vlog for 1/8/11 about youtube.

Randomizer One

A bit of obtuseness created because I started a couple of different vlogs that didn't turn out. The music is a piece from my macidol collection called "Blasphemy #333." It features my girlfriend Karen, my friend Chris and I.

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song VIII -- Everything Turns Out OK

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This is the wrap-up! I felt like I'd been to the darker places in my psyche for the better part of the month, it was time to put a bow on it, ship it off and move on to the next thing. Little nod to my friend Josh Russell at the end of the bridge (the extended last chord in a section is something that always makes me think of him) bigger nod to my sweetie as a second verse. This is one of the more listened-to songs from the album, so there's something to feel good about!

There are two more songs from this project at my macidol page that are both good things, just not the central pieces of the record for me. An a capella piece called "seven ways" that I like as well as anything else on this record, and a cowrite with my friend PJ that is lyrically a little weak (something had to be, I wrote ten songs in 28 days!) but has some of my best harmony singing on it. There's a whole slew of other recordings there, across a whole wide range of styles. Most of it is downloadable and all of it is free. Check it out, and thanks for listening to all of these tracks.

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song VII -- Sand

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Next to last one! It's the melodrama song of the set! You know what, though? I love it; I feel like it's one of my better songs. It's dark & despairing, but it has some really nice turns of phrase and I think it's a good vocal performance.

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song VI -- Waxahatchee (new mix)

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This song was generated as a nonsense poem for a usenet group dedicated to nonsequitur. The central character is a cow, in case you were wondering. The lyrics for several of the songs for this project began as automatic writing, and somehow ended up being more than that. This is the one place where my (at that point unacknowledged) transgender-ness pops up. Which is in keeping, I guess. Always somewhere in the back of my mind was the idea that somehow I could maintain my female identity as a kind of secret alter-ego. It would show up just like this one. At this time in my life, however, I was having a lot of trouble dealing with it. All the depression and anger that were fueling the songs on this record, so many uncomfortable things about my life coming to an ultimate point, and underlying all of them the feeling that I was living the wrong life. Within a few months of completing this record, I would realize that I had to do something or things were going to get much worse for me.

Deadman Turner once again brings up the quality and the fun quotient of the track about 100% with his guitar work.

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song V -- Kamakura

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This is the first song I wrote and recorded for the project. I felt that I had to start from faith, and that meant a lot of different things to me. I knew I was going to be writing about my life, either directly or indirectly, and as a Nichiren Buddhist, I understand Nam Myoho Renge Kyo as being life itself. So I began from the notion that whatever struggles I face, I have a place to go to refresh my spirit, and a source of power for change. I felt free to just lay my cards on the table, and talk about where I was & where I was going. I also felt like I was making the determination to see the project of writing these ten songs through.

"Kamakura" refers to a city in Japan, and is a reference to a quote from a letter written by the priest Nichiren Daishonin to a follower to encourage them not to give up: "Be diligent in developing your faith until the last moment of your life. Otherwise you will have regrets. For example, the journey from Kamakura to Kyoto takes twelve days. If you travel for eleven but stop with only one day remaining, how can you admire the moon over the capital?" (Letter to Niike).

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song IV -- The Things I Didn't Do

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This is one of two songs from this collection of songs that feature Deadman Turner on lead guitar.

This one is exploring the self destructive side of my imagination. Once again, we return to the feeling of being trapped, and the cost of getting free. What do you think: is the feeling at the ending of this song scary or hopeful?

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon, Song III -- Bills Come Due

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Kind of a party song, with the requisite "I'm doing something I shouldn't" edginess. It's a Bakersfield-style rave-up that would have been at home on Trax on Wax 4, at least that's how I intended it. It's definitely a Friday night song!

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon. Song II -- 2007

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This song is central to the experience of the record. Minimalist 2-chord structure meant to evoke a kind of desperate monotony. Amped up, charging around in a too-small cage is how I pictured it. The solo was intended to evoke an ambulance siren. Lyrically, it seems like a series of random observations, but isn't. It's a certain brand of punk rock broadside, following the tradition of Iggy & The Stooges (1969 1970), The Clash (1977) and others. As I believe is true with those songs, the observation points both ways: both out into the world and inside me. I envision a sort of shell game. As I examine each factoid, whether cosmic or completely mundane or somewhere in between, I was asking myself, "Is this it? Is this why I am so full of angst?" Connect the dots, indeed.

Blogging Fuyu Persimmon. Song I -- Goodbye

I am blogging the tracks for my 2007 RPM Challenge album Fuyu Persimmon. I am really proud of this record, and have since realized that I was struggling with major life issues that informed the songwriting and the performances.


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I'm starting with "the single." This was the track that was played at the RPM meet-up in Portsmouth that year, and represents the project's strengths very well.

RPM is a challenge to write ten songs (or make 35 minutes of music) in a month and record them. I set myself up to succeed, and this is the only time I managed it. I defined a band sound for myself with specific instrumentation: guitar, bass, and lap dulcimer. The drums were all apple loops, which come with garage band, the program I used to record all of my music at macidol. I intentionally used my second-best instruments to force me to play simply and directly: my Yamaha beater that has band stickers all over the top, my acoustic bass guitar that has the action set 'way too high, and a dulcimer that was barely playable then -- I struggled to keep it in tune and often didn't succeed -- and is totally unplayable now.

This song sets the tone for the project thematically as well. Full of regret but still looking forward. There were some goodbyes I needed to say, to people who were no longer around, to dreams I was no longer reaching for.

Collab w/ Steve K

Oddment Ops is the next song for Admin Apse & Other Design Choices, the new album I'm making & posting at macidol.com. This one is a track that already existed in an incomplete form, which Steve has finished perfectly. There's more info about how I'm connected to Steve on the other side.

2nd song in my minimalist noise/electronica album is up

admin apps, the second song in my album admin apse & other design choices is posted over at the macidol. You might like it if you like crazy sounding music.

New Song!

Just finished a new tune entitled "admin apse." I do lots of different stuff musically: this bit happens to be avant-electronica. I think I'm going to try to come up with a whole album of stuff like this.

I love feedback about my music.

RPM '09 comin' up!

Oh, dear.

Evidently, I am going to do this. I don't know that I have the time, but I think I have a strategy to make this happen and not impact all that needs to happen in my life that month.

Here is a song I posted over at macidol that is kind of my dry run to see if I actually do have a method that wil get me to the finish line, and I think it's gonna work.

Wish me luck!

EDIT (2/17/09): Totally not happening! I may get a track together for the macidol comp thingie, but the individual thing was a bad idea for me right now, so is not going to happen.

Chinese Whistle & Drum Toy

Chinese Whistle & Drum Toy, originally uploaded by madduane.

My Most Recent Song

Came out pretty well! Here's a link (works best for macs): Life On The Line. Hope you like it!

rObOtrOn

Natureb0t

This was in my links from a year or so ago. r0b0tr0n is a fairly prolific recordist who posts at my favorite music site on all the web, macidol.com. I guess I meant to call it out at the time – I’ll check to see if I ever did. I think it’s amazingly beautiful. Because I liked it so much, I went through and listened to four more of his tracks, and decided to write about them all.

Homegatr0n

Another lushly beautiful track. This is at the top of his jamroom right now, and well it should be. So seventies funk.

Blacksploitatr0n

This one, I think, contains a genuine recording of THE MAN. Also has a really cool bluebeat feel, for all you ska fans out there.

Spacey McFaceb0t

So, yeah, my means of picking what to listen to is what had an interesting title. Love this title. The beats are beauteous as well.

Ghidrab0t

I love the bit of dialogue at the beginning of this. Guest vocal by THE MAN again. This has samples from the Ghidra soundtrack, I think. I believe this means I must download his entire jamroom now.

What I did in February.

I took the RPM Challenge and failed.

But I feel really good about it! I reconnected with a bunch of different musician friends and made, I think, some great music. There's something about a collab with someone you know well but haven't worked with in a while. It almost always produces something great.

The reason I didn't finish is that the tracks were a little more detailed than they probably should have been for efficient completion. Last year I worked with a set instrumentation and a formatted recording approach, but this year, all that went out the window because I wanted to do mostly collaborations, and each song on the record is totally different. I'm still working on it. I have 3 more songs planned for the project, "sound collage" is going to get split in two, and I haven't decided if I'm replacing "Golden Burger", editing it, or leaving it as it is.

So anyway, here are links to the songs. They are all downloadable as 192kbps mp3s on the flip:

Patent Leather Robots Will Get Us First

This is a collab with P. J. Shapiro. I had originally envisioned it as chopped up into a single track of instrumentation and a single track of vocals, and I may get there yet, but as I've listened to and massaged the tracks, I'm hearing it very differetly now.

Turn Away, Yesterday

I love the whole idea of collaborating with someone I have never met, especially when it turns out this well. I think slumbering is awesome, and making this song together was a real treat for me. They say it's wrong to choose between your children, but... This one. This is the one...

Talkin' 'Bout Words

This was a really fun day. Susan, Karen, and I spent the whole day together, Malcolm, Susan and I came up with this recording and Susan and I did the next one down the list. TBW is full of very important information. Please study it carefully for the secret message.

Golden Burger of the Great Goddess Lakshmi

This is pure, in the moment improv. I played my lap dulcimer and Susan played banjo, perhaps for the first time, though it doesn't sound like it.

Medisin

is it 1978 again yet?

Sound Collage

this was fun to do. As I said, this will get split in two and placed at the beginning and end of the sequence.

Lost in the Woods

This collab with Josh Russell is probably the closest thing here to my 2007 CD for RPM, but it's also one of my faves of the record. Josh has studiously avoided getting hisself on the interwebs, so sorry, no link. But if you're ever in Damariscotta Maine, look him up!

Scariest Slumbering Song Ever

The Scariest Song Ever by Slumbering shows that Slumby really does know what's scary.



Slumby herself always seems like she stepped out of a Tim Burton movie to me -- she's Sally all brought to life and living in Los Angeles. This song carries with it the whimsy and humor to make my comparison stick, I think. It has a bit of musichall or maybe biergarten and a subtle but serious jolt at the end. Macabre!

Missing Piece 8 by The Light Dreams

One thing that I really love about some of the Electronica guys at macidol.com is that they really pay attention to their artwork. They understand that visuals can add a lot to a listening experience, and they design their art for their pages accordingly. The Light Dreams has a voluminous jamroom, and there are many really cool pictures accompanying his compositions.

Missing Piece 8 is his most recent addition, and is great, spacy ambient music. I'm going back to find the other 7.