I need to choose my entrance song for Fight 4 The Cause. On November 22nd (BUY tickets today!), I will be fighting in my first ever boxing match. All the fighters need a jam and here is what I’m thinking. I’ll go with whatever song gets the most votes as I love them all. I believe I get one minute or one minute 30 of the song.
Number 1. Run The Jewels – “Blockbuster Night Part 1” (hit go right off the hop)
Number 2. Explosions in the Sky – “Your Hand in Mine” (not sure where I’ll pick it up)
Number 3. Cursive – “Staying Alive” (probably pick it up at 1:40)
Please help me pick a song in the comment section. Thank you for taking the time and having a part in the journey!
My friend Alix was cleaning out some old records the other day and asked if I’d make a good home for them. She has a good taste in tunes so I said, “ok.”
I read this study on Nat Geo about how success breeds success… and those first few likes or attention can snowball to greater attention. The article might be worth your time if you’re in a band or any sort of attention industry.
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Still loving Waters.
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My man Pol was saying that Courtney Barnett was pretty choice on Jimmy Fallon last night. You should watch that.
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Lastly, The New Arcades remixed Kyla La Grange’s “The Knife.”
A bartender named Holly turned me on to this song from a band called Kyte. Wikipedia reminds me of the epicness of Explosions in the Sky or This Will Destroy You; but with a wispy vocal melody. Mighty good.
I met Holly last Saturday at the Rialto where I find myself DJing Saturday nights. What a great place, it feels good to be at a place where I can really bite into my playlists and find some interesting music. This gig found me because I sent a cold call email to the Rialto about a year ago when they did their renovations. I asked if I could DJ, they said no… fast forward a year and there I am.
The evening forced my hand in finally investing in my production. I headed to Long and McQuade and purchased a Numark NS7. The NS7 is a controller that lets me use Serato Itch. It simulates a turn table DJ rig, but I like it because it is smaller (it uses two 45s instead of LPs) and all contained. I can set it up in our little home, practice, and break it down much easier than the turntables I had from Boitano. I might have wanted to chose the Vestax VCI 300, it is smaller still than the NS7 and cheaper, but I wanted to play on something a bit more substantial… but I can see myself one day wanted something even smaller, when my skills improve.
My goal right now is practice, practice, practice. I want to have at least a passable skill at blending and mixing two cuts together. The NS7 also has lots of fun and user friendly features to create loops and rush around a track, maybe one day I’ll be able to really birth some interesting sonic creations.
In the future, I will need to get an accountant (thank you John!), register the old business up, promotional material and I think we’ll need a new laptop. I just didn’t have the money or the guts to finance one right now. Coral and I are hoping that after her layoff is final, we put some money in the bank and my DJ business stabilizes and becomes legitimate I can invest in a MacBook Pro or something equally fancy pants (do I *really* need a Mac? I mean all the other DJs have one…). The Toshiba is a temperamental lady these days, but she serves like a wiley veteran of foreign wars and so far hasn’t had any meltdowns or tantrums during a set (well it did the other night but no one really noticed!).
After the laptop, my next goal is a mobile set of speakers to rock a shindig that is not rigged for a dance party and build a visual component for my performance. Then Coral and I will need a bigger home to store all this stuff and build my studio to make my historical podcasts and Coral was saying something about living somewhere where it snows in the winter and we have a barn… OK, breathe… now I am getting way ahead of myself.
Coral and I just got back from our holiday to Kelowna and the Shuswap. Waiting for me in my email inbox was this most excellent highlight from the website, Texts From Last Night:
(601): Here’s my recipe for happiness. Go get a pen. 1. smoke a bowl 2. put on explosions in the sky 3. take a bath. Do this for about 1 hour or until all your problems go away.
That is nice… maybe less nice (but I watched the trailer anyways) while trolling TFLN, I came across the website for the movie I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. I wonder if a Tucker Max movie is really necessary for modern society? ahhh, who am I kidding, of course it is.
The big story ’round these parts (aside form Coral’s recent fascination with old Felicity episodes) is that… Coral was laid off at the government. boooo
There is hope that she might get placed in another department before December 1st. Thou, to be honest we’re not sure what would be better? Working for the government is a pretty cherry gig. Coral makes a good wage and the work is well suited for a mother…. however the job contributes to a lull in Coral’s energy to seek what she wants in life. The layoff might be the necessary to put her on track to go out and get her dreams.
Coral and I were sitting on the deck of her father and future step-mother’s house in Westbank over looking Lake Okanagan and thinking that one day we’d like to live on a lake and have an out door kitchen and I’d cook and grill food for us all day. I’d have a rack filled with different woods for their smoke properties to infuse into the foods. And we’d have a boat, Coral wants one of those ski boats with the speakers that shoot overtop where you attach the toe rope and have your wake boards mounted. As comfortable as our life is now, that fantasy can never happen. But it COULD happen… it does seem to happen for other people.
The one major wrench it has thrown into our plans is that we were thinking about having another baby and that will have to be shelved for a bit as we decide how we’re going to live. I am also going to have to find some really steady additional work and/or step up the launch my mobile disco business.
I am confident that we’ll be able to work something out, until then we’ll keep trolling MLS for that perfect ocean/lake front and buying lotto 6/49.
My ears hurt after some loud metal, they need sonic medicine. Cue up…
And because everything refers to everything else… where does Explosions in the Sky steal their title for one of their greatest songs? If you guessed East of Eden, award yourself two scenester points.
“I remember that the Gabilan Mountains to the east of the valley were light gay mountains full of sun and loveliness and a kind of invitation, so that you wanted to climb into their warm foothills almost as you want to climb into the lap of a beloved mother. They were beckoning mountains with a brown grass love. The Santa Lucias stood up against the sky to the west and kept the valley from the open sea, and they were dark and brooding-unfriendly and dangerous. I always found in myself a dread of west and a love of east. Where I ever got such an idea I cannot say, unless it could be that the morning came over the peaks of the Gabilans and the night drifted back from the ridges of the Santa Lucias. It may be that the birth and death of the day had some part in my feeling about the two ranges of mountains.”
I got home from visiting Madrona Farm. Farmer Nathalie took me out on the boat to sail the pond with no name and hear the frogs. I brought the recorder machine to capture some of the sounds for the first episode of the Madrona podcast (coming soon). Looks like the first episode will be about frogs.
Thinking about the music that I will use to tie it all together, and I am sure Explosions in the Sky will factor into the soundtrack. I am liking the idea of Carpenter’s “Best Place” as the theme song… but what else?
So far, the first episode has me heading out to the farm to meet Nathalie at some bizarre hour after the heart pounding Canucks’ game. She meets me at the gate and we wander across the fallow fields up towards one of the ponds. It is dark and I bumble along. At the edge of the pond there is a boat with one oar. Nathalie hands me a life jacket designed for a tween and assures me that the pond may be small, but no mortal has ever found the bottom. We heft the boat into the dark water and “paddle” to the center. There we sit, and we wait. Silence, and then…. slowly at first, the croak of a frog. Then two, then four… then a crescendo of amphibian noise.
It was spectacular to be in this boat in the middle of the pond and to hear all this wonderful noise. I have not heard the playback yet, but I pray that it sounds as good recorded as it did tonight.
After the frogs, I hopped in the Jeep and bee lined for Evo to see the Zone Band of the month, Oh Snap! Al Ford from Sonic is in town and it was good to see him again. He was the old PD for the Zone and the man who hired me many moons ago.
After a couple songs from Oh Snap, I was on the road again to the Cambie for a 24 Hour Relay fundraiser. The sound of the day was metal. I arrived just in time to see Archon Legion. You’ll know and love Archon Legion from CRC 51. I think Captain Rhaye told me that we made another $400 for Easter Seals. Not bad… drip drip drip and hopefully we’ll get near our goal of $10,000!
Oh…. I got a good band to help soundtrack the Madrona Farm podcast.
Its just a trailer, but I love how this documentary is shot.
I love the colours of the graphics, I love how they tie into all the graphics and colours of the band. I love the sounds, I love the images. Its just a trailer and I watch it over and over. I would have bought the video right now if it was on iTunes but thankfully ( I am so broke and should leave my credit card in the wallet) it was not!
“One day I’ll get money, I’ll get funny again.”
The first 15 seconds or so of The National’s “All The Wine” sounds like the score music of Friday Night Lights. Being an old and busted Dad type guy means I spend a lot of Friday nights at home and lately I am all about that show. The musical score makes the hour pretty special.
Turns out a lot of the score is from the group Explosions in the Sky which oddly, has become a recent fave of mine… no wonder I was picking up on the musical score of the show.
Neat. They refer to their music as “cathartic mini-symphonies.” Cathartic, good word.
The Morning After 