I know I’m offending big time. No apologies, because Black Sabbath are a bunch of women with little pink purses. It’s true.

I’m rockin out to Black Sabbath (the self titled album). An awesome album, an epic band. Classic sound, low-fi production. It started it all.

And then at the end of N.I.B., they end with a Picardy Third. Now, most of you are like: “masdf878“. And I hear you. I understand your woes. However, before you pass judgement upon me and scream “masdf878″ please hear my short and humble explanation of what a Picardy Third is and what this has to do with Black Sabbath’s aftermentioned pink purses.

A Picardy Third is where you end a song happily. More specifically, you write a song in a minor key and end it in a major key. None of that technical detail matters .. all you need to know is it’s like taking a dark and sad song and ending it with a rainbow. It’s the musical equivalent of putting “and they lived happily ever after” at the end of Schindler’s List.

How else to explain. How about Black Sabbath’s “Changes“. You would keep the original chorus, “I’m going through changes” and then at the end say:
I’m NOT going through changes, THE END. Yay!

The Picardy Third is a tired musical trick. It was used by Picardy so much that they named this resolution after him. Usually it’s not used nicely. Much like if the term “Sell Out” was coined after a John Arby Sellout signed his underground punk band to MTV. The Picardy Third is the Jump The Shark episode from Happy Days, it’s a sad dirge on a rainy Sunday with a dancing bear at the end.

And so with their extremely lame ending to N.I.B., I hereby kickoff the first (and likely last) Pink Purse Award. Congratulations on your spineless ending, you horrifically splendid fucks.

Ok, majorly reworked. Bridge, vocals. Robot vs human theme going here. It is nearly polished.

I don’t think I’m going to post iterative things again. Very confusing.

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This is something that I started just messing around with fast picking. I’m no guitar player by any means but I think it came out ok. The lyrics were added as a challenge to do Norwegian metal type lyrics. It’s complete nonsense. And punk socks has nothing to do with anything, it’s not punk and I don’t own socks.

I looped good parts, but the rest is ‘live’. So I cheated a little bit but there’s no MIDI programming or clean up.

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DJ Shadow’s epic mix track Brainfreeze has some very obvious roots to me now. When this certain section of the track came on, “Slurp Slurp”, I had to start googling. It turns out that the annoyingly cheesy 1970s chorus repeating “slurp slurp [slurpping sound]” is there for a reason. It’s an old 7-Eleven promotion.

As another bow to the favorite frozen drink’s quirky past, slurpee.com features music first introduced in 1970 by 7-Eleven along with a special Slurp dance step. The 10-cent “Dance the Slurp” dance single was recently rediscovered by a deejay at a London club, who has been playing his own updated version to enthusiastic crowds.

“Everybody can sing along to this one,” Ryckevic joked. “The lyrics are easy; it goes ‘Slurp. Slurp.’ And of course, the song features that slurping sound your mother hated.”

And unfortunately, these type of overground, over-engineered marketing attempts are singularities. There’s a whole host of forgotten bastard offspring. This little include in the source material really adds to the “holy crap, Shadow does his homework” factor.

The slurp song writer needs to be shot though. There are better hooks out there. “Slurp, Slurp!” is the squarest thing I’ve heard in a long time.

It’s a damn shame that the translation patch I got didn’t work so well. Most of the text throughout the game is garbled. The items, action and mechanics are all English but the storyline comes out all “GEY GEY GEY”.

I’m missing all the stuff that most designers spend the most time.

On the other hand, fuck it.

Rocking a god damn Medusa. Yeah! Break out the hookers and the coc-pain!

Beat down and they fizzle away.

Now I’m sure a lot of people are like *yawn* but this is a great little project that I’m banging away on. It has proper funding ($0), clear goals (beat all of Final Fantasy) and a great team (I’m firing myself tomorrow). And it’s just what the doctor ordered while thinking about a 30 year career ahead of me.

Also notably stupid is the fact that I have a 7800GTX and other overpowered gear running a furdy-moppopolis-racken-flauther old Nintendo game. Let’s compare to … say … attacking Iraq with our military.

… oh god, can of worms. Sorry, I retract that statement.

I like Bejeweled, Baseball, Apple Pie and riding my American Horse into the sunset. I enjoy a good BBQ while fighting off the local indians with my 6 shooter Colt 45 revolver. After killing, I like to relax on the front porch of my farm while drinking sweetened iced-tea and listening to New Orleans jazz. Insert other cliche American thing here.

Until we meet again cowpoke, this is a Level 22 Black Mage saying, “Keep er on the road and watch out for the Confuse spell. It’ll turn yer friends on ya faster than a stampede of angry buffalo.” Yee-Haw!

FF3 Jesus Christ
Why the J.C.? The drums sound like I want. Like it came off a record. It’s sloppy and dirty but it was quick to spit out. The ‘music’ is the NES music run through a head / guitar amp simulator.

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Boss fight tune. Really hard to cover. Very fast. Bass is a little loud, I’m not good at getting the mix quite right.

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This is a blatant ripoff. Although, I probably changed the line a bit. The music in Samurai Champloo is really awesome. Freaking sweet series. Very original. Reminds me of FLCL.

I used no samples. All done with real guitar, real bass, Nord Electro keyboard (organ) and MIDI drums. It’s heavily edited/looped for that sampled sound though. I need to make the guitar less loud or more old school.

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Cory played a few new records for us while driving and he was right, I would/did enjoy it. Maybe I’m too transparent. I don’t care. Subtle had kind of a poetic and fast paced wit. cLOUDDEAD is the finest example of abstract hip-hop I’ve ever heard. Finally, people are listening to DJ Shadow and continuing with deep samples and real muscianship.

TL loaned me his Les Paul replica. It’s pretty nice not that I really know what I’m doing. I played a bit with a Guitar Rig demo, a VST plugin and stand alone app that simulates a bunch of different amps. You can select microphone placement, microphone type, head type, speaker type. It goes on and on.

I’m no guitar player but I put this little palm mute thing together. I’m just another power cord hack.

Guitar Rig was exactly what I wanted to play with, it’s a little bit buggy. I have to change my sound card every time I load it for it to output anything. It’s really weird. I go from ASIO to Direct Sound to ASIO and change the sample rate to 44khz and then I get sound out of it. So if Guitar Rig gives you no sound or choppy sound try playing with the sound card settings. It took me at least an hour.

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Saw Sigur Ros last night at Strathmore in Bethesda MD and I have a lot to say about this group, the show and recorded music in general.

The Opening Act

Sigur Ros had an opening act, Anima, that played for about thirty minutes. Anima is probably best described as an outsider string quartet. But that description isn’t quite accurate they don’t play strings all the time. Even when they do play the strings, they run their sound through a variety of filters (pitch shifters, huge delays). For example, at one point the cellist played a bass line, set up a loop with a pedal at her feet and then walked over to a Xylophone and added into the loop, playing live. It came across as very young, experimental and untrained (in a good way).

They had plenty of stage space for all of their equipment and only a small amount of space was for their three violins and one cello. They had a xylophone, a glockenspeil, a reed organ, a set of wine glasses (yes, more on that later), many tuned flat bells(like what you would ring for service at a hotel), a Mac laptop, a celesta, two small stringed instruments that looked something like an auto harp but without the ‘auto’, an old school casio keyboard, a musical saw and a bunch of electronic sounds that probably originated from the Mac.

The wine glasses were only used for one piece and was tuned 1 (root),2,3,4. She mostly played major thirds etc. It was pretty but a bit loud, some thirds resonated way too well and we had to cover our ears. They went on to play the flat bells with two people, hard to explain but it looked like patty-cake. Was a pretty neat tune as well.

Most of their tunes were long and flowing songs with little form. They were dressed in amish looking dresses but most likely this is just the style of Iceland. They were pretty cute up there because they would bounce around like they were having fun and they weren’t wearing any shoes. I mean cute as in funny/spirited. Their last tune was a Casio keyboard beat while they bounced up and down. The crowd laughed a bit.

The Crowd

Strathmore is not a place that I would expect to see a ‘rock’ concert. SR is kind of artsy I guess but Strathmore is like the Kennedy Center or the Sydney Opera house in many respects as a venue. Usually they show dance, orchestra and higher-art stuff like that. In addition Strathmore only holds about 2,000 people. The show was easily sold out and online classifieds were full of people begging and selling their tickets.

The crowd was neat. I was looking forward to seeing the band and who listens to them. I know SR is popular in metal circles and new-age type folks (the death metal SR following is a bit weird to me … maybe they are tired of hearing “I am Satan, I will rip your balls off”. Dunno). Variety of people there. Young, some old, mowhawks, tatooes, gap clothes, baseball jerseys. It takes all kinds. The only thing that the crowd really had in common was respect for this band. The crowd was very very reserved until the end of the show, in a respectful way. What I mean is, no one was acting like they were hard, rebellious, loud … everyone was just there to enjoy the music it seemed. But then when the show was over and the question of an encore was open, everyone went ape-shit.

Sigur Ros

There was a break while SR got set up. A semi-translucent white sheet on a mechanical track moved across the stage. The audience bursted into applause and they started their show with some ambiant noodling. The white sheet was lit by extremely bright lights of varying color facing the audience. Because the lights were facing the audience and the sheet was in front of the band, their shadows were being displayed on the sheet. In addition, as the music built up, they projected images up on the screen via a huge projector. So the sheet would show images that were the size of the stage and the shadows of the band would overlap and fade out as backstage lights came on and off. It was a really neat effect.

And then the drummer started destroying his drumset. I mean, I was shocked. He didn’t break anything but this wall of sound started to come from the stage. He was crashing out on the cymbals, my feet were shaking, the music was reaching a cresendo. It was pretty amazing. It was very loud but it didn’t hurt my ears.

The rest of the show was all very good. They went through most of their best stuff off of the album “( )”. If you haven’t heard them, their music is probably best described as very beautiful, slow, deep repetitions.

The lead singer played most of the show with a bowed guitar. It sounded like a pad, a hum. The keyboard player played three keyboards and had a sequencer so they could play produced loops / sound effects. Those two instruments (bowed guitar / keys) could really put out some thick harmonies.

Three Things That Ruled

1. They came out strong

The opening act had no human drummer. It was a bit experimental and I was hoping for some drums of death to come running into most of their songs. Sigur Ros came out and blew our heads off on the first tune. It was awesome.

2. Someone took charge right when I wanted them to

But as the show wore on (people around me yawning — not out of disrespect, it’s dark and relaxing music), I found myself wanting a lead or some substance. It was musical soup. Where’s the idea? Then … in the middle of the set a violin took up a melody and took charge and made a line in the soup. The singer stopped singing falsetto for a song, he sounded like Tom Watts. His guitar had a clear tone to it. It was a nice change for a moment.

3. When we asked for an encore, they killed us

One tune they had a projected movie of birds on a wire. Black background, white wire, white bird silouhettes. The birds flew in slow motion. The song faded away and only one keyboard player played a slow and sad passage. He left the stage and the birds flew off the wire. That was the end of the show. It was surprisingly well timed.

The crowd wanted an encore. We clapped. They came out, the white sheet covered the band again (like the opening tune) and they rocked out. Huge sound. The lights shined into our eyes again, like driving into a sunset. Everyone stared. I thought I was going to lose my mind. Flashing lights, a MASSIVE musical wall of sound coming at the crowd. It was very, very deeply moving. An angry and deep sea of noise. They ended the song, the drummer threw his sticks, we could only see the shadows of them leaving. The guitar was left to feedback on stage.

The crowd clapped forever, they took two standing bows/ovations. We left. It was great.

But …

It was not perfect. SR is hard to read. I can’t tell if they are technically good or not because only every once and while would they show off their skills. At the same time, their drummer was impressive and skilled although I’m sure some would critize his technique. Keyboard player wasn’t great but I could be wrong. But … I don’t know if they even care about showing off. I don’t know if they want to improve as musicians. I don’t know if they avoid lessons. I don’t know if they see or care about this the same as me. That’s not really their style it seems.

Which leads me to my next point about music:

warning: huge subjective blanket statements below
Music training is self serving. In fact, many other similar things are self-serving.

Hollywood makes movies about movies.
The Internet is full of computer HOW-TOs and resources.
The Library is full of books on how to write.

Self serving is easy! If I study kung-fu for 15 years, chances are I might teach kung-fu, want to fight you or maybe join a kung-fu party. People want to align with similar people. People want the shortest path. People want to do things that they are good at (this is good for self-esteem). But the problem comes in when you talk about art and originality.

Take the Beatles. (My uneducated example of music history. Yes, I don’t know what I’m talking about) The Beatles (or at least some) studied with Sri Ravi Shankar to learn about eastern music/scales/instruments as a new influence to their music. I’m sure lots of people would have differing opinions on whether is was good or bad. But in the end, they got some new music going. Tommorrow Never Knows off revolver is a prime example of that. Huge change in sound right at the end of the album. Good? Maybe if you want a new sound from the Beatles. Bad? Probably if you liked “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, not the new sound you want.

So what do you do? Take lessons? Maybe Ringo should have taken lessons. He’s a terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE drummer. But it’s exactly what the group needed. I don’t want a drum solo. I want more great harmonies from John and Paul. It was an original drum sound, in my opinion, that is a shining example of when NOT to take music lessons.

However, Sigur Ros will never have the sound of the Mars Volta or Dream Theater. No way. Not without lots of effort and change. But that’s not (maybe) what they are going for for their sound. I don’t know.

My point is, a schooled musician probably would have been bored (technically) at the show overall. There were some exciting and complex pieces that would grab the attention of someone who loves Math Metal or something. But that’s not what the show was about. It was about feel, sound and presentation and not about licks, skill and playing fast.

It was a great show

Despite my sidetracking distractions, the show was incredibly entertaining and I got a really good insight as to who SR is (for one, I thought the lead singer was a woman – um). They make such beautiful music even if it’s not technical and I’ve never seen such a climatic wall of sound concert, ever.