Wow

So because my car is barely still a car, I've been walking everywhere. The music building, where I do my work, could not be farther from Manor, where I live, so today I spent upwards of fourteen hours out of my room, despite still being on campus. Weird!

In that time, I "completed" a ten-minute piece for Electronic Music Composition, which, I'm sad to say, I kind of half-assed. The first five minutes were an earlier piece I'm pretty proud of, but after spending two unsatisfying hours messing around with my friend Flo's Utopia Synth, which I'd been hoping to do something with, I sort of redid an existing piece with some new sounds, a few of which came from the Utopia Synth, and honestly, I don't like it as much. Richard Teitelbaum has been adamant that we are to try our hand at making a longer piece, but while I appreciate being challenged, the timing was not right for this.

Unfortunately, I find that timing is always a problem with me and experimental music. I always feel like if I can just get my hands on that one piece of gear, my setup will lack nothing, and I'll be able to produce tons of great sounds. Lately that one piece is the synth I'm building, and after that I'm almost sure it'll be the Ampeg Scrambler clone. After that, who knows? Another synth? I hate that I'm never able to focus on one particular instrument long enough to master it, as evidenced by my flirtations with guitar and drums, although with both of those I feel like the issue has honestly been the lengths to which one must go to practice at Bard (walk to security, surrender meal-giving ID, get key, practice, walk back to security, etc.). Ideally, when I have my own place, I'll be able to play whatever whenever, although obviously that's more realistic in a huge house than in a small apartment, which sadly seems to be the recent college graduate's destiny. I did end up playing drums today, and it was still a ton of fun. When I'm able to practice consistently for a week or two it all comes back, and I remember why I love playing drums, but in the meantime it's hard, and my drum setup certainly isn't ideal either. Jesus, my snare sucks. Sounds like a tub!

Anyway, Bob Bielecki is going to take a look at the troublesome filter circuit in my synth tomorrow. Thing works for about fifteen seconds, then powers down, then works for another fifteen when powered back up. Probably a capacitor problem, but I'm really at my wit's end trying to figure out what the hell's the matter. From there, the sky's the limit!

Man...

I've noticed that I always do this thing, and it's starting to get to me: I develop a mindset where I feel like I need ONE MORE THING to be able to achieve my goal. This applies primarily to the music I make; despite the fact that I now have an Access Virus, part of me feels I literally cannot create anything until the synth I'm working on is done, and after that's done, I probably won't feel "complete" until my Ampeg Scrambler pedal is done, and so on. I just spent three hours fucking around with my friend Flo's Utopia Synth but really couldn't come up with anything I liked in the slightest, especially not ten minutes of sound for my Electronic Music Composition midterm. I was able to use it effectively for a reworking of a piece I already presented for the class, "Annihilation," which now has a second part and is about eleven minutes long. I think it was better as a five-minute piece, but hey, these things happen. As I recall, Flo paid $180 for this Utopia, but it honestly does not do much, and I don't really like it. $180 should probably get you a little more bang for your buck, but I guess it looks pretty neat and has a layout and PCB.

Anyway, I guess the point of my writing this is to say that while forever getting excited about the next project I'm working on will probably serve me quite well as I pursue greater knowledge of electronics in years to come, I'm at a point right now where I need to produce results, and I'm probably far enough behind on my project that I can't afford to throw out as much as I do. I know this synth I'm making is going to be great and useful (lord knows I've put in the hours to make sure it's that way), but what if it becomes another thing I use intensely for a month and then forget about?

Almost one year!

Hi, Internet! Something Julia said yesterday made me sort of wonder why I just stopped "blogging," and I'm supposed to be putting together a presentation on the jazz drummer Art Blakey, so what better way to put that off? At the very least I am currently listening to an album my dad listens to a lot, Art Blakey with the Original Jazz Messengers. I've heard this record many times, starting way before I knew anything about jazz. (It is still debatable whether or not I know anything about jazz.) Allmusic gave this one four stars out of five, but I have probably listened to this three times as much as I have Kind of Blue or A Love Supreme. I guess I would call it a pleasant listen, although supposedly this record is "hard bop," characterized by extreme tempos, long harmonies, and aggressive playing. The first track, "Infra-Rae," is indeed really fast, and I think that's the one I'm going to play for the class tomorrow. The track I'm now on, "Nica's Dream," is something I would put on while having some friends over for a nice dinner or something. Who knows, I've probably heard this tune at my aunt's nice town house in Greenwich Village as the family gathered round for roast beef with scallops and red wine. It is long and smooth, a Horace Silver composition which is heavily reliant on piano, played by Horace Silver. I'm drinking a cup of coffee and listening to jazz in my room, and I must say, it's pretty decent. Interestingly, this is probably the first time I have written about jazz since I took Jazz Harmony I my freshman year of college, and was honestly considering studying jazz. Things sure have changed.

And boy, what they have changed into. Since my last post, I have gotten much deeper into the world of electronics. Julia got me her dad's Access Virus digital synth as an early birthday present, and that thing can make some really great drones, as well as, Youtube tells me, some pretty trashy Eurohouse. I will probably rely heavily on it to produce a ten-minute piece by Tuesday for Richard Teitelbaum's Electronic Music Composition workshop, even though I'm still getting the hang of what it can do. Slightly less complicated, but exciting nonetheless, is my current project, a dual-oscillator synth based heavily on the Weird Sound Generator circuit, with some deviations that have come from weeks of breadboarding the thing. I spent about eleven hours on it last night and it's barely half-enclosed, having already populated the three(!) circuitboards, and having discovered that one of the two filter circuits does not quite work. If I can find the time, I'm going to troubleshoot that ASAP, since everything else that I've done is sounding great. It'll be battery-powered and switchable between regulated and unregulated voltage (completely different tones result from the two), with two outputs, each with a great low-pass filter, volume knob, and a knob for balance between the two oscillators, each of which have four variable pots and three switches for pretty much total control over the sounds. After that, I'm working on an Ampeg Scrambler clone, a treble booster (which I can maybe sell), and a Proco Rat distortion clone which my friend Rory paid me for over a year ago (sorry dude!).

If I continue posting stuff here, it'll probably mostly be about electronics geekery, so bear with me. I am currently working towards the final step in my degree from Bard College, so project is on the brain. Julia came up with the excellent idea of taking some electronics classes at RIT next fall, which is nearer to Geneseo, where she is. As I don't really see the need to move straight to Brooklyn, that sounds like a fine solution, and perhaps it'll bring me one step closer to selling a huge expensive thing to Radiohead and profiting immensely. That isn't actually my goal, by the way: I love the thought of making my own instruments, which produce sounds only I have access to and which only I know how to control. If all goes well, immediate postgraduate life will involve a job that pays for things (probably food service; set the bar low!), close proximity to my best friend (even if that means Rochester), time to learn about electronics, and time to do something with them. Seems pretty simple, and I think therein lies the appeal: since I don't have a huge career in the music industry waiting for me, the chance to continue learning and to be happy seems to be one worth treasuring.

That said, it sure is going to be weird living life without insanely long vacations. I guess my plan for this summer is to work Bard's Summerscape again (which I did last summer), which should be fun, but my last "real" vacation will be going to Brazil with Julia. I've never been, and furthermore I haven't left this continent in quite some time now (last two out-of-US trips were to Canada and Mexico, and even Canada was over a year ago). I do not speak more than a word or two of Portuguese, but I went down to the City and got my visa last week, so it's happening! Additionally, I like that I'm able to pay my own way for something extravagant; it feels "adult" in a way, and I feel like I've earned it. That aside, it's going to be awesome hitting the beach in January. Julia and I have talked about moving south after college, but she still has a year after I'm done, so any escape from the northeastern winter in the meantime is welcome! Anyway, wow, I should probably stop and put my presentation together.

I really will end with this: Razor's 1990 album Shotgun Justice is hands-down the most contrasting display of cover art and music ever. Look at this beast:

Have you ever seen a worse album cover, like, ever? It in no way prepared me from probably the best pure thrash album I've ever heard. (It's better than Kill 'Em All, and Ride the Lightning and later are something else.) This is my favorite album of 1990, I've decided, a year which included Judas Priest's Painkiller, Megadeth's Rust in Peace, and the Black Album, which I strangely have a soft spot for. I've also recently been turned on to the Devil's Blood, an "occult hard rock" band from Eindhoven, Netherlands. They have an album coming out in November that I am looking forward to immensely after hearing their debut, 2009's The Time of No Time Evermore. Parts of it remind me of Thin Lizzy, but other parts remind me of Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac, which is a really interesting combination. I showed them to Daniel and he loved the instrumentals but hated the female vocals; weirdly, I think that makes this band stand out from a lot of other stuff, which is also sort of the reason I like Fleetwood so much. Anyway, this was fun; hope to do it again soon!

Sombreros are fucking required

So someone hit my parked car today and fucked up the driver's side mirror. He at least did the right thing and told security, and offered to pay for a new mirror. That's cool because I have an old Volvo and apparently every part for those cars is really expensive, but it's used a lot of my energy today so I'm really tired. I'm also really tired because I woke up early, because I played drums for a few hours today, because ensemble ran too late, because I went to some dude's moderation concert (like mine last year!), or because I'm doing calc now. And I might be more tired later, since I'm going to go see my friend Lucian's band pretty soon.

The thing is, days like this really aren't that uncommon, but I hesitate to refer to myself as "busy" because it seems like everybody is always busier than I, or they make it seem that way. The thing is, though, that I don't think I could ever be one of those people who's always in the science lab, or always at the music building, or something like that. I'm not sure if it's a lack of work ethic or just a refusal to stop having fun, but it's sometimes hard to think about, since having no life is definitely how you get really, really good at something. Does everybody just do meth and stay up all night doing everything they "have" to do? I just can't think of any one activity I could commit to like that.

Anyway, I've recently spent all my "me" time hanging out with Julia, playing Zelda, or playing FIFA 11, or some combination of those. No partying, a decent amount of sleeping. Things are pretty good, but stressful sometimes.

Anyway, I just blasted the first LP of Electric Wizard's mammoth Dopethrone. The thing is so, so heavy, so I'm happy to have purchased the latest Rise Above reissue- Wizard vinyl always goes out of print and then sells for $200 on ebay, so I'm stoked to have gotten it for 20 bucks.

The last time I wrote something, it was the beginning of September and the semester. It's started to get cold. The weather has been really terrible for a few days now, and is set to continue being shitty for, oh, six months.

What else is up? I never feel like doing any work or practicing or going anywhere. None of the music I'm playing right now is exciting me very much, so I'm sort of just letting it stagnate.

That whole thing kind of scares me, but apart from that I'm not really unhappy or anything. I spend a lot of time with Julia and have fun playing Goldeneye and drinking coffee, but that does not lead to studying! Fall break is coming up this weekend, and even though it's just two extra days off, I hope I can use it to think some things through, since I won't have any work to do. I'll probably just watch soccer and eat too much. I need to find that optimum zone where I have enough time to just do what I want (something I am apparently unable to sacrifice), while still being a lot more productive than I have been. How do productive people do it?

Anyway, I've been listening to the mighty WINDIR a lot these past few days. As someone who's never been big on the "spirit" of black metal, Windir came as a breath of fresh air for me. They're all about Norse mythology and all that, but minus all the malice and plus some stunningly mature songcraft. The album isn't really black metal to begin with, more folk metal. Anyway, I feel like I'm playing World of Warcraft whenever I listen to this, but in the most totally awesome way possible. This video features Windir playing their last show without their leader and founding member Valfar, who died of hypothermia while walking to his grandma's house; they still do an admirable job.

PS: on a whim I ordered the vinyl reissue of Electric Wizard's classic Dopethrone from (LOL) Interpunk. I guess they still have copies, and nobody has Wizard vinyl. They also have a new album coming out called Black Masses. Maybe they will get me back into music, they bring the loud.

Also, if I can drag myself out of bed in seven hours, I'm going to start building my ProCo Rat pedal replica. I am legitimately excited about doing that.