I seem to go on blogging hiatuses and kind of just let everything I need to blog about pile up.
Anyways, first thing to mention:
On Tuesday, June 29, I will be performing at the corner perk in Bluffton (next to Monster Pizza). It starts with OOPS (I've made a whole new show up for us, its going to be real wacky)
followed by BABYVILLE, whom I'm pretty sure only myself and one other person in the world has heard this. Its Kieran Daly on lead everything and should be real excite. And headlining is good ol' YMC. I guess we'll be playing pretty alright too.
Coincidentally, I'm in all 3 bands. Why?
Hopefully, I'll get someone to take some pictures or something. I'm really excited, its my first show like this in a long long time, so come out! A show this interesting may never happen again!
Now I know its kind of dumb to blog about high school art projects, but since school's been out, I've gone through these projects and thought that at least these ideas were particularly funny or just something I would've done for fun. Which, in a way, is sort of what. Can't say I really got good grades on these, because I never always did what was asked.
This is a Black Santa Claus transforming into a Neapolitan Ice Cream Cone
So my friend, Andy, or Andrew, plays piano, amongst other things. He always plays these little Andy-Compositions (or Andy-diddies, rather) in the band room. We also never really jam with him. So in the midst of of plotting our second movie project (sequel to 'A Wheely Important Invention' for you veteran Nwwt Bwwts readers) I told him, "yo andy, I wan das songs."
SO Brady and I 'recorded' it. Along with accompaniment from myself on drums, and Brady on guitar (though inaudible, in is case).
This is my last month of school for this year. I've been mega busy with this stuff, but plus that stuff too. After all the tests and jive, I'ma planning on giving myself a pretty good summer. Then I will wish everyone good tidings and continue with one more year of high school.
I started playing trumpet. I ain't good at it.
I got my omnichord back. It's not fixed. :( However, I am glad to find out that it wasn't my fault, it being broken. The adapter I used to power, which had thought killed it, though it did actually kill it, it should not have, to my and most american's knowledge. There was something weird with it, like the power part was reversed compared to most electronic things, but seeing as it was made in 1980's Japan, it was too unruly to fix. Not really sure what I'm gonna do with it really.
Speaking of eBay, I almost made another purchase this week. I was watching a video of the Gorillaz on the Colbert Report. This one. Anyways, the keyboardist has got this rack of synths and stuff, and let me tell you - I'm obsessed with analog synthesizers. I've been trying for the longest time to find one for a reasonable price. So whenever I see one in action, I go look it up. This one is called the Korg MS2000; it usually goes for like $600-700. I saw one on eBay, that day, for $200. So I nearly freaked, and declared that I must have it. To make a long story short, I lost it. I wasn't home when the auction ended (ahem, school) though I was the highest bidder when I left. It still only went for $320 though. I'm upset.
I got a real version of Ableton (FINALLY). The one I had during the 1st republic (the time period before the hard drive revolution (I've got my AP Euro test in two days; I'm into calling things by names like that)) was mega faulty and... well, it was stolen. The one I got now, yeah its got less instruments, and I've gotta spend time putting all my old projects back together (thanks for summer), but this one's got so much more audio effects. I've got my reverb so outta control (or extremely controlled, rather) that every snare sounds like a freaking gunshot. It rocks!
Everything is making me more and more excited for this summer. i.e. new releases: LCD soundsystem, wolf parade, broken social scene, and erryone else...
I was gonna post a jam we recorded this week, but internet's too sloooooooowwwwwwWWWW.
So today kinda felt like how I expect all my weekends to be next year, having my all friends out of town for most of the day. Cons: Well, that sucks! Pros: How did Yannie get so good at guitar? How Ian get good at drums? By not having friends duh! So I'll have more time to do stuff like this... which is what I did today:
My cover of Best Coast's "When I'm With You." Pretttty gay right?
Yeah, it's pretty slop slop, but I don't really care. There's only three tracks, being 1. Guitar/Vocals recorded at the same time (I'm such a terrible singer) 2. Drums 3. Synthesizer And I didn't really change anything from the original Best Coast recording, except for the fact that the guitar solo turned into a messy synth solo... and I'm not a girl, I guess.
When I try to open iTunes on my computer, this happens:
Its because, on my computer... iTunes doesn't exist! Shocking! Alas - it is intended!
I have realized after my recent computer crash, that having so much music directly on my hard drive is too much of a load (being on the verge of 6000+ mp3's). I have also realized that my iPod can hold 160GB and my external drive can hold 1.5tb. That's enough space to last me forever.
So there, I have removed all music (cept for the music I record and work on directly on my computer... duh) from my computer and with it iTunes - yet, still having a 2nd iTunes on external, and being able to sync my iPod from there.
Now, also with so much space, I don't have to worry about deleting songs and conserving space. I recovered all the bad music I have ever downloaded - dating back from middle school.
I don't know what exactly is on my iPod anymore, cept a lot of stuff. Let's stay, if someone asks for a random My Chemical Romance song, sadly, I'll probably have it.
I took part in performing as a backstage musician in some community musical theatre this week. It was easy money, kind of fun.
I'm also playing in some event at the high school this month. In such event, my elite musical comrades, being Yannie + Billy, and I will be a backing band for several teenage vocalists performing pop songs of the year 1969. It'll be fun the night of the show, because the three of us make a real killer jam, and we get to do almost whatever we want on stage in front of the whole school. Its just annoying now, because I have to deal with douchebags and doucheteachers - the likes of which I care less for than anyone else. And I also have to learn like 30 songs, that I've never really listened to before. No biggie, though.
My parents were out tonight. We had some pizza dough in the freezer. I made some pizza. I've never done that before. Pretty proud of myself actually. It looked like this before I ate it:
How about that...
Yeah. I bought two of my sister's and my tickets for all three days this week. Wolf Parade, Washed Out, Neon Indian, Lightning Bolt, Raekwon, St. Vincent... I'm gonna die as soon as I see Spencer Krug in person, I know it.
I've never really read books in my life before this year. This past month, however, I read three. I like doing that, think I'll do it more. This week I started Breakfast of Champions. All my sister's have pretty big bookshelves, so I looked at one, and saw the word 'Kurt Vonnegut,' and considered it safe. Then I noticed it had illustrations - considered that very safe.
Last week, I noticed a date on which I was born. I turned 17 years of age. In practice of gift-giving, a very close friend of mine bought me a thing to use. It was an instrument called a Melodica. Its basically a keyboard you blow through, a.k.a. the coolest freaking thing on Earth. I like it a lot. Here's an image:
Before my month long internet hiatus, I basically had no keyboard to play. I consider that a pretty big flaw, considering that I own a copious amount of music makers, and a keyboard is a pretty basic one. Anyways I did have a 25 key oxygen 8 controller - which is useless sans computer. So my good friend and comrade, Ian, had a similar dilemma. His keyboard was too big for his dorm room, where my was too small for my liking. Thus, we traded. Unfair? Ha! Yeah! Its even weighted! Woo! The big one looks like this:
The teeny keyboard below the big M-audio 88, is a Yamaha PSR-2. Its a hella old pint sized keyboard that I took for the back of the band room. No one really knew it was there, and I was probably the only one who thought that that crappy dusty broken keyboard thing was really awesome. Alas - it works! And its sounds very tight (I stole it).
So I guess you can say in a matter of a few weeks, I went from zero keyboard instruments, to about 3 nice ones, whilst spending no moneys.
So Eric Wareheim is basically one of my favorite directors / funny people, and HEALTH is one of my favorite bands. So what happens when they work together? Magic.
I leave you and your accomplished self tonight with this: HEALTH's "We Are Water."
Its because my computer kinda broke, and then I went kinda insane for a few weeks, then I left town for another week. I guess I'll start at about the beginning of march?
That's the crap my computer got. ^ Don't know how, never dropped it, it ain't old, it just did. Anywaysss I took it some to d-bag computer genius on the island and he told me that I was totally screwed. Said that my 'motherboard' was messed up and might as well just go buy a new mac; said that with labor, installing that part would cost him like $900 (He was wrong).
So that freaked me out. (Thought I lost errrrrrrything!)
Then I went to Disney with the school band. That was cool. Went on some rides. Went backstage (CRAZY). Stole some souvenirs. Stole an arm off a mannequin. Went on a bus home.
Then the next week I went to Columbus, OH + Chicago, IL. That was probably 10 times cooler. I went to an NHL game, had a birthday, went to some thrift stores, got some clothes, got to see my sisters, got to see some gay people, got to touch some dogs. Missed a Toro y Moi show. I read the entirety of A Clockwork Orange in a car. I watched Rupaul's Drag Race for the first time. Also saw the master film that is 'Ghost Dog - Way of the Samurai.' I bought some CD's, including the new TL/Rx, That Nigerian Afrobeat Special everyone's been talking about, the old A Place to Bury Strangers, A Herbie Hancock disc, and the new Oh No Ono, Eggs.
Also, while in Ohio, I took my dead computer to an apple store there (You have to make appointments... that's so weird). Anyways, apparently shit like that happens all the time. They replaced the 'hard drive' not the 'motherboard' for $132 and even my keyboard area on the laptop for free. It works as good as new now. Soooo yeah.
Do yourself a favor and DON'T go to that guy for help. He's either a con man or an idiot.
A few more things to blog about:
TYLERs
My buddy, TYLER G, has a hardcore band called "From Ashes To Empires." They made a CD, and its pretty stellar (I think they spent a lot of money making it, so go ahead and buy one for yourself). The recording quality is top notch!
My other buddy, TYLER W, has got a totally rad solo thing going on called "Phillip Oskar Augustine." He recorded this whole deal in his house! Right on! (Hey man, thanks for the note! When I get all my stuff organized again, I wanna send you some trax...)
Uhm, I gotta play in a play now. (I'm filling in for a dude at the theater this week (The play's FAME) and I still haven't really heard the music... bad thing?)
* = The prospective theory of interplanetary sound is actually an idea that somehow sound and weight are interrelated and that sounds sound different on different planets and that there is possibly one key of the universe that all songs must be written in. This idea is transferred into this 12 tone composition.
Check this out:
All ya'll who like art and want to buy some and put it on their wall:
This is my sister's shop where she sells a lot of her stuff. Go buy some of her designs! They are fit for any budding apt. or bachelor pad or even grandma-condo!
His track "Internal Combustion," is killing the whole internet right now. And he's got a cd coming out too! Cool!
And here's my pal Joel, and his blog. He always posts / twwwts sites and videos and whatnot, but I had to mention it today because he said some really nice things about me! Thanks!
I've been recording so much lately. Bound to post one of those things one of these days...
