Robot Cousin Soundworks

Working at a webhosting company (like I am currently doing) you get to talk to a lot of interesting people. Not the least of which is Mr Charles Martinet.

Not sure who he is?

Mr Martinet is a voice actor, perhaps one of the most famous ones. This is because he is the voice of Mario. Yes, THAT Mario. And I just talked to him. Helped him with gaining access to his FTP. And then a transferred him to billing.

Before I did that, however, I told him how much of a fan I am of his work. He said, and I’ll try to quote it directly…

Oh, thank you! That’s so sweet! I appreciate that. (Now in Mario voice): Thank you very much!!

There’s a certain website centered around a certain phrase and a certain three-letter abbreviation that I absolutely cannot stand. Now, for anyone who doesn’t know me, there are a lot of words and sayings that I can’t take whatsoever, but this is not because of any sort of semantical or overused reason. I hate this abbreviation and the idea behind it because it exists in the first place.

I’m not going to say what it is. I don’t want to give it any more direct attention, as I firmly believe it does not deserve even a shred of anyone’s time, yet there are hundreds, thousands of people who love using it, and think they’re, I don’t know, funny, or interesting, or whatever because they use it.

The idea behind it is that it’s used when one believes that whatever situation they’re currently in is absolutely horrible, the worst possible. They use it to show displeasure in how their life is happening, as if it couldn’t possibly get worse than how it is at that moment. But what’s actually more horrible about it is that it’s become a part of everyday usage for some people. They just casually throw it around, maybe to get a laugh, maybe to get a rise out of someone. As far as I can tell, the phrase/abbreviation is the most popular in North America.

Let me tell you something; you don’t have it bad. You don’t have to dig through rubble to find your loved ones. You don’t have to worry about whether or not you’ll be killed by a suicide bomber on your way to get food for your family. Further more, you probably don’t even have to worry about not having enough food for your family.

Dinged your car? Missed a payment on a credit card? Ok, are you still alright? Still breathing? Be thankful, perhaps for more than 1 day a year when everyone says you should be. I sincerely do not wish anything bad upon anyone at all, ever, but it’s tough for some people to find perspective until they REALLY get into trouble, and that’s sad. You shouldn’t have to have a loved one go through something horrible for you to appreciate life, just appreciate it right now. Anyone who doesn’t is a fool.

And Fools Must Learn to appreciate rather than complain.

RPM Challenge 2010 is a go! Sign up here. Don’t know what I’m on about?

From the site…

This is The Challenge - Record an album in 28 days, just because you can.That’s 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material recorded during the month of February. Go ahead… put it to tape.

It’s a little like National Novel Writing Month, (NaNoWriMo.org) where writers challenge each other to write 1,700 words a day for 30 days, or the great folks over at February Album Writing Month (fawm.org), who encourage artists to write 14 new songs in February. Maybe they don’t have “Grapes of Wrath” or “Abbey Road” at the end of the month, or maybe they do—but that’s not the point. The point is they get busy and stop waiting around for the muse to appear. Get the gears moving. Do something. You can’t write 1,700 words a day and not get better.

Don’t wait for inspiration – taking action puts you in a position to get inspired. You’ll stumble across ideas you would have never come up with otherwise, and maybe only because you were trying to meet a day’s quota of (song)writing. Show up and get something done, and invest in yourself and each other.

Anyone can come up with an excuse to say “no,” so don’t. Many of you are thinking “But, I can’t do that! I don’t have any songs/recording gear/money/blah blah blah…” But this doesn’t have to be the album, it’s just an album. Remember, this is an artistic exercise. Just do your best using what you have in order to get it done. If you have a four-track, become a four-track badass! A mini disc, a pro-tools rig, a Walkman, an 80’s tape recorder – use it. Do your best. Use the limitations of time and gear as an opportunity to explore things you might not try otherwise. If you can afford studio time in a “real” studio, fine, but let’s be completely free of any lingering idea that “good” records can only be made in a studio. If that were so, then all the old scratchy blues records or Alan Lomax field recordings that have changed our culture – the world’s culture – wouldn’t still resonate with us today as they do. Springsteen’s haunting classic “Nebraska” was a demo he did at home on a crappy machine. That album is fricking awesome. What label would put those recordings out now? (See: who cares) There are a million examples of this kind of stuff, but the fact will always be: Well written, honest music is compelling and undeniable no matter what it was recorded on. So put it to tape.

February will come and go whether you’ve joined in or not, but do you really want to be left out?

So there you have it. I feel like crap because of last year’s “one song” entry, so I’ll be sure and AT LEAST get farther this time around. All tracks will be posted here as well, denoted as being part of the RPM Challenge.

For all music makers out there, sign up! What have you got to lose?

Three things:

1. Project R is back on! I know that no one else here thought it was off, and it technically wasn’t, but it was a while since I was able to get any work done on it. That stops this weekend, when I once again turn the internet off, turn Amplitube up to 11, and let it all flow.

2. This morning, I drove behind a guy whose license plate was “DSHITUP”. What do you think it meant? I’m thinking either “Do Shit Up” (maybe Dig?) or “Dish it up”. If it’s the latter, wow. Did you even look at what you were paying $100 for?

3. I just realized that I work with a guy who looks almost exactly like Arthur from Degrassi Junior/High. For anyone who needs a refresher…

I think I should definitely watch the old series again. Best DVD box set ever!

I, like many other people, don’t really like New Years resolutions. Some empty promise you make to yourself that, within about 2 weeks, you usually forget or lose interest in. Lose weight, read more, etc, etc, etc.

And yet, here I am, thinking about making one. But not only to I want to be resolute for just the new year, but from this point forward.

I find myself not reaching my full potential, and I definitely see room for improvement with my music, but more so, I see room for improvement with my attitude towards my work. I am far too critical on myself, and therefore I end up with many, many half-finished ideas that are still sitting on my hard drive, collecting digital dust.

What to do, what to do. Get motivated, that’s what! First off, I’ve noticed that if my work area is a mess, my brain is a mess. Guess what kind of state my work area has been in for the last little while?

Yeah.

Secondly, I feel like I have to rekindle that love I know I still have for discovering new musical ideas, and working on new projects. There are a few projects that are currently on the go, and I’m happy to have them, but I don’t feel that they’re 100% mine to play with. Don’t get me wrong, I have much respect and trust in the ideas and plans of the people that I’ll be doing them with, and wouldn’t want it any other way, but there still needs to be a little section of my work where I have total control, no matter what. A little artistic endeavor that I’ve had in my head for quite a while that includes better versions of a few tracks I’ve already posted here. There are a bunch that I’m not showing off until the album is actually done. I WANT to show them off, but it acts as a bit of a motivator, having to guard them close until they’re all ready.

That brings me to February. RPM 2010 is coming up, and I am very excited! A few people over at www.logicprohelp.com will hopefully be joining in. I have promised myself to get more done than I did last year (one track, “Acquaintances”), and that one I didn’t actually finish (drums are off, and it’s missing a few change-ups.)

Back to the motivation I was referring to, the Beatles are, of course, becoming a large part of that. My music will never sound like theirs, and I’m not about to put myself anywhere near the pedestal that they so rightfully deserve to be on, but who can’t be inspired by them? I don’t own any of their albums, and growing up, my dad only had “the hits”, but recently (as in the past 3 years), Krista has been introducing me to a lot of their full album work, and they’ve been playing almost constantly now that we have The Beatles: Rock Band. Yes, it took buying a video game that uses plastic instruments for me to finally hear all of Abbey Road. Sad, I know.

I’m not going to go on and on about what I find inspiring, because everyone has either already been inspired in one way or another,  or they’ve heard about people being inspired. The bottom line is, I feel like once I get some cleaning done, the sounds will follow.

They’re all there, they just can’t seem to find a way out amidst all the clutter.

Silver Wave 2009 has come and gone, and it was a crazy time. I was nominated for Best Sound Editing and Excellence in Music Composition, both for the same film, “Manic Chiropractic” by Fetal Films (website pending).

There was another short there, “A Dark Radius“, and I must say, it’s score was really, really good. I want to use a bigger word here, but none are coming to me. It was involving, intense, and very, very fitting. Kudos to Ralf Bindels and his work there. Very well done. I bow down to his incredible talent. Something for me to shoot for, definitely.

Another meeting for Project R is going to take place tomorrow, and we’re all in good spirits about it. If you’ll notice, on the page I just linked to, Chris Fulton won Best Comedy (as well as Gia Milani for Best Drama). He was awarded $1,250 worth of equipment rentals and services from William F. White. I believe we already have plans on what aspect of Project R this will be applied to.

Man, I can’t wait until the lid is blown off of this. And I also can’t wait until we get it all done. I mentioned it to my dad and he wanted to know if he could have a very small part in it. Perhaps!

I would also like to take this moment to recognize two other very talented people. Travis Grant won for Best NB Student Film for Crossing the Great Divide (check it out here), and my future brother-in-law Ryan Barton was nominated for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Comedy for his work on Travis’ other short film, Wise Guys in the Park (currently not online). I really want to share the last one with everyone, and will do so if they upload it online. It was, for me, the highlight of Friday night’s screening, and should’ve been included in Saturday’s screening instead, as it would have been enjoyed by a much larger crowd. Of course, Ryan is also featured as the lead in “Crossing the Great Divide”.

In other news…. there is none. If you aren’t listening to the Curtis and Tara show, then you may be listening to something else. It damn well be better, otherwise you’re just wasting your time. Hopefully Curtis and I will collaborate on another project and submit it to next year’s Silver Wave Film Festival.

That wasn’t really other news. All in all, there were some really stellar films shown, and I’m sorry I couldn’t catch them all, but I’ll sincerely do my best to get a copy to check out from the film co-op sometime in the next few months. Congratulations to everyone involved.

Here’s some weird trivia: Last year, the two films that ended up garnering the most awards were the two I was involved directly with (sound editing for “A Lion’s Tale” and music for “Gamer’s Manifesto“). This year, again, the only two I was involved with in any capacity (Manic and Radius) also ended up getting heavily recognized. I am in no way saying that I’m the reason they cleaned up the way they did, I just seem to end up being a part of really, really excellent projects.

I certainly hope that trend continues. Man, I know some really talented people.

Curtis and Tara ad #2

That is all.

Andre tells a tale of the Escuminac disaster

This was recorded near the end of July in Baie Ste. Anne, about 30 minutes from where I live. It’s pretty much the pilot run of my then-new Microtrak II. I recorded the entire thing with low levels (too low), so I had to do some heavy compression in Logic. Even then, a bit of automation was used, as I’m holding the mic, and am therefore much louder than Andre.

Note that things like this (talkies, I’ll call them) will not be added to the player at the bottom of the page. That is for music, specifically.

This is only old to me and a few others. I feel like I’m airing out a bunch of stuff, to somehow make room for the new stuff that’s not out yet.

Eda (demo version)

And another. This next one is played (badly) by myself a looooong time ago. My friend Ben is telling the story. Smashing Pumpkins nerds will recognize the riff, which is of course stolen directly from their track, ‘Starla’, a b-side from the 1992 “I Am One” single.

Orson

Quick note, Starla was the song that really got me into backwards guitar, and showed me how much I loved it. These two tracks I always thought were totally unrelated until now.