July 07, 2002
So starts a retrospective of my Blog 1.0. I started this in the summer of 2002. Seems like a million years ago, and also like yesterday. Its mostly self-explanatory. But know that "MishMosh" is a both a defunct album, as well as a reference to the piece "Holy MishMosh" that I wrote my first semester in graduate school - and was in the midst of finally recording when I wrote this. What a splendid waste of $2,500 that was.... What's even sadder about it is that the guy who conducted the recording sessions for me - Steve Bodner - died recently of pneumonia. Very young guy - big tragedy.
July 07, 2002
So it begins. This is my web journal. I wish I'd started this back in October of last year, when I really got going with the recording process for MishMosh. That was just after the horrible ruptured appendectomy/colonoscopy/abdomen-dredging of September 1. Not a good week. While recovering at my sister-n-law's beach house in Plymouth, Massachusetts I was up early the day of September 11, zoning out to the Today show. Some guy chatting with Katy Couric about his unauthorized bio of Jack Welch. 10 months later I'm sick to death of pundits spouting all about the 'evil ones'. But let's leave off the political…
Technology
Bill G. says "today's technology is providing tools to get the job done better - its revolutionizationing my pocket book my B&M G. Foundation so my Legacy shines so my Shit don't stink…(blah, etc.)".
Maybe Al Gore (Gorebot) did invent the internet. In the 1993 campaign I remember him talking about how getting everyone on the "Information Superhighway" was going to be a priority. Huh? It took me 5 years to figure out "What's the fuss?", and 2 more to become a hardcore Geek. But here I am now - freakin' hopeless.
Geek
My wife Rhonda first bugged me about it a few months ago - "Honey, you weren't so geeky when I first met you". I first caught the bug 3 years ago studying music in Graduate School. Like a seductive whore it whispered to me: "If you only knew the power of the dark side…" I thought I would become the ultimate auteur - composing, performing, recording, and producing my own music. I'd just have to learn a few dirty tricks. The first was a slick accounting maneuver with the Student Loan Marketing Association to secure $3k in no-interest financing for a new computer and assorted gear. The second trick was hooking up with many more $k in cracked software on the Hotline network. The third trick I am still figuring out - learning how to make everything work. But no matter how much I have left to learn, the little voice in my head is always waiting to tell me how a sexy new piece of gear will make my life so much easier.
MishMosh
The name is nonsense, and first showed up as the title to a nouveau-rock minimalist composition of mine from 3 years ago, Holy Mishmosh. I tried to record this heavily involved piece for the new album, but it didn't work. But the spirit of that piece still catches the spirit of my intentions for this new album - something unique, cerebral, emotional, and most of all a sound that's exciting and appeals to our reptilian brain. I think I'm accomplishing this well so far, with the help of several musical techniques that I'm not giving away here, but which will be obvious to the initiated.
Resolution: to not join in the extremely annoying and lemming-like habit of web designers who set their typeface too small to read.
Progress: re-recorded guitar soli section of Dark Grey Matter. Did a clean re-install of my audio workstation. Cat barfed on the couch. Rhonda sat in it, I cleaned it up.
