demo #17: suicide

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

superman's dead?

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

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

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

a little worried about the math exam

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

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

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

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

demo #16: viewless

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

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

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

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

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




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

final thoughts on the grapes of wrath

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

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

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

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

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

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

"enjoy your holidays."

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

finishing the grapes of wrath

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

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

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

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

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

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

demo #15 - permission

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

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

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

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


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

the middle section of the grapes of wrath

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

demo #14: mosh pit song

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

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

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

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

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


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

beginning the grapes of wrath

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

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

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

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

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

it's a rusty razorblade on that suitcase

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

demo #13: guh

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

here's my new tune:



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



how about school? and things?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

demo #9 - terrorists

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

demo #8 - the boogeyman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

overall, life is indeed fairly peachy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

demo #7

there's another new track up today..

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

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



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

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

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

did i hear this on the radio today?

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

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

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

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