Buy Yogi albums!
half-pint demigod (2005)
at CDBaby.com
Salve EP (2003)
at Amazon.com
at CDBaby.com
Any Raw Flesh? (2001)
at Amazon.com
at CDBaby.com
Sister Sites:
HalfZaftig.com
Wonky-Records.com
MySpace
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| 8/29/2003 |
| P.C. Tune #5: Right Outside |
| I forgot to do this part, the triumphant self-congratulatory post about how yup, I done finished another'n. Well, I did, and there's the name of it. Tentative title for #6 is "Old Ghosts In This House", but I still have a lot of work to do on that one. |
| 10:41:29 AM |
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| A Pretty August August |
au.gust ( P ) Pronunciation Key (OG-gist) adj.
1. Inspiring awe or admiration; majestic: the august presence of the monarch.
2. Venerable for reasons of age or high rank.
***
Well, for someone who always claims that August is his least favorite month of the year, this one has been pretty spectacular for me, I must say.
The most obvious thing is that here in the Seattle area, we have had very un-August like temperatures. It's been largely cool and sunny, which makes it great for someone like me who is cooped up inside on the second floor working on music all day long. It can get pretty warm in here in the afternoon when the sun starts shining in here, especially when I have to close the windows to record something loud like guitar or vocals or something.
And record I have this month! I set my goal of cranking out as much music as I possibly can starting on August 4th, and as of right now I have five brand-spanking-new, finished song demos, with a sixth one started. I hope to finish number six by midnight on Sunday. I don't think I've ever finished up six new songs in one month before.
And even that achievement that I'm breaking my arm patting myself on the back about is a result of something else: I found my willpower again. I found focus again. I started doing little things each day that I had fallen into habits of putting off, that I would talk myself out of starting. It's actually pretty amazing what kind of a fog I had been living in prior to the big "Palate Cleanser" plan, and I only realize it now that I'm so deep into this three-and-a-half weeks later. Because it's incredible what you can get done if you start putting little baby steps together. And once you start knocking out goals in one area, you realize that you can find the will to improve in other areas as well: in addition to my newfound musical/creative focus, I've also found the ability to stay on my diet, and the weight is once again coming off.
Part of this, too is that I've finally sloughed off the last remains of my last routine, the one that centered around my old job at Cogenix. For the first month since my layoff in July, I kinda kept living like I still had that job, or that it would come back soon or something. I spent like I had my old salary, I frittered away my free time like I would when I was working. The trick now will be to keep this focus and drive when I re-enter the workforce in November.
In the meantime, I'm gonna see if I can keep up this pace in September, too. |
| 10:34:55 AM |
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| 8/26/2003 |
| Astronomical, Baby |
"I look up at the stars at night,
What do I see beyond the lightA hundred million worlds that we ignore."
-From "Pleiades", by King's X
I had another late-night walk last night, and I found something else out about living in Snoqualmie. We are pretty well removed from nighttime light pollution out here, but we're starting to get some of our own, as there is retail space now being built and occupied at the front of where they're doing the most development right now. But if you take the path up the parkway that I like to take, and are out on a moonless night like I was last night, it is still possible to see the Milky Way when you look up at the stars at night. Incredible. I'm an astronomy dope for the most part, I don't know most of the constellations, but I was able to easily spy the two dippers and Orion. It was a good thing to do, because it reminds one of one's incredible smallness in the Universe, and the day-to-day stupid bullshit problems don't seem to loom as large.
Of course, I also got a nosebleed when I was out walking, and that really sucked. |
| 1:43:14 PM |
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| 8/24/2003 |
| It's Really Gonna Happen |
Today was Web Site Day. I worked like a dog all day long on the cosmetic changes coming berry, berry soon here at Wonky.Net. I haven't gotten this deep under the hood in some time, and boy, is some of this code convoluted! I'm stripping things waaaayyyy back in just about every respect, losing most of the graphics that the old site depended on. Now that the Web is being browsed by lots of devices other than PC's these days (a trend I expect to continue), I want to trim a lot of the fat, so that the information that is wanted is there, without a lot of bells n' whistles. And frankly, this approach caters more to my current view towards Web design - simple, sleek, info-packed. I've probably got a good 8 or 9 hours of work to get in before I can upload the changes I've made.
And then, comes the really big task: re-writing this whole site from the ground up in .NET. I'll have to switch Web hosts and everything once that bad boy is done, but it'll be worth it. I hate all this old ASP code now that I've worked in ASP.NET! |
| 11:34:24 PM |
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| 8/22/2003 |
| P.C. Tune #4: A Kick In The Shin |
| Oh, and for those who are keeping score, I finished up the mix of the latest Palate Cleanser tune today, called "A Kick In The Shin." That's four new finished songs inside the last three weeks. I'm trying to think back, but I think that's a new record for prolificness for me. But, I shant rest 'pon my proverbial laurels now! There are more songs to write! HUTTAH, as Brian Timpe would say! |
| 4:23:33 PM |
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| My Right Foot |
I dunno if it's all the time off or what, but lately I have become the King of Klutzes. Perhaps you read my sordid tale of a few weeks back, when I carelessly and unknowingly broke a toe seemingly as easy as one might snap a fresh green bean. It has actually been feeling pretty normal of late, though I notice if I put a lot of weight on it I feel the tiniest little ache.
This morning I woke up earlier than I'd have liked to, since Bojangles wanted to get up, up, UP, right now, please. As I bumbled blearily around looking for my robe to take her downstairs for breakfast, I slammed the right foot smartly and with authority into the closet door.
My first thought was: Oh, my god, I broke that toe AGAIN, holy SHIT does that hurt a lot.
Turns out though, that the new damage I incurred was not to my previously broken "ring toe," but to the middle, or "eff-you" toe on the same foot. I don't think it's broken (not that I'd really have any idea). There is a deep bruise on it, but it looks completely different than what happened last time, when the ring toe turned completely raspberry reddish. Today's injury is dark purple, and smaller. It aches in almost exactly the same way it did last time.
I don't know what it is with these foot injuries lately. They suck, though. |
| 4:20:14 PM |
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| 8/18/2003 |
| That Is More Like It |
We just played the best Yogi & Half Zaftig show that's yet happened, too bad not many people saw it.
Some who did were members of local heavy rock act Charlie Drown, who stayed for the whole show, and were lovely and generous with their praise afterward. Y&HZ drummer Pete is currently playing in Charlie Drown, they have a big show at the Fenix on Halloween. I hope I make it back from the east coast by then so I can go witness it. Hodgy from Beef Kurtain (and incidentally, Charlie Drown as well) was there, I believe he has missed only one Y&HZ performance. Hodgy is good people, he was the only one in the joint with an official Yogi Any Raw Flesh? T-Shirt on. He looked smashing in it.
Good gravy, I gotta go sleep. Have to get up early to take little Pete the dachshund to the vet, to have them look at an infected tooth.
I wish I could play shows like tonight's all the time. You people need to come next time, OK? |
| 3:36:14 AM |
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| 8/17/2003 |
| P.C. Tune #3: SubLimeInAl |
Finished up tune #3 today, "SubLimeInAl." It's a fairly aggressive guitar-rocker, and I'd actually started it last February sometime. Over the last couple of days I completely re-recorded all the parts for it, and finished up the vocals (and there are a LOT of those). Nice to get it done.
Tonight is the first live performance for the new version of Yogi & Half Zaftig. We have a very leisurely setlist scheduled, a couple of tunes in there we've never played live before. Looking forward to it, though I'm already starting to get the pre-show butterflies. It's gonna be fun, though - it'll be neat to actually be in the same room with Pete and his drums for once.
Open Range is a durned-tootin' good cowboy movie, if you like such things. I do, and I had a grand 'ol time. Robert Duvall is worth the price of admission alone.
Gonna go get some exercise before I head off to load-in. |
| 3:57:04 PM |
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| 8/14/2003 |
| P.C. Tune #2: Inscrutable You |
Geez! It's three in the morning! And I'm blogging!
Well, that's 'cuz I just got back from driving to the store, so that I could listen to my freshly minted mix of Palate Cleanser Tune #2, a ditty called "Inscrutable You." This one really kicked my ass. I started it last Saturday afternoon, and just finished it up. Mostly it was hard because I started writing it on keyboard, which I'm really bad at, so it takes me a long time to get the parts into shape, and I usually construct them in the sequencer anyhow. I ended up with what sounds like a passable Rhodes part that carries the whole song - not bad, says I. Like my P.C. Tune #1, I'm really happy with how this new song turned out, but I'll again be shocked if the band wants to work on it. It sounds like nothing else I've yet done.
A week and a half into this process, and it's starting to be very obvious to me that getting a whole song written and recorded in one day is about impossible. I still think two full days is workable, though - so I'm hopeful I can manage my two-song-per-week goal. To get the song count up, I'm going to cheat a bit for the rest of the week, and finish up two songs that I've got a lot done on, but never bothered finishing. So hopefully before I start this cycle again on Monday, I can still have four finished demos.
If nothing else, even though I didn't finish this last tune up as fast as I wanted, I at least worked on it solidly until I finished it. This instead of making up a section, putting it aside for six months, and then coming back to it, my typical working method. I like this "blazing to completion" thing. It's fun. Why haven't I tried this kind of thing before?
Oh yeah - because I haven't ever had this kind of time on my hands in my adult life before, since I usually have a job. And will again. I'll tell you, I have a deadly sense of purpose right now. I ain't gonna waste it. Tomorrow I'm kicking right back into the whole thing to finish up "SubLimeInAl." |
| 3:05:33 AM |
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| 8/12/2003 |
| Yogi Albums Now Available At www.towerrecords.com! |
Just a quickie announcement over here at the news page. Thanks to the efforts of Derek Sivers at CD Baby, both Yogi albums are now available through Tower Records' online Web store, towerrecords.com. Just another available option for getting hold of the albums for those of you who don't dig using the Paypal, or worse, are having difficulties using the Paypal.
Thanks, Derek! |
|
| Momentous |
I just had a moment with some music.
I was just out walking, I mean literally, just walking, it's 12:44 AM as I type this, and yeah, that's sort of late/early to be out walking, but that's just how things worked this evening. I need to get walks in as part of my ongoing fitness regimen thing, and it just worked out that I was going to go out really late.
Which was absolutely fabulous tonight anyway, for lots of reasons. It's chilly out tonight, just the way I like it, and the sky is clear, and there's a great big, bright, almost completely full moon out. The kind of moon that really lights things up in that surreal manner that seems too impossible to be true. A moon that almost makes you squint when you look at it, it's so bright.
As I always do when I go on walks, I popped a CD into the walkman - tonight's was Rated R, by Queens Of The Stone Age.
And so then, that was when I had the moment. I can only attempt to re-create it for you:
I was walking up a great big hill, on a trail that trundles along the Snoqualmie Parkway; it's the part of the walk that gets the really big burn happening. Perched right above the roadway was the aforementioned very giant nearly full moon, with its light glinting off of the road and the guardrails stationed on either side. I was all alone out there, and it's a spot where you can really feel like you're "out in nature", even when you aren't, really. It was just incredibly beautiful, and then track 5 of Rated R came on, a song called "Better Living Through Chemistry."
The song is fabulous enough on its own, but then something happened right at the 2:33 mark - a combination of the music in my ears, the beauty all around me, the feeling of absolute solitude, of being all alone in "nature" - it all mixed together to form... bliss. I was immediately conscious that this was one of the moments that one hopes for, that one lives for. One of those moments when you realize how wondrous and intoxicating and confusing and necessary living life is. A moment that makes up for so many of the disappointments, the losses, the sadness, the difficulties, the despair that can overwhelm you if you let it. I was immediately conscious that this was a moment not to be forgotten, but also that I had to not just gloss over it, but to really allow myself to simmer in it, wallow in it, really feel.
Reading over this, I realize that I have completely failed to capture the moment I had tonight. But I'm so grateful that I had it. I got no religion, and moments like these explain why. |
| 1:20:52 AM |
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| 8/8/2003 |
| Decide Prefer Formulated Surpass |
The above title is the subject line in the latest piece of spam received in my email inbox.
I just want to sit back and ponder it; it truly is a thing of beauty. Of course, I deleted it, but still. |
| 10:00:01 AM |
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| 8/7/2003 |
| P.C. Tune #1 Update |
I just mixed down the final (demo) version of my first "Palate Cleanser" tune, "Dusty Demonatrix." It obviously took longer than the one day, but that was largely out of my control. All told, I probably spent about a day and a half on it, and a good portion of that was spent figuring out how to do things on my Roland workstation that I didn't know how to do, like automating the mixing, and running the mixdown through a stereo compressor/limiter. As I continue through this process, I figure that stuff will become more and more automatic.
Did I mention what a honkin' great time I had doing this song? I'm really happy with it. I start P.C. Tune #2 tomorrow.
I just want to add that Salon is "publishing a light schedule" this week. I don't know if they know this, but this is slowly killing me. Get on the ball, and get over summer, y'all! Chop chop! |
| 7:42:48 PM |
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| 8/5/2003 |
| P.C. Tune #1: Dusty Demonatrix |
Boy. Did that ever turn out to be harder than I thought.
I'm talking about my nefarious plan to force myself to write and record an entire song in one day, by myself. Today was the first day I tried it. I at least finished writing the song, I have all the words, but the recording is far from finished. I have drums and some guitars recorded for it. The song is called "Dusty Demonatrix."
I sorta cheated with this one, because I knew what I wanted to write about before I started, and I knew what kind of song I wanted to write, and that's what it is: a very giant, pounding, TWO-TON HEAVY THING of a song. I can't imagine that the band would be interested in it, I can't imagine I'd ever want to perform it live. But it's kinda cool, in a ridiculously detuned kinda way. When I finish the recording I'll try and put up a clip of it.
I saw thunder and lightning today! That never happens around here! |
| 8:58:22 PM |
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| 8/4/2003 |
| Palate Be Cleansed |
I suffer, to an absurd degree, with "Blank-Page Syndrome" when it comes to writing music. I have this voice in my mind that pipes up when I think it's time to sit down and start to write something new: "What if you can't think of anything? What if you what you do think up sucks? You'll never top '[Insert song I think I did good on here]'! Why even bother?"
Some days, that kind of thinking is enough to persuade me to not even sit down to work. I'll think of something else that I really need to do this second, and walk away from the guitar and workstation. Hey, that movie I wanted to see is playing in a half-hour! I'll just make it!
I'm also notoriously slow to finish a song once I finally do start: I'll make up a riff, match it with a melody, maybe think of a verse variation, and get stuck on a chorus. So I'll put the idea aside for a while, and pick it back up and look at it later. I'll throw out sets of lyrics over and over again. I'll change endings. I'll change tempos. I'll move away from the idea, put a record of it in a spreadsheet, and forget all about it for a few months. 'Well, that's done,' I'll say. Hey, that movie I wanted to see is playing in a half-hour!
Relieved, I jump into the car and dash off to the cinema. Heck, I got something new done, I'll get back to what I was working on, you know, tomorrow.
I've been flitting in and out of this syndrome lately, even though I've got lots of extra time on my hands, being unemployed and all. When I first got laid off again, I manically dove into writing, and dashed off two quick demos for the band to hear. Lately, I've been organizing all of my outstanding unused ideas, getting them into the workstation if they aren't yet in an audio format (maybe they exist only in a Finale score or something). I have fun every time I sit down to work, yet... HEY, Swimming Pool is showing at Bella Bottega! Be right back!
So, I've got a new experiment, something new to try. Something to break the cycle. Something to remind myself that writing songs can be easy and fun, and you don't have to try and come up with The Greatest Song In The World every time out. I'm starting this experiment first thing in the morning tomorrow. I'm calling it "Palate Cleansing."
Twice a week, from now until I leave for my sister's wedding in early October, I'm gonna take a day, and force myself to write and record a brand-new song on the workstation in a single day. Vocals, instruments, everything. I'm going to start each exercise fresh, that is, I won't use any of my hundreds of fragments of unused ideas I've been obsessively cataloging of late. One day, start to finish, new song. I don't care if it's "good" or not, I care that at the end of the day, it's "done." It doesn't have to be something I expect to submit to the band for consideration, it just needs to be a completely realized and recorded idea, all done in one day. I'm really looking forward to doing this. I think twice a week is doable, and if I get on a roll, I'll do more than that. Two a week should be able to happen. If I can, I'll post MP3 excerpts of what I come up with here on the blog.
I already have a title for tomorrow's tune, but I'll tell you that later. |
| 6:28:42 PM |
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