naviarhaiku611 – half-asleep eyes

Girl with the Pearl

 

Disquiet Junto 0716 Dense Fog Advisory

The Junto project this week was to record music as Dense Fog Advisory.

I started recording parts and wrote my own lyrics:

Forget
forget about the weather
it’s clear you’re not ready to go
you think I’m being clever
but the forecast is not known
the outlook is for cloud
touching to the ground
forget about the weather
your work can’t wait

Time is here for passing
we’ll do whatever you want
we’re going to take it easy going take as long
as all the time we need
suddenly has become free
forget about the weather
your work can’t wait

So rather than thinking about a third lunch
I am here to be shocked by your electric touch
elated and amazed
inhaling in your gaze
your work can’t wait

While the man can make dollars
I am making sense
your imagination
don’t need a fence
I’ll keep you employed
your inner work can’t wait

don’t lose life
striving a housewife
your kind was never kindness
I’m going to hand you a knife
cut the cake it’s your birthday
take all that you want
be here be now
your inner work can’t wait

Don’t be blind the paradigm was always half-baked
the main mistake is feeling you’re faked
honest intention in honourable mention
your work can’t wait

Not a competition on a mission of regret
you were here to be clear and don’t you forget
standing here centred there
your work can’t wait

Dense fog advised get a life it’s a beautiful day
for staying inside and feeling ripe be on your way
Yeah, I’ma love you like a fool
your work can’t wait

Sedona on success and failure

I think success is being able to wake up and make something, no matter where you are or how you’re feeling. That feels like a win. Just no matter where you or things are in life, just being able to tune into that deeper part of yourself through songwriting.

Failure is an interesting word… I think failure is being disingenuous about how you’re actually feeling and dishonest with yourself about the parts you want to share.

Aliens

 

naviarhaiku610 – dropped glass

The haiku shared by Naviar Records offered an image that proved to be a rich metaphor.

I had a chord progression from playing on my ukulele and had recently tuned my tenor guitar to suit similar intervals, although it's ADF#B rather than CGEA. 

Lyrics were generated with ChatGPT, but required editing to arrive at the result that were recorded:

A silence so heavy
felt it would break today
weight of words angrily told
left scattered, sharp and cold

Now a memory that can’t be shut
each shard a lesson, every cut
your apology won’t revoke
the ringing echo of what we broke

When you dropped the glass
and time slowed down
shattered dreams in pieces

scattered on the ground

The cracks are just the space we need
a chance to heal the cuts we bleed
glass debris after the fall
singing on the kitchen floor

You said you didn’t mean it
But the words had already flown
now we're left here waiting
with truth openly known

Now the floor is all swept
we’re still lost in the past
and that sound of breaking glass
is the only thing that lasts

The ring it leaves behind
a circle, tight and blind
the sound of what we lost
a chord that pays the cost

The cracks are just the space we need
a chance to heal the cuts we bleed
we made a window with glass melted down
from outside your knocks are a softer sound

The cracks are just the space we need
a chance to heal the cuts we bleed
like glass debris after the fall
singing on the kitchen floor 

Accessorising

Revolutions

The funny thing about change is how often it makes old ideas new again

Since I spend so much time lately thinking about guitar pedals, it has been interesting to ponder the revival of the four-track gain stage.

I am old enough that access to a four-track recorder was one of the most exciting aspects of starting at Lake Tuggeranong College when it opened in 1990.

By that point I'd already been sequencing songs on my Amiga computer but didn't have enough musical experience to record much more than simple songs on the Tascam four-tracks.

Those four-tracks allowed both sides of an audio tape to be used, so the stereo channels added up, and were still being used to record music when I was making demo tapes with bands in 1994 and '96.

Recently the interest in four-tracks has returned for their distinctive gain staging, which allowed some shaping of the instruments being recorded.

Although these sounds have had a lo-fi charm for many "indie" style bands and added character, the current revival has followed from the distinctive sound of a guitarist called Mk.gee.

Another element in his tone is the Rainger FX reverb pedal, which includes a gate to adjust that allows the effect to be added when the dynamics of the playing go beyond the threshold.

(One of the details less acknowledged is Mk.gee's use of flatwound strings, which make his baritone guitar remind me of bassists like Jaco Pastorius.)

 

 

In a recent video to promote the JHS pedal which emulates a four-track gain stage, the guitarist John Mayer notes “There is a revolution taking place right now in guitar playing, and it has to do with dynamics.”

“For most of guitar playing history, guitars were plugged into amplifiers, and the way that a tube amp responds has kind of defined the way people played guitar.

“But now people have been plugging into things that aren't tube amplifiers," Mayer continues and those things respond differently.

Alternatives to tube amplifiers have been around for decades, but the real revolution isn't the return of four-track gain stages.

The shift to digital and the ability to emulate analogue circuits has been gaining pace, with many abandoning those big old boxes for smaller rigs.

Elsewhere on the internet in recent weeks is an interview with pedal builder Brian Wampler, who identifies that digital emulations of technology like tube amplifiers and other effects are threatening his business model.

He describes digital modeling as a Napster moment for traditional pedal makers, saying "for those who remember that, that's where everybody who had music that you just uploaded to Napster, and now no one needs to buy any more music.”

I think Wampler's observation is what gives Mayer's sales pitch for the JHS pedal an interesting context.

During the '90s, in particular, guitar dynamics were smashed in popular music as loudness was pursued through the use of heavy compression effects.

Maybe that's what comes to mind when I think about the music on Napster, but I hope that the sound of individual players and their dynamics is something being celebrated.

We're witnessing a variety of revolutions in music technology and, just like the older guitar designs coming back into fashion, there are older sounds that are also being revisited.

In some ways it's depressing to see the "relic" models of guitars being sold so that a consumer can pretend to be their idol, rather than the excitement I find in hearing someone like Mk.gee showing the potential for new tones.

I recently went down a metaphorical rabbit hole to revisit the sounds of Tom Morello and don't think it requires his signature model guitar to achieve them.

For me a real revolution is seeing new ideas incorporated into the portable format that pedals offer and the rise of digital modelling means it's offering distinctive combinations of effects that become a way to grab consumer's attention, aside from the heavy reliance on celebrities and brand names.

From this perspective I am impressed with David Rainger's inventive products, such as the implementation of gating in the reverb popularised by Mk.gee but also the wonder-filled Minibar distortion pedal.

There aren't many products that my family show an interest in playing and the Minibar was the first since Korg's Kaossilator and the Wavedrum before that.

(And, thinking of Korg, I'm getting excited to see that Phase8 is nearing release.)

I am hoping there are many more revolutions occurring in the guitar pedal format, but that enthusiasm needs to be qualified with a sense of innovation rather than mining the past for nostalgia.

naviarhaiku609 – revealing in the dark

The haiku shared by Naviar Records caught me in a melancholy mood.

I liked the image of a lonely fisherman inspecting waves and thought it spoke to those moments of introspection and reflection. 

Drum licks

 

RIP DJ Wasabi

Sad to learn of the passing of Tom 'DJ Wasabi' Jones

We worked together on a project to record Narrandera's Big Guitar and it was a pleasure to also jam with him on that unwieldy instrument.

I met Wasabi through the Burning Seed event in Matong, the town where generations of the Jones family farmed.

His father Brian Jones died a few years ago and it was his funeral and a smaller event later on for his Burner family where I think I last saw Wasabi.

Reading now about his various careers in Combat Wombat, youth mentoring and live sound, it's clear that Australia has lost an innovative and important contributor.

I really appreciate how easy going and funny he was, with a work ethic that kept pushing for the best results.

It was also nice to spend time with his extended family and my thoughts go to his young children.