The Sound of One Amp Exploding

Starting new track: “Collision Avoidance”. Take a...

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:47:42 -0500

Starting new track: “Collision Avoidance”. Take a guess as to the subject matter.

This is just an early sketch - no vocals, song doesn’t actually finish etc.

Collision Avoidance

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:09:35 -0400

So on Friday I flew back from a beautiful day in San Francisco to a really crappy night here in New York. After holding pattern for 45 minutes off Long Island, we came in for a landing. The pilot announced that we were entering “final approach” and told the flight crew to be seated.

Then, at about 1500 feet, our engines suddenly rev’ed and the plane went into a sharp climb. In less than a minute we had climbed to 2800 feet (love those TV’s in Jet Blue). My heart was pounding. I really wanted to be off the plane.

The pilot said something vague about weather, traffic and that we would be “re-sequencing”, without really explaining what had just happened. After another twenty minutes of dicking around in air we finally landed. I briefly considered kissing the ground.

I mentioned the incident today to my Mom, who went out and clearly spoke about it with one of my uncles - the one who works building collision avoidance systems at Boeing. It then made it back to me that I most likely experienced such a system in action.

My understanding is basically the system noticed two planes are about to smack into one another, and causes one of them to suddenly shift course. Such as climb 1500 feet in a minute.

So, two things: one, I’m happy the plane was so equipped and that the system worked. Thanks to whomever builds those things (my uncle or the competition) for saving my life.

Two, my general un-enthusiasm for flying has been re-doubled. “Hey, let’s strap ourselves in a tube and push it along the end of a sustained explosion, flying 400 miles an hour!” Why the fuck do I keep climbing into those things?

First new ink in a long, long time. Still stings, but it makes...

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:41:05 -0400

First new ink in a long, long time. Still stings, but it makes me happy.

Time

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:18:03 -0400

More than ever, I’ve come to regard time as my scarcest resource. This is new, because there was once a point where I had lots of time. In fact I was pretty good at amusing myself.

Having no time means that people want your time. And isn’t that the problem we want? Someone’s time is really a proxy for getting them to do something for another. As social animals we’re motivated to do this. Otherwise, we’d be a sociopath, which in some ways seems simpler to me.

The problem is, in addition to being social, we’re also selfish. All motivations are selfish in the end. So we play this game of social give and take with whatever our scarcest commodity happens to be (time, for most adult first-worlders), hoping to come out on top, with people giving their time to our agenda.

From above it’s another brilliant equilibrium of nature, until you realize you live in the muck with everyone else.

Oops. Out of time. Gotta go.

You’d think the EPA would object to the Mystic Hilton...

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 10:08:28 -0400

You’d think the EPA would object to the Mystic Hilton actually bronzing a dolphin, wouldn’t you?

Hopefully there will be no trace of this on Twitter.

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:46:36 -0400

Hopefully there will be no trace of this on Twitter.

There is a place where my mind goes where my capacity to put up with bullshit fails along with my...

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:16:00 -0400

There is a place where my mind goes where my capacity to put up with bullshit fails along with my desire to contain chaos. That is a dangerous place, indeed.

Bandelier National Monument. People have been hanging out in...

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:05:00 -0400

Bandelier National Monument. People have been hanging out in this valley for 11,000 years.

Santa Fe plaza, in the morning before the tourists have come...

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:58:37 -0400

Santa Fe plaza, in the morning before the tourists have come out.

Santa Fe

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:32:02 -0400

By my count this is the fourth time I’ve been here, and I am starting to get a rough sense of where everything is now.

New Mexico, especially this part of it, is more complicated than many people know. It has all the collision of different folks that I require in order to associate with a place, but there is also an strange underlying calm here.

It’s not a calm that signifies an emptyness though, it’s a calm that’s filled with almost a, well, a power that underlies everything else. That below the surface of the pretentious art scene, the hipster baristas, the Native American entrepreneurs, the loud Texans on holiday….below it all is something far more powerful, far older, than any of us. We are it’s guests. Or maybe flies on its hide.

This is one of the few places I know of where I can get the noise level in my brain to drop to “quiet” levels. I stop freaking out about not being all the things I’m supposed to be and just become Loren. Here in the stillness.

V-Picks came today. I got the “Fab 4” pack which is...

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:23:40 -0400

V-Picks came today. I got the “Fab 4” pack which is four different kinds of picks, which seemed like a good place to start, since I had never tried any of them before.

The pick in the photo is my favorite at the moment - its the Medium Round. The bevel is definitely the secret to the pick’s success, it makes the pick less noisy. The thickness and the material also make it easier to hold - I’m noticing my pick hand is a lot less tight than I’m used to it being.

I may want to try out a pointier version of the medium pick though, something with a little more attack for plucky bits.

LA. I guess if I liked driving, surfing, tanning, hanging...

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:13:41 -0400

LA. I guess if I liked driving, surfing, tanning, hanging around a pool, and the movie business more I’d be really into this place. As it is, I feel about the same level of oxygen as Mars.

So much of the music that I’ve been into has come out of here - its almost like America has two cultural poles: the North Pole of New York, and the South Pole of LA. Put them together and you get some sort of approximation of what the hell is going on in America. Or maybe a fitting for a straightjacket.

It’s not the distance that makes one feel cut off, you know. It’s the timezones. The idea that I can’t call, tweet or expect a reply email from people I know because they’re asleep right now. It’s time zones that create the real barriers in the modern world. I can’t imagine what it would like to be a gaijin, hanging out in Tokyo.

As much as the neurotic type-A nature of New York gets to me, this place is like oil to my water. LA is all about something that I am categorically not. It correctly identifies me as a foreign body and sends in the white blood cells.

New Paltz

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 10:38:00 -0400

I got out of the city this weekend and made it up to New Paltz, which is a nice upstate town with a kind of hippyish undercurrent. (And a giant hunting lodge thing out of the 20’s called the Mohunk, but never mind about that…)

I’m increasingly concerned about how I’m seeing New York stereotypes play out on my own psyche: the neuroses, the aggression, the crazy, fast-talking, Starbucks-slamming, multi-tasking, ADD inflicted consumer from the pseudo-hipster factory on a fast track to burnout. In other words, I’ve bought into the bullshit.

Like an addict, it takes more and more for me to get my fix. A thousand dollars of studio gear barely moves my needle now, whereas once I spent hours and hours slathering over gear I hopelessly couldn’t afford. And yet it’s been a year since I’ve written a new song.

So what is the solution? I don’t know, other than to say that I probably can’t sustain the New York lifestyle forever. That raises the question of “what else would I do?”. And once you’ve lived in New York that can be a problem: the rest of the world feels like a suburb.

The subject under consideration. If I still like it in two...

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:48:29 -0400

The subject under consideration. If I still like it in two weeks its going on my arm.

More work on Singularity. I want to lay down vocals but the...

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:21:25 -0400

More work on Singularity. I want to lay down vocals but the zipper noise problems have returned and in force. Is it the D/A converter, the computer? Just not sure.

If I get some time this weekend I’ll probably take the old laptop, wipe it clean and just reinstall audio software on it - see if I can eliminate some of the possible problems from all the other crap I run on my main machine.

In the meantime, enjoy the version as it is. Debating whether to take this and the other tracks and call it a “completed recording”. Totals about 40 minutes now - is that enough?

Working a little more on “Singularity”. Still not a...

Tue, 26 May 2009 08:55:53 -0400

Working a little more on “Singularity”. Still not a complete song, still no vocals.

The very beginnings of a new track. This is a song called...

Mon, 11 May 2009 23:04:16 -0400

The very beginnings of a new track. This is a song called “Singularity”. Vocals and the rest of the song, to follow. (This is definitely the most electronica I’ve gone.)

What a difference compression makes! The Logic multipressor is...

Wed, 06 May 2009 23:18:14 -0400

What a difference compression makes! The Logic multipressor is across the two-mix, plus I added some cymbal hits at strategic places. FInally, I’ve turned up the send on the drums to give them more reverb (makes it feel more like they’re placed in a room).

Working on “Take the Arrow Out”. I’ve added...

Sun, 03 May 2009 18:29:35 -0400

Working on “Take the Arrow Out”. I’ve added some more guitars, percussion and tried to clean up the horns a little.

New song, called “Take the Arrow Out”. This is...

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:10:43 -0400

New song, called “Take the Arrow Out”. This is getting there, although I might tweak it a little more. I really like the rimshots on the drums on this one.