UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

“Blogging is like masturbating in front of a mirror and videotaping yourself so you can watch it later, while masturbating.”
–Lewis Black

Yeah, Lewis, that pretty much sums it up. Of course, as soon as I heard him say this, the first thing that came to mind was, “I’ve got to blog about this!”

I just finished taking A List Apart’s 2008 Survey for web professionals. If you’re one, you should too!

When it comes to vintage (pre-digital) keyboards, there are a few legends: the Hammond organ, the Rhodes electric piano, the Mellotron, and of course, the Minimoog.

I don’t own any of those actual instruments, of course (although an old friend of mine has over the years possessed a large number of them, and used them on some recordings we did back in college), but I have been extremely impressed with the generic replications of these timeless (OK, hopelessly dated, but eternally retro-cool) trademark sounds that Apple has provided with GarageBand. (OK, there’s no Mellotron in GarageBand, but as I’ve learned and demonstrated, a dead-accurate add-on is available.)

Most of the recordings I’ve made since I started using GarageBand (in early 2007) have been brimming with these sounds, most notably the electric piano, and only slightly less notably the organ. Although I’ve been obsessing over the Mellotron lately, my favorite keyboard sound to employ for solo parts is the “Analog Mono” synth, which is fairly similar in tone and timbre to the venerable Minimoog.

I’m currently at work on a “top secret” collaborative music project. (OK, I don’t know for sure how “top secret” it is, but since I’m not in charge of it, I’m keeping mum until I’m told it’s OK to blab.) So far I haven’t nailed what I’m looking for for that project, but along the way I did produce this… interesting track. Recorded entirely today (July 29, 2008, which of course is yesterday now), it’s a fairly static, spacey/electronic jam, 7 1/2 minutes long, with some nice big reverb-y drums and of course an interminable, excessively excessive (yes, that’s possible, and if you doubt it, just give this track a listen) quasi-Minimoog solo. Probably not most people’s cup of tea, but I actually find it kind of cool to have on as background noise.

This track is unlikely to ever be released, at least in anything near its current form, so I provide it here as a curiosity. It was mainly an experiment: an effort to try out various “distressed” electronic sounds, to play around with recording a drum track straight through (instead of perfecting a few 4-measure loops), and of course, going totally batshit crazy with the synth solo, in a number of ways: experimenting with the octave and pitch transposition buttons on my 2-octave portable MIDI keyboard controller, trying out some adjustments to the synth tone, and finally (after about 15 years of improvising solos) dabbling in the realm of scale substitution. Music theory FTW! (I was going to say “Yay, music theory!” but I already used “yay” in a post within the past few hours and I just can’t bring myself to do it again. Plus, this was an opportunity to once again demonstrate my 1337 skillz.)

Now that I’ve proven why this blog is called “Blather,” here’s the freakin’ song.

I am pleased to announce the immediate availability of my new EP, the one I’ve been talking about for the past several blog posts… Mellotronic: Far Out Sounds! (And Other Space-Age Hyperbole). Yay! (Ugh, is that really, really how it’s spelled now? Really?)

But… well… Houston, we have a problem. (Sorry, had to say it, what with the “Lunar Landing” track and all.) I noticed when I was uploading my tracks that, for some reason, the title track always showed up with a running time of 0:00, instead of the correct time of 4:44. The other songs show up fine, but no matter how many times I tried uploading “Mellotronic,” it always came up as 0:00. But when I played the sample in the account area, it worked fine, so I figured, we’re good to go.

Not so fast. I just went onto the actual page where visitors see and purchase the album, clicked the button to listen to the clip and… what the hell??? It’s not my song, but the Three’s Company theme song. Three’s Company!!!

Hmm… well, OK, are there any brave souls out there willing to shell out a buck and see what you get when you actually buy the song? (I guess I should just contact their tech support, but this is getting kind of fun… I’m curious what’ll happen next.)

Here I sit in the living room, tentatively tapping out a blog entry on a tiny on-screen keyboard in the new iPhone version of WordPress. (So far, so good.) Meanwhile, the kids are watching a “Lazy Town” DVD on our new, gigantic 42-inch LCD HDTV, purchased last weekend. It’s an interesting study in technological contrasts. These days, everything’s profoundly huge or tiny, depending on the need for mobility. Nothing too deep, I know, but it’s cast in bold relief for me at the moment. Plus, it was a good excuse to test the iPhone app… and to post a photo of the giant television.