Monthly Archives August 2010

The concept of confrontational art is made up entirely of gray areas
The central concept of confrontational art is the intention to force people to look at something they would rather not because it would infringe on the comfortable bubble they have built around themselves
Some artists have become accidental confrontational artists simply because what they had to say was so incredibly different from “normal” society
Normally, those thought could be written off as the reactions of an outsider or crazy person
It is only when those ideas are produced by someone who articulates things in an original and different way that they achieve lasting importance
Literature, science and philosophy were the offenders in the pre-modern world with peopleliterally getting killed for their ideas
It wasn’t un...

Now that the gig is over and I am not actively editing a Theater episode, I am looking at all of the files on my computer, labeling them and sending them to the terabyte drive.
Making lots of room on the laptop hard dive for new adventures
Listening to Superjunkymonkey

As most of you know, the gig I set up at Ground Zero was pretty much the most important gig of my life leading up to now
I had always wanted to play a large stage with a large video projector and I got my wish

I had done months of prep for the show
I had to re-edit the music when I had a guitarist lined up for the show and he didn’t work out, then I changed things a bit at the last minute becuase of technical issues
The prep was good for most but there were things I forgot to change at the last minute
This resuled in some missteps that were noticed only by me
Not only did I have my show planned out but the entire evening as well

I got though most of the set pretty well except for a few blunders
-My guitar was out of tune for HK Action
-I had panned some tracks for Chaka Chaka the wrong way...

Just thought I’d make a quick detail of the configuration I will be using for the GZ gig on Fri 27th

Went to the threapist yesterday and spent the entire time going over the advancements I made lately
First of all, I wanted to make sure that she knew that I wanted brutal honesty from her and told her I needed feedback way more than coddling or assurance
After hearing all about the advances I have made in my personal as well as buisness and artistic life, she assured me that I am allowed to feel a huge sense of accomplishment
She told me that it is rare for someone to be so aggressive about solving their problems and that I should be proud of my hard work
Even more, I was not allowed to tsabotage those positive advancements with the paranoia that it will all be taken away from me at a moment’s notice

What have I noticed about my failings from this angle?
It is all on the back end
I can sit...

I thought I might have PyroPlasticFlow T-shirts for the gig but that will not happen
That’s OK
It was a last minute thing anyways
I still plan on making them for later

I am coming up on a point where I will need to sit back for a moment and reflect on the recent events in my life
Even better, I am going to see my therapist today to give her a list of all the things I have accomplished since I started seeing her

Once the gig is over, I need to look at what’s next in my life
My whole existance has been consumed by this gig and, although I have managed to keep on ahead of bill like rent and insurance etc… I have not made any other solid plans for my life
Not only that, but I will be searching for a new job now that the campaign at Orchestra hall is over
The new company is very likely to pick me up but I have to be ready for the eventuality that they may not

This will be a very important and positive point in my life where I have the luxury of pausing and di...

This whole time leading up to the GZ performance on Friday has been very exciting
My way of coping with the negative anxiety was to work as much as I could on every detail of the performance
Although I have redundancy-ed the crap out of the show, I still have recurring anxieties about potential monkey wrenches
The first one is my computer

My Zune player just malfunctioned and I have surmised that it is the hard drive
I bought both the Zune and the laptop at the same time so…. 2+2=????
Having seen tons of bands and filmmakers tear their hair out while the audience waits for their computer to re-boot, I am plenty scared that this is going to happen to me

The other thing that scares me is that I will get confused and forget something in my programming
There are several moments when I am using...

Went to Marko’s today and set up the whole performance
I had everything mapped out and in the right order
The volume spiking problem was fixed and I had every video just the right length
My physical chops are not so great but that is ok because I will have penty of warming up excercises between now and then
I was able to make it through the set twice
Even though I have simplified things, there are still a ton of things to keep straight
Luckily, my set is so chaotic and freeform that no one will notice too much
I begrudgingly have to use 5A sticks because the others are just too heavy right now
I don’t like the tiny bead of a 5A and miss the big marble nylon tip of my 3As
These sticks will work out just fine because I am not playing a lot of intricate stuff on the ride
The Quick Beat hi hat...

The past few months of artistic acceleration and evolution have caused a new concept to form in my head
It is the concept of the 21st Century Musician
My first attempts at become a more evolved musician started right around the turn of the century when I joined Autonomy
I had begun to develop a multi-media approach with my TV show and the video loops that I played on TVs on the stage
This coupled with the Ground Zero video gig gave me plenty of opportunities to learn how the visual nature of multi-media affects an audience
I had only begun to think about electronics, having played around with William’s Zoom drum machine and tinkering with an Alesis drum brain
However, I was weak in those areas
Although, playing songs like “Ignite” and “We Have it All” did give me plenty of growth when it c...