Thanks for nothing, 2007 - bring on Null-Eight

Happy New Year to whoever stops by - here's a snap of the missus at our post-Xmas party. 

RIP Oscar Peterson

The unchallenged master - if there was ever a musical ninja, OP was it. He left us on December 23, 2007. AP obit linked above.

A Christmas Miracle from Tom Waits

Happy Christmas

I wish I could follow that with "War is over."

Virtual Studio Visitor

One thing about home studios: they can be very cold and lonely. No lackeys milling about, no A&R chick in the corner thumbing her Blackberry, no takeout delivery guy coming and going with sweet and sour chicken and fried ice cream (ah, now those were good times). 

Well, the fix is in - load up the Virtual Studio Visitor plug-in and choose from several excellent presets!

You are the luckiest man

Saw the Wood Brothers at Eddie's Attic this weekend. Ran into all sorts of great people, and heard the best live music you can hope for (in the best venue in Atlanta). Shalom the engineer worked his usual magic, and Chris Wood's bass rattled the rafters and coated the walls in low-frequency warmth. His brother Oliver was in fine voice. and together they were absolutely transcendent. The house was packed, and when the whole room sang along with every word to Luckiest Man, it was straight-up Church. 

It sounds all corny and whatnot, but I truly believe in the power of music to heal and transcend, and this night was proof of that. Check out this video of Luckiest Man from Pickathon earlier this year:

I hate to be one of those "Now this is REAL music!" guys, but it has to be said. This is the real deal. Nice to see some young guys carrying the torch. Now, if we can just get The Word to come through...

85 South

It's getting darker earlier, but at least I get some fantastic sunsets on the way home from work. 

Win at yelling!

Please God, let this mean that Idiocracy, the Mike Judge movie that accurately depicts the future of humankind, is going to get a proper push by Fox!

Attention must be paid..

One of my favorite authors is getting some MSM props - Donald Barthelme, a godfather of experimental pomo lit, pops up in the December 3rd issue of Newsweek. I was first exposed to DB in one of those college literature anthologies, and his disjointed, nonsensical yet compelling prose hit me like a truck, like the narrative equivalent of John Fahey and Elliot Sharpe jamming in John Cage's kitchen. So beautifully written, so bereft of conventional plot elements. I wasn't sure I understood it, but I got it. 

Naturally, Dave Eggers has a hand in the Barthelme resurgence. The current issue of McSweeney's features writings by and about the man.

Apparently it is Avant-Garde Saturday here at M&P.  

RIP Stockhausen

Yeah, I like greasy hippie rock and funky jazz - I also love noise and avant-garde. A pioneer of the latter has passed on. As I posted earlier, if you want to see where Radiohead, Sonic Youth, and many more go for the freak-rock mojo, check out Stockhausen. 

United States of Scared Sh*tless

I think about fear a lot. Fear is the prime motivator. We do (or don't do) things out of fear of failure, of embarrassment, of injury, of insignificance. We're scared of dying, and consequently we are scared of living. And there are whole industries geared toward monetizing our fear. I was thinking of two examples of this recently: Al Gore and Pat Robertson. These two men, while possibly sincere in their beliefs, have implemented business models that play to people's fears of one type of apocalypse or another. 

Al Gore is joining a green VC firm; clearly, he's betting that concerns over global climate change will impact consumer behaviors in a way that will make somebody some money. Heck, he's already gotten an Oscar and a Nobel out of the deal!* Pat Robertson has built an empire on your fear that if you make God mad, you will go to Hell. Send Pat money, and Pat will put in a good word for you. Apparently, based on his recent endorsement of liberal cross-dressing NYC freakbat Rudy Guliani, Pat wants some of that good ol' GOP terror fear action, too. Rudy might be weak on queers, but he's strong on 9-11! 9-11! 9-11! And those right-wing millennial types LOVE them some 9-11.

This election season, we're all going to get a nice big heaping helping of fear-mongering from both sides of the spectrum. Maybe if we take a minute, and a few deep breaths, we can make come rational decisions about our country's future that don't come from being afraid of Bin Ladin, or Carbon Monoxide, or Satan, or going broke in the real estate market.


* I'm not belittling the global warming threat here. I think it's real, and I think that even if it's not, we can't afford to make that bet. Besides, we'll get so much cool tech out of the bargain, and maybe we'll reduce our dependence on crazy countries with big oil reserves.