I’m almost done reading manuscripts for the three candles press first book award, which is being judged this year by Alexander Long. I think I have around twenty or so more to read before the end of November.
Musically, nothing new to report on. I sent the master for the full-release of Hello Cruel World and have not heard a word back from the label, despite four emails to contact them. And, yes, this makes me nervous.
Writing-wise, still having a writing block, though three of my more recent poems were picked up by Hotel Amerika (Go team Steve!).
Is it just me or has the world gotten too complicated?
I sent off comments regarding the reference master (version 9) earlier this morning and the mastering engineer says the disc should be ready in a few hours ) — I’m supposed to call him at 2:00 to pick up version 10. After that gets approved, he’ll press two masters — one for me, and one for the record label. Things are getting close! I’m really excited about this second, full-release. I hope people like it as much as I do.
Just won a bid for a contracting site for a customer in Virginia. I enjoy doing web work and like staying busy (it funds the toys for my studio). We’re going to do a phased approach — phase one being “just get it up”; phase two being the phase when I do the magic (the UI look and feel, and organizing the navigation and content). I’ve never worked with this customer before but I’ve known him many years in an online sense.
Currently I’m about 610 pages into Don Quixote. It’s a long read, but very enjoyable. A real epic.
I’m busy organizing my second book of poetry, and sent a copy of version 1 to BlazeVOX books. This weekend, I will tweak sections 2 and 3 and send that version to University of Wisconsin. Next month, I’m going to send a copy to Carnegie Mellon.
Manuscripts have started to come in for this year’s First Book Award, a contest I run through my press to find the best unpublished manuscript I can. It is being judged this year by Alexander Long, a really terrific poet, so I’m looking forward to reading through the manuscripts and beginning the process of selecting finalists for the judge to read. There are almost always five stellar manuscripts or so, any one of which I would be proud to publish; so there’s always a kind of Christmasy feeling, once the finalists are off to the judge, of anticipation.
That’s about it for now. I have made it a point this month to send out more submissions. Already received one “you suck” letter (which means it was in the office less than three days). That sort of thing can be disheartening, but I’ve developed a pretty thick skin over the years…
Today, I finally finished my 7-string defret project. I finished sanding the neck, bought lemon oil and coated the fretboard with it, then took it to the guitar shop to have the back of the nut cut about 1/32 of an inch. This last step I probably could have done, but if I messed it up it would mean that I’d have to buy a blank nut, find a luthier that knows 7-strings and pay to have it notched. 25 dollars to have the nut cut sounds a lot better than the 100 or so I’d have to pay someone to cut another one. The guys at the store had never seen a fretless, much less a 7-string fretless, so they were all excited.
FL studio 9 was released yesterday so I wrote to the company to request an NFR so I can do a review of it. My next two reviews will be of TH-1 and Symptohm respectively. I really enjoy doing software reviews. I’m trying to get a review gig with one of the major music magazines and am pretty close to getting it. Even if I don’t this is one aspect of my activities that I really enjoy.
I’ve decided not to finish Electro Shaman for the record. I will, instead, try to finish “The Number 11″ which I recently rediscovered on my hard drive. I posted 4 old metal songs on reverb nation for those who are interested in metal. These were recorded between 1986 and 1991 and are at the bottom of the player.
Hey, I really mean to blog more. I really really do. I’m just a bad man.
I’ve had such an amazing week. First, on Monday, I heard that I’ll be transferring to the web team here at work where I’ll be doing user interface design for web applications. I love doing graphics and coding so this will be a very welcome change. On Wednesday, I signed a recording contract, one of my lifelong goals. Yesterday, a friend I’d lost touch with, an amazing, amazing drummer, expressed an interest in collaborating over the Internet and asked what he’d need to buy to make it happen.
I just started reading Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion and think it should be required reading. He really expresses the ironic dichotomy between the heavy-handed vengeful Yahweh versus the meek and mild baby Jesus. He also mentions that christianity is a “derivative” of Judaism, which it is but no christian really thinks that much about. I mean the whole old Testament was appropriated from the Jewish religion. I’m not an atheist, but I do believe that his case for atheism is very good (along with statements that say you can be moral without being religious), but I leave the case for a higher power open. Where science proves religion wrong, science trumps. However, science does not explain the “engine” behind the appearance of reality. “Why,” as Heidegger would say, “are there Essents rather than nothing?”
Two weeks ago, my Dr. added Abilify to my regular prescription of Pristiq and I have to say that the difference has been amazing. The first four days I was nauseous and dizzy and almost stopped taking the med but I decided to stick it out and give it a fair shot. Good thing because on the fifth day, I woke happy and have been happy ever since. I haven’t had a streak like this EVER. I’ve had 11 days now of happiness and it’s something I don’t want to let go of. Couple that with all the good news and you can see why I’ve had a stellar week.
That’s all for now folks. Tune into this broadcast station for future updates.
Today, I signed a recording contract with Artificial Bliss (England and Wales). They will be re-releasing my EP as a full-length CD sometime in 2010. I am so excited. The guy that runs the label is an avid electronic music fan, DJ, and a damned good musician in his own right with several albums to his credit.
I am so gassing for this amp:
http://www.bogneramplification.com/index_alchemist.php
Anyone really rich that feels like spending money on a creative type? Just kidding. But not really.
The second installment of my conversation series has been posted on my website. This conversation is between myself and Italian electronic composer Carlo Serafini.
http://stevemueske.com/conversations/conversationCarlo.htm
It’s been a strange week. I’m feeling much better than last week, so that’s a bonus, but I’m sleeping a lot. I suppose my body just needs that from time to time. I have a song going in Reason that I’m porting audio for in Reaper. I could just rewire Reason into Reaper but I really want to conceive the MIDI sequencing and audio manipulation as two different procesess. We’ll see. It’s been pretty fun so far. I’ve been working on it for about two weeks — have around 38 seconds of material.
Still reading Don Quixote — am almost half done. Still reading Sound Synthesis and Sampling — somewhere around 110 pages or so. It’s pretty interesting reading about how analog sound synthesis developed and am getting a better understanding of its digital counterpart. Strange to think that a lot of the technology first developed as a means of testing telephony.
I’m really excited to be part of what I consider to be a DIY digital revolution. The technology is now available to completely bypass the record companies and studios. Musicians all over the world are now able to make music that was impossible even 10 years ago (unless you could afford the tens of thousands of dollars for analog equipment). I can’t think of a better time to be alive and making music. The creative potential is limitless. I hope the enough independent musicians will create music and find alternative ways to bring it to the people. Only then can we have a true revolution in music. Imagine radio stations that don’t play the same ten songs over and over again. With the Internet and rapid advances in recording and software technology, I think we’re on the cusp of something momentous. I have no idea how it will play out in the next five years, but independent artists will eventually be a force to be reckoned with. At the very least it will force the industry to move beyond the limitations of CD audio. MP3 audio, which seems to be the consumer’s preference, is horrible. CD audio, which is much better, is 25 years out of date. We have the ability to record music and publish it in 48khz (and higher) resolutions with 24-bit and 32-bit FP bitrates. The difference between a standard MP3 recorded at 128 kbps at 44.1 and a lossless audio file at a 48khz samplerate is night and day. Now that memory has come down in price, there is no reason why media can’t be sold on memory cards that would pop into a portable player. The only thing the player would need is some sort of app to play the files. The person who makes this will be very rich. People could be listening to theater-quality sound … but they don’t know it yet.
Hey, going camping this weekend with a few families in White Water State Park. Really looking forward to the time away. I love sleeping in a tent, making fires, sitting around talking, hiking — being immersed in a natural atmosphere.
I’m getting Machine, Man, Mind mastered on Sept. 1, so I have a month to prepare. I’m working on a new track tentatively titled “Techno Primitive” — little concerned that the name implies the genre, which it is not, but I guess I really don’t care if things can be misread. It’s a polyrhythmic thingy based on a sixteenth feel but with patterns of 13, 17, and 19. I’m hoping that my short microtonal intro “My Beautiful Longing” will be ready to have mastered at the same time. Then the master will be nearly ready for a re-release.
Also started a new website for an Italian restaurant called Marsala’s in Florida.
I got the final approval from electronic composer Carlo Serafini to conduct a public conversation, so I wrote my first piece to him and shipped it off this morning. Should be an interesting conversation.
Sleep! I finally got some last night — about 9 hours worth. Man, it’s such a blessing when I can get a night like that. I usually get about 4 - 5 hours for a string of 3 - 4 days in a row followed by a regular night in which it is difficult to get to sleep and I end up getting 5 or 6. To have one solid night where I crashed and then woke up feeling refreshed was nothing short of a miracle.
Hey:
I have a few minutes free so thought I might as well update my blog. My review of Synapse Audio’s Orion, a MIDI-based DAW was posted on Monday at: http://recording.songstuff.com/article/orion
I also posted the first end-to-end version of “Machine, Man, Mind” at http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/1657442 (you can also listen to it from my main reverbnation page at http://www.reverbnation.com/stevemueske)
I’ve had a fairly shitty week so far. Started getting depressed Sunday evening and it progressed to the point that I needed to take off Tuesday (spent the entire day and most of the evening in bed). I can be down for long periods of time, but generally the worst of it is over in a week or two. I hate having a mental illness — there are worse things, to be sure, but it really puts a lot of stress on my family, and I hate not being able to trust my mind. I toyed around with going to the hospital, but I’ve been in there four times and while it is a safe place, it’s another form of hell being locked in and having case workers and psychiatrists asking the same questions over and over again. The showers are basically a place for several kinds of mold to grow, and the rooms have wooden beds with a thin mattress. They come in your room every half hour to shine a light in your eyes, and you have to have permission to use your own bathroom for the first 24 hours. Then there’re the daily classes where you do enlightening things like coloring and building wooden projects “to stay busy”. All-in-all it’s like jail without the violence, a place to go and be treated like a five-year-old. Most of the people there fake being better so they can be released. Nothing like being a ward of the state to make you value your freedom.
