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Tuesday, October 9th, 2001
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1:18p - four dreams
I.) My sisters and I had killed a neighbour, a person who lived on the street where we grew up. I was appalled, and had never meant for that to happen. Whether it had been deliberate or an accident on their parts, I do not know, but they were nonchalant and pointedly unconcerned with it.
II.) I was in attendance at some large-scale amusement park, but rather than various rides and games being the fixtures and points of attraction, there was a wide array of natural habitats which the guests could traverse. Looking back, it was in some ways rather like an old quest-style video game: the ‘jungle board,’ the ‘water world,’ the ‘desert,’ and so forth. For the most part, everyone explored the areas on their own, and found their way from one to the next by their own means, whether by hiking through the terrain, or swimming when applicable, or by flying. There were also machines somewhere between a ski-lift and a bullet train which could transport people from one area or ‘world’ to another if anyone tired of an area and wanted to explore somewhere new. I entered onto a rocky outcropping overlooking a river which emerged from an underground tunnel. There were high cliffs on either side of the river which were in places covered with vines and tropical flowers. I leapt off the cliff and flew out across the river below me, flying with the current. I was about ten meters in the air; in places, I flew through a mist: the spray from the river crashing on the rocks. Occasionally, I saw small groups of people on the banks of the river, or scaling the cliffs; no one else was in flight. I followed the river for a mile or more in this way, until in the distance I spotted one of the lifts, and decided that I would get aboard. After I got in line, which began in an enclosed sort of ‘station,’ I noticed several people from my kwoon scattered throughout the room, most of them in line. They did not seem to be together, but one by one they noticed one another, and greeted each other with hugs and elabourate ‘secret’ handshakes which I did not recognise. I greeted a few of them and generally got a curt nod in response. I was feeling ousted and left out. One of my kung fu brothers noticed an older man across the room, with greying dreadlocks and a beard, and carrying a backpack. His eyes widened, and he turned to another person from the kwoon who was close to him in line. He ducked, and reached out to smack his knee to get his attention. When they had made eye contact, he indicated the older man. “That’s roots!” he said, and the other guy nodded in acknowledgment. The first guy was already looking around for other people in the school, to point out the older man. Several more times I heard him call out to someone “Hey! Yo! That’s roots over there! That’s a roots man!” Several of the students left their place in line to walk over to the man and greet him, shake his hand or give a hug, and to speak with him. I was feeling further in the dark by this point; first of all because no one else in the kwoon was saying anything to me about the roots man, and second, because of recalling an older dream or vision I had had earlier in the year where an older man had told me that I was a roots man, myself. Nearly everyone was out of line by this point, and ahead of me, the one who had first noticed the roots man had found one more person in line to inform. This last person was not someone from the kwoon, and was not anyone I recognised. Indeed, he looked very much like the roots man across the room; he, too, had grey dreads and a beard, and looked to be roughly the same age. He wore a bandanna, and feathers on a thong around his neck. He had wide eyes, and looked angry. “Yo, man!” the younger guy said. “That’s roots!” He indicated the man across the room. The other older man scowled at him, and challenged him. “What does it matter?” he asked. He would not go over and say anything to the other roots man, and stayed in line, facing in the wrong direction and glaring.
III.) Another flying dream. I forget the details of this one, aside from being outside, and the sky being an unusual beige colour. I remember flying in a spiral.
IV.) I was in a room with my father, who sat at a large wooden desk with a glass top. Next to him, facing to his left, a table had been set up at a right angle to his desk with a large Mackie board atop it. It must have had thirty-two channels. Joe, a Native American guy I met in South Dakota a little over a week ago, sat at the console, tweaking the knobs and adjusting the buses. I don’t remember if my father actually spoke, but I remember him telling me that he had bought the mix board for Joe to have, because he needed it.
current music: Miranda Sex Garden: Suspiria (7 louches | share your thoughts)
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1:28p - Some Notes on Mahavichy France
A few weekends ago I got together with Phil to hang out and make some music. As I mentioned earlier, our initial intent was to make a somewhat short piece, using mostly synths, which would be more comical than serious. Perhaps as a way to blow off steam or to open up the sluices. What actually happened was, we built a surprisingly credible piece through layering a series of samples and improvisations. It's a work in progress, but I think it's fairly near its completion. It's a pretty solid first draft, and it was a lot of fun to make.
What follows are some notes to Phil about where I think we could go with the music, and a few ideas for rounding it out a little.
I debated about putting up a direct link to the track, entitled "Mahavichy France," in this entry, but I'm a bit wary of doing that. However, if anyone would like to hear it, email me and I'll send you the URL. I'm sure Phil would also hook you up. And both of us, of course, would welcome any comments or impressions which you'd care to share. We like discourse. In the meantime, for a bit of context, I'll say that the piece is exactly three minutes long, and features guitars, bass, canned drums, vibes, glockenspiel, organ, a Coltrane sample, a dictaphone recording of Phil describing a dream, and, I believe, FM radio interference that worked to our advantage.
Notes on Mahavichy France:
• Those vibes. You gotta love those vibes, and that glorious, sleepy-eyed hypnotic effect on them. That was a good find.
• The biggest thing holding the track back right now, obviously, is the drums. They were great as a click track, and the overall rhythm is 100% better than on the last track we recorded, but I think they need to be changed in order to really be effective on this track. Live drums would be ideal, of course, but obviously in this case that's not really a practical option. I think it's fine to use the synth drums, and I think it's fine to even use one regular, repeating loop for the whole piece, especially as the drums enter late and drop out early. But I think two things need to happen: first, the rhythm has to be a little more interesting. Secondly, I think some echo would go a long way, especially on those snare hits. I'm thinking of a sound somewhere between I Could Live in Hope and Winter Birds. Also, speaking of Seely, another thing that I think would be a nice touch is to have one place in the track, toward the end, where the drums change up for a few measures and then resume, or where a new rhythmic element comes in. An ice bell could be complementary, a low clave might work, two measures of roto toms could be a treat, and even a berimbau or a rain stick might be rather nice. Either way, I think that this should be a very subtle change or addition, one which is not the main focus at that moment, so that it's more of a subliminal effect.
• Two more considerations re. the rhythm / percussion: do we want to add in hand percussion for a part of the track, like we'd talked about doing before we ran out of time? And, what about a brief break - like two beats - where the drums drop out altogether, or everything but the high hat drops out? I'm not sure how great that would sound, but the idea is interesting. We could play around with it; it strikes me as one of those things that you could hear one time and immediately say either Ooh, that's nice or Oh, no...
• The first few measures of the bass, between 24 and 32 seconds, sound nearly identical to the first few measures of the bassline for "Metronomic Underground". I didn't notice that until later. We might want to change that.
• Remember those whishes at the beginning of "Evolution Litany," the ones from the Space Echo? I think it would sound good to have something like that very low and in the background toward the beginning of the track. Fade in (barely), present for a second or two, fade out (slowly), and you never hear from it again.
• I have a brief guitar line (about fifteen seconds) that I think would be pretty if we added it in at around 2:15 - 2:16. Dulce, I think. Or maybe played on a nylon string. I hear the last notes decaying when the glockenspiel enters for the second time.
• I think that when all the instruments drop out at the end there should be a slightly longer fade. Just slightly longer, mind you. Also, if we have some echo on the drums, we might accomplish it that way. That, and letting that last chord on the guitar ring out a little longer.
Thoughts? Counterpoints? Replies? Furthermores?
Oh, and Phil, one other thing: regarding all those exercises you and Scott and I began back in July (and mine are at long last very nearly done) (and Scott, are you still out there? How're your wrists?), you wrote one called "To Be Born Under Smoking Metal..." which we discussed here. I made a note saying "Timpani? Somewhere?" (scroll down a little and you'll see it) - did I mean to say that there were currently no timpani in the sample, but that they would be a fine addition? Because in listening now, it's obvious that there are timpani there. And they sound wonderful! I quite like that little piece, up to and including the lead voicing. You ought to record the whole song. I stick with the earlier proposal that once all the songs are written - your nine, my nine, Scott's nine - that we make music for them and play them and assemble them and group them together to include in some sort of ultra-limited-edition compilation (say, a run of three).
current music: The song in question. (share your thoughts)
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4:08p - "You Can't Tell Me that a Swallow Knows what Figaro's Untied of Mine."
If there was ever a fellow that can write some goofy, off-the-wall lyrics that can make you chuckle and often say Hmmm... at the same time, there's Rob Crow, of Heavy Vegetable / Thingy / Optiganally Yours. Over the weekend I picked up a copy of OY's Exclusively Talentmaker, which actually features no use of the Optigan whatsoever, but does have plenty of the aforementioned lyrics. Lyrically, there's a lot of variance: there are songs that tell stories, like "Oar" and "Poodleman," and there are songs that are more expository, like "Waves," "Song for America," and the brief, three-lined "Nonpartisan". The words go:
I'm nonpartisan / Got no country, man / I want time, is all.
I like that. It reminds me of Utah Phillips quoting Ammon Hennessey quoting Mark Twain: "Loyalty to the country always; loyalty to the government when it deserves it."
current music: Terry Riley: "Salome Dances for Peace, pt. II" (share your thoughts)
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4:56p - One More for Today
There's a really good alternate version of R.E.M.'s "Leave" on the soundtrack for the 1997 film A Life Less Ordinary, which I don't think I'd heard of until just now. The song (whose original release was on '96's New Adventures in Hi-Fi) is well worth checking out; I make no claims for the film.
I've discovered that opening several other programs while I have the 'net radio streaming in creates a weird frenetic loop for a second or more. Thus, a song will on occasional have an incredulous bar of 17:8 inserted into it, or Wesley Willis will wrap up a tune with "Budweiser! It's the ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-king of beers!" Funny.
current music: Terry Riley again. (share your thoughts)
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