with the dozens of threads that i've lost, it's over 280 pages. that suggests i should get over a thousand pages off by the time i'm done - and that i've lost who knows how much.

what i'll say, at least, is that most of what i've lost seems to be related to album discussions rather than politics. i'm not crying persecution or anything. i'm not being targeted. it was just incredible incompetence on the programming side of things, and it's left me with absolutely no confidence in the platform.

again: up until a point in late august, 2015,  videos going down did not delete the comments. so, comments could be made safely at youtube with the understanding that they would be archived at google+. with no warning that i received, the products were separated at the snap of a finger and all of the archived comments were deleted. these were comments that the previous system had safely stored in the google+ profiles, even though the videos were down.

the reality is that the separation deleted large amounts of google+ content.

i've been posting hyperlinks at google+ since, waiting for a youtube comment feed to appear. it's not happening. so, i'm cutting my losses and getting out.

as i've explained a few times, this page will relaunch once it's wiped - before july, anyways. probably more like april. but, it will be focusing purely on a perspective of 1996, moving forwards.

you know where my vlog site is.

the following page, however, may be a better continuity, as it will explore my cd collection - records i've actually purchased at some point.

https://plus.google.com/117744600467962080117/posts
https://www.youtube.com/user/dkdghfhjfdhfchlfa
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtoy6ABQovnt5dNL2fUbRir0gcYQUleEa

as i'm going through and archiving posts one by one, i'm running across some videos that are set to "private". i cannot access these discussions.

this is different than videos that have been deleted or profiles that have been removed. unfortunately, google fucked this up. before it disentangled youtube from google, those posts could be read on google+ - even if the videos had been deleted. now, they've been removed along with the videos.

part of the reason i moved to youtube was because i liked the integration. part of the reason i'm moving out is that the separation makes the platform useless. as these posts come down, the comments will disappear and become unrecoverable. so, what's the point of making them?

examples of destroyed content:

1) i had a long discussion about punk rock on a video for death. this was permanently destroyed when the video was taken down on copyright infringement.
2) i had a long discussion about language on a video for la dispute. destroyed, in a copyright takedown.

so, why would i continue to use the platform when i know the content will eventually be destroyed?

i'm going to put out a public request that the videos set to private are temporarily republished (and i'm informed of it) so that i can get the conversation out. as the page strips down, these posts set to private will reveal themselves as all that is left.

i'm not going to be able to recover any of this.

another thing that's happening repeatedly is that threads that i muted have evaporated altogether.

as a consequence of all of this, i've actually made the decision to refrain from using the comments section at all. google/youtube does not seem to have the slightest interest in developing the platform as a permanent record. to be frank, i'm not sure what the point of having comments is at all if the author is to lose all their content at the whim of somebody else.

once this page is wiped down, i will be commenting entirely on my own site - and those comments will be sent out solely through rss.

please follow my lead on this. let's decentralize...

i'm not going to pretend that i thought the move to google/youtube would be permanent. but, it's absolutely inconceivable - and totally unacceptable - to have entire conversations disappear like this.

i mean, imagine waking up and finding out that half of your facebook profile had just disappeared because of copyright claims. or that all of the tweets that you made about a specific topic have evaporated.

they had a good idea in integrating. it's not up to me to tell them how to run their network, either. but, the way they separated the two products was a disaster.

i would have never moved here if it wasn't for the integration - i want a feed of my comments. and, i gave them some time to work it out. but it's not being fixed. so, i'm out of here.

streaming media sites like spotify are not the future of independent music. rather, what i'm doing at this very moment - telling you to buy a couple of my records or to stop wasting my time, to fuck off and to stop following me on the internet - is the future of independent music.

as consumers, you have a choice to keep art alive. if you choose not to do this, the era of art as an accessible product for middle class consumption will end. the era of consumption will end, altogether.

this is the future that the internet is leading us towards:

Music is banned in Khomeini's Iran
On the grounds that it stimulates the brain
We've done him one better in the land of coke & honey
using music to put people's brains to sleep

Ever wonder why commercial radio's so bad?
It's 'cause someone upstairs wants it that way
If the Doors or John Lennon were getting started now
The industry wouldn't sign 'em in a million years

So what do we get
GOVERNMENT MUSIC
Christian censorship and taxed blank tapes
Shoppers strung out on our false hopes
Will flock to obey

i've got a start on wiping the old deathtokoalas profile. the videos are all gone. the truth is that it's going to be a while.

03. quitting smoking (dvd 3)

on second thought, i'm going to wait for this page because i'm going to have to do it all over again when i finish the period one disc, anyways.

i'm just going to get right to wiping out the deathtokoalas page, instead.

i just finished wiping/cleaning my main profile. that's done. this is up next. and, that will be it for my facebook wipe. it will be monthly cleaning after that.

this page will continue to exist as it does. i will create a new page for the alter-reality.

season 3

just another thing.

i've changed the profile to allow for my birth date, which is 1981, to be public. that's not an error. i am actually 35 years old. really.

i'm entirely aware that i literally look half of my age. or, let me rephrase that. i look precisely like a fashionable (and single) 35 year old woman - but i can very easily be mistaken for an unruly-looking 17 year-old boy. is that really particularly unusual?

while i acknowledge that there are some advantages to looking young, especially considering that i do not at all act my age, i also need to point out that i'm at the age where a significant generation gap exists. i'm not 17 years old. i'm 35 years old. i identify as generation x (people born from 1965-1985). that might be your parents' generation. and, i'm consequently a little bit leery about being hit on by 17 year-olds. or 25 year-olds, for that matter. of either gender.

and it does happen. which is why i'm pointing this out.

so, yeah. i'm old. we don't need to draw attention to it. but, it would be nice if we all realize it. if you see me out or about, just understand that i'm there to see the show and nothing more.

no: i don't want to hang out with a bunch of kids. i'm friendly. sure. but, no.

no: i don't want to get hit on by kids.

and, no: i'm not going to hit on children.

but, when you center your life around music as much as i have, you don't grow out of it. it's a lifelong thing. i'll be continuing to attend small shows when i'm 50, so long as i don't get bounced. not for the people, and not for the scene. just for the tunes.

this message will self-deconstruct....

it's not just an internet/distance thing. don't be embarassed if you thought i was in my 20s or younger. i get it all the time.

when i went to see jimmy chamberlain a few months ago, i ended up having a smoke outside with a kid from in the bar. i could see he was in his late teens. i ended up giving him a pumpkins lesson (he was there to see the sax player). but, his jaw just dropped when i told him my age - because it opened up a generation gap. he thought he was talking to a peer, at first. then, he felt like he was talking to an adult, and that changed his entire perspective of the situation. he visibly didn't like the idea of "smoking an adult".

then there's the kid in the unit upstairs. he seems to be in high school. and, it took him over two years for him to realize i wasn't in his age group. he seemed offended that i was keeping my distance. he kept obviously waiting for me to ask him to come hang out. but, i hardly want to hang out with the high school kid upstairs. it's just that he had no idea, right. he can't be more than 18, but he interpreted me as in his peer group; the feeling was not at all mutual - i immediately interpreted him as a kid. a few months ago, i gave him a link to my bandcamp site and i think he finally figured it out, because he's seemed more cognizant, since.

so, it's not just you. it's everybody. online. in real life. it's just how i look. and, in fact, it runs in the family - it's those finnish bottleneck genes. everybody from finland is like this.

if you like the pictures i am posting, i will block you and repost the pictures.

fuck off.

i want zero user interaction on this site. it's a read-only cv.

i just can't figure out how to disable likes.

fucking creeps.

go jerk off somewhere else.

this is historical documentation. that's all.

explanation of things...

new channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCinQSeEtF0vSN1XVhQGfwKA

i just want to clarify that the reason i've set these videos to private is that the channel was not directing traffic to bandcamp as well as i hoped it would.

as a musician, trying to figure out how to exist in a world of streaming media is a delicate balance. streaming may be good for consumers, but it is not good for artists.

i do not care what is good for consumers. this all requires a little give and take, though - of course. in order for it to make sense for me to have my music on youtube, i need to be getting sales at bandcamp. for a musician, youtube is not a business model - it is an advertising platform. and, as an advertising platform, this approach is not working, largely because people are misinterpreting what it is.

see, people are interpreting this as the place where a product is published. they think i should get paid through ad revenue. it is this misunderstanding that is the core of the problem. if people understood that the youtube video is the ad for the product, and the product is available by clicking through the links, the system would work as intended.

so, what i've done is change my advertising delivery to something that:

(1) does not give away too much of my actual product for free.
(2) can act as a product, itself.

this video will not be up forever. rather, this site will go completely quiet within a few weeks - once i've archived and deleted all of the comments. the site will then relaunch within 4-6 months in the context of a historical based-alternate reality. but, most of the uploads will only be samples.

for the musician, youtube is still an experiment. and, i've deduced that it's a failed one.

and, for the inevitable "unsubbed" response, let me ask you this:

how many records did you buy?

i'm going to guess that you didn't buy any. so, why, exactly, do you think i want you to subscribe, or care that you've unsubbed?

you may want to note that i actually never asked you to subscribe in the first place. what i did ask you to do was go to my bandcamp site.

see, this is exactly the problem: you think i want you to subscribe. you think i want your views. no. these things are of precisely zero value. they're numbers on a screen that cannot be converted into anything tangible.

what i want is for you to go to my store and buy my records. and, if you don't want to do that, you can kindly fuck off.

in fact, i'm going to be wiping this page down altogether. it will relaunch in a different context some time in the summer.

in the mean-time, i'll be continuing to vlog.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCinQSeEtF0vSN1XVhQGfwKA

29-01-2016: the return of the son of archiving

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

on second thought, i'm not going to need that other page because i'm rewinding back to 1996.

i know.

hear me out: this will give me time to prepare everything properly. and, it will allow me to construct a full alter-reality. plus, it's twenty years. round.

i know you're probably more interested in new material, and i'll be getting to it soon. 11 days before i need to figure shit out.

but, on the bright side: that's three weeks, cold turkey.

i needed an alter-reality to escape to to quit.

three weeks...

i'm making a bold move in setting all of my videos up to the alter-reality point to private. but, the reality is that i don't get paid for hits. and, it makes the presentation more thematic.

the whole thing is going to flatten out - i'm going to be wiping this page down, as well, to a point where it's only relevant in the context of the alter-reality.

things will come into focus as the history does.

this is a grand experiment. and, of course, this note will not exist forever.

i know it looks psychotic right now, but wait a few weeks and it will make sense. if you've been here up to this point, i suppose you're privy to the future in the alter-reality....

the politics page is done. kaput. deleted.

i dropped it all in temporary files, so i've got hundreds of pages to merge into the main file. but it's done...

that's two weeks, btw.

cold turkey.

it's in the two-three week window that i usually crack, although i must say this: i don't usually go that long as total, cold turkey. there's usually some kind of break in there. i might buy one of those $1.25 cigars, or maybe bum a smoke when i'm out. normally, what it really means is "two-three weeks without buying a pack".

but, this is totally cold turkey. so, it's different. and, i think i'm consequently just about there.

i guess i have about another week of data archival ahead of me. so, that will be three weeks - cold turkey. and, i can't see why i'd look back after that...

in a few hours, it'll be 13 days cold turkey - which at the very least indicates i'm serious about this.

as i previously stated, i'm in the process of collecting writing from various sources. i should get through the first phase of this today, and be over a hurdle by the end of the weekend. this *is* actually important for the period discs, even if it is writing rather than music.

so, i'm working. productively, even. really. i may even meet my feb 1 release date.

thank you for the birthday check, too

nana
I was beginning to worry you didn't receive it as I mailed it 10 days ago,so much for canada post fast delivery.I hope you are enjoying the good winter weather as we are.Hard to believe it is 6% today & even more crazy it was 16% on xmas day.I hope all is well with you,we miss you.luv nana. 

jessica
i quit smoking cold turkey on the 9th, and have actually only been outside once since (to get groceries). in fact, i've basically been bed-ridden for the last two and a half weeks. i'm very serious about it this time, so i'm just restricting myself to zero-stress activities like reading and typing. i think i should be able to get out of bed at about the month point. so, it may have sat in my mail box for a few days...

nana
 Good for you I am very glad to hear you are quitting,not only for your health but also it is such a waste of money.I have recently switched my services from rogers to bell,mostly because of the fees.I am saving $90.00 per month so not small change!I hope you are up & about again now.I had to buy a new printer & got a different brand'' Epson'', I really wished you were here to set it up for me,as you know how lame i can be around electronics.your mother came over to do the job & got everything running smoothly.When you get to be my age technology becomes a problem.Must run now, Leo is picking me up to go shopping.Bye Bye.

it's interesting to look at the watch stats and build patterns. it gives you a little bit of data to compare to what you read about the world, regarding economic development.

for example, almost all of my hits from sub-saharan africa (not including south africa) are from nigeria or kenya. that's consistent with what you read in the papers.

something else that's interesting is that turkey clearly clusters with the eu: i have hundreds of hits from turkey, and almost none in arab countries (egypt is the highest). israel is somewhere in between europe and the arab countries.

i'm getting nothing from central america. and, the uk is kind of a special case because it's english speaking (i'm also getting a lot of hits from australia). but, broadly speaking, and especially if you take out the g7 countries, south america and europe are more or less interchangeable in terms of hit counts. and, the reality is that this is broadly true in terms of the strengths of their economies, as well.

i supposedly have zero hits from china and 41 hits from taiwan, although i know that's not actually true.

it's been a week, now, without smoking. i have a lot more work to do in breaking the page apart - although i think i may be over the hump by the time the sun comes up. this process may take another week. but, i'm ok with this.

14-01-2016: talking out loud about not smoking while doing laundry - and alter-reality re-approach

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

i'm feeling like i could probably get back to work - and i'm done smoking. that's five and a half days; a week, saturday afternoon. cold turkey. zero. and i have no urge to smoke. but, i want to really get over this this time...i am very serious about it, and that's a different scenario than previously, when i was forcing myself to quit for financial reasons without really seriously wanting to...

i'm also convinced i've got at least a few years left. i wasn't convinced of as much this time last year. it's ultimately that odsp extension that is going to put me in the right headspace to quit smoking.

so, i'm giving myself however long it's going to take to get all of my scattered writing into a single word document. this is going to require some scouring. and it may take a few weeks.

it puts other things on hold, and that's fine. they've been on hold forever, anyways. and, it's simply more important to me to make sure i'm getting over the smoking, for right now.

on top of that, i'm going to be integrating the unveiling of the web site with the alter-reality. my earliest ramblings were in early '98 - where the alter-reality is - although i don't know how much i'll be able to find until early '99. a true period disc would actually even integrate the relevant rantings, and i will try to work in as much as i can.

it will take some time to pull it all together, but it will operate the same way that the other alter-reality does. i'll set up an rss feed. it will literally update the site on a daily basis, relative to this date 18 years ago.

i think that's the best way to approach to this mountain of data. but, it means ordering it, first. i'm currently over 2,000 pages of scattered commentary, and the truth is i'm just getting started piecing it together.....

first up is actually closing down the facebook page. so, expect my facebook present to revert back to cv status relatively shortly.

13-01-2016: further thoughts on the physical effects of not smoking

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

i waited a few days, and nobody's said it so i'll say it: this track strikes me as a sardonic reflection on end-of-life literature.

discuss.

i'm caught up. regularly nightly uploads one week behind will resume tomorrow at midnight.

so, i've got my 96+ hours of non-smoking in and, while i'm still sore, i think i could maybe get back to work tomorrow.

this has to be final. smokers have a tendency to claim they're quitting. but this really has to be the end of it.

i started editing the dec 19th vlog on the afternoon of the 11th. i'm rendering the jan 12th vlog right now. so, that's a good three days straight of editing for three and a half weeks. meaning i could maybe edit a week in a day? a lot of them were short. but, it means i'm caught up until next week, now....

i don't want to ever waste three days editing vlogs again. but, i think it actually helped keep my mind distracted.

i'm getting bursts of awakeness. i don't know. i may need another day or two. if i do, i'll take it. i'm willing to take my time with this right now and wait until i'm ready.

12-01-2016: estrogen increase, 35th birthday & total apartment cleaning

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

11-01-2016: like a dead man walking (the next day)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

switching to skaters in the alter-reality

it's switching over to jan 12 in the alter-reality, meaning that the following release is happening along with the update to the front panel:

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

i've been almost two days without smoking, now. a confluence of things has led me to stopping...i'm late by the calendar date, but i'm early in my own mental flow chart.

there's a lot of things i should stop and do before i get back to work. catching up on the vlogs is one of them.

so, expect a bit more than two weeks of vlogs to come up over the next few days.

reacting to the last bowie record

so, we're in need of some clear thinking, here. that's my role.

this neither belongs in the list of bowie's masterpieces nor in the list of bowie's catastrophes. rather, it's comparable to one of his stronger but lesser known works - like station to station, or black tie white noise. that means it's enjoyable, especially for fans, but not groundbreaking or timeless. it is not likely to generate long-term interest outside of his fan base, but one must also note that his fan base is of many disparate ages.

it's a little dated, at points. there's some recycling; lazarus sounded better the first time, as i would be your slave. there's some mistakes - he probably should have dropped the second track altogether. but, all in all, it gets a decent and at times strong B. which, like i say, allows it to float in that ether that is just below his classics, without ever falling into the deep chasm of his worst catastrophes.

i hope to finish my discography in the next 24-36 months and get to my historical reviews. i've been thinking that i want to begin the process with dead artists - that is, artists with closed discographies. i may have a surplus to choose from.

rip david bowie

bowie's death is kind of a complicated thing.

up until a few days ago, i think it was reasonable to conclude that bowie - the artist, rather than the person - died roughly fifteen years ago. then he releases a decent - if not outstanding - record a few days before he actually dies, as an individual. so, it's a process of him coming back to life as much as it is a process of him dying. simultaneously.

i'm just sort of confused, i guess. blind-sided. i didn't get the undertones in the blackstar video - i thought he was just capitalizing on witch house. they're clear, in hindsight. i kind of knew it was probably going to be his last worthwhile recording, or at least the beginning of a last worthwhile phase. but, i didn't see anything as imminent.

bowie was one of the older boomers. he didn't make it quite to 70. but, let us realize that there are many people that are crossing over that milestone in the next few months, or have in the last few.

i've talked about this before: people are going to start dropping like flies over the next few years. call it a parade, even. the boomer death parade! the final last hurrah! they're talkin' 'bout their generation...

seriously, though. there's going to be prominent people that had wide footprints dying on a weekly basis, starting some time relatively soon. historical music fans are going to get hit over the head with it like a sack of black death. it's just going to be this brutal succession of death - mostly from cancer. and, we're going to wake up from it after however long it is - 12, 18, 24 months - in a drastically different musical reality.

the past will soon assert itself as the past.

10-01-2016: finalizing the reconstruction of my first record & day one of not smoking

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3

publishing inri (inri015)

my first record has been constructed without lyrics. yikes.

this is the new inri011.

up until this point, i always considered this record to exist within my "training wheels" phase. i was off the trike. and i was riding by myself in spurts. but i was falling down a whole lot.

it is now out of that pile and firmly in my "serious works" list. and that feels very good, after all these years.

i'm going to need to break for a few days to de-nic.

==

it took eighteen years and multiple attempts at a construction, but this record is finally permanently completed as an instrumental electronic work and i am finally proud to refer to it as my first record.

while most of these songs have defined concepts underlying them, i have ejected these concepts from the final recording and left them in a series of singles. i would prefer that this album be understood solely as the instrumental recording of electronic music that i am presenting it as.

written and demoed in multiple stages from 1994-1998. initially constructed in this form in june, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced jan 6-10, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. re-released on jan 10, 2016. this is my first official record; as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, drum programming, orchestral & other sequencing, sampling, vocal relics, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, found sounds, strategies, soundraider, hammerhead, sound design, metronome, digital wave editing, production

the rendered electronic orchestra includes piano, organ, electric guitar, orchestra hit, pizzicato strings, synth pads, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, electric bass, sitar, tubular bells, tinkle bells, synthesizer effects and flute.

released june 20, 1998

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3

about a squirrel (final album mix)

initially created in 1997. remastered from source and resequenced on jan 10, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/about-a-squirrel

i'm down to one more track, and i don't think it will be very much longer.

i had to stop early last night because the signal was strange, and what i've worked out was that the tinfoil managed to kill the field on the actual phones. i let it sit last night to "recharge". this actually worked.

i've just eaten, and wasted some time checking concert listings. i do think it's fine, now, and it shouldn't be much longer. we'll see.

i need a sufficiently strong low end for the track to segue, as it's between two very bass-heavy tracks. that doesn't seem to want to transfer to the laptop. but, i know the laptop has poor speaker reproduction on the low end. i need the phones to be functioning properly to finalize this.

i've decided i can't wait any longer to quit smoking, too. i've been pushing it back a few days for months. "when i'm done this project". but, i'm increasing my estrogen dosage on wednesday so i have to cut it off before then.

that means i might have to lose a few days. it's fine - i'm caught-up past the rewind, and it can't be too long before i de-nic. it's usually about three days. i'm already past the first one.

but, i think i may spend the next two or three days cleaning, instead.

swim (final album mix)

initially created in 1998. remastered from source and resequenced on jan 10, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/swim

i feel much better now (final album mix)

initially created in 1998. remastered from source and resequenced on jan 10, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/i-feel-much-better-now

think (final album mix)

initially written in 1996. recreated in the spring of 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed june 29, 2015. corrected to control for malfunctioning electronics on nov 26, 2015. sequenced on jan 10, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/think

09-01-2016: actually quitting smoking

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3

skaters (final album mix)

initially written in 1997. recreated in jan, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 1, 2015. resequenced jan 9, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/skaters-2

catchin’ up (final album mix)

initially created in 1997. remastered from source and resequenced on jan 9, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/catchin-up-2

war (final album mix)

this segue was also more time consuming than i expected, and i have to interject a few words about it. i want to point out that the unmodified version is still available on inrisampled - along with multiple remixes elsewhere. i'm tempted to put together a little ep, even.

sample art is what it is, and i do have a level of respect for it. because christianity is stupid. and communism is good. you can get a lot across through the form, and it can be as valid a means of musical expression as anything else. but, it can also be cringey if it's too heavy-handed. there's plenty of sample art in my discography, and quite a bit on this record even, and i'll stand by it against any criticism. i may be using existing sources of sound, but these are clearly my own creations.

the reality is that all music is created by recombining existing sound. i didn't invent the big muff, the minor chord or the guitar, either. nobody's going to get on me about recombining existing sounds in that context. it's just ludditism to treat technology as something distinct.

but, the version of this particular track that was initially on this record was a little too heavy-handed in the introduction. now, there was a thematic unity to it - it was meant to represent serenity, and was then smashed through by a goofy drum beat meant to represent war. the calm before the storm sort of thing. further, i *did* orchestrate it a little with backwards windows 95 samples (thank you, mr. eno). it wasn't a straight lift from...

.... i don't even know where it was from. bambi? the simpsons, maybe? i had a bunch of simpsons samples on my computer, because i had downloaded them from like a geocities site or something. i have to suspect that's what it *actually* was - some disney-themed simpson's skit.

but, it opens me up to some problems. i don't think it was a bad choice, in context. but, what i'm doing right now is pulling this record out of my kiddie pile (which is now restricted to those earliest 96/97 demos) and putting it in my collection of polished works. and, the idea is not sitting right with me at this point to put something that lifted in the center of the record.

so, i spliced the track up in a way that is similar to something i would have done at the time and have used that cut-up sample collage in replace of the reorchestration.

i've also brought the guitars back in, because i can. i kept them out more out of pragmatism than artistic intent. completing the record properly means bringing them back in.

so, i've got 11 & 12 up, now. progress. i really don't think that the next few will take nearly as much time to sequence, but we'll find out.

initially created in 1997. abandoned in 1998. reclaimed dec 8, 2014. rebuilt and resequenced on jan 9, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/war-2