Steady as she goes: Week Two of the 30-Day Rock Adventure

A coupe of mottoes we should be adopting:

Good enough is always good enough.

Write the song first - then record it.

Trust the ROCK instinct. If you think the bass needs more fuzz, give it.

I was IMing with Curt earlier today, discussing one of the songs, and it came to me that the overall sound here is Failure meets Neil Young. Grindy, weird, spacey post-grunge with a touch of country. I'll let that stand as the MO for now.

I have lyrics for about five songs, and lots of little guitar snippets. On, Wisconsin.

AICPL: Six versions of Vista?!

I remember seeing something on this over on Slashdot a while back - apparently Windows Vista will ship in a variety of palate-pleasing flavors:

• Vista Starter
• Vista Home Basic
• Vista Home Premium
• Vista Business
• Vista Business Casual (comes w/ denim shirt and khakis)
• Uber Vista Bavarian Wheat Ale

All I want to know is, which one has the fewest default open ports and doesn't require idiotic wizards to alter network settings? I'll have that one, please. And one of those Wheat Ales.

How to not make a rock record in 30 days

We are now just a few days into this whole silly exercise, and here's where we are:

• We have basic drums for two songs
  
• We have a very nice "vibe demo" for one song, tentatively titled "String of Days"
• I've written a couple of little folk-style ditties that I have yet to start recording. They are vaguely political.
  

Mitch Sosebee (pictured), my bandmate from Scoring Dope for the Ultimate Woman, is providing raw materials that will be built into drum arrangements. Some tracks will end up being assembled in Pro Tools from pieces recorded at different Jetpack locales, while other songs may end up getting recorded live in stereo. It all depends on people's schedules over the next few weeks.

We are going to cheat and use a couple of older songs that have yet appear anywhere. I'll be using a song called "He Tells You" and Curt will be contributing a song called "MIA" that's a great glam track. We'll be collaborating and track swapping and (please god) ending up with about 10 songs.

In other news, my "real" band weaklazyliar had a song used on a UPN show called South Beach this week. If I can get my hands on digital video, I'll post our little moment here.

Here we go...

The 30 Day Rock Project (see below) is off to a swinging start. I spent the day down at the studio working on a couple of riffs and got a good running start on one song, called Song 1 for now. It's very BMRC in its way - spooky country rock with drifty piano and Moog racket. Drums are scheduled for tomorrow. Maybe I'll get some lyrics written tonight that I don't hate. Hopefully Curt can take the songlets I sent him and get something going on those.


Now that we're rolling, I'll try to do weekly updates just to keep myself on track.

I also tackled a couple of pesky Pro Tools issues and got those resolved - it's all in the Playback Engine settings. For the record, I'm running LE 6.9.2 on a dual-proc G4 MDD. Blah-de-blah blah.

And so ends Day 1.

The Anton Newcombe Songwriting Challenge

I finally saw DIG! last night - and what a shambles is the life of one Anton Newcombe. I'll say this, though: that dude lives his art.

It got me thinking - how fast could I do it? Make a crazy-ass rock record. I was on IM with my man Curt this morning, and we're going to do it in 30 days. I mean, Anton does it in a week!

No second-guessing, no bush-beating. Just rock. Thirty days. Progress posted here.

You got a low self opinion, man...

Henry Rollins was pegged by Aussie authorities as a terror threat because he was reading a book on a plane. Now, I know they's a bunch sub-literate backwater biker-bondage yahoos down there (except for the members of AC/DC), but for reading? C'mon, if anything, Henry is a threat because of his massive, rage-filled neck!

You know all those Chuck Norris facts being passed around? Almost all of those (except for the beard-centric ones) could be said of Henry, as well. He stands astride the stage, sweating profusely in soccer shorts, barefoot and closely cropped, unleashing a tidal wave of post-metal fury that no mere mortal could possibly contain. He must be lined with titanium.

If Ol' Hank poses any threat to the good people of Australia, it's that he will bring the Rock and level their civilization as an unintended consequence . They will stand among the rubble and wonder at the might of Rollins. If they're lucky, it's just a spoken-word tour.

What Intel means to the Mac

This TV ad hypes the Apple transition to Intel, and what it could ultimately mean. As someone with feets firmly in both worlds, I myslelf hope it means I can soon run one machine with both OS's on it. Heck, throw in Linux while we're at it. Maybe load TRON in an emulator.

Why was RuPaul on the Grammys last night?

Except it was Sly Stone!

Holy Towering Space Funk Overlord! First, they drag every musician they can find onto the stage, commencing a gawdawful caterwaul, then somebody defibs poor ol' Sly and pushes him out on stage, where he kind-of sings and pokes at a keyboard for a few minutes. Then, apparently realizing he's onstage in the middle of a million-dollar trainwreck, he exits - stage right.

Maybe it was the sight of Kanye wearing Africa Bambaata's sunglasses (or possibly the windshield from a Pontiac Solstice) that broke the evil spell cast on him by CBS execs.

Looking at that picture, though, all I can think is, "RuPaul really was Star Booty."

Seahawks was robbed! And I'm not the only one who thinks so...

My man Curt brought this ESPN poll to my attention:

-----------------------------start quote

Vote: Did the officials steal the Super Bowl?

1) What grade would you give referee Bill Leavy's officiating crew for Super Bowl XL?
46.4%	F
26.2%	D
15.7%	C
10.2%	B
1.9%	A
2) How do you rate the overall state of officiating in the NFL?
35.5%	Average
30.4%	Bad
21.5%	Good
10.7%	Abysmal
1.8%	Excellent
3) Did the officiating in Sunday's game unfairly favor one team?
77.5%	Unfairly favored the Steelers
17.6%	The right calls were made
4.9%	Unfairly favored the Seahawks
4) Which played the biggest role in determining the outcome of the game?
53.6%	Officials missing calls
31.8%	Seahawks not making plays
14.6%	Steelers making plays
5) Do you think the official made the right call on Darrell Jackson's offensive pass interference in the endzone, negating a Seattle touchdown in the first quarter?
72.2%	No
21.7%	Yes
6.0%	I'm not sure
6) Do you think the football broke the plane of the goal line on Ben Roethlisberger's touchdown run in the second quarter?
56.5%	No
28.4%	Yes
15.2%	I'm not sure
7) Do you think the official made the right call on Sean Locklear's holding penalty in the fourth quarter, negating an 18-yard reception to the one-yard line by Jerramy Stevens?
72.9%	No
16.2%	Yes
11.0%	I'm not sure
8) Do you feel that you understand what constitutes a ''football move'' on plays involving potential fumbles?
62.7%	Yes
37.3%	No
9) How much would creating full-time officiating positions, instead of the current part-time positions, help improve the quality of NFL officiating?
44.6%	A lot
42.6%	A little
12.8%	Not at all
10) Which major sport has the best officials?
43.4%	MLB
22.7%	NHL
20.8%	NBA
13.1%	NFL
Total Votes: 25,445

------end quote-----------------------------------

Happy Friday, y'all...

A few quick brain dumps:

• I've been using the IE7 Beta this week, and I have to say that, in some respects, it's a huge improvement over its predecessor. Nice rendering, smooth scrolling, and that zoom thingy is hip, too. Looks a whole lot like Firefox, though.

• I love how the Republicans can't even have a little election amongst themselves without voting irregularities! Delay's boy got spanked on, too...
  

• Thanks a ton, Cindy, for macking on Hugo. Jeez.