Daryl Shawn, a member of the Loopers-Delight mailing list and one half of Chinapainting, wrote this review of my RPM08 record Bittersweet Drive.  It’s a nice surprise when someone likes your work, and even more so when they take the time to write a review.  Thanks, Daryl!

Ha! You thought I had given up and wasn’t going to post again didn’t you?

Oh wait. Nobody reads this thing anyway.

BUT JUST IN CASE…

Here’s a link to a zip file with MP3s of my RPM record, titled Bittersweet Drive

As most RPM’ers seem to have experienced, this process was a combination of sheer joy, terror, frustration and fun. I’m kinda sad to be done with it. But I’m done. For now.

I didn’t plan a lot of collaboration on my record because part of the challenge for me was to try to do as much as I could on my own. Next year I plan to do a lot more e-collaboration, cause that ended up being some of the most fun.

If you’ll indulge me, some quick thank you’s:

Ian Miller played bass on 2 tracks, “Battle On, Satellite” and “West Of House”. Not only is he an excellent bass player, but he’s just a great person who kept me going more than once during this challenge. Much love, Ian.

Jason Norman provided all of the drum loops and sampled voicemails on “West Of House”. Jason deserves more credit than he gets as a beat master. His contributions really made the track happen. More love for Jason.

Greg Thompson mastered this for me. I think he either lost a bet or is a masochist, but I really can’t express how thankful I am that he did it. You’d be surprised how well a polished turd can shine. Thanks for doing this and teaching me a few things along the way, Greg. You can learn more about Greg here.

Chris Huff put together my cover art from one of my wife’s paintings and some photos. I’ve included a very small version (200×200) of the front cover in the zip file for now. Larger images of the front and back cover are at the bottom of this post. Thank you so much for this, Chris. My wife loves it.

Sean O’Rourke and Scott Evans were also very helpful in getting me through this thing. Thank you both for the motivation and feedback that you provided me.

So here it is. Thanks in advance for listening. I’d love to hear any feedback - just hit that comment button! So far my favorite comment is this from Sean O’Rourke, who says “this record is like the Talking Heads meet a less-boring Pink Floyd, fronted by a Michael Stipe that I don’t want to punch in the face”. Now that’s a review!

P.S. - I’m much fatter than Michael Stipe.

You can listen to rough and incomplete mixes here.

The drums still (still) need work, and vocals (and in some cases, lyrics) will be done in the second half of February. Also, these MP3s are really compressed and I don’t like it. Needs remixing to let it breathe.

So far I’ve got 3 things that are worth mixing down and sharing. I’ve also got 3 other things that are… um, not ready to share.

So here we go:

1) This is a remixed version of the first track I did. Still needs vocals, but it’s in pretty good shape: http://www.uncledig.com/RPM08/RPMtrack1.mp3

2) This a little punk rock thing ala Screeching Weasel. Don’t ask me why the banjo/acoustic is still in there - it’s kinda what started me off, and I’m leaving it for now. I’m hoping to have Ian put real bass on this (pardon my crappy bass playing). Drums need a lot of work, too (cause they SUCK): http://www.uncledig.com/RPM08/RPMbanjopunk.mp3

3) A very rough start for a song I’ve had in my head for almost a year. It’s going with the lyrics below. Again, drums need serious help: http://www.uncledig.com/RPM08/RPMMamaSays.mp3

Here are the lyrics for #3:

Mama said
Promises
Are made to keep
And talk is cheap
And true love cuts deep

Dark eyes
Sunshine
On the graceful and the wise
On the pity and the lies
And the beauty in your eyes
Shines

Mama said
Don’t get it in your head
That you’re alone
You make a home
You bury my bones

Dark eyes
Goodbye
To the graceful and the wise
To the pity and the lies
To the beauty in your eyes
Shines

Goodbye, goodbye Ruby Mae
Sunshine, first class all the way
Coast the car down the hill and sneak away
Coast the car down the hill

After some time spent figuring out workflow and laying out basic grooves, I’ve finally managed to put together an almost-finished track. You can download it here: http://www.uncledig.com/RPM08/RPM08Track1.mp3

I’m not real happy with it right now. The first 20 seconds sound like a bad singer/songwriter record. I was shooting for something a little more strange and intense, so this will need a little more work. There are also some arrangement changes I want to make.

But those will have to wait - it’s time to move on to the next one!

Blog neglect. Guilty as charged.

My latest therapy? The RPM Challenge. Make a record in a month. While we’re at it - let’s make it the shortest month of the year. Crazy talk. Just the kind of thing I need.

The RPM Challenge exists for a lot of reasons. Every participant has some motivation that’s driving them to sign up for such a crazy idea. Me? I’m a 42 year old average guitar player with plenty of band experience, and yet I don’t have a complete recording of something that I can truly call “all mine”. I’ve been all over the place with music post-Bickley, and I’ve failed to capture most if it. It’s time for me to grit my teeth and forge something out of the ideas that are swirling in my head.

It’s not going to set the world on fire, but it’s going to rock mine. And that sounds like exactly what I need to do.

For all of my xhcfx friends that might be reading this: thanks for the shove. I’m looking forward to hearing everyone’s ideas come to fruition. This is where you can keep up with my fael… err, progress.

A few words about process:

• I have a few “songs” in my head that I’ll complete as part of the challenge. At a minimum:
  • Mama Said - a song about my now departed mom
  • Crush All Your Diamonds - a song about renewal
• The rest will come from the ether, assuming I can get it to condensate
• Genre jumping will be the order of the day, but I’m going to try to make it coherent. Somehow all of these sounds exist and blend together in my head, and one of my goals is to reflect that
• It will all be done on my Toshiba laptop using a PreSonus FIREBOX. Outer space exists because it is afraid to be on the same planet as FIREBOX.
• I plan to request the assistance of a few e-friends for various parts. I hope to have Ian Miller play bass on at least one barn-burner and have Jason Norman lay down a serious groove or two. I make no promises about the degree to which I will mangle their work.

T Minus 12 hours.

Too much work and other worldly distractions once again threaten the post count value of this blog. Don’t fret. Even this post represents hope.

I see that quite a few loopers have visited - linked from livelooping.org and other forum posts. A special hello to each of you. And thanks to those of you who’ve found the site/blog useful enough to link to.

I had a chance to play at Y2K7 in Santa Cruz, CA this year, but my schedule wouldn’t accomodate. I’ll be there in 2008. In the meantime, most of my looping is happening on a Toshiba laptop armed with Bidule, Mobius, and a selection of real-time VST sound manglers. Hmmm… sounds like a good blog post subject for December.

In other news…

The soundclips link in the main menu (up there ^) will take you to the guitar effects soundclip gallery that I’ve been hosting here (for 2 years now!) It doesn’t see much action these days, but if you’re into that sorta thing, give it a look.

And finally tonight…

I’ve been slowly but surely improving my DIY media server in my house. At this point I’ve got 1.5 terabytes of storage attached - and I’m not afraid to use them, dammit. I decided it was time to get all Web 2.0 up in here and start pulling my favorite content down so I can have it on my lappy or in my car at whatever pace I choose. So I did a little searching and ended up with Juice. Loving it. With so much good content available as an RSS feed, I can see Juice becoming a primary conduit for my steady diet of teh interwebz.

Also…

I envy my dear friend Matt’s commitment to blogging, and the commensurate result. I’ve never fancied myself a writer. But Matt is one, and he doesn’t even know it. After playing a character in some of the earlier chapters of Matt’s life, it’s a joy to read the current chapters. Quite a novel (concept), that Matte Finish.

Wow, the weather has been beautiful in Houston this week. Clear skies, highs in the 70’s, lows in the 40’s. Nice. Makes a guy think he ought to spend more time outside doing more nothing more often.

But alas, it’s been a hard working week. One of those vortexes that pulls you in with it’s challenges and even a few mysteries, and spits you out the other side feeling swelled and spent, and maybe even a little wiser.

See - this week, I’ve been moving from the planning to the execution stages of a very interesting project. The idea is to assess a company’s very-broken-web-portal, decide what’s important about what clients are actually doing there, and then blow the whole thing up and redesign the portal to actually do those things. You’d be surprised how far from the mark one of these B2B web portals can stray. Years of operating with no vision for the product, no standards, no meaningful client input, and no resources… well, that can really mess things up. The good news is that most (ok, a lot?… ok, I’ll settle for “some”) of the functionality that needs to be there is there. The bad news is that the architecture for delivering it is broken, and users have to have a PhD in using the portal to be able to squeeze anything out of it.

These are not lazy or stupid people who built this thing, either. They thought they had all those things. They did the best they could with what they had as they went along. It’s ended up a little bit like the Winchester Mansion. I’m sure it gets much worse than this, but I’m also not sure I want to witness it if it does.

So I’ve managed to wade through the Swamp of Preparation. I’ve done the interviews and read/discussed the as-is documentation. I’ve waded through the wishlists. I’ve listened to all of the assessments of the technical hurdles and the occasional naysayer predicting (hoping for?) total doom and failure. It’s gelled. OK, gelling. I can see how it needs to be transformed.

Now comes the hard part.

In other news, I talked to my dad today and he almost shot his age (75) in golf last week. 76 at Champions on the Cypress course. Champion indeed. He said that putting felt like rolling the ball into a big bucket, and he sank 3 putts over 30 feet. My old man, in the zone.

I bet he could integrate enterprise-wide workflows within a web portal with one hand tied behind his back…

A couple of days ago, I decided that I’d like to put some effort into blogging again. Yes, again . As I upgraded WordPress (they are doing a great job with WP!) and moved some of my old blog posts over here, it became obvious to me - I’ve caught this bug in the 4th quarter of the last 2 years. The only real effort I’ve put into blogging has been in Oct-Dec of ‘05 and ‘06.

Reflecting on this, I think it may be due to a couple of things. First, this is the time of year that I begin to reflect on life, the last year, what I’ve accomplished and what I want to focus on in the upcoming year. Somehow blogging is something I’ve failed at by most standards, yet it keeps coming up on my want-to-do list.

Secondly, this is often the time of year that I get a breather between the worklife crunches of the summer and year end. Another opportunity for reflection and whatnot. Let’s see if I can apply some of the improved focus I have in other areas of my life to this blog, shall we?

In the meantime….

Vivarium Update