Top Lists, Part 2

Phil has a monumental comment here where he lists top five albums by genre. Now, while i still think that idea is totally cool, it also call to attention the fun, instructive, and often useless practice of labeling…sometimes, it is hard to agree on what constitutes ANY genre of anything, but we have to put everything somewhere.

In academia, we do this most egregiously with the phrase 20th century music, which would be fine if Glass, Schoenberg, Proto, Shostakovich, Cage, and Williams had  anything in common other than the fact they were all composers. I also notice they are all men…I admit, I don’t know many female composers (I can name more than the obligatory Barbara Strozzi, Amy Beach, Clara Schumann, and Fanny Mendelssohn, though). In fact, once you stop thinking of music as anything OTHER than music, your ipod seems less, well, random. At least mine did.

All this calls to mind my favorite movie quote, and one of the most disturbing moments I’ve had at the movies: the part in the Dark Knight where the Joker starts making sense. He’s talking to Harvey Dent in the hospital, and says “You know what I’ve noticed? Nobody panics when things go “according to plan.” Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all “part of the plan.” But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!”

Lists are, well, part of the plan. An attempt to see patterns in the chaos. I find the human ability to see connections from complete random chaos fascinating (like the Michael Jackson “7″ article I read today). So, I’m going to attempt a Top Five Random Album List That I See A Common Thread With, but not today. Today, I’m going to list

Top Five Albums on our iTunes that I don’t really like, but don’t want to get rid of.

1. Franck, Symphony in d minor, Berlin Philharmonic with Lorin Maazel
2. Dave Holland and Barre Phillips, Music for Two Basses (you have no idea how guilty I feel listing that one)
3. Evanescence, Fallen
4. Korn, Greatest Hits, Vol. 1
5. Nine Inch Nails, With Teeth.

Of the list, the only one that I’d be happy to purge my collection of is the Evanescence. The Korn is all you need to know about nu-metal in one handy package, the duo album still hasn’t grown on me, I’ve never cared for Franck, but never really studied his music either, and the NIN is simply ok.

Anything you all want to share that you’re happy you have, but somehow, it never finds its way into your play lists?

Rehearsal Diary, 1

What? We’re just now getting around to rehearsing? Well, no, not really…We rehearse in small bursts, and then, leading up to shows, we run the set list…mostly for comfort.

We’re doing our live setup a bit differently this time: I’ve wanted to simply things for quite some time…mostly, I’ve wanted to get rid of the laptop. I mean, I like having a huge rig, with tons of pedals to stomp…but this isn’t the best thing to see live. We’re running the backing tracks off my ipod through my Line 6 pedals.

This is good and bad, and we haven’t quite gotten the levels dialed in yet.

The real revelation  (that’s a horrible word, but bear with me) for these rehearsals? Sarah. She’s been taking voice lessons, and she’s louder, more in tune, more aggressive, more…operatic. Just incredible. Sadly, we wrote most of these songs before her lessons started, and she revealed herself as a soprano…so most of her voice parts are really, really low.

And the set list?

Yeah, like I’m going to tell you. You’ll just have to come to Asheville. Next Thursday. Valentine Wolfe, The Omega Cell, Veterans of Future Wars, Three Brain (or Brian…I like Brain better) Robot and DJ Aksident.The Garage at Biltmore. Doors at 9.

Brand new songs, and some older favorites. And Dark Ambient Soundscapes before our full set.

Show and EP Update…

The artwork has gone off, and now we’re waiting for the duplication to begin on Five Nocturnes. This run will be limited to 100 copies. We’re pretty excited. We’re waiting to schedule anything until after we get the disks back, so I think we’re in for a very busy August.

The setlists this summer will consist of three to four brand new songs no one has heard yet (and in a couple of cases, that no one extends to even us. We’re nothing if not willing to live dangerously). First, I have to get through the Fourth of July in my other role as an orchestral bassist. The older I get, the more I’m more into playing Pops concerts; I’m not a fan of the generally uber lame music, but I like seeing the audience have a great time at an orchestra concert.

I hope to see people having a great time at a Valentine Wolfe show very soon. If things go the way we’d like them to, there will be WAY more chances for that to happen in the future.

More coming, maybe even later today.

Some fun thing to click, and two lists…

You know, people rarely click on things I include here, but I’m feeling rather like Sisyphus at the moment. It has been a productive, bizarre, fun, and odd weekend here. I’ll be revealing more, and sometimes mystery can cause a huge conclusion jump, but let me say this: we’ve an an emotionally intense weekend, and right now I could use a laugh.

So, here are some funny, fun, and all around recommended links:

• I’ve just discovered Mr. Deity. This is beyond funny. And yes, I think Lucy’s Hot.
• I’m a huge Alan Moore fan, and I love that his writing is almost always referencing something other (the one lyric contribution I made to Valentine Wolfe, Camera Obscura, followed this model). So it was fun to discover Jess Nevins’s Comic Annotation Page. I’ll be re-reading my League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with this as my companion.
• I really liked this Harvard study, actually. I’m guilty of taking myself way too seriously. I’ll need to re-read this every now and again.
• I thought this list of hated music genres was great. I was happy not to see pseudo-classical industrial bass music listed.

I have a stack of at least 12 books on my summer reading table…I’m way behind, and because of the web, I usually read articles these days. I’m about to start the Logic of Real Arguments (I forget the author), and just to keep it fun, I’m also starting the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore. I’m stuck with The Elegant Universe; it keeps making my eyes glaze over. I’m not worried…it took me like 5 tries to read Foucault’s Pendulum, and then one day, I banged through it.

I wonder if there’s an annotated version of that one? Also, I’m looking for an annoated/illustrated Paradise Lost.

Top Five Current Favorite Songs:

1. Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan
2. Cliffs of Dover, Eric Johnson
3. Wish I Had An Angel, Nightwish
4. Mr. Self Destruct, Nine Inch Nails
5. Secrets Shared/Charlie’s Angels, Mary Shelly Overdrive

Top Five News Items I really Care about right now

1. Iran
2. No, really, Iran
3. Mark Sanford’s mess, because he is my governor. Also, our Lt. gov is a dangerous psychopath.
4. Health Care Reform…I’d like to be able to have health care AND a paycheck, so I kinda this you’re both doing it wrong.
5. Max Mosley may finally be getting run out of town on a rail, and soon, F1 races might be more interesting than the politics for the first time since…I dunno. 1979?

What are YOU reading right now? Top Five Fave Songs? Top Five News Events?

Click away…

New Stuff…

The MP3 mastered versions of our songs are up on MySpace, which is also sporting a new layout. Interestingly, they sound better they louder they get. Curious.

We have an announcement of yet another place to stalk us on-line, which can be best summed up as Kyle Broflovski’s “Dammit”. This sounded funnier in my head than it looks on the page.

Also, I’m in the home stretch of the bass parts for the new three songs. Sarah managed to rip off Bach, Stevie Wonder AND King Crimson…sometimes, in the same song.

And finally, we’ll be out and about hanging at various events from now until October. If we tell you where we’ll be hanging out, feel free to accost us. We like people, more or less.

More tomorrow.

About Dido…and coming attractions.

I probably should have mentioned that I really liked what Sarah did with Dido’s lament, otherwise I’d not have been into posting it online. I’ll most likely add it to our website soon.

Speaking of, here’s some plans we have for the next few months:

• I have a series of writing that I’d like to do on aesthetics, the goth subculture, and how music and art relate to Natural Selection.
• We have a very forlorn Last FM account and a even more forlorn Vampire Freaks account. We’re not sure about the rabid cult participation that seems a part of VF; we don’t like to argue online.  But we’re wanting to work on it.
• We want to book more shows…we were pretty excited after the rehearsal last night.
• There’s some odds and ends I need to add to the website.

Mostly, though, I think we all knew all that save the essay part. I ‘m working on keeping my entries concise (I tend to ramble, and my entries sometimes go well over 450 words), so I’ve decided on a multi-part series discussion on common thread sI’ve noticed about what I tend to be attracted to or not…for example, I’ve always found it difficult to explain my unabashed affection for Rush and my neutral to dislike feelings about Yes…I’m  rarely satisfied with the obvious, so none of this “opinions vary” cop out crap.

Many times in life, I’m inspired to look for commonalities, especially in the case of peak performers. Usually, the need to be special or unique gets in the way of a simple truth: I see people, traits, and practices, especially in peak performers, that are variations on a simple and common theme.

This theme is rarely marathon and intense practice sessions. if it were, anyone could be successful at anything, simply by being patient. But before I diverge too much, the common thread I’ve noticed lately is about the aesthetics I prefer…this is what would make me “goth”, in anything.

I don’t think generalizing and labelling are bad things, but I think we risk taking them too seriously and not realizing the boundaries, if there are any (hint: no), are flexible.

More soon, but feel free to weigh in on my premise.

Comments, Announcements, and the Like.

So, over on our MySpace, Sarah has posted a bonus track of sorts…she recorded a modern and anachronistic version of Henry Purcell’s Dido’s Lament, from the opera Dido and Aeneas. I was really not into doing this, and used the time honored husband tactic of stalling…so she did it without me.

But I did mix and produce, which was fun. It was good practice because I was very detached from the material.

Corwyn, AKA The Man(TM), AKA The Guitarist (if there were ever to be any guitar on a Valentine Wolfe song, Corwyn’s our only choice) is now responsible for a supreme WTF moment from me…I logged in the other day and saw we had over 200 views. This is due to Corwyn getting us some publicity with Stumble Upon.

Corwyn rocks.

So, we’re confirmed to play in Asheville in July…our goal is 2-4 shows a month this summer, so we have a few more to book yet. We worked on the set some today, having an impromptu rehearsal, and trying to coax the Digitech Jam Man looper into working.

If you were thinking of getting one, don’t. Every time I decide I can coax the thing into working, it usually ends up with me resisting the urge to throw the thing across the room an hour later. I think the thing was designed by a severely disturbed trailer dweller in a cave…I’m impressed how counter-intuitive they’ve made the entire concept. I may sell it, I may not, I may keep using it…the alternative is travelling with the laptop, which I’m hit and miss on, but I’m not very confident with it, and will look to sell and replace it soon.

Top 5 for today: Double Bass CDs

1. 1. Francois Rabbath, Live Around the World
2. Barry Guy, Fizzles
3. Edgar Meyer, Bach Suites 1, 2 and 5
4. Ed Barker, Sonatas (Schubert, Hindemith, Vivaldi)
5. Renaud Garcia-Fons, Arcoluz

Top Lists, Part 1

As promised, here’s some fun top five lists. I diverged a bit off the criteria; these aren’t ones I think are perfect, but I might get back to that soon, (like at the end of the post). Now, for some lists:

Top Five Albums I’ve bought in the past Six Months:

1. Siouxsie and the Banshees, A Kiss in the Dreamhouse
2. Renaud Garcia Fons, Arcoluz
3. SMV, Thunder,
4. Robert Plant and Allison Krauss, Raising Sand
5. Edgar Meyer, Edgar Meyer

Top Five Current Power Metal Favorites

1. Nightwish, Dark Pasion Play
2. Kamelot, Ghost Opera
3. Epica, The Divine Conspiracy
4. Symphony X, Paradise Lost
5. Dragonforce, Valley of the Damned.

The last list gets into the tricky discussion of genre definition. I have a pretty subjective definition of power metal; anything that makes me want to grab my sword and go forth and conquer, all while throwing Dio hands basically fits.

Five Essential Albums I’d expect any well-thought collection to include:

1. The Beatles, Revolver
2. The Untitled Fourth Album, Led Zeppelin
3. Appetite for Destruction, Guns N’ Roses
4. Any of the first four Metallica albums, but preference given to Ride the Lightning or Master of Puppets.
5. King Crimson, Red or Starless and Bible Black or Lark’s Tongues in Aspic.

Yeah, weigh on in….

Lazy…Hot…Hungry…(man, no enticement in THAT title)

So, I’m slack and lazy right now, but it has been because of my energies being directed elsewhere. A few summaries of work yet to be done:

• Comments: Corwyn raises some great points, Becky some funny ones. I’ve not said much either way.
• Website updates: I think I’ve been meaning to add a lyrics section for a month.
• Photos: Band/Group photos. We needed some for an interview I think Sarah’s forgotten about. I say Sarah because I think they want to talk to the hot goth girl, not the barbarian smart ass.

And new music…I need to get around to finishing the demo versions of the three new songs, so we can round out the setlist. But on that front, we approved the test masters yesterday. We’re working on some artwork, and then the EP, titled 5 Nocturnes, will be out and available. Maybe even on iTunes. W00t.

But for today, I’d like to steal some ideas from one of the friends on my blog roll, The Phil.

Phil had an interesting exercise on his blog: list 5 albums that you feel are perfect, from start to finish. Now, I can be picky as all kinds of hell, but I thought of more than 5. And just cause I’m all weird like that, I noted that this isn’t necessarily my five FAVORITE albums, but five that I think are un-improvable from start to finish. In other words, my finger stays off the fast forward button.

My list was this:

1. The Beatles, With the Beatles
2. Slayer, Reign in Blood (basically, if your album is the definitive statement in any genre, you get on my list. See Combat Rock by the Clash)
3. King Crimson, The Power to Believe
4. John Coltrane, A Love Supreme
5. Krystian Zimerman Plays Liszt (Sonata in b minor, other works)

But I think you could EASILY break this down by genre, as there were tons of albums I didn’t name, and a few I don’t like (Guns N’ Roses, Appetite for Destruction. Perfect, but not one of my top 100, even).

So, let’s break it down….this is me inviting participation. List your five perfect ones, and if you’re really cool, pick a genre…like jazz, country, prog rock, whatever.

So, get talking, and we’ll have fun with Lists for the next week or so.

Can’t Sleep, Mullahs Will Eat Me…

Yeah, Ok…so, I figured world history in action should trump the no politics rule. Besides, I’m not going to talk politics in the traditional sense (D Good, R Bad, etc), but more in a holistic sense.

At any rate, I’ve been really fascinated with Iran, and the current situation. I’ve been getting my coverage from a variety of sources, The BBC in particular, so if you’ve no idea what I’m talking about it, I’ve just given you enough info to Bing it. Or Google it. Or Dogpile it. Or Yahoo it. I never liked Webcrawler.

I’m sort of saddened at my knee jerk cynicism. Basically, I think the clerics got greedy: Wait for a few days, say the election is “too close to call”, then announce Ahmadinejad had won, with 50.5-51% of the vote. I’ve been trying to figure out why in hell they didn’t simply do that. I think they would be having the same issues, because, as an aside, this is what I think the legacy of Florida 2000 will be: If you don’t like the election results, sue. I believe the House will elect a president in my lifetime, and I believe that I’ll see more than a few elections where the popular vote and the electoral college don’t square.

But Iran, in its isolation, neglected to even give the appearance of legitimacy. WTF? In other words, if the Theocracy had, say, international certifications from the EU (like, for real, not the EU minus Spain and Germany) and the US, the demonstrators would look less like revolutionaries and the people refusing to accept the will of a corrupt system and more like spoiled children that take to the street every time they feel, um…”outrage”.

Protip: After the billionth time you do that over a cartoon, you look stupid, not like a defender of the faith.

Ah faith…and now, the point emerges. I’m trying VERY hard to leave religion out of this and find an alternative explanation, because…well, this has gotten too easy. So, for the curious, here’s my Occam’s Razor version: The clerics decided that god had told them Amadinejad won, and figured everyone would fall in line once they announced this. Save everybody some time and hassle. I forget where I read this quote, but I got to paraphrase the idea today: the beauty of metaphysical conversations with the divine is that you’re never wrong.

But I’d like to get out of my rut, and think differently. And here is ACTUALLY the point. How do we do this?

At this point, I’d like to tell everyone two things: The Lucifer Principle should be required reading on your summer reading list. No, they don’t pay me to plug the book.

Theocracy. It should only be in textbooks, video games, and itunes.