2009 - The Year That Sorta Was

A year-end recap of my musical 2009:

--Finished one album, Saturation, and began another, to be titled The Structure Creates Itself. The latter album will have to wait until 2010, as I have been in procrastination mode lately. I think the new album will be worth the wait, based on what I have done so far.

--Furthered my commitment to improvised music. The music I recorded this Fall shows clear growth in my ability to create improvised music that doesn't sound so much like random noodling. I'm not the next John Coltrane, but I am growing in my ability to improvise beyond set licks and patterns.

--Wavered in my commitment to abandoning traditional forms of releasing music. When I created this site, my intent was to issue a steady stream of new music, images, and words without regard for how it would fit into album form. However, I remain attached to the album concept. It may be, however, that I need to get beyond the album format, since I do not charge for my music or play live. Or, perhaps, I will just issue new recordings as they are finished and then periodically declare the results to be an "album," for those who care about such things. That, however, is an issue for 2010, not for the present year-end recap.

--Finally got a non-suck guitar sound going, after all these years. Thanks to the Grendel Dead Room isolation speaker cabinet, I can now record real, honest-to-god guitar sounds that don't sound like the cheesy modeling amps on display at Guitar Center. I'm continually getting better at dialing things in, and you'll hear some really cool sounds on The Structure Creates Itself.

--Bought a shit ton of guitars. Frankly, at year's end, I cannot believe how many guitars I now own. It looks like a disheveled guitar store in my little studio. 2010 will be about cutting back the quantity while possibly increasing the quality. Also, we need another car around here at the Military-Industrial Recording Complex, so it would be nice to generate some cash.

--Saw many great concerts. A partial list includes Heaven & Hell, Chick Corea Trio, Stanley Clarke, Corea/McLaughlin, The Mahavishnu Project, Hiromi's Sonicbloom, Airto & Diana Moreira, Larry Coryell, Progressive Nation Tour 2009, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, jazz bassist Dave Holland, and Azar Lawrence & Benito Gonzalez. There were more, but my recall is bad at the moment.

All in all, my 2009 was probably better than it had any right to be. Happy New Year, and here's to a very musical 2010 for everyone.

Elegy

My grandmother-in-law, Mabel Carreon, passed away tonight after a period of illness. Upon hearing the news, I needed to record something that would both express my sadness and pay tribute to a lady for whom I had great affection.

Here it is, "Mabel The Cowgirl."

The title is taken from a gift shop in Cheyenne, Wyoming. My wife and I immediately thought of Grandma Mabel upon seeing it, and I think we might even have gotten her a coffee mug or some such from there with the store's logo on it.

Happy trails, dear Grandma Mabel.

Too close to the fire

"Music is the healing force of the universe."

--Albert Ayler

In answer to a request for jazz listening suggestions on a guitar message board, I recommended Albert Ayler to someone. Talk about diving into the deep end of the pool...

I won't go into the sad, crazy tale of Mr. Ayler here, but his is a story of someone who could not separate art from life. And when the music in question sounds like a New Orleans marching band on acid, living that art all the time must have been overwhelming.

Ayler's music has a funny way of insinuating itself in your brain. A deranged form of joy. I know it is going to appear on my next album, which is amusing in the context of the mega-fusion piece I'm currently preparing.

I am absolutely stoked about where my music is going, and I need to mix up a teaser piece for your listening pleasure. It's all sitting unmixed in the recorder at the moment. I am such an idiot when it comes to self-promotion.


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Inspiration returns

I spent yesterday working on a free-funk improvisation. It's the first real musical work I've done in several weeks. I barely even picked up a guitar over that period.

Why does inspiration come and go so quickly? Some people, like Frank Zappa, seem permanently inspired to play and create. Zappa was notorious for staying awake for days on end doing nothing but writing little musical dots on the page. John Coltrane's recording career lasted only about 12 years, and yet he recorded a ridiculous amount of music. I'm not like that consistently, for whatever reason.

I was starting to feel old and used-up as a musician. When you've been a rock musician for 20+ years, it's hard to watch yourself get older and realize you really can be "too old to rock 'n roll, too young to die," as Jethro Tull memorably put it. That describes me pretty well, now. I've become less fond of all the posturing and bluster of rock music. Can any event where you need earplugs to participate be described as particularly musical?

My transition to quasi-jazz musician has helped, but not completely. Sometimes, I stop and realize that I'm now two years older than Coltrane lived to be. The difference is, I haven't achieved my "Giant Steps" or "A Love Supreme" yet. Hopefully, I'm a late bloomer.

A couple days ago, however, the positivity switch was activated. I finished up everything at my day job by staying late on a Friday night, and I felt a burst of life--I'd have the entire weekend to make music and desperately wanted to do just that. I was on such a high when I got home from work that my wife thought I'd been drinking.

I've been floating ever since. Maybe I'm musically bipolar.

Happy Rocktober!

Council of One is still alive, I can report.

I've gotten away from regular updates, which is unfortunate. There are a fair number of things to report--especially the riduculous amount of guitars and gear coming in the front door of my apartment. Some stuff needs to start going out the door, too. ;)

The great rackmount experiment continues unabated. I've now got a Yamaha T50 rackmounted amp and two new power amps (Peavey Classic 50/50 and Carvin DCM600) to go along with the Mesa Quad/50-50, Peavey Rockmaster and Fractal Audio Axe-FX setups.

No, I am not opening up a gear shop. Some of this stuff is going to go, but I want to try out a bunch of different stuff to go with the isolation cabinet. The Axe-FX has snuck its way back into use as my primary preamp, since it sounds great with the Peavey Classic 50/50 tube power amp. The Carvin DCM600 solid-state power amp doesn't do what I need and will get sold as soon as I get motivated. The Yamaha is my newest acquisition, but it might be a bit too powerful for use with my isolation cabinet. I need to experiment more with it.

Rackmount stuff is so cheap, that you really can afford to try things out without breaking the bank. So, you could say that the boutique amp snobbery of today benefits me indirectly, by making all the cool rack stuff unfashionable and therefore affordable.

On the music front, I am currently working on a new album of improvisations, called The Structure Creates Itself. So far, I've completed two trio pieces, which in my opinion absolutely blow away the stuff on Saturation. I've gotten so much better at free improvisation in the last few months just from practicing and thinking about how to do it, that I'm really excited about the future. I can't wait for people to hear this crazy shit I've got on the way.

The Structure Creates Itself will feature a wider variety of settings than Saturation did, including possibly a few programmed beats here and there. Not purely free-form, I guess, but interesting. The rest should be all free, including the percussion. Expect more textures and unusual sounds. It shouldn't be that long before I have the album finished, actually. I've got a three-day weekend coming up, and that's usually a good time to lock myself in the studio and get to it.

I bring you clips

Ladies and gentleman, I bring you...Guitar Tone! Two clips recorded with my new Mesa Quad/Fifty-Fifty rackmount setup. The only difference between the two is the channel on the Quad that I'm using. The good old Fractal Audio Axe-FX has been sent to the effects loop of my recorder and provides chorus and delay. I'm quite happy with the results so far, though I have more knob-twisting to do on the Quad before I get *that* sound.

Legato Funk v.4:

Legato Funk v.3:

I've got tone!

I've now gone from a tiny little guitar recording setup to a monster rack! I got a Mesa/Boogie Quad preamp to go along with the 50/50 power amp, and now I've expanded my rackmount setup to include an ART Digital MPA II mic/line preamp. I had to go get a bigger rack to hold it all, including my Axe-FX and Monster power conditioner. And I still have a little further to go with the rack, since I'd like to get an ISP Decimator noise gate. I'll talk more about how my setup works when I'm finished building and configuring it.

I haven't posted any clips of the Quad setup yet, since I'm still working on getting sounds. Working quite hard on it, actually. It's a tricky little bugger to work with, since the controls are all interactive and very sensitive. Minor changes have a big effect on the sound. It's getting there, however.

As for my trip to Portland last week, nothing particularly musical happened. I looked at a whole bunch of guitar gear and CDs and didn't buy a thing. Our little apartment is already too full to handle any more stuff, basically, and I've pretty much got all the guitars I need, though that can change... ;)