blurry reflection

A track I made today: Blurry Reflection.

Bauhaus: The Art of Functionality

Cool article on Bauhaus design here. For a long time I've been very fond this style.

step by step

 Great song and video.

it ain't about how hard you can hit

"You ain’t gonna believe this...but you use to fit right here. I’d hold you up and say to your mother, this kid is gonna be the best kid in the world. This kid is gonna be better than anybody I ever knew...and you grew up good and wonderful it was great just watching you everyday it was like a privilege. Then the time come for you to be your own man and take on the world and you did... But somewhere along the line you changed...you stopped being you...you let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you're no good...and when things got hard you started looking for somethin' to blame...like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows, it's a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, nobody is gonna hit as hard as life! But it ain't about how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep movin' forward, how much you can take...and keep movin' forward. That's how winning is done! Now, if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth! But you gotta be willing to take the hits and not pointin' fingers sayin' you ain’t where you wanna be because of him or her or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that! I'm always gonna love you no matter what...no matter what happens...you're my son, you're my blood...you're the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, you ain't gonna have a life. ... Don't forget to visit your mother."

Source

True Detective Season 4

I desperately wanted to like this but at 3 episodes in I'm struggling. It's...rough.  I can applaud the original setting and native culture being explored, but I'm from the Kurt Vonnegut school of you must have at least one character to root for.  Having each person who struggles with horrible demons and trauma doesn't equal strong writing.  Is every single person in Ennis, Alaska also a fuckin' dickhead?  I struggle to recognize a single likable character so far.  It's exhausting and dreary to the point of the show being tedious.  And that's not to mention the poor visual effects, distracting camerawork and story that seems to be going into ten different directions...including unnecessary supernatural ones.    

Jodie Foster is an American treasure and she shouldn't be wasted on stuff like this.  I was sort of hoping that we might get a glimpse of Season 1's brilliance (ten years on I still think it is the single best season of television ever written), but we're getting something even weaker than Season 2 and 3.  I will continue to watch in hopes that it pulls itself together, but I am not optimistic.

/end rant

nice pic 

This game is making me miss America. It's been a hot minute since I've been this excited for the playoffs.

Update: Well, shit.

Movie talk: Class of 1999

There is something about finding a relatively unknown yet fun as balls B-film from years past.  In my case it's Mark Lester’s Class of 1999 (released in 1990).  I think my first memories of seeing this were in the early 90’s on cable TV.  I forgot about it for decades until I was in a DVD warehouse in Dongdaemun. I picked it up and watched it…and I absolutely loved it.  I would later buy the Blu-ray and have watched it several times since with friends.  It never gets old.

It’s pure cheese that humorously rips off The Terminator and possibly some other 80’s schlock (The Warriors, perhaps?).  It’s a goofy story: The educational system has teamed up with the military industrial complex to provide a more disciplined approach to teaching by using humanoid cyborgs.  When the cyborgs start using excessive force in their dealings with the students, everything goes to shit.  And it is glorious, from the over-the-top acting to the practical budget effects.  But there is something unique and special to movies like this.   You can see that the filmmakers genuinely put their hearts into the writing and filming despite the lack of budget and star power, and it is well on display when you listen to Mark Lester’s director commentary.   He worked out the rules of the gangs, the drug culture, the hierarchies, and the films cyberpunkish visual styles.  

The flick is well-paced and just plain fun, but it will likely never get the credit it deserves.  True, a fair bit of the acting is over the top and even laughable, but it somehow works given the setup and era.  The movie is one of my small treasures.  

Arami

Today we went to have pancakes in Itaewon at the Pancake House. 

air: talkie walkie

More talk about great music (it's my useless blog so I will do as I like!) 

So I just read on Stereogum that Air's Talkie Walkie turned 20 years old this week.  This is a meaningful record to me because it will always be tied to one of the greatest vacations I've ever taken.  In 2004 I made my first trip to Thailand. I had the album in my Discman (dang!) and walked all over the amazing city of Bangkok until I was covered in sweat.  It was that trip that helped me decide to leave Michigan and then head for East Asia, where I always wanted to work (there were a few jobs I was eyeing before settling on one in Korea).  Anyway, my favorite track from the record is Run. I also enjoyed the chance to see Air perform the song live in Detroit during that period at a great little club called Clutch Cargos.

Stay like this, on the hills, of my chest. Don't wake up, I feel strange, when you go.

While Moon Safari seems to get the most recognition in the press, I've always felt a closer connection to Talkie Walkie.  

real talk, my players

Two hills I will die on:

1) Appetite For Destruction is the best debut album in rock music history. Nothing comes close.

2) Axl Rose, from 1987-1992 (and only from this period), was the single greatest rock singer and front man in the history of the genre.  The only person who I think might come close is Prince, and it sure as shit isn't Freddy Mercury (Rose's own musical hero).  I mean, did Freddy jump into a crowd to punch someone in the face for simply taking photos of him? Nooooooo, siree.

However, just as an aside, I thought I would give a little shout out to my very favorite GnR song of all time, which is one from Use Your Illusion 2: Estranged. There are a slew of reasons to love it, but for me it boils down to it having my favorite guitar work of all time (Slash's solos here are fookin' gorgeous) and Axl's lamenting on unrequited love (according to Rose himself). 

weirdness

Just practicing some reverby guitars on a track I made.  Kind of an odd thing I am working on. 

this week's book

I don't really have strong opinions on Murakami's work.  Some of his writing I enjoy (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) and some of it I think is pretty boring (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running).  Sometimes I'm more interested in writers and their creative processes than the works they produce, hence this purchase.  While I enjoy Stephen King's work, one of his very best books is actually his autobiography On Writing.  It's probably the best book on writing I've ever read.  I'd also recommend William Zinsser's On Writing Well, something I read in college and still have a copy of and occasionally thumb through.

pizza hotline - delivery boy 2099

In late 2022 I started listening to this album and fell hard for it.  Mellow ambient vibes (of course).  Very much my style.  I still listen to it all the time.  I love it when I find records that capture that specific tone I enjoy so much, particularly if they aren't popular albums.  There is something super cool about having an album (mostly) to yourself.  

iPad drawing

I doodled this as I was watching the documentary 'Crumb'.  I've always found Robert and Aline Kominsky Crumb's relationship fascinating.

Monica Mf

I recorded this track last week: Monica Mf.

Just a little experimenting with guitars.

Let's do this Detroit

I woke up at 5:00 am to watch this.  Go Lions.

Update: My participation caused them to win. You're welcome, Detroit.

David Lynch

Happy 78th to one of my absolute heroes.  Your creativity has made my life better.

another album that shaped me

I have an uneven history with the Wu-Tang Clan's debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).  I remember being a sophomore in college when I first heard it and I actually didn't connect at all. I thought it was sloppy, poorly recorded and all over the place. I wasn't very fair to it but now I consider it an absolute masterpiece: an album that created its own genre of hip-hop and deserves lifelong listens. 

daily sludge

    today's coffee shop: krack cafe

 

anjelica huston, 1985

Angelica Huston was a fucking smokeshow.   

dangogae

Dangogae Station back in 2022.

we can build you

PKD's writing is often all over the place story-wise, as it is here in 1972's We Can Build You, but I remember really enjoying this one (I would kill for this printing; the artwork is fantastic). 

the outsider

Rewatching this gem.  I liked the book and feel that the HBO series really did it justice. Ben Mendelsohn carries his grief and grudges so well here while the show does a nice job of mixing the procedural with the supernatural.

fashionista

To be abundantly clear: I did not buy this shirt for her.  When she showed up in it I nearly died laughing.
 

billy corgan and rick beato

 

Man, what a great interview. I have been listening to the Smashing Pumpkins nonstop for the last couple of weeks, even trying to capture some of Billy's guitar tones with my new setup.   I could listen to him talk for hours about his technique.

weekend

 

The OG of horror fiction writers for me…

 

evil dead 1 and 2

Important vibes, my dudes.

Ayutthaya

Maybe my favorite picture of me from the last few years. An amazing trip to Ayutthaya (among other great places) to stand exactly where JCVD stood when filming 1989's Kickboxer.  I have a strange obsession with filming locations, and before I die, I'm going to hit up a few more.  There is a very specific bucket list.

more artistic disobedience

A new mix tape I made: Eliminations.

All of these tracks were made before I got my guitar last week, with the exception of the track Look What You Did.  I did play guitar on that and it's actually my favorite track on the album.

Once again, this is just weird experimental stuff that I love making.  It feels very soundtrack-y to me...at least that's what I'm going for. 

The dialogue of Miami Vice

There is a line where a woman is on the pier asking Don Johnson, "How do you go from this tranquility to that violence?"  And he answers, while lighting up a cigarette, "I usually take the Ferrari."

Ha. 

another album that shaped me

After my morning walk and coffee I put on this record: Cocteau Twins' Victorialand. I have a long history with this one.  I first picked up the CD in Boston around 1995 and obviously fell pretty hard for it.  At the time I was reading Ann Rice's Interview with the Vampire, and I would later take a vacation to New Orleans with friends while listening to the group (the Otherness EP was a big part of that trip if I remember correctly. Don't skip that fine remix of Cherry Colored Funk).  So the record is inextricably connected to that period for me in a very positive way.  I've been thinking about this album a lot because of my guitar and some of my hopes in creating similar textures (utilizing a lot of chorus and reverb effects for that special shoegaze sound). 

experiments

I've been in heaven the last few days.  After I got my new guitar I downloaded an amp simulator series for my DAW host.  It's insanely fun: a variety of amplifiers, pedals, microphones, cabinets and an obscene number of effects to manipulate my guitar sounds.  There is so much experimentation going on in my apartment that my fingers are nearly bleeding. This is the setup I've wanted since I started recording music all those years ago.

Tonight's viewing was 1983's The Dead Zone, another David Cronenberg movie that I had not seen. This one was based on the Stephen King novel, and to be honest, I was very pleasantly surprised.  I'd rate it higher than last week's flick The Brood. 

I'll avoid spoilers and give just the basics.  A man has an accident, goes into a five-year coma, and then comes out having psychic, prescient abilities.  He is able to prevent atrocities from happening, but of course in knowing that a variety of new problems arise.  Relatively early in the film there is a plot with a serial killer which resolves faster than you'd think, but then the story of a shady politician becomes the main act.  I for one enjoyed the rather unconventional plotting and found it refreshing after the slow flow of The Brood.  Likewise, the characters are far more relaxed, relatable and engaging here (after all, we are talking Christopher Walken, Tom Skerritt and Martin Sheen!).  

I have found myself really intrigued by the visual style and color palette of Cronenberg's late 70's and early 80's movies.  They are simply framed and shot while lacking excess and information overload on the screen, but there is a warmth and clarity here that I think many modern movies could learn from.

One last note: there was a very cool moment in this film that involved a potential future for the aforementioned politician.  Of course I won't spoil it, but I felt that Cronenberg really captured the Stephen King vibe perfectly with that scene.  It got an "oh neat!" out loud from me. 

today was a good fucking day

For years I have focused on my ambient music and have neglected my guitar duties.  Today I bought a new guitar and then played for about five hours...and it was glorious.  This year I am going to bust my ass to improve my skills and make some new creative tracks.

i'm not done

My favorite song of the last year, without a doubt, is Fever Ray’s I’m Not Done. My preferred version is the new live version (which is utterly phenomenal; I posted it a few weeks back), but the older original version posted here is great too. 

What I hear that intrigues me so much are two things really. First, the synths during the song’s chorus.  Particularly during the live version, there is something in the low end frequencies that actually gives me goosebumps when I hear it and I don’t have the words to describe it.  Secondly, there is something so damn desperate about her words and delivery:  Some do magic, some do harm. I’m holding on…I’m holding on to a straw.  One thing I know for certain, Oh I’m pretty sure, It ain’t over. I’m not done.  It’s sorrowful, angry and founded in frustration, yet is also weirdly optimistic and empowering at the same time. 

I know I'm projecting my own ideas onto their lyrics (well, when do people not do this?), but I see someone who is holding onto to their past pain.  They are not wallowing it in, or letting it consume them.  They are using it to avoid becoming the person they once were before.  There is something special about that fire and transition.  Radical self acceptance may work for some, but it can also let them off the hook for their own bullshit.  Spitting at the mirror is not always a bad thing.  

the boy does some bedroom recording

So last night after I watched a movie I was itching to do some recording and I made something very quickly but ended up really liking its vibe. 

I was thinking of a few things.  First, Moby's God Moving Over the Face of the Waters in Michael Mann's Heat.  It's a beautiful, haunting piece and I've always loved it.  It has the feel of a doomed romance to me and I wanted something long and ethereal with an undercurrent of unease, so I used the Oberheim OP-Xa (pictured above) and then added some distorted layers mixed beneath.  For anybody that actually listens to my music, I do this type of thing...perhaps a bit much. 

It is a very simple piece with just five tracks: lead synth with heavy reverb, minimalist drums meant to resemble a heartbeat, a bass that has some side-chain pump action on it, and a vocal sample of a woman saying, "You have to pretend she never existed," which I sampled from the TV series Dead Ringers (I loved the original Cronenberg movie).  

Here you go:  Hold Hands

tonight's viewing: the brood (1979)

Like many David Cronenberg films, this one was wholly original and gruesomely intriguing, though those pleasures come with a plodding pace (as they often do with his films).

Not on par with Crash or Videodrome, but if you liked his Scanners, then The Brood might be up your alley.  Tonight was the first time I watched it and I enjoyed. 

new mutations

A track I recorded recently: Functionally Careless.  Musically this was again inspired by the instrumental work of Harold Faltermeyer, particularly the bass (I used the monotone bass synthesizer,  I think the Berlin and Breathless patches combined, from Reason 12 here).  

The other track is Cold Nights Warm Bodies, which was inspired by a very specific time in my life.  During the winter of 2005-2006, I was living in Garakdong in Seoul.  I was listening to the Ambient Nights collection nonstop.  Even for that time period the ambient music felt dated and kind of cheesy, but it was cozy for me.  I made this track with those sounds in mind.  I'm going for warm and fuzzy here; that feeling of watching the snow fall outside but having a nice warm apartment with a hot coffee in your hand.