Fail

Yup, we've been in school for just a few days and I've already failed - failed at keeping my resolution. And it isn't just a little fail. This is an epic fail. I'm so incredibly stressed about everything, especially music theory which is kicking my ass. I'm constantly doing homework and studying, yet I feel like it's all coming to nothing. And my god, this stress! Like Jon said in the entry before it, there's so much going on, but it seems like whenever I take a stab at getting something accomplished, I take a step backwards. I just want to be happy, and I honestly don't think it's possible. I don't know how to deal with this.

--Elie

*phew* The Week in [Brief] Review

Who ever thought that the first week of school could have lasted what seemed like thousands of years? From the info fair to sunburn to band auditions to getting up early to placement exams to background checks to last-minute-required-book-buyings to email issues to radio shows to a toe injury to keyboard/singing practicing to laundry-doing to apartment-cleaning to multiple other rather stressful situations... Jesus Christ, this has been quite a week. And the craziness isn't all sorted out quite yet. At least not in my mind. But at least I got everything I need for the mentoring "class" in. *le sigh*

This weekend, John von and I are going to do some rehearsing for the open mic we plan on hitting up next week. If you've listened to the songs on our MySpace, you'll recognize what we plan on playing. So be there to listen! It will be great if all goes well.

I'm thinking of just giving away my CDs. Although that would actually cost me money, no one has really displayed any interest in buying it from me. Maybe I'll just nag people some more.

--Jon

An Overview of My Music Stuffs (ALBUM FOR SALE)

So I finished recording my "solo album." It's called Hurricane Ridge, which is the sort of pseudonym I'm using. The title was kind of inspired by Mount Eerie, another Washington one-man "band," and since the original idea of the project was to reflect upon conflicts between nature and civilization, I thought it was appropriate (for those of you not in the know, Hurricane Ridge really pretty spot in the Olympic Mountains above Port Angeles that a lot of tourists go to). However, there isn't so much an overarching theme anymore to all of the songs. I tried to keep it somewhat in the same range of feelings and emotions though, and I think I did an okay job. I'm really happy with the end result, which is about 40 minutes of music, plenty for a short-ish album. Longer than Weezer's "Green Album."

I'm selling copies of my CD for $5. Talk to me if you want one! If you don't live near me, I can send you a copy in the mail for $6. Email me at jonbashmusic@gmail.com. Also, add me on MySpace! www.myspace.com/jonbash.music. I don't know who would read this that doesn't know me but... whatever! Stuff can happen.

In terms of genre... it jumps around a bit, but it's generally somewhere around gloomy, slightly experimental electronica, folk, and indie rock. I've taken to calling most of the music I make "alternative pop," even though that has potential to sound very 90's. Influences... Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens, Animal Collective, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire, Weezer, Cursive, Dismemberment Plan, Mount Eerie/The Microphones... way too many to name.

So I guess I'm going to go over all of the songs. I know this might make me sound pretentious, but this is also for myself; since my memory is shit, I want to be able to go back and read this some day and be like "Oh, I remember the state of mind I was in when I wrote that!" Here goes:

1. "The Northern Sun"

This is probably the first song I fully conceived in my head when I started pursuing this project, although ironically it was the last one I recorded. I was planning on making it much more grandiose, with violins and cellos and clarinets and flutes and timpani and concert percussion and other stuff, but this would have been terribly difficult to do just right. It came out as more of a minimalist acoustic piece with a nice little buildup at the end. This song has only one "virtual instrument," and it would have been non-virtual if I had access to an acoustic bass guitar, but alas, I just wanted to get this done. I wasn't planning on having a "guitar solo," but I didn't want to have a boring plain ol' instrumental interlude. So that's what happened.

One morning, in the middle of January, it was super cold, and super early, and the sun had barely risen, and I was all wrapped up in scarves and coats and such, and could see my breath, and I was all alone at the bus stop, just thinking, and this song and these lyrics just started playing in my head. I wrote them down later when I get to geology, and started writing the rest of the song. The lyrics have been in my geology notebook unused, until the other day when I finally recorded the song.

The influence of Godspeed You! Black Emperor shows most in this song.

2. "Opening Day at the Mall"

A short instrumental that I made mostly when I first got the program I use to record my music. I was planning on turning it into a full song, but just never got around to it, and couldn't think of anything classy to do with it. I think it's best as it is. All the guitar parts were recorded this summer.

3. "Cabin Fever"

During the winter, when this project was in its infancy, I came up with the idea for this song; drum machines and layered, moaning, choir-like vocals, with some regular (well, distorted) singing over the top of it all. The working title for the idea was "I'm Only Dying," based on some conversation between my fellow Squirrel Bagger and me. During spring break '09, after Elie left, my parents had gone on vacation to California, many of my friends were busy, and I had very little to do except make music. But even that was tough for me. I was just totally dead, suddenly. I tried starting to write another song (what would later become "Post-Apocalyptic Blues"), but it just wasn't coming out right. I had a classic case of writer's block. I tried using an idea of Thom Yorke's; scribbling little bits and pieces of lyrics on small pieces of paper, one-liners, something that sounded good but had nothing to go with it. The lyrics to this song are what eventually came out when I put a lot of those little lines together and changed them up a bit to fit the music. As I've stated on this blog before, the chord progression was lifted from a somber, sad, and mysterious song from one of my favorite video games ever, Final Fantasy VII. I tried to capture a sense of panic and paranoia and insanity that one might get from REALLY intense "cabin fever." I hope I did alright? I'm really proud of the drumbeat in this song; more so than any other song here.

4. "What a Hero"

The music to this was a result of some nice, random inspiration while I was working on another song. I had a lot of fun with this. This was the second time after my previous shortcomings that I tried writing lyrics that didn't necessarily make much sense, but sounded good enough. I'm not sure what I was trying to convey; it's a mix between actually telling someone (not anyone in particular) to stop sitting around and start doing stuff, and sort of poking fun at people that say that kind of stuff. I think moreso the latter. Being a percussion nerd, I really enjoyed the time signature changes. The percussion that begins and ends the song was all software instruments. I wanted to make it sound like some field recording of a drum circle, though; my original plan was to rerecord it, but I would have needed way more drums than I had, it would have taken a lot of time, and since my computer isn't top-of-the-line, the poor guy wouldn't have been able to handle that many tracks. I totally ripped off The Beatles with the backwards guitar solo in the middle. It was fun, though, and sounds neat, which are the most important parts. I always wanted to use a distorted acoustic guitar in a song, and this, I think, was my first opportunity to do that. I will definitely do it again sometime.

5. "Carbophobe"

I found a program online for making and manipulating (in real-time) stupid, awesome, synthesized techno loops. I played with it, and made the music to this. Afterwards, I decided to put some singing to it, but not even in-time with the beat. I programmed the vocals to come in right when the techno loop starts defragmenting itself. I basically wanted it to sound like music for a stupid workout machine commercial from the 90s, or an energy drink, or protein powder; something stupid like that. It, again, doesn't have too much meaning. Take it for what it is.

6. "Henchmen"

The lyrics to this song used to be god-awful (discussed in the aforementioned blog-post). Kind of written to be closure for an old friend that hates me now. I realized that was really pretentious and I didn't quiiiite get the message right, so I decided to change the lyrics around and give them pretty much no meaning whatsoever. I came up with the guitar riff while messing around with a setting with my software that gave it a ridiculous amount of distortion. After contemplating making it a sort of post-metal song, I decided to take a more glitchy electronic direction with it. I like how it came out. The verses take a lot of breath to sing, if you can't tell. I don't know how dudes like Tomas Kalnoky [of Streetlight Manifesto] do it. The song originally faded out during the guitar solo, but it felt half-finished, so I added another section and another chorus. I guess the lyrics do have some sort of vague storyline... about two henchmen arguing or something...? I don't know. A friend told me that this song sounds kinda like Xiu Xiu, who I hadn't heard until he said that. I do agree with him, though, strangely.

7. "Haven"

Another instrumental I wrote testing out my recording software. I also thought of turning this into a full song, but I kinda think it would have tainted it. I think this song was just 3 tracks: a stock drum-loop from the software, super-echoey guitar, and the main "rhythm" guitar. Fun fact: those two guitars are actually acoustic guitars plugged straight into the computer and processed to hell. The distant guitar sounds that open this song are the same ones that open "The Northern Sun" and the album. I thought it added "cohesion" to the album. :)

8. "Ostrich in a Casket"

So during spring break, after I semi-got over my writer's block, I had one more day to record stuff. I was sick of overthinking the songwriting and recording. I talked to Elie the night before, and somehow the phrase "Ostrich in a Casket" came up. She suggested I write a song about it. So I took that, along with a strange dream I had where Justin Timberlake was the leader of a gang I was in, and we had penguin soldiers (like in Batman Returns), wrote the dumbest lyrics I could possibly think of, thrashed around on my guitar with much, much dissonance (kinda poking fun at the Blood Brothers and Dismemberment Plan), played a "rawkin'" [see: shitty and sloppy :D] guitar solo, distorted one vocal track and double-tracked the other one, singin' falsetto, programmed some ridiculous drums for key sections... okay, you get the idea.
You can listen to examples of my influences for this song here (my favorite super-angry thrashy song of all time) and here (my favorite anti-pretentious-hipster song of all time).

9. "Livin' It Up"

I'm still very proud of the instrumentals in this song. It was originally meant to be a mostly loud and exciting song, but I was a little suppressed recording the vocals in the new apartment. This is why I autotuned some vocals. It turned out to be a kind of neat touch, with robots singing the chorus and the second half of the first verse. Still kinda funky, though. I don't know. I spent a lot of time on the music for this one, and I had the chorus melody in my head for a long time, but the execution wasn't quite what I originally planned. Again, the lyrics make no sense. Vaguely something about seizing the day. I originally planned on making it an anti-alcohol song. But that could never have ever worked out well. I love the 80s-ish drum sound I managed to get. The echoey harmonized guitar that comes in during the "I've had quite enough" line was inspired by a cover of a Final Fantasy X song called "People of the North Pole." I used to reeeally look down upon anyone lifting a single idea from another song, but after listening to too much Daft Punk, Coldplay, and so many other bands that do that, I've lightened up quite a bit; as long as you don't just straight up rip off an entire song or a significant portion, I think it can be put to fantastic use. Anyways, I think this is the closest this album came to sounding like my "other project," The Situation, in which I write with John von Volkli. This song was definitely influenced by my experience making music with him. Most intentionally lame line I've ever written: "We can start anew if only we could only start... livin' it up."

10. "Post-Apocalyptic Blues"

I put the long instrumental intro before the actual song starts, because I think people didn't have a long enough attention span to listen through it to get to the exciting part. Which I can understand. This was also done over spring break. All of the music from the opening through the verse had been something I'd been working on for about a year (possibly more?), but never turned into a full song. It was nice to finally get it off of my plate. The lyrics were taken from an idea I had for a totally different song, but I soon realized that, with a change of key, they would fit very well within this song, so I melded the two together. This is the only song where I actually plugged my guitar into an amp and set the mic in front of it; I mainly did this so I could get some nice end-song-guitar-feedback (a little trick I think I first learned from Weezer (used most memorably (for me at least) in this song)). Seeing as this was one of the first songs I recorded by myself, the vocals are a bit meh at points *cough*towardstheend*cough*. But it gives it a feeling of really being post-apocalyptic...? Or something...? I had I Am Legend in mind when I wrote the lyrics, but just about anything similar could work. I think the guitar before the track starts is the album's only use of my phase pedal? No wait, I think I used it on the backwards solo on "What a Hero" as well. Damn. Godspeed also influenced the final section of this song, as well as the way this song fades into the next.

11. "The Northern Sun (Reprise)"

Also inserted for record cohesion, and because I wanted "The Northern Sun" to, lyrically, be a kind of focus for the album, even if in a really weird, non-sense-making kind of way. This was recorded when I first conceived of the song so that I wouldn't forget the melody. I recorded it with the mic that comes on the laptop, and it sounded like poop, so I took advantage of that fact, added lots of reverb... there ya go. This "song" is in the same key as the song before it! Except this is minor and the other was major. I like it! Not entirely intentional, but YES, awesome segue!

12. "Prologue/Epilogue"

The song written for my favorite person in the whole wide world and my dear fellow Squirrel Bagger, who arrived in Bellingham today (well, "yesterday" now)! This song had its beginnings possibly 3 years ago. The music during the "All we can do is try" section (and also the "I know we've got all the time" section) is definitely the oldest part; I've been playing that for years, never really able to come up with something good to go with it even though it was so fun and I was so proud of it. Somewhat Fleetwood Mac-inspired? I think so. The next part I wrote was the main riff that plays in the beginning and the end of the song. This was written some time during my senior year in high school, and again, although I loved it, I didn't know what to do with it. Time passed. When college began, I tried using that acoustic riff I wrote my senior year, and added another section, the whole "I never said, I never will" part (don't you love how I label parts of my songs...). I also wrote some lyrics for the song. It was an incomplete mess, as evidenced when I tried performing it at open mic the night after I finished it. Elie and my relationship was just blossoming at the time, so I scavenged the lyrics from this unfinished boggle of a song, added more, added those old sections from so long ago that I had still never used, added even more, and came up with this: "Prologue/Epilogue." The beginning of one thing, the end of another. One problem: performance anxiety. I didn't really have the guts to play her the song. I gave her the lyrics, but kept the song inside for awhile. I wanted to be able to play it well. After recording most of this album, I decided I was experienced enough to try to pull it off. I originally wanted to have all sorts of extravagent acoustic instrumentation, but Elie agrees that it sounds better simpler. I managed to use my mandolin on this song alone! Also, the drumbeat at the beginning was inspired by something similar Christian played when I showed the acoustic "riff" to him and John during a practice once (at the time, we couldn't figure out anything to do with it; looking back, I'm very glad nothing became of it at the time). This and "The Northern Sun" are the two songs I'm most proud of here.

There may or may not be a secret song on the album. It may or may not melt your face and make your ears bleed.

~ * ~

Anyways, *phew*, that's it. I think. I probably forgot stuff. Whoooo cares. Buy my album, please!

--Jon

L'Shana Tova

Happy (Jewish) new year! And now for a Passover pun: why is this new year different from all other new years? Well, this year, I actually want to make a resolution; I want to make myself and my life better than it ever has. My resolution is to stress and worry less and to just try to be happy.

It's always smart to make some steps of how you're going to accomplish your goal, and I guess I don't really have a list. Thus far, it's helped to tell myself that whatever I'm worrying about, it's not a huge deal. For example, I started to stress about my audition, and then I told myself that it really doesn't impact my life a huge deal if I don't get into wind symphony. I'm concentrating on becoming a teacher, not a professional clarinetist. Whatever happens, I'll deal.

This new year is also different from all other new years because I'm starting off this year with going to Bellingham/my new apartment on the first full day of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year). When spring quarter ended last school year, I was involved in a lot of campus activities, but this year I want to be more involved, and, most importantly, I want to help people - specifically children. I've decided that one day I'll change the world by first helping the education system and the children within, and I'm going to start helping by tutoring and mentoring while learning all I can about educational inequality and educating others about it. In essence, I've found what I love (teaching and learning about teaching) and I plan to do all I possibly can in that field - starting on Sunday with a club meeting.

I start my life anew this year, and it shall be excellent.

-Elie

Every Romantic Comedy Ever

Part 1: Guy and girl are impressed with each other's good looks, but once they talk they realize that at least one of them can't stand the other.

Part 2: Guy and girl are forced into each other's company and realize they like each other

Part 3: Guy and girl are in love!

Part 4: Guy does something stupid and girl gets pissed.

Part 5: Guy concocts grand and over-the-top scheme to win back girl

Part 6: Guy and girl live happily ever after!

~ * ~

There are even some non-romantic comedies that have a romantic sub-plot that follows this arc pretty much by the book. And who started it?

JANE. AUSTEN. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. The precursor to all chick flicks.

--Jon

RPGs Need a New Name

Video games labeled as "role-playing games" aren't usually "role-playing games" in the sense that lots of people tend to think. It's not just pretending you're someone you're not and living a second life. Hell, the games Second Life or The Sims are a lot closer to "role-playing games" than, say, Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger. The difference is the latter games have their roots in old pencil-and-paper "role-playing games" like Dungeons and Dragons. In these games, you would construct a character that you would play as, "playing" their "role" at all times in the game. This character would grow and gain skills, maybe even a personality, making them more real, and since this character was the player's creation, they would grow very attached to them. This character is essentially an extension of the self. The same goes for Second Life and The Sims and similar games, but these games aren't called RPGs.

In contrast, Final Fantasy and similar games have preset characters, preset abilities, a preset storyline, preset everything. For me, playing Final Fantasy games are more like reading an interactive book, where I can change the events in very slight ways, and, although only virtually, experience the events. While I suppose you still are fulfilling the role of these characters, it's no different from any 1st-person shooter, 3rd-person shooter, side-scrolling, or any other sort of game featuring identifiable characters. It's sort of arbitrary, but I was driving back from Kingston today, and I thought about it... so I decided to post this.

--Jon

Amazing Grace

Many weeks ago I read the book Amazing Grace - The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation by Jonathan Kozol. I wrote a bit about this book in a previous blog, so I may be repeating myself. But basically the book was about the people living in the Bronx, and the book changed the way I see poverty.

I bookmarked a few places that I wanted to have other people read, although I strongly recommend this book to everyone. If I had my way about it, everybody in the entire world would read every one of Jonathan Kozol's books. One can only dream... :)

--"'Evil exists? Yes, I said that. People who let other people be destroyed do evil. People who know but do not act do evil too. I don't know if I would call them evil but they're certainly not thinking about heaven."' - the son of a woman dying of AIDS, living on welfare

--"Prisons, schools, and churches, many religious leaders have observed, are probably the three most segregated institutions in our nation, although the schools in New York City are quite frequently more segregated even than the prisons."

--"'Hypersegregation' has been introduced to speak of schools like these, where there are simply no white children, or not more than token numbers; and similar schools are to be found, of course, in almost every city of the nation. 'Two thirds of America's black children' notes the Times, 'know few, if any, white people.' The city rights momentum of the 1960s, says Professor Gary Orfield, one of the authors of the Harvard study, 'is dead in the water and the ship is floating backward.'"

--"'A dream,' he [Gary Orfield, I think] says, "does not die on its own. A dream is vanquished by the choices ordinary people make about real things in their own lives. The choices that some of your friends on the West Side have made may seem benign and innocent and, in the short run, even logical. But the net effects are very much the same as those we saw in Alabama and Virginia when white people left the public schools after the first court ordered. The motive may be different, and I'm sure it often is; the consequence is not.'"

--"I ask him why the children in the Nazi camps came to his mind when we were speaking of this neighborhood. He answers with a caution I have heard from others, when a reference to the Holocaust was made. 'It is not the same,' he says, 'But there are some similarities. There is the feeling of eclipse. There is the likelihood of death for many. There is the sense of people watching from the outside but seeming paralyzed and doing nothing. And there are the miracles.'"

--"I [Mr. Kozol] think that Mrs. Washington [the woman with AIDS, on welfare in the Bronx] is right to view the years before us as foreboding. I have never lived through a time as cold as this in the United States. Many men and women in the Bronx believe that it is going to get worse. I don't know what can change this." - This is the paragraph before the epilogue and Jonathan Kozol admits that he doesn't know what to do. His editors were not happy with him.

I'm fascinated and horrified that schools are such dismal places with such segregation where dreams are destroyed. I think that these sections stood out to me because it was a call to action. I agree that people who know of an injustice but do nothing to stop it are "evil" in a sense. There's no way that I can't not go into the world wanting to make a difference. I don't know how I'll do it, but I'll start by teaching these kinds of kids that need their dreams nurtured.

I guess it's hypocritical that I read these kinds of books and am inspired, and I'm covered in peace signs, yet I have done nothing. At least I'm planning to do something. I'm definitely going to be helping the community more this year at Western by being a part of Compass 2 Campus and being part of Students for Educational Equality and such. What makes me annoyed is that the peace sign has become so popular yet most people who sport the symbol don't understand what it means.

To me, peace means unconditional respect, a desire to understand, and a hope for equality for all people. Peace means dreaming of something bigger than yourself while being part of the movement. I want to be part of the movement. As I look at the words of peace on many of my shirts and the peace signs on my ring, earring, and necklace, I'm reminded that wearing the peace sign is not enough. I must act and make a difference somehow. And I will. It's just a matter of how.

--Elie

P.S. I was listening to "Revolution" by the Beatles as I finished writing this. :D

"Smile Time!" - a math professor at Western

I'm fallin' behind on this whole blogging thing. But let's start with a significant life-changing event I recently had. Hooray!

Well, one night I was particularly frustrated and tired of being unhappy and stressed, and I was frustrated in general with myself for my inability to be happy. Just as I thought my life couldn't get any worse, I got a call from my roommate the next morning saying our apartment was full of mold and water damage, and her parents weren't letting her live there, and when my mom found out about the condition of our apartment (which we hadn't seen), she wouldn't let me live there either.

So I had two problems: finding another apartment 3 weeks before school started and getting out of a lease both my roommate and I had signed. We had also paid the landlady about $700 for the security deposit and for rent. After contemplating my problems and realizing it was mostly my fault for never looking at the apartment and for pushing my roommate to sign the lease, I broke down completely. I was depressed and miserable and sick for 2 and a half days. During that time, and before, Jon was always a great help and I owe him my sanity. He always tried to calm me down, and he never freaked out when I was crying while I tried to talk to him over the phone. I realized then that although I had made one of the biggest mistakes in my life by getting myself and my roommate into this apartment mess, at least I had made the right decision, roughly 11 months ago, to hook up with Jon.

And THEN, that same night that I had a bit of a nervous break-down, I over-heard my parents arguing and discovered a bit of information that I could have done without which further pushed me over the edge.

I eventually went to Bellingham and found another apartment, and it looks like we'll get out of the lease and get most of our money back. As I looked back on the days previous, I realized that I had been so upset and stressed for nothing because everything turned out alright. Then I realized that most of my worrying is for nothing. Ironically, a friend had just pointed that out and I brushed it off.

When the weight of this whole apartment problem was lifted from my shoulders, I realized how relieved and happy I felt, and I decided that it's so much better to be happy and not depressed/stressed all the time. That's not the life I want to lead. As the Jewish new year (Rosh Hashanah) approaches, I'm promising myself that I'm going to change. I'll do my best to not be a stressed, worried, depressed mess all the time. It's just not worth it. I want to live life instead of worrying about it. It's time to be happy.

--Elie

Brand New – DAISY [an album review]

I recently obtained Brand New’s brand new album, entitled Daisy, and boy is it heavy (in many ways). Their fourth full-length outing and the first in almost three years, this is definitely the sound of a band that has doing its thing for over a decade. It opens with an odd 50s-ish sample of religious hymn of some sort, which is shortly interrupted by the short and vengeful “Vices,” definitely the heaviest (aurally, at least) song of the album and definitely the heaviest song Brand New has ever written. They scream. They rail on their respective instruments. It rips open your throat and pours itself in, melting your innards. It ends before it grows old, and travels to the polar opposite of the Brand New sound-catalog, a slower and gloomier song that sounds more like the material of their last album. Although now they're not as afraid to let their love of straightforward rock-and-roll show as much, much of the album shares its general vibe and influence with 2006’s The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, but this run-around cuts out the filler and the more boring moments, keeping the dark hooks and often-Modest Mouse-ish guitar/vocal work melded with some newfound near-metal-ish tendenacies. The album's first single, “At the Bottom,” fairly well represents the album, with a delicate and moody guitar opening, chanty verse, loud and catchy chorus, and hard-hitting breakdown. I find myself jealous of Jesse Lacey’s emotive voice, which has never sounded more angry and yet more mature. In an interview, he's stated that they wrote the album with a live setting in mind, and this definitely comes through on record. Lyrically, much of the subject matter is similar to the last album, revolving around existentialism, life, death, and God. The band has definitely come a long way from their debut album Your Favorite Weapon, which was pretty much straight-up pop-punk-emo; this is precisely the album that I wanted them to make when I heard their second album, Deja Entendu, which was a step towards their current darker sound. While The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me sounded rather hopeless, this latest outing takes hold of this gloom and doom and forms it into wonderful, melancholy bliss.

FINAL SCORE: +3 [on a scale of –5 to +5 (positive numbers = like; negative numbers = dislike)

--Jon