RasterWeb!I created another song and got it uploaded to Ourmedia using SpinXpress.
It’s called Shelf Life.
I’m getting a lot more familiar with GarageBand, and experimenting a bit now. I even recorded a few guitar tracks, the bass track, and a vocal track (which you won’t recognize as vocals) for this one. The drums mostly came from a loop.
(See Also: Wave Goodbye, and A Song at Ourmedia)
Well, we attended the Citizen Blogging Summit (Mike Rohde and I were on a panel, and Jeramey came along for backup) and it was… interesting.
As I mentioned in a previous post, we didn’t know what to expect, but Sean did a good job of moderating, and basically just asked us questions, and took a few questions from the (small) crowd. KeVron of Dork Factor Prime was there, but other than that, it was all people I’ve never met before. Kim and Jason of kimandjason.com came in from Madison and were on the panel with us. They seemed like nice folks.
We couldn’t stay for the panel after ours, so I don’t know how it all ended, but on the way back towards downtown to drop off Jeramey, we ran out of gas. Jeramey and I managed to push the car about a 1/2 mile down North Avenue, in the 90 degree heat, to a gas station. After that it was smooth sailing… So all in all, it was a pretty exciting day. I can’t wait for the next Citizen Blogging Summit!
Every city has an open mic night, so why shouldn’t today’s electronic musicians take advantage of it?
I used to play live music, but I wasn’t exactly the stool-sitting, guitar-strumming type you’d find at an open mic. (I could be wrong, I don’t know what variety you see at an open mic nowadays.) Recently the music I’ve been creating has been on the Mac using GarageBand, Audacity, sound loops, etc… Does that make me any less of a musician? Why shouldn’t I perform for people?
So my idea is this: Show up at an open mic night, plug in the laptop, and start playing my songs. I have no idea what the crowd reaction would be, which is what makes the idea interesting. Sure the “playing” might only consist of clicking a mouse, but still, it’s music, right?
I can see this going in a whole nother direction as well. We all know that sometimes to entertain you must annoy (some would even say torture) the audience. So I suggest this twist, show up, connect the laptop, and just start a drum loop. Let that play for as long as possible (until they throw you off, cut the P.A., etc.) and for good measure, you will need some friends in the audience, who at first are unsure (obviously they should pretend to not know you) but a few minutes into your drum loop solo, they should start to go nuts, screaming “yeah!” and “owww!” and if possible, getting up and dancing.
Anyway, if you guys want to be the crowd, I’ll bring the laptop…
Somehow I got roped into participating in this Citizen Blogging Summit (or “Citizen Blogger Summit”) which is taking place Friday, June 15th, 2007.
Maybe Newsradio 620 WTMJ will learn a little about blogging, you know, things like permalinks, or even linking to the bloggers you invite, instead of just putting their domain in plain text.
I’m really not sure what to expect. Mike Rohde and I are on the 2:25-3:10 Panel, Beyond Politics, Beyond Milwaukee. I’m guessing we are the ‘tech bloggers’ or maybe the token ‘non-political’ bloggers. Anyway, I’ll just prepare for this the same way I prepare for BarCamp or Web414 presentations, wait until the last minute, attempt to do nothing, then embrace the chaos.
The event is free, and includes lunch (which I will miss since I can’t be there all day) and I’m reasonably sure it will be interesting. I’m also reasonably sure I’ll be the person there who has been blogging for the longest time, unless Dave Winer shows up. :)
If all goes well, I should have a new 20″ Apple iMac in a few days.
It’s really time for a new Mac. I mean, I probably would have kept on using my G4 for another year or more if it had not died. The last time I bought a new computer was 2001. I even got AppleCare this time, because honestly, I don’t think Apple builds machines as good as they did 6 years ago. (Definitely not as good as they did 10 years ago.) Anyway, I can’t wait to get it and see what it can do. Of course now I need to worry about Universal Binaries and all that Intel related stuff. (A quick check shows that a good number of apps I use daily already have Universal versions.) But honestly, even if the PowerPC apps run slow, they should still be faster than the old G4 was running them. I’ll let you know once I run it through it’s paces.