RasterWeb!Remember when I mentioned a song I recorded called Shelf Life? Sure you do…
Well anyway, thanks to the Creative Commons license I used (Attribution) others can put it to use, and now someone has…
Gabe has just uploaded Oh, Hai Pete, a little number he sent me via email last week, which I somehow talked him into publishing for real.
Enjoy…
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)
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…
I created another song and got it uploaded to Ourmedia using SpinXpress.
It’s called Wave Goodbye.
I hope you enjoy it.
Or not.
(See Also: A Song at Ourmedia)
We saw Ted Leo and the Pharmacists last weekend at the Metro in Chicago, and it was awesome. Awesome times ten. (Here’s a terrible shot from my phone. Flickr has some way better photos from others.)
If you’ve seen my last.fm profile you should know Ted Leo is at the top of my list. I like Ted Leo for a number of reasons, musically, politically, and personally. We’re about the same age, and got started in the same music scene at about the same time. Of course nowadays I just type commands in the terminal, and Ted rocks out like nobody’s business. I’m glad I made it to this show, as I meant to see him in 2005 but missed it due to unreliable transportation issues.
I sort of consider Ted Leo the modern-day Joe Strummer. He even played “Johnny Appleseed” in the middle of the show, while the drummer was busy moving stuff around. Of course, The Clash is also in my top 5 bands of all time list, so this was equally awesome. Seriously, I think he should just be called Ted “Awesome” Leo. (Am I gushing? I really don’t do that too often.)
For a taste of Ted Leo live, check the Internet Archive, or NPR for a show from 2007.