UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

I’ve just finished designing the cover art for my new EP, Mellotronic: Far Out Sounds! (And Other Space-Age Hyperbole), and I just wanted to share it.

The EP is a tribute to the Mellotron, and features extensive use of the instrument. (OK, it’s really a software instrument with meticulous digital samples of real Mellotrons, but take the Pepsi Challenge if you care.) You can learn more, and listen once the tracks are completed, on the dedicated page.

Also… I’m looking for a high-quality scan of one of those old 45 RPM adapters, the kind that sticks right into the big hole in the record. I haven’t found any online yet, and darned if I can scrounge up an actual one in the basement to scan myself. I can live without it, but I would really like to have one to incorporate into the package art if possible. Anyone?

My loyal reader(s) may recall that back in May I posted a couple of new music tracks I was working on. One of them was a little too… meh… so I probably won’t be doing anything more with it, but I was really pleased with the early results of my work on a track I was tentatively calling “Mellotronic.”

Last night I put some more work into the track and I think it’s nearly complete. I just want to tweak some of the Mellotron parts a bit, and I am also thinking of re-recording the synth solo near the end. (It’s just a little too modulation and pitch bend heavy for the style of the track.)

I currently have 4 tracks I’ve been playing around with since the RPM Challenge that are complete or nearly complete, and they’re all drenched in Mellotron. (OK, I don’t own an actual Mellotron, but I do own the next best thing.) As a result, I am planning to go with Mellotronic as the name of a 4-song EP that I hope to release before the end of July.

This, of course, is the title track, which I am now calling “Mellotronic, Mk. II: Jazz Odyssey.” I hope the reference is obvious. Please enjoy this early rough mix of the nearly-finalized arrangement.

Pay attention to the sustained note at the end. That’s one of the classic traits of the Mellotron, faithfully reproduced by the M-Tron virtual instrument: Mellotron tapes were 8 seconds long, so if you held a note for longer than that, it would stop. But some of the notes are not quite the full length, and since they’re actual recordings of real people playing the real instruments, sometimes they falter a bit. So I held the final chords on the flute and violin settings until they stopped. I’ve noticed in the past that the flute recordings seem a lot more… let’s say “variable”… than some of the other instruments, and that observation certainly bears out here!

Even if you’re not familiar with the contrived acronym CAPTCHA, you’ve probably encountered the concept from time to time online. It’s a reasonably reliable way for websites that allow user comments to distinguish a human from a spambot, and thus it’s one form of Turing test. So far so good. In fact I use one such CAPTCHA service, reCAPTCHA, for comments on this site.

I like reCAPTCHA because, aside from the fact that it works (most of the time, though you may guess that one of its failings has prompted this posting, and you may be correct), it is part of a Carnegie Mellon University project to digitize books. (You see, humans completing the CAPTCHAs help to decipher words that the OCR software chokes on.)

Tonight I was going over various pages of my site, attempting to apply yet another layer of polish to everything, and I discovered the most bizarre abomination of a CAPTCHA I have ever seen. I grabbed a screenshot, and here it is. Good luck with that.

With Wimbledon underway and the Olympic Trials picking up speed, SLP and I have been watching a lot of sports on NBC this week. And the most breathless, repetitive story throughout has been the “marvel” of 41-year-old swimmer Dara Torres. 41. It is impossible for an NBC sportscaster to mention Dara Torres (41) without stating that she is 41. 41.

It is impressive that she’s competing in the Olympics at the age of 41, and in fact is swimming at her peak, setting personal best and in some cases record times. But it would be nice if they could just once mention her name and her success without, at least 3 times per sentence, also emphasizing her age. Yes, she’s 41! 41!!! OMG she’s 41!!!!!!11!!41!!!!111one!!!forty-one!

We get it. She’s also a great swimmer, regardless of her age. Enough already!

41.

I distinctly remember as a kid in the early ’80s that my grandfather had a little plastic cup next to the sink in his basement that had a bird on it and said “Beep for Breakfast.” I had no idea what it meant, but I thought it was cool because I was big into Looney Tunes and I equated the bird and the “beep” to the Road Runner.

Apparently, “Beep for Breakfast” was the slogan of a Tang-wannabe drink called Beep, which is still available in Canada. But try as I might I cannot find an image of the “Beep for Breakfast” cup online, only some vague references to the slogan.

If you own one of these cups, or have seen an image of one online, please post a comment below!