my weblog

A lava lamp in Grand Central Station

admin (mailto:osonic@osonics.com) — 2010-01-29T20:54:47

A lava lamp in Grand Central Station

Part of the inspiration for A lava lamp in grand central station came from a CD called Dream by U Srinivas and Michael Brook. This is a great album on the Real World label that I can’t recommend highly enough.

The compositions on that album are all extended, and listening to it for the first time, I was reminded of listening to tracks like “Echoes” by Pink Floyd, or Pangaea by Miles Davis.

It wasn’t so much that I decided to try and emulate these albums when I made Lava lamp. Instead listening to Dream with it’s free form collision of Indian mandolin, and Infinite guitar influenced me to reconsider some extended experiments and free form improvisations I had already recorded which might not have seen the light of day otherwise.

The title track on Lava lamp represents a block of time spent experimenting with an analog synth or two with no real goal apart from putting them through their paces. The foundation for this track was recorded when I got a new Synth on ebay and simply decided to take a night to doodle with it and some effects. That doodle was originally about 40 minutes. It remained stuck on my hard drives until one night further down the road when I started noodling with an old Dat tape I had recorded years previously containing sounds recorded in various locations around Grand Central Station.

Experimenting, I ran the tape through various ad hoc effects chains (pedals, processors and software) until they became little more than triggers for the effects, matching and merging with the synthesizers in eerie unpredictable ways .

Not long after I had a hankering to play electric guitar, so I turned to this strange collage of found sounds and synth when I needed something to play over.

A few months later I was in the mood to play first some drums, and then later some bass, and so on, and so on.

In this way I inadvertently backed into composing something like Conversations with Myself by Bill Evans. It didn’t really occur to me to “finish” it, or polish it off, by editing and “composing” it down to about 13 minutes, until I heard the Dream album. Hearing that disc opened me up to the idea of broad open soundscapes with no immediately clear structure, but an internal logic of their own.

It changed my approach to the sonic doodle which evolved in to the “Lava lamp” track. It made me realize that it would be silly not to finish this block of music which had evloved in the least self-conscious way possible with no expectation that it would ever be taken seriously by anyone, including myself.

“Morning Commute” happened in a similar way to “lava lamp”. The track evolved slowly over time, never really distinguishing itself in my mind until an evening spent playing snare parts which just fell into place and animated the piece way beyond anything I could have sequenced.

“State of Mind” is the resident ringer on the album. This is a song that I completed a few years ago, but then jazzed up with a slightly fuller mix.

Well, there you have it, some notes about A lava lamp in grand central station.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read them

Rock n' Roll

2010-01-29T18:26:26

Rock n' Roll

"Cinema verite? I got into audio verite..... Hey, I’ve made records where you analyze everything you do 3,000 times and it’s perfect. I’m sick of it. I want to make a record that’s totally stark naked. Raw. I don’t wanna fix any of it. I don’t care if it’s totally out of tune, man, let’s play. Fuck it.... I like the idea of capturing something. Record something that happened. I’m a musician. I don’t wanna sit there and build a record. I built a couple of records. "
-Neil Young

About a year ago I was walking down around Ludlow Street Guitars in New York city looking at Phaser pedals when I overheard some 20 something with a highly vertical haircut talking on his cell phone : “So he tells me he’s getting married and that he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to spend so much time on the road… So I told him… Listen Man If you can’t spend time on the road then you can’t be in the band.”

This really struck me. Oh John wants to get married to Yoko?… screw it… then he can’t be in the band!

“You jackass!!!” I wanted to tell this nimrod with Vertical hair. “Bands aren’t lego sets. You can’t just mix and match people and pretend it’s the same Band!” How is it everyone has gotten so caught up in the delusionary fantasy of becoming stars on some inhuman mass marketing scale that no one understands the timeless rewards and tribal level human intimacy that comes from... you know... an actual band…

No one seems to understand the importance of the *THE BAND* anymore. I’m not speaking specifically of Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson here… I’m thinking more of a band of brothers, a group of people who have lived, grown and suffered with each other. A group not only with their own individual memories, but collective memories to draw from and share.

In the quote above Neil Young notes wanting to record “something that happened”. What happens when a great band gets together to play is a lowering of defenses… a dropping of barriers… a collective opening of imaginations and blossoming of ideas which conventional egos and the constant competitions of our daily lives normally make impossible. Its something that can only really and truly occur among people with history, trust and friendship.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

In fact the principle purpose of improvisational musical art forms such as jazz and rock may have less to do with their stylistic elements than with the perpetuation of social congregations where *spontaneity* is possible. Our litigious society is constantly working to mitigate risk... but in the process it also mitigates the capacity of people to engage spontaneously. This is why Mr. Young has elsewhere exhorted us to “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” and noted of Rock and Roll “There’s more to the picture than meets the eye.” The essence of rock and jazz is not what meets the eye.. or ear… the music per se… but a form of free spontaneous human interaction. Freedom is where the Rock is. If you ain’t rockin’ you ain’t free. Short of an orgy… Rock and jazz are the most socially acceptable ways for people to get together and *let something happen*...

Rock n’ Roll is a collection of things that happened. It’s a collection of magical moments that ‘arrived’ in the middle of jam sessions taking place over the course of 2008 and 2009 at a rehearsal space in Greenpoint Brooklyn. Most of these jams center around Ben Moran on Drums, Peter Kwon on bass and Osonics on guitar and vox. On a few occasions Ben and Osonics also brought in musicians they have both known for over a decade since college. Liam Wood appears on Guitar and Bass on some tracks, and Paul Griffith sits in on kit occasionally to let Ben create on other instruments.

These are not just “songs” but events where we managed to “record something that happened.” What happened were moments of rarity and beauty which only could have taken place by gathering together people who have been friends and musicians for years. While dropping our guards and abandoning all self consciousness, we created music together we never would have come up with if we’d been thinking or trying. Fortunately this all took place while we had some mics up and a hard drive spinning.

Here are some brief notes about each track:

Before our love hurts anyone

I remember this jam clearly. Ebay was ticking down the minutes in an auction for a tape delay unit I wanted to purchase. Was there enough time for one more jam before I headed out to a local bar with wifi access to place my final bid? This was the subtext for the opening throw away lines “What do you say? / Should we continue to play? / Or answer the gratification today?”

Then out of that… out of nowhere… came the most succinct, direct, and to my mind heart breaking encapsulation of a seven year on again off again relationship I had been in with a single mother helping to raise her daughter. “I know its true / that you love me too / but this love must be done / before it hurts anyone” specifically someone “innocent / yet to become”. The child who was being torn apart by the selfish yo-yo dramatics of the relationship itself. Amazing. In just over seven minutes without really thinking about it everything was said that needed to be said about seven of the most harrowing years of my life. That’s art.

Side Take

This is the first of two tunes where the lyrics are almost directly about the process of playing music together. While the tune begins with some lines that summon to mind the lullaby feel of Ben Moran’s brilliant guitar part, pretty fast the offer is being made by the singer to surrender himself completely to the band, and the moment, if everyone will just let go and surrender as well. “No more me / no more mine” I will take your side.

Satellite

The spoken dialog at the start of this track sets the stage pretty clearly. Of all the tunes in this collection this makes the case for spontaneity and unguarded moments most clearly. “Something happened” here, in keeping with the spirit of the Neil Young quote above.

Between the Wars

This track speaks for itself. There are a few vocal overdubs on this take… but the lions share took place in its moment. Where the guitar parts sound layered its because of live use of a Boomerang looper pedal in the original jam.

Bewheare

This is the second tune where the lyrics are being sung directly by singer to band. “We’re going to finally find ourselves a way / find ourselves a way to play” with each other. The dislocated observations about where the singer may or may not be are a logical extension of the surrendering of self which takes place throughout Rock n’ Roll in songs like “Side take” and “Satellite”. There are some early overdubed harmonies for the word “I”, which help add to the David Byrne feel, and the Boomerang gets a work out during the outro to allow for layering a solo on top of a blistering riff.

Exit

A dithyrambic stream of consciousness narration about a night out at Club Exit, a dance club in Greenpoint Brooklyn well known to the players on this tune for all night trance parties “I want to break it into two / drop it down with you”. Once again a special shout out to our co-author.

Rock n' Roll

2010-01-25T15:46:33

Rock n' Roll the latest collection of music is up. Notes ~~will be posted~~ about the making of this music ~~soon~~ have been posted here. This collection is essentially a scrap book of magical moments that occured while jamming with various other musicians over the course of 2008 and 2009. Nearly overdub free these recordings are not always state of the art. That’s because these tracks are often based off of a vocal mic into a PA plus ‘stereo pair’ room micing. The key to appreciating this collection is to bare in mind the utter spontaneity of everything here. These songs literally “arrived” fully formed to the amazement of all those participating.

Court Distort

2010-01-25T14:45:22

Link to an article by a friend on the topic of Last week’s Supreme Court ruling.

The worst news in 100 years... and of course it gets burried beneath Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien...

admin (mailto:osonic@osonics.com) — 2010-01-22T12:54:18

Yesterday, January 21, 2010 is the day the United States committed itself to restructuring its class system to emulate Mexico and Brazil.

The importance of yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling protecting the free speech of corporations and allowing them to spend unlimited amounts on direct advertising in political elections simply cannot be overstated. It overturns a century of political and legal precedent, and as such it is arguably the most important court decision of the last hundred years. Quoting from this article in the New York Times:

“ 'We have got a million we can spend advertising for you or against you — whichever one you want,’ a lobbyist can tell lawmakers, said Lawrence M. Noble, a lawyer at Skadden Arps in Washington"

Picture this hypothetical lobbyist working for Big Tobacco, or for McDonalds, or for the fine and proud makers of Viox. Money will be spent not to spur creative growth and development, but to maximize returns on existing investments. Just wait until Goldman Sachs gets into the mix... advertising directly for candidates who promise to keep the finance industry de-regulated.

The simple, horrible, unutterable truth is this decision makes plain that the class systems at work in Latin America have finally worked their way north ... quite possibly irreversibly... into the United States. As in Mexico and Brazil we are on the threshold of having an extreme wealthy class, and a massive underclass with nothing in between and no method of transit or merit based escape from one class to the other.

The principle reason for this is that corporations, as I have observed first hand... are rarely run well. They are nearly always focused on perpetuating what they perceive as past “success” and emulating proven strategies. This is a catastrophic recipe for disaster in the face of the emerging innovation engine driven by other economies such as India and China. The idea that the executives at General Motors can be trusted to exhibit foresight about how to safeguard this nation’s best interests is ludicrous. What we have just done is unleash staggering amounts of funding which will be spent protecting a status quo of diminishing returns.

The issue is not government vs. free enterprise. The issue is the over accumulation of power. It does not matter *where* the power resides... An overly powerful Coca-Cola company, Google or Monsanto is just as pernicious as an overly powerful Communist or National Socialist party. What keeps a society healthy, as laissez faire free traders themselves will correctly argue, *IS* competition. The argument will be made that the Supreme Court ruling facilitates such competion by allowing multiple corporations to compete via advertising, and effectively “bid” on the outcome of elections.

But this argument is specious as it overlooks the fact a countervailing and competing alternative to corporate power has now been all but dismantled. That competitor is none other than the institution of government itself.

To sum up, here’s a quote a friend sent me from this thread:

Before the Court Decision:

CEO: Man, the environmental regulations that congressman is proposing are going to kill the profitability of our california plant. What can we do?

Advisor: Well we would have to set up a 527 group to oppose these regulations, we would have to find some guys to staff it that aren’t employees of our corporation, we would have to be careful to distance ourselves from this organization, and we would have to walk a fine line between issue and candidacy advocacy.

CEO: fuck it, lets go golfing

After this ruling:

CEO: Man, the environmental regulations that congressman is proposing are going to kill the profitability of our california plant. What can we do?

Advisor: I’ll have our ad team throw up some billboards saying congressman Joe is destroying jobs. Should be up by next week.

CEO: cool, lets go golfing.

The thing that’s most insane about this... is most of these companies are multinatioal corporations anyway... so... how does this become good for “America”? Do we even know whom the Supreme Court has just handed control of US elections over to? China? Saudi Arabia? Did the jingoistic conservatives on the Court even take this into full consideration?

America is Over

admin (mailto:osonic@osonics.com) — 2010-01-21T17:33:42

Oh... well at least now its official... America is over.

Rock n'roll

2010-01-07T13:16:44

Pretty much done with the next thing... but can’t find time to take the photo I want to post as the ‘artwork’... Also need to tweak the levels on one track... and just can’t get me s*it together enough to take care of it... Hopefully I will address everything soon and have this up by the end of Jan.

Another collection should be up ~~by the end of the second week of January.~~ >>>~~Ok give me until just after MLK day..~~ Everything is mixed, just tweaking some mastering settings and still haven’t found time for the “artwork”. It will likely be called “Rock n' roll” and features more of Osonics with an ‘expanded’ version of the band ‘Lazy Horse’ ... Pete Kwon on bass and Ben Moran on drums with guest players Liam Wood on Guitar and Paul Griffith also playing drums here and there. As the saying goes... “Tune in Next Week!!!”

Kelly Clarkson

2009-12-15T16:02:52

Just posted... The Kelly Clarkson Ep.

This is a recording of a spontaneous jam that took place about a year and a half, or two years ago between Osonics, Peter Kwon and Ben Moran. The Jam was so off the hook successful that plans were made to form a band. The band rehearsed Kelly Clarkson and some other material a few times... but then fell apart. Various culprits were cited, Ketamine, lack of music theory for the O, car loss... There are occasionally claims the band didn’t fall apart and that like King Arthur or George Patton it shall return.

By dubbing the band “Lazy Horse” I believe I have settled on my own personal theory as to the issue. At any rate, absent a polished round of rehearsed material... here is the original, semi-incendiary jam that caused three grown men to spend about a year’s worth of Saturdays together.

PHISH + Neil Young + The Talking Heads = Kelly Clarkson

Enjoy!

Taking a stand for the middle ground.

admin (mailto:osonic@osonics.com) — 2009-10-28T12:57:30

What’s to come?

admin (mailto:osonic@osonics.com) — 2009-10-19T21:53:47

spirit form was only just recently completed in July of ‘09, yet there is more to come very likely before the end of the year. An “album” tentatively entitled Rock n’ Roll and an EP called Kelly Clarkson are both on the horizon and should be posted here fairly soon. These works will feature the best, most “song like” moments from jams and improvs conducted over the last year or so primarily with Ben Moran and Peter Kwon, but will also feature contributions from Liam Wood and Paul Griffith. Keep checking back between now and the end of the year. The recordings are done and all that is left is the mixing... which is substantially underway already.