Interview with Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett of the Gorillaz

2011-07-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

Last April I had the chance to interview Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett of the Gorillaz for WBRU. Arguably one of the coolest things I got to do while working at the station - right up there with meeting Billy Corgan and nearly falling asleep during his private soundcheck.

We talk about Coachella, touring, the potential for a Gorillaz movie, the intellectual and cultural significance of Gorillaz, and, for some reason, the classic 1960's Hanna-Barbera cartoon Wacky Races.

Just posted the interview on Soundcloud. I'll make a formal page for this and other content eventually, but for now you can listen to it here.

Gorillaz Interview at WBRU - April 23, 2010 by Chasmm

Passion Pit Photos

2009-11-21T19:11:00.000-08:00

I'm still behind. On the plus side, I'll have some free time over the Thanksgiving break, and winter break is rapidly approaching. For now, here are some photos I took of Passion Pit at the Black Rep as part of WBRU's 40th Birthday Bash!

Station Fire Lightplay

2009-09-13T22:22:00.000-07:00

I took a lot more photos of the Station Fire than those below, but I've been quite busy as of late with returning to school and such. I've posted a bunch of my "Lightplay" photos from the fire on my Flickr. Here are a few of my favorites:

New Station Fire Photos

2009-09-01T02:36:00.000-07:00

I took a few more photos of the Station Fire this weekend and tonight. The fire has spread from our area in La Canada over into La Crescenta, Tujunga and Sunland, and is threatening Mt. Wilson to the east and Acton to the north.

In other news, I've determined that I have dust on the photo-sensor of my dSLR (which explains the spots on some of my photos). I'll be taking the camera to be cleaned (or cleaning it myself) sometime soon.

Click the photos for larger copies, or view the entire set on my Flickr.

The view from the Verdugo Hills Hospital on Sunday.

At night in Tujunga, as the fire crests the hill towards homes.

Not sure if that's a fireman of a fire-chaser driving up there.

The fire in this area spreads over a mile - the light on the left is part of the same fire.

Station Fire / La Canada Flintridge Fire / There's a Fire a Mile from My House

2009-08-29T02:26:00.000-07:00

I managed to get some pretty nice photos of the fire in the hills above my house tonight. After getting some shots from afar, I managed to get within 100 yards of the fire to capture a few photos of the flames climbing a power line. Of course, being that close to a flaming power line is not a good idea, so I only stuck around for a couple of minutes. No Photoshopping on these photos - just added a watermark, that's all. I'll add more (as well as backlogged photos) sometime soon, but these seem very pertinent. Click the photos for larger, more detailed copies. You can also view the full set on Flickr.

From the bottom of the Edison Trail.

By the 2 Freeway, with the Jesus statue.

From the Verdugo Hills Hospital

From The Edison Trail, directly above El Vago St.

From the top of the Edison Trail, about 100 yards from the fire.

Still 100 yards. Look at the fire leap up those power lines.

Still 100 yards. You can see a cloud of sparks exploding off of the power lines.

A blurry photo of how close the fire is to homes at this point.

Jonas Brothers finally make the transition to Death Medal

2009-08-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

Jonas Brothers - Paranoid (Death Metal Version)
From the dark corner of Andy Rehfeldt's imagination comes this death metal version of "Paranoid" by the Jonas Brothers. Engineered by Hao Lam. If you want to know how we created it or have questions ...

If only...

(Also check out the Radio Disney cut of Slipnot's "Wait and Bleed". Thanks to Chris for the link.)

Permission Marketing and Building Relationships with Audiences

2009-08-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

Seth's Blog: Permission Marketing
Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them. It recognizes the new power of the best consumers to ignore marketing. It realizes that treating people...

This is how we should think about marketing in the future. Though one-way advertising (billboards, TV ads, etc.) may work in some cases, the best marketing relationships are just that: relationships. Marketers should focus on building interaction and trust with their audiences, not force-feeding them ads.

New Radiohead EP this Monday?

2009-08-14T23:53:00.000-07:00

New Radiohead EP Rumored to be Released on August 17
Excitement greeted the sudden leak of Radiohead’s "These Are My Twisted Words" this week. The band members are always looking for new and

Shortly after the release of Harry Patch (In Memory Of), rumors are surfacing about the possibility of a new Radiohead EP, entitled Wall of Ice, to be released as soon as this Monday. All this from a leaked track, These Are My Twisted Words, which can be downloaded here.

Squarepusher is Stealing from Me

2009-08-10T22:12:00.000-07:00

Noticed the album art for Squarepusher's new album and it's striking similarity to my own photo taken four months ago. Obviously Tom Jenkinson is stealing from me. (Or from My Bloody Valentine, as Chris aptly pointed out.)

Links from my Facebook (and the Beginnings of a New Trend)

2009-08-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

I realize one area of blogging that I've been terrible at up until this point is providing interesting and valuable links. It seems to be what most major blogs do, and what could be a better supplement of my mediocre content than actually awesome content written or created by someone else!

I've already begun this trend of linking on Facebook, so I'll take this opportunity to copy those links down here.

Hollywood’s Young and Connected Throw D.I.Y. Music Shows - NYTimes.com [6/21/09]
For Los Angeles’s young and connected, a humbler rebellion: D.I.Y. music shows for $2.

This is my high school for you. Frankly, I wouldn't call it "indie music" if its made by kids with music agents, family lawyers, and parents in the entertainment industry. Nor is this "a scene that remains below the radar" when it's written about on the front page of the Fashion & Style section of the Sunday NY Times. Nonetheless, DIY backyard shows sound pretty cool.

Los Campesinos - You! Me! Dancing! [7/28/09]
Music video for Los Campesinos' single "You! Me! Dancing!". www.wichita-recordings.com

Awesome.

Marketers Get Valedictorian to Plug Movie in Speech - WSJ.com [8/2/09]
Marketers for the film I Love You, Beth Cooper used a real-life graduation speech as a publicity ploy. But the film has been a bomb in an otherwise buoyant summer movie season.

Disgusting.

The New Music Business Model: Imogen Heap « Deep Dive Marketing [8/10/09]
Posted by Colette in Marketing, Music, Music Marketing, Social Media. Tagged: Flickr, heap cafe, heap tweetup, Hotel Cafe, Imogen Heap, Marketing, Music, music business, Music Marketing, Social Media, Topspin, Twitter, YouTube. 23 Comments

The future of marketing and selling music? Maybe. I'm a fan of the honest and fan-collaborative approach. It's better than being accosted by awful, endless advertising and promotion for Lady GaGa or some other terrible major-label Top 40 act. On the other hand, I could still download Imogen Heap's new album for free if I wanted.

Also, thank you to Bob Lefsetz's blog and newsletter for directing me to a couple of these links.

Skyscapes and Lightplay

2009-08-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

I've been up the hill above my house a couple of times recently to take photos overlooking La Canada, Pasadena, and LA. Mostly skyscapes focusing on the very interesting lighting and clouds on a particular day, and a few new additions to my Lightplay collection. A few of my favorite photos are below - the rest can be found on Flickr. I only used Photoshop a little on some of these photos, for minor contrast editing.

PS: A raccoon hung out on my porch a few nights ago.

Recent Musings 3 - The Meta-View of Marketing, Politics, and Everything Else

2009-07-29T21:35:00.000-07:00

This post is a mess, but hey, at least I got my ideas down. If anything doesn't make sense, please let me know and I'll try to clarify. Also, I would really love to hear what you think of this in general.

-- --

It seems to me - and please, correct me if I'm wrong - that we no longer take much of anything at face value. We no longer are awed or disappointed by how something actually is; instead, we analyze everything and assess the effectiveness of everything independent of our own feelings. Further, we don't actually have real feelings of our on on these matters, as they are so wholly subsumed by our meta-perspective.

Clearly, an example would be helpful.

Take advertising: if I see an ad (on TV, on a billboard, in a magazine) and I'm paying attention to it, it is typical for me to assess whether it is an effective ad. "What is it's target demographic?", "Is it eye-catching?", "Will it be memorable?", etc. These are the questions I ask, not "Is Coke the right cola for me?" I never actually take the ad at face-value. That is, I am never concerned with the product itself and whether the ad makes me want it more. Essentially, when I see an ad, I see the ad, not the product.

Politics is also a good example. We are in a constant meta-discourse about politics. We no longer ask questions of politicians like "Is he competent?", "Does she lie?", "Will he make a good leader?", or "Does she agree with my opinions?" - instead we ask "Will the American public perceive him to be competent?" or "Do independents see her as honest?". We are so often more concerned with the game - Is my candidate winning? Is she attracting voters? Did this way of answering a question improve his credibility with minority voters? - than with how we chose our candidate in the first place. We are unaffected by the things we ask questions about - whether a politician is actually credible or honest or competent - and are instead concerned with how others perceive the politician to be.

For example, take the time during the 2008 primaries when Hilary Clinton cried on camera. Political pundits - and many people I know - were concerned with how that would bring her down to earth in the eyes of the public and allow people to identify with her more, rather than with whether they thought she was actually down to earth or whether they could identify with her more after that event.

I think that this mode of thought, this sort of meta-view, pervades our lives today. We are overly aware of our existence in a social framework built upon perception, and we end up pushing away our own impressions of things in favor of what we expect others impressions to be. The problem is, if everyone is doing this, there is no one left to actually have impressions of things.

There are a few responses I could imagine to this. The first is that I'm my perception is wrong and people really don't think about things in this way. That may very well be the case, and if it is, please let me know.

Second, one might have the view that we do view things from this meta level nowadays, but that we still do react to things at face value as well. I think that this is actually pretty likely. But I also think there is a good chance that our meta-view is at least rivaling our face-value perceptions, if not overpowering them. This is bad! It makes us constantly rationalize rather than listen to our actual feelings on issues. It also prevents us from ever questioning our basic impressions because they are so far hidden under this meta-analysis. This is evident in the die-hard Republican or Democrat that is entirely focused on how his candidates and policies are viewed by the public and never stops to question his choice of being Republican or Democrat. It is also evident in the avid brand supporter that criticizes an ad campaign for not effectively selling a product but never asks why she supports the brand in the first place.

Third, one might suggest that this occurs in isolated populations (university communities, upper-middle class areas, etc.) and that the general population still takes things at face value. Thus this sort of meta view makes sense, because it is analyzing the face-value impressions of the general population. Although this may or may not be the case - I really cannot say as I am clearly a member of such populations - I would suspect that it is wrong, if for no other reason than that it is elitist to suppose that the select population that I'm in has the capability (or perhaps just tendency) to take meta-viewpoints, while the rest of the population sticks to their basic impressions.

Photos: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at The Echo (7/20)

2009-07-22T23:37:00.000-07:00

Band names don't get much more emo than The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and venues don't get much more hipster-friendly than The Echo. But The Pains are definitively not emo (at least in the commonly-used-genre sense), and, as there was not a single kid from my high school there, I would say that the show wasn't too hipster-esque. Really, the show was fantastic; The Pains played every (or, at least, nearly every) song from their self-titled LP, plus a few new songs. They also had some fun banter with the crowd, recalling going to In 'n' Out as soon as they got to LA and alluding to the dance party they'd had before any of us had arrived for the show.

Lightplay

2009-07-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

After taking some long exposure photos with flashes a few weeks ago, I decided to try out some moving long exposure shots while I was in San Diego. Most of them came out poorly, but a few looked pretty cool. It seems like this style could be really cool if perfected and properly implemented.

Let me know what you think of these photos (and the rest of the good ones on my Flickr) and if you have any advice on how to take these sorts of photos better.

PS: Only slight contrast editing in Photoshop - no effects.

Recent Musings 2 - Does the Unconscious Exist?

2009-07-19T21:20:00.000-07:00

Here's another topic I've been considering recently: does the unconscious actually exist? This is a much less rigorous discussion than my previous post, and may, in fact, be totally wrong. It's just something to think about, I suppose.

-- --

Before I really begin, it is important to distinguish what exactly I'm talking about. There is a wealth of evidence that there exists unconscious information processing. That is to say, our minds can react to a stimuli or compute things without us even being aware of it happening. I am not talking about this kind of unconscious.

Rather, I am concerned with the type of unconscious popularized by Freud. That is, the unconscious that consists of thoughts, feelings, emotions and desires of which one's conscious mind is wholly unaware of. This type of unconscious has been a staple of psychoanalytic theory since it's conception, and has persisted while a large majority of Freud's theories have been disproven. It has not escaped unscathed, however - there is evidence to suggest that classical conceptions of repression and other Freudian unconscious actions are wrong. In fact, The unconscious has been radically reformed since Freud, but it still exists.

I'd like to suggest that the psychoanalytic unconscious isn't necessary to explain observed phenomena. Nowadays it is generally accepted that thought comes from a sequence of connected nerve synapses firing. So if the unconscious mind does exist, it is "taking up synapses," if you will; is consists of a bunch of nerves that fire to create unconscious emotions and desires, and we are consciously unaware of these firings. Although I cannot prove that this is false, I will suggest an alternative: the role of the unconscious is actually played by the framework of synaptic connections - how the synapses are connected and how they can potentially fire.

Let's take an example of someone, let's call him Tim, who has low self esteem. When Tim talks to Bob, he doesn't notice that Bob smiles when he sees him, or that Bob is friendly and compliments Tim on several occasions. However, when Bob makes a joke at Tim's expense, Tim hears it loud and clear and concludes that he is not cool or fun or interesting, and that Bob must not like him.

A psychoanalyst might conclude that this is because of Tim's unconscious. For some reason or another (probably because of some event in his childhood), Tim has adopted the unconscious assumption that he is not cool or fun or interesting. Thus, when Tim perceives things that conflict with this unconscious belief (like Bob's smile or compliments), his unconscious blocks them from reaching the conscious mind. Thus, Tim is never aware that Bob actually likes him - he never consciously perceives the things that conflict with his belief and only notices the things that fit with it.

However, this may be better explained by the framework of synaptic connections. Specifically, Tim might be lacking in strong synaptic connections for thoughts like "I am cool" or "I am fun" or "I am good," and the perceptions associated with those thoughts. That is to say, he lacks the connections in his brain that would allow him to perceive self-affirming events, much like how someone who suffers from Prosopagnosia cannot recognize faces, or or someone with hemispacial neglect cannot cannot perceive one side of their visual range.

This is a bit extreme. To be more precise, Tim doesn't lack those connections (he hasn't suffered brain damage) - they're just pretty weak. So it is very possible for Tim to improve these connections through training or something similar.

Thus the role of the unconscious is played by the framework of synaptic connections and the strength of each, rather than a complicated "second mind" with it's own set of neurons that are inaccessible to the conscious mind.

-- --

Please let me know if I butchered psychoanalysis or Freud, if I'm way off base with this idea, or if this is an already well known idea that I'm simply not aware of. Also, please leave comments or critiques, and let me know if you know of anything I could read on this topic.

One final note: this topic was inspired by a TED talk by Vilayanur Ramachandran, a relatively famous psychologist that I know primarily for his work on phantom limbs. In it he talks about the connectivity of neurons in the brain and the cognitive effects of damage to those connections.

-- --
[UPDATE: 7/29/09]

Here are a few comments I received on Facebook. If these are your comments and you'd rather I didn't post them here, please let me know and I'll take them down.

-- --
Dave O.
Interesting TED talk. I enjoy his rolled 'r''s.

When I read your post I though of another TED video I had seen which seemed to put a biological basis on something I though. There is a clear and obvious distinction between 'in the moment' sensation and its subsequent organisation and role in collective consciousness. It turns out that one hemisphere of the brain is operates in one way (i forget the term but..) it is concerned with this in the moment sensation. The second hemisphere operates 'linerally'..in that it is concerned with time- past and present. (things learned, plans for later that day etc) Anything but that 'in the moment', so to speak. This makes sense when thinking of meditation, starvation..certain drug experiences and so on.. where particular parts of the brain take more precedence and others less than regular mind processes in thinking and homeostasis. The trip is a diffident experience because of a different way of thinking about the perceived sensation, different brain operation being the reason for that. That talk is here: http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

I think the unconscious does exist and it exists in this second hemisphere site. If all we are is the operation of these past, present and future concerns and their interaction with sensation..and the ability for abstraction and thought on ideas and sensations we have, awareness etc..it is fine to say they have a biological basis I think. I think processes that we are unaware of also fall into this category. Being a collection of operations no matter how obvious or not.

I am obviously unaware of the biological intricacy of the brain..I also haven't read Freud and know only a little of what he has said .Even if a brain is wired somewhat differently to the popular majority and hence the arbitrarily 'correct' consciousness it nevertheless produces a consciousness that it sees fit...even if that consciousness cannot recognise faces and what not.

Where you mentioned Frued's 'thoughts, feelings, emotions and desires of which one's conscious mind'..are these not just set-in processes of one linear hemisphere? To be pessimistic is to consider situations as they arise to resemble the same undesirable situations of the past. They are learned patterns as Ramachandran phrased it..like a phantom limb?..liable for change. The are not accessible..'why am I pessimistic'..you can't know by questioning necessarily but it influences you. The same as regards attitudes to a person in particular perhaps?

i realise this reply is all over the place. i hope some of it is understandable. i think i have conveyed some idea! you should watch that other TED video anyway. It is very interesting..and another interesting voice!

Me
Although I have a little trouble following you all the way through, I think I get the gist of what you're saying. To be honest, before listening to Jill Taylor's talk, I had never really heard about such a fundamental distinction in processing between the the two hemispheres of the brain. Certainly there are the turns-of-phrase "right-brained" or "left-brained," but I never thought it was such an extreme difference. And, to be honest, I still don't entirely - I think Ms. Taylor is oversimplifying slightly.

Nonetheless, it's a very compelling point, and says a lot about how we think and what we do. And I agree that the unconscious could exist in the linear part of the brain - in fact, i don't mean to argue that the unconscious definitely does not exist, but rather that it is possible that it could not exist. Or, to be more specific, that our conception of the unconscious as a grouping of actual thoughts and feelings could be wrong - the unconscious could very well consist in the rules and framework of our neural connections.

Further, the unconscious could exist in both hemispheres of the brain - perhaps there is a linear unconscious that deals with past experience and its impact on the present and future, alongside a present-moment unconscious that filters information and provokes emotion on the basis of the situation.

And (I think) I'm actually saying the same thing as you with your last point - pessimism, or introversion, are learned processes that are not accessible to the conscious mind, much like Ramachandran's phantom limbs (ignoring, of course, genetic effects). What I'm saying is that these learned processes do not take the form of typical thoughts consisting of neural connections, hidden unconsciously in our minds. Rather, learning shapes the framework of our minds. Thus the only thoughts that are consciously possible are those that are pessimistic (or introverted, or whatever) because the rules of the system, the neural framework, prohibit them from being any other way.

I fear I may be all over the place with this comment as well. Let me know what you think.

John
Interesting stuff! The Unconscious helps to explain a lot of things that otherwise need demons, gods or angels!

Me
Thank you! Although I may be wrong, I'm suggesting that in the future those things may be explained by a complete understanding of neurology, rather than demons or the unconscious. Though it may be a bit naive of me to expect that one day everything will be fully explained.

David P.
I think your most general mistake is confusing Freud's theory as a prescriptive rather than descriptive body of work.

If one views Freud's work as a way of describing mental (neurological, in modern parlance) phenomena in terms we can relate to (concepts like the unconscious, id, ego etc.), rather than as positing the existence of this radical other to consciousness that is limited by its opposition on a metaphysical and hence non-physical level to our 'conscious mind' synonymous to our brain, then Freud's work can be used valuably with what we have discovered about our minds since his theories.

Perhaps to depict what i am trying to say, envision Freud's work as a vast poem relating to one subject: the constitution of our mental framework. He, as a scientist, admitted that his work was pure supposition in an attempt to think about the facets of our minds that his contemporaneous science could not explain. Many of the phenomena modern neuroscience has discovered have been accurately described in terms 'we as non-scientists' can understand, a vocabulary more akin to poetry than technical manuals.

So maybe your initial distinction...

"Before I really begin, it is important to distinguish what exactly I'm talking about. There is a wealth of evidence that there exists unconscious information processing. That is to say, our minds can react to a stimuli or compute things without us even being aware of it happening. I am not talking about this kind of unconscious.

Rather, I am concerned with the type of unconscious popularized by Freud. That is, the unconscious that consists of thoughts, feelings, emotions and desires of which one's conscious mind is wholly unaware of."

...is itself invalid in that the physical phenomena you are not talking about, that which you exclude from your list of what is eligible to be the psychoanalytic unconscious, produces exactly the kinds of effects upon the human psyche that psychoanalysis has described.

Me
You make a good point. It is valid, even (perhaps) encouraged, to view Freud's work as more of a "metaphor" rather than a hard-scientific account of what is going on (which, as you said, might more resemble a technical manual). However, just because it is valid does not imply that it is the only way to view it. Indeed, a large portion of 20th century psychology has approached Feud from a scientific standpoint, as an account of the actual scientific mechanisms at work in the brain. I do ascribe to the more metaphorical interpretation of Freud regularly, but in this instance I'm more concerned with the scientific interpretation.

I believe I’m missing how your second point – the one about my initial distinction – connects with your first one, but taken separately: yes, you’re right. Everything in the brain (and, to a certain extent, in general) is connected, thus it is inaccurate to address one part without addressing the other. However, I don’t believe that makes my approach wholly invalid – rather, it is just a simplification. Yes, unconscious information processing, which I differentiate from the Freudian unconscious, really does play a role in the latter, but, for the moment, I am ignoring that effect for simplicity.

To more fully address your point, though, I would say that I likely did not make my distinction very clear. When I say unconscious information processing, I am referring to when stimulation is registered by the senses but not by the conscious brain. For example, if a stimulus is presented for a short enough amount of time, it can be registered by the senses but not by the conscious brain. Similarly, stimulation can be registered by the senses but end up not being attended to by the brain. Freudian unconscious is concerned with this, but it affects this process, rather than being affected by or consisting of it. Freud would postulate a filter, caused by the unconscious, that prevents (or delays) conscious perception – i.e. that there is some unconscious thought process that is stopping stimulation from reaching the conscious brain. I’m suggesting that that need not be the case.

Recent Musings 1 - The Future Economy

2009-07-16T00:36:00.000-07:00

One of my goals for a long time has been to write intelligent (and well referenced) articles on a variety of philosophical, psychological, and sociological topics. However, it seems as though I never have the time or commitment to actually sit down, do the research, and write legitimates article. So I've decided to make a concession tonight and merely write my ideas, with the promise of more fully elaborating them as some later unspecified date.

If there are any ideas that you find interesting and want to discuss or learn more about, please leave a comment; I'd love to discuss this stuff more with you.

-- --

A topic that has been of great interest to me recently is the economy, or more broadly, consumerism and capitalism. Let me say, right at the start, that I am no Marxist, and I do not expect the proletariat to rise up any time soon. However, it appears as though we are at the forefront of a new economic model, provided for by increased connectivity and lower costs via the internet, cell phones, and other technology. Here are some great TED Talks on the subject:

Howard Rheingold on Collaboration
Yochai Benkler on the New Open Source Economics
Clay Shirky on Institutions versus Collaboration
Charles Leadbeater on Innovation

To summarize: current technologies allow for production to break away from the producer-consumer model. Increasingly we are finding collaboration in the creation and modification of products, and users are participating significantly in the process. Instead of needing a corporation to organize the creative efforts of a group of people, individuals are able to work within technological frameworks to develop new products and services. Mozilla Firefox and Linux are both perfect examples of products created by users that compete with large, market-established corporations; blogs and twitter are taking significant market share away from traditional news providers; and there are many more examples like these.

The TED talks above all suggest, in one way or another, that we are on the brink of an economic and sociological reformation, similar to one that was experienced with the invention of the printing press. In the next 50 years, the way we do business is going to change drastically.

Frankly, I welcome and encourage such a change. I find that we are increasingly living in a world where, to roughly quote Fight Club, we work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need. I am frightful of a future career working to sell some arbitrary product so that I can put food on the table and have a place to sleep. Don't get me wrong - I like consumerism and material things - but only to a point. The amount of effort that goes into marketing a product - researching consumers, designing products so they look and feel better than they actually are, and advertising - indicates a lack of value in the actual product. Modern businesses, in my eyes, are often more concerned with sustaining their own institutions and brands than with providing quality products that they believe in. To be fair, making money is important. Really, it is. But it should come secondary to an honest belief in the product being sold. Not just a belief that the product is "good enough," but a real love for what one is producing and an aim to make it as good as possible, regardless of profit margins. I feel as though I could work at any given company in a variety of industries for many years without ever actually needing to know what product I'm selling. That is a real problem

This is where collaboration comes in. Users that collaborate to create and improve products are amateurs - they are doing it because they love it, not because they make money doing it. The aim is always to do what is best for the consumer because they are the consumer! The only problem now is money - how do we make money in a collaborative environment? How do we share the wealth? How do we, as I put it before, put food on the table? Collaboration is great, but it only gets so far.

I find that this is a difficult concept to portray, especially because it requires looking at the economy, and society in general, outside of the framework of capitalism. Often we make the mistake of criticizing a theory from inside our own theory, taking its rules and values as given. For example, a empiricist might criticize a perceptual skeptic by saying "well, of course our senses provide knowledge about the world around us!" This is the assumption of the empiricist's theory - one of it's rules (i.e. that perception provides real knowledge). To truly evaluate the skeptic's position, one needs to step outside of one's own theory (empiricism) and critique it independently and rationally. This is a very hard thing to do, especially with capitalism, because most things we know and are taught about how society works (its rules, values, and incentives) are within capitalism's framework. So I'm going to coin a word for the problem: capitalcentrism. Like Amerocentrism or Eurocentrism, capitalcentrism is the the evaluation of any theory from within the framework of capitalism - even when a theory is fundamentally independent of it.

-- --

That's all for now. I'll have a new post in a few days about more of my recent ponderings.

Recent LA Local Concert Photos

2009-07-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some new photos that have been on my Flickr for a few days now. I went a little bit overboard with a few of the Discovery Zone photos - I started taking extended exposure photos with a flash to get strong images of people against long blurred light trails. I then over-edited some of these photos in photoshop to get kind of crazy effects - see below. I also got one good photo of Keusch & Jones at Pehrspace.

Discovery Zone

donttouchthefilm

burnout

Keusch & Jones

Photos of Sunset Rubdown at Echoplex (6/23)

2009-07-07T22:56:00.000-07:00

With the impending threat of the show selling out, I sped over to Echo Park at the last minute to catch this show. I managed to get in, and was really glad that I did. I caught an great performance by Elfin Saddle, and Sunset Rubdown put on a fantastic show, bantering with the audience in between intricate and compelling songs. It was the night of their new CD's release - Dragonslayer - and most of of the songs they played were from it. But, thanks to the power of the internet and illegal downloading, the audience already knew every word.

Sunset Rubdown

Elfin Saddle

Photos: CalArts and Electronic Music

2009-07-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

I ventured into the basement of CalArt recently and took some photos of Jones & Keusch performing. Here are a few of my favorites; you can see the rest on my Flickr.

Photos: Back in LA

2009-07-06T21:30:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of my recent photos from LA. This is the first time I've been home for longer than a week or so in over a year.

Alex Casnoff at the Unknown Theater

Disneyland

Photos of Chairlift at The Getty (6/20)

2009-06-29T23:55:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my photos from Chairlift at The Getty, a few weeks late. It was an awesome show, especially considering it was free. I'm not a big fan on the lead guitarist Aaron Pfenning (his vocals are reminiscent of Christian Bale's gritty/awful Batman voice), but Caroline Polachek's buoyant and quirky style really made the performance. I highly recommend their album Does You Inspire You if you have a chance to pick it up.

Photos from Squarepusher at The Button Factory in Dublin (4/25)

2009-06-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

Completely forgot to post these. They've been on Flickr for a while. Tom Jenkinson was phenomenal. All live bass, plus a great drummer, and, of course, the requisite synth.

More Photography from Ireland

2009-06-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

I've been bad about updating recently, and I've entirely given up on updating my Ireland blog. If you'd like to see my most recent photography, your best bet is my Flickr - it's well organized, so you can easily find my new photography and different categories of photography (say, Ireland photos, travel photos, or concert photos).

Anyways, here is some of my newest, best photography from Ireland. All are hosted on Deviantart, but mirrors can be found on Flickr. Click the images for larger versions and more info.

Idiot Heart

2009-05-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

"I hope that you die
  In a decent pair of shoes
    You've got a lot of long walking to do."
      ~Sunset Rubdown

Not sure why I chose that title. Though I do like the song, and those lyrics especially.

I've played with this photo way too much. This was my first time really working with brushes in Photoshop. I thought I could create something a bit cooler than this, but I suppose I still like how it turned out. Click the image for a larger version and more details.

New Photography

2009-05-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

Here are my newest nice photos from my travels around Europe. All are hosted on DeviantArt, but copies and many more photos can be found on my Flickr account. I edited all of these photos in Photoshop, but generally not significantly - mostly curves (contrast/brightness) editing and some touching up (i.e. removing of water spots that were on my lens). I also added borders. Click the photos for larger copies and more details.

Mind Wave

2009-05-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

I recently entered these two pieces into an Adidas contest on DeviantArt. Top entries will receive money and prizes, and first place gets flown out to New York for some sort of party. It was worth the effort, I think. Though I doubt I'll win anything.

Composed of my own photo, taken in Barcelona, of myself. All that crazy shit going on behind me is distortion and filtering in Photoshop. The Adidas logo is, of course, © Adidas. Took me a few hours to put together.

Come to Daddy

2009-04-20T05:56:00.000-07:00

Yes. That's Obama. I saw his photo on CNN and couldn't resist.

Album artwork from the Aphex Twin EP Come to Daddy. Image from Google Images. Obama photo from CNN & AFP/Getty Images.

WBRU Rock Hunt 2009 Poster

2009-04-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

A new poster design! I arrived back in Dublin after a 10-day trip through Germany, the Czech Republic, and Spain with some new ideas for posters. My primary inspiration was Mucha, a late 19th and early 20th century artist and graphic designer, whose museum I saw in Prague. The poster ended up not resembling his work much, but regardless, that's where I got the inspiration to make a new poster with a new style (in comparison to my previous posters).

As the final WBRU Rock Hunt concert was rapidly approaching when I sat down to make a poster (last Monday), I felt it was appropriate to make it for that particular occasion. I'm told the poster was hung around Providence the day or two prior to the show - and hopefully there's a printed copy, possibly signed by the bands, waiting for me back in Providence. Who knows, though.

Took about 3-4 hours total, in Photoshop. Composed of various filters and effects applied to all of my own photos. More info and a larger image are available by clicking on the poster.

Far Far Far Away

2009-03-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

Far Far Far Away
DeviantArt Mirror
Another photo of a rainbow from my trip to Belfast. We were up by the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge an caught it on our way back to the bus. It wasn't this dark out - I edited the photo in Photoshop for the effect. In fact, this is one of my proudest Photoshop editings yet. I darkened the photo, edited the curved, adjusted the colors and removed blotches (a less edited version can be seen here). No filters or additional textures added on - just brightening up of this photo.

Title from a Lisa Mitchell song. Bad pop music, I know, but I get into it sometimes.

Electric

2009-03-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

Electric
More photomanipulation, though, in this case, it's just a lot of filtering and distortion. I rather like how it turned out, though it certainly isn't great. More practice, I guess.

More info and a larger version available by clicking on the image.

Breathe Photo-Manipulations

2009-03-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

Breathe.Fire

Breathe.Insanity
Some more Photoshop play. I used a stock photo plus a few of my own. These didn't turn out great, but they were fun to make, and good practice for future (better) photo-manipulations.

More information and larger copies are available by clicking on each image.

New "Gimp" Photos from Belfast

2009-03-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

Rainbow
DeviantArt Mirror
Here are four more photos I edited with Gimp's "Auto > Equalize" function. I really like the one above, and I think the rest came out very well as well. The full set of Auto > Equalized photos is on Flickr. The rest of my photos from Belfast can be found on Flickr as well, and will be on my Ireland blog, Us of Lesser Gods, shortly.

Brand New Colony

2009-03-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

The sun will heat the grounds
  under our bare feet
    in this brand new colony
      ~The Postal Service

I'm developing a habit of naming artwork after songs. Even if the songs have only a tenuous grasp on the subject matter of my artwork.

I'm trying to play around with photo-manipulation more - actually mixing two photos together to derive some cohesive, coherent piece (rather than merely adding texture, as I have previously).

Composed of this photo of a sunset in Barcelona, a stock photo I took of Providence, RI, and a whole bunch of Photoshop effects including curves editing, filters and clipping masks.

We Own The Sky

2009-02-25T17:03:00.000-08:00

We kill what we build
Because we own the sky
~M83

I'm apparently turning emo in my old age. Lyrics and title of an M83 song to go with my manipulated photo from Barcelona. I like how it turned out. I like some subtlety to my photo-manipulated pieces, but that may just be an excuse for not being very good at them.

Playing with Photoshop

2009-02-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

Some new art. It's pretty amateur, but I am really enjoying photo-manipulation using photoshop. More details on each one and larger versions can be found by clicking on the images.

Photoshop Fun 3

Dark Mountain

Art from High School

2009-02-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

Here's some art that I made back in high school. The first was done almost entirely in class, while the latter was done partially in class and partially on my own. The latter was also the cover of one of our school's monthly newspaper issues. I haven't done any art like this in a long time, though finding these old drawings is tempting me to try the style out again.

Arrows

Newspaper Cover

On Irrationality, Cognitive Relativism, and How Things Are

2009-02-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

What follows is a lengthy discourse that is reasonably far from actual philosophy. It consists mostly of my recent thoughts and ideas. I do not contend that it has any real value at all, or even that it is even remotely correct. It is here merely to remind me of these ideas later on, and allow you to read and comment if you're interested.

---------------

I've been considering two distinct topics in depth as of late. The first is postmodernism, or, more specifically, the idea of cognitive relativism, and what's wrong with it. The second is irrationality, or, more specifically, how there may be some statements such that both them and their negation are true (i.e. "∃p (p & ¬p) = T").

At a cursory glance, these two issues seem separate yet intertwined. Cognitive relativism, as I understand it, it the belief in no "true" reality, but rather that our interpretation of reality is built within a socio-linguistic construct. Thus, different things can be true depending on context. This interpretation of cognitive relativism suggests my latter topic: if different things are true in different contexts, then it seems perfectly acceptable to accept "∃p (p & ¬p) = T". I disagree with this conclusion. I want to assert the possibility of "∃p (p & ¬p) = T", while rejecting cognitive relativism.

My thesis builds out of various readings I've done recently, many of which I've not fully read and most likely misunderstood. However, it seems important to recognize the most recent of these readings, as it was what inspired this writing: William James' A Pluralistic Universe. It is from this reading that I came to reconsider Zeno's paradoxes.

For those of you who are not familiar with Zeno, he presented the problem of Achilles and the Tortoise. If Achilles is attempting to catch a tortoise, he must first run to the point where the tortoise is now. But, by the time he has reached that point, the tortoise has moved forward, and he must proceed to the tortoise's new point. But by the time he reaches this point, the tortoise has again moved. This all seems to suggest that Achilles can never overtake the tortoise.

I've probably butchered that story. To simplify the problem, consider moving from point A to point B (whatever the distance, it doesn't matter, as long as it is not 0). To move to B, first you must move halfway to B. But to move halfway to B you must first move a quarter of the way to B. And so on, to infinity - it seems as though you can never move.

This is one example of a rational, or mathematical, representation of the world breaking down. We all know motion doesn't work this way, but if we conceive of the world as existing of discrete points of infinitely small size, we may be forced to consider this description of motion. (For those of you what will contend that the universe is not made of infinitely small points but instead, say, atoms, I ask you what atoms consist of.)

This is a very brief overview of the topic that I'm dealing with, and I do not have the space, time, or knowledge to go into it deeply. I merely want to get my thoughts down, so in the process I may make logical jumps that make little or no sense to you.

These sorts of problems lead me to contend that mathematics and science don't really explain how the world works; our methods of science do a phenomenal job of describing observable phenomena, but I would hazard a guess that we have not, and will not, get to a point where we can conclusively explain the universe.

Taking this approach simplifies our problem: Zeno's paradoxes aren't bad math, they just poorly describe how the world works. We have better math a physics now for describing motion and other physical events. But, yet again, I suggest that we still cannot conclusively explain the world - I am certain that there are postulates of quantum theory, or something similar, that lead to inherent contradiction.

So, to put is as basically as possible, rationality is a good way of describing how the world works. But I would not suggest that it is infallible. Hardcore rationalists would suggest that every rational paradox can be remedied, including Russell's set theory paradox (i.e. there exists a set that contains all sets that do not contain themselves - does it contain itself?) and the Liar's paradox (i.e. "This sentence is false.") Personally, I think that rationality simply breaks down at these points, and that attempts to circumvent these problems are futile (though I hardly have enough evidence at this point to argue for such a claim).

This is how I come to accept irrationality as a possibility, or, more precisely, I come to reject the Principle of Non-Contradiction on some occasions. I do this because I think that, on some occasions (in some circumstances) irrationality is better as describing the world than rationality is. My current project is to limit the rejection of the principle so that I don't accept all contradictions, but rather only the contradictions that seem to describe the world appropriately.

But this suggests a new discourse, and will quickly lead me back to cognitive relativism. I believe (an through the suggestion of a belief you can tell that I'm not really doing philosophy at this point) that all of our problems with reality stem from our own cognition. There doesn't really exist a set that contains all sets that don't contain themselves. I would even assert that there is nothing infinite, at least as we conceive of it - thus Zeno's paradoxes don't really occur. Our problems with rationality - the paradoxes that result from it - occur when we follow it to it's natural conclusion outside of reality. We could claim that we should just not worry about abstract, non-observable properties of our system, but unfortunately rationality necessitates consistency within and outside of observation; we must take mathematics as far as it can go. (Yet again, not arguing here, only thinking)

Reality isn't really characterize-able, at least as we would like it to be. Rationality, mathematics, physics, et cetera, are all cognitive constructions for describing something that just is. But now I'm beginning to sound like a cognitive relativist.

Even with this very, very liberal view of reality and rationality, cognitive relativism is still poorly conceived. As I mentioned previously, math and physics don't explain the world, but they do describe it very, very well. My basis for concluding that they describe reality well is predictive validity. Science saves lives, builds roads, etc. etc. because it characterizes how the world works well and manipulates that characterization to create things that are of value. Because it can very precisely predict how things are going to work, science can create new and better things that work well within the world. Cognitive relativism, on the other hand, has little or no predictive validity - you can't really do anything with it. It just sits there. It's a sort of intellectual play - it gives you cool and new ways of looking at things, some of which are in fact useful, but it pales in comparison to the framework of science.

But that is not to say that we should reject cognitive relativism in its entirety. As I've stated before with irrationality, sometimes rationality and science break down, and sometimes they're simply not the best way of describing things. I advocate using science to describe the world in nearly every possible instance, but I would suggest that cognitive relativism can be useful for providing an alternate viewpoint that may better describe how things work, especially in society and language. Most basically, I would describe cognitive relativism as being similar to a metaphor in that it may be a way of simplifying or elucidating a problem, or describing it in a different way that is helpful.

That was a lot of writing. I'm not going to proofread it right now. Sorry for any errors in grammar of philosophy.

I See a Swan Photo

2009-02-12T18:29:00.000-08:00

I See a Swan

This is a photo (heavily edited in Photoshop) that I submitted to the Dublin University (aka Trinity) Photography Association to be displayed at the opening of the Trinity Arts Festival. Unfortunately, they lost my print, so it was never displayed, but I still like how it turned out. The specific project was to take a photo within one mile of the front arch of the school within one specific weekend.

Sigur Ros Poster Design

2009-02-10T15:50:00.000-08:00

Here's a design I made for a Sigur Ros poster. I haven't made many posters recently, so I thought it would be fun to throw one together. It's composed of my Vanilla Sky Galway photo, my photo of water and branches and one of my photos of Sigur Ros, mixed around with contrast and brightness edits, filters and clipping masks. Additionally, I used text from sigurros.co.uk, specifically this and this. It's meant to be 11in x 17in, and it took a few hours - I wasn't really counting.

Dublin Photos Edited with Gimp

2009-02-08T15:35:00.000-08:00

Here are a few photos from Dublin that I edited in a free photo editor called Gimp. It has an equalize function that works similarly to the one in Photoshop, but with slightly different results. Thus, none of the fancy results are due to my photo editing skill, as the feature is automatic. I still really love the results, though. You can find them all on my flickr here, and more photos from Dublin on Flickr and on my Ireland blog Us of Lesser Gods

Layout Updates!

2009-02-03T14:46:00.000-08:00

Wow! A new layout! Awesome!

I'm aware that this page doesn't look to fancy, but I'm in the process of teaching myself the appropriate coding to make it better. I've changed the header and footer graphics, and added a very basic navigation bar.

Things will get better. Soon. I promise.

A Brief Discussion of Basic Philosophical Concepts

2009-01-30T11:04:00.000-08:00

This post, unlike some of my other philosophy essays, is neither polished nor planned. It is rather an exploration of a recent thought that has occurred to me. It is taken out of the context of the history philosophy as I am unfortunately not familiar enough with it to ensure that my ideas are original or well-conceived.

I am concerned with my recent exposure to Epistemology and Metaphysics, and the methodology used to deal with each subject. Both seem aimed at elucidating the nature of fundamentally basic concepts such as "knowledge" or "truth" through the use of complex analysis. However, it seems to me that such complex analysis fundamentally cannot address the real issue. Such notions are basic, fundamental, and as such cannot be defined explicitly. To analyze them in the manner taken on by philosophers is to attempt to explain tiny bolts with large machinery, or to explain foundations using the structure they support.

One will quickly recognize my complaint as one addressing the circular nature of many definitions and discussions of basic word like "knowledge" or "truth." This is not a new concern - the well-read philosopher will find similar concerns expressed by Quine and Strawson, or at least suggested by them. But some have shaken off these concerns. I can imagine the response of "It is in the nature of many concepts to be circularly explained" or perhaps "Circular definitions may not properly define but perhaps may express valuable relations." I think these responses are avoiding the problem.

It is easy to explain things, to rationalize concepts. (Well, not easy, but possible at least.) But just because it is possible does not mean that it is accurate. One could come up with an eloquent explanation for nearly any proposition. And I use "accurate" explicitly here - I avoid "true" or "correct" as they contain the problem with which I am dealing. More importantly, though, I avoid those words as it is certainly possible for such explanations to be "true" or "correct." My concern is with whether they are the best way of explaining such concepts.

To give an example, take Geometry. There are fundamental concepts that are simply taken to "be," without definition - for example, a point. A point could be analyzed and defined, but it would arguably lead to a circular definition:

What is a point? The end of a line. What is a line? A series of points. Etc.

Why are we wasting our time analyzing the epistemological and metaphysical equivalents of points? Frankly, I think this sort of analysis has tainted the name of philosophy in public conception. Such analysis has been a major aspect of philosophy over the past century, and has entered the common conception of what a philosopher is. No longer is the philosopher a scientist, one who explains the way the world works. It is no wonder that, when I reveal that I am a student of philosophy, I am often greeted with laughs and questions like "So you're studying how you can know you're not a pool table?" Good question - "How do you know you're not a pool table?" in my mind summarizes (and, to be fair, oversimplifies) a lot of what philosophers are asking with their in-depth analysis of basic concepts. Frankly, I think it's a dumb question.

Letterfrack, Ireland

2009-01-30T04:17:00.000-08:00

This is the view from a hike I took in Connemara National Park near Letterfrack, Ireland. I edited it - minor brightness and contrast changes - using Gimp, as my computer crashed recently and I lost all of my programs.

For more info on this photo and my trip to Ireland in general, check out my Ireland blog Us of Lesser Gods. And if you're interested, there's a Deviantart mirror of this photo.

Photos from TV on the Radio at Lupo's (10/11)

2009-01-20T09:55:00.000-08:00

More delayed photos. These are from TV on the Radio at Lupo's back in October. Quite an incredible show - even better than the last time I saw them at Lupo's.

Photos of Lightning Bolt at the Living Room (10/9)

2009-01-19T15:39:00.000-08:00

One of the best shows of the year. Lightning Bolt played from the floor (as always) of the now-defunct Living Room in Providence. This was also the first WBRU Local Music Field Trip, which was highly successful in my opinion.

I started the show up in front, and a mere 2 songs and 4 photos later I found myself pushed to the back of the crowd. It was a ridiculous night.

Photos of Motion City Soundtrack at Lupo's (9/27)

2009-01-17T04:23:00.000-08:00

Here are some more backlogged photos. This is Motion City Soundtrack at Lupo's - it was the one and only time I've gotten to go in front of the barrier for photographers at Lupo's (normally they don't put up a barrier). I also had mistakenly adjusted the focus points on my camera's auto-focus for this show, so I didn't get many good photos.

Shepard Fairey Style Self Portrait

2009-01-06T16:50:00.000-08:00

Here's a Shepard Fairey / OBEY style self portrait I made with Photoshop. It's in the style of the Obama posters that were very prominent before the election. It's kind of half assed - that is, made quickly with a lo res photo - but I still like it.

Photos from Ben Folds at the WBRU Summer Concert Series

2009-01-06T16:14:00.000-08:00

Still catching up on backlogged photos. Here are Ben Folds and Missy Higgins at the fourth and final WBRU Summer Concert Series show.

Photos of Sigur Ros at Bank of America Pavillion on 9/19

2009-01-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

Still backlogged on the photos...

Here are my favorite photos from Sigur Ros in September. I got a photo pass for the show, but the band demanded that we take photos from far in the wings rather than up in the front gutter. Go figure. I still love the music.

Ben Folds / WBRU Summer Concert Series 2008 Poster

2009-01-05T15:53:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting on this one for a long time, so it's about time I threw it up here. Designed for our fourth and actual final summer concert series show in 2008 with Ben Folds and Missy Higgins. It was primarily used for promotional purposes - we posted it around Brown and Providence, and got some signed for the station. The show itself didn't do too well, but I liked how the poster turned out.

Photos of Stars at Lupo's on September 18th

2008-12-20T16:22:00.000-08:00

I'm really, really backdated in uploading my photography. So here are a few photos from way back when Stars played at Lupo's in September. Saturday Morning Project opened the show - which I organized to happen - and the show was, well, phenomenal.

Black & White Photography

2008-12-20T13:45:00.000-08:00

At some point in the past few months, I got bored and started playing with black and white and film grain effects in Photoshop. I ended up producing these eight photos, which I think look more or less good.

I haven't posted in around four months. It's kind of ridiculous. Now I don't have a ton of work to do, so look forward to plenty of updates in the next few days, and photos from Ireland starting in the new year!

Review: The Kooks with It Was the Best of Time at Lupo's 9/14/08

2008-09-24T23:09:00.000-07:00

Sunday's always seem hectic for me. No work, no commitments... you'd expect it to be relaxing, no? Somehow, though, I always manage to end up with a ton of things to get done on Sundays. So it wasn't much of a surprise that I found myself sprinting down to Lupo's two Sundays ago to make it in time to see It Was the Best of Times open for The Kooks. It also isn't terribly surprising that, due to confusion and other problems, I only managed to get photos of Best of Times. But hey, these things happen, and I'm just glad that I got to see such an awesome show.

For those of you with your fingers far from the pulse of the local music community, there's been a rumor circulating that IWTBOT is breaking up. Let me dispel your concerns - they are not. Although they've lost drummer Jared Smith to college, and guitarist Pete Camera is moving on to new things, they're still pumping out great music. And, surprisingly, their live act didn't sound incredibly different without the former band members - you can tell something's missing, but they're already well on their way to solidifying their sound with their new lineup. The biggest difference had to be the crowd; nearly 1000 people showed up to catch their set, an impressive feat. And they did a phenomenal job filling the biggest stage I've seen them on, and pumping up an enormous crowd.

Illinois came up second, and presented an entirely different sound. The lead singer's voice was incredibly distinctive, and carried the otherwise relatively average sound of the band through a strong set. I particularly enjoyed (or, at least, was surprised by) their final song, a confusing-yet-charismatic mix of singing and talking that seemed to combine the style of the headlining band, The Kooks, with Flobots.

Finally, The Kooks took the stage, and almost immediately blew us all away. Lupo's was packed - more packed than I've seen it in a while - and The Kooks filled it with energy, playing through nearly every song you could want to hear. I was particularly excited to hear "She Moves in Her Own Way," & "Naive" from Inside In, Inside Out, and the new hit "Do You Wanna," all of which were played crisply and were huge crowd pleasers. My favorite moment, though, would have to be the encore of "Seaside," played beautifully by frontman Luke Pritchard, leading straight into the ironically sweet tune of "Jackie Big Tits," also played acoustically. Although Luke may have been tipsy - I couldn't understand half of what he said, though that may very well be my inability to interpret accents - and, I'm fairly confident, may not have known exactly where he was, he still managed to pull together a powerful and impressive performance that made me forget my frantic worry from earlier in the night and inspired me to dance and have fun.

Review: The Low Anthem at Firehouse 13 on 9/5/08

2008-09-15T00:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I managed to pull myself away from the comfort of air conditioning in the sweltering humidity to check out The Low Anthem's CD release party at Firehouse 13. I regretted my decision at first - it was impossibly warm in the building - but the soothing tones of Annie Lynch and the Beekeepers won me over quickly. The cello added a particularly nice sound to the mix that blended perfectly with their calm-yet-powerful folk style, and the dual female vocals were beautiful. One major highlight of the set was a song where the guitarist/banjo player sung so well in falsetto that I honestly - no offense to him - mistook them for female vocals at first, with a subtle roughness that made the song amazing. The other highlight was a surprisingly well done cover of Radiohead's "I Will (No Man's Land)" that I would never have expected them to be able to pull off.

I managed to grab a seat before The Low Anthem took the stage - a relatively insignificant feet, as sound problems delayed the show for nearly 15 minutes - which, for some reason, made the heat more bearable. This was important, as I sadly wasn't as awed by Low Anthem as I was by Annie Lynch. The close, homey feeling that made past performances I'd seen so great seemed lost in a crowd of people, in the moist heat, and in endless sound difficulties. The wide variety of instruments used prevented the band from carrying much energy from one song to the next - they had to rearrange themselves every time - and some songs I had really high hopes for ("The Horizon is a Beltway" comes to mind) fell profoundly flat.

However, I don't mean to give off the impression that this was a terrible performance - far from it. Rather, after such a beautiful and heartwarming album - Oh My God, Charlie Darwin - I had very high hopes for the show. And they did deliver, especially later on in the show. "Ticket Taker" came through wonderfully, as did "To the Ghosts Who Write History Books," and the Johnny Cash cover of "Bird on a Wire" was absolutely phenomenal. There was certainly a messiness in their performance, but it was a sort of endearing messiness - a messiness that seemed to connect you with the band and bring the music alive. Unfortunately, at times that messiness went too far, but overall the show left me satisfied. I just hope I can see them in a more relaxed, less crowded, and, especially, cooler setting sometime soon.

Finally, my favorite quote from the night, as recited by lead vocalist Ben Miller and originally written by the band's former roommate:

"So long fellas
Eat a peach
There's rotting meat in the microwave."

Photos from the Paramore Concert

2008-08-22T18:31:00.000-07:00

What an awesome day. I met all four bands (Paramore, Jack's Mannequin, Phantom Planet, & Paper Route, gave Hayley Williams copies of my poster (Paper Route too), interviewed Paper Route, talked to Andrew McMahon (frontman of Jack's Mannequin & Something Corporate) about photography, and generally had a good time. Now, photos:

Paper Route:

Jack's Mannequin:

Paramore:

I might put more up later...

Review: Penrose & The Coming Weak at Lupo's

2008-08-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

It was a long night at Lupo's this past Friday, but for those of us that stuck around until the end, it was well worth every minute. Penrose headlined the show, accompanied by 2008 Rock Hunt semifinalists The Coming Weak, as well as Fordoes Me Quite, Acadia, & Aston. When I arrived at the show it was already more crowded than any local show I've seen, and more people streamed in the front door every few minutes. However, the large audience did not ruin the intimacy of the show - everyone seemed to know half of the people there, and were more than excited to meet the rest. Even the bands were incredibly social, hanging out at the back of the venue with fans and friends alike, contributing to the incredibly local feel.

Aston was the first band to take the stage, and they did so with profound energy. The put on a solid, fun set that got us all interested to hear more. Although the experience may not have been there - vocals we sometimes a little messy and the band didn't quite know how to work the crowd - each member seemed to truly put his heart into the performance, and it certainly will be a good experience for their next big performance.

Acadia was up next. They also had a few mistakes, and at times the screaming turned from exciting and charismatic to redundant and tiresome, but they made up for all of it with the highest energy of the night. Members moved rapidly and fluidly across the stage and through their music, getting us thoroughly pumped up for their performance and for the rest of the night.

Third on stage was Foredoes Me Quite, who put on an incredibly strong set. They brought to the night a new and different sound that appropriately bridged the gap between Acadia and The Coming Weak. The crowd had begun to swell by the time of their performance, and people pushed to the front to rock out to their music.

The crowd was at it's largest as the lights and house music cued the entrance of The Coming Weak. What followed was an incredible, high energy performance with articulate vocals and precise instrumentals. Lead singer Tim White led the crowd flawlessly and had fans shouting, dancing and even trying to jump on stage through the whole performance. I was completely blown away by how much their set improved from their rock hunt performance - it seems giving them a bigger stage and crowd makes them that much better.

One might have thought The Coming Weak had stolen the show by the end of their performance. Many people left - it was late by that point anyways - leaving only the committed Penrose fans camped out in the front, waiting for the band to go on. But after only a couple of songs by Penrose, we knew this was their show to keep. Fans bounced around right in front of the stage as the band performed some crazy antics and some awesome music. Who knew Robb could swing a guitar around his neck in between chords, or that Don and Robb could play around each other's backs? (if that doesn't make sense, check out the picture below) The band played a long and full set, with skilled and powerful musicianship, and left the audience in awe and wanting more.

I left the show feeling great. You could tell, from this show alone, that local music is alive and well in Rhode Island, and certainly has a bright future.

Review: Margot & the Nuclear So & So's at The Middle East

2008-08-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

I'm ashamed to say it: I'd never been to the Middle East before this past Saturday. And from what I saw this weekend, that's been a mistake. As we descended into the underground theater, my eyes were caught by poster after poster of awesome bands that were going to play, or had just played, at the Middle East. Luckily, I made the trek up to Cambridge this weekend to catch one show I really would have regretted missing: Margot & the Nuclear So & So's.

Odds are you have no idea who I'm talking about. Check out their Daytrotter Sessions if you're interested - I can guarantee it'll be worth your while. This is a 8-piece band with nearly every instrument you could imagine - I even saw a French horn in there - and beautiful poetic music. They've been on tour all summer, and even stopped through Chicago for Lollapalooza, but Korzec missed their performance in favor of the electronica stylings of Does it Offend You, Yeah?. And with a month and a half left in their tour, they stopped through Boston.

We got there early - way too early - so we spent a couple of hours exploring the streets of Cambridge before we headed down to catch Boston locals Mean Creek. Accustomed to the typical mediocrity of opening acts, I was pleasantly surprised by the band. They brought a sort-of hometown energy with them on-stage and got me singing along to songs I'd never actually heard before. The style was reminiscent of The New Pornographers, something I had yet to hear emulated by a local band.

Fatigue had set in by the time Audrye Sessions took the stage - it was late, the set change had taken a while, and I'm in training to be a crotchety old man. They got me energized again, but not quite excited. The loud, fast songs caught my attention and kept it, but the quieter songs, which were subtly beautiful, weren't well transmitted to the crowd and left everyone chatting to each other rather than listening. By the end of the set I was thoroughly ready for Margot to take the stage.

It was nearly midnight when the band came out of the back rooms, but the audience's patience was rewarded almost immediately. With instrumentations that flowed perfectly in and out of each other - and impressive feat with the number of different musicians involved - Margot and the Nuclear So and So's carried us through an experience no less than amazing. Richard Edwards vocals were piercing and heartfelt, and complemented perfectly by those of Emily Watkins. Drummer Chris Fry and percussionist Casey Tennis carried a strong, heavy beat that added power to the performance, and Casey's lighthearted antics on-stage appropriately lifted our spirits during even the saddest of songs.

"On a Freezing Chicago Street" was performed impeccably, with the crowd singing quietly along. Our slight singing flowed in and out of their performance as they played many of the songs from The Dust of Retreat, interlaced with tracks from The Daytrotter Sessions EP and some seemingly new tracks, leading into an impressive shouting along with the chorus of "Quiet as a Mouse" to finish out the set. But we wouldn't have that; the audience clapped, shouted, stomped and pushed the band back on stage for a two song encore, closing with "Barfight Revolution, Power Violence". I couldn't be more happy as I drove back to Providence.

More Photos:
Mean Creek:

Audrye Sessions:

Margot & the Nuclear So & So's:

Photoshop Fun 2

2008-08-10T17:42:00.000-07:00

More fun with Photoshop. This was the result of brainstorming for a Paramore poster (the final product bared no resemblance). I knew right away I couldn't make it into a functional promotional poster, but I liked the aesthetic, so I kept it.

Made from a photo I took of some buildings in downtown LA, edited in Photoshop, gradient mapped and fit with a border.

More Photography from Providence

2008-08-09T13:56:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos I've taken recently that I particularly like. Some were edited slightly in Photoshop for contrast and brightness. Let me know what you think!

Posters for WBRU's Third Summer Concert Series with Paramore

2008-08-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

So here are my poster designs for Paramore's concert. The first one is unofficial, as it doesn't include Dunkin' Donuts in the title and isn't as readable as the second one. I like it a lot more though. The second one we're using for promotional purposes - posting it around Providence and such.

I'd appreciate any comments!

Some Modern Artists that are Worthwhile

2008-07-29T17:44:00.000-07:00

I was under the impression for a long time that nearly all modern art was bad. By modern I don't mean since the 1950's - I mean now. Recent. I came to realize a few years ago that this was far from true, and I have a few artists to back it up. Granted the artists linked below aren't Rembrandt or Michelangelo, but their art's "cool". Maybe not "good," but at least cool.

I discovered all of the following from the magazine Juxtapoz. I like it a lot, though sometimes I don't much care for the artists they feature. These ones are good, though.

Jeremy Fish - Cool Pop-Art-esque style with cute animals and skulls.
James Jean - Crazy, psychedelic shit. Amazing illustration with a slightly evil tint.
Greg Simkins - He takes cute, cuddly images from your childhood and makes you afraid of them. Essentially.
Sylvia Ji - All of it looks somewhat similar to me, but she has some beautiful and intense portraits.

You're lucky - I've spared you my rant on the state of the art world. How it's fragmented and what's good in each sub-culture is determined by a small, select group of people. Another time, perhaps.

Photos from Los Angeles

2008-07-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

So I finally finished going through and editing my photos from my trip to Los Angeles. I've got one of an escalator, and four of Discovery Zone's performance at the Unknown Theater that I barely got into. I appreciate any comments you have!

Photos from Warped Tour

2008-07-26T21:40:00.000-07:00

Here are my favorite photos from the show. I took plenty more, but they won't all fit on my Flickr, so if you'd like to see more just let me know. We got caught in a tornado warning halfway through and they had to shut the show down for an hour. I got completely soaked, and my lens got wet, so some of the photos have a cool blurry effect. Enjoy, and please, leave comments!

Polaroid with the Ting Tings!

2008-07-26T20:16:00.000-07:00

The Ting Tings came to WBRU yesterday for an interview and live performance. Upon discovering that they were taking Polaroids of their trip, I grabbed my Polaroid camera and got a photo with them. Got them to sign it too.

Review: Warped Tour '08

2008-07-25T08:57:00.000-07:00

Korzec, GQ and I drove up to the Comcast center this past Wednesday to catch Warped Tour ’08 for its customary New England stop. This was my first Warped Tour – it seems as though I always had some other commitment when it came to town in the past – but it was a ridiculous and incredible experience even for veterans like Korzec and GQ. Somewhere between seeing Say Anything’s phenomenal performance, witnessing an enormous crowd flip the bird at Gym Class Heroes (at their request!), and getting caught in a tornado warning that shut down the entire show for nearly an hour, we knew this was a once in a lifetime experience.

We left the station early in hopes of making it in time for Rock Hunt semifinalist’s The Coming Weak’s set, but they got put on earlier than we thought possible and the traffic on the way there was terrible. Our disappointment was quickly turned to excitement, however, as we caught the tail end of the Japanese ska band Oreskaband’s set soon after arriving and then got and interview with the guys from Ludo.

We made a quick run over to the opposite side of the concert to see All Time Low on one of the three main stages. A massive crowd had already established itself in front of the stage, and as the band took the stage the crowd erupted with excitement. And All Time Low did not disappoint. With tons of energy – and I imagine you have to have tons of energy when you’re only playing a thirty minute set – they rocked out and got us pumped up. But the energy did not overshadow the music, which came with resounding vocals and articulate instrumentals.

We rushed over to another main stage in time to catch the Reel Big Fish. Amped up from the All Time Low, we were thrilled to see them open with “Sell Out,” leading straight into a great performance, complete with some quirky antics. They even did a cover of “Enter Sandman” by Metallica, which wasn’t silly and fun like you’d expect, but rather perfectly resembled the real version. I’m not sure it fit their style, but hell, I was just impressed they did it.

Next we made a quick move over to the third main stage to see Say Anything. There was not a single dull moment in their performance, from the moment they took the stage on. The audience ate up everything Max Bemis had to offer. Hit after hit left us all in awe and Bemis blue in the face.

We had time for a quick stop off at Mayday Parade before heading over to Gym Class Heroes. Though the crowd may not have been as big for this band, every person was intensely into the music. Frontman Derek Sanders’ singing was amazing, and, I must say, I loved the guitarist’s 80’s-metal hair.

Gym Class Heroes were phenomenal. You’d think a hip hop group wouldn’t fit on Warped Tour, but apparently they’ve found their niche. With impressive charisma, they had the audience hanging on every word, and we just couldn’t get enough. The crazy carnival props they brought with them on stage were a nice touch as well. I wish I could have caught the whole set, but it seems that would have been impossible – we had to leave to catch up with Angels & Airwaves for an interview, and, little did we know, Gym Class Heroes would be pulled off before the end of their set anyways due to impending tornado warnings.

The next hour is a bit of a blur. GQ & I ran back to the amphitheater to catch the beginning of Ludo while Korzec headed over to the Angels & Airwaves bus. However, I was supposed to meet him at the bus after the first couple of Ludo songs. And then the storm hit. I found myself completely drenched, shoving my way through a crowd trying to go the opposite direction. I waited out some of the storm underneath one of the collapsed stages – every band had been pulled off-stage, with the exception of the ones in the amphitheater – before I made a run for the Angels & Airwaves bus. I met up with Korzec, we got out interview, and we left the bus just as the storm was leaving. We were greeted by a nearly abandon Warped Tour, soaked to the bone and covered in trash.

From what I’ve heard, Ludo played a great set. They eagerly greeted the thousands of people being forced into the amphitheater – they probably had the biggest audience of the day – and had a blast with their clever and catchy tunes. Though they acted as though they were worried that no one liked them, and asked every single person to be their friend (to which the response was a resounding “Yes!”), I think they left the stage more popular that ever.

So the rain died down, and we managed to all meet up again, just in time for Korzec to sit down with Say Anything. Shortly thereafter, I got an interview with The Coming Weak, who, despite the rain, seemed incredibly stoked to be at Warped Tour.

With the ensuing confusion about set times and so forth, we waited for a while for Does it Offend You, Yeah to show up, only to discover that they weren’t at the tour, or even in the country. A little disappointed, we made our way to see The Academy Is… for one of the last performances of the day. Any disappointment, exhaustion, or confusion we had was quickly turned to vigor as the band took the stage. They blew us away with profound music led by William Beckett’s incredible voice and powerful instrumentals. Beckett was terribly charismatic too; he seemed to look at and greet individual people in the audience and interacted with the crowd as a whole perfectly. Rain began to sprinkle down during the performance, but no one even thought of leaving; in fact, it added the perfect ambiance to the moment.

As the sun began to set, we made a pass by the We the Kings performance, which was surprisingly energetic despite the hectic day. A sizeable crowd showed up for the set as well, even after the rain had scared a lot of concert-goes away.

As Angels & Airwaves took the main stage at the end of the night, we found ourselves outside the bus of The Academy Is... preparing for an interviews. GQ met with Adam Siska, who gave some of the best, most thoughtful answers to her questions I’ve heard in an interview. He talked about the band’s background, where they’re coming musically, and the point of music and how people perceive it. He also mentioned that he really enjoyed our Summer Concert Series last year, and playing at Lupo’s late last year.

It began to rain again as we made our way to the car, though we didn’t really notice. We were still just in awe of the incredible performances and the amazing experience we’d been a part of.

On Life

2008-07-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, I’ll take a step back from life. You know, all of the minor squabbles and problems and thoughts and relationships and work and play. Just take a break and spend time by myself. If you take life to be a trek through an eternal forest, I would be climbing a tree. I’ll spend time thinking about the “big picture,” whatever that might mean. In a dense enough forest, you can’t see where you’re going from the top of a tree, or even where you’ve come from. But you can see the vast expanse of the forest. The entirety of the thing you’re a part of. The “big picture.”

I find these moments to be immensely valuable. Not because they’re practical; they can never lead me to what I should do in the next year, or month, or even day. Rather, they’re important because they remind me that I’m part of something great. Something beautiful. It’s not something I can particularly describe, and it may even be something that naturally avoids explanation or even proper reasoning. But there’s something of value in this massive world we live in, this world that we’ve created for ourselves. Something to appreciate, regardless of the good or the bad. Perhaps the key to contentment is to find happiness in the endless struggle of life – or at least good humor.

Of course, you can’t stay up on that tree forever – you’ll never get anywhere. You can’t even climb up the tree every day, or week; it’s simply not practical, and doing it too often will cause it to lose its effect. But it’s a great thing to remind oneself of, on occasion.

I once was critical of free-floating thinking, as, without context, thoughts are worthless to the observer. It seems I’ve failed, here, at my own standards. But I hope you can find your own context in these, and other, thoughts. If not, I at least hope you won’t find them laughably absurd.

Review: WBRU's Local Music Festival, 7/19/08

2008-07-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

As you are probably well aware, Saturday was the WBRU Local Music Festival. And what a festival it was. I was able to see nearly six hours of local music down at Providence Piers, and every single band was excited to be there. Someday Providence described it best in saying that every band on the bill plays fun music and were simply looking forward to having a good time. No prima-donna bands, no pretentious music, just friendly, down-to-earth bands with great music.

I managed to grab a ride with Hello Mahalo down to Providence Piers after their interview at the station, arriving just in time for Someday Providence’s set. They jumped the gun a little bit and took the stage early, but appropriately so. Their performance was the perfect opening to the concert, with boundless energy flowing in and out of every song. My personal favorites were “Sing with the Radio,” “Hear Me Say,” and their usual cover of Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” Typically, I find that crowds ignore opening acts, preferring to chatter amongst themselves, but I could not see a single person that wasn’t completely digging Someday Providence’s short but wholly impressive set.

Hello Mahalo was the second band on the stage, and completely rocked out as the audience grew larger and larger. It seemed as though twice as many people were left waiting for Scotty Don’t by the end of Hello Mahalo’s set, which was an experience in itself. They showed some true musicianship – the kind of stuff that’s gotten them played on over 200 college radio stations around the country – and really had the crowd going, especially as they approached their hit song “Dawning Days” towards the end of their set. Frontman Justin Joyce commented afterwards that is was really just a laid back and fun experience. There was none of the rushing and the anxious stress of some of their previous shows – it was just a really chill concert with a great crowd and some really amazing bands.

Scotty Don’t was third to play, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I hadn’t had an opportunity to listen to much of their music prior to the show, and I didn’t know how the Sublime cover band (Badfish) would do when not covering Sublime. And I was pleasantly surprised. They had charismatic and articulate music, proving that they could write good songs as well as play them. I was thrown off to hear a few covers in the mix – a little bit of “Hey Jude,” and, surprisingly, part of “Smoke Two Joints” by Sublime (though technically, Sublime was covering Bob Marley, and in the end I’m just terribly confused) – but as the covers progressed and intertwined with the rest of the music, I came to appreciate their inclusion. In the end, Scotty Don’t had a great set, and perfectly paved the way for Zox to take the stage.

This was Zox at their best. From the moment they stepped on stage the energy was high, and it stayed high through their extended set. They played hit after hit, with lead singer Eli Miller smiling wide the entire time and violinist Spencer Swain rocking out through the whole set. Songs spanned from the early days of Take Me Home, their 2003 Rock Hunt win and 2003 Summer Concert Series performance, through all of the great songs from The Wait and their 2008 release Line in the Sand. Midway through the set it was revealed that they would not be performing again for a while after this show, which only served to build up the incredible spectacle we were a part of. They broke out an accordion and big base drum – drummer John Zox took care of the tambourine – a little later in the set, and both the band and the crowd seemed to enjoy every minute of it. As the sun set over the hills, Zox’s final performance (at least, for a while) came to a close with “Homebody” – an appropriate end with Eli soon returning to California.

It seemed as through nothing could top Zox’s performance – and perhaps that’s true – but Badfish certainly came close. Darkness fell on Providence Piers as the band took the stage after one of their first actual wardrobe changes ever, and the crowd couldn’t be more pleased. Nearly every song inspired a chant from the audience, and the energy that had been building all afternoon burst into an all-out party to the perfectly performed tunes of Bradley Nowell. Each song was a hit, and Badfish carried the show late into the night with an amazing performance. As I started on the long walk back to WBRU with Bart, I couldn’t stop thinking about the cheers of the crowd and the beautiful music I’d heard that evening at our Local Music Festival.

Photos from WBRU's Local Music Festival

2008-07-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my favorite photos from WBRU's second Summer Concerts Series show. We had Badfish, Zox, Scotty Don't, Hello Mahalo & Someday Providence perform. Though, as it turns out, Badfish and Scotty Don't are the same band. Who knew.

On Toughness

2008-07-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

Quick question: is it better to be tough, or to be perfect? I came upon this question a few weeks ago, and I’m intrigued by it. The beauty is that “better” is subjective, and depends entirely on what you see value in. So let’s say we’re talking about traits of people. You have one person that is tough: he wears down visibly, has rough edges, and gets beat up physically, mentally and emotionally, but can still stand up in the end. Essentially, Batman. And you have another person that is perfect: he never seems to have problems, is always happy and kind, and bad things seem to have no effect on him. Essentially, Superman. Now, we’ll introduce a caveat: both eventually break down. Eventually, if you put enough pressure on them, or send enough pain and stress and frustration their way, they’ll fall apart emotionally or physically.

You can imagine it like having two rocks. One rock is easily stained and scarred, while the other is immune to imperfections. However, both will break if you drop five tons on them. Except we’re talking about personality traits, not physical objects.

It’s very easy to see that the perfect person is better, in some sense. They show no scars, and seem entirely impervious to problems. But I have actually come to find more value in being tough. Being tough seems more admiral; being able to roll with the punches and stand up each time after being beaten down. But, more importantly, being perfect seems to lack something entirely human. People are naturally imperfect, and to seem perfect actually seems less than ideal. It’s as though there’s nothing interesting to say about being perfect – there’s no overcoming adversity, not scars to share, nothing to empathize over. That last point is particularly important. We all empathize, as humans, over the problems we all share, over the pain we all sometimes feel. The perfect person cannot empathize with others, and other cannot empathize with him.

So, which is better?

WBRU Summer Concert Series 2008 Poster

2008-07-15T18:08:00.000-07:00

This is a poster I designed for WBRU's Summer Concert Series this year. This particular copy of the image is shrunk down and adjusted as the actual poster copy is enormous (11in x 17in, 300px/in). The show is this Saturday, and I'll probably post some pictures and commentary shortly afterwards.

Composed of a photo I took of Providence, adjusted and gradient mapped, with a manually created ray design. The WBRU logo is (c) WBRU in Providence, and I cannot take credit for the font, though I did add several layers of strokes, bevels and shadows.

Photos from Canada

2008-07-14T06:44:00.000-07:00

Over my two week vacation this summer, I took a train trip across Canada with my family. As exciting as that might sound, it wasn't terribly thrilling to sit on a train 12 hours a day just to end up with a few hours to explore a city before going to sleep to be up at 6am for the next day's train. However, I did get some good photos out of the whole trip, and I particularly enjoyed Banff and Calgary, where we spent more time. Check out the photos below, and see larger copies on my Flickr.

Welcome to Life Like a Film

2008-07-09T23:47:00.000-07:00

So I decided to create a blog.

Truth be told, I don't know anything about blogging. I've never been a blog reader, as I've never found a blog enthralling enough to consistently read it. I've skimmed here and there, but I've never sought out blogs to find interesting thoughts, new music, up-to-date news, or anything like that.

So why should I create a blog? I have a few reasons. First, it's a good exercise for me. It forces me to write (on occasion), and to organize my thoughts and artistic endeavors. Of course, I'm not a terribly talented artist - I've taken up photography to some capacity, and I've been drawing and creating digital art for a while now. But it's nice to have one place to localize all of the writing and art that I've done.

Second, it makes it easy to share all of the things that I've created with other people. Not to say that they're necessarily worth sharing - that's up to you to decide - but now at least I can direct people to one place to look at various interesting things I've done.

Third - and this is a stretch - I have a secret desire to have people be terribly interested in what I'm interested in. I have a tendency to peruse the webpages of friends and associates that have interesting content. I hope that there are a few people out there that might take an interest in what I post here.

So why "Life Like a Film"? This was a phrase I came up with a while ago to describe a particular emotion or desire I sometimes feel. You can read a full explanation here. You'll notice that I refer to it as "Living Life Like a Movie" there; I chose that phrase originally, and I wish I had a better explanation for the change of "movie" to "film" than, well, it sounded better. I could make the claim that film signifies something more than just a movie - i.e. a movie could be Agent Cody Banks while a film is something closer to Gladiator - but the honest truth is that "Life Like a Film" has a better ring to it.

So you're aware, I'm backdating old content to it's original date of creation. So this may not look like the first post on this blog, but due to the wonderful time-traveling abilities of the internet, it is.

So there you have it. If you've read this far, I'm impressed. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy what I have to show you.

Sincerely,
Chas Crandon
July 9th, 2008

Happily Ever After and Change

2008-06-30T14:37:00.000-07:00

A lot of movies end with “…and they lived happily ever after.” Not just silly Disney movies either. Most romantic comedies, or action films, end on a similar note: the couple is united, or the villain is vanquished, and the protagonist(s) ride off into the sunset. And there you have it; the story is over, the good guys have won, et cetera.

Many people will tell you that there is no such thing as a happy ending in real life. There are always problems, quarrels, imperfections. So it goes. These people will often tell you this with a frown on their face, or a shake of their head.

What I’m here to argue is terribly pessimistic and not terribly revolutionary, but I find it to be true. There’s good reason for stories to end at “…and they lived happily ever after”; if there was more to tell, the story wouldn’t end there. “Happily ever after” equates to “there is no more story”; nothing interesting to tell, nothing exciting to say, nothing even noteworthy. So what’s the point? Happily ever after – endless contentment – seems to lack any point, and it could last for five minutes of five millennia and still be summarized by that one simple sentence.

I think it’s worthless! Throw it out! Why would you ever want eternal contentment? What would be the point of being purely happy if you never did or felt anything else? We need change, and we need it simply for itself. Any change is better than endless similarity; suddenly, you require at least two sentences to describe a period of time, rather than the one “happily ever after” sentence.

But here I’ve gone and assigned value. There’s no reason to suppose that something is better than something else simply because you could write a story out of it. Fair enough; an eventless life of happiness probably seems pretty good compared to a tumultuous life filled with endless change. It always depends on what you find value in. But I believe that there can be some value in change, if for nothing more than its own sake.

Photoshop Fun

2008-06-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

I created this while showing a friend how to use Photoshop. It was the result of relatively random playing around involving layering of textures and filtering. It is composed of two photos I took.

Review: Coldplay's Viva La Vida

2008-06-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

I feel like this would be an inappropriate time to pretend like I’ve always been a Coldplay fan. It’d be really easy; I could claim I picked up Parachutes before anyone else heard it, or that I waited anxiously for years for X & Y to hit the shelves. (To be honest, I was more excited for the White Stripes release of Get Behind Me Satan that same week.) But Coldplay has always been on the fringes of my awareness as a band I knew I would like. So when Viva La Vida dropped earlier this week, I decided I should pick it up. After all, who wouldn’t, when an English band produces an album with a Spanish title and a painting of the French revolution on the cover.

Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends has really swayed me. It’s unbelievable that I’ve pretty much missed out on Coldplay this entire time after hearing the beauty of this album. I was surprised, too. The first single off of the album, "Violet Hill," was not my favorite. I always mistook the title to be "'Violent' Hill," which provoked images of horror video games (so it's not quite "Silent Hill," but "Violent Hill sounds like an appropriately evil sequel or something), and I found the song itself to be too rough and jagged for my liking. The marching beat, mixed with heavy bass lines, gloomy, echoing vocals and a minor key (C# minor - how inaccessible is that?) were too far off from everything I'd known and liked of Coldplay in the past.

But within one minute of listening to the album, I knew it was one I would like. "Life in Technicolor" starts out strong with a synthesized tone that made me think I was listening to Sigur Ros. Then the guitar kicks in and drives you through a beautiful instrumental introduction. This leads perfectly into "Cemeteries of London," a darker song with a strong beat and articulate vocals by Chris Martin that sounds like it would fit perfectly into Damon Albarn's The Good, the Bad, and the Queen. "Lost!" brings a more optimistic tone with well placed organ melodies, and "42" slows the album down at just the right moment with vocal-piano duet, interlaced with strings, only to build into an upbeat, moving song before dying back down.

"Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love" is next, and is my current favorite track. It fast paced and energetic, and the band does an amazing job of mixing instrumentals in powerfully without overwhelming a piano-driven tune. The song reaches almost seven minutes, but it's practically a journey, with a diminuendo midway through that develops into a profoundly different sound that mirrors the first half well. "Yes" comes in next, developing a rougher style - with almost raspy vocals by Martin - but with some incredible string interludes. "Yes" also changes tone midway through and begins to resemble Sigur Ros with empyrean vocals and grand guitar riffs.

Next comes the title track, "Viva La Vida," which most resembles the older Coldplay that I'm most familiar with, with added synthesized tones that mix well with the heavy string emphasis. Finally, "Violet Hill" takes over, and actually fits. My complaints about the roughness of the track aren't as appropriate in the context of the album, as "Violet Hill" offers an appropriate change-up shortly before the album's end, almost as a counterpoint to some of the earlier tracks. "Strawberry Swing" brings the album back to optimistic roots, with skilled guitar melodies that flow well with Martin's vocals. And the album comes to an end with "Death and All His Friends," an amazing ballad that ties the album together, leading into another synthesized melody to close the album.

As I'm sitting here finishing this review (with Coldplay still playing in the background), I'm beginning to realize that this may be the most glowing review I've written for an album. It's really, really good. Who's to know if it'll have staying power; it may be in my trash a week from now... though I highly doubt it. Viva La Vida is looking to be one of my favorite albums.

Review: The Best of Radiohead

2008-06-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

Radiohead has just started on a new tour – the first one in a long while – and it seems like the perfect time to release a compilation to cash in on the ensuing Radiohead frenzy. However, The Best of Radiohead is not a self-homage or a clever marketing ploy – at least, not one set forth by Radiohead directly. The album was arranged and produced by EMI, Radiohead’s former record label, with apparently no sanction from the band itself.

Now this is neither the time nor the place to wax intellectual about the state of the recording industry, or the fact that practically everybody casts labels and their executives in a bad light (they’re just like their hipster critics, except they don’t wear tight jeans or read pitchfork… well, most don’t). But we are provided with a compelling opportunity to examine a record purely for its choice of songs and arrangement – there is nothing new to be heard on The Best Of. After all, what Radiohead fan hasn’t dreamed of the best possible mix of all of their favorite songs? Although I haven’t looked, I’m confident you could find hundreds of specific playlists mixing and matching albums and eras or Radiohead to construct the perfect album.

So EMI had a chance to create something really awesome here. And they didn't, really. But we all knew that would be the case, for two reasons. One, it’s a "Best of" album. It’s a compilation. Compilations aren’t made to be beautiful mixes that inspire you. They’re designed to cram every damn song that was pretty popular or catchy into one marathon of a record, with a couple random songs thrown in to appease fans. Second, they were never going to satisfy you anyways – that’s why you create your own perfect Radiohead mix CD.

The Best of Radiohead ends up being a structured album that seems to burst at the seams. Of course, In Rainbows is entirely excluded from the album – it’s not even mentioned by name in the extended biography of the band in the CD’s insert (the best it got is the quote "[Radiohead seemed] excited about their future (rightly so, as it turned out)"). But even without it, there’s simply too much music to summarize in a 17-song CD. And so it hits the big songs – Creep, Fake Plastic Trees, Karma Police, Everything in its Right Place, etc. – and seems to travel from the rock style of the bands early years to the more esoteric, experimental electronic style by the album’s end. But it’s all safe; you’ll find six songs off of The Bends, but only three off Kid A, two off of Hail to the Thief, and one from Amnesiac (plus four songs from OK Computer and "Creep," off of Pablo Honey). It’s as if there’s a fear that Radiohead’s music is still too edgy for the common music consumer, and that the best bet is to rehash hits from over a decade ago.

But I’ve got to give EMI more credit than that; pick up the bonus disc and you’ll get three more songs from OK Computer, two more off of both Amnesiac and Kid A, one more Hail to the Thief song and even a b-side.

The interesting thing? Radiohead would never make this mix. When I saw them in 2006 they actively refused to play "Creep" (Thom Yorke told the crowd they would absolutely not play it), and I’ve been told they even try to avoid playing "Karma Police." This all goes against the claims of the liner notes in The Best Of, which asserts that they started bringing back "Creep" during their 2003 Hail to the Thief tour. In either case, Radiohead would likely refuse to produce an album that so heavily emphasizes their early work. So The Best Of both succeeds and fails: it presents a relatively accurate list of (some of) the most popular Radiohead songs without entirely excluding any one album or era, but because of this, it arguably does not accurately represent the sentiments of the band itself.

Review: Weezer's Red Album

2008-06-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, Weezer released their sixth album, The Red Album. This is their third "color" album – the title is not officially "The Red Album," but the cover is red – and they have thus completed the spectrum of light our eyes perceive (isn’t that cool?). The album resembles the format of the previous two, with only ten songs and a simple album cover depicting the band in front of a flat color background.

But who cares about all of that; the music is what’s important.The Red Album is fluid alt-rock album with a surprising variety of musical styles mixed in. It opens with "Toublemaker," a classic Weezer style song with a driving beat and a fun sound. Next up is a personal favorite of mine, "The Greatest Man that Ever Lived," a pseudo-pretentious ballad with clever lyrics that leads you in several directions. The song takes you from the artificial live-sounding piano intro, leading straight into sirens sure to cause several diehard fans to crash their cars, into chants, falsettos and monologues.

"Pork and Beans," the first single off of the album, picks up next. It’s classic Weezer here, with power chords and silly lyrics to boot. (If you haven’t seen the acoustic video with guitarist Brian Bell and Tay Zonday, check it out. It’s awesome.) The album also gets its share of slow songs, with "Heart Songs," "Deamin'," and "The Angel and the One," and there are a few chill rock songs thrown in, like "Thought I Knew," and "Cold Dark World," the latter of which ads a rough, dark feel. "Everybody Get Dangerous" mixes it up with a hard, rap-rock style, and "Automatic" completes the album with a solid synthesis of melody and a strong beat.

The Red Album comes through with everything you want from Weezer, and then adds a little bit of creativity and charisma on top. Although some of the songs burn fast – I had to skip over a few after listening to the album several times – the overall feel is solid, and each song adds flavor to the entire album.

Ominous/Evil Photography

2008-06-05T20:46:00.000-07:00

I discovered recently that some photos I've taken look really evil. I can't really explain why, or how it happened (in almost every case it isn't intentional), but for some reason they just seem ominous to me. Here are a few I've collected; you can view the whole set with larger copies on my flickr page

Review: Death Cab for Cutie's Narrow Stairs

2008-05-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

I was excited. I don’t say that very often, but it was completely true in this case; I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of Narrow Stairs, especially after Death Cab for Cutie’s stunning performance at the first show of our concert series this year. And after hearing word that The Postal Service – lead singer Ben Gibbard’s side project – would not be releasing an album any time soon, if ever, I’d thrown all my hopes into this being a monumental album.

I hope my excitement will not lead you to think that I am biased when I say that Narrow Stairs is good. Really good. It offers more experimentation and a much darker feel than previous albums, and at the same time steps up the musical intricacy and exemplifies talented use of dynamics. You can still hear the pop sound that, in my opinion, hindered Plans, but it is emphasized appropriately and strengthens the sound as a whole. Each song may not be as individually memorable, as in Transatlanticism (and that may be a nostalgic result), but the album ties together well as a whole, offering a complete sound that encourages you to listen to it all the way through, again and again. There is also an impressive amount of musical variety throughout the CD, which strengthens the overall sound.

Narrow Stairs opens with "Bixby Canyon Bridge," a beautiful precursor to the rest of the album. It offers an immediate reminder of Death Cab’s past sound and style, but also new musical elements, more intense dynamics and powerful instrumentals. It leads right into the first single, "I Will Possess Your Heart," an ominous title for a dark and immensely moving song. The four minute instrumental portion at the beginning of the song is well performed and shows the band’s acute skill with dynamics, but is ultimately the only tiresome part of the whole album. It’s beautiful – it just doesn’t hook you enough.

The album has plenty of hooks, though, and some pop flavor thrown in for fun. "No Sunlight" is a light-hearted tune with a strikingly optimistic tone (especially for a song called "No Sunlight"). "Your New Twin Sized Bed" also has a poppy sound, but with some underlying intricacy. It’s probably the closest you’ll get to Transatlanticism on the whole album. It also leads perfectly into "Long Division," a faster-paced, jovial rock song - probably the most fun song on Narrow Stairs.

"Pity and Fear," picks up the album with a driving beat and a different-yet-compelling sound. It has the most rock sound I've heard from Death Cab, and is arguably one of the strongest picks on the CD. "You Can Do Better than Me" is also different, but in a bouncy, marching-band sort of way, which makes for a clever interlude midway through the album. "Cath…" and "Grapevine Fires" add a mellow rock sound, and "Talking Bird" and "The Ice is Getting Thinner" round things out with a calm feel and slow tempo.

The result is a carefully planned and well articulated album. It diverges from Death Cab’s previous albums while still staying true to the band’s fundamentals, and it offers diversity and character throughout. It’s exactly what I was looking for after their terrific performance at our concert series.

Death Cab for Cutie Photos

2008-05-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

Here are my (kind of) good photos from the first WBRU Summer Concert Series show of 2008, with Death Cab for Cutie. I got to be one of three photographers in the pit, or gutter, between the crowd and the stage. The other two had fancy cameras with multiple lenses, while all I had was a worthless point-and-shoot. I took hundreds of photos of Death Cab, and, no kidding, these are the only reasonable shots I got. This experience inspired me to invest in a new camera, a Canon Rebel XT, which is your basic model dSLR.

Brown Spring Weekend 2008 Posters

2008-04-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

These are a couple of posters I designed for Brown Spring Weekend 2008. I couldn't put the band names on the posters as they weren't official and I didn't have approval from the bands. I tried to sell them outside of the concerts, but only sold a mere 5 posters.

The first one is composed on a photo I took at Brown Spring Weekend 2007 that was heavily edited in Photoshop. The second was created by cutting up, editing, layering and filtering a few of my photos in Photoshop.

Review: Flogging Molly's Float

2008-03-04T22:43:00.000-08:00

Anticipation of Flogging Molly’s new album, Float, has been building in by gut since seeing them at the Palladium a few weeks ago. To the layman, it may have seemed as though Flogging Molly had fallen off of the face of the earth since their last release in 2004, but fans and concert-goers have certainly noticed their nearly endless number of tours over the past four years. And they’re fantastic in concert! But their amazing energy and presence haven’t always translated well to their studio albums.

This is not exactly the case for Float. You get what you expect from this album; there are few surprises, and it’s mostly the same old Flogging Molly sound. However, they managed to escape the tedious repetition they ran into in some of their past albums, as some of that incredible energy they wield has made it into these recordings.

The album opens strong with the first single, “Requiem for a Dying Song,” a consistent introduction to the rest of the album. “Paddy’s Lament” picks up the pace with a harder edge, which flows smoothly into the title track “Float,” a quiet ballad with a sad but confident sound, coupled with beautiful instrumentals on the fiddle and banjo. The album continues through the standard fast-paced songs including “You Won’t Make a Fool Out of Me,” “Between a Man and a Woman,” and “From the Back of a Broken Dream.” There is also an occasional slower song, like “The Story so Far,” to balance out the album.

However, there are a few surprises. “Man With No Country,” introduces a new, more traditional rock sound to the driving force of the album, with electric guitar riffs favored over fiddle and banjo melodies. “Punch Drunk Grinning Soul,” may be the star of the album; the chorus catches you with a friendly rhythm, juxtaposed against the rougher verses, building up into an exhilarating crescendo. But my favorite song is not one of the fast-paced, mosh-pit rock songs, but rather “Us of Lesser Gods.” It’s a beautifully orchestrated song with an upbeat tone, intricately interlaced instrumental parts, and clever singing rhythm.

When you pick up this album in preparation for St. Patrick’s Day, be sure to crank up the knob on your stereo; this music is meant to be played loud and with feeling. The quick parts will carry your excitement and the slow parts will move you. Float is a very strong album.

Review: Smashing Pumpkins' American Gothic EP

2008-03-04T10:42:00.000-08:00

Occasionally, people ask me why I like the Smashing Pumpkins. It’s really hard to describe why you like music, but I think I’ve come up with a pretty good reason. The music they have released over the years is so incredibly diverse that I could almost never get tired of listening to them. The Smashing Pumpkins are definitely my all-time, number-one, if-I-only-had-one-band-to-listen-to-on-a-desert-island favorite band.

So I was excited to hear they were releasing an EP, in a relatively short time after their first release in seven years, Zeitgeist. This four song EP, American Gothic, does exactly what I love: it introduces a new sound to the band. At least, it is a new sound for the new Smashing Pumpkins, which is essentially a rehash of frontman Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain’s short-lived project Zwan with different people on the bass and guitar. After a heavy, head-banging release in Zeitgeist that was vaguely reminiscent of Siamese Dream and more a nod towards metal and hard rock with power-chords galore, it’s nice to see the band slowing down into a mellower, more acoustic groove. For those of you not well-versed in the esoteric history of the Smashing Pumpkins: Zeitgeist was surprising and powerful, where American Gothic is more melodic, more relaxed, and more beautiful.

However, this EP is not entirely new; the songs sound incredibly similar to those on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, with a little bit of Adore and Zwan mixed in. But this certainly isn’t a drawback! The sound seems to be getting back to the Smashing Pumpkins that I love, with an optimistic sound consisting of solid rhythm, articulate acoustic guitar, and Corgan’s trademark voice. The flowing ambient chords of the organ accompany “Sunkissed” well, and the EP is not without drive and hooks provided by the drums and bass in both “The Rose March” and “Again, Again, Again.”

American Gothic renews my hopes that the Smashing Pumpkins are a returning force in the music world, rather than a half-hearted attempt by Billy Corgan to relive the 90s. I’m greatly anticipating their next album.

MCM0230 Project: "Starring" of Neuromancer

2008-02-21T15:18:00.000-08:00

Here's a project I did for MCM0230: Digital Media. The assignment was to "star" a portion of one of the texts we'd read in the class so far. I created two interlocking blogs that weave in and out of one another via hyperlinks. You start here, and work your way through a few page long excerpt from William Gibson's novel Neuromancer. The two blogs are:
crackedai.blogspot.com (start here)
aicracked.blogspot.com (you'll find nothing that makes sense here without some searching)

Review: Hot Chip's Made in the Dark

2008-02-05T03:19:00.000-08:00

Hot Chip’s third album, Made in the Dark, is mostly a continuation of their sophomore album, The Warning, but departs from its predecessor with more electronic sound and style, mixed with more slow, chill songs. The album begins with the slick electronica sound of “Out at the Pictures,” with a cool stutter style to the chorus that keeps your head bobbing. Next up is the first song released from the album, “Shake a Fist,” which came out back in September of ’07. I was a little surprised; the track was relatively repetitive, despite a departure from the norm by adding a brief monologue-of-sorts midway through the song. The first single actually associated with the album is the third track, “Ready for the Floor,” which brings the album back up to a steady pace. With a rough-but-cool intro leading into a light beat and melody, the song is a standout on the album.

A few other songs are standouts, if for nothing more than being different. “We’re Looking for a Lot of Love,” is a chill, relaxing song with a good melody and no overemphasis on electric sound. “Made in the Dark” follows a similar train of thought, as do “Whistle for Will” and “In the Privacy of Our Love,” though the latter has a tight little synthesized bit at the end to finish off the album. “One Pure Thought,” on the other hand, jumps out at you – just like “Ready for the Floor” – and keeps your head bobbing along with the beat for the whole track. A light melody mixes with a heavier grind through the middle of the song, with enjoyable results.

My personal favorite, though, is “Wrestlers.” Appropriate lyrics, themed after – you guessed it – wrestling, contrast against a jovial melody and slow beat; the song is just fun to listen to. Short bits of quick rap fit appropriately in-between longer melodies and singing. The song even gets its little bit of electronica in midway with rewound and reversed lyrics.

The rest of the songs fit right in with the course of the whole the album, though may overuse synthesized sound and nifty sound tricks in place of really enjoyable melodies and beats. But that’s the hook for Hot Chip, and die-hard fans of electric music and those apathetic to it will enjoy the album all the same. The songs mesh well with the rest of the album, for a polished product overall.

Made in the Dark lacks some of the really great sound from The Warning; I don’t hear any equivalents of the beautiful driving sound of “Boy from School” or the rough funky beat of “Tchparian.” However, the style of “Wrestlers” does match, if not defeat, the incredible contrast of lighthearted sound and threatening lyrics of “The Warning,” and “Out at the Pictures” and “Ready for the Floor” pick up right where The Warning left off. Made in the Dark is a step – albeit a small step – for Hot Chip; the album offers some new sound, mixed in well with some old sound. It will keep you bobbing your head and listening contently.

Review: Steel Train at Club Hell, 2/1/08

2008-02-02T16:12:00.000-08:00

I made the trek down to Club Hell last night to see Steel Train, who currently is headlining their own tour. To cope with the freezing rain and heavy winds, I filled my head with the melodies of Steel Train’s most recent album, Trampoline, in hopes of an energetic concert.

I made it in time to catch the tail end of Paper Rival’s set, having missed Stealing Jane’s set entirely. Their decent performance was interrupted on a few occasions by technical difficulties, delaying a show that was already running quite late. They had the musical talent to make for a good show, but the depressing tone of the music, vocals especially, and the entirely lack of subtlety in the drumming detracted from the performance.

Next up was Person L. A beautiful first song led into a solid set, marred by intermittent, out-of-place, sort-of grungy songs. The percussion and guitar were composed eloquently together and flowed in and out of melodies and crescendos, meshing well with the keyboard, bass and vocals. They finished the set with a song with an entirely different sound, “Goodness Gracious,” which killed.

The show was already running really late. Person L had to cut their set short, and only played the last song at the request of Steel Train’s drummer, Jon Shiffman. Steel Train didn’t take the stage until shortly before the show was originally intended to end, and more technical difficulties delayed the start of their set for another ten minutes. We waited as Shiffman and bassist Evan Winiker fooled around, vamping and making jokes. Finally, they decided to start, despite an obnoxious hum from the amps and loud noise from the bar next door.

They jumped straight into the first track off of Trampoline, “I Feel Weird.” At first I was unsure of how their performance would be; Jack Antonoff vocals sounded different from the recorded tracks, and the music didn’t seem too tight. My concerns were immediately dispelled, however, as the band continued into their second song, “Black Eye.” The sound tightened up as the band loosened up; Shiffman’s drumming carried the sound as Antonoff and Winiker danced about, shoeless. Scott Irby-Ranniar, on keyboard, and Daniel Silbert, on guitar, were more stable figures, not moving much from the outer fringes of the stage, but they too seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Steel Train played straight through the first half of Trampoline. A crowd of 30 or 40 was there from the beginning, but as the night went on, it grew to around 100 strong, packed into the small space of Club Hell. Chants of Steel Train emanated from the center of the crowd, and a few girls right behind me spent the entire show jumping up and down and rocking out. Halfway through the show, you could look around the room and see glowing faces smiling up at the band.

After reaching the midpoint of Trampoline with “A Magazine,” Steel Train broke out “Road Song” off of Twilight Tales from the Prairies of the Sun, with one acoustic guitar in Antonoff’s hands and the band crowded around a single microphone. They went from there into a Smashing Pumpkins cover which Antonoff seemed to forget the words of halfway through. It wasn’t a problem though; as soon as Antonoff stopped singing “1979,” the band started into “School is for Losers,” and the crowd ate it up. They ended with a bang, and as the concert had already gone way over the scheduled end-time, they promptly left the stage.

However, a resounding chant of “Steel Train!” silenced the bar’s announcer, and forced Steel Train back on stage for one last song. They brought the saxophonist from Stealing Jane with them, and began a song I didn’t recognize, but that I believe was a remixed version of “Twinkle Your Toes.” It gave Irby-Ranniar one of his few vocal parts of the night, which he performed very well. They began to improvise; solo followed solo, first bass, then sax, drums and finally Antonoff on guitar. The song was filled with a jazz-funk sound, different from the rest of their set, but the crowd loved it. The finale involved six or so would-be endings with ridiculous guitar and drum rhythms, over and over, until the song came to an end and the band said their goodbyes and left the stage. The show left me with a great feeling that kept me warm during the freezing, rainy walk home.

Setlist:
I Feel Weird
Black Eye
Kill Monsters in the Rain
Dakota
Alone on the Sea
Firecracker
A Magazine
Road Song (Acoustic)
1979 (Smashing Pumpkins Cover)
School is for Losers

Encore:
Twinkle Your Toes (?)

The Ministries

2008-01-13T21:02:00.000-08:00

This was from a series of graphics that I planned to print as stickers and post around. There was no particular aim behind this effort, nor was I trying to express a particular sentiment, political or otherwise. I never completely followed through with the project, though.

The series was inspired by the ministries in George Orwell's 1984.

Sublime vs. The Beatles Mashup

2008-01-06T22:40:00.000-08:00

Here's a mashup I've made using ACID Music 3.0. The songs are "Lady Madonna" by The Beatles and "What I've Got" by Sublime. Unfortunately, it seems the best way to share music I've made it to create a MySpace. Go figure. Here's the link:

www.myspace.com/djchasmm

Yeah, I made my DJ name DJ Chasm. Clever, huh?

Note from July 10, 2008: I have since learned that making mashups is hard, and that I got really lucky with this particular pairing. Look forward to more mashups in the future, when I better figure out how to make them using ProTools.

WBRU Birthday Bash 2007 Poster

2007-11-27T00:22:00.000-08:00

Here's my poster design for one of the five shows during our 38th "Birthday Month." This one was intended to be the one all the staff attended, but very few people showed up. I was unaware that graphics need to be approximately 300 px/in, so this actually printed slightly blurry.

It's consists of an image I took on a backpacking trip through the White Mountains in New Hampshire that I "cell shaded" in Flash, then edited in Photoshop.

Review: Third Eye Blind at The Ryan Center, 11/18/07

2007-11-21T14:58:00.000-08:00

You can get almost anyone who grew up in the 90s to go with you to a Third Eye Blind concert. When the possibility of seeing them at the Ryan Center arose, I knew a lot of people who wanted to go, and none were just casual fans – they each knew every word to every major song through their ten year career. Third Eye Blind had the large task of giving these fans a show that lived up to the expectations we had for a band that had been such a big part of our adolescence.

The Shorebirds opened the show. They were creative and fun, and for those of us that paid attention, they were a solid opening act. However, the majority of the audience was entirely oblivious to their performance; chatter filled the crowd as people recounted where they were the first time they heard “Semi-Charmed Life.”

From the moment Third Eye Blind entered the stage, they commanded the attention of the audience. Bassist Leo Kremer entered first and began playing, followed by drummer Brad Hargreaves, and then guitarist Tony Fredianelli. Finally, frontman Stephan Jenkins strolled on stage in a bright white suit. Those of us that had noticed the oriental rugs covering the stage now knew why; Stephan wasn’t wearing shoes. They began with “The Red Summer Sun” and powered through three songs while only the lights behind them were on, leaving them in silhouettes. “Wounded” brought everyone to their feet that wasn’t standing already, and at the breakdown of the song, the band was lit up and a huge sign behind them became illuminated, reading “THIRDEYEBLIND.”

At this point, I was a little worried. The white suit, oriental rugs, silhouettes and their name in huge, glowing letters all made me think that 3EB would put on a pretentious act, and lord their late 90s superstardom over the audience. In the end, I was completely wrong; what followed was the most personal concert I’ve ever seen in a (relatively small) stadium.

Some of what Stephan said during the show was confusing and borderline silly. He had a tendency to repeat everything he said at least three or four times, and had quotes like “we feed off [your] energy like vampires in the night,” “College is about experimenting, trying new things, in groups, with each other, in groups, trying new things…” and “when I think of us, I think of us [indicating the audience]” just to name a few. All of this connected well with the audience, though; we ate it up.

Stephan eventually took off his jacket to reveal a more casual (and less pretentious) t-shirt, and they brought a couch on stage to play “Deep Inside of You,” “Blinded,” and “Can’t Get Away.” Aside from a keyboard for “Deep Inside of You,” everyone played acoustic; they sat back on the couch, relaxed, and jammed.

The rest of the band left the stage momentarily while the couch was moved and Stephan introduced “Motorcycle Drive By.” He started the song calmly, and after the rest of the band came in, they built the song up brilliantly and had the whole crowd belting out the lyrics. They briefly calmed it down again, and then killed it with “Jumper” as a girl down the row from me leaned precariously over the balcony railing as if preparing to reenact the song as she shouted out the lyrics. Tony and Brad both had brilliant solos on guitar and drums respectfully, and the energy was flowing as they went to “1000 Julys” and then straight into “Semi Charmed Life.” The audience went wild and nearly covered up Stephan’s voice with their singing. 3EB said their thank you’s, busted out a short cover of what sounded like “Stairway to Heaven,” and then left the stage to thunderous applause.

Stephan came back on stage for the encore and jumped straight into “Slow Motion,” and brought the rest of the band up for the last three songs. The audience was entranced through it all, and 3EB had the added personal touch of playing the last song with flat house light on. They smiled, waved, and left us in awe of their performance.

Setlist: (Incomplete)
The Red Summer Sun

Crystal Baller
Wounded
Narcolepsy
Never let you go
Bonfire (new)
A Sharp Knife (new)
Graduate
Deep Inside of You
Blinded
Can’t Get Away
Motorcycle Drive By
Taste of Danger
Jumper
1000 Julys
Semi-Charmed Life

Encore:
Slow Motion
How’s it Going to be?
God of Wine
Misfits

Review: Bright Eyes at Lupo's, 11/17/07

2007-11-19T03:52:00.000-08:00

To be entirely honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Bright Eyes show this Saturday at Lupo’s. Upon walking in, I found an incredibly varied audience; older women and men filled the back while teenagers packed the front, an older woman and what looked like her young grandson looked on from behind me, and frat bro guys and emo girls stood side by side in a packed theatre in anticipation of frontman Coner Oberst’s arrival.

The show opened with Nik Freitas, followed by a sensational performance by The Felice Brothers. It was exciting to see a supporting act with more chemistry on stage than most lead acts, and their energy passed to the audience through resounding melodies on the accordion and trumpet. My excitement from their set only built my anticipation for Bright Eyes.

Finally, the band walked on stage, and opened with the calm sound of “An Attempt to Tip the Scales.” What followed was a strong set, occasionally interrupted by brief mistakes and intermittent noise from the audience. “Four Winds” sounded beautiful even without a fiddle, and “Poison Oak” was incredibly moving and heartfelt. Conor dedicated “Spring Cleaning” to his mother Nancy and promised to clean The Felice Brothers’ Winnebago next spring, and he and drummer Jason Boesel declared the Saturday before Thanksgiving to forever be “Providence Day.” Jason claimed this meant we should all get drunk after the show, and Conor followed by suggesting that we “get mean and beg for money.” They managed to command the audience’s attention with “Old Soul Song,” nearing the end of their set, but promptly lost that attention with “A Song to Pass the Time,” which was interrupted by a constant murmur from the crowd, before they left the stage.

Whatever intensity they lacked in the first set, Bright Eyes made up for in the five-song encore. They came back out with a bang and had the whole audience singing along to “Lover I Don't Have to Love,” and Conor entranced the audience with “Lua” after inviting his “brother from another mother,” James Felice, the accordion player from The Felice Brothers, to play with him. The Felice Brothers shared their incredible energy with Bright Eyes during covers of Neil Young and Tom Petty songs, and the audience’s excitement built up into the finale, the brand new song “Roosevelt Room,” a loud rock song that had the audience cheering along. Conor dropped his guitar, knocked over mic stands and tore down the drums as he left the stage with the sound of the audience screaming behind him. I was happy to discover that the concert defied expectation; they played a solid first set that unfortunately did not seem to grab the audience’s attention, only to lead into one of the most phenomenal encores I’ve ever seen.

Setlist:
An Attempt to Tip the Scales
Another Travelin’ Song
Four Winds
You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will.
Padraic My Prince
Arc of Time
Method Acting
If the Brakeman Turns My Way
Spring Cleaning
Bowl of Oranges
Poison Oak
Old Soul Song (For the New World Order)
A Song to Pass the Time

Encore:
Lover I Don't Have to Love
Lua
Walk On (Neil Young cover)
Walls (Tom Petty cover)
Roosevelt Room

The Root of All Human Action

2007-06-04T18:09:00.000-07:00

I subscribe to Maslow’s school of thought; we all have a hierarchy of needs. We need to be able to sustain ourselves before anything else; we must be able to eat, sleep and breathe. Then we must keep ourselves safe from injury, both physical and psychological. Then we have social needs; needs to have friends, community and love. Next we need to be respected by others and ourselves, and to be thought well of. Then we need (at this stage it’s more of a want) knowledge, then an aesthetically pleasing life and surroundings. Both of these seem to be a part of the final goal that Maslow prescribes to all of us: to self-actualize. This means to reach one’s fullest potential, in whatever way, and to be content with one’s life.

Sketches/Doodles

2007-05-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

Here are a few sketches I've done recently, mostly in class. None are particularly great, but it's fun to doodle. See the rest on my Deviantart page.

On What is Best for a Person

2007-04-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

I just had the opportunity to sit in on a lecture by Mark Epstein, a visiting psychotherapist from New York. He spoke on how he tries to use Buddhist philosophy and teachings to enhance his psychotherapy practice. His primary concern in the lecture was how Buddhist teachings tend to fit very well with Psychotherapeutic thoughts and practices, and he mentioned, to a great extent, his own impression of Buddhist teachings throughout his life. I was struck, by the end of the lecture, how esoteric his approach was, and was quick to ask how successful his method was, in comparison to other, more traditional approaches to psychotherapy (I suppressed the urge to ask why he thought we should apply a philosophy of a particularly collectivist culture to western, individualistic culture, and why he actually thought it would work). He responded that he had not subjected his practice to a study to determine how “successful” it was, in a scientific sense, in comparison to other practices, but that he found his clients to typically find his therapy helpful, useful, and all around successful.
I left the meeting thinking on this topic, and I was quick to discover that, in any important sense, he was successful. He had found a type of therapy that catered to a specific type of people, and it worked. Whether his therapy is any better than other types of therapy isn’t clear; his probably works best for people of a more collectivist disposition, while other types of therapy work better for other types of people. So what does this mean?

“Know thyself.” Socrates was a great thinker of his time, and this is one of his most famous quotes. And I think it really applies to this particular circumstance. Each method of therapy works for a different type of person. But what, then, does this mean?

Everybody has their own subjective view of the world. This is what all those Existentialists claimed, and I think it’s true. However, they had a hard time coming to grips with this; what does this imply for our idea of self? What should we do with our lives? Rogers came to believe that the best implication of this philosophy was that everybody has their own structure for evaluating their life, and all therapists have to do is affirm each clients own world view. He structured his therapy around this idea; therapy should press no interpretations or rules upon clients. Of course, this is probably the best approach for some people, but not others; part of some people’s world views is the idea that therapy, for themselves, should have some inherent structure, rules and implications.
Roger’s was wrong to claim that everyone is inherently good; not everybody, when left to their own world views, will do “good” things. That is, some people are inclined to steal, to kill, et cetera.

This all leads me to something I’ve been thinking for a while. Everybody is different, and no one way of thinking or doing is right or wrong. This may sound like a mere skeptic’s argument, but I think there is more to it than that. Yes, there is no inherent structure to the world; there is nothing that is inherently right or wrong, or good or bad. This even applies to ideas of self and reasoning; Descartes was not “right” to conclude that, because he is a thinking thing, he exists, and Buddhist philosophers are not “right” to conclude that there is no overall real self but only a collection of instances that are part of the whole world.

Existentialists, I think, have the right idea, but go about it in the wrong way. There is no objective reality, and we do have to apply our own meaning to the world, but it is not a process of discovering what our meaning is and what our self is. Rather, we already have our meaning; we are already living, we are already doing things that we want (and don’t want) to do.

If you were to ask me how you should live your life, I would tell you that you have to decide. “Know thyself.” My personal approach is to think about my life, but others, with different world views, may have a different approach. I would also say to do what makes you happy, but this also is not best for everybody; some people do not aim to be happy, and it is not what is best for them.

Rather, you should do whatever is best for you. If that means conceptualizing self in either an individualist sense or a collectivist sense, from Descartes’ point of view or from a Buddhist point of view, then that is right. If that means doing what you want to do right now, or doing what you think will be best for the future, or doing what will make others think of you in a certain way, then do that. If that means being alone and figuring out yourself through thought, or being with other people and figuring out yourself in a social environment, then that is the right thing to do for you.
If you want to work, work.
If you want to plan for the future, plan.
If you want to meditate, meditate.
If you want to do drugs and drink, do so.
If you want to kill people, kill people.
Of course, I don’t condone such action, and our society will punish you for doing so. But I’m not going to discuss here what is the best way of organizing society, culture or government.

In psychology, they discuss how successful therapy is by evaluating how much the client thinks he has improved, how much the therapist thinks the client has improved, how much the client’s peers think he has improved, and, in some cases, how much his actual behavior has changed. I think that this is a poor criterion for success. Rather, therapy is successful if, and only if, the client thinks that he has improved, as the primary aim of therapy is to help the client to get whatever they want. If a client has OCD, he could improve by either eliminating such behavior, or by coming to think of OCD as a fundamental part of who he is. If the latter is the case, what is best for him is to remain obsessive-compulsive, even though his behavior, his peers and possibly even his therapist will claim that the therapy was unsuccessful.

So I think, in the end, that Epstein has the right idea. For some people, it is best to have therapy with a Buddhist orientation. For other people, other types of therapy, behavior, and thought are best for them.

“Know thyself.” Know what is best for you.

A Brief Collection of Thoughts

2007-01-25T23:46:00.000-08:00

“Self improvement is masturbation.” I like that quote. I’ll have to write more extensively on it at some point. Suffice it to say, self improvement is derived from a desire to be better, that is, to feel better about one self, or to feel pleasure. Masturbation is derived from a desire for pleasure. When you attempt self improvement, you’re merely attempting to achieve more pleasure, i.e. masturbating.

This is poor philosophy Chas. We know that the root of all desire is not the desire for pleasure, but rather a desire for things, that when we achieve the desire, we feel pleasure upon having achieved it.

Nonetheless, self improvement is a futile exercise aimed at making one feel better about oneself. I.e. pleasure. I.e. masturbation.

I like Socrates. Some philosophers desire to prove everything on the basis of nothing. Attempts to prove that one exists, that a pencil exists, that rationality is the right way to go. The truth is, Socrates was right in saying “I know nothing,” because every proof depends on premises, and eventually we have to assume, not know, that the premises are true.

Leave the messy philosophy of existence and the mind to the cretins. Let’s deal with some hard, practical philosophy (oxymoron, no?) based on premises most of us would assume to be true.

“I am thinking, therefore I exist.” I disagree with Descartes statement. Not the existence part, but rather the concept of a consistent “I.” In studies of psychology, we find that no one is always consistent. Some people are more consistent than others – a trait can actually be measured, called person consistency – but nonetheless, put in different situations, people will invariably act inconsistently at some point. This is especially evident in extreme circumstances – take Zimbardo’s prison experiment as an example.

What does this mean for us as people? Are we doomed to inconsistency? Well, yes, but all that means is we need to be flexible to change. This doesn’t mean changing your “person consistency;” you can be as consistent or inconsistent as you like, neither is better or worse in any definite sense. Rather, it means that, when you are inconsistent, it’s alright. It’s a part of life (this could be easily questioned in terms of morality, but we will leave morality out of this particular discussion).

I once told someone: Don’t expect something to be good, because then you will be let down. Don’t expect something to be bad, because then you’ll make it bad in your mind. Rather, hope that it will be good, but don’t expect anything of it. That way, if it’s good, you’ll be pleased, and if it’s bad, you didn’t get what you hoped for, but that’s fine too.

This applies in some ways to our discussion. Don’t expect to be consistent, because you’ll be let down when you’re not. Don’t expect to be inconsistent, because then you will be. Rather, hope to be consistent, and if you aren’t, that’s fine too.

I notice a distinct bias here towards being consistent. But I think that’s fair. We all want to believe that we are people, ourselves, and not mere pawns whose actions are determined entirely be circumstance.

So what does this mean for one’s own philosophy (here, taken to mean one’s own style of living, what is important to oneself, and what one believes)? Well, it’s subject to change. So what was an important factor to your world view a few years may play a small role now. And what’s important now may change into something new in only a matter of time. There is never an ending point; the world is always changing, and so are we. As Tyler Durden said, “never be complete.”

But this has further implications. Often people will attempt to find pervading themes throughout life. Sometimes these relate to what is most important (being devout, being happy, being without desire, being observant) or the way the world is (people are naturally good, people are naturally id, or metaphors like “life is like a box of chocolates” or life is like a game of poker). The truth is, we only find these pervading themes because we are looking for them; we adjust the way we perceive the world to fit with our pervading theme, rather than the opposite. Really, there are no pervading themes, as the world is always changing. What is true now may not be true in the next moment. In fact:
“I am not the same person from one moment to the next. The world is not the same world from one moment to the next.” – me

Living Life Like a Movie

2007-01-10T03:36:00.000-08:00

This is a phrase I came up with over the past summer to describe a particular feeling, the feeling that actions or events have some life pervading significance. Living life like a movie. What exactly does that mean?

Sometimes there are short-term events in your life that do have a lifelong effect. The primary example I can think of is the death of someone very close to you. But most other events either do not have life long significance or are a long time coming. So, graduating from high school, or college, or graduate school, is a life changing event, but you spend many years of your life preparing for each of those events, and it takes years to experience, in full, their consequences. Same with moving to a different place. When I describe something as “living life like a movie,” it cannot apply to events like these.

What of winning the lottery, or some other chance, short-term event? Ironically, although such events often do change lifestyle, they don’t often change one’s long-term emotions. You can’t buy happiness, as they say. Depressing events, such as losing the ability to walk, or losing a loved one, can have life long emotional effects, though.

So what is living life like a movie? It is when you apply a certain significance to an event that, really, is not so significant. You see events like this in the movies all the time, though they really are significant. The boy catches the girl before she reaches the plane, and they kiss, and that’s the end. They, presumably, live happily ever after. That conversation over dinner that changed the whole course of the movie. The good guy’s eventual defeat of the villain. Et cetera.

These events parallel events in our own lives, and in the movies they have great significance. In our lives, they don’t. The boy may catch that girl, but two weeks from now they’ll be arguing over some trifle of an event. Or maybe the girl will break up with the boy and move onto another guy, and the event will lose any and all significance. Or maybe they’ll stay together, but their minds will wander, and the happiness and excitement of that moment will be lost.

Or, more often than not, one person will apply significance to an event that another person does not. That conversation over dinner may seem very significant and even relationship changing to the girl, but the guy doesn’t notice or care. Then there’s the awkward moment when the girl recalls the moment with a certain sentimentality that the guy does not share.

When you live life like a movie, that is what you’re doing. When you chase the girl out the door to kiss her, thinking that that will be the turning point of your relationship, you’re living life like a movie. When you drive out to see the guy in the middle of the night, expecting a significant and relationship changing conversation, you’re living life like a movie.

The problem is that movies are simple. There is a conflict, and a resolution. As it is this simple, one conversation, one battle, one kiss, can lead to the resolution. When the best friend of the guy finally kisses him, the conflict is resolved; either he loves her too, or he doesn’t. Life, unfortunately, is never that simple. The conflict is always more complicated, and there is never a cure-all resolution. We’re also cursed with an emotional amnesia of sorts; no matter how significant and emotional an event may have been last night, we will wake up the next morning and not feel the same. We’ll be distracted by other events in our lives, and we’ll never really be able to fully relive the feeling of the moment the night before.

Hand, in Pastel

2006-10-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite drawing from my art class (VA10). It was entirely different from anything else I did (in pastel) in the class - I felt like I took a greater risk with it, and I really like how it turned out. Interestingly, my teacher didn't care much for it.

Done in pastel.

The Statue Man

2006-09-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

For as long as I could remember, the man had stood there. He stood completely still, at the center of the town square, with a look of awe on his face. He always wore the same brown pants, the same white shirt, and the same striped tie. He never got older, never got dirty or gathered dust, and never looked tired. I swear I never saw the square without him standing there, and he never once moved.

In a way, I always felt connected to him, the Statue Man.

I spent my whole life in that town. It was the kind of place where everybody knew everyone, and where some man arbitrarily standing somewhere really stuck out. The town spanned only a few square miles, and as a kid I would walk from my house, through the square, to school.

In grade school I made quite a few friends, but I always valued learning new things over social activities, which prevented me from really being popular. After school I’d often hang out with my friends; most days we’d go to the park and play, though sometimes, especially as we got older, we’d ride our bikes around town and play little jokes and pranks on people. On occasion, we’d get ice cream in the square, sit on the curb, and throw pebbles at the Statue Man while we ate. Someone would always make a joke about how the Statue Man looked a little like me, and I’d throw my pebbles extra hard. But no matter what, he never moved or even flinched; the rocks simply bounced off him.

We tried talking to him, too. Sometimes we’d try to innocently start a conversation, but more often we’d think of crude things to yell at him to see how he’d react. It became a game – who could come up with the worst thing to say – but he never once acknowledged us. Most adults didn’t bother to talk to him; he’d never responded before and wasn’t going to any time soon. Occasionally someone new would move into town, and everyone would have a good laugh when he would try to introduce himself to the Statue Man.

By the time high school came around, my friends were getting into more and more extreme pranks and illicit activities. I worried too much when I was with them, and I began to hang out with them less and less. Although I now had fewer friends than ever before, I was provided with more time to study mathematics and science. I was quickly becoming obsessed; I wanted to learn everything there was to know about time, space and the universe.

Late in my high school career, I met my first girlfriend. She wasn’t interested in physics – she loved history instead – but, nonetheless, we got along well. We’d spend a lot of time wandering around the town, and we’d always see the Statue Man in the square. Sometimes I’d throw some pebbles for old time’s sake, but she’d always get mad and hit me.

Senior year left me with little free time and fun, but in the end I was accepted to one of the best science and technology schools around. I packed my bags and said goodbye to the little town where I’d lived my whole life. On one of the last days that I saw my friends, I had the nerve to, on a dare, give a goodbye hug to the Statue Man. He didn’t move.

In college, I got my first exposure to psychology and neurology. I also continued my studies in physics and math, and stayed in school an extra year to learn as much as possible. A professor, in my fifth year, introduced me to the effect of human perception on space and time – a connection I’d been searching for for a long while. I had the opportunity to research the topic with him, and our results suggested that humans could potentially perceive time and space differently than we do now, with only minor changes to our mental wiring. It looked as though our brains could be changed so that we could see the world in four dimensions, and possibly control and warp space and time. However, our evidence was rather sparse. The research merely suggested the possibility; it was far off from proving that it could really happen.

I often look back on those five years as the best time in my life, and in many ways my life went downhill after graduation. I couldn’t continue onto graduate school and get my doctorate in science as my family needed my support at home, so I moved back in with my parents while I tried to find a suitable job and a place to live. As much as I would have loved to get a research position somewhere, I couldn’t without a doctorate, so I was forced into taking a job in management at a small business in town. I rented an apartment and began the long drudge through the rest of my life.

I woke up in my late twenties having not moved an inch. I still lived in the small town – it seemed tiny now – and I still had the same management position. I saw all the people I’d known since grade school, and some still made fun of me for looking like the Statue Man. Yes, he was still there; he still wore the same brown pants, white shirt and striped tie, and the same look of awe. It was a little frustrating, as he did look like me, and he had a look of optimism while I was growing more and more pessimistic.

Not everything was bad, though. I’d managed to buy a small house and I had a growing bank account. I also picked up where I’d left off with my high school girlfriend, and we were now living together. I’d often tell her about my plans for the future, how I’d one day make it to graduate school, and then get a position teaching and doing research somewhere far off and exotic for us small town folk. I’d take her with me and we’d live a happy life together.
I guess that always was just a fantasy…

One day I woke up groggy from a poor night’s sleep. It was raining out; I never did like the rain much. I put on my suit, had a short breakfast, and headed off for work. My boss greeted me at the door and invited me into his office. I sat down excitedly; maybe I was finally going to get the raise I’d been waiting for. My optimism was quickly struck down; I was being laid off. The economy was getting worse, he explained, and they just couldn’t afford to keep me. It had nothing to do with my recent performance, he assured me. And then he sent me out the door.

I stumbled through the rain and my vision began to blur. I somehow made it home, drenched, and walked in the door just as the rain began to taper off. I was greeted, unhappily, by my girlfriend; apparently she hadn’t slept well either. I told her the news, and for a while she simply returned my stare, stunned. Then she began shouting. Something about my incessant planning for the future, and how even that wasn’t going to work out now, and what the fuck was wrong with me anyways, and so on. I didn’t really hear her. She slammed the door on her way out.

I didn’t know what to do. I took of my sopping jacket, dropped it aimlessly on the floor and stumbled about the house in a daze. I’m not sure how long it took, but I eventually found my way outside, and began wandering, in a stupor, about town.

When I came to my senses, I was in the town square, crouched on the curb sobbing. Through the drying tears, I looked up at the Statue Man. He really did look like me. He even, I realized, was wearing the same brown pants, white shirt and striped tie as me. But where I had a look of pain and anguish, he wore and expression of optimism and awe. As I dwelled on this thought, my sadness began to turn sour. Years of anger and frustration built up in my chest, and my pulse began to race. Fuck him! Fuck this Statue Man! How dare he be my twin and yet be so happy at the moment of my deepest despair. I rose to my feet and started toward him, and it didn’t take long for my legs to lose control and break into a run. I raised my fist, ready to strike. And just as I reached him…

I slipped.

It must’ve been a puddle, left over from the rain. My heart sank even before I hit the floor. My head landed first, with a deafening thud, and I was out cold.

I came to, shortly after, in a daze.

I pulled myself to my feet. I couldn’t really see straight.

It all happened in an instant. First, I noticed the Statue Man was gone. I had never seen the square without him.

But, then again, I’d never seen the square as it was now.

I looked, in awe, as I saw the square at all times. I saw myself as a child, throwing pebbles, though I couldn’t feel them hit me. I saw my teenage self, very happy and content with my girlfriend. And I saw myself only a few moments ago, depressed and downtrodden, crying at the edge of the street.

I saw the square being built, right underneath my feet, and I saw when it finally disappeared from the ravages of time.

I saw the blackness of the beginning of time. I saw the emptiness of its end.

I saw my future.

I saw how I picked myself up after this catastrophic day, how I got a new job and a new girlfriend and eventual wife. I saw how I slowly became successful. And I saw when I suddenly stopped showing up in the square; I had moved on to a new and hopefully better home and life.

I also saw myself come back to visit the town, on occasion. Sometimes I’d throw pebbles, for old time’s sake.

It was only an instant, but it lasted forever.

I took a step forward, back into the present, and walked away.

ACID Music, DJ Krasher, and Music from Pre-Made Loops

2006-07-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

Back in 2002, I was introduced to ACID Music, a program used to mix together different tracks of music. The program came equipped with hundreds of short loops of music that you could combine into songs. I made eight songs in total, and four of them are available here:

www.myspace.com/krasher

If you'd like to hear the rest, please let me know and I can send you copies or something.

Myspace was the best place I could find (at the time) to host this music. I created my own DJ name - DJ Krasher - as I used "Krasher" as an alias online, especially for AIM. (Note from July 2008: I later took up the DJ name DJ Chasm, a name I think to be significantly more clever)

To put this in perspective, I was 13 or 14 years old at the time.

(Note #2: You'll find links to old websites I used to maintain on that page, including a link to my old Myspace, a link to another blog, and a link to my Deviantart, all of which are entirely abandoned.)

Fear

2006-05-31T21:46:00.000-07:00

At that moment, I knew something was different. The pavement was hot on my back and the sun was burning through my eyelids. I could faintly hear sirens somewhere in the distance. But none of that really mattered. In fact, nothing mattered. I could do whatever I wanted now. There was nothing preventing me, no little voice in the back of my head telling me to be afraid or to worry. I smiled.

This wasn’t a transformation or an awakening.

There was nothing symbolic in what was happening.

There is nothing.

And when you know that, when you really know it, you can be free.

* * *

I collapsed onto the bed. The paper fell out of my hand and lay still on the sheet a few inches from my face. Finally, after several weeks, the fear had subsided – finals had been taken, grades had been assigned, semester reports had been printed – and I lay there with four A’s at my side. I sighed. What a relief.

For now, I guess.

After all, I only had a few days until my internship began, and then I’d have to worry about that. It would be a lot of work, too; of course I could handle it, but that had never been the problem. It was that underlying worry that I might fail; that feeling of impending doom. I also would worry about my coworkers. I would have to be nice, as I wouldn’t want to make them mad or hurt their feelings.

Damn it, I thought, I told myself not to think about that. But it was too late now. That serene feeling of relaxation was gone, and nothing could be done about it.

I pulled myself up and squinted through the brightly lit window at the crowded quad below. Students shouting and smiling, generally glad to be done. I turned back into my dim room. My roommate had already cleaned out most of his belongings, but the room was still cluttered with my junk; the school was kind enough to let me stay in the dorm for the duration of my internship.

I rubbed my eyes and slowly ran my hands back through my hair. I couldn’t rest now, not with the “impending doom” on my back. I needed coffee. I leaned forward onto my feet and headed out the door.

I jingled the keys as I made my way to the parking lot. I had work to do soon, work that I needed to do to the best of my ability, and that thought took a lot out of me.
I stopped. Why did it need to be to the best of my ability?

I reached my car, unlocked it, and sat down inside. Why did I need to work so hard? Well, I’d always worked hard. That’s just “what you do.” I’d missed out on a few things; being popular, going to parties, having a girlfriend… I’d never had time to do any of these things.
I snapped back into the real world. Coffee. I needed coffee. I was getting in one of my moods again, and I had to suppress it. I started the car and pulled out of the lot.

Was it worth it?

Shit, nice job suppressing it. But really, was it worth it? Was I happy? Had all this hard work gotten me what I’d wanted? I was successful, that was for sure. Straight A’s had accompanied me all through high school, along with a plethora of extracurricular activities. Every college I applied to had tried to win me over as my application made is sound as though I’d save the world. And being kind and respectful to everyone had always helped boost my image and make a few friends. No matter what I felt on the inside, it was always best to put up a façade of happiness to brighten others’ days.

But did this make me happy? The work had been a pain in the ass, and going to a prestigious college didn’t make me any happier; in fact, it meant more work.

I flew by the coffee shop. I hadn’t realized it, but I was speeding.

What was to come after college? More work. I’d work my ass off in college to get a good job, and work there to get a better one. I’d have to work up until I retired, and then there’d be nothing left to do but waste away my hard earned money while I waited to die.

I pulled onto the freeway. Where was I going?

Being kind to others hadn’t helped me either. I always had to bite my lip when someone said something that offended me, as I didn’t want to be mean. When I got depressed I would never let myself appear so, and so no one could ever help me. In fact, I hadn’t really made friends; I’d made associates. Nobody ever knew who I really was because I never revealed my true self. I was too afraid of hurting the feelings of others.

Fear. It was fear.

I was too afraid to fail, whether academically or socially. Or at life in general. But, because of my fear of failure, I had failed. I failed to be happy, I failed to do what I wanted, and I failed to live my life.

I was in the fast lane, zooming down the freeway.

What was so great about success? Why did it even matter? Why did anything matter? I’d spent so much time trying to plan out what would make me happy that I’d forgotten to be happy. I’d come up with so many factors that contributed to my well-being, but really, none of them mattered. I was a smart guy. I knew what would make me happy. Why worry about all the little things?

I sighed. I took my foot off the petal and the needle began to drop – 90, 80, 70…

Right now, the key to happiness was to lose all fear. Without fear, I’d be free to live my life however I wanted.

I took a deep breath, and swung the wheel to the left.

I couldn’t even hear myself scream.

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