Michael's Texas Embrace

Well, long time no post. Since I can't think of anything interesting to post, I will post a song. This song may be the dumbest song ever recorded. And it sounds crappy, too. You should all be very excited. How did I make this song? I thought: "I'm going to sing a song about ponies. I'm going to run the entire left stereo side through my cruddy chorus pedal and into the mixing board." Press Record.

This is so awesome, you may not be able to handle it. I mean, this rocks so hard.


Land of the Ponies

Hey Andrew, you mentioned how cool it would be to have a theremin. Well a company called Paia sells build your own theremin kits for 89 dollars from their website, and they're supposed to be very good theremins! It doesn't come with a case, but as pictures on their website show, you can turn anything you want into a theremin! You don't need any electronics knowledge, as the instructions are very detailed. But you need to know how to solder, since they just send you a board and all those parts and you solder it all together. It seems pretty cool. I should learn to solder and build one this summer...

http://www.paia.com/theremax.htm

There are little green worms dangling from these texas trees on silk lines. Like, everywhere. What's up with that? Why does Texas have to have dangling worms in the Spring? I mean, everytime I leave my apartment I have to dodge little worms, drifting in the breeze (which makes them trickier to dodge--is the wind going to blow this next worm at my head? Or the other direction? It's sort of like living in an atari game, where you know you have to dodge something, but you don't know why, or when.) Often I will be on my way somewhere, or sitting down to eat lunch, or checking my email, and I will feel a faint sensation. It's always a worm. On my neck, on my arm--somewhere. Argh! Damn you, Texas! Damn your dangling, delayed-attack worms!

In other news, I am now saving up my money to hopefully buy an analog synth. If I can find one. A moog would be nice, but we will see. For now, I can dream of moogs. And play with a virtual one! Go to http://www.arturia.com/en/default.php and download the free demo of the minimoog V and get a little version of the classic moog on your desktop. It's all there! Flip the three oscillators to different wave forms, feel that sine wave! Kick that classic moog filter into high gear and crank that modulator wheel to the max. Oh yeah. If only I had a midi controller, I could play it with more than just my mouse. Andrew! Try out the moog! It makes those weird sounds we all dream of, late at night, in toaster mode.

Hey Murf, you and your dad should ditch the range finders and put out a line of affordable analog synths with wicked filters and three oscillators. I'd pay 500 bucks for one(well, if I had 500 bucks, sure.) It would need wood paneling, though. That might be tough. Bonk.

If anyone knows anyone with a moog rogue or prodigy to sell, let me know. Bonk! (if I had money to buy one... If anyone knows anyone giving away free money, let me know. )

Bonk!

Well, Murf says, "if you're recording anything with your fancy new set up, why aren't I hearing any of it?" (He probably said that with better English, of course!) So here's something I recorded. It's an instrumental variation on a thing I've been playing with. Simple, just some acoustic guitar and bass. It's a little sloppy, I didn't run it through the compressor or anything. I wasn't doing it for posterity; I just wanted something to record, so played this. Yeah, there are some bad runs in it, and some awkward parts, but it's kind of jazzy and there are some nice runs in the lead. So listen, and chill to it.

The Garden Wall

(Here's the technical nerdy part) The new condenser mic I got picks up subtler and higher frequencies than my old radioshack dynamic mic. This lends the recording of these acoustic instruments an "airy" quality my old recordings didn't have. So the technical advancement for me here is all nuance. But I care about nuance, so why wouldn't you? (Why wouldn't you care about nuance? Jerks.)

This recording also highlights the only guitar skill I have. I've never been a fast guitar player(or fast at anything else, thank you very much). And I've certainly never had much technical skill on the guitar. Anyway, I'm not fast, and my technique is poor. But, I think as far as guitar playing goes, I'm a decent mid-tempo emotive/textural sort of guitarist (this is carefully tempered by a firm belief that I am a decent judge of myself, though. And who knows how accurate the judgement or the belief it's based on is?) I think a mood comes across in the lead here. Maybe. I would be excellent in a generic, mid-tempo blues band. Oh yeah. Baff. What a long, stupid post.