Month: July 2008

  • State Of The Little Grey Duck, Mid-July 2008

    Wow. I haven’t really done much around here, have I? I mean… yes, the music project. Which is much more fun to do now that I’m not dreading a weekly recording session, I should point out. So, what’s going on in my life and at random?

    • Family drama levels are higher than usual, thanks to financial drama (as yet unresolved) coupled with younger rugrat drama (mostly resolved). One of these months I’ll be able to go without suffering panic attacks brought on by money issues… right?
    • Summer has truly arrived. The air is often moist enough to drink and the heat is as oppressive as I ever want to deal with, thus my air conditioner is mounted and running most of the time when I’m in my room, awake or asleep. On the upside, I found a way to mount the rig which doesn’t bother me so much. Previously it was sort of hanging on by the strength of the sliding window structure itself. Now it’s considerably better balanced and braced, and I sleep much easier at night. Less stress is a very good thing.
    • I’m still not seeing enough of my friends other than Kyla and the roomie. Some of this is my own damned fault for not making a point of pestering people to make plans, and some of this is due to extenuating circumstances. (Let’s say, somebody coming down with the Killer Death Crud? For weeks? Bah!)
    • Apparently my domain still shows up on website blocking lists as pornography, as noted today by friend karawynn. I’m fairly certain that this is all thanks to The Imperial Princess of Cute and her cleverly-named “thingie.” Not much I can do about that, sorry. It’s not like I’m going to insist she change it at this late date.
    • The new season of anime has begun and… I simply don’t care. Nothing on offer grabs my attention in the slightest. This is okay, however, as there’s still “Daughter of Twenty Faces” and “Allison To Lillia” and “Macross Frontier” and (yes, even) “Blassreiter” to finish off before autumn arrives. By the way? If you’re interested in moderately-mature discussion of current running anime series, I may have a forum for you.
    • I’m starting to think that I need to ease up on the Twitter and start saving up material to post here. After all, the Twitter stuff isn’t under my control and doesn’t contribute to the journal archives. There’s also that whole pesky “if you don’t update very often you will continue to lose readers” thing…

    I’m sure I forgot a few things. I also deliberately left out a few things that aren’t entirely fit for the public record. Such is the way of the little grey journal. It’s past my bedtime (I’m only up this late because it took longer than expected to come up with the track listing for this week’s Project) and I must get horizontal very soon.

    Until next time, “Be excellent to each other.”

  • Summer Music Project 2008: Week Four

    Week number four introduces the truly foreign material. (Four, foreign, oh look how clever I am.)

    Let’s be clear on something: I’m not a Japanophile, really. I happen to like some of their animators and some of their musical acts, and that’s the bulk of my cultural fascination. To better enjoy the animated stories, I do want to know enough background material. Beyond that it’s a matter of taking in whatever happens to catch my magpie dilettante attention. I am, of course, a curious fellow.

    But you came here for the music.

    I’ve tried to explain before that what works for me isn’t the meaning of the words but rather their sound as part of the whole musical experience. I can’t illustrate the concept any more clearly than with three KOTOKO tracks. Enjoy the mellow “Hitorigoto,” the metallic “Suppuration -core-,” and the merry “Swift Love.”

    If you find yourself hankering for words sung in English once again, you may find next week to be a vast improvement…

  • Summer Music Project 2008: Week Three

    This one practically assembled itself, folks. Let’s see: It’s the 4th of July, and I happen to have a song which includes the lyrics, “I just flipped off President George.” Never mind that the song is from 1992 and is about George The First, Dada’s “Dizz Knee Land” fits the modern time very well, thank you.

    Let’s go back to the early ’90s for a moment, though. If it wasn’t for the format switch at KGON then I might not be a Dada fan at all today. When Loren Steveson and I threw out all of the “non-classic” discs during the great purge, I snagged a copy Dada’s Puzzle album on general principle (I liked the single well enough but wasn’t sure if the band had blown their creativity on the one track), took it home, and fell in like. No, it wasn’t love, but there’s something about their jangly, trippy California rock sound that works for me when I’m in the right mood.

    Picking from the other two Dada albums in my collection, American Highway Flower and their self-titled 1998 release, I follow up their original big hit with “All I Am” and “Spinning My Wheels.”

    Enjoy, and we’ll meet again in a week for something a bit more… foreign.

  • Birthday Wishes From Coast To Coast

    Not that she’s likely to notice this post, but I’m going to wish my sister a Happy Birthday anyway. She’s… well, let’s say “a handful of years” younger than I am, so I’ll always get to call her my “kid” sister. Ah, the joys of being the big brother!

    Her only online presence is, of all things, a MySpace page. Sorry, but I’m not going to dignify that wretched hive of scum and villainy by making a direct link. If you’re familiar with those environs, her username is ‘goddesskiriel’. Feel free to send her birthday wishes and remind her that she should try to stay in touch with her family on occasion…

  • And knowing is half the write-up.

    Things you may find interesting:

    • When writing about popular music, album titles should be in italics and song titles should be surrounded by double-quotes. Apparently I’ve been doing it wrong for… oh, let’s not go into how many years. The important thing is that I know this now so I can lend some stylistic validity to the written version of the Summer Music Project commentary.
    • The terms “flat” and “sharp,” when referring to musical notes, are apparently known as “accidentals.” I have not yet been able to discern the etymology for this usage; it seems an odd choice of terminology. An “accidental” is something you play deliberately in almost any piece of music, after all.
    • If you want a hint about what I might be prepping for the upcoming SMP mix, it may be worth perusing my Last.fm profile. (Of course, as soon as I post this I plan to muddy the waters considerably by listening to a whole bunch of different artists.)

    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have been awake for an awfully long time and I’d like to soothe my brain with notes both natural and accidental before I seek my slumber.