Live Recordings

I've added a section to the sidebar for tunes I've captured from live gigs. The 'Intro' one is from last night and it will likely turn into the next tune. I wanted a Hendrix kind of feeling and that was working for me. I don't normally tangle with his style as he's the One True God but I liked how that was going last night. The next trick is to remember what I did but the chords were pretty simple so that should work out ok. I couldn't even count how many times a tune has started out from just screwing around in a gig and hopefully there's now another one!

I'll try to find "Who Do You Love" and will upload it if there's time before work.

Great Gig Last Night

There were all kinds of mistakes in "Down for the Count" and that would have dragged me out pretty much because I saved it up for the flashy end bit. That wasn't what hooked people but rather it was running it out on Snow's "Who Do You Love" as that one was rippin' pretty good. The gig is probably recorded but it's in a single one-hour file. What I may do is keep on recording gigs the way I've been doing it. After I do one that feels like it was 'on' all the way through it and without any really egregious mistakes, I could bust it up into tracks and put it on a CD. The audio capture file is already in the right format; I just need to bust it into pieces at the breaks between tunes.

Every single time when I start a gig there's hardly anyone there and I'll be thinking no-one is going to come. But then it starts going and people start materializing and they keep on coming. I do get a huge kick out of that but I'm so neurotic about it that I'll worry about exactly the same thing about the next gig. Maybe everyone does that...dunno.

It was a really good time, tho. I know I'm on the right course on cutting down the number of gigs as I'm sure it makes them more fun for everyone. I'm not exactly keeping to that this week as I'll be playing the Black Cow tonight and Bay Vista tomorrow night. The Friday gig really doesn't count as I'll take them anytime and the one tonight is at Katzy's place so no way I was going to turn that one down. It's the same deal as with playing at Luxor as I wouldn't do it if it were not Circe asking.

This may come across as arrogant but it really isn't as you've already seen the difference it makes in cranking out new stuff. If I'm doing gigs all the time, there's no time for new tunes and I've got to have new tunes to keep me going as I'll burn out much, much faster than you all on my old ones. I've already heard a tune forty, fifty, more? times before anyone ever hears it so I've got a huge headstart on burn-out. Nevertheless, a big part of professionalism in music is playing a tune that you really hate but still you play it and make it exciting for people.

hexx did a fantastic job on the pyro and I can't always see it because it's difficult for me to do much with Second Life while I'm playing. If the game time is in daylight hours then I probably won't be able to flip to midnight during the gig to make the fireworks show up. Last night it was midnight in-game so they were showing up really great and hexx was blowing the place right up!

There may be a new pyro king/queen in town as Nad Gough put on one huge show last night. The effects were really fantastic and he was doing it right up! They didn't want hexx shooting off pyro at the same time but it really makes for an amazing time when you have two people doing effects at the same time. The pyro battle between hexx and Cellandra a few weeks ago was nothing but unbelievable! I'll talk to Nad to see what he was using as maybe I could kick off that effect while hexx does the pyro on top of it. Could it quite cool!

It's good manners to stay for the following act after you've played a gig but it's a pleasure staying to hear Gina Stella. She's got a beautiful voice and gets quite good sound out of her acoustic guitar too. She's also very cool about following me as she'll get there about ten or fifteen minutes ahead of the gig and hears me ripping the living hell out of the place. She hops up on-stage after my set and people don't leave so it works well.

Nad asked me to come over and check out his set after Gina's and I was so wiped out that I really didn't have any intention of staying in SL even for all of Gina's show but I went over to check him out. He told me theater and that's all I needed to know! hexx, jsmn, and I went over to Rocky Shores to see him and he damn sure delivered theater!

I couldn't stay for all of Nad's set as he went two hours last night. I went straight from the computer to the sack and then woke up at five in the morning. Good plan!

Nurse Judi sighting! I got an email from last night. I was right that there are problems back in Cincinnati but she's ok and I'll try again calling her today. It'd be extremely difficult to fly back there but I may if there's any chance of pulling it off. There are various things going on at work and that's what borked going to Amsterdam but family rules and I'll know the best move after I can talk to her. The idea of Amsterdam is also very much alive but timing is everything.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

This law must have looked so ludicrous to the rest of the world but, even tho it was a classic demonstration of the provincialism of the American culture, it nevertheless changed a lot of thinking to the point now that the law isn't necessary and there is a substantial amount of resentment from just about anyone that it even exists. So long as don't ask don't tell exists, gay soldiers are, almost by definition, second-class citizens. Now it looks like that phase of this ignoble history may be coming to a close.

Seeing Obama out schmoozing Europe is pretty impressive. I don't particularly care about his politics as I don't really believe it makes any difference whether a Republican or a Democrat is elected as neither has the faintest contact with what it's really like to pay four bucks a gallon for gas, etc. What impresses me is the strategy as Obama is acting way, way more Presidential than McCain and he's pulling it off.

Silas at Luxor at 4:00 SL Time

There's a gig today at Luxor, Circe Broom's stage, at 4:00 p.m. US Pacific Time. I'm not sure what order I'll use to roll the tunes out but "Down for the Count" will definitely be in it. Lately what I've been doing has been to open the set with all the guns firing, all the bombs going off, but that leaves the end of the set to kind of languish because I'll go twenty or thirty minutes before I finally lighten up and do a soft one. Hmm...maybe "And Darkness Falls" to open and then "Down for the Count" to close as I definitely want to end with a bang too. Yep, I like that...I'll use it as a teaser and see how that works.

I've sent both tunes to Vicki and she got to play with "Down for the Count" a bit and likely she'll send back tracks on that one first. She got nailed by the heat too so she hasn't been able to do too much this week. The temperature has dropped quite a bit here and there are thunderstorms right now but they should pass long before it's time for the gig. I definitely sympathize with Vicki on the heat as this house was pretty close to uninhabitable.

Some of you know Andrea Bardeen as she comes to my gigs every so often and we've known each other for many years. She's taken on a significant challenge and, nope, she's not going to die; it's not that kind of thing. If you could send some of them hippie love vibes her way, that'd be pretty swell :)

Yevette Nishi comes to the gigs every so often as well and we've known each other for quite a long time too. She's not going to die either but she's got some kind of cold that's making her feel pretty lousy so sending her some of them hippie love vibes would be pretty swell too.

Someone for whom life doesn't suck is Katzy as her last-reported location was on a beach in Italy. What the hell, hippie love vibes for Katzy as well, please :) It's not her fault life doesn't suck for her!

RIght now, hexx and jsmn are blasting around the Netherlands on their jet-black Dragonslayer motorcycle. That bike is one major beast! (I might have made that up...except for the bike)

Telia is doing her family stuff and everything is good but quite hectic. It'd be cool if she could make it to the show tonight but she's getting pulled in twelve different directions at the same time all the time.

I'm pretty sure Sister Jacque takes a quick cruise through here every so often so I'm not really worried there. I really wasn't anyway as she's a strong lady but it's a shame she can't get out too much. She and Telia and I have been Three Musketeers forever. That's gone on even longer than the Dangerous Beauties thing that started it all.

I'm also pretty sure brother Lotho is cruising through here on a fairly regular basis even tho he doesn't say much. I've got to call but he keeps strange hours so it's the same kind of difficulty as reaching Nurse Judi and I still haven't been able to reach her despite multiple attempts. There were no harsh words or anything so I'm really mystified.

This is really effin' pitiful but I did it...I was even looking through the damn obituaries in her town's newspaper. I'm kind of freaked as it's like she effin' vanished and it's been, I think, about two weeks now. Nope, she wasn't planning on vacation time.

I don't keep any kind of a schedule for things so I'm really not sure when I last reached her on the phone. Maybe I could ask my sister to drive out there but that seems kind of stalkerish. Even so, if it goes on for much longer, I'll be tempted to call a cop back there to make sure she's ok. If anyone's got any idea on what, if anything, I should do please say something. (This is definitely not some lover's quarrel thing. Something's wrong; I just don't know what it is yet.) So, please do send her them hippie love vibes as well.

More Down for the Count

The obsession continues with a new lead line and new intro/outtro bits. I tried a bit of vocal but it was way too amphibian so that'll have to keep for another time. It's damn sure getting fat tho. I know I suck at production stuff but it sounds the way I want. I bet a whizkid producer could make the sound really obese but I'm pretty much satisfied with the way it is now. It might be cool to put a synthy lead in somewhere but that sucks for live as switching between lead instruments is a monster bitch so I have to record it.

The lead break with the chords silent is all scattered, searching around in a cave with a flashlight. I do pretty much like it from the chorus of the break to where the guitar chords and keys kick back in again. The speedball stuff through the end kind of stuns me. It's still quite a bit less than perfect but it's amazing me as I literally never imagined playing like that. What I really don't know is whether I'd listen to it if I hadn't done it. I doubt it's even possible to separate yourself that much tho.

It feels like I'm climbing onto another plateau. All the time I've been playing, I'd go along at some particular ability and that's the plateau. Every so often, I'd break through on something and that would be like climbing up to the next higher one. For whatever reason it was never a steady progression...for whatever that matters!

So the latest is available in the sidebar.

Obsessed with Down for the Count

Damn, some of the guitar pickin' on that tune is faster'n a mofo. I don't even believe this stuff when I play it back. I don't know if you all believe I can hear the mistakes and it may seem strange that I don't do it again when I make a mistake. The reason they don't bother me is that I'd be disappointed if I were not making mistakes because that would only mean that I'm not pushing hard enough. At this stage, the mistakes aren't a problem so they aren't dragging me down at all.

It's the lead lines that are blowing me away. I know what I'm going to play on the chorus part but the verse part is all trying things on for size. The outtro (ending) is weak as I just did the same thing as "Make My Day" so I need to do something altogether different. The intro is also weak and that's partly because it's sloppy and partly because it's not long enough.

The part that's killing me and it was cool that Katzy could drop a line to tell me this as well that the drums suck. I hear Vicki doing some hammering run-up to the verse out of the last bar of the chorus and all kinds of stuff like that. Hopefully she'll have time to get the "And Darkness Falls" track down tomorrow so I'll cleverly slip this one into the queue and maybe she'll have time to play with it as well. This tune will benefit hugely from high-power drums behind it as there's no doubt in my mind she can kick it into another dimension.

The vocal is the trippin' thang right now. Katzy said she gets the feeling of the need for speed out of it. OK, dat's cool. It's not all that dark but maybe it works. If the verse is going on about blasting about in this way or that then being down for the count after does logically follow. Hmm...it'd be too precious to make it dark just for the sake of darkness.

So how come Katzy is turning up in every paragraph. I'm referring to an email she sent today but that may not work tomorrow. Mail service has been pretty sporadic over the last twenty-four hours and it was still strange just a little while ago. I sent out a couple of emails but I have no idea if they really went or not.

OK, enough yak. It's not so hot today so time to play some.

Where the Hell is Matt?

This is a high-resolution version of the "Where the Hell is Matt?" video by Matt Harding and Melissa Nixon. It features "Praan" sung by Palbasha Siddique and written by Gary Schyman.


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo

Vimeo videos can be customized to be whatever size you like when you embed them in a Web page.

More on Down for the Count

Today's version of "Down for the Count" is in the sidebar. The only part I didn't re-record was the bass line and there's now an organ track as well. I didn't want a synth as this one is down for the count so I wanted an organ sound that was nasty as the bass. I don't mean nasty as in some precious Disturbed kind of affectation but rather that I want it to have some bite as synths have a carpetbagger kind of sound sometimes.

Miles Davis once said that all synthesizers are programmed white. For a long time, I thought that meant something but now I think it's pretty stupid. Of course he was a genius but that didn't exempt him from saying stupid things. Maybe he thought all they do is make square waves but that's tough to believe.

So it's easy to make a cheesy synth sound and that's what I wanted to avoid, not because it's too white...I just want that bite. Yeah, right...move on Silas.

When I was just starting to get electric, I'd play in the third floor of my parents' place but I wouldn't let anyone in when I was doing it. The house was in a basic model neighborhood of middle-class white people and two blocks away was a neighborhood that was mostly black and with a substantially lower standard of living. One day a guy met me outside the house and asked if I was the one who played the guitar. When I said yes, he asked me if I'd like to come down to jam with him and his friends.

Setting the stage a little more, I'll tell you that I was brought up on white people. It's not that we lived in some sort of segregated situation, there simply were no black people anyplace we lived. In the only other American town in which we lived, there were only a couple of black families in the town. We all had big families and we'd hang around a lot but there wasn't any perception of white/black anything. It wasn't until we got to Cincinnati that we learned There Is A Difference. We didn't know what The Difference was but we definitely knew we were in some kind of strange world we hadn't seen before.

I learned what The Difference was after I set up a time to go down and jam with this guy. He lived down on Vine Street and it has always had a terrible reputation. White friends said he probably was just setting me up to steal my guitar. I do confess to being afraid of what would come of it but these guys wanted to jam and that was too cool to pass up.

So we played for a while and I didn't stink too badly. I had my first Stratocaster and I'd only just got it so I was like a damn newlywed talking about it. At one point I blurted out that I really couldn't afford it but my father had helped me. The room got all quiet and then the guy who had invited me down there said that most of them didn't have fathers.

That must have been thirty years ago and I can still see his eyes looking at me. He wasn't blaming me for anything but rather each of us were looking at the mystery of how can the world possibly be so fucked up when all we want to do is make music. I have never felt so ashamed in my life and it's not something he was putting on me but rather it came from the realization for the first time of what The Difference was.

Wherever you are, I hope your jammin' dreams came true and I haven't forgotten after all this time so I don't think it's going to happen.

Upcoming gigs this week: I've been avoiding weekdays but there are some friend gigs later in the week. I'll be playing for Circe at Luxor on Wednesday and then for Katzy at the Black Cow on Thursday. Both are early at 3:00 p.m. or 4:00 p.m. game time. I may trial "Down for the Count" at the Ballroom on Tuesday night but that's highly tentative.

Down for the Count - Uploaded - Updated - And Again

There's a draft version of the tune in the sidebar. There's no keyboard stuff in it yet as I will still probably screw around with it some more. If I do any keys now then I'd have to record them again plus re-record the bass if I change the guitar chords. That's a waste so I'm holding off on it for now.

Hopefully it'll be fairly obvious where the 'down for the count part' will go. There are no more lyrics than that at the moment but it's definitely going to have words. Will this one qualify for Katzy's iPod. We shall see.

Still no sign of Nurse Judi. I've been trying to reach her by phone for, seems like, a couple of weeks. I'm not sure but it's been a while. Nurse Judi, if you see this, please drop a line here!

Update (before work):

So morning has come. Goddamn birds are singing and there's the cry of people all up and down the block saying to themselves, my SUV is not a station wagon. It isn't. Damnit, my SUV is not a station wagon. I am not Beaver Cleaver's father.

It's kind of sad, really. They do this every day. All they need is June Cleaver and wood panels for the Hummer and they can start shooting a sitcom.

This is the shredding part of the tune. I'll lay it down and then listen to it over and over to rip it to shreds. There are two chord patterns in the tune and I'm not entirely convinced they belong in the SAME tune. The production is pretty muddy as my focus is on structure more than making it pretty. The coolest thing to come out of the tune is the bass as I love that sound. This is the second time I've done it that way and I'm definitely hooked.

Updated again (late afternoon now):

The thing that's pissin' me off about the tune is the change from verse to chorus. The verse is the A-G-C-D and variations part. The chorus is the E-D-A-G-A part. I don't like the abrupt change from one to the other and it's bugging me. I'll play with some combinations later on when it cools down and we'll see what comes of that. Changing it really won't have much effect on the lead guitar line as the structure of each part will stay the same, it's the relationship between them that I'm going to screw up.

I'm listening to it now so I can write and shred the tune at the same time. The drums suck ferociously. Sounds like an effin' funeral. Vicki can fix that but I'll prob'ly tangle with them a bit to tide things over. The mud on the chords really sucks bad. Nothing but re-recording will fix that but I have to do that anyway. There's way too much lead guitar but there won't be in the final version as I want the full boat on this one with vocals and keys.

It's too much without the intro. What I intend is to play the verse chords on a clean guitar and then switch to distortion when I want to punch it up. So really you're picking it up after maybe 20% or so of the tune has already played.

Down For the Count

It cools off around 10:00 p.m. so that gives a short opportunity to play. I put down a bass line for the new one, "Down For the Count," and it's starting to layer up nicely. I'll probably want a keyboard line on there and what's cool these days is that I can lay it down with the keyboard or with synth chords from the guitar, maybe I'll do both. I want sound so fat that it spills right out of the pan and starts a fire on the stove.

The title works for me as it's all part of the darkness. The sissy stuff just isn't doing it for me. One of my all-time favorite Playboy cartoons featured a beatnik boy with his gorgeous girlfriend. They're sitting on a hillside looking over a fantastically beautiful country-side while he works on his poetry. He turns to her and says, "What rhymes with garbage?"

That cartoon pretty much exemplifies bands like Disturbed, rich white boys who are extremely angry over being rich and white, I suppose. I don't care what rhymes with garbage as that isn't why I'm doing this. The world is very dark already without creating more of it for no good reason and the sex life of the singer of Disturbed doesn't count as a good reason.

The start-up of the Hadron collider isn't going to cause the End of the Universe but the point in what I'm doing is that we're screwing around with forces that potentially could. Someone wanted to save the polar bears by moving them to the South Pole. That's great if you don't mind them eating all the penguins. People are screwing with forces that shouldn't be touched and it's not like we don't know any better....but we do it anyway.

So now you're gagging and thinking, damn, he thinks he's going to make something brighter by portraying it in darkness. Well, yeah, it is something like that.

Metal Day in Second Life

The gig at Avilion was scheduled for noon and I like to login an hour ahead of gig to do the various things I need for setting up. As I'm doing that, I see Alazarin at noon, Harleykillernl at noon, Zaphod at noon, one after the other. All told, I know there were at least five electric acts and maybe six, all going on at the same time.

That didn't foretell a big show for me but the turnout for mine was pretty good and it was pretty much of an on show. Sister Jacque knew the on nights and she wouldn't bust me for a gig that wasn't really on but she'd definitely say something for the ones that were. It was pretty cool that she knew the styles that well!

One thing that's amazing me is that I keep getting faster. I never dreamed I'd play anything like the stuff I do today. I thought playing like this was something only the gods could do and it would always be out of my reach. People even call my shows concerts but I don't know what they'd think if they knew I play naked.

What?

I'm not going to tell you if I made that up. One thing I'm not making up is that it's over ninety in this room and this one is headed for the shower and then the cave with the air conditioning. Thanks to everyone who came to the show! or concert, even!

There wasn't time before the room got too hot to work on the new one anymore but it's hooked me and I'll definitely play it out. I want to add some bass and keys later on. If it still sounds cool to me, I'll send it to Vicki Nilsson as well. She's planning on sending the tracks for "And Darkness Falls" around Wednesday so new stuff is definitely coming soon.

New Tune

I don't know if I'll have it together for the gig today but it's promising. I'm pretty much satisfied with the chords and some lead lines that play over them so now I can put some bass and keys over that to see how it all stacks up. This is metallic on the same order as "And Darkness Falls" and I'm really enjoying the sound, particularly for the segregation of the instruments.

So now the damn sun is back up and things will start heating up again. It's quite good to play and not have to "Dry Me a River" afterward and I'm glad this tune has moved up to Serious Contender. Prior to that it's just something with a bizarro name and chords that might turn out to be cool sometime. I've got loads of tunes in the pre-Serious Contender stage and one day I might even go and find out what they are.

So I need a name for this one. Supernova is pretty grandiose but I do like the scope! That'd be for people who are worrying about when the sun is going to explode. It's really not a supernova tune tho. Geez, lyrics started running through my head. It could turn out to be a love song. No, no, no. Someone make it stop!!!

Guitars

There were as an email from my sis yesterday so it's settled now on where the 12-string acoustic will go. What makes it all kozmic is that today is her boy's birthday so the timing is perfect. She works for an airline so she may fly up and pick it up so that'd be kind of cool. I don't know if it's all that practical as I'd still have to box it up just like I would for UPS or whatever. (I've checked with Guitar Center and they don't have a special instrument shipping service)

So the boy's name is Justin and right away you figure he's gay. Yeah, right, tell me you know anyone named Justin who isn't gay. Anyway, that's what occurred to me when he was a kid and I thought, hmm, this will be strange. I was envisioning a future in which he would one day introduce me to Hamilton and tell me he's in love with him. I'd tell him that I can deal with the fact that you're gay but I can't deal with you being love with some guy who is named after a toaster.

Anyway, he's not gay so my family is fulfilling the holy mission of populating the earth with straight white guys. Maybe one of us will go on to do something cooler than inventing Post-It notes but so far it hasn't happened. Since we've only got until August when they turn on the Hadron collider, prospects are dim!

Now it's 5:30 a.m. and I've been up for a few hours as this is the best time of the day...at night! The temperature in the house is no longer at levels you could use for astronaut training and the fat guy with the Harley isn't cruising up the street every few minutes. Plus there is no light and the absence of light is always good. The dark side just doesn't work when the sun is shining and ice cream trucks are going down the street.

The game plan is to play a little bit until the light becomes intolerable and the temperature goes up. I'll hide until the gig at Avilion at 12:00 Pacific Time and I'll be drenched after the gig so I'll prob'ly disappear again after that.

Too Hot in New England

Sorry I suck so bad for being so difficult to find and for bailing out on the shows today but it is nothing but brutal here right now. The house gets so hot that the only way to deal with it is to hide in the bedroom with the window air conditioner or hide in the basement. The rest of the house is close to unusable. It will be a bit better tomorrow but not by a lot.

And Darkness Falls

It was really good playing last night as it felt pretty spontaneous and I love that. I liked how it went with "Who Do You Love" from Snow Gretzky. That had a great, raw garage band kind of feel to it and I was definitely getting off on that. This one wasn't all that dark but it still felt like a good match.

"And Darkness Falls" isn't burning out for me and something that'll be really great is if Vicki can get some drums together for it. There's no possible way I can get my own drum stuff to anywhere near the level of what she can do. I love her moves!!! Another place that she's really killer is in the sound production. She gets such a fantastic power out of the drums that it puts the whole tune up against the wall. I love it!!!

hexx Triskaidekaphobia and the Born Again Pagans at 1:00 p.m. US Pacific Time today at Rastafairy Beach skystage. After that at 2:00 p.m., Soundcircel Flannagan will be playing there.