Tag Archive for 'Music'

Playing music again

Published on January 22, 2012 in Music. 0 Comments Tags: , .

After trying to hook up with musicians, with very little real luck, over the past couple years, I have finally found a group to play with. It feels great. It’s very different… we practice at a rented practice space, I haven’t used my own amp once, I’m fumbling a bit trying to remember the songs and haven’t really had a chance to be very creative with my parts, we’ve played a show and are currently in a studio recording, and that seems fast, since I just started playing with them in November, but maybe it’s not. I had some control over the decision about when we were ready to record, in past bands, and some input on when we were show-ready, in other bands, but I’ll probably always feel not-quite-ready for any kind of debut with a new group, because of the extreme amount of practice time that went into all those musical groups that I was in during school.

The band’s name is Lutz. Shows will be on my calendar. ReverbNation & Facebook. As I said, we’re in the studio, so there will be samples with me on them very soon!

Work AND play? or just more work…

Published on March 19, 2010 in Music and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , .

The long breaks between seasons make me nervous; When the new season begins, my confidence in my ability to do my job is completely deflated. Right now, we’re a few weeks into the season, and I not only KNOW that I am damn good at my job, but I’ve been doing it long enough that I should be teaching other people how to do it or running my own program or both. It reminds me of the time right after my Dad died, when I was nervous every day I had to go to work that I would just break down and not be able to focus enough to get through the day. I managed to get through every day, back then, and the only thing that I couldn’t keep up with was playing in bands. I’m not sure, now, if I just needed the time I was devoting to music to relax and decompress or if playing was actually more mentally demanding than working. Maybe it was both. I miss playing music, I want to play again… but when I feel so insecure at the beginning of each season of work, I wonder if I really have the focus to pull both off again. It’s just like all those classes, when I was in school. I feel like I can do one very well, but if I try to do all of it, I’ll end up doing them all half-assed… is this just pre-season jitters? Will I suddenly remember how good I am at being in a band a couple weeks in? Will my work or my music suffer from trying to do both at the same time? Sometimes I feel like taking some shitty office job that I don’t care about and wouldn’t have to try hard at, just so I can focus on the rest of my life. The money would certainly be more stable… but would I go crazy if I didn’t enjoy and believe in my job? I certainly felt crazy when I worked at TelecomNOW; I had to give up caffeine just to stay grounded. And I took on the Wormtown.org project while I was working there. Not only did it help me keep my sanity, by being something I believed was worth doing, but it kept me connected to the music scene, so that when The Overtones stopped playing, it wasn’t hard for me to find another band to play with. I don’t feel confident enough to try for any drastic changes… find or start an organization I believe in that I could work for full-time, all year or make a living with music by building up my chops and getting back to the point where I could sight-read and do studio work… I’d be happy, but they seem unrealistic or unattainable. I definitely feel pressure to do more, though. That is my point, I either need to do more of the work that I’m doing, that I love, or I need to do more of something else… music or something. I don’t think I’d ever feel this insecurity or lack of confidence if I didn’t have these huge breaks.

checking off old tasks

Published on September 7, 2009 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , .

Getting some stuff done in my seasonal break… including some stuff that’s been on the list for a while. I upgraded wordpress to the latest version last night. Seems that all the other social media sites have made the blog one of the last things I focus on, but it’s nice to be up to date. Still got some car stuff left to check off… and of course the stuff to buy section of the list, which includes a new wallet, watch and phone. Anyway, still enjoying my time off, even if I have gotten on a productive kick here and there.

In case you missed it. I made a silly, random tumblr called backsofpeople.tumblr.com and inserted it into the bottom of the right column of fashiondisaster.org. I made it open to submissions, too. I figure that I’m not the only one who goes through my photos and finds a bunch that I’d put up if they weren’t so monopolized by a view of someone’s back.

I was also approached by a band on Bandmix that needs a bass player, but the audition songs make me thing that I would not like playing in this group… it’s basically country. I thought I specifically said that I’d prefer not to do country in my profile somewhere, but I guess they can’t read. I should’ve known when they mentioned a Wynonna Judd song but said it was by Winona Ryder.

busy summer, as usual

Published on July 12, 2009 in Computers, Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Camp is going well. I’m taking lots of pictures, again, but we haven’t made any decisions about where to put them, yet. If any go online publicly, I’ll be sure to post a link. I bought a timbuk2 backpack to help alleviate some near-constant back pain. It’s a great bag and quite comfortable. I still love my big messenger bag, but I’ll save it for team-building programs.

I’m also back to trains and other public transportation for the summer and have been listening to a lot of music (and Half-Blood Prince, lately, in preparation for the movie). I like how the commute in the summertime gives me a chance to reconnect with my music collection. I’d still love to replace my phone (which still turns itself off quite a bit) and my iPod and the GPS with one device… but I don’t know if I should wait for the Garmin phones to come out or just cave in and get an iPhone. So I’m still nursing my phone along and carrying both.

The wedding and trip out to Maine  was fun. I haven’t really had a chance to go through those pictures and pick out the best ones yet, but again, I’ll post a link, when I do. I don’t think I have another day off until camp is over… though, I may take a Saturday, next week or the week after. I’m LOVING my Macbook pro. I haven’t completely set myself up on it and decided what programs I’m going to use for photo work and web work to replace my windows favorites (Paint Shop Pro and Homesite 5.5). It’s an awesome piece of hardware, and I’ve already used it to do some stats work for adventure ed. and it was almost a pleasant experience. I’ve definitely gotten used to the trackpad and the multi-touch-ness.

I’m also eating a little healthier. When I’m picking out meals, I constantly think of the Dead Milkmen song “nutrition,” which is fun to hum, but it’s kind of a silly song. I’ll get more into the reasons for this sudden health-consciousness when I’ve completely wrapped my head around it.

I like vans.

Published on April 5, 2009 in Family & Friends. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I helped Doug pick up a new van, yesterday. It was a lot of work, since it had a wheelchair lift in it, that we didn’t need and therefore, had to remove. I haven’t driven it yet, but I’m sure it’ll make the memories come flooding back. The most recent van memories are of the big passenger vans that I drove for the Y. Some of them were just big 15 passenger vans with a school bus sign slapped on top, and others were a little more bus-like, with rubber floors and an aisle. Whether it was bring kids to after-school day care from school or to a field trip for camp, they were always fun to drive.

bigvan My fondest van memories are attached to the van that I owned: the big red van that we moved The Overtones around in. I paid the same price for that van that Doug paid for his, yesterday: $2,000. It had a huge rack welded to the top of it; the owner swore that it would hold anything I could get up there. On the back of the rack, there were some super bright flood-lights that were fun for freaking out tailgaters. It was the perfect size for the band. There were two big bench seats in the back and room for a third, but no hook-ups… this translated into plenty of room for amps, guitars and drums. We usually took one seat out, so we wouldn’t have to stack the equipment too high.

I kept on driving it after that band fizzled. I remember loaning out my services as van and driver to a friends band a couple times. The craziest van memories include the time I was carpooling home from the tech job in Marlborough, when a crazed cop pulled us over and decided to search the entire van for drugs. I think he found some rolling papers in Sands’ bag. We just hung out by the police cruiser with the other officer, whom we lovingly referred to as “back-up,” and stared in wonder as he tore through every inch of the beast. I think he broke the handle on my sliding door, too. oops A few months after I downgraded to a station wagon, I borrowed the van from my Dad, to help move my friend Becky back to Charlton, from NYC. I knew Dad was a little hard on vehicles, but the van had stayed pretty strong when I owned it, so I trusted it to handle this move. We made it all the way down to the city, got it loaded and then got all the way back up to Massachusetts, off the highway, to within 5 miles of Becky’s house, and the right front universal joint let go. The wheel slammed into the back of the wheel well and we stopped dead. It happened while taking a corner at 4 or 5 miles per hour or less… had it happened on the 150 miles of highway between NYC and Charlton, we’d have likely flipped and/or rolled and died. We had several hours to contemplate our luck as we sat around and watched tow truck drivers scratch their heads. The first tow truck driver showed up with a regular truck, took one look at the situation and realized that it wasn’t going to be simple at all. The next guy showed up with a flatbed, and we still had to use a couple hydraulic jacks in place of the useless wheel. I think we moved all of Becky’s stuff to a couple other vehicles, in between tow truck drivers.

Dad had taught me how to listen and feel for unusual noises and vibrations that might be signs of trouble… and yet, in the few months that he had driven the van around, since inheriting it from me, he had managed to ingore any signs that there was trouble. And he had plenty of experience with vans… we owned no less than 4 or 5 while he was operating his Pressed4Time franchise pressed4time (corporate dry cleaning pickup and delivery service). I don’t remember getting the first van, but when he grew his route too large to handle himself, he hired a couple of guys and we went van shopping. I remember buying this enormous conversion van. It had a wooden bench in the back with the kind of cushion you’d find on patio furniture and some sort of bed-contraption in the middle, I think. I thought it was so cool. I was fairly sad when it got the standard white paint job and the clothes racks and support beams were installed in place of the bed-thing. If I had a day off (or faked sick to take a day off), I’d ride around in the back of one of the vans, rolling around with the clothes, all day, popping into some of the offices with Dad and helping carry clean clothes in and bags of dirty clothes out. I definitely preferred hanging out in the back of the vans than going into the super-hot dry cleaners at the end of the run.

Yesterday was a long day, but so much of it stirred up fond memories. I guess it’s the nature of vans, being so versatile, that you always have some custom attachments that you may or may not need… and you do a bit of converting and customizing, yourself.

Movies and Music

Published on March 15, 2009 in Family & Friends and Music. Closed Tags: , .

Reviews:

Watchmen. I read the comic book graphic novel on the Monday before it was released and saw the Movie on the following Sunday. I will say, first and foremost, that the movie captured most of the visual style and the mood and tone extremely well. I liked the realist take on what superheroes might actually be. —– SPOILERS —-> The premise of an alien attack, even a really good-looking faked one, bringing the entire world together is a pretty strong concept. I wasn’t entirely happy with the vilifying of Dr Manhattan and the additional irony/nuclear allegory  thrown into the storyline with the whole “trying to recreate his power and then having it used as a weapon” concept. I think the faked alien attack would have been stronger, it was far more psychological weapon, even with it’s lower death-toll. —– END SPOILERS —– I also think the mid 80s setting has much more meaning with people of my age and older. Without some research into the political climate of the times, a lot of references would go over younger peoples’ heads. Still a strong movie, though, just a little watered down.

I Love You, Man. Got a couple free passes to a “sneak preview” last week. This one comes out in a couple weeks and I recommend you see it… especially if you like a slightly raunchy comedy. We may have to see it again, we were laughing so hard at some of the dialogue that we missed two or three more lines, which were probably just as funny.

The Decemberists – Hazards of Love. I got a chance to hear this one early and was impressed. I’m not a huge Decemberists fanboi or anything, but I have a couple of their older albums on my ipod. Their musicianship and arrangements are always interesting; I’ve never given the lyrics a thorough listen… but that’s just the way I’ve listened to music, since about the time I started playing music myself. The single for this album caught my attention, since it was such a different style for them. It had much more bite, and lyrics that even drew me in. This album really is, as the buzz insinuates, a Rock Opera. After a very slow build-up (the first couple of tracks) it’s got a healthy dose of “Arena Rock” style… which was really unexpected, but fits with the classic rock operas. There’s still plenty of that classic Decemberists vocal interval, but instead of seeming redundant, it just strengthens the rock opera feel. There are plenty of other recurring musical themes. The almost cliche-sounding guitar solos, organ solos and sometimes simply the choice of effects are almost a recurring theme to themselves. Whatever you call it, it sounds like it was fun to play, and from what I’ve heard of the lyrics, it sounds like a strange little story, too.

We had a Transporter movie marathon at the house yesterday (I did end up taking the day off)… and I can review all three of those in about one word: redonkulous. …which is not to say that they aren’t fun to watch… but you can only cram so many over-the-top car stunts, gun stunts and striptease-fights into one sitting before your brain turns into twinkie filling.

proud of Woonsocket

Published on September 26, 2008 in Family & Friends and Photo. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

marinadeI really meant to blog more from back east. I’ve had a draft sitting here since before Sarah and her mom joined me out there, but I don’t think I logged back in after they got there, and we came back right before I started work, so things have been fairly busy. Today is a real day off, though. There’s some sort of testing this week that throws off all the school schedules, so here I am, with some free time. Yesterday was a day off, too, but most of the day was occupied by the Mazda dealership and the crazy extended warranty people. I just finished preparing some pork for tomorrow’s dinner. It’s marinating, now… while I was cutting the meat, Sarah noticed that the marinade had separated. It reminds me of Jell-O 1-2-3. They don’t make that anymore, which is too bad. I remember liking it. Enjoy the picture. I’ve posted a few other pictures from the trip at Flickr in a set called Back East 2008.  I think we need to come up with more creative names for these trips. It was a good trip though, action-packed and fun-filled. Without further ado, here are some of my thoughts and reactions and recaps of it:

I did a lot of wandering around in between my grandfather’s funeral and the day Sarah and her Mom arrived. I didn’t make a checklist this time, I sort of winged it. I missed Putnam and Providence and Western Mass, as well as Sara and Drew, but I’ll try and make it up to them over the holidays or something. The most impressive changes were in Woonsocket. I drove around most of town on one of my first free days, while doing some errands.

Improvements since I lived in Woonsocket:

Starbucks: closed
Tim Hortons: opened a second location, with a drive-thru
Main St: more than half of the storefronts were occupied and open

Also, the Game Stop had a Wii Fit in stock.

I caught up with some people and did a little sightseeing around Worcester & Millbury and Webster & Dudley. I ate at Jimmy’s pizza, played Werewolves of London on the jukebox. I did some shopping for New England treats at a Market Basket (where I found the Coffee Milk on the same shelf as all the other milks). I helped Mom start to remake her living room and move beds around.

The girls arrived on Saturday night, right in the middle of what was left of the storm Hanna. They survived their long drive, though, and I was very proud of them. Sarah’s posted a pretty good recap of the first couple days at her livejournal. We saw some family, toured through Plymouth, hit King Richard’s Faire and then went to NYC and played tourist some more; visited the Statue of Liberty and ground zero and a good deli.

Tuesday, we had a little more rain, so we kept it local and did some indoor-type activities. We started with breakfast at Carl’s Diner in Oxford. The serving size has not gone down. We sat at the counter, for the maximum effect. I don’t believe we ate another real meal for the whole day. We did hit Friendly’s for some ice cream, that evening. I believe that was also the day we took in some Candlepin bowling at Mohegan in Webster. It’s still kind of a dive, but its charm is intact.

Wednesday, we met Mom in Worcester, after dropping my car off at the Mazda dealership for an oil change (and to look into the weirdness it went through on the drive out there). We headed to Lexington to visit the historic Battle Green, visited the cemetery where my Dad and my Grandfather are and then met up with Mom’s friend Joyce at Bruegger’s Bagels for lunch. I hadn’t had a Herbie Turkey in a long time, and it was very tasty. Then we drove downtown and walked around Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall, had some cream puffs and then went to my cousin Mark’s place, in Braintree, for dinner. Mark made us pick records to play, and then made us play his XBox 360 and his Playstation 3. He cooked his awesome mac & cheese and some amazing burgers for us.

Thursday, we took in Purgatory Chasm. We walked down the chasm and back up on the East side of it. It was very nice, good weather for it. We also went up to Dresser Hill and got some food and shakes. I don’t think the Dairy stuff is as good as it once was, but it’s still the only place I eat fried clams. That night, we went to the outskirts of Worcester and saw Mark’s group, The Accident that Led Me to the World, play in a barn attached to a huge farmhouse that about 20 people lived in. They call it a Collective (read: commune) and the show was a potluck. Lots of friendly modern hippie-types, nice big wood-burning stove in the kitchen, bunch of pretty good music. It was something I’d never expect from Worcester.

Friday, we decided to hit the Big E on opening day, as a stopping point on our way back home. It was fun to go down the avenue of states and expose Patti to all the local culture and flavors. We wandered through some of the vendors and a good chunk of the crafting section. We ate a little and walked a lot. Looking back, it wasn’t a good choice for a stop on the morning of a big drive. We were still pretty exhausted for the first few hours of the trip home, and we ran into torrential downpours and Tornado warnings, but we survived. I think I slept through most of Saturday.

new strings

Published on August 26, 2008 in Computers, Family & Friends and Music. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

I need new strings. A string on my bass broke last night during practice… I hadn’t bought strings in so long, I must’ve thrown out the last batch of old ones I took off, so I had no spares. I had to leave practice early. After I left, I suppose there must’ve been some sort of discussion, because, when I got home, I got a call, thanking me for my efforts and asking when I could come pick up my amp later this week and a few lame apologies and excuses. This isn’t a disaster, though. It was good to be playing again, but it was definitely not the right group of guys. I have a very good sense of musical variety and space and melody and they could put together interesting song pieces, but didn’t really understand the musicality I was trying to bring to it. The phrase that will echo through my head is, “it sounds kinda gay when you do that, could you not do that?” I don’t think I’ve ever been told that one of my bass lines is wrong for a song. I want to believe it was just a matter of taste or style… but the songwriter dude will always be that “young, pushy and impatient guy with no sense of musical space” in my mind.

Even though I was half-relieved to be out of this musical situation, I still want to play, so I was a little upset. If nothing else, I have to go through the effort of finding musicians, again, and that’s a lot more effort than I originally imagined it to be. A little sadness and/or stress brought out all my usual urges. My first urge was the “nasty letter” … to go post on craigslist about not wanting to play with “impatient, pushy kids” and having unencumbered “freedom to use space, variety and melody” in my basslines… but I quickly squashed that idea. It was replaced with my go-to urge in times of stress and light depression: spending money. It started innocently enough, looking into the exhaust fan for the mac. But I was doing it on my zombie PC downstairs, which needed software updates… then I started looking into what kind of hardware was in there and whether I could max it out. It’s not like it was running slow at all and I barely ever even use that machine. I had an amazon cart full of hardware, when I came to my senses and realized I was stress-spending (like stress-eating, but more expensive).  I can spend money today on much more necessary things, like a haircut and an eye exam and new sunglasses…. and maybe new strings.

I guess this means I don’t need to pick up my 18″ cabinet when I go back east. I should probably retrieve it from whoever has it and get it to Mom’s, so I can have it shipped out here, when and if it does become necessary. We still haven’t firmed up any definite days for the week I’m out there, but the requests for hang-out time are coming in quickly, so if you haven’t commented or eMailed me, do it soon. T-Minus 6 or 7 Days … or something like that.

bus head

Published on August 9, 2008 in Family & Friends, Music, Photo and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Last weekend, we went to Wisconsin, partly to fulfill our yearly tradition of seeing a play an American Players Theater and partly as a weekend getaway in honor of Sarah’s birthday. We spent the whole weekend in the Mt Horeb and Spring Green area. On Friday, we stopped in at our favorite little chocolate shop and then got dinner at the adorable Italian place we ate at last year, before heading up to the theater to catch Widower’s Houses.

Saturday, we spent the whole day in Mt Horeb, starting with breakfast at a great little place called Schubert’s. Then we took in the activities and sights of National Mustard Day. We didn’t actually participate in the activities or eat any mustard or mustard-themed food (Culver’s Mustard Custard?). But we did wander and take pictures and shop all the cute stores, including the gift-shop half of the Mustard Museum. Then we popped back into Schubert’s for milkshakes and rosettes. We also did some quick visits to the gift-shops of Little Norway and Cave of the Mounds. We bought some geodes. I’m not sure if we cracked them open yet. Then, after a little chillin’ at the motel, we got some yummy dinner at a place with a HUGE menu.

Sunday, we used the third part of our tickets to the House on the Rock tour. We did the other two parts last year. This was definitely the darkest part of the tour, but it was very cool… it started at the huge carousel and included the doll carousels, lots and lots of dollhouses and the amazing organ room. On the way home, we picked up some cheese and meat and ate at a Panera Bread rip-off called Atlanta Bread.

Pictures Here :)

It was nice to do a little road trip. I’ve been doing public transportation to work most of the summer and I’ve missed driving. I had kind of forgotten about the phenomenon that, back in high school, in the music groups that went on many trips, we called “bus head.” The theory was that sometime after two hours being enclosed in the same vehicle, something in your brain shut off. We found that it didn’t matter if it was a school bus or a nice comfy chartered bus or a van or even a car. Once you hit that point, you had “bus head.” We discussed it with our band director; It takes a long time to recover from “bus head.” We didn’t want to plan any trips with long rides and immediate performing, even if it meant leaving in the early morning. We needed at least two hours. We could unload equipment during those two hours, but we definitely couldn’t do any rehearsing or make any decisions or be expected to engage in any activities that involved a lot of thought.

Luckily, my drive to work usually stays just short of “bus head” inducing length, and the public transportation route involves changing from train to bus or “El” about halfway through. I actually drove a couple times this week. Wednesday, I got together with a couple guys, after camp, and played some music. I think it went pretty well, if it turns into something I will definitely let you all know. Thursday, we had our family night (that 60 inch TV was what my camp photos slideshow was being displayed on) and then some of the staff went to Whirlyball. I had no idea what Whirlyball was until I saw it. It’s kind of like like Jai Alai or Lacrosse, in bumper cars. It was fun.

One more week of camp left. This week includes a sleepover, possibly another trip to Eli’s cheesecake world, a visit to Independence grove and another cookout… so lots of excitement.

summer happens

Published on June 20, 2008 in Work. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Just got through the camp training for this year. Lots of returning staff, which is a good thing. I’m an assistant/floater again, and there are four of us this year. There are also more kids, but hopefully, as we get into the swing of things, I’ll be able to break out and take a lot of pictures, like last year. One big difference is that I won’t be driving into the city, all summer, unless some special circumstance comes up at camp, or I find a band that wants to practice on a weekday evening. I did some trial runs on the trains and buses, this week, and I think I’ve figured out all my options. The rides don’t take any less time than driving, but much less gas, and will give me a chance to really listen to much more music. Camp will keep me pretty busy during the week and pretty tired in the evenings, so I will probably not blog much. This is normal summer procedure for me – I’m not dead. If I die, I’ll let you know.

Not driving a lot in the summer has put the new GPS device decision on hold… which is fine, since I can’t decide on a unit, now. XM NavTraffic is the clear choice for traffic service, but only older portable units have it, and I definitely don’t want to replace the head unit in the Mazda. Maybe by the time I’m driving a lot, again, another traffic service will have improved or NavTraffic will score some new portable placements.

I’m too tired to remember what else I wanted to blog about. Summer is already kicking in.

woot