Swansolian

So, as you may be aware, crispmush occurred the other day. Up until last year, I hated crispmush, but then I realized that, guiltily, I somewhat enjoy it. The best thing I got was from Iris; a book of her poetry, augmented by illustrations. Beauteous! I also received Outward Bound by Eric Dolphy, Pithecanthropus Erectus by Mingus, and Backlash by Freddie Hubbard, among other discs.

I was very much looking forward to hearing the Hubbard record, as it features the original recording of "Little sunflower". (I also thought that Eric Dolphy played on it, but I was wrong about that.) However, I discovered that the last tune on the album, Bob Cunningham's "Echoes of blue", is also of supreme quality. My first reaction was, "Swans in jazz form!!!" - then I recollected something. About a year ago, Occupant penned a series of blues songs, featuring the creepy guitar work of Nils. The third song we recorded, "Think of something to say, but don't", was something of a murder ballad with a two-note bassline. Right after we wrote it, my reaction to that song was also "That was like the Swansiest thing of all time." The guitar work went from being tentative at first - Nils playing with a little plastic ruler here - to blasting, reminiscent of Swans' "Blind love" (from Children of God). Too bad the mood was kinda thrown off by my less-than-subtle bass solo.

These two songs are suggesting to me an interesting genre - some kinda ultra-slow blues - and I want to explore it. I've also been thinking about recording the blues I wrote recently - still untitled - as a shoegazer-type of tune. Distorted and acoustic guitars overdubbed and interlocking - Loveless stuff. Y'know, I always have all these ideas for music I want to write, and I never get them down in time - it's like creative A.D.D. I have to get my shit together, and school's not helping!!

Journal from December eighth

The subject was "An important leader" - however you interpret that.

An Important leader

If you were to ask me, “Who’s Sun Ra?”, I’d simply say, “He’s a jazz musician from Saturn.” He was a pianist/keyboardist, and led an ‘Arkestra’ of about thirty members, though the personnel changed constantly.

The Arkestra lived in a house with him in Philadelphia. To pay rent, they operated a corner grocery store. Ra taught the Arkestra members not only about harmony (a subject on which he was very knowledgeable), but about his ‘Cosmic philosophy’. In Robert Mugge’s documentary ‘Sun Ra: a joyful noise’, we see Ra in interviews in an Egyptian exhibit at a museum - they couldn’t afford to fly him to the pyramids - saying things like (I’m gonna have to paraphrase a bit here), “Each of my songs tells a different story. The sunrise doesn’t repeat itself - why should I repeat myself?”, and “Some call me Mr. Ra, others call me Mr. E. You can call me Mr. Mystery.”

In an interview outside the White House, he says, “I’m standing outside the White House, and I’m looking across the street, and I don’t see the Black House. A thing cannot exist without its opposite.” You see, he’s just proved that the White House doesn’t actually exist, which works for me.

One definition I’ve found of the word “Leader” is “a person who inspires others” - Sun Ra was definitely this for his Arkestra, and for many others, to be sure. One of the few longstanding members of the Arkestra, tenor saxman John Gilmore¹ is asked in ‘A joyful noise’, “You’re one of the most respected saxophonists around - why do you stay here with Sun Ra?” He says, “Well, I used to play with Mingus and Monk, and I thought they wrote some mean intervals². I’d been playing with Sun Ra for six months, learning this song, but I’d never really got it. And then, all of a sudden….I just got it. And I said to myself, ‘My lord, this man is more stretched out than Monk!!’”

I’ve known about Sun Ra practically since I was born, but didn’t ‘get into’ him until just last year. Of everything I’ve heard by him (which is relatively little), the album Lanquidity is easily my favourite. Sometime in the new year, I’m hoping to do an arrangement of the song “Where pathways meet” at a Coffee House.

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1: John Gilmore joined the Arkestra in the ‘50s, and is now one of its leaders as Sun Ra has returned to Saturn.

2: Mean Intervals: An interval is the name given to the difference in pitch between two notes, either sounded in succession or in unison. For example, the interval between a C and an F is called a fourth, because they are four notes apart (counting the C and the F, not just the notes between them - C-D-E-F). Now, Gilmore is using the word ‘Mean’ in the same way I would use the word ‘Wicked’ when referring to the guitar technique of ‘dead-stringing’.

Journal from December fifteenth

It seems I write my best journals when Gary tells me, "Write whatever you want." I sat before my beputer for roughly an hour, not knowing what to write.... and then, it hit me! Given the subject, it had to be relatively long, but if I'd written everything there was to write on the subject....well, I'd run out of space on my hard-drive. And here is why:

Things that The Fab complains about

Like a life-support system, Fab always needs something to complain about. Get him started on any of the subjects I’m about to list, and he could literally go on for an hour. The reason for this is that he has the strange ability to segue seamlessly from one complaint to another, and the way he manages this will soon become apparent.

“Elephant talk”

The Fab and I are big fans of prog rock - Yes, Jethro Tull, and the like. A fave, though, would be prog veterans King Crimson (known to their enthusiasts as ‘Crimso’). Fab will endlessly quote songs like “Epitaph” or “21^st century schizoid man”. So, what’s there to complain about? Well, in 1974, ol’ Crimso called it quits, and then they resurfaced in 1981 with a new lineup, including the singer/guitarist Adrian Belew. They released an album called Discipline that year, featuring the lead track “Elephant talk”. Basically, the song is Adrian Belew pulling out his thesaurus and reading out all the words that have to do with talking. “Arguments! Agreements!” he yells, doing his best David Byrne impression¹. Each verse features words starting with a different letter - “A”, “B”, et cetra. He even informs us of this extremely complex formula in the “D” verse, saying, “These are words with a “D” this time.” The only reason this song exists, and the reason for its title, is that Adrian Belew had cleverly found a way of making elephant noises on his guitar, and needed a way of showing this off.

When I played it for him, The Fab nearly died from being exposed to such repugnance. On one occasion, he complained loudly about the song for about half an hour on the bus, weaving it in with other complaints, as he is wont to do. I must agree - the song is of a very low quality - but I like the rock’n guitar solo (and admittedly, the guitar-elephant sounds), so I can stand it.

The lack of large trees on his block

Here in East Van, on 6^th avenue, there are some pretty spectacular trees. On The Fab’s block however, the trees don’t reach his high, high standards, which have grown to suit trees more along the lines of 6^th ave’s beauteous arbors. He says that when they were planting trees around Vancouver, they intentionally neglected to place large trees on his block, just to piss him off. He says that this allows his “worst enemy, the sun” into his room - so really, it’s the sun he hates.

Jaslene

Well, I’ll have to tell you straight up; we watch America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) pretty much every week. Last season, there was a girl competing named Jaslene. The Fab would see her on the screen and yell, “Eat a frikk’n sandwich!!” He felt she was too thin, and that she looked like a man. For most of the season, it was pretty fun for us all - The Fab liked complaining about Jaslene (because she gave him something to complain about), and the rest of us enjoyed laughing with him. Then something happened that totally wrecked it (for The Fab, anyways) - Jaslene won! I think that The Fab screamed when he saw that. Now, whenever he sees an image of Jaslene, even for a split second, he goes, “Ahh!! *&%^ing Jaslene!!!

“Tarantula”
“This dust makes that mud”

“Tarantula” is a book by Bob Dylan - over one hundred pages of stream-of-consciousness writing. I remember the first time I opened it, being in awe of how little sense it seemed to make;

“Aretha / crystal jukebox queen of him & hymn….”²

I challenged The Fab to make sense of the book - huge mistake. He looked at it and went, “That doesn’t make sense! Bob Dylan is a crazy lunatic!!!!!!” All the time after that, virtually every time he came over, he would pull it out and say, “Okay, I’m going to make sense of this!!”, and naturally, he would just wind up getting more pissed off.

“This dust makes that mud” is a song by New York-based experimental band The Liars. It is thirty minutes long. The first eight or so minutes are like a normal song (well, normal for The Liars, anyway), but the remaining twenty-two minutes drive The Fab up the wall. Those twenty-two minutes are entirely composed of a four-second loop, continuously repeated. It’s not noise - there’s a drum track, bass, guitar - it’s just a cool loop! But The Fab says, “It’s music for insane people!!!”

One day, The Fab and Cosima were over, The Liars’ album They threw us all in a trench and stuck a monument on top was playing, and The Fab decided, once again, to take another stab at ol’ “Tarantula”. After The Fab discarded it in disgust, Cosima demanded to see it, and quickly proclaimed, “This makes perfect sense!” I decided to read it aloud for a while, and I agreed with Cosima - it made plain sense. As this was happening, “This dust makes that mud” was playing, and The Fab was discovering his extreme dislike for it. These things combined must have made a significant impact on him, these things he detests so.

My Chemical Romance

A band that I, myself, have never actually heard. The Fab makes them out to be absolute criminals, though. He says, “You have to hear them, so you can know what I’m going through!” I say, “Why would I want to do that?” He says that as long as I haven’t heard them, I’m not allowed to complain about him complaining about them. Along with My Chemical Romance, he is ready to complain about Fallout Boy, Panic! at the disco, +44, Blink 182, Angels and Airways, and so on, at any hour of the day. You may wonder how he even knows about all these bands that he despises so much. Well, that leads us to the final complaint, the root of all evil, the thing that every complaint he ever had will eventually trace back to….

Graham

Graham may seem like a normal guy; enjoys a laugh, has some hobbies, likes his friends. Little did The Fab know, Pure Evil lurked below that funny, slightly portly exterior. By The Fab’s account, one day Graham came up, shoved his ear bud headphones in his (The Fab’s) ears, and said, “Listen to this My Chemical Romance, isn’t it great?” He also subjected The Fab to all the bands I mentioned above.

Now, regardless of what he is complaining about, The Fab will almost invariably end his rants (which we’ll get to in a moment) with, “Ugh, I hate Graham!!” To sum it up, I’ll give you an analogy that The Fab makes often; if The Fab was Jerry Seinfeld, Graham would be Newman.

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1: David Byrne was the singer from the Talking Heads. His style was less singing and more yelling in a sort of preacherly way. When David did his thing, it was original and witty. When Adrian Belew, who played guitar with the Talking Heads, ripped him off, he sounded like a jackass.

2: See Bob Dylan’s “Tarantula”, p. 1.

End notes

The Fab’s preferred medium to express these complaints it The Rant. The Fab is a master of the Rant, which is no small achievement - if you’re a bad Ranter, you’ll quickly bore your audience, and The Fab is no bore. His ability to segue from one Rant to another holds one’s attention, and he never runs out of things to complain about. The Fab is an actor, so he sometimes finds clever ways of Ranting in a certain character. The supreme example of this is the Great Peeping Tom, an artful conduit by which The Fab Rants about Gangsta Rap. Peeping, as he is sometimes called, is an unfathomably prolific white rapper, releasing a new album every five minutes or so (all of them concept albums). I remember his birth; we were playing video games in The Fab’s room, and suddenly, he began talking in Peeping’s imitable voice. “Ah kiwed a man when ah was six yeahs owd, y’undestan? Ah was inna stoodeeo, recoydin mah firs EP, anna recoydin engineeah disst mah rahms, so ah bit his heddoff, y’undestan. An dat became th issperation fo mah firs album: “Bitin’ a man’s head off in the studio”.

It didn’t occur to me until recently to ask The Fab, “How is it that you wound up hearing all those My Chemical Romance/+44/whatever songs all the way through?” He said, “I was being polite!”

It's great to get comments again!

Luckily, I had the option today of sleeping in, so I'm not sick anymore. The reason I had this option is because I had an orthodontist appointment this morning at ten - my last official orthodontist appointment, to be precise. I arrived fifteen minutes early, and they called me in twenty minutes late for my five-minute appointment. Contrary to what I would have thought, I still have to wear my retainer at night, two-to-three times a week. "...Ideally," he said, "if there was such an ideal, for the rest of your life." The page he handed me regarding this simply says to do it for as long as I'm willing to.

I went to the place where I usually catch the bus from the Fairmont medical building to downtown. After three non-downtown buses passed, I elected to ask a driver whether downtown buses even run along Broadway anymore. I was told to go to the other side of the street, as the #50 would turn down Willow street and take me to my destination. I had just missed it, so I waited fifteen minutes.

The bus stopped in front of some sort of housing complex near Granville island, and on hopped this fairly old lady who was obviously insanely cool. She greeted the bus driver very kindly, and just seemed very normal. A younger girl sat down next to her and they talked about the rainbow that was visible yesterday. Then this old man got on and sat next to me, and said, "Hello!" "Hello!" I echoed.

The bus went all over the place. This group of about six kids got on, who were on their way to some snowboarding destination. One of them was looking for his ticket, failing to locate it, when the older lady offered him change. She had a British accent, it turned out, and the boy she was offering the change to also had one, it sounded like. Everyone on the bus was clearly in an excellent mood.

I took it one stop too far, and so I tried to figure out which bus to take to get to school from where I was. I figured out wrong, and went quite far in the exact opposite direction I needed to. So what I did, I just walked over to Georgia street and caught my usual bus. The guy who got on ahead of me was carrying a sax case. He sat in front of me - or rather, I sat behind him. He pulled out the Charlie Parker Omnibook and some music paper, and seemed to be trying to figure something out in his head - he was tapping his hand the same way I do when I'm trying to write some unfamiliar rhythm down. The bar he started at was still empty when I got off. I felt like saying, "Good luck!" I arrived at school just in time for lunch. Then there was math, and then I came home.

When I was sick yesterday, I wrote a blues in E major. I'll teach it to Fab soon so we can play it at the next Coffee House. My first jazz piece! I'm excited to play it.

Journal from October eighth

Another "Write whatever you want" deal.

How I came to love jazz

An interesting topic, for it wasn’t as straightforward as it might have been had my parental units been jazz fans. My first real encounter would have taken place just before my birthday in 2005. I was dropping by a friend’s house, and her dad, Neill, had on this incredibly upbeat music. I was familiar with the sound, but I didn’t even know the name of the genre. I said, “I love this kind of music!” and borrowed the album.

On the morning of October eighteenth, my fourteenth birthday, my mother showed me an e-mail she’d received that she fancied to be quite comical, showcasing some ridiculous Halloween costumes. I, however, was quite un-amused, and elected to retire to the living room and listen to the album I’d borrowed; Misterioso by the Thelonious Monk Quartet. I had taken up the bass guitar two months previous, so my focus was primarily on the bass player, Ahmed Abdul Malik. The long, unaccompanied saxophone solos of Johnny Griffin also made an impression on me.

Now, I have no recollection why, but I returned the album soon after and didn’t ask to borrow any more jazz. It was not until sometime in mid-2006, when I began listening to Frank Zappa, that I became interested in jazz again. How this came about was simple; my mother decided that, since I was playing guitar, I should hear Zappa, and bought me a copy of Hot Rats. The thing that caught my ear more than anything else on the album was Ian Underwood’s sax solo on ‘The Gumbo Variations.’ Hearing this, combined with my discovery of the band King Crimson (whose early material features the sax prominently), made me think, ‘This is the instrument I have to learn.’

Around the same time, I was profusely studying music theory in The Guitar Handbook, which I had also borrowed from Neill. There was a short segment in the book describing everything a jazz guitarist has to know - virtually every imaginable chord and scale, and, importantly, he or she must be completely aware of what all the other members of the band are doing at any given time. (Of course, I didn’t know that this pretty much applies to jazz players on all instruments.) The very same day that I read this, I went to an opening at the Vancouver Art Gallery, where there was a live jazz trio playing - guitar, bass and drums. In retrospect, it was basically just ‘mingling’-type music, but I was still quite enthralled. I couldn’t fathom all the things happening in that guitarist’s nodding head.

I began listening to all the jazz that was available in my immediate sphere, mostly Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. I began taking saxophone lessons in December, 2006 with Colin Maskell, and attended a gig he played at The Main on, you guessed it, Main Street. This gig was my first encounter with Joe Poole, whom I’ve mentioned before as my favourite drummer. My second favourite drummer is Shelly Manne, whom I’ve heard on Sonny Rollins’s Way out west album. His solo on ‘Wagon Wheels’ is one of my favourite moments in music.

I am still playing the saxophone, though Colin unfortunately is unable to teach privately anymore. As I’ve mentioned many times before, I attend live jazz nights every sunday at the End Café, and am reading The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine.

Journal from October first

The assignment was, "Write 300 words on whatever you want".

Musical Hooks

A musical hook is an identifiable thing in a song that makes you want to hear it again, or that gets stuck in your head. There are many kinds; melodic hooks, guitar riff hooks, simply awe-inspiring technical proficiency hooks, and ‘Wow, I love the tone of X’s guitar’ hooks - these are all available. I will list a handful of ‘hooky’ songs, or songs that I at least find hooky, and explain just what makes them so appealing.

Cadilac [sic] - T. Rex

Simplicity is key in rock music and indeed, hook-crafting, so we’ll begin with one of its kings -- Mr. Marc Bolan. This song features a simple yet effective guitar riff (one chord, an open D) and the most primary¹ message in all of music: “I love ya, babeh!” Anyone who’s known me for more than a week is likely to have heard me burst out with Marc’s declaration of “Babeh, I wanna buy you a Cadillac!” (I usually revise it to ‘Buy you a bayou’.) It’s in the melody and words -- ‘listen to this song again!!’

Psycho killer - Talking heads

I was in a record store one afternoon, the album ‘Talking heads: 77’ playing loudly from every corner of the room, and when ‘Psycho killer’ came on, everyone started dancing and singing along. It’s impossibly catchy. The pulse of the opening bass line, the nervously intoned vocals of David Byrne and the staccato guitar are inescapable. The strange addition of French in the chorus and the entirely French bridge also contribute to the hook factor. “Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est ?”

So, we’ve already looked into lyrical, melodic and guitar hooks. What about those “technical proficiency hooks” I referred to earlier?

Roundabout - Yes

It opens with the harmonic-laden guitar of Steve Howe, perhaps a hook in its own right. After this mediaeval-themed intro, roughly a minute long, we experience a falling feeling and are then caught and held aloft by the real hook: Chris Squire’s wondrous bass line. The bass guitar was my first instrument, so I have always felt that I have a deep connection with the bassist I’m listening to, especially because of how ignored the instrument is by the general pop-music listening public. I would say the reason for its being so underappreciated is that most rock bassists, in the lightest terms, suck terribly-- but that’s another story, as Mr. Squire is first-class. I listen to the bass line, and my head just snaps back-- it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that I Am In Love with it. Proving his talent even further (as though he needs to), Squire sings as well, inflecting a melody that is, once again, a hook. Yet many people could hear ‘Roundabout’ and be quite unaffected, nay, turned off by what they would perceive as bombast. “Puke” is a word they would use. But they know not what they do.

Now, let’s stop floundering about and get to the Granddaddy (what a terrible expression!) of all hooky songs.

Smells like teen spirit - Nirvana

Too obvious? Well, the song is all hook - un-emit-able (not inimitable). We are confronted right off by the hook of the guitar riff-- wicked dead-stringing in tow².

The loud drums and heavy bass enter, moshing ensues. When we reach the verse, another couple of hooks are immediately apparent.

First of all, the dynamic changes from loud to soft-- now a far-too-common hook, but effective, nonetheless. The two ringing notes of the guitar are serene, and the vocal melody is admittedly beautiful. The lyrics are quite open to interpretation, I think, but maybe I only say that because I have no idea what they’re about. But whatever it is, it’s intense, and it’s hooky. The chorus, coming back to loud, features the guitar riff and the sarcasm of the lyric “Here we are now, entertain us.” Between the chorus and the second verse is an extremely strange four-bar interlude. There are a couple of dissonant power chords, followed by Kurt Cobain slurring “Yay!”, sounding almost like a horn (the same sort of ‘What the #*!@ did I just hear?’ hook can be found in Radiohead’s ‘Creep’). When the guitar solo comes around, between the second strange post-chorus and the third verse, Cobain simply cops the vocal melody, note for note, allowing us to really notice how hooky the melody is.

A lesser-known song now, though it can easily stand up to any other song, hook-wise.

Denise - Fountains of Wayne

This single opens with yet another guitar hook, again complete with wicked dead-stringing. Singer Chris Collingwood brings us back to The Primary Colours of Rock with the incredibly embarrassing opening line “I know this girl named Denise / She makes me weak at the knees.” The second part of the verse features the sure-fire hook of Sha-na-na-na, na-na, na backing vocals, and the equally embarrassing line “I can’t help myself.” We then reach the chorus and the post-chorus interlude, with their hooky vocal and keyboard melodies, respectively. The whole process repeats, and a rock’n guitar solo is included before the pop powerhouse is wrapped up.

Everybody thinks I’m a raincloud when I’m not looking - Guided by Voices

Robert Pollard is the singer of Guided by Voices, a gifted poet with a mind-blowing sense of melody. The chorus of this song combines these two superpowers perfectly. A notable hook besides this is the drum part building slowly during the opening, and dropping out in parts of the chorus as Pollard sings “Everyday, it’s another world”.

Saint Elmo’s fire - Robert Fripp and Brian Eno

I gotta admit, Brian Eno’s voice doesn’t do much for me, so there would have to be something in this song that really gets me for me to mention it. It’s Fripp’s guitar solo. Part of it is just the sound of his guitar alone-- it’s the most beautiful of sounds. Fripp has a way of choosing notes that contain so much emotion, love, resigned happiness….It’s something to behold. Other than the solo, I also enjoy the simple beauty of the lyric “In the blue august moon”.


Now, we’ve covered hooks. I said a hook is an identifiable thing that makes you want to hear a song again. Suppose you want to hear something again, but there isn’t a particular element that appeals to you. I guess it could be the tone of it, or maybe there’s something in it that bugs you, that somehow, you find alluring. I think the greatest hook is when a song makes you feel an emotion you wouldn’t otherwise be feeling. That is for another journal.

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1: See attached page on The Primary Colours of Rock. The primary that Marc is concerned with, in virtually all cases, is horny.

2: Dead-stringing is when a guitarist mutes the strings with her left hand while striking them, so that no discernable pitch is actually sounded, just a percussive chk. The technique is often found in funk, and is not to be confused with ‘palm-muting’, which is when the guitarist mutes the strings with his right hand, resulting in a more staccato note than usual. Inclusion of dead-stringing in a guitar riff always gets me, and I always use the word ‘wicked’ when referring to it.

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The Primary Colours of Rock

On April second, 2006, I formed a musical duo called Occupant with Stella Abdul. Here was our method: we would sit down and say, “We’ve got two hours to write, rehearse and record four songs. Go.” To assist us in this endeavor, I drew up a fascinating little device called The Primary Colours of Rock. Basically, I said the three emotions continually expressed in rock music are Aggressive, Self-pity and Horny, either on their own or in different combinations. We could then simply select one of the colours, or a combination of them, and our rock song would practically write itself. Occupant produced over sixty songs throughout April alone.

My excuse

Well, I have bad news. Twango is an ass, and won't let me upload the video from the coffee house, because it's too large a file. Bastards! So there's my excuse.

In other news, I'm sick today, so I couldn't attend school. I missed Socials! Horrible! But for real, I'm not pleased to miss science. I got my report card for the first skuule term today. 100% in English! On that note, I should post some of my journals - I don't have an excuse to get out of that. I also got 99% in Socials, despite finding it deathly dull. And yes, I do have to say 'Deathly' instead of 'Deadly'. I could also talk about my mark in Planning, but why sabotage my bragging rights?

I think Nello is out of school this week, which is exciting. We get to listen to the Black & blue outtakes! He says he plans on feeding me an increasingly intense diet of free jazz, ending with Evan Parker. I have great expectations for this Parker fellow! Hope I can handle him. Nello says, "It'll be something to aspire to on yer sexyphone."

What I currently look like in my own mind

...I.E., what I've been listening to lately. I've been telling everyone I know about the details of this, because I consider the selections listed below slightly incongruous at times - this makes me feel intelligent.

For the most part, it's been free jazz this, free jazz that. Fab and I had a free jazz night the other night - including back-to-back Interstellar Space intake. It was a mind-altering experience. When I put free jazz on, one of two things can happen;
a) If I concentrate on the music, I get sleepy.
b) If I just let it play in the background, I am very awake and aware, but not in a nervous way. It's a great tool for doing homework.

Now, what's a music genre that's ridiculously far away from free jazz? Power pop! The other part of my music intake is pretty much all Fountains of Wayne's Utopia Parkway. GOT to love those embarrassing rock lyrics and buckets of hooks. I decided today to write down twenty songs that I've listened to extensively of late. Well, I went one over.

Jazz:
Leo - Written by Coltrane, on both versions of Interstellar Space.
Saturn - As above.
Ghosts - Albert Ayler Trio.
Mr. PC - Written by Coltrane, but I really like David Murray's version.
(Eric Dolphy:)
Come Sunday
Burning Spear
Out There
Serene
Straight up and down

Pop:
St. Elmo's fire - Fripp and Eno....Well, it's probably always gonna be there. It's my favourite guitar solo.
(Swans:)
Eyes of nature
Miracle of love
Love will save you
(Fountains of Wayne:)
Denise
The Valley of malls
Troubled times
Amity Gardens
Lost in space
(Youth Group:)
Someone else's dream
Skeleton jar

And to top it off, I must add:
Walking with a ghost - Tegan & Sara!!

Obviously, delving suddenly into the uncharted realm of free jazz has created a need for the hooky songs mentioned above (with the exception of Swans - their position on the list is clearly just to make it harder for me to make my point - what is my point again?). We could also divide the list based on things that are more specific so that it could be analyzed further, with the intention of drawing parallels between free jazz and power pop. For instance, we could inject the header "Songs that involve ghosts", and its contents would include only Albert Ayler's "Ghosts" and Tegan & Sara's "Walking with a ghost". We would then send these specimens into the lab to be tested for similarities. How many could you find? Well, I'm saving to rent the lab.
Anyways, Liam's back from Europe, and Fab and I had a picnic with him the other day.

Post-Coffee House post

The Coffee House was a huge success! Above are the poster and the programme for the evening - I will soon post a video and some photos.

What a concept!

That is my English teacher, Gary's favourite phrase.

The concept in question, in this case, is free time! It's a long weekend and my homework is all done. I have now plenty of time to practice the saxophone and re-work my guitar piece. I have also learned, just today, how to assemble a walking bassline - the most useful thing I've learned in months.

I have also retrieved my N64 from the Cosmic Cop, who has been borrowing it for about two years. I can't wait to play Kirby!

Fab and I played our first ever gig last night at Zach's thirteenth birthday party! Utilizing electric guitar, with all my usual effects, and a keyboard-via-PA, we rocked the joint with 'Equinox' and 'Little Sunflower.' Because of the PA, I had my amp much louder than usual, and this caused even more feedback than I employ on even my noisiest days. During one of my clean moments, I quoted The Smiths' "Still Ill," which I've been waiting to do in public for the last week. Though I didn't notice it until someone pointed it out to me, I had my back turned to the fairly sizable audience the entire time we played.
In any case, it was fun, we got plenty of positive feedback (from people, as opposed to amplifiers), and it sort of functioned as a trial run for the coffee house. We also made some sweet cash!

I borrowed John Coltrane's final official album, Interstellar Space from Neill the other day, and have been listening to it madly. I'm always on about 'Calming Mr. Coltrane,' but I had never heard this, his most calming album of all. When I say 'calming,' by the bye, I mean it the same way I say 'hard-partying.' I put it on and did science homework!! After smashing my way (calmly) through this album a couple of times (once on public transit[1]), I decided to get around to listening to all the free jazz-type stuff Neill burned for me a few months back; Eric Dolphy, The Albert Ayler trio and The David Murray trio. I was already familiar with Dolphy -- he's one of my favourite musicians -- but I hadn't yet experienced 'Out There,' which I listened to the other day. It's now one of my favourite albums. My track of preference is 'Serene,' but all of them are good. Turning now to Albert Ayler, I remember Neill advising me, "The first time you hear it, you might just think, 'the guy can't play,' but just try and give him a chance." I listened to Spiritual Unity all the way through today, and it really is unlike anything else I've heard, in a good way. He certainly can play, but his stylings would definitely turn many people off. I still haven't listened to all of David Murray's Live '93 Octfunk, but I've liked all that I've heard. One of the bass solos knocked my damn toupee right off!!

I've also been obsessed with George and Ira Gershwin's "Summertime" of late. I always thought the Zombies' version was amazing -- and it is -- but it's clown music compared to Happy Apple Green's version. (I don't remember where I got this strange disfigurement of Al Green's name, but I've been using it since I was a tiny child, and I'm not stopping now.) Bird's version is also mind-bending. He incorporates a huge volume of turns, and his vibrato is frikkin astounding.

1: Other great 'transit' music, I've found, would include anything by T. Rex, and Youth Group's Skeleton Jar. Your thoughts on transit music?

The RCTV IDS Club!

I'm writing this in the middle of a planning class, as I've paid all my debt.

The coffee house is fast approaching, two weeks from this thursday. We (Tamlyn and I) have drawn up our entire program and it's looking as though the whole thing will be close to three hours long. Alone, I'm playing one original guitar composition. The Fab and I will be playing Equinox, Little Sunflower, Cousin Mary and Misterioso. I'll also be playing an acoustic rendition of Frances Farmer will have her revenge on Seattle with a young man named Victor. Next block, we have to head to the office and make sure the room we need to use isn't double-booked.

On 'Day 2s,' Tamlyn, Claire and I are renovating the latter's treehouse for school (we were sick of drama). How are we being graded on this? We're inviting our teacher over for tea and crumpets! (O yeah, as Tamlyn just corrected me while she was rudely reading over my shoulder, we're also making a documentary about the process.) By the way, this project allows us to leave school like two-and-a-half hours early. I also get to practice the saxomophone every other day this way!

Nothing will stand in my way!!

Oh, and Eureka seveN is over in two weeks! I'm preparing for post-cartoon land depression.

Where am I?

Why have I not written ene-thing in two months, you may ask. Well, that's not a valid question, because I have been writing outside of this blog. I have a life outside of you demanding leeches!!

I have been attending a school in the west end, City School, which is located within the King George school building. I am actually taking classes for pretty much the first time ever, English among them. This is where my writing has been going. Each week we are required to write a journal, usually on a topic that is chosen for us. The best ones so far have been 'A social outcast' (which I wrote about Prickle from Gumby Adventures), 'Musical hooks' (my choice), and 'My imaginary friend.' I will post all of these here.

I'm listening to 'Midnite Vultures' by Beck. I discovered that there are two other fellow-fans of this album at City School among the thirty or so students in attendance.

For art class, or rather in place of it, I am organizing a Coffee House with my new business partner, Tamlyn. It will feature music, poetry reading and, of course, COFFEE! I am planning on performing solo guitar pieces, which I will have to write, and jazz. I actually wrote one the guitar pieces yesterday - the whole thing. This is like a miracle for me! I used a riff I created a few months ago, and the ending is quite Yes-ish. It will appear either here or on glissando as soon as it's recorded. I have already performed it for The Fab and Sarrah, who both enjoyed it, in all its mercurial glory.

If you boil it right down, I only do about four or five different things every week.

On sunday the twelfth, I was the only one attending jazz. After the second set, Jason advised me, "Get The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine, and you won't have to go to university for jazz education." Stella financed this, and it's one dense book. It has revealed that the melodic minor scale isn't completely pointless, and that I should be practicing roughly a hundred and sixty-eight scales a day. I also now know that a fine way of notating E7#9sus would simply be Esus#9. I'm slowly learning.

I recently read 1984, which should be read aloud when there's a lull at a party, and am now reading The Crystal World by J.G. Ballard. I attempted to read The Atrocity Exhibition about a year and a half ago, and was lucky to make it over halfway through. I was thinking of taking another stab at it, but O'brien told me, 'Read some of his older stuff first.'

Now, onto the most important of topics. I've begun playing plenty of Pokemon Red again. I was searching high and low for my old strategy guide, when it occurred to me that I may have sold it to Cosima along with my cards and blue version some years ago. I headed over there and asked her. "Nope." Then Nils said, "But you lent it to her, didn't you?" Why he would remember that is beyond me. Cosima went into her room and fetched it within ten seconds. I've since been obsessively making lists of pokemon I don't have, lists of pokemon that I need Cosima to trade to me, etc. I beat Erika last night.

A list of everything I do everyday that I carry with me.

I love her, but she kills me.

Last wednesday, Liam, Melissa and I all gathered at Fab's place, with Fab in attendance, to jam. Liam brought his djembe(hand drum), and I brought my sax and guitar effects. Our first effort was recorded onto a small walkman with a condenser mic, and included me on sax, Liam on djembe, and Fab and Melissa on two separate keyboards. The walkman, however, decided it wanted a solo of its own all the way through. A noise solo. We then decided to just head for park and tilford plaza--an hour-long walk--to get wedge fries. Park and tilford (PT) is a ten-minute walk from the old Windsor House, so we would usually buy wedge fries every day. We now go there at least once a year.

Anyhow, Liam and I had both left our instruments at Fab's, so we decided to pick them up the next day. Luckily, we ended up there at the same time, allowing us to jam some more. It was all very atmospheric and meditative, and we even employed a basic polyrhythm in one piece. Fab, with his riches, treated us to lunch at Belgian Fries, where we split a deep-fried mars bar before returning to jam more. We'll need a better recording device next time, maybe the portastudio.

Sam, Melissa and I convened once again at Fab's place on monday, but unfortunately it went nowhere except Belgian Fries again. This time, we tried the deep-fried ice cream. Better not tempt a third visit for at least six weeks. My arteries are already having a party.

And one more time, I went to Fab's yesterday to record our reverb-soaked rendition of Equinox by John Coltrane, available on the latest Glissando entry. I was more than impressed with Fab's ability to play the bassline and the chords at the same time, and then play a solo over the chords. As for my own playing, I think the second chorus of my opening solo just may be my finest hour.

Arranging and Woody Allen

So, why have I refrained from writing for so long? Well, I was busy with band camp for the first three weeks, but I have no excuse beyond that.

The band camp took place at a highschool way out in new westminster. It involved an hour of traveling both ways each day. The day would commence with the beginner band, during which people were encouraged to try taking up a new instrument. My choice was the oboe, which does a real number on your face. One has to suck one's face in while blowing out into a very small space. I think I'll wind up taking it up in the future, but not the near future. This portion of the day would last from nine til ten. The songs were kind of what one would expect from a beginner band. Just marching band music. Advanced band would then proceed from ten til eleven, during which I played the (only) alto sax. Pretty much everything we played during this section was music from movie soundtracks, but not music you remembered from same. However, I will admit the music from 'Jurassic Park' is somewhat interesting, in that it sounds like a giant accordion (there was no accordion in the band), and the theme from 'The Incredibles' at least rocks out a bit and has a section in 5/4. The final third of the day was the jazz band, which had everyone split into groups, given lead sheets, and told to create an arrangement of the song of their choice. My group was fricken way too big, because the six of us were all too lazy to approach anyone in the time envelope provided for us to do so. I was the only alto, and with me were two tenors, a bass guitar, a flute, and a clarinet. Our song of choice was 'Tenor Madness' by Sonny Rollins, as everyone learned it by like day three anyway. The first night after we were put in our group, I was up late thinking about our arrangement, but nothing I thought of panned out. We had virtually no chemistry, and it sure as hell didn't help that one of the tenors was in a perpetual daze and literally refused to believe that I was homeschooled. I might as well have said I was from saturn. Anyhow, after vast amounts of help from Colin(you remember Colin, right?) and the teacher's aids, we wound up with an arrangement. On the last day, there was a perfrormance from each group (the beginner, advanced, and jazz bands). Fab was even in attendance! Our small group's performance went alright, except the ending of it really didn't. Oh, and my saxophone decided not to cooperate entirely during my one-chorus solo. But it was still a very good day. Fab, Stella and I went the End afterwards.

The last two weeks of live jazz at the End have been very different from usual. Two weeks ago, both Jason and Steve were sitting out, so there was an entirely new band besides Ian. Also, Liam wasn't there. There was an altoist, a trumpeter, and a guitarist. It was almost eerie without the drums, and during their first tune, I was thinking, "This is poor! They're hardly tight at all". But by their third tune, they were improving vastly. A second guitarist arrived for their second set, and he brought them together like hell. It certainly shows how even remotely different combinations of people yield entirely different music. He resembled Woody Allen, so he's become known to us as Woody Allen, although I believe his name is Oscar. He's quite amazing. Last week had a similar lineup, but Steve was back. Our group was also quite large. It included me, Fab, Melissa, Liam, Sam, and even Graham was there for the first three songs. Liam remarked, "I can see what you mean about Woody Allen. He's really good, and he mopped the floor with the other guitarist!".

I love rain as long as I'm not in it

I really should write more.

I saw ze White Stripes on sunday at dear lake park with Bailey and Fab. I insisted on arriving an hour before the gates opened, cuz what kind of moron pays like sixty bucks to stare at a crowd of backs? We talked to the people in line with us-- a family of four from Washington. After a while we could hear really loud thunder. And then there was rain. Rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain....The worst rain I've ever been in for an extended period of time. With vast amounts of hail. The gates opened like forty minutes late, and then we initiated our plan of attack: get right to the front. And we did. The opening band carried on the tradition of the White Stripes having lame opening bands, and they were so professional that they didn't even tell us their name. The 'Stripes came on at eight. Meg was wearing a beret and a black and white scarf, carrying two baguettes. Nearly the whole time they played, it was like being on a boat on a very angry sea, as Fab said. At one point, some guy flew right over my head. Anyways, they opened with Dead leaves and the dirty ground, When I hear my name and Icky Thump. The entire time, I was trying to beam the vibes into them (Rockinitis-style) to get them to play Black math, and it worked. They finished their regular set with it. Other highlights of same were Jolene (the Dolly Parton cover), Catch hell blues, Effect and cause and Hotel Yorba. In their encore they played Seven nation army, naturally, Screwdriver, and the best performance of the night by far, We're going to be friends. Aside from the fact that it was the only song during which I wasn't being smashed up, it was just sweet to hear everyone singing it. They also played their Burt Bacharach cover, I just don't know what to do with myself and ended the night with the Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter is a way cooler name, isn't it?) tune Bo Weevil. We ran into Sarrah and her unknown friend afterwards, not even knowing she was there. Lucky us, we got a ride home with her Fahzsa.

I had my final formal lesson with Colin on tuesday. Next tuesday, I will begin a band camp of sorts in New Westminster for three weeks. It takes place from nine a.m. til noon every weekday. One of those hours is all jazz-related, but I'll still show up for the rest of each day.

Some truly excellent news, now. I recently got the old 1986 sony walkman working again. If it hadn't stopped working in the first place, Occupant would have more songs than Robert Pollard and Daniel Johnston combined by now, due to its convenience.

MooddooM

Well, I'll tell you all about the recording front this past little while, because unusually, there has been a recording front lately.

I'll just tell you first off that none of these compositions will be appearing here any time soon, so don't get too excited. The first came together from a number of unlikely sources. When I'm trying to sleep, sometimes something will pop into my head. Sometimes music, sometimes something else that I feel inclined to write down for some reason, such as the sentence, "Move it, you fascinating sky." Anyhow, one day something in 3/4 with two guitars popped into my head. I got up and figured it out, wrote it down and forgot about it. A week or two later, I was thinking about generic fucked up circus music in 3/4 and I went to the forte. I figured out this little thing involving really not-so-chord-ish chords that I've since learned are called 'tone clusters'. I realised that the guitar parts would fit over it! Then, I guess not long after, I was listening to the sweet hard-partying sounds of Greed by Swans and enjoying the rhythmic, repetitive nature of it. As soon as it was over, I quickly wrote a sax part and recorded the whole thing. Why isn't it ready? a. I didn't use a click track, which means I will need to retake the whole thing. b. It needs development. Repetition without development, in this case anyway, would bore your brain out. In a live context, however, I'm sure you would find it appealing.

The second is basically two tracks of bass feedback at two different pitches. It's five minutes long. I guess I need to play something over it, but even if I don't, it's pretty soothing.

The third is quite similar to the first. It has a two-note bassline and mid-range forte chords, first executed in a staccato manner, then a sustained manner. A dreamy guitar clothes what we'll call the middle section. And over all this....an electric drill. Maybe I'll find a way of fusing all three pieces together.

O'brien and I took a trip to the anime store at metrotown the other day. There was a hell of a lot of stuff there, despite how small it was. I will be returning soon!

"I hate everything that I don't own" -M. Gira

Not to quote him out of context or anything.
The great thing about not writing a blog entry in over 2 weeks --and I know it's been longer than that-- is that when you finally come back to it, you have tons to write about. Ergo, I've tons to write about.

Last wednesday I went to see Bjork in deer lake park with Stella. I said, "The gates are opening at five, so we should get there at four." Stella told me it would be an old crowd who wouldn't show up until the gates opened. She said, "Remember how we got to Lisa Germano an hour early and had nothing to do?" And granted, that was my idea, but as I told Stella, "Lisa Germano isn't Bjork." We wound up pretty much right at the front. And what can I say about it? It's Bjork. Whenever I go to a concert, I always think it's the best I've been to.

Before jazz on sunday, Stella, Fab and I went to the opening of a little restaurant at 49th and fraser. We met a woman who told us about a place called the Butcher Shop that has an open mic night once a month. She gave us her card and told us to email her for more info. Fab and I then proceeded to the End. The band had a different bassist whose name was Ian. He was certainly something! They played Blues for Alice, which is always a treat, and told us they'd have to start giving us a cut from the tip jar for showing up every week.

That same day, I was going to lend Fab The Perks of being a wallflower, as it is a somewhat Catcher in the rye-esque book. He wound up forgetting it, and this prompted me to read it. I finished it and liked it as much as the first time I read it.

Colin was sick last week, so there was no sax lesson. He was well enough to teach yesterday, though. He told me he'd only be teaching for another month, as "things are getting too hectic." He said he'd recommend someone at the end of the month.

Fab made me promise to write the guitar solo (that I've been supposed to write for over a month) "the next time I pick up the guitar." I wrote it today, finally. I found a way to make dying pig noises using the phaser. I find them much more expressive than dying cat noises. Those are mostly unplanned dissonance.

One day I will cover the entire Man Machine album by Kraftwerk.

It seems monday is the blog day. I just don't feel inclined to write during the rest of week, you understand.

I'm supposed to write a guitar solo for the piece Fab and I have been working on. Well, I've been supposed to write it for a few weeks. Now Fab's cracking down: "I want this bitch recorded by next week!!" He's also always saying that since half of it is written, I may as well improvise the rest. "[Nils] is probably the only one who's ever gonna listen to it. And it's not like he's gonna go, 'Hmm, that sounds like unplanned dissonance!!' or 'That last bar didn't sound like a cat dying!!'". On the other hand, the jazz hand, we've been trying to play better blues than, you know, wanking guitar solo blues. (Even though it's always time for a wanking guitar solo.) I'm slowly improving. My sax homework this week is to steal an idea from Mr. Parker.

We went to the see the live jazz last night, but we were only joined by Luan, and even then, not til halfway through the second set. During the break, Steve (the drummer) sat down at our table. We talked for quite a while. He said he'd been playing drums for twenty years, but jazz for just one. He asked what kind of music we play. I said, "Well, we've been debating what to call it for a while. I say it's called chamber rock," and Fab said, "And I insist that it's prog rock". Steve said, "I love prog rock!", and we got into this long conversation about prog rock, and he gave us his list of Prog Rock Classics.

The last tune was Well You Needn't by Mr. Melodious Thunk, during which Joel (the bassist) quoted my favourite Coltrane tune, Syeeda's Song Flute.

And I met Eliot the other day. She was pretty tiny, but bigger than I expected. You couldn't put her in your lapel or anything.

These characters are not allowed: !

Well, I've tons to write about today.

First of all, Marg had her baby on the 24th at around 1:30 am, as I understand. Her name is Elliot. They're at home now, but I haven't seen them.

Now onto a totally different topic. I found out how to catch Mew in red & blue versions. If that sentence meant anything to you, read on.
On wikipedia, I happened to stumble across a page devoted to glitches in pokemon games. It talked all about the one I remember exploiting, the Missingno. glitch, and several others. But the one that made me really wake up was The Mew Glitch. When I was a kid, there was this big tale that one could catch a Mew by not getting on the boat, blah blah blah, and I tried it, and it didn't work. But anyway, there was a link to a video of someone doing it on the wikipedia page. And I'm planning on doing it. Catching the Mew. Yeah!

At my last lesson, Colin told me to learn Parker's solo from Now's The Time. I've learned some of it, maybe about a sixth of it. There's this mad part (circled below) that's way too fast, and he goes all over the fuckin place, but I'm slowly getting better at it. As you can see, there are madder parts forthcoming.

Yesterday was sunday, so of course, I went to the End cafe to see the live jazz ensemble with Fab, Sarah and Luan. There was a canucks game on, and dozens of screens all over the cafe, so the music was postponed until the end of the game. Fab was saying, "I'm used to hockey preempting shows I want to watch, but I never thought it would preempt live jazz". I was saying, "If it goes into overtime, I'm killing someone". Thankfully, the Caknuckleheads lost, and the band started. It was the same trio as last week, and I can even remember all their names now. It was Joel Kerr on bass, Jason Walters on tenor sax, and Steve Kaposy on drums. After about 3 tunes, the trumpeter showed up. His name was Chad, but they didn't tell us his last name. Their first set was quite enjoyable, then they took a short break. We were directly in front of the stage and also the only table tipping them, and this made Mr. Walters suspicious. He came up and asked, "So do you guys play?". We said yes, and he asked if we knew any tunes. I said I've only been playing a few months. He told us when we learn some tunes, we should play with them some time. I find this bodes well! Their second set was pretty damn amazing. Jason thanked us for coming.

A delicious bass

It's really raining out there today, which means I won't be able to slap the last coat of paint on those cabinets. I haven't heard any news about Marg since yesterday afternoon. Whatever should happen, she won't be around for a few days. Obviously.

I'm listening to Colossal Youth by Young Marble Giants. Always makes me think of Cortez, 'cause I listened to it on the way home from same last year. That, and right around that time I listed them as one of my five favourite bands.

I'm posting a link to a piece Nils and I worked on a few months ago. The story is, Occupant decided to record a series of searing bluthz songs, which Nils wanted in on. We all got together for a couple of days in a row. On one of those days, Nils and I were sitting in the livingroom trying to write something. Not too much was happening. I sat down directly in front of the bass amp, which, of course, fed back. This was about one or two days after I had seen the Blood Brothers, a somewhat feedback-oriented band. When I put the phaser on and set it a certain way, it made the feedback bend and tweet. I started scraping one of the strings. Nils said, "Now that's a bassline!" He started playing some echo-y guitar, Stella contributed inaudible violin, and then Nils added some chimes and 'cello bits on his beputer. I was certainly surprised at the result! Here it is.

I've seen Grindhouse twice now

A few days ago, I was at the End cafe, and I noticed a sign that said, "Live jazz, 7-9 pm on sundays". Which is exactly what I've been wanting them to have since day one. Stella and I met Fab there last night. They had already started by the time we got there. They were a trio. Tenor sax, bass and drums. The bassist's name was Joel Kerr, and his solos were highly impressive. He certainly had his shit together! I don't remember the saxophonist or drummer's names, but I'll find out and post them sometime soon. I recognised one song they played during their first set, Cousin Mary by John Coltrane, and they did it well! They took a very long break, during which Stella left. A guitarist came along and set up before they went back on. After a couple of tunes with this guitarist, who was quite exceptional, a trumpeter showed up. He was wearing an Al Capone hat. "You're just in time," they told him. "Just in time for what?" "F minor blues." "I love F minor blues!!" His solos were the most impressive of all. A lot of neat ideas. They ended with my favourite Charlie Parker tune, Blues for Alice. A treat! I'm going to try to convince a boatload of people to go next week.

Over the last two days, our neighbour Marg has been paying me to paint some cabinets for her. She's pregnant, you understand. I woke up this morning and was informed in short order that Marg's water had broken a month early. I was instructed to let the plumber into her house if he showed up. I am also being employed to walk our other neighbour's dog all week. Thus, my to do list for today was a mile long. The problem with this being that I haven't played sax at allll since tuesday. SO, I waited around for the plumb man for like an hour, then I took Cookie out, walked Chester (the other dog), painted the fockin' cabinets, ate some god damn lunch, then FINALLY played some zagzofone. Tomorrow will be a repeat of today, only without waiting around for that fockin' plumb-fool. Anyways, with all these jobs, it's been a good money week.

The more I try to copy him, the more he copies me

Occupant has a Radiohead parody that was written and recorded on april 11th last year, meaning it turned one yesterday. It was one of the few songs that I wrote all the lyrics for without any input from Stella. That was before Thom Yorke's solo album, The Eraser came out. I was listening to Black Swan, a song from said album, the other day. And I'm not going to explain it, I'm just going to write it below.

Occupant's "Pride comes before a fall" goes:

We've seen your kind before
If you've seen one, you've seen 'em all
It doesn't take a lion to know
Pride comes before a fall.
Quit while you're ahead, kid
Drive yourself home
Just don't kid yourself, kid
Grow a little backbone.

Black Swan's first verse goes:

What will grow crooked, you can't make straight
It's the price that you got to pay
Do yourself a favor and pack your bags
Buy a ticket and get on the train

I have my first pianoforte lesson coming up on saturday with Fab's teacher, Bill. It will be directly after Fab's lesson, in fact.

It's not how it looks!!

Well, on good friday I went to see Grindhouse (the new Quinten Tarentino/Robert Rodriguez filum) with Sammeh. They wouldn't let me in, so Sammeh went over to the pre-pay machine thing, and it's not like it scans your retinas to determine your age or anything. So that got me in.
I knew that it was 2 movies in 1, but I didn't know they would both be feature-length. The first one, Planet Terror, was a very, very over-the-top zombie movie. There were some extremely gory bits (to the point where I lost my appetite for chips), but of course, the fight scenes were highly comical. There were fake movie trailers before and between the two movies, for things like Werewolf Women of the S.S. and Hobo With a Shotgun. The second one, Deathproof, was completely hilarious but took a little while to get going. Anyway, it's a good thing they're in that order.

I'm listening to Eric Dolphy's rendition of Melodius Thunk's Epistrophy on bass clarinet. It has the best intro ever. I've been practicing all twelve keys on the saxophone. It's getting easier for sure. Hopefully I'll soon (within a month or two) be able to whip through them all in under two minutes. After each of my sax lessons, Colin usually plays something while I'm packing up. Yesterday he started playing a song that I hear frickin all the time, but I never knew the name of it because I don't have a recording. It was Ornithology by Charlie Porker. So now that I knew the name, I could learn it. And I did. So, my Porker repertoire at the moment is: Blues for Alice, Segment, My little suede shoes, Yardbird suite, and Ornithology. I'm also learning Steeplechase. The only non-Bird song I've learned is the aforementioned Epistrophy, but that came from an unreliable source. I haven't practiced it much.

I've been listening to live Smiths bootlegs on the interweb. They're at www.akiraware.com but the quality is low. I don't mind, but anyone unfamiliar with it would just hear hiss for the most part. Robert Pollard's new album, Silverfish Trivia is coming out on tuesday the 17th. A song from it is currently available on his website.

We didn't have enuhthing planned for esther, but I received a gift nonetheless. A pez dispenser!

Anyways, ideas are amassing, and I should be composing some stuff soon. If it doesn't appear here it will of course appear on glissando, which by the way is getting rave reviews. Liam says, "Nice stuff, someone walking by my door said it sounded cool as well". Helen says, "Some bits are too delicious for words". Bailey and Stella say it could be soundtrack music. Fab says, "Why are we so awesome?".

Buddabuddabudda

Occupant is one year old as of yesterday! But you can read all about that on the Occupant site, of course.

So, last night I had a dream wherein I guess I was watching things unfold, but in the first person. From the perspective of some kind of agent guy, like Dick Tracy or something. But certainly not Dick Tracy. It took place in the practice space of some heavy rock group. The first thing I remember is Dick walking into a bathroom where the bassist was. Dick pulled out a gun, and the bassist brandished one. Dick said, "That thing's not loaded". I think the bassist was planning on killing himself. He started ranting about something and getting very pissed off. He ended with "Maybe I should juss kill you right now--" and Dick shot him through the eye. Later, I saw the rest of the band talking about how the bassist had killed himself. They didn't seem surprised. Then they tried to rehearse without him, but they just fell apart. It was like seeing a balloon deflate violently.

I had a sax lesson today. I always warm up by playing Amazing Grace. It's a good tune to warm up with because you can hold the notes as long as you want, and change it with total ease because it's simple. It's also a good way to improve your tone. Anyway, Colin told me to play it in every key. And practice every major scale. This is something I've been avoiding for the last couple of weeks, but now that he's told me directly I'd better.

Screaming time signatures

I am now consistently going to the End cafe twice a week. On thursdays I go there with Stella, and on fridays I meet Fab. Fab and I then proceed back to Stella's to write, record, jam, listen, and then we go to O'Brien's for 'cartoon land'. Anyways.. We wrote for a while yesterday. So far the composition consists of just guitar and forte. It will show up on the glissando blog when it's finished and recorded. In the meantime I'll soon be posting a sax-forte jam.

Last St. Patrick's day, I had Fab and Sylvia over to record on the good old portastudio. It was my first portastudio recording. The song was 'Polly' by Nirvana, and I had previously laid down the ukulele (yes) track, along with bass and my own vocal track. I wanted, however, to have a take with Fab on vocals. It actually never got mixed down. Anyhow, this year I had them over to do another cover of the same song on the day after St. Patrick's. I went to work a couple of days early using my limited knowledge of chord substitution.

The original progression goes Em, G, C, D in the verse. I changed this to Em add9, G6, C, D. The top note in a chord progression conveys melodic transitions. Thus, if you'll take a look at the top note in this progression(see chord chart below), you'll see it forms a primitive melody that goes F#, E, F#, E. I made a note of this, thinking a brief interlude could be added featuring this melody. I also constructed a bassline based on the chords that I immediately knew was superior to the original bassline, which was obviously slapped together in an offhand manner.
We wound up working on it for about six hours. It is now mixed and still needs to be digitised before it can appear on glissando. Hearing it will be more informative than me describing the recording process.

More dreams! Two nights ago, I dreamt endlessly, but unfortunately I can only recall the last one I had. I was at a very loud and screamy concert reminiscent of the Blood Brothers concert I attended in december. The singer was the only band member visible, and she was in the front of the crowd instead of on stage. They launched into what was obviously their big hit, featuring the singer counting the time signature. "1-2-3-4-123456-1-2-3-4-123456", screaming the 6/8 bar.
Last night I dreamt about having these massive bruises on my legs. I went to see a doctor about it. I think he seemed sort of impressed. Anyways, I wound up going into a packed auditorium for the Windsor House presentation of The Wizard of Oz. Before the show, I saw these two little kids from Windsor House dancing together. They looked amorously at each other. The play began, and it actually had nothing to do with The Wizard of Oz. There were mysterious singing voices coming from backstage and some disgruntled guy dressed as a tree or something on stage. The audience took up the singing while clapping. Some people continued to clap a bit too long, and the tree guy went, "Stop that, and let me clap to show what that sounds like" in a very pissed off voice.

Pixie has reappeared and begun a new blog which is located here. It's highly enjoyable.

Everything I would have written

Sorr-ry I haven't written in a while.

Mel (my sax teacher), whose real name is actually Colin, invited me to see him play a set at a Greek restaurant last Friday. He said they were a trio "with an incredible bassist and an incredible drummer". I brought a truckload of people with me. Fab, both his parents, Cosmic clock, Sylvia and Wallis. He played tenor throughout both their sets. I recognised only one song they played, but I don't know the name.

During his solos, he never played any light-speed passages or anything. He always took his time, and his thoughts and ideas were extremely clear. I forget the bassist's name, but as Sylvia remarked as soon as she sat down, "They have an excellent bass player". Whenever we applauded at the end of one of his solos, he would nod at us.

The drummer's name was Joe, and he was very young. He had guitar face: drummer's edition. But he was entitled to it. I recall the first time I saw a live jazz band at an opening at the art gallery. The guitarist had an expression that is probably exclusive to jazz players. Kind of like he was high on his music, or as Jimmy Ricardo once put it, "He is having an inner communion with his God, the musical note". And that is how Joe looked, but much more over-the-top. Everyone in the place obviously loved him. His solos were almost like their own pieces of music. My new favourite living drummer (my favourite dead one being Shelly Manne, who played on Sonny Rollins's Way out west).

Everyone talked about it the whole ride home. I think everyone had an excellent time. When I asked Cosmic, so did you enjoy yourself this evening, she said she was surprised how good they were. I said yes, he said they had an incredible bassist and an incredible drummer. She said, "And he wasn't lying. But what he failed to mention is that he was good at playing, too".

On the drive, there is a corner where no business can succeed. There have been about three restaurants in the last three years. About a month ago, a new cafe opened there called The End. Stella and I went there to see if it was frequent-worthy. There are no coffee shops in our neighbourhood (no good ones anyway). It was clean, you could order just a coffee or a whole meal, the waitress had a lovely accent, there were a googolplex different places to sit (leather furniture, even), and the food was cheap but perfectly good. Five out of five fish on the Bishop scale!

Fab and I met at said cafe on Sunday and had dinner. We then proceeded back to Stella's to jam, the outcome of which can be heard on our blog. Glissando isn't a band name, it's just a cool word. Stella has forbidden us from discussing a band name until we have recorded at least six compositions. We will continue tomorrow before Eureka Seven, which unfortunately has been moved to eleven o'clock.

Man from another place

In the last couple of days I've been experimenting on the newly acquired pianoforte, or forte as I tend to abbreviate it to. It's been called 'piano' for so long (when it should have been called pianoforte) that we must even it out. For every time it's been called 'piano', we must call it 'forte'.

I had been meaning to record one of these improvisations, because I thought it may help me to come up with some ideas. So today, I did just that. I'm presenting the improvisation here, in four sections. The total run time is about nine minutes. The website I'm using to publish them is new to me, so I'll link directly to the files.

The first section, Land of Sketchy opens with one chord repeated a few times in the bass, then the right hand enters and plays extensions of the chord before playing a very brief melody. An arpeggio in the deep bass ensues. Then more chords, with fairly fucked-up-sounding extensions. Then some large, hopeful chords mutate into horrible wrecks(melodic ones) and it ends with two blasts of, um, death.

The second section, I can't get comfortable is mostly a slow melody in very low registers. The notes slowly link and form a chord, which is repeated ploddingly while some high melody notes enter (again, altered extensions). The bass notes then crawl lower into extremely low registers, and the high melody continues. When the melody has finished talking, the bass thinks for a minute and then stops.

The third section, Hm(sigh). is very short and probably my favourite of the four. It opens with a mournful bass arpeggio that I most certainly will be using in the future. You're hearing it here first! Cookie contributes percussion and then chords, extensions, melodies succeed. It keeps its mood for a while, then begins to see the light. Then it gets extremely frustrated and it kills itself. Dramatic! But if you're not paying attention it will appear to fizzle out meaninglessly(and boringly).

The last section, Blunt Instrument emerges with a quiet percussion intro. Some seemingly happy chords begin and establish a 3/4 beat before minor extensions prevail. It speeds up and gets quite riled up, relaxes for half a second, then accelerates intensely before the percussion and plucked-string outro.

Bob's poem

My most recent sax lesson, which took place on tuesday, was the most fruitful yet. I asked my teacher, Mel, so what can you tell me about playing a solo over a chord progression? He showed me how to analyze a piece of music, a solo or head, so I could get an idea of what one might play over a given chord. He recommended that I purchase the Charlie Parker Omnibook and analyze and learn the music in it. So I did. And the first thing I discovered, quite frustratingly, is that the lead sheet (for 'Blues for Alice') I had previously printed off the internet had at least four mistakes in it. Right when I could play it up to speed! Frikkin' internet, eh? So I'm relearning that tune, pretty much, along with 'Segment'. I'm also working on my own decomposition.

Alrite, I had some more weird dreams last night. Nothing to do with the last two, though. The first one involved George Harrison sitting in a room wearing white sheets, surrounded by a bunch of people, his students, who were wearing similar clothing. He was teaching them various Indian customs. Then John showed up and was of course letting everyone know that his cloud was higher than theirs. George said to his students, "Here's how you leave the room", and began edging out of the room in a sort of crabwalk. Everyone began following suit, but John's version involved wiggling his arms and more wobbly steps. I guess that was the more enlightened way of doing it.

In the second dream, I was in my livingroom, which was bigger and very crowded with people. There was also a large table in the middle. Bob Dylan was there, and he recited a poem. It was addressed to himself. It went something like, "Bob Dylan, you're being held aloft by God. So what's it like to look the most famous man in the world in the face? I wish I were you, because you exist in a verse." He picked me up and threw me onto the table during the recitation.

O'Brien surprised me and Cosima on friday by producing two Eureka Seven DVDs from his pack, Eureka Seven being a tv show we watch religiously. It's exciting!