Absinthe

The St.George distillery in Alameda CA have just released their first run of the ever so popular "intellectual" spirit Absinthe. This is the stuff that ushered in demons into Baudelaire's mind, sent Poe screaming from the gallery and made Wilde even smarter (depending on who you believe).

Apparently St George are the first makers of the stuff after a recent lift on the making of Absinthe in the USA. It's kinda hard to find good Absinthe these days, even in Europe (the stuff I got in Paris was not so great), so I'm excited to try it.

Craig got me a bottle which I will start drinking tonight (120 proof!) during our NYE spectacle. If your around join me for a drink.

Thanks Craig and Chris!!

A Good Bass Tone

Do you obsess over bass tones? Do you spend hours trying to perfect the McCartney bass sound? Your in luck because so does my friend Derek and he obsesses way more than you. Way more.

Here's what he has to say:

"Use medium-light-gauge, long-scale flatwounds (E string is 100, A string is 80, D string is 65 and G string is 45).

The first thing you'll notice is that the strings are a good deal thinner than what you'd expect for a bass that delivers a deep, resonant tone, especially if you have tried 105 (or heavier) E strings. Heavier strings resonate at a lower frequency than the upper-bass/lower-midrange frequencies needed to provide a punchy, fat bass tone.

Next secret: turn the tone knobs all the way to maximum dullness. The cutoff frequency (particularly for Rickenbackers) is surprisingly high (probably in the 1k-4k range), so you only want to dial in just enough of the highs to compensate for loss of clarity. You don't want to dial in any more of these high frequencies than absolutely necessary.

Experiment with using the bridge and neck pickups, either on their own or in combination. Use the neck pickup for dumpy tones and use the bridge for a clearer tone with more midrange and less bottom. Of course, the tone knobs are mostly rolled off for both pickups, so neither will provide a trebly, 'bink! bink!' sound.

Select a heavy pick. Position the pick between the bridge and neck pickups, slightly closer to the bridge than the neck. If the pick is too close to the bridge (or worse, positioned between the bridge pickup and the bridge itself), you won't get a deep, resonant bass.

Rotate the pick so that the rounded edge hits the strings. Angle the pick so that on each stroke, the rounded edge slides across the string rather than meeting it directly. This is a critical part of getting the thumpy, punchy McCartney sound. If the pick hits the string head-on, the sound will have too much 'bink!' in it. After a bit of practice, you will be able to modify the angle to adjust how much pick noise versus thump you want out of each note. As the rounded part of the pick slides across the string and the string is set in motion, you will get a 'fffuuuuppp' kind of attack on the string, followed by a deep tone. When compressed, the 'ffffuuuppp' sound blends nicely with the initial attack of the note. Interestingly, if you get the pick technique down and carefully dial in the amount of desired uppper midrange via the tone control on the bass, you can bring out a slightly bowed sound - as if you were attacking a double bass with a bow loaded with a lot of resin.

For Rickenbackers, use the built-in felt damper to get the Lucy in the Sky thumpy sound. I will adjust both sides of the damper very carefully until the strings are damped without being choked.

On the amp, dial in a lot of lows and mid-bass, with just enough midrange boost to add some brightness. Keep in mind that you rolled off the highs on the bass itself, so avoid boosting any mid frequencies above 1k.

Compress the signal with a slow attack and fast/medium release at a low to medium ratio (1:4 or higher). If you overcompress, the sound might become too thin. However, that might be the desired effect"

DRM Updates

Here's a cool article from Boing Boing concerning the state of DRM music sellers.

Link

Porcupine

I love the Bunnymen. This is a wonderful, haunting melody.

A Timeline of Libertarian Thought

link

Recording Diary v17

We started work on yet another new song called "Ambian". This song originated from a bass line that Craig wrote using a delay pattern which I then added a melody and a few chords around. It's slow. Very slow. Pink Floyd sans the excitement. We did perform it live a few times...

We started by micing up the bass with the AKG and running the Reason Wuri directly into the pre-amp. We then rehearsed it a bit and played it through with no click. Take 2 was the keeper.

Jeff then added snare drum with brushes for an underlining rhythmic element.

Then we placed an Abbey Road organ as a foundation followed by a simple Glock part.

Next up I added a "breathing" rhythmic track that will pan in stereo throughout the song as well as a "heartbeat" sound that Craig did with this throat. Freaky.

Next up I did a lead vocal. One take. Total pro.

Then we did the "High" background b vox, adding about 7 vocals in all, including a simple harmony.

Then we stuck the ADK out in the parking lot to capture freeway sounds, which of course sound like a distant ocean. Nice.

That's it. The hog will need to add some Kimbal parts, but we got most of it.

Bingo!

Is Too Many...

Here's something that you can do rather than watch the film "Once":

Castrate yourself with an Exacto blade then cauterize the gaping wound with a lava hot brand that's in the shape of the face of David Grey or the dude from Coldplay.

Enjoy!

Conversation Starters

Many of you will be cornered by a seemingly endless mass of relatives soon. If the meaningless banter around the dinner table really starts bugging you, please feel free to introduce one of these quotes into the mix. It's a sure fire way to alienate people you only see once a year!

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." Seneca the Younger 4 b.c.- 65 a.d.

"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me." Emo Phillips

"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned." Unknown

and the best of em all

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" Carl Sagan

The Black Pope

Star Wars Holiday Special (In Five Mins)

The greatness that is Bea Arthur.

I Wanna Hold Your Stairway To Heaven

Sometimes genius strikes and all you can do is weep in appreciation. Thanks Mr Howard!

Beatlegs Podcasts

Oh Joy! All Beatle Podcasts! Weird Beatle adverts, promos and related audio madness from yesterday.

Link

Rock Hard. Rock True

Mogwai "Stanley Kubrick"

Recording Diary v16

We worked on the new tune "Cause and Effect" last eve.

So, we took a day last week and nailed a very good drum performance, took most of last eve nailing a cool bass performance only to finally have the song ending up sounding pretty lame. Lame enough to dump it and try it again with a different approach. I could go on forever about why it's not working but I'll spare you poor people the details of my suckage. My poor band mates.

If you have ever been involved with a creative endeavor, worked hard on something, really got inside it (a song, painting etc) to suddenly discover that "this is a complete piece of shit" then you know what I'm talking about. The resulting feeling is a delightful mixture of defeat and self loathing.

But, alas, it's all part of the process. At least mine. One thing I do know is the smell of "bad".

Yorke/Byrne Interview

Here's an interesting interview with Thom Yorke and David Byrne via Wired News. If your in a band and want to make money off your music it's really worth the read.

Link

I'd Rather Dance

The MBO Hit Parade keeps em coming...So sue me. I love this song!!

Careful With That Axe Eugene

Hellllooooo Ladies

Link

NPR: Fresh Air

I like to listen to streaming Fresh Air during the day while I tweak away in Photoshop/Illustrator. Maybe you do too!

Link

Font of Evil.

I'm a graphic designer who deals with typography every single day so imagine my joy when I saw this little film that calls out the evil Trajan font. File under pet peeve.

Life On Mars?

This song is a fave. If you don't own "Hunky Dory" you suck.

Recording Diary v15 (12/15/07)

Today we set out to record the drums for a new song "Cause and Effect"

We started out by setting up the mics on the new DW Buddy Rich Re-Issue Drum set, which our friend Brain lent us. This is a honey of a drum set and sounds wonderful.

We set up the mics in our usual "pepper" mic placements and did some testing recording only to discover that the ADK overhead mic has gone south, as it now sounds kinda murky. It could be a cord or the power amp as well..we'll have to look at later. So we set up another ADK in the overhead and it sounded great/normal. Then we took about an hour of testing drum sounds (playing drums, recording, listening, repeat, rinse) until we found a sound that we liked.

We then set up the guitar in Jeff's headphones so I could teach him the song. We played with different drum approaches finally deciding on a "four on the floor" sixteenth note on the hi-hat pattern than grooves nicely.

We then played with the tempo, speeding up the song a bit.

After a few takes Jeff nailed the performance.

Come And Get It

Menocu

Makes Perfect...

We gathered the troops and dusted off the beast this eve. Ran the set and remembered some chords..discussed musical gateways between the songs and new song additions for the next show. We are not sure how long we have to play, but we figure we have a hours worth if we pound Occam's long enough, which is fun/weird every time. We may close with "Nice To know You" just because I have a boner for the Autoharp these days.

Overall a successful rehearsal in MBO land.

Big Dead Place

Nicholas is a pal of a friend of mine so I recently had the opportunity to chat with him about his work, and his recent experiences as worker in Iraq. He's a very nice fellow and wrote an amazingly twisted and weird book about a cold place that most of us don't know much about. Cool read!!

Link

Radiohead TV

Recording Diary v14 (12/14/07)

Tonight we worked some more on the new tune "Nice To Know You".

I played a simple keyboard part of the Kimbal for the verses and we experimented with and Ebow on the bass. Sadly this did not yield many results, so we switched to guitar and managed to get a semblance of a part. I think our Ebow is busted though...

Then we did a very rough mix.

So here it is, in a very preliminary form. The vocals are still a bit rough and pitchy and I'm pretty sure it will be half this long when we edit and mix it.

But for the sake of showing the process..

Nice To Know You (Rough)

Wadda Ya Think?

...

Alice Scheduled To Be Sodomized

One of my all time favorite books is "Alice In Wonderland". It was one of the first things I remember reading (that and the lyrics to Sgt Pepper) and absolutly loving. Now I hear that Tim Burton is working on a screen adaptation. This saddens my poor heart. Of course this is the man who created the seminal classic "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" and he did "Ed Wood" as well, both amazing films, but he also unleashed the vomit inducing "Willy Wonka" AND "Planet of the Apes"on the world. Danny Elfman should pay some stiff fines for those Wonka tunes. Grumble..why wont Tim Burton leave my childhood alone?

...

"we have the other shows beat by a mile"

...

The Bush War on Reason

Via Boing Boing:

Personally I find these types of maneuvers by the Bush Christian Army to be the most disturbing. The poison of faith based religions marches on.

"The education official responsible for the science curriculum in the state of Texas resigned last month saying she was forced to step down after being reprimanded for informing colleagues of a talk on the conflict over the teaching of evolution. Christine Castillo Comer, former Director of Science in the curriculum division of the Texas Education Agency, forwarded several colleagues an email notice of a upcoming talk by Barbara Forrest, co-author of the book "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design." Castillo Comer's supervisor said the email was grounds for termination as the 'FYI' email "implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that TEA endorses the speaker's position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral."

Link

Recording Diary v13. (12/08/07)

We started the day by creating a rhythm and tempo for a new tune called "Nice To Know You" that I just wrote the other day on my new Autoharp.

First up we found a cool pattern on the Kimball Organ, which we recorded directly into Pro Tools.

Craig then recorded a simple Organ bass part via the Kimball

Next up we plugged in my Autoharp and a I scraped out the basic backbone of the tune. Playing the Autoharp well is a deceptive task, as I soon found out.

Soon we found a version that was workable enough to lay vocals over.

So we set up the ADK mic and I sang the song in a few takes. This performance took a little getting use to as the tempo/pitch has changed from what it was when I wrote the song. Pretty soon I mangled out a decent vocal and we toyed with some harmonies, which we quickly abandoned. I always try to harmonize every vocal..it's a problem.

Next up we added a simple Reason Glock part that I played (poorly).

Then we re-did my lame ass Autoharp performance with one that was a little less lame ass. Just a little less.

Next we tried a little stand up bass on the track, but it didn't seem "needed". We also tried a Harmonium track that sounded kinda cool but after a bit of experimentation felt unnecessary. I think we may need some instrumentation at the end still..but we'll see.

So the tune remains minimal. We will look at it again on Tuesday, but I think it will end up a bare bones deal.

Done!

Time to go home. Tired as fuck, plus my beard itches. I think this means it may rain.

Heros

MBO Sticker

Meet Me At "The Cherry Pit"

Link

"I Think I Kinda Want It"

Walk Hard!

Recording Diary v12 (12/07/07)

We started the night helping our pal Tim move in. Tim is sharing our giant studio space with us and we are very excited to have him. Jeff also hung some giant Manzaneda branches that he brought down from his mountain home. We are gonna make an indoor forest.

The Hog showed up and we pluged in his Kimbal organ. The Kimbal organ is kinda like the organ that every grandma had in the 60's. It rules and we use it live as well.
Thomas placed textural keys on the song using the Line 6 delay for the echoes etc. We added a nice "Floyd" like chord to the main section that's gonna pan out nicely in the mix. We did about 5 or 6 tracks of the Kimbal.

Then we ran the "Electro Mechanical" Wurli Reason Refill and distorted it. We then doubled the bass line in the chorus and the out-section. This thickened the groove nicely.

We may add a Ebow guitar on a few parts and we also need to to tighten up an out of key vocal that Ill redo on Sat.

Otherwise "I'm Your Ring Tone" is in the bag!

Next!

The Truth

An Unreasonable Man

I watched "An Unreasonable Man" last eve. This is a great documentary on the life of Ralph Nader and his subsequent bid for president. What is particularity telling is how the Democratic party used all the same fucked up tricks to besmirch his reputation that most liberals assume are the techniques of the Republicans. If your one of those muddled thinkers who "blame" Mr Nader for the loss of the election in 2000 I'd seriously recommend that you watch this film.

Personally I voted for the guy twice and I'd do it again.

...

After working with zeros and ones for so many years I become extra impressed when I see "real world, meat-ware" junk.

...

...

Link

Recording Diary v11 (12/05/07)

Tonight was Mirvs turn to track guitar for "Ring Tone".Mirv plugged his new Strat into his Marshall and used his new "Leash" Power Antinuator. This allows him to "fool" his Marshal into thinking it's on 10 but have it remain relatively quiet. This makes for killer a tone without the ear crunching decibels. Very cool. His tone is ripping. He also ran a "Wha Wha" in line.We used a 57..and Craig found the sweet spot on the cab.

Mirv then tracked a lead guitar and other parts for the track. Took a few hours. Ripping performance.

We also set up the "Delux Multiplexer" which allowed for a fuzzy octave tone that was ripping for the outro solo. Cool deal! I then fixed up a few vocals and overdubbed the chorus parts. All good so far.

The HOG needs to add boards..Thursday

Bedtime

07 Gift Guide

Looking for gifts to celebrate the end-o-the year Capitalist overgrazing?

Here's a fine list of cool crud!

Link

I Know What I Like

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I saw the wonderful "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" last eve. Wow, what a beautiful film. This one sticks with you after leaving the theater. My work is hosting a Q&A today with the director Julian Schnabel which should be cool! Anyway, check out this wonderful film if you can.

Please, Stay Inside The Lines Father Feelgood

Fucking PRICELESS! A comic guide for Father Feelgood.

Link

Recording Diary v10

I really can't imagine how astronomically boring these diary posts must be...

So last Thurs 11/29 we tracked bass guitar for "I'm Your Ring Tone".

Craig first used his Fender Precision through the Sunn Coliseum Amp/Ampeg bass cab.

He then ran his signal through his Bass Pod Live and a MXR fuzz box "The Blow Torch". This thing is crazy sounding.

We found the tone a little muddy so we decided to swap amps and cabs and tried his bass through the Hi-Watt head/Cab. The tone considerably tightened up. We then set up the AKG D20 mic that we usually use on the kick drum, but works great on the bass as well, we also ran the bass though a D.I.

Craig then tracked bass and we landed a great track after 3 takes.

Sat 12/1

We set up the rhythm guitar for "Ring Tone". First I used my Les Paul Standard Gold Top directly into the Hi-Watt but we found this tone to be a tad to "normal", so we reverted to my live set up which is the same Les Paul into my POD Live (using a small tweed amp/and overdrive box) into my 69 Fender Blackface Twin Reverb. This tone worked. We also ran the guitar via DI in case we want to try a modeled amp later on.

We then set up the SM57 about an inch or so away from the fender cab.

After 3 or 4 takes I nailed the rhythm guitar part. I'm a pro.

Next we set up the Hi-Watt with a Gibson SG via my POD for the "accenting" rhythm guitar parts. This tone complements the other rhythm track nicely as it has more midrange.

After a few takes we nailed the part.

We then set up the ADK mic for a quick run through of the lead vocal. We will listen to this performance critically when we return on Tuesday.

Maybelle Carter

The Battle of Language Continues On...

Link

Perhaps this article is conveniently looking at some worst case scenarios but I think that's a sane response, particularly considering our current administrations willingness to "bend" the rules a bit.