- On Sunday I was this close to finishing off my record. Then I realized my basement carpet was damp. Ha. The tribulations of going through MN winters, I suppose. But yep… just about done with her. She’ll be 21 tracks, running about 55 to 57 minutes. Just short of an hour. Self titled, because she will chronicle the section of my life that made me start doing this to begin with. So it’s sort-of a “birth of…” thing, if you will. But what… I’m gonna call it “The Birth Of…”?? C’mon, I’m an asshole but I’m not that pretentious. Other self news: I’m leaving for Memphis Monday for my new job. So I’m not sure I’ll be posting here much. Course, this could go the opposite direction and I could be so bored with what to do with myself that I’ll be posting several times a night in my hotel room. It’s looking like the release date should be in May; until then keep up with Black Lantern Music cause some really cool stuff is going to be coming out between now and then.
- Sooo… this is only the second time in history we’ve discovered a triple quasar. The easiest way to define a quasar is a “galactic seed, or nucleus”. With double-quasars, it’s believed to be a result of two galaxies colliding. In other words, there’s crazy shit going on out there… we’re not even specs of dust. We’re specs of dust on one side of an electron only. Here’s the article.
- Years before Rian Johnson scored a moderately mainstream hit movie in last year’s Looper, he directed Brick. A neo-Noir throwback to the crime, in over your head flicks and novels of the late 30′s and 40′s taking place in an American suburban high school. It strangely works very well. And I have a feeling it would have been taken more seriously if the film starred adults and not teenagers. Anyways, yesterday The Onion’s AV Club posted an article about the opening sequence of Brick.
“There’s also sorrow in the juxtaposition of a slow push into Gordon-Levitt’s face, half-hidden behind hands clasped together in a classic thinker’s pose, with inserts of the girl’s lifeless body at the edge of the water. It was during this back-and-forth, as the camera measures Gordon-Levitt by way of his non-reaction to shoes, hair, and odd-shaped bracelets, that I mentally wrote the note “Dear Dear Wendy: Sorry.” Until then, though, I couldn’t necessarily articulate what made this sequence of shots seem so powerful. Watching it again, I belatedly realized something: Gordon-Levitt’s eyeline never changes. We see him ostensibly looking at different details each time, but that’s never cued by eye movement. And then I realized something else, which I can’t believe I never noticed before: Those inserts aren’t from the angle at which he’s viewing them. From where he is, her feet should be at the top of the frame; instead, they’re at the bottom, shot from her other side. The other two shots are likewise reversed. You could call that an error, I suppose, but coupled with the fixed eyeline, what it suggests (and I think this is what I always responded to, unconsciously) is that Gordon-Levitt can’t process what he’s seeing.”
- Wow… so you know how sometimes you hear the argument, “Wind power? Wind?? Why on Earth would use hundreds year old technology to power anything in the 21st century?”. Well I just read on Phys.org that new information from Australia states — obviously in certain regions — wind is cheaper and generates as much or more energy as traditional forms. The study found that down under wind cost $80 per MWh (that’s “Megawatt Hour” or one million watts/hour), whereas it costs $116 for the same amount from a new gas plant, and $143 for the same amount of energy from a new coal plant. Coal is much higher, however, because of the government’s carbon tax… but the article notes that even without any sort of carbon tax, Coal comes down to the Gas plant numbers (still not close to Wind’s $80/MWh). Apparently this can be mostly attributed to the cost of renewables (mostly wind and solar) dropping hard in the past few years and the cost of traditional forms of energy continuing to increase. The article also notes that, “large solar photovoltaic installations will be cheaper than coal or gas by 2020, and solar thermal and biomass systems will be at least competitive by 2030.”
- I generally don’t like to talk about my life on here — me smart, doing this 2nd — but a little update on the current batch of tunes:
I have 22 songs, about 70% of which are “done” but not done-done. Before you think “wait… that’s like an hour and 20 minutes worth of music”, most of the songs are between 2 and 2.5 minutes. The first song, and two others (so far), are between 1 and 2 minutes. And the last song will probably clock in at about 5 or 6. Why am I doing this? It was sort of sparked by listening to Kareem Riggins’ excellent piece of work last Fall, “Alone Together“. The album is 34 tracks, only 8 of which break the 2 minute mark. When I heard this album straight through for the first time it had been a few months since I’d wrapped an album I called “Hills Run Red“; a western concept album that had 3 tracks: the first two were 16.5 and the last was 20 mins. So when I was getting to about track 23 on “Alone Together” I thought… “dang, maybe I should do something like this?” At the very least it would provide a new challenge for me, and if people think a song sucks at least it’ll be over soon. Ha. And it isn’t like I’m self-imposing rules, saying “all songs need to be 2:15 long”, hence the minute long tracks and the much longer track. I just was quite inspired by “Alone Together” (and, before I knew it, El-P’s “megggamixxx3″), how the song comes together, shows you what it’s got, and moves on. Also, for as proud as I am of some of the arrangements and instrumentation on “Hills“, I was going to go back to a more sample based album anyhow, and you have to be really good (much, much better than me) at sampling to make 5 minute tracks and have them stay fresh and never get dull. So yeah. Also, I would say a good 80% of the samples (for the song foundation; I’m not counting using Dinah Washington or someone like that for vocals, which I’m doing a lot on this) are classical samples. Mostly, from these two records:
But there’s still synths, too. And I have a concept, but I’m not sure yet the level of how obvious it’ll be. I dunno, I’M EXCITED. I guess so, Rambles McGee.
- New remix EP! I’m basically doing here what I tried to to with Biggie, but now I have more tools at my disposal and I don’t suck as much. I wanted to do another Hip-Hop legend. Nas was on the list, and is still. Ironically though, one of the songs on this album is a 2001 track (off The Blueprint) called “The Takeover” in which Jay-Z talks alot shit about both Mob Deep and Nas. I can’t mess with the original, which is one of Kayne West’s best beats, it manages to sample The Doors and KRS One and David Bowie. Dang. Anyways, yeah enjoy. Most of the tracks are pretty dark besides “H.O.V.A.” which kind of has a dance party vibe, and “Encore” which is sort of a reflective, hopeful sounding song. Here’s the cover:
There’s still much to be desired with my scratching, but I’m getting better. Also there should be a guitar solo. Maybe at the end of HOVA. Okay I’ll stop. Here’s the stream:
Okay what the fuck? Bandcamp has changed since I last used it. There used to be a drop down menu to embed albums on a variety of sites, including WordPress. Now they’re only providing embed shortcodes for Tumblr, Twitter, and Google+ (with Facebook being default embed). Hmm. Okay, well here’s the damn link cause yeah F this:
- Nazi Buddha ‘Came From Outer Space’. Which isn’t the official title I guess; it’s just the one to get you to click on the link. It works. Turns out this ancient Buddha statue, discovered in the 1930′s via a Nazi organized archeological dig, was carved some 1000 years ago out of a meteorite that crashed to the Earth’s surface some 15,000 years ago. This has Indiana Jones written all over it.
Also from the BBC:
- Hubble Telescope Captures One of the Most Extraordinary Views of Universe to Date. The image comes from a result of astronomers pointing the Hubble towards a very specific patch of sky for around 22 days. Letting in 500-ish hours of light to the scope. It captured around 5,500 separate galaxies, including the farthest it saw, UDFy-38135539. Just to give you an idea, that galaxy is over 13 BILLION light years away. Which is of course so mind-blowing it is almost incomprehensible…
- Hey I made a new remix! It got a little dark… yeeeaaaahhh sorry about that:
Just to give you an idea of how different it is, here’s the original:
- Mikey Mictlan of Doomtree has a new album out. And he’s offering it up for FREE (but give him a few bucks, eh):
My new record is finally up and available! It is my third full-length under the Mild Maynyrdguise, and I’m very proud of it. Again, it’s called “Hills RunRed” (which is the name of one of the first spaghetti westerns, but I liked the “red” theme too). I had been chronicling my process of concepting and creating it on this blog, but you probably didn’t see that… and I’m really awful at trying to describe it, so I’ll let the other guys in Black Lantern Musicsell the concept for me:
“I know what you’re thinking, there’s not enough Wild West themed narrative sample based electronica concept albums that are as I just described but manage at the same time to not be cheesy in any way. Well the ever adventurous Mild Maynyrd, who hails from the other side of the pond so is very possibly a cattle rustling gunslinger himself (though I couldn’t confirm either way as I value my life), has cooked up ‘Hills Run Red’ for Black Lantern Music to remedy this! Its a peach, its a trip, and it tells a ripping yarn too.”
I thought that was pretty funny. Anyways, yeah it’s a bit of a risk. Of course. Just trusting that people have enough patience to get through one track (they’re each longer than 16 minutes) is itself a risk. But hey, I’m super proud of this thing and I think it’s very unique. Though I know I can still do better. This is the cover:
Here’s the embed:
It can be streamed for free, or bought for the price of a Gatorade here: Mild Maynyrd Bandcamp
- Fascinating article — via NPR — about one of the risks of the new Air Traffic Control system the FAA is trying to implement around the country. The next generation of ATC is based in GPS and internet, as oppose to radar and old-school communications systems. In the past airplanes used transponders that interacted with ground based radar stations sprinkled around the country. With NextGen, aircraft will eventually be forced to have a GPS transponder system called ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast). It supposedly works great: fast (with taking out the simple act of compulsory reporting points and having the A/C’s basic information always verified controllers have that much more time to deal with more pressing matters), reliable (GPS gets down to tens of feet with it’s accuracy), and efficient (taking out all the formality and making it automated).
But as this article points out, every system has its weaknesses. In dry runs, several hackers have already been able to corrupt the system, including inserting aircraft (an ADS-B signal) that isn’t really there. Of course, this is why we have dry runs, to hash these things out.
- I have posted another single from my upcoming album on Soundcloud. It comes out Monday, and I’m super excited to share it with people!
Downtown, Ramallah is bustling. The city’s commercial and geographical center is shaped like a starfish, with five arteries meeting at Al Manara square, a plaza surrounded by four concrete lions, each said to represent one of the families who originally settled the city. Every day, the city’s population more than doubles in size; villagers from the surrounding area arrive to buy and sell goods. Fruit and vegetable vendors—mostly young men from northern Palestine—hawk Israeli carrots, dates, tangerines, and eggplants. Coffee sellers with red fezzes on their heads pour Arabic coffee from elaborate silver vessels. Teenage girls peruse shop windows. Money-changers shift eagerly outside of a juice bar, and buses and shared taxi cabs roll in and out of the central station.
- Well, I was whoring myself out yesterday on Facebook (not Twitter, for some reason) so I might as well do it here too. Heh.
The record I’ve been working on is now completely finished, it is called “HILLS RUN RED“. Mostly Electronic, though the break-beats and turntablism of Hip-Hop remain. A Western, built from 3 tracks and clocking in around 53 s0me minutes. It’s a long, draining album, with a narrative arc and even some Bob Dylan sampling. I know I can do better, and I will, but it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done. I threw a single up on Soundcloud yesterday. It’s called “Dawn Rider”:
“Perhaps she was the perfect symbol for a girl in the process of growing up: the endless drama, life on the edge, the self-improvement, the search for Mr Right – and the Mr Wrongs. But however tragic her story and seductive her gaze, the Marilyn saga seemed suddenly rather narcissistic – another set of unseen photographs revealed, another conspiracy theory put forward, another re-evaluation, another anniversary. Perhaps as I reached the age she was when she died, we parted company. Now I couldn’t compare myself with her any more, and had to get on with real life alone.”
From the street, the two decomposing bodies were nearly invisible, concealed in an overgrown lot alongside worn-out car tires and a moldy sofa. The teenagers had been shot, stripped to their underwear and left on a deserted block. They were just the latest victims of foul play whose remains went undiscovered for days after being hidden deep inside Detroit’s vast urban wilderness — a crumbling wasteland rarely visited by outsiders and infrequently patrolled by police. Abandoned and neglected parts of the city are quickly becoming dumping grounds for the dead — at least a dozen bodies in 12 months’ time. And authorities acknowledge there’s little they can do.
“You can shoot a person, dump a body and it may just go unsolved” because of the time it may take for the corpse to be found, officer John Garner said. The bodies have been purposely hidden or discarded in alleys, fields, vacant houses, abandoned garages and even a canal. Seven of the victims are believed to have been slain outside Detroit and then dumped within the city.
You know, digging into all these old Westerns and looking at the history of the American West, the American Wilderness, has some context here. People find it fascinating and dangerous: the unexplored country of the unknown, terrifying and exciting in its desolation. Part of the reason why marshal law and crime ran so rampant was because of that desolation, it’s easier to kill someone who’s done you wrong in the middle of nowhere, rather than haul them to the nearest town where who knows if there’s even law enforcement, much less a jail. But I find vast blocks of inhabitable, abandoned urban waste and decay probably more frightening. This article explains that parts of the city aren’t even viewed by police anymore, they don’t even roll through. But even if they do, there’s so many crevices and nooks in an urban environment, people can basically do whatever they damn well please. Perhaps if this keeps happening, and happens to other major metropolitan cities, these deserted cities will become the new American West. Desolate but claustrophobic city-scapes, where anything goes and anyone who remains is forced to police themselves. Scary stuff.
- Yesterday between working on my shit I made a quick remix for Texture’s next release, a trilogy of EP’s as one and a slew of remixes and rarities. Which will be a treat, seeing all three of those together. I was telling him that I wanted it to come across as a little more haunting than it does, but I think it still gets the job done. Had a lot of fun tweaking with his line “nothing is sacred” by adding a whole ass load of modulation, pitch shift, and delay to provide some nice backing vocals for the refrain. The guitar could be tweaked a bit more, but I kinda like keeping guitars (for the most part) effect free. Really liking the tone of the new telecaster on this one. Check it out:
Be sure to look out for NEUROLEPTICA. I’ll likely be posting here as well.
- This is old. BUT, if Game Of Thrones was a 2-D fighting game (probably made by Capcom):
- I’m about to dig hard into a couple songs I’ve been working on. One for the 50th Black Lantern Music release, which should be a pretty cool thing when all is said and done. The other for my wedding: a song I wrote a while ago for who turned out to be my future wife. I had never written a song for a girl before, and this one turned out sounding pretty special. It’s simple and catchy, the way a love song should be.
- Also I think I’m getting the concept down for my next LP, but who knows when it’ll be finished. Hopefully by the end of the year. I want to tell a story with an album. Cut into three parts, the way dramatic structure is. Three acts. I’m not only going to use these devices for the story, I’m also going to use them musically as well if I can. The introduction of characters (sounds/instruments), the first turning point, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, etc. I’m going to — I think — break up the album very literally into three parts: 3 long tracks clocking in around 20 minutes a piece (give or take), with “Parts” embedded into each track and also listed in the track-listing. Step two is what setting to tell such a story in, that could take time. I’m sure this has all been done before by someone somewhere.
- I got my Policavinyl in the mail yesterday. I just downloaded the digital copy it came with (which really is something everyone should do for people willing to buy brand new vinyl) and am running through the album for the first time right now. It’s darker than I thought it would be, considering what I’d heard of it. Mostly the second to last track “Wandering Star”. Which is a patient reflection on troubling times. But dang songs like “Violent Games” bring the hammer. Cover:
- This news came out a couple days ago, but is still worth mentioning. It has, of course, massive implications in terms of global hunger and environmental protection. Scientists have successfully created beef in a lab.
“Speakers said they aim to develop such “meat” products for mass consumption to reduce the environmental and health costs of conventional food production.
Conventional meat and dairy production requires more land, water, plants and disposal of waste products than almost all other human foods, they said.
The global demand for meat is expected to rise by 60 percent by 2050, said American scientist Nicholas Genovese, who organized the symposium.”
