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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.
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.
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.
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.
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?".
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.
