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How Many Drumkits does A Drummer Need?

2009-02-24T12:30:00.003-07:00

Nearly two years ago, I began a series of entries (quite popular, I might add) with respect to my acquisition of an older Canwood drumkit, and my efforts to restore them.
The entries begin with the first installment: "How Many Drums Does A Drummer Need?", and continues with the article: "Status of the Makeover". I was then contacted by a new Canwood drumkit owner, when I penned the "Response to J.T. Massacre" entry. The fourth entry described my gripes with tuning, aptly titled: "Tuning Lug Annoyances". The fifth entry centered around my desires to purchase a second Canwood kit to ensure I had one kit to gig, while the other kit underwent extensive restoration.

Well, cyberspace is a serendipitous place, and out of the blue, I was contacted by a fellow Canwood owner in my neck of the woods who claimed he had a Canwood kit for sale, and if I was interested in purchasing it. To make the deal even more desirable, the drumkit was in the shell sizes I was desiring. He was kind enough to provide me with photos of the drums, including areas of concern -- the bearing edge on one of the drums has been damaged and repaired with wood filler.

We exchanged further emails, telephone numbers, and we agreed on a price. Last Friday, I jumped in my car and made a three-hour drive to his city to inspect the drums in person. I met the seller, who was friendly, helpful, and easy to get along with. We spent about an hour together, not just talking about drums, but about the music scene in his city, and a great deal about the music our bands play. I guess I don't need to say that I purchased the drums on the spot, and was home in time for dinner.

According to the seller, this is one of the earliest kits Canwood manufactured -- in fact it is likely drumkit number 14. The drums are in a flaming bright red finish, though over the years, the lacquer has cracked due to changes in temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure. The drums are scratched, thus the drumkit will need refinishing. A number of tuning lugs and washers have rusted, and will need replacement.

Most of the issues the drums have are cosmetic, though there will be an order to drumbuilder.com to order some necessary replacement hardware. as I noticed tuning hoops on the 12" and 13" tom are out of round, and the Wood hoop on the bass drum is cracked and will need replacing.

The first matter of business is to get the drums playable as soon as possible, as I plan to gig with them this weekend (approximately 1 week after purchase). So I did a quick cleaning of the shells, and put my trusted Evans G1 coated heads on the shells. As you can see from the attached photo, I began building the kit I plan to gig with this weekend, mixing and matching parts from both drumkits. Since the colors do not match, I'm calling it my "FrankenKit" for the time being.

When my schedule is a little more free, then I will attempt the restoration process, and I will continue to blog about it step-by-step.

So, two years later, I again have to ask myself the question: "How many drumkits does a drummer need?"

And my answer is at least four.

Why Play The Lottery?

2009-02-23T11:40:00.004-07:00

So the big news the last few days seemed to center around the record-breaking $48-million (estimated) dollar jackpot that was won by four recipients this past weekend.

I say this because I generally don't play the lottery. I buy a few tickets here & there, usually when the jackpot gets over 20 million, but it amounts to about twice per year that I get in line and buy a couple tickets, and like everyone else, secretly hope that my numbers are the ones that are drawn that night.

The lottery puzzles me. First of all, it is a legalized form of gambling (and I'm not here to criticize gambling), but my point is that the odds are stacked against the player. It makes little sense to me to take my hard-earned cash and blow it on something that could remotely pay off.

Now I had considered going on this tirade that the government uses the lottery as a means to ensure the working class remains poor, but my arguments would have been speculative at best, and I thought the better of ranting about it here. In a different light, the lottery gives the working class hope, that there is a possibility that we can change the stars before us.

So I began to think about how much people spend on the lottery. Certainly, us Canadians must collectively spend billions per year on lottery tickets if we can enjoy such jackpots as 30-40 million. But how much does the average person spend on the lottery?

I think lottery ticket buyers come in two types: Those who play every week, and those who play from time to time, when the jackpot hits gigantic proportions (like myself). For argument's sake, let's consider the average player who buys tickets every week.

I believe the 6/49 makes two draws per week, and one draw costs $2. The "Extra" costs an additional dollar, though this is for a separate $250,000 jackpot. Thus, if a person plays the lottery twice per week, picks two sets of numbers and the Extra, a person is gambling $10 per week. To look at it another way, the average person spends $520 per year playing the lottery.

Most people play the lottery their entire lives, hoping to win the big prize. Therefore, you could say the average person plays the lottery for about fifty years. Ten dollars per week over the course of fifty years must amount to a fair chunk of change.

So I began to consider what would happen if a person invested the same amount of money into a GIC over the course of their lifetime instead of playing the lottery? Yes, I am talking about compound interest here.

So out came the Excel spreadsheet, and I began to run some numbers. Let's just say for the sake of argument, that you start with an initial investment of $0, and the going interest rate is 3%. Now interest rates change over time, and that is beyond the scope of our argument.

If you invest $10 per week into a GIC at 3 percent, after one year you will have $527.72. You've only made $7 in interest, so it doesn't look very promising. After five years of this practice, your investment has grown to $2804.26. Still, not a lot, but a little savings nonetheless. After ten years, your investment has grown to $6062.20, which might be a few month's worth of work, or perhaps an extravagant vacation. After twenty years, your investment will have grown to $14,244.60. And after fifty years, your investment will have grown to $60,315.68 -- which is more than many of us make in a year.

This essentially means if you start investing your lottery money when you are 20, by the time you are 70, you will have a sizable nestegg in the bank -- and this is on 10 dollars per week. Most of us spend more than that on frivolous things such as tobacco, alcohol, and entertainment. It is likely the average smoker spends $50 or more per week on tobacco. Us average drinkers spend anywhere between $20 and $50 per week on our vices.

So what if the smokers quit cold turkey and took the $50 per week spent on tobacco and invested it similarly?

At the end of one year, $50 per week invested into a GIC will grow to $2638.62. After five years, your investment will have grown to $14021.28. After ten years, your investment will have grown to $30,310.98. After twenty years, your investment will have grown to $71,222.98, and after fifty years, your investment will have grown to $301, 578.42. This isn't a bad deal considering you are getting only 3 percent on your investment, and you can enjoy the fact that you will live longer because since you won't be smoking.

When you consider the possibility of variable interest rates, investing in more lucrative investments (though riskier), such as mutual funds, the stock market, real estate, you could be a wealthy person by the time you retire.

Perhaps you should think about that the next time you are buying your weekly, lottery ticket, a bottle of booze for the weekend, or your next deck of cigarettes.

2008: The Year of Unemployment

2009-01-01T23:31:00.003-07:00

Well, here I am. Another year has gone by, and I take the first day of the year to reflect on all the wonders of the year past, and try to surmise that I am indeed better off this year, than I was the year prior. Well, in a lot of ways, this year felt like a giant step backward. In another light, I had to break free of molds that kept me trapped in the circles I had been driving in for more than five years of my life.

So what was the biggest news in my life of 2008?

1. I quit my job of six and a half years. For many reasons I wish to remain private, but in its' most literal sense, it was killing me slowly. I wasn't earning as much as I should have. I simply had enough, and I needed to explore new avenues and learn new skills.

2. I became a simple farmer. And no, you won't see me wearing cowboy boots, belt buckles, funny shirts, or cowboy hats. And you won't find me listening to Country music either. But this year, you found me outdoors for more than 12 hours per day, driving heavy equipment, pushing, pulling, lifting, and working my butt off. Yes it was a nice change from the drudgery of being at the same desk, doing the same things over and over again.

3. The rock band I play in, Tung N' Groove, managed to play a number of successful shows in the area. As the band gained momentum, we managed to play to some very busy establishments, build a growing fanbase on Facebook, and record a full-length demo CD, which we supply to prospective clients. The band even played our first out-of-town gig to a packed house in Brooks.

4. My blues band, The Savoys, had nothing but trouble securing work over the course of the year. In fact, we played a total of three gigs the entire year. I'm sure the whole band found it frustrarting, since we had to recruit a new member, and learn a pile of new material. I really would like to say otherwise, but I have a bad feeling that if we can't find any gigs soon -- and I mean really soon -- the future of the band will be in question.

5. I was fortunate to hone my skills at recording to the point where I have managed to garner some attention from prospective clients. With assistance from select bandmates, I managed to record both the Savoys and Tung N Groove, as well as a few other clients -- for money. I really would wish that this mobile recording thing could grow into something I could do once or twice a month -- if I could make five hundred bucks a month recording, I'd be one happy camper. That would be a considerable raise, as I think my little studio earned something like 500 bucks this entire year.

6. I continue to teach my pupils. It appears that I am getting a few more phone calls as of late, which doesn't even pay the bills, but hey, something's better than nothing at all.

So that's been it, really for the year. I can't say I'm desperate yet, but I would sure like to earn more than I'm earning right now. Ideally, I'd love it if I could make music (and when I say that, I mean, bands, students, and recording) a full-time endeavor. I don't think that's going to happen this year, though.

On The Impending "Coalition Government"

2008-12-02T15:45:00.006-07:00

Well, it didn't take long for they boys in Ottawa to send things to Hell in a handbasket after spending some 300-million dollars on a an election campaign which resulted -- more or less -- in the same government in the House.

What has developed in the House of Commons in the last week or so is nothing short of amazing.

As for my thoughts on this "three-party coalition" set to topple the Harper government, I am unsure of what is the best alternative. It is clear to me that the democratic process in the House will be roadblocked until a majority is elected -- which could be 2 3, or 4 elections from now -- nobody knows. The Liberals, the Bloc, and the NDP are thwarting to usurp the conservative party by 'joining forces' with one another -- these three parties in the past couldn't agree on a single thing. Even if they manage to obtain power in the house, infighting between the parties will ensure the 40th Parliament will be dead -- and we will be heading to the polls sooner, rather than later -- like the 2011 date proposed by the coalition.

This whole mess has left Canadians enraged, while our Governor General is decidedly out of the country. At least Her Excellency returns tomorrow to deal with the crisis. Sadly, come Monday, she's going to have to make a difficult choice: either accept the three-party coalition as the governing party, or dissolve Parliament and we head into another election campaign -- the second in almost as many months.

Following this story, I have read hundreds of comments from enraged Canadians, and many of them spouting nonsense, which, more or less, is why I felt compelled to write about this subject. Here are two of the most idiotic statements I have read -- and my editorial as to why these are so ridiculous.

Quote #1 (paraphrased): What's been happening this week in the House of Commons is appalling. The Members of Parliament are acting like kids in a schoolyard. We should send them another message as disgruntled citizens by NOT voting in the next election.

This is utter madness. The reason why we have this lousy excuse for a government this term is because of voter apathy -- the lowest voter turnout in Canadian history! If you vote or don't vote, the end result is the same: the votes are counted, and the ones with the most votes win. How is not voting going to make a difference? That's like trying to instigate Revolution by taking a nap. Now, sending a message by spoiling your ballot is a little more effective in a sense that you are at least sending a message. The end result is the same though -- the person with the most votes still wins.

Quote #2 (paraphrased): 60% of the population didn't vote for Harper. That means 60% of the population will be happy to see someone else in power. So the three-party coalition is probably a good thing.

Oooh, this one is a doozy. Don't get me started about "voting for Harper" -- under 1% of Canada's population voted for Harper -- only the majority those who reside in his riding did. We vote for a Member of Parliament. The person elected Prime Minister is most often the leader of the party with the most seats. But I digress -- this wasn't what I was getting at anyway.

Instead, let's replace "Harper" with "Conservative" in quote number two. While it is true that the Conservatives received only 40 percent of the vote, The Liberals, New Democrats, the Bloc, and the fringe parties received even less; if you sum them together you get something like 60 percent.

Whoever wrote quote number 2 above obviously thinks his/her world is black and white. The only way 60% of the population would be happy about Harper's government being toppled is if -- and only if -- 60 percent of all voters marked an X beside the checkbox that read: "Anyone but Harper" on their ballot. Last I checked, that option was not on my ballot -- or anyone else's.

So if you let Stephane Dion become Prime Minister, do you think 60-percent of the population is going to be happy about it? Absolutely not. Maybe 20 percent of the population will be happy about it -- those who are privy to Liberal ideology. And if Gilles Duceppe became the appointed Prime Minister (it would never happen anyway) would that mean that everyone in Quebec would be happy? Absolutely not. In fact, I would expect there are a number of people who voted conservative -- even though they don't like having Harper as the party leader. We can't do anything about that as citizens. Our duty is to elect the representative who will best serve our interests in Parliament. To vote by ideology -- or along party lines -- something I see way too often in Conservative Alberta -- I consider to be dangerous. I've seen so many unqualified, egomaniac, socially corrupt, power hungry, and greedy folk get elected because they ran for the "right party" -- it makes me question the intelligence of the public. But hey, that's why we love democracy: at least we had our say.

Now even though these "quotes" aren't verbatim, they are representative of a number of comments on news-stories published all over the web. Seriously. Go have a look, anywhere, and you'll see what I mean.

To My American Friends...

2008-11-03T00:40:00.004-07:00

Let's do it. Let's make history. Let's forget the status quo. Let's take a chance in hope for change.

Let's elect the first African-American to the White House in history.

In one day, you have the power to not only change your nation, but change the world.

It's about time.

The world is watching, and waiting in anticipation.

Nothing To See Here Folks, Move Along...

2008-10-15T00:22:00.003-06:00

The result of today's election -- of the $300 million the Canadian Government spent on this election campaign, has been somewhat disappointing to many Canadians. In one light, I am glad that I contributed in my own way, even if the person I voted for was not elected, I at least had my say.

That being said, for the most part, the election results came in pretty much the way I had suspected they would.

Now, how would you know this? I would have made my prediction publicly on this website, but like so many of the public, I was not terribly excited about this election campaign. The only major issue (the economic meltdown) only came to light mid-way through the campaign. Just take my word for it -- this is what I predicted:

The Conservatives would marginally increase their representation in Parliament, though only succeed in winning a minority. In truth, they gained 19 seats, which was more than I expected they would.
The Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois would lose seats. In truth, the Bloc managed to maintain their representation; the Liberals lost a substantial 26 seats.
The New Democrats would gain representation -- though not as much as leader Jack Layton would predict. I was very accurate in this prediction, as the New Democrats gained over 20% representation in the House.
The Green Party would remain a fringe party.

What does this mean to the common Canadian citizen? Well, not much really. The face of parliament hasn't changed much since Parliament was dissolved last September. There was no major shift in the balance of power. I guess this is the reason why so many people feel that this election was a waste of time and taxpayer money.

I bet if you ask Jack Layton, he would feel that $300 million was money well spent. When you consider that his party (and his power in Parliament) grew by more than 20 percent tonight, he became the true winner of this evening's election.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, though gaining 19 seats in the House, becomes the first loser, as he was unsuccessful in clinching a majority government.

The bigger loser, of course was Stephane Dion. Losing 26 seats in the House will ensure his leadership will be cast into question in the coming days. I suspect we will see the Liberals spending all kinds of party money on leadership conventions, only to produce a new leader who will have the daunting task in attempting to repair a broken party.

The biggest losers of all, were the people of Canada. Roughly 56-percent of eligible voters cast a ballot -- the lowest in Canadian history. I consider this a major black mark for Canada, and for democracy as a whole. Voter apathy produces only one thing: Tyranny. If you consider that there were nearly ten-million voters in Canada that did not cast a ballot today, there was a distinct chance that those votes could have impacted the results of many ridings.

To protest by not voting (something I have been hearing about recently) is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. This is exactly how tyrants come to power.

New MacBooks Underwhelming

2008-10-14T12:44:00.004-06:00

It has been some eight months since Apple released an update to their laptop lines. Given the delay, us Apple zealots were expecting something big -- and I mean really big.

After the hour I spent on sites such as Gizmodo, and MacWorld reading up-to-the minute updates on the press conference this morning, I can't help but be a little disappointed.

Two things really bothered me. First and foremost, the new models don't sport any processor upgrades. Some models actually appear to have slower processors than the last revision. It is true that Intel is expected to release new mobile processors in the coming weeks. If I were Apple, I would have waited until the new processors were available.

The second thing that bothered me was the absence of the Firewire port on the MacBook model. On the MacBook Pro, only one Firewire 800 port is available. This is a cause for concern for any recording enthusiast, as you will need a Firewire 800-400 adapter in order to plug in your audio interfaces. Furthermore, you won't be able to use the that fast external hard drive, unless it is daisy-chained to your interface, and then you lose more than half of your bandwidth.

The bottom line is -- if you want to record on your laptop, the MacBook Pro is your only option.

Now, that being said, there were some advances in the MacBook and MacBook Pro models that are very impressive. The new design is beautiful, strong, and lightweight. All Laptop models now have LED-backlit displays, which means brighter, truer color representation, and lower power consumption.

The most striking news is the inclusion of the new NVIDIA graphics chipsets, which boast more than 5 times the performance of the Intel integrated graphics chipsets of the last-generation MacBook. The extra gigaflops of processing power will be better realized next year when Apple releases Snow Leopard, which will have the technology to utilize unused GPU-cycles on operating system tasks.

The price points aren't terribly impressive either. That may be partially due to the falling Canadian Dollar, but I digress.

As much as I love portables, I always feel that I am paying a premium for portability. That probably explains why I still have a desktop computer as my main audio workstation. When you consider that you have much greater storage capabilities, faster processors, larger screens (in the case of the iMac), more i/o options, the desktop computer wins hands-down.

I guess I'd be better off to wait another 6 months and see what upgrades the first-revision MacBook Pros will boast. I made the mistake of purchasing a first-generation MacBook, and thanks to an extended warranty, all the issues the computer has suffered has been repaired free of charge. This includes random shut-downs, cracking case (twice!), and audio jack issues.

Yeah, I'm thinking it would be a good idea to wait a little while.

Help Save The World's Largest Music Collection

2008-09-10T17:31:00.006-06:00

I would have thought the world's largest Music Archive would have been located at the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, or in the Archives of one of the Big 5 record companies. Apparently, none of these come close.

The world's largest Music Archive is owned by one person: Paul Mawhinney. He has spent his life collecting records, and has massed a staggering archive which includes over three million vinyl records, and over 300,000 compact discs -- all in pristine condition. Many of the titles have never been listened to. The number of rare and collectible titles he has must number in the tens of thousands, if not higher. For some titles in this archive, a collector would pay thousands of dollars for just one album.

It makes my piddly little CD collection of some 800 units look like a drop in the bucket.

But Mawhinney's archive is under threat of being discarded. Due to age and failing health, Paul Mawhinney has no option but to sell his collection. Pundits have suggested the archive is worth approximately $50 million.

The problem is, there are no buyers.

Mawhinney even tried to pawn the archive on eBay. If my memory serves me correct, the highest bid was about 1.5 million, and the winning bidder did not pay. He has offered the collection to Museums, collectors, Libraries, and Universities, and not one of them wanted to purchase it.

Much of the collection does not exist in the digital realm. Mawhinney has vinyl in his collection that stems as far back as the late 19th century. His estimations is that perhaps as much as fifteen percent of the vinyl released from antiquity through the 1940's have ever been digitally remastered.

In other words, this archive is the most complete account of American 20th Century Pop-Culture -- anywhere.

I think it's an utter shame that this collection could wind up in the landfill. It belongs at the Smithsonian; it belongs at the Library of Congress -- it belongs at a University... any University.

If you want to learn more about this archive, and what you can do to help save it, I would suggest visiting the website, or viewing the video available here.

You could also join the Facebook Group "Save The Music", which currently has an appalling 85 members.

I consider myself to be quite the audiophile. I don't think I've ever thrown out a CD, and I've often bought an album for nostalgia, without ever having an intent of enjoying it -- or even if I did enjoy it as a youth. My personal CD collection is an archive as much as it is my music library. In my travels, I have found great difficulty obtaining certain albums, and have often learned that many titles I remember listening to as a child were never released on Compact Disc. Given the fact that the next frontier for music is the kind that only exists digitally, I find it disturbing that there are entire generations of music that is being forgotten.

Vinyl eventually wears out or gets brittle. Magnetic tape is easily erased with magnetic fields. Compact Discs were designed to last 20-25 years. Hard drives will fail. It is obvious that music is going "format-less" -- that is existing only in the digital realm. What remains of the last 5 generations of music should be preserved for future generations. Mawhinney's archive is the most complete of any on this earth. Some institution should take responsibility and properly manage the archive before it is gone for good.

Dirt Nap

2008-08-26T09:43:00.004-06:00

Well, it was inevitable. My trusty iBook laptop which has given me so much grief over the years (though it ran trouble-free for almost 14 months) has finally decided to take a dirt nap. It suffered a fall to the floor (not my fault this time), and has trouble booting.

I get a boot chime, and I get a grey screen, but the OS refuses to load. No Apple screen, just a blank grey screen staring back at me. So, of course I went into troubleshooting mode to figure out what I could find out. Well, I pulled out my OSX discs and attempted to boot from the optical drive and repair the hard drive. This usually cures most problems, but no dice this time. I heard the optical drive spin up and do a little reading, but I saw no feedback on the screen.

At this point I decided that I had better find a way to rescue any files that reside on the hard drive.

So I booted into target disk mode from the other laptop in the house (a first-generation MacBook) and was successful in mounting the iBook's hard drive on the MacBook. A few minutes later, and I had everything I could think of that I may need to keep from the dying machine. As an afterthought, I ran the disc utility program and repaired the hard drive on the ailing laptop.

Thinking that I may have repaired some critical damage on the hard drive, I attempted to re-boot the iBook. Again, a boot chime and grey screen, but nothing else. Running all the possibilities through my mind, I came to the conclusion that I had a failure somewhere on the video processor, or some other problem on the hardware bus that was preventing the machine from booting.

Either way the failure is on the logic board, and that only means I have one option left. Purchase a replacement logic board, or retire the laptop. Replacement logic boards are incredibly expensive, and when it comes to iBooks, logic boards are in short supply, as this is the component that usually fails in the first place. As far as eBay is concerned, purchasing a used logic board from a seller is a bit like playing Russian Roulette -- auctions for laptop components are almost always parted from dead laptops.

So the next logical thing is to say sayonara to the trusty computer. I've had the machine for over 5 years -- and it was at least 2 years old when I bought it. I've likely sunk as much as $1500 of hardware and software into the laptop -- for repairs, upgrades, etc. So where does one draw the line and refuse to sink more money into the machine? Well, that is always the definitive question. Even if it was working, the most I could get for the laptop would be $200. If I hocked a dead iBook on eBay, I'd get less that $50 for it.

I think it's time to look into a new(er) machine. One of the stipulations is that whatever machine I purchase, it must be faster and newer than the machine it replaces. Therefore if I purchase a replacement laptop, it must have at least a 1 GHz G4 processor. These machines are still sitting around the $500 mark on eBay, which I thought was a little rich, provided that G4 laptops were retired by Apple over 2 years ago.

I realize it might make a little more sense and buy a state-of-the-art laptop computer for $500 more. The other two Apples that live in this house I consider to be quite fast already -- speed isn't the issue here. The issue is the chipset that resides in older Apple machines. The G4 architecture allows me to run legacy software. Yes, I realize that I can run old software through a virtual machine -- though my experiences with virtual machines and emulation has been mediocre.

Since I spend a great deal of time working in Logic on recording projects, I do have need for state-of-the-art technology. I have had my current desktop machine for a year and a half (and it was 1 year old when I purchased it) -- so it's beginning to get a little long in the tooth. I will likely wait for another iMac revision (or 2) and see if I can upgrade to a 24" Aluminium model for $500 less than a new one, but that's a story for another time -- and in all honesty, I don't need to be in a major rush to replace that laptop.

Reprise

2008-07-01T10:38:00.003-06:00

Exposition

It all began early last week. My Band, Tung N' Groove, has been hard at work trying to expand our fanbase, and by doing so, one of the necessary things to do is to play in more venues. So we were pleased as punch when the owner of the Mainliner Pub agreed to have Tung N' Groove play at his pub -- which was scheduled to be on July 18-19, 2008.

Things changed rapidly when the owner of the Mainliner called our guitarist DH last week and insisted to change the band's booking date to June 27-28. As it turned out, our bass player couldn't make it due to family commitments.

DH really didn't want to lose the gig to another band, since he is also a member of Mule Shoe, he called the boys in that band to see if they could play the gig instead. As it turns out, their drummer, JY, was working out of town, so it appeared Mule Shoe wouldn't be able play the gig.

Then DH had an idea: Since MC Fro was once a member of Mule Shoe, why don't we get him to fill in on drums? After consultation with all the members of the band -- myself included -- that's exactly what happened.

The Story

Now, longtime readers of my little weblog will know that my experience in Mule Shoe wasn't exactly a walk in the park. If you remember, I was fired from the band because the bass player wanted to make music with his son. There was nothing I ever did wrong to warrant dismissal; it was just nepostism, pure and simple. Personality-wise, I always got along with the guys in the band -- so I wasn't worried about that -- but going into the situation, I was a little apprehensive. Perhaps I felt like I was re-opening old wounds, maybe fate was originally telling me that I wasn't supposed to be in that band, perhaps I didn't want to be exposed to some of the particulars, politics, and idiosyncracies of selected members. You might be able to relate to this comparison, but have you been able to get along with certain people individually, but put them together, and all hell breaks loose? Mule Shoe isn't exactly like this, but from my perspective, it could be compared to this in certain situations. A band is a business, and a relationship. It is much more than that in one respect, and in others, it's really nothing more than a working partnership.

Geez, what I put myslef into, just to make a couple hundred bucks.

Given my track record with local bands, I have tried to keep my involvement as professional as possible -- not get too close to the members of the band, and not put my heart into the music too deeply. Thus, if things go awry, then the separation isn't so painful.

I did take the job, promising myself to play my absolute best.

I was once a member of Mule Shoe, but that was three years ago. Many questions were going through my head. Would I remember all the songs? Did they learn a pile of new ones that I don't know? They released an album in late 2004; would they want to play any originals, and if so, how many?

All the questions led me to believe that I should sit down and review all their material. The problem is -- is that there isn't a set list anywhere. Even the guys in the band never carried set lists. If I racked my brain and scoured my iTunes collection, I only could come up with about 20 songs that I recalled Mule Shoe ever playing -- and that's about half of what's required to play a night's worth of material in a pub. I have also been incredibly busy as of late, so I haven't had the time to sit down and review anything.

So I went into the gig cold.

And what came out of my hands over two nights was nothing short of a miracle. All the covers -- even the originals -- came out with so much accuracy and precision that I left the other bandmates speechless. I even surprised myself at the accuracy of my long-term memory. I did not play perfectly -- when music is as subjective as it is, there will always be room for improvement -- but to the casual listener, these errors would have been entirely missed.

In the end, it was great to catch up with all they guys in the band again. We had lots of good laughs, many hugs and handshakes, and we made some pretty-good-sounding music. The crowd was decent, and supportive on both evenings. We all walked out with smiles on our faces.

What did I learn? Why should there be a moral to every story? I guess that means to be professional on all levels all the time. And play every gig like it's your last.

I'd Sure Like Some More Canwoods

2008-06-11T00:18:00.012-06:00

Ah yes, the never-ending drum addiction continues.

It's been a little more than a year since I purchased a used set of Canwood drums, and spent some time fixing them up. Even now, the drums aren't fully restored; the bass drum hoops could stand to be replaced, and perhaps all the hoops could be replaced, but most certainly, the drums need to be refinished.

And what's tearing me apart, is that I love the finish. That deep candy-apple red with a tinge of purple. Oh how I wish the finish wasn't so scratched.

I've resolved to refinish the drums someday -- and by that, I mean someday in the near future -- and by that, I mean in the next five years.

But there is a problem. There is always something in the way, and the problem is, is that it is going to take me a very long time to pull out the sandpaper, use some elbow grease, sand the drums down, re-stain, and re-lacquer the drums. This isn't something I can do over a weekend -- though it probably could be done in a weekend -- it's just that my attention span can't deal with the fact that I would blow an entire weekend (or 2, or 3) doing such a task.

No, I would need something like 6 months. And there is no way on this earth that I could retire those drums for that amount of time.

So I began thinking about how nice it would be if I had a second set of Canwoods in my inventory. This way, I could restore one kit while playing the other. And vice versa.

Now, I wouldn't want a replica of the kit I already have. No, the trick is getting a drumkit with completely different sizes. I was thinking I'd like a 22" kick drum, with 13" and 16" toms. This way, I would have all major drum sizes in my inventory, and would allow me to build a kit in any configuration I would want. After the restoration was completed, both drumkits would be stained to the same color. I could have a rock kit, or a jazz kit, or a blues kit, or one major behemoth if I wanted to join some Rush tribute band in the distant (and unlikely) future.

I have always wanted a little versatility in my music. The Canwood kit is ideal for my blues act, the Savoy Blues Band, but it's a little on the small side for Tung N' Groove, my rock act. Having a second Canwood kit with the same finish would fill that void.

But this is a pipe dream that doesn't have to be fulfilled tomorrow. Maybe next month, or next year. What's imperative, is that I will have to wait for the perfect kit to come my way, for the perfect price, and then I can pounce.

Every now and then a Canwood kit pops up for sale on eBay, but they are few & far between. I may have a little better luck searching the area Craigslist, or Kijiji.

Funny thing is, about 4 or 5 years ago, I found a Canwood drumkit for sale in a pawn shop in Lethbridge for about $650 dollars, if I recall. I never bought the kit, as money was a little tight, and the drums weren't in the best shape. But it had the drum sizes I am currently looking for. Serendipity is kind of funny that way.

The most important thing, of course, is the journey. Playing the drumkit is important, but what is more rewarding, is finding the instrument, giving it as much TLC as you can muster, and bringing that instrument back to its' former glory.

If I had that second kit, I could go through the stripping, sanding, and refininshing process one drum at a time, yet allowing me to play the rest of the kit. It's kind of like having your cake and eating it too.

Anyway, if you have a Canwood kit, in sizes 13" 16", and 22" (or 18" or 24" bass drum), and you are thinking about getting rid of it (and you live in Western Canada), drop me a line quoting an asking price. We might be able to work something out. I may ask for a few pictures as well, if I can be so bold. Who knows what could happen? The internet is a curious and wonderful thing, it has created a community and friendship among strangers that cross borders, geography, and even culture. But that's another story for another day.

Ed. Note: As of February 20, 2009, this request has been filled.

Apple's "Snow Leopard" Set To Pounce Next Year

2008-06-10T10:40:00.005-06:00

Yesterday's big news at WWDC 2008 largely was centered on Apple's new iPhone, which included a number of new applications, faster speeds, and a $200 price drop. As this generated a lot of buzz, I don't consider this as groundbreaking as Apple's second announcement: We can expect OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard, about this time next year.

Apple only provided a demonstration to select developers yesterday, so information regarding this release was a little sketchy. However, Apple wasted no time in publishing their objectives for the client and server versions for the rest of us to see.

I'll be a little honest. When Steve Jobs demoed OSX 10.5 Leopard early last year, I wasn't as excited as I had been about past OSX releases. The only technology that really impressed me was Time Machine, as I didn't expect I would find much use out of many of the other technologies. It became clear to many users and pundits that Apple had been focusing in the incorporation of new features and "eye-candy" in order to sell copies of their new operating system.

I was an early adopter of OSX. I have been using OSX since the Cheetah (10.0) days, so I have seen it's growth first-hand. Most users will agree that even though the footprint of each installation has increased (10.0 and 10.1 shipped on 1 CD-ROM; 10.3 shipped on 3 CD-ROMs, and 10.4 shipped on DVD), that the code was written tighter, and performed faster. You didn't even need a benchmarking program to test this; the increase in performance was easily noticeable -- at least until the release of 10.5.

Leopard reversed that trend. A huge amount of animation ("eye-candy") was introduced in Leopard, and at a cost of performance. Many users complained that their computer performed slower than the prior release. In fact, it was once argued that if you didn't have an intel-core processor, you needn't bother upgrading to Leopard. Sound familiar? If I had a quarter for every article I read that said Vista was an abomination and an embarrassment to Microsoft, well -- I'd be on a beach somewhere drinking Mai Tai's instead of writing this.

Early reports on OSX Snow Leopard indicate that Apple is introducing a number of technologies "under the hood". This doesn't usually excite the consumer, but it excites computer geeks like myself. Recently published articles claim a "focus" on performance -- which I understand is partially true. What is true, is the technologies they will be introducing is going to set the stage to introduce technologies and features that were only science fiction a few years ago.

And it starts with performance. Although nothing is said yet about what chipsets the new release will support, many pundits feel that it will abandon the old PowerPC architecture. At the very least, nothing has been said to give the indication Apple is declaring PowerPC obsolete. Although, if they did, it would allow them to strip out all the archaic code, and ensure the OS would run natively.

What Apple is doing, is re-writing the OS to take advantage of multi-core systems. This idea isn't new, but my understanding of this is that this technology has not been fully exploited. Apple promises to introduce a new technology -- named Grand Central, which will take advantage of multi-core systems. The end result is simple: The more cores your computer has, the faster it will run.

Obviously this will mean anyone with a dual-core mac (or more) will notice a boost in performance. Those lucky to have quad-core (or 8-core) Mac Pro's will have machines that will perform at mind-bending speeds. Single-core users (mostly Power-PC users) likely wouldn't see a boost in performance. Which leads me to believe OSX 10.6 will abandon PowerPC support.

As many of you already know, OSX 10.5. Leopard is already running circles around Vista. Windows 7 is being designed to replace a problem OS, though it's release may be too late. OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard is going to deliver performance to PC users that will make Windows look dated. And Snow Leopard will likely come at a much nicer price: $129.

Apple began to introduce their intel-core chipsets about two and a half years ago, while completing the transition about 18 months ago. The question everyone is asking, is how many Power-PC users will there be in 2009? And how many of those users will be unwilling to invest in a new computer at that time?

Max: A Pristine Audio Encoder for Mac

2008-06-04T15:58:00.008-06:00

In the past, I have written a few entries (here, here and here) about my audiophile tendencies. In summary, after investing a sum of money into high-quality studio monitor speakers, I began to hear the limitations of certain audio formats, namely MP3 and Apple's AAC (which is based on the MP4 format).

It is a slow and ongoing process, where I have managed to re-encode approximately 10% of my audio collection (which is, incidentally, greater than 600 compact discs). In this journey, I have even uncovered more limitations -- not in the audio itself, but in the encoding technologies themselves.

For most consumers, the encoders included in Apple's iTunes or Microsoft's Windows Media Player should suffice. Both applications allow the user to choose a variety of file formats and bitrates, which should produce an encoded audio file which best suits the listener.

But not me.

Enter Max. Max is a high-quality audio ripper / encoder for OSX, which sports a number of advancements in audio encoding technology. Even though it is a standalone application, it integrates well with iTunes, will import artwork from a variety of websites, and will query the Musicbrainz database to ensure proper ID3 file tagging. Best of all, Max is freeware.

The interface is simple and clean. Everything you need to see in the main panel is there. If you need to make individual edits to individual tracks, all that is needed is to hit the 'Tracks" button on the toolbar, and a panel opens for you to make the desired changes. The same thing goes with artwork.

Tabbing from one song to the next works as expected, preventing the user from grabbing the mouse and double-clicking every individual track. I may even say, that this is a better interface for inserting tags than iTunes. However, a user should not need to individually enter these tags, if he is querying the Musicbrainz database.

Max has the ability to encode in nearly any audio format you desire. It can encode to AIFF, MP3, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, MP4, Apple Lossless, and many others. Within each file type there are many options available to tweak the encoding settings. I chose AAC, as it is the file type that most of my audio is encoded at. Not only can you choose the bitrate best suited to your needs, but you can choose the quality of the encoding -- good, better, maximum, for example -- and the user can employ variable-bitrate encoding to ensure maximum fidelity.

Of keen interest, is that it appears that you can choose multiple output formats, and change your settings accordingly. This could be useful for individuals who desire to have a high-quality encoding on their desktop computer, and one that might be optimized for web consumption.

Of most importance to me, is the error-correction settings. I am unsure of the technologies included in Windows Media Player, but I do know that iTunes has a preference where you can use error-correction when ripping your compact disc. This is desirable for those who have a few scratched cd's laying around.

Now, my experience with iTunes error-correcting technologies has been mediocre at best. I had a number of encodings that produced clicks, pops, and other undesirable noise on a few CD's I own. Compounding the problem is that a lot of the music I have is out of print, from independent artists, or generally hard to find. In these cases, repurchasing said compact disc is not an option.

As an experiment, I used Max to re-enode a few of my CD's that didn't encode well in iTunes. I chose AAC as my codec, used 192 kbps as my bitrate, and enabled variable bitrate encoding. I employed error-correction using cdparanoia as the error-correction type, and only allowed skipping after 40 retries (I would have considered using never allow skipping as an option, though I thought this might ensure a troublesome audio file never encodes).

So, how did it work out? Well, Max does produce pristine encodings. The audio quality surpasses that of iTunes' encoding capabilities. It does take longer, however, to encode a CD -- largely due to error-correction. The audio tracks that encoded poorly with iTunes (with audible clicks and pops) sounded much better than the original, with many of the pops much more subdued, or non-existent. Thus, I felt Max did exactly what it promised to do. Given the fact that these audio files are of very high quality, they are a little larger in size than the iTunes counterparts, but not much larger to become a storage problem.

What Max Does:

Pristine audio encoding in a number of file formats
ID3 tagging using the Musicbrainz database
Import cover art from webistes such as Amazon.com
iTunes integration

What Max Cannot Do:

Max is not an audio player.
Max cannot save heavily-damaged CD's.

Max appears to be still early in its development, and it is still a little buggy at times. It doesn't always import tags from Musicbrainz, but I feel this is largely due to the fact that I have tried using the program with rare CD's at this time.

There are a number of scripts included in the distribution, though they returned errors when I tried using them. I wonder if this is due to the fact that I have all my audio stored on an external drive.

Overall. my biggest beef with the program was the lack of supporting documentation regarding the program's settings. The help section in the menu only had little to say about the error-correction settings, and what was required to query the Musicbrainz database. I hope better documentation will be more in-depth in future distributions.

That being said, I am quite impressed with the developer's efforts. The program is not for everyone, as iTunes will produce an encoding acceptable to most listeners. I, however will continue using Max as my default audio encoder for the foreseeable future. As I have said once before, and I'll have to say it again: it looks like I'm going to have to re-encode my audio collection yet again.

This is never going to end.

[Ed. Note: The missing hyperlinks have been updated. And, I'm going to need a bigger hard drive.]

The Live Record is Finished

2008-05-23T21:00:00.011-06:00

It has been a very long six weeks. As I have mentioned in prior postings, I have been hard at work producing my band, Tung N' Groove's promotional CD, which I recorded live at a recent gig.

Now, the recording isn't the only thing that has been occupying my waking hours, but I would think that it is likely one of the more exciting endeavors I have been recently involved in.

The last time I wrote an entry about the recording, I was ranting about a critical mistake I had made in the recording process, rendering the bass drum track unusable. In order to save the recording, I employed a technique called sample replacement, essentially replacing all the bass drum hits with pre-recorded samples. It was an awfully long process, since I did it manually, and took me almost 20 hours to complete. In other words, three full work days.

I spent nearly the same amount of time into editing the audio. This can mean a great many things in the audio production world, but for the most part -- in this recording -- it meant stripping out unnecessary audio regions. This usually means background noise, hums, clicks, and undesirable frequencies can be filtered out before they cause a problem. This in effect can clean up the audio you hear in the end result.

Once the heavy lifting was completed, I began mixing the recording. I explained the process in an earlier post, though it's a little more involved that "making every instrument find its' place in the mix". Entire volumes have been written about the subject, and I hate to bore my readers with theory. In layman's terms: "I just turn the knobs until it sounds good to me."

What sound advice. It's like saying the strategy to winning a hockey game is to score more goals than your opponent.

It took some time, but last weekend, I finally managed to have the album mixed. I promptly moved the project into the mastering phase, where I put the finishing touches on the album. It actually took me two attempts, but I think I got it to a point where I can be happy.

So how does it sound? Have a listen for yourself.

mcfro.blogspot.com turned 4 yesterday.

2008-05-07T20:50:00.005-06:00

1442 days ago, I created this website. Some 418 postings later, I continue to write on here when spare time and my urges permit me.

The fourth year was somewhat of an average year, I have been getting, on average, about 120 hits per month -- which is about what I was getting the year prior.

The visits I mostly get are from Google searches. Surprisingly, I get a lot of queries regarding drum restoration, and Canwood drums. Of course I began fielding these site visits when I first began blogging about my drum restoration project last April.

There are surprisingly, a few repeat visitors that come back again and again. Most of those are from my neck of the woods, however it's nice to see that I get a few international visitors. Yes, I check my web hits.

June 2007 ended up being the most successful month for the blog -- ever, largely due to the post: "All it Means is I'm Earning Less and Less". Much thanks and love goes to the medhatblog for providing a link to the article, which increased my readership, and provided my little site a lot more traffic than what I was used to. Of course, things have settled back down, but a few come by now and again from the medhatblog.

No projections for the future of the site this year. Blogging seems to have become passe, which is not at all unwelcome. I'm somewhat happy that every eighth grader no longer has their own website, where they can vent about how much they hate their parents, and try out every new four-letter word they learned in the cafeteria. Still, there will always be a place for blogs and blogging; it's just not going to be everyone's claim to fame. Very few people write well; and even fewer attain their success by blogging. Those who have managed to rise above the ranks have used gimmicks -- usually their looks to build and maintain their reader-base. I find posting scantily-clad photos of myself on the web to obtain traffic quite low. But I digress. To each his own, or "to each a zone".

Of course, you can rely on me to write on here a few times per month, about some strange geekdom that I am raving about at the moment. I have a live recording that is 75% finished, and I can't wait to bring it to everyone. I may even post a link here.

Damn Murphy and His Laws

2008-04-22T00:37:00.002-06:00

Anything that can go wrong, will.

I have been investing 8 to 12 hours per day working on my recording project, and have successfully managed to fix the errors as indicated in the last post. Amidst editing the audio, I uncovered one other major issue.

I am a singing drummer. It was something that I stumbled upon early in my career, and it has made me more employable than many of my peers because of such. Thus, the tracks that I recorded last weekend had me singling while playing drums.

This is the reason I uncovered another major issue. While listening to my vocal track, I discovered there was a lot of bleed from the snare drum into my vocal microphone. I would usually let this slide, however, the transient of my snare drum was much louder than my vocal, and it was coloring the snare track.

My first thought was to EQ the transient out, but this would have left my vocal track incredibly muddy and useless.

Given the time available to me, I decided on drastic action. I overdubbed my background vocals for about half of the songs in my home studio.

The truth of the matter is, that I'm not exactly happy about the situation. But in the end, I should have a product that will meet or exceed my expectations.

The Recording Process (Case Study: Tung N' Groove)

2008-04-17T00:17:00.013-06:00

I am halfway into my third week of "semi-retirement", and contrary to popular belief, I am not going stir-crazy. I have been very busy with a number of personal projects -- one in particular I wished to discuss here.

The Problem

One of the bands, I play in, Tung 'N Groove, is going through some growing pains. We want to expand our "sphere of influence" by playing in a few more clubs than we already do. This essentially means we need a press kit.

Part of the press kit includes a CD which demonstrates the material the band plays during a regular performance. In bands I have formerly played in, this was often a cassette tape, recorded from a board mix. The fidelity of board mixes is mediocre at best, and often doesn't capture the full power of the band in a live situation. Being one who has an interest in recording, mixing and producing, I jumped at the chance to record the band at our performance at the Redcliff Hylton last weekend.

This has not been the first time I attempted this. In January, I lugged all my recording gear to the Redcliff Hylton in an attempt to record the band. MA and I spent the entire Saturday afternoon assembling gear, mounting additional microphones, and soldering cables. Hardware limitations would mean that I was limited to recording 8 tracks at a time, so a few compromises had to be made: The drums had to be submixed to stereo, and the vocals also had to be submixed to stereo as well.

When I got the recording home and listened to it, I realized immediately that the limitations of my recording hardware crippled the recording. There was nothing I could do to save the submixed drums. In addition, the submixed vocals were horrid, due to complexities I do not wish to go into here. The answer was of course, that 8 tracks would not be enough. I would have no choice but to expand the number of inputs my DAW can handle.

Lightning Strikes Twice

Thanks to eBay, I scoffed another recording interface, and integrated it into my hardware rack, bringing the number of inputs I could record at one time to 18. I also had to purchase a couple extra microphones, specifically a pair of Studio Projects C4's. I had the hardware, and with Logic Pro, I should have been able to record the band, with enough separation to create a mix which would meet my standards.

Of course, I would have to test it at home first. This was the first mistake I had made the last time I tried to record the band. I set up a new session in Logic Pro, armed 18 tracks and hit record. It worked beautifully. One other hurdle remained: I couldn't exactly take my 20" iMac to the club in order to run the recording software. I needed to bring my laptop. I have Logic Express 7.2 installed on my core duo laptop, but it's limited to recording 12 tracks at a time. GarageBand is limited to recording 8 tracks at a time, plus you can only record at 16-bit depth, so that option was out. I uninstalled and unregistered Mackie's Tracktion 2. I needed to install Logic Pro on the laptop.

Problem number 2: Logic Pro is a huge install -- a 40-gigabyte install (7 DVD-ROMs). My laptop doesn't have that kind of room anymore. I tried to find a way to do a minimal install, but to no avail. I fought with the damn thing for six hours before giving up.

I had one last option: Reaper. Though Reaper is making waves in the PC market, the Mac Version is in the beta stage. It is buggy and unreliable -- even the forums are dotted with a number of Mac users who have suffered kernel panics during critical recording sessions. Given the fact that I didn't want to use beta software in this session -- especially when I had only one shot at this -- I really didn't want to use Reaper. But it became clear I had no choice.

The Set-Up

Last Saturday, MA and I returned to the Hylton to assemble a huge mess of wires, and microphones for that evening's performance. We took a number of inputs directly from the mixer, though the guitar cabinets were miked individually, overhead mics were placed over the drumkit to capture the cymbals, and the Bass guitar signal was split via a DI box, and recorded direct. To capture the 'roar' of the band, we set up a stereo pair of microphones in the middle of the club, pointed at the stage. To prevent tampering, the microphones were suspended from the ceiling, well out of the public's reach. We set our recording levels, and returned to the club that evening to play the gig.

The ~~Performance~~ Session

Reaper worked beautifully. The software, hardware, and computer handled recording 18 tracks simultaneously for nearly three hours of audio without skipping a beat. I was pleased, and I could not wait until the next day when I could load the session and listen to the recording.

The Truth on ~~Tape~~ Disc

Listening to the recording the next day, would be comparable to a rude awakening. But then I am my own worst critic. I had to come to terms with the fact that we didn't play all that well, largely due to the fact that we haven't gigged in two months. But I knew there would be diamonds in the rough, and out of the thirty-five songs that were recorded, there might be a dozen that could make the cut.

Back Up Early, Back Up Often

Before I began doing any "destructive editing", I burned a backup of the session -- 7 DVD ROMs' worth. Once I had a permanent backup that I could go back to, in the event I messed something up, I went about chopping up the audio into individual songs. It took me nearly two days to extract 12 songs from the recording session.

A Critical Error Discovered

Now that I had 12 of the better songs extracted, I figured I could get to work mixing the audio. Nearly right away I uncovered a major issue with the bass drum track. During the first song, something came loose or moved on my drumkit, and I found an annoying rattle in the track. Even worse, is that this went unnoticed, and was present in every single song. My first inclination was that perhaps the rattle could be removed though careful EQing, but my attempt at this left me with a bass drum track that sounded terrible.

The solution -- which became immediately clear to me, is a technique called sample replacement. In short, this means replacing the recorded audio with programmed electronic copy. Now, if I had the cash, I would have resorted to an automated program such a Drumagog, which would detect the transients of the bass drum and replace with drum samples automatically. Alas, I am unemployed, and that means I would have to program the bass drum track manually -- and this would take hours to complete.

So yesterday, I began the long drawn-out process of replacing my bass drum track with samples. Recording the samples does not take a lot of time -- about as long as it takes to play the song from start to finish. It is in the editing process (ensuring all the samples are lined up, and in sync with the original track) which takes so much time. I would have sooner resorted to using loops, but we did not record to a click -- so that option was also out.

The first song took me 2 hours to program. And every subsequent song has taken me as long. I have spent the entire day today, and half of yesterday, to program some five songs. I expect to invest another twelve hours into fixing the bass drum tracks before I am ready to move on to the next phase.

The Next Step

I am pleased to say that the remaining tracks are in a position where I should be able to work with them. Everything else recorded well enough that I should be able to produce a recording which will meet my expectations.

I will need to listen to each individual track on each song, and listen for clicks, pops, and even wrong notes. If something can be fixed by editing, or even by overdubbing, I may have to consider that option.

I will have to administer plugins to the individual tracks. This includes EQ, compression, and reverb. Applied properly, this allows the individual tracks to "find their place in the mix". This is an exhaustive process which can take days, but the results are well worth the investment.

The next logical step in the recording process is called mixing -- this is where all the instruments are balanced with respect to one another to produce one cohesive sound coming out of your speakers. The mix is then "bounced down" to 2 tracks -- one file of all the instruments, instead of multiple files being played simultaneously. This is often thought of the format that most people consume music, but this isn't exactly true.

The Master

Before audio is distributed to the masses, a mixed file goes through a process called mastering. The mixed file undergoes a little compression, EQing, and other refinements, which puts a "sheen" or "glitter" to the final mix. It also ensures that there aren't any transients that might potentially blow the speakers out of their cabinets. The master is then burned to a disc conveniently called "the Master", which is the recording from which all subsequent copies are duplicated from.

Status

As you can see, there are 400 things that have to happen in order for me to get the band's demo out to club owners, and I am on number 8. If anything exciting happens in my travels between here and there, I expect to make a note of it here.

If you are still reading this, I sincerely hope that you have found this read to be informative and insightful.

South Park Was Right...

2008-04-03T10:39:00.004-06:00

I can't believe it... South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were right ten years ago.

Scientists have been successful in creating the six-assed monkey.

Actually, more accurately, they have managed to splice the DNA of a Pig and an Elephant... "Didn't you ever hear that song by Loverboy?"

Actually, more precisely, scientists have managed to create a human-animal hybrid embryo -- which isn't too far off the mark of Parker's and Stone's predictions from South Park's first season.

You can read all about that story here.

I think I can handle the above news, but I'm running for the hills if I ever discover a 50-foot satellite dish sticking out of my ass.

Day 2

2008-04-02T00:15:00.004-06:00

This is officially Day 2 of being unemployed -- partially out of choice, but mostly due to necessity. In the last 2 days I have fielded phone calls from friends and relatives inquiring if I am bored out of my tree yet, which incidentally, I have found rather amusing. In fact, I am not running out of things to do.

For example, I spent most of the afternoon laying on the couch since I pulled something out of place in my upper back, and it was excruciating to do most actions, including sitting. So I took a muscle relaxant and found myself quite stoned for the afternoon. I found it difficult to focus, and my eyes were drooping. This somewhat threw my plans for the day out the window, as I fully expected to spend the day sitting on the couch watching game shows.

Okay, this story is a little embellished. It is true, however, that I have a long list of projects that need to be done around my house. Much of it can be accomplished with this fantastic new product that has recently been brought to my attention: It's called Swiffer.

Perhaps you've heard of it.

Derelict

2008-03-17T23:13:00.006-06:00

The more time I spend on this weblog, the more I begin to realize how much like my psyche this site begins to resemble. By this, I mean, that this place -- much like my mind -- is a total mess, unkempt, broken, and in need of a major overhaul. I have been trying to motivate myself (when there's time) to add tags to all the blog posts, but that has since been tossed at the bottom of the priority heap. I've been trying to give this site a facelift, but unfortunately it continues to recede... not unlike my hairline.

I continue to convince myself that things are going to change, and they will in two weeks. I hope I can find the motivation and desire to make this site, and the others I maintain to appear in the way that I have been envisioning. But that has much more to do with how much energy I have (and how many daytime game-shows I insist on watching), than how motivated I am.

Most of the weblinks situated on the sidebar are broken. Tags are missing from more than 300 posts. I finally fixed a broken picture of me, and it took me how long? It was only today I realized that the image hosting site I was dependent on a scent few years go went tits up God-only-knows-how-long-ago. It was a damn good thing that I have kept backups of this site, as I have managed to retain 95% of the images that disappeared into the black hole known as the internet. Still, I have to re-upload every image manually -- and after some 20 minutes of frustration, I managed only to resurrect about a half-dozen images.

Once April 1st hits, things are going to be totally different. Say goodbye to MC Fro, the tree-hugging hippie, and say hello to MC Fro the Trailer-Trash Hermit. It's probably just as good; I likely destroyed more trees in my tenure as an Environmental Consultant than I managed to save. But that's another story for another day.

It's time to start cleaning up everything. This includes my house, my yard, my car, my website, my mind, and my life.

Deep Freeze

2008-01-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

If any of my readers browse through the news headlines (or perhaps are unfortunate enough to be living it), they would be aware that the great Canadian Prairies are in an Arctic deep freeze where we are experiencing temperatures as low as -40˚ Celsius, with wind chill factors in excess of -50˚. For those who are fortunate enough to never have to endure these temperatures, exposed flesh freezes in under a minute, and necessities such as fuel will freeze in your gas tank.

I am writing this because I am currently 90 minutes minutes late for work, as my car has been rendered the equivalent of a large maroon ice cube. The block heater has been plugged in for the last 2 hours, and I've been trying to turn over the engine every 30 minutes, though my attempts have currently proved fruitless.

I realize now that my car should have been plugged in overnight, but the forecast stated that temperatures were expected to rise overnight. Once again, the "Precision Weather Forecast" was far from being precise.

In ten minutes, I will once again venture out into the abyss and make another futile attempt to start my car. Otherwise, I could attest these turn of events as fate telling me not to leave the house today.

You know what it's like in the Yukon wild when it's sixty-nine below;
When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads through the crust of the pale blue snow;
When the pine trees crack like little guns in the silence of the wood,
And the icicles hang down like tusks under the parka hood;
When the stove-pipe smoke breaks sudden off, and the sky is weirdly lit,
And the careless feel of a bit of steel burns like a red-hot spit;
When the mercury is a frozen ball, and the frost-fiend stalks to kill --
Well, it was just like that that day when I set out to look for Bill.

-- Robert W. Service: "The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill"

UPDATE:

I managed to get my car started, and arrived at work at 10:30AM, a full two and a half hours late.

Apple Zealot? Hardly.

2008-01-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

Those who know me might argue otherwise, but according to this poll, I'm only 64% addicted to the Apple brand and their products. In all honesty, I figured I would have scored higher.

64%

Matt Good, on the other hand, was quite proud to achieve a score of 76%.

There Was Something In The Air That Night

2008-01-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

In recent weeks, there has been a considerable amount of buzz around the Macworld 2008 Keynote. Rumors of new Apple Computers and products have had Mac zealots frothing at the mouth, while placing bets at what might just be under the black curtains at Apple's booth. By this morning, the buzz had grown to such proportions that the commotion outside Moscone Center this morning was reported to be near-pandemonium.

Though I have yet to watch the keynote address, I was reading the highlights via live web feeds, so I have least, some idea what Steve Jobs had to say -- which I could honestly say, wasn't as Earth-shattering as some keynotes have been in years past.

The biggest news, of course was the announcement of the MacBook Air, a new notebook with a new form factor, which should have the competition running back to their drawing boards. Now, there is nothing new with ultra-light, ultra-portable, or ultra-small computers -- except that these types of notebooks are crippled in one way or another. They usually have under-sized keyboards, are under-powered, too small a screen, limited expandability, or too little battery life. So why should Apple be any different?

Apple did some very impressive things with their new notebook. It is the thinnest design of any notebook in production today. At its' thickest, the notebook is 0.76" (1.94 cm) thick at its' rear, and it tapers to a mind-boggling 0.16" (0.4cm) thin at the front. Apple also ensured that the computer weigh as little as possible, as their new model is a scant 3 pounds (1.36kg) -- roughly half of what conventional notebook computers weigh today. To further complement the new design, Apple included a 13" widescreen, and a full-size laptop keyboard. The Power Plant inside the MacBook Air includes 2 Gigabytes of RAM, an 80 Gigabyte Hard drive, a 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 802.11n wireless, built-in Bluetooth 2.1, and 5 hours of battery life. Most impressive of all, is that Apple is incorporating their multi-touch technology -- as evident in their iPhones, into this new notebook. This means you can pinch, stretch, rotate, zoom, scroll, and rearrange with 2 or 3-finger gestures on the trackpad.

And you can have one of these beauties in two weeks for $1799.00 US. Some pundits feel the price point is a little steep; others feel that it is much cheaper than some of the competitions' ultra-thin portables.

As fantastic as the new machine sounds, I am not the least bit interested in buying one. Why? What did Apple skimp on in order to produce such a lightweight machine?

Well, I suppose it depends on your intended uses for said machine. If all you are going to do is write school papers, listen to music, write emails and surf the web, then this may just be the machine for you. If I were going to College this year, this would be the notebook I would buy -- simply because it is smaller and lighter than a binder I would tote in my backpack.

One thing I do require a notebook for is mobile recording -- and nearly all recording interfaces use Firewire. Guess what? Apple removed the firewire port on the MacBook Air to save space and weight. Strike one. I suppose I could purchase a recording interface that employs USB 2.0, but that's another story altogether.

A 1.8", 80-gigabyte hard drive (the same ones used in Apple's iPods) are used in the MacBook Air, to conserve space and weight. Sadly, 80 gigabytes doesn't cut it for hard drive space these days. Strike two. In order to solve the problem, an external drive would be required to store the user's photos, music, movies, and documents, which brings me to my next beef.

Apple included only one USB port on the MacBook Air. While other notebook manufacturers are including as many as four USB ports on their portables, I feel this a poor area to cut corners in. Only geeks know how to set up and run wireless print servers; the rest of us plug in our printers via USB. Some of us like external keyboards and mice; especially while working at a desk. Not to mention, we plug in our iPods and digital cameras. Not enough USB ports? Strike three. I suppose you could buy a USB hub to connect all your peripherals to.

Apple further slimmed the design by omitting the optical drive. You can buy a specially-designed external drive from Apple for 100 bucks (sold separately, of course). Now, I agree that my optical drives get little usage; I likely burn 1 disc per month, but it's the security blanket issue that concerns me (what I mean by this is explained below). Apple has been ingenious in designing a clever little application that allows the user to 'hijack' the optical drive of a networked machine, and have the software install on the MacBook via a wireless network connection. I am quite intrigued by this technology, if it works, then it will be really cool to witness, and may spell the end of optical drives on portables. What scares me, is how does one boot from a system recovery disc on this machine, if, heaven forbid, the hard drive fails? I would like to do further research into their wireless-optical-drive-hijacking thingy before I administer another strike.

The MacBook Air does not have built-in Ethernet. Its only connection to the rest of the world is via its' wireless capabilities. You can, however, purchase a USB to Ethernet dongle and connect to your local area network that way. Another cursed dongle. As far as Ethernet goes, I don't think I have ever connected my notebook to the network via Ethernet, so I am unsure if this is deserving of a strike.

Apple ensured that every MacBook Air comes stock with 2 Gigabytes of RAM installed. What they don't tell you is that there is no room for expansion. That's right, the RAM is non-upgradeable. Now, 2 gigabytes of RAM should be enough for a year or two, but when will it not be enough? Remember, Bill Gates once said that 640k of RAM ought to be enough for everybody. Strike four.

Now, I am speculating here, but I imagine that a lot of the exciting technologies that are evident in the new MacBook Air will find their way into the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines by their next revision. I am specifically referring to the multi-touch technology Apple is continually developing, though given the relative success (or failure) of solid-state storage, and the lack of optical drives may deterime which technologies make it into these new machines. I know the MacBook Air by now sounds really compromised. Remember what all the pundits said about the iMac when it was released in 1997? "No SCSI? No ADB? No Floppy Drive? What is Steve thinking!?" They all predicted it would fail miserably -- and it was a grand slam. So we could be wrong. Maybe missing some of these features isn't much of an issue after all.

The following features would be the only things that would get me excited about purchasing a new notebook: LED backight (already in the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro), lighter weight, and longer battery life (I want 8 hours!), but I am unwilling to compromise on such issues as RAM (expandable to at least 4 Gigabytes), and drive storage. And since I often deal with high-end audio production, so Firewire and Gigabit Ethernet are a must-have on my ideal machine.

So no MacBook Air for me. Although, I think we will see new MacBooks in exciting new form factors in the coming months, and those will be impressive machines. They will be thinner than the current models too -- just not as 'thin as air'.

I wonder how long it will take Low End Mac to dub this machine a 'Road Apple'.

2007: Year of the Empty Bank Account

2008-01-01T11:37:00.000-07:00

Before I get into too many details, I'd like to wish my readers a belated Merry Humbug and a Happy Hangover Day. I hope your last week has been filled with joy, fellowship, and lots of 'walking through the winter, drink in hand'.

The pillaging of the tree this year wasn't quite the cache as it has been in years past, though all I really asked for was clothes. I did however, brave the lineup at Visions on Boxing Day, and walked out with a 40" Samsung LCD high-definition television. I'll be feeling the pinch of that purchase when my January credit card bill arrives.

It has somewhat been a bit of a yearly tradition here at mcfro.blogspot.com that I take a few minutes on the first day of the new year to reflect what I accomplished this year, and what I would expect in the next 52 weeks to come.

Sifting through this year's posts, I have come to the early conclusion that I really didn't accomplish anything, given the astounding few number of posts there have been. I mean, there were at least three months were I didn't blog at all. Like I have said on here ad nauseum, I have been busy -- I've been lazy too, lethargic, exhausted, and unmotivated. It's all derived from worker burnout, and is a big reason why my New Year's resolution is to find a healthier work/life balance. Money can buy lots of things; but it can't buy sleep.

2007 got off to a very expensive start, as I quickly dropped four digits into a newer, faster, and larger iMac, which has, more or less, become a machine I use for audio production. Since the successful resurrection of my derelict iBook, I spend most of my web-surfing time on it instead of the desktop machine. Sure it's not the fastest, but it's good enough for most mundane tasks, and even runs a number of video games quite nicely. The laptop also keeps me out of the windowless basement, which ensures that I see more sunlight -- indispensable for someone like me who goes through mood wings and bouts of depression.

2007 continued with a string of large purchases, as in April I added a third drumset to my arsenal. Price is relative: though I got a great deal on the kit, I still paid a pretty penny for it. I have subsequently spent small sums over the course of the year for replacement parts and upgrades. The Canwoods have also seen a number of gigs already, so they are paying for themselves -- if they haven't already.

An expensive set of concert tickets allowed me to see the Police in concert in Edmonton. After paying for fuel, meals, accommodations, and toys, the trip escalated well into four digits, but it was worth every penny to see Stewart, Sting, And Summers together for the first time in nearly 25 years.

June also saw the most successful blog post on this site, ever. Skeet from medhatblog.com kindly linked to me from the website. Though it didn't elicit comments as I had hoped, it did generate scores of traffic -- over tenfold what I was accustomed to. It even increased my readership -- albeit temporarily. Had I continued blogging regularly, I may have managed to keep those readers, but they have since gone.

I guess this was where I really got lazy. Now that I was generating a great deal more traffic than I had been, I also felt increasing pressure to be delivering work of exceptional quality in order to maintain that readership. That was, to say the least a little daunting. In one hand, the site was beginning to become what I had wanted it to become (popular!). On the other hand, I didn't have the energy to invest the time and effort required to make this site what it was becoming. So I sat on my haunches and meditated on what I wanted to do with this site. The next thing I knew, nearly four months had passed, with nary a post on this site, and all my readers found other weblogs to be entertained by. Thus, the answer became clear -- I'll just write about my insignificant little life whenever I am inspired, and if readership increases, great. If they do not, that's still great too.

The first entry since my 'hiatus', was a review of Matthew Good's performance at Medicine Hat College this November. The posting also generated a fair amount of interest from readers across Canada, including a few views from Mr. Good himself. He didn't drop a note, but he left a trail of bread crumbs that said he had been here.

Musically, 2007 has been a year of transition and flux. The Savoys took an extra long vacation this year, and by the time the band got back together to prepare for this year, it became clear that the band would be falling apart. We have best intentions to continue in 2008, and we are currently auditioning a replacement for BG, which we should know in a week if he is the right guy -- or not.

Tung 'N' Groove also got out of our heads and onto the stage. It took a great deal of rehearsing, and a large number of hefty equipment purchases, but we are now gigging regularly, and continue to build a dedicated following. We have secured a number of dates for 2008, which will be posted on the band's website when I have both time and motivation.

I hope everyone's 2008 is a prosperous one. See you (hopefully) soon.

Tuning Lug Annoyances

2007-12-18T13:46:00.001-07:00

Ed. Note: This is the fourth entry into the "Canwood Drum Restoration" thread that I began writing this past April. For those who are interested in reading the first three entries, you can view them here, here and here.

An update to this project is long overdue, and my work is far from finished. But recall me saying that this would be a labor of love. It may take me a few more years to get the kit back to 100%, but it's the journey that most rewarding.

Of most importance, was getting the snare drum back into a condition where I could use it as a primary snare drum. It may be difficult to see from the pictures, but I measured the drum to be 4.5" deep by 14" diameter. I already had a Yamaha maple 4 x 14 drum in my arsenal, so I needed to find a a way to make this drum have a different character than the Yamaha.

The Canwood snare had been heavily used. A few of the tuning lugs were broken, the tuning hoops were rusting in areas, The snare throw-off was broken, and the snare wires were stretched. New snares and the throw-off were purchased in a local music store and fitted on the drum in a pinch, but some of the harder-to-find parts, such as the tuning lug swivel nuts wouldn't be found in my city.

Enter Drummaker.com. Searching through their vast inventory, I placed an order which included a pile of nylon lug washers, swivel nuts to refit every tuning lug on the snare, two "mighty-hoops" and a tube of machine thread grease, made by Loc-Tite. Now we are underway to do some serious restoration!

That's when I hit the first hurdle. It ended up that the swivel nuts I ordered did not fit my tuning lug casings (the ones I purchased were square; whereas mine were hexagon-shaped). That left me scouring eBay for the proper parts. I eventually found 2, and paid more in shipping than what I paid for the items -- go figure.

Once I had all the hardware off the snare drum, I again inspected the shell. The shell is quite round -- the drumheads spin freely on the drum, though there is a slight variance of about 1/16" in diameter. It's not severe, yet not perfect either. Now came the hard part: checking the trueness of the bearing edges. To do so, you need a perfectly flat surface. "One slab of marble, please."

This might have been the first time in my life that I wished I had a pool table in my house. My kitchen countertops are far from being perfectly flat. The closest thing I had was a mirror -- and I doubt a 16" X 24" mirror from Wal-Mart is perfectly flat.

But beggars can't be choosers, and a close approximation is better than none at all. So the mirror found a spot on the bedroom floor, the lights were turned off, the drum shell was placed on the mirror, and I shone a flashlight inside the shell.

Yup. Just what I had feared.

Over time, even the best-made drums can suffer from tortion. Poor tuning practices, transportation, changes in temperature and moisture can have an effect on the shape of the drum. Thus, the bearing edges are no longer true. The variation is very small -- 1/32" at the worst places, but in the world of drumming an untrue bearing edge can lead to nightmares. It is true that bearing edges can be re-cut, however the problem arises in finding a skilled craftsman whom you trust to perform such a delicate operation. One small mistake, and the drum is ruined. Alas, the bearing edges will have to wait. The snare was re-assembled using the new parts.

After a few gigs, I began to realize a mistake I had made during the first phase of restoration: Petroleum jelly.

AKA Vaseline. As it turns out, it is a fantastic lubricant. In fact, it's a little too good. There still needs to be a little bit of friction between the tuning lug and the swivel nut, for the drumhead to maintain pitch. What I found out, is that there was little to no friction at all, and my drums were detuning themselves at an alarming rate. It got so bad, that I was often tuning my drums twice a set (once every 5-6 songs). To compare, I was used to tuning my drums once per weekend.

So out came cleaning rags, and the Q-tips, and an afternoon was spent wiping each tuning lug free of vaseline. The Q-tips were run in and out of every swivel nut. I even tried placing a drop of the Loc-Tite machine thread grease on each lug. Then I found more problems.

A number of my tuning lugs were bent. They will undoubtedly need replacement. It appears another order to Drumbuilder.com will be placed in the near future. I reassembled the drums and gigged with them again.

Well the drums hold their pitch a little better, but they still detune more than they should. Maybe I'm just using a little too much grease. Wiping off any excess from the tuning lugs should allow them to behave they way they should.

From my standpoint, the upgrading of the drumset will continue in three phases. The first phase continues the hardware upgrade. This includes replacing bent tuning lugs, and installing nylon washers. All other tuning hoops should be inspected to see if they are flat. If not, they require replacement.

Phase two will include hiring a skilled craftsman to re-cut the bearing edges. This should eliminate most of the tuning issues I have with the drums.

Phase three is purely cosmetic; the drums are to be re-finished. A color is yet to be determined. This would also be the opportune time to replace the wooden hoops on the bass drum.

The Cymbal Rant

2007-12-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit it... I am a cymbal purist. By that I mean I have very specific tastes when it comes to what I find desirable in the sound and appearance of a cymbal. I am so picky, in fact, that the smallest detail may be the determining factor in whether or not I spend my money on said cymbal.

To further elaborate, I prefer older cymbals to newer ones. There is something to be said about the mellower sound of a heavily-fingerprinted, nightclub-smoke- laced patina, with respect to a shiny, new cymbal. A cymbal ages, just as guitars do; to my ears they sound richer over time.

Then there's the bane of cymbal manufacture -- the 'brilliant' finish. From a marketing standpoint, I fully understand why manufacturers sell three times as many shiny pies as they do with dull pies. The cymbals are shinier, they appear to be easier to clean (just wipe the fingerprints off), and they look great under stage lighting. But I have never liked the sound of a cymbal in a brilliant finish. Not one. To me they sound shrill, un-musical; more like hunks of metal than an instrument.

I have even played the exact same cymbal in music stores -- the only difference being the type of finish on the cymbal, and always found myself gravitating towards the regular-finished cymbal in terms of preferring its' sound.

In my never-ending quest to find the 'perfect' cymbal, I find myself scouring auction sites, craigslists, and pawn brokers, hoping to find a used cache, instead of the virgin cymbals at the local music dealer. I have even resorted to paying more for a used cymbal than I would for
a new one -- so I wouldn't have to wait 10 years for the cymbal to age. Finding the perfect cymbal is a bit of a laborious process though that might mean I end up purchasing one cymbal for every 75 cymbals that have piqued my interest. If I preferred brilliant cymbals to traditional cymbals, I might have 100 cymbals in my collection, which would be, incidentally, quite a sizable investment.

I still buy the odd "new" cymbal in music stores. I sometimes find a new cymbal that speaks to me in such a way that I know it sounds good now -- and it will sound even better in the future. I just realize the sound that I hear in my head, cannot be purchased new. This sound only comes with an aged, thin cymbal that appears like the dog dragged it outside and buried it in the backyard.

Truth of the matter is, my cymbal purchases these days are more for the collectability value, than anything else. Rare cymbals, odd sizes, lines, makes and models that are no longer in production are the pies I seek. This also makes it difficult, as they are incidentally, the same cymbals that every other collector is searching for.

Still, when I see a cymbal close on an auction for a thousand dollars, I shake my head and wonder who'd be crazy enough to blow that kind of dough on a cymbal -- but the true cymbalholics do.

I'm just a cymbalholic in denial.

The End of an Era

2007-12-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

Once again, this winter I have to come to terms with the fact that a good thing never lasts forever. Once again the Savoys Blues Band has had to endure another upheaval. We have known for quite some time, but have kept it quiet, that our guitar player BG declared his intentions to leave the band. This last Saturday was his last performance, and thus, the last night he was a member of the band.

The band has clear intentions of moving on and finding a replacement, though our search is taking longer than we had hoped -- by a few months. In fact, due to this upheaval, we have sat on our haunches and haven't been looking for work, so at this point, the Savoys have no future performances, and the future seems uncertain, despite the best of our intentions.

What I find so perplexing about this situation, is that in one light, it appears as the end of something very unique to Southern Alberta. Our last few gigs have been very positive -- actually exceeding our expectations for crowd enthusiasm. The blues community in the Hat is very alive and well. So, in this light, I can see this as a time of rebuilding.

To further complicate matters both MA and I are members of Tung N' Groove, the new Classic Rock act that is gaining momentum like a high-speed train with a stuck throttle. It could be very easy for the two of us to focus all our energies into this new act; but if we did, we would be neglecting a side of ourselves that needs to surface. Our eclectic musical tastes just cannot be represented with one band alone. So the answer is clear; both bands must endure.

As for finding a replacement, we have our prospects which we hope to recruit. Issues surrounding this problem resides under the notion that it's not so much about liking the material or the people; it's a matter of who has the available time to dedicate to such an endeavor. The Savoys are moving away from being an old-school blues band into an act that will play everything from R&B to Soul to Funk to Big Band Swing, while retaining blues roots. We want to do more than have people sit and listen to our music; we want to pack dance floors, and we know that there is a great deal of work to be done if we want this dream to be realized.

But it all comes down to finding the right recruit for the job, and this job ain't for anybody. A great deal of dedication and perseverance will be required of the ideal candidate. A professional attitude and work ethic is integral, as the current bandmates are constantly trying to push the limits of our abilities.

So on that note, I'll send BG my warmest wishes and hope he is successful in his future endeavors.

Operation Disc Drop

2007-12-03T23:04:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the good old days when you used to make "mix tapes" of your favorite songs for all your buddies? Yes, this was a long time before there were Discmans, iPods and Napster. George Stromboulopolos and his cohorts at The Hour have come up with an incredible marketing strategy to expose the general public to new, exciting music. It's called Operation Disc Drop.

The premise is simple: You burn a CD of your favorite music, and you leave the disc in a public place for a complete stranger to pick up. On the disc are a list of tracks and artists, plus a link to Operation Disc Drop. A complete stranger picks picks up the disc, listens to it, logs into Operation Disc Drop, and informs the site where and when they found the disc. The recipient then can drop that disc in another public place for someone else to pick up, or make a mix CD of their own, and leave it in some public place for someone else to discover.

The premise is, of course, if the recipient likes the music on the disc, that they will go into music stores and buy the music for themselves.

This is a fantastic idea. I have been toying with the idea of leaving a disc somewhere in my hometown, but I may include the caveat that I will only include Canadian artists on my disc. Knowing me, I would include such a cross section of Canadian artistry, that I am unsure what the recipient would think of my musical tastes. I am certain that Canuck artists such as Matthew Good, Bruce Cockburn, Holly Cole, and Sarah Harmer, as well as a dozen others, would make it on the disc. Sorry, there will be no top-40 rock or pop on the disc; just pure good music that almost anybody can dig.

So far, over 100 discs have been 'discovered' by Operation Disc Drop, but there are room for hundreds more. For further details, check out the Operation Disc Drop site here, and see what the buzz is all about.

P.S. George's interview with Matt Good tonight was sweet.

Matthew Good, Medicine Hat College Theatre - November 9, 2007

2007-11-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly ten years since the Matthew Good Band achieved national success with mega-hits such as Apparitions and Everything is Automatic. Though his career spans back to 1995, the success of his independently released debut album Last of the Ghetto Astronauts, were limited to fan bases established in large Canadian centers and for the most part, limited to the west coast. In Matthew Good's thirteen-year tenure, while he has enjoyed Gold status of all his releases, only the albums Underdogs and Beautiful Midnight achieved sales of Platinum or greater.

That being said, thirteen years is an awful long time for fans in Medicine Hat to wait to see Matthew Good in concert.

I was one of a very, very fortunate few Medicine Hat natives who had the opportunity to see the original lineup of the Matthew Good Band in a University Pub in Lethbridge. That was January 1998, before the single Apparitions propelled Matt and his bandmates into Canadian super-stardom. Myself and a close friend parked ourselves front and center for the Matthew Good Band; a show which was as breathtaking as it was unforgettable. The rest of the sell-out crowd, oblivious
to the stage, unaware that Canada's next superstar was playing his heart out, felt their time would be better spent guzzling down jugs of cheap beer, while waiting for the main attraction, Wide Mouth Mason.

Even so, since that very day, I have been a rabid fan of Matthew Good's music, and I have waited very patiently for him to come my way. Ten years is a very long time.

But not as long as many of the fans in attendance at the Medicine Hat College Theatre had to wait. Matthew Good finally made his first public appearance in Medicine Hat to a near sell-out crowd last night. Myself and a half-dozen of my closest friends parked ourselves in the "best mix position" which was directly in front of the Front-of-House Engineer. Given the acoustic nature of the College Theatre, and the fact that there are slightly less than five-hundred seats, it can be argued that there isn't such a thing as a bad seat in the College Theater, we were nonetheless very happy with the sightlines.

The excitement should have been evident to Mr. Good, as the crowd was visibly restless and agitated. It took a good four or five songs for the crowd to settle down and fully appreciate the intimate nature of Matt's acoustic performance. There were times that Matt appeared visibly confused, as a number of his fans were trying to speak to him at once.

Matthew Good delivered passionate acoustic renditions of many of his hits throughout his career, though the focus of his performance centered around his latest album, Hospital Music, penned while Matt tried to cope with a bout of mental illness. Absent from his performance, was not one song from Last of the Ghetto Astronauts was performed. Having recorded over one hundred songs in his his career, it is understandable that an artist can't play everything.

In between songs, Matt took time to banter with the crowd, singing impromptu songs, and cracking jokes, while sipping red wine, much to the amusement of those in attendance.

Below is a (nearly) comprehensive list of songs Matt performed last night, though, not in any particular order:

Girl Wedged Under The Front of A Firebird / Champions of Nothing - Opening number
Avalanche
A Long Way Down
Metal Airplanes
99% of Us is Failure
Born Losers
Black Helicopter
I Am Not Safer Than A Bank
I'm A Window
She's In It For The Money
Empty Road
Sort of A Protest Song
Strange Days
Load Me Up
Surburbia
Apparitions
Bright End of Nowhere - Encore
Pledge of Allegiance - Encore

Opening for Matt Good was "NLX" a.k.a. Natasha Alexandra, a native of Hamilton, Ontario, now residing in New York. Adhering to the acoustic nature of the concert, she performed on a digital piano, singing her brand of "songs about vengeance". The most memorable moment of her performance, and most appreciated by the crowd, was her haunting rendition of Depeche Mode's Walking in My Shoes.

On behalf of everyone in the crowd last night, I want to personally thank Matt for finally coming to Medicine Hat. We sincerely hope you come back again on your next tour.

Resurrection

2007-07-28T21:45:00.001-06:00

I have been hiding under a rock the last month. Seriously, I have had many projects take precedent over other recreational activities... such as blogging, and yes, I have been missing writing on here, which incidentally only my mother and my two fans read regularly. I guess I felt like I needed a vacation from my routines.

It's funny because I really do enjoy writing, and was at many times the last month, motivated to write, but I just couldn't seem to find the time to sit down and really write something.

I am currently writing this post from a laptop (yes, the infamous iBook laptop), that has died more than one horrible death since I bought it some time in 2003. The last time I tried playing with this machine, I had it up and running for about 10 minutes, before the video all scrambled up.

Then, thanks to a post at Low End Mac, someone posted a how-to turn an old iBook with a dead video card into a server. "Ah!", said I, "I found a new use for my little old laptop that has given me so much grief over the years" -- at least almost the entire life of this blog.

So one Friday evening, I pulled out the old iBook out of the storage closet, plugged in the battery, and soon found out (after wiping a corrupted hard drive), that the video had fixed itself autonomously without me having to perform any Voodoo rituals. I set up an OSX server and played with it for a few days, but I was a little leery about putting any sensitive information on my "new server" without a sensible backup, as the hard drive has been known to die on me spontaneously.

So I wanted to find a use for this old derelict, yet without any worry about losing any critical data. So what was I to do?

After some thought, the answer came clear to me -- and it was something I have wanted to do for more than 7 years, yet was not feasible until this point.

Which was install Linux, and use it for kicks and giggles. So last week, I downloaded a disk image of Ubuntu Edgy Eft (which is the last version to support Power PC), and rather quickly, had it running on my old 800MHz iBook in very little time.

Why? Because I can.

By now, you should have noticed the Flickr link on the sidebar. I finally broke down and signed up. Actually the true reason I signed up was because I had a couple pictures on Yahoo! photos that were going to get deleted unless I transferred them to a new service, as Yahoo! was going to discontinue offering their photo service.

Now that I have signed up for a Flickr account, everybody who had used it has now migrated to some other service. It seems that I am receiving a some invites to join the latest flavor of the month: Facebook.

In the Doghouse

2007-06-16T11:42:00.001-06:00

So yesterday, out of the blue, SK drops me a line. Our conversation kinda went something like this:

SK: Hey MC, it's SK. What'cha doing this Saturday?

MC: No plans.

SK: Wanna gig?

MC: Sure. When, where and how much?

So tonight, I will be playing at some club in town called The Dog House, or The Dog Pound, or Who Let The Dogs Out.

Oh, to Hell with it. It used to be called Waldo's Pub.

SK, RH and I will be playing from 8:00 until 9:30 as the opening act.

See you there.

Bring your friends.

All it Means is That I'm Earning Less and Less

2007-06-15T10:08:00.001-06:00

Our illustrious Premier Ed Stalmach tossed us all a bone yesterday, raising the minimum wage in Alberta to 8 dollars per hour, up from the current rate of 7 dollars per hour. The change will come into effect in September. Furthermore, wages are to be re-evaluated annually in the future, and the minimum wage adjusted accordingly.

Now I would think raising the minimum wage should be a good thing, and I should be cheering on the Conservative government. Then, how can it be that I am about as tempered as a rabid dog right now, bent on biting the messenger?

Perhaps I can relate with a bit of history and personal experience. I am a [relatively] young punk. I am sure there are many of you who remember minimum wage being something like $1 per hour. Conversely, I began working when minimum wage was less than $5 per hour. When the minimum wage was raised to $5 per hour almost 15 years ago, was my salary adjusted accordingly? No.

Why? Because I was already making more than minimum wage. Not by much mind you, but enough for me to feel that sting from the realization that my salary was worth less, comparatively.

Obviously, I invested a great deal of my time and energy into earning a University degree, so I could get a "decent" job that would pay a "decent" salary, so that I could drive a "decent" car, and live in a "decent" house, raise a "decent" family, and if I was lucky, I could afford a "decent" pine box to put my ashes into at the end of it all.

In the five years since earning my Degree, I have yet to see any benefits from this "Economic Boom" that Alberta and (to a slightly lesser degree) the rest of the nation has endured. When I graduated I did get a job that showed potential. Sure, I took a salary hit due to my lack of experience, and settled on a training salary equivalent to twice that of the minimum wage offered at that time. It wasn't much, but it would allow me to gain some critical work experience, learn some skills, and as agreed with my employer, my salary would be adjusted as I gained experience.

What I have earned in wage adjustments over the years has hardly had any beneficiary effect on my standard of living. In fact, given the cost of living in this province, the rate of inflation, the prohibitive cost of housing, and the cost of fuel, I am actually earning considerably less than I did five years ago!

Minimum wage is completely arbitrary in Alberta, and has been for a couple years now. The employers that are offering minimum wage as a starting salary are obvious; just go to the job bank and see how many of these jobs are listed and relisted. Why? Because of two scenarios:

Nobody is applying for jobs that pay minimum wage, and
Whomever is earning minimum wage for unskilled labor are leaving their jobs for ones that are paying between $10 and $15 for similar duties.

What really gets my blood boiling is that there are high-school dropouts who are earning more than I, and all they have to do is ask "Would you like a donut with that large double-double?"

For $14 dollars an hour, I will ask unruly customers if they "want fries with that". It's a far easier job than what I currently put up with on a daily basis.

It blows my mind how the media thinks that there are all these "Big Money" jobs in Alberta. Unless you opt to risk your life and health in the Tar Sands or on a drilling rig, I haven't seen any good jobs being offered with equitable pay. With the average price of a home in Alberta approaching $400,000, I'd say that's an awful large amount of french fries to serve in order to pay off that mortgage.

So who are the true winners of this "Economic Boon" (misspelling intentional)? It's the wealthy. It's the business owners. It's those who hold property and the more they own, the more they are laughing their way to the bank. Liquid assets aren't paying off. Thanks to the high Canadian dollar, fueled by unprecedented economic growth, and the unstable price of oil, my Mutual Funds are in the tank. I'd get more out of my investment if I dropped it all into one of those Government-sponsored slot machines (thanks, Ralph!). At least it would pay out once in a thousand pulls.

So hats off to Ed Stalmach, for raising minimum wage in our province to $8.00 per hour. He'd better open up his eyes soon, as the least any of us are making over here is $10.00 per hour. But that could change tomorrow. It's not like it's going to affect my life any. My salary will not be adjusted accordingly, and when September rolls around, I can wake up knowing that the salary I earn is one step closer to what is better known as "unskilled labor".

While he's at it, maybe Ed can raise the minimum wage for working musicians in this province. We haven't seen a raise in over 25 years.

Response to J.T. Massacre

2007-06-11T09:46:00.000-06:00

[Ed. Note: J.T. Massacre left a comment on my post: "Status of the Makeover". I felt a response to him was worthy of its' own post, so here it is:]

J.T.:

I am glad to hear that you recently purchased a set of Canwoods. I hope they sound as great as mine do. Sorry to hear that like mine, your Canwoods were also "well enjoyed" by a previous owner.

I hope you managed to look at my initial post: "How many drumsets does a drummer need?", as this post in particular has pictures that show in detail the condition of the shells, especially with respect to the finish.

You mentioned you wanted to re-lacquer your drum shells. I have a simple question for you -- were you planning on re-staining your drum shells, or were your planning on keeping the original color?

If your shells are in a similar condition to mine, and you plan on keeping the original stain, I have some bad news for you.

I have been involved in several discussions with "wood experts" (i.e. carpenters, luthiers, and a number of on-line drum discussion forums), and the consensus is that the deep gouging that is apparent in my drum set will not be remedied by re-lacquering the drum. The drum will have to be sanded smooth, re-stained, and then re-lacquered.

When I said in my previous post that a drum can be re-lacquered without adversely affecting the stain is true. It is a very delicate process of using chemical strippers to remove the lacquer, then re-applying a lacquer spray, and buffing to a high-gloss shine. But this will only remove superficial scratches -- I sadly only learned this very recently.

So now I am in the situation where I have to decide if I want to venture into the world of full-blown drum-shell restoration. If these drums have to come apart one more time, I had better "do it right" this time around.

I will continue to document my work on this drumkit. You may however get some benefit from the links below:

Join the Yahoo! group: Drumzilla's Lair. There are many posts dealing with drum restoration (many of the discussions instigated by me), who was seeking the very advice you are:
Visit Vintagedrum.com. There are a number of links within that deal with drum restoration.
A fellow named Big Fred built a snare from scratch. Though this project is beyond the scope of yours, he did discuss in detail, the process of staining and finishing the drum shell. He also has a large number of pretty pictures to drool at.

I had other web links related to drum restoration, but I just can't seem to find them right now. The links above are a good place to start though.

I of course, will be discussing the trials and tribulations of refinishing my Canwood drumkit on here.

The Police Rock Edmonton

2007-06-05T23:42:00.001-06:00

Best. Concert. Ever.

Set List:

Message In A Bottle
Synchronicity II
Spirits In The Material World
Voices Inside My Head
World Is Running Down
Don't Stand So Close To Me
Driven To Tears
Walking On The Moon
Truth Hits Everybody
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
The Bed's Too Big Without You
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Walking In Your Footsteps
Can't Stand Losing You
Roxanne
King Of Pain
So Lonely
Every Breath You Take

Musings of an Uber Geek

2007-05-24T21:27:00.000-06:00

Eureka!

I get excited abut geeky things -- especially when it involves big computers. I get especially excited when I can make 'super' computers out of the spare parts that I have lying around. Just look through my archives, and you will find many posts involving me trying the breathe new life into an old laptop that refuses to start up.

I have my iMac desktop, which is serving me well. Also at my disposal is a 13" MacBook, which still operates, though it has taken numerous trips to the local Apple-Authorized-Service-Center to get all kinds of repairs that I would otherwise not attempt while the computer is still under warranty. What I like about using the MacBook is that I can work on it anywhere: The couch, the dining room, the back yard, and yes, even the toilet. What I don't like about the MacBook is that all my personal files, my photos, my music, my bookmarks, and other necessities all reside on the iMac's drive. In order for me to use both machines requires synchronization, which gets messy. Furthermore, the number of files that exist on the iMac is so large, that it would overflow the poor MacBook, rendering it virtually useless. What would be perfect, is if I could access all my personal files that exist on the desktop computer from the laptop. All changes would be made and saved on the desktop computer.

In other words, enter the server. I need a central point in my house (perhaps even worldwide), that I can access my files quickly, and securely. This may mean that I will require a dedicated server sometime in the future, but at this point, I can make do with what I have.

Today, after some experimentation, I have begun a transitionary phase, where my desktop computer is becoming a server, at least within the confines of my residence. The first trivial step was to find a way for the laptop to access my iTunes files on my iMac.

This is simple is one sense. iTunes allows users to "share" their playlists with other connected users. I have been doing this since the MacBook arrived last May. This however, does not update your playlists, play counts, ratings, and other metadata. Today after some serious web sleuthing, I managed to get my experiment to work. It's not quite perfect, but it is a big step in the right direction.

Now I just need to do some further reading in order for the MacBook to automatically mount the Desktop machine upon login. This will require some more reading and searching on the web, but as I said, it's a step in the right direction.

Once I get this working a little more reliably, and automatically, then I can think about ensuring that my other documents can be accessed from the server. This would include my photographs, calendars, email, and documents.

Of a more serious nature, is you can probably tell, I take my digital information very seriously. I have, over the years -- at least since the "crash of 2000", tried to keep backups of my digital information. But manually backing up is only as good as your habits, and I have noticed that it takes time and effort to keep backups of my personal information.

So finally, after several years of deliberation, I will be acquiring the infrastructure necessary to ensure that my data will always be reliable.

Enter the RAID. For the uninitiated, RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Drives. The are collections of hard drives that can offer the user vast amounts of storage, and offer the user redundancy, which is the digital work means security. You see, it's never a question about if your hard drive should fail; it's more of a question of when.

What are so cool about RAIDs, is that even if a drive fails, your data remain intact. Remove the failed drive, plug in a fresh one, and the RAID array automatically backs up the data to the new drive.

So what exactly, did I order? It is an external drive with removable bays. This way, I can always store a copy of my data off-site in a secure location. This way, if there ever is a disaster of sorts, be it flood, fire, or theft, I won't be destroyed if ten years' worth of digital memories happened to disappear into a meaningless string of 1's and 0's.

Since the advent of the internet, the majority of computer users are under the false assumptions that our (essential and personal) data is safe and secure. For the most part, that is true. But our data is easily manipulated and destroyed, and therein lies a big problem. We need to ensure that in the wake of disaster, we can recover what is lost. In the computer world that means backing up often, redundancy on many levels, and storage of those redundant copies in a secure off-site location.

What are you doing to protect your essential digital memories from evaporating?

The Stone Awaketh?

2007-05-20T23:31:00.000-06:00

I hate writing posts like this.

I seem to be revisiting a number of symptoms that I had experienced some three years ago, when I had my first bout with a kidney stone. I am too lazy to dig through the archives and link posts, but longtime readers will recall that it took me something like six weeks to um, recover from my ailment.

Late last night, reflected in the residual image of the water in the porcelain reservoir, was an omen of what I should expect in the coming weeks.

Thankfully, I am experiencing no discomfort whatsoever, but I know I will be experiencing a great deal of pain in the near future -- which means I may be missing a great deal of work in the coming weeks.

This is one hell of a way to earn a summer vacation.

One of the most Perleximg Moments of My Life

2007-05-12T00:47:00.000-06:00

Happened almost a dozen years ago, cruising downtown on a midsummers' night in my 1978 Dodge Arrow, with BD riding shotgun. I was dressed in my leather biker jacket; he was dressed like a punk, hanging out the window, barking at pedestrians like a rabid dog, all the while playing Enya full-blast on the car stereo.

I often wonder what the hell people thought of us. Of course, our intent was to trike fear into the hearts of those who had the misfortune of being in our vicinity, but if I had seen that yesterday, I would have thought: "What a bunch of geeks."

When I think of that evening, I can't help but smile.

1095 Days And Counting

2007-05-06T10:30:00.000-06:00

Three years ago to the day, I created the first post in this weblog.

In those three years, this website has gone through many growing pains, and many redesigns.

Each year a posted an image similar to this and would discuss how a bright(er) future for my little corner of cyberspace existed just around the corner.

Ok. So I'm no market analyst. But I have seen trends develop over the three years. And one of the apparent trends is the slump in visitors during the summer. July always seems to be the low point of the year with the fewest number of visits. Everything seems to turn around, with March and April being very strong months.

I would like to think my readership is getting stronger. My argument for this, is that even though this year's traffic is comparable to last year's, I have written far fewer posts. I would consider myself lucky if I write three posts a month.

In another respect, because of the diversification of the site, news related to the Savoys or Tung N' Groove is now posted on their respective webpages instead of here. I think this negatively affects traffic to this particular site, however increasing overall traffic. I however, do not compare and contrast the web traffic between the other sites.

The upgrade to Blogger Beta (which is the new Blogger now) is apparently beneficial. Those who query search engines such as Yahoo! or Google with specific keywords are flocking to my site. The meta-tags built into the new blogger is assisting in this. Popular keywords in the past few weeks have been Tongue N Groove and Canwood. This is adding to increased traffic I otherwise would not have received. I could only expect that once I go through the archives and add the proper tags, I may just as well increase my traffic in that respect. In those three years I have written about nearly everything under the sun.

If you examine the market, the number of weblogs available to the public has grown exponentially. I do not have the exact numbers, nor to I care to look for them at this moment, but I would not be surprised if the number of weblogs have increased tenfold since I began writing in 2004. It also occurs to me that the traffic to blogs have diminished, given the rise in popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace, YouTube, and FaceBook.

No I do not have a MySpace account, and I don't plan on making one in the foreseeable future. It's just another website to maintain, and it seems to me, it's merely a popularity contest, with little substance. I can't afford to waste my time sending instant messages to people I do not know, just because I linked to them, or they linked to me and call me "friend". I have a full-time job, I have a fledging musical career that I consider a full-time job. I have far too many hobbies and interests than available free time.

In three years, one would think that I have finally "found" my voice. I really can't agree with this. I think one's voice and opinion -- especially with respect to personal journals -- is a constantly growing and changing thing. I really believe that this is a personal journey, and given such, in a years' time, this blog may be completely different than what it is today. It certainly is much different than what it was in years past.

Overall, I still think that it is worth my time to continue to write. Like music, any level of creativity is good for the mind, and the soul. That being said, I believe I will continue to blog throughout the year, even if it may only be 2-3 times per month.

YouTube; Blogs Kill Culture

2007-05-01T23:44:00.000-06:00

Andrew Keen seems to think that the internet, in all it's wonders is killing American Culture. He has written a book entitled "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture," in hopes in drawing awareness that Hollywood is losing money, market share, and most importantly their influence on American pop culture.

Keen, a former dot-com entrepreneur, argues that the phenomenon of user-generated content, particularly blogs and YouTube videos, is overpowering established media players. Consequently, he believes the notion of quality content will be eradicated as the playing field tilts in favor of consumers churning out substandard and erroneous content.

"The monkeys take over," Keen says. "Say good-bye to today's experts and cultural gatekeepers -- our reporters, news anchors, editors, music companies and Hollywood movie studios." -- Reuters

It's like he's giving a eulogy to the big, bad media conglomerate, whom for nearly one hundred years has reaped unthinkable profits from American Teenagers, all the while producing -- by their definition -- what is to be considered "quality entertainment". It's like he is saying that Hollywood in itself, defines American Culture.

Hollywood doesn't define American culture; it shoves it down the throats of anyone willing to pay attention to them. American culture is Davey Crockett, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Paul Bunyan, and Martin Luther King Jr., just to name a few.

American culture is not Mickey Mouse, or American Idol. American culture is not defined by Hollywood actors, especially those who are accused of uttering threats, antisemitism, or racial slurs (and I need not name names). America is not the latest flavor of the month or A-Team reruns on satellite television. American culture is not defined by CNN, MTV, ABC, NBC, FOX, or HBO. It is not defined by Sony, AOL Time Warner, EMI, Universal, or BMG, and it is most certainly not defined by Paramount, Disney, or any other major motion picture distributor.

We bloggers and "amateur" film producers did not kill American Culture; we took it back. Not bad, considering Keen regards us as "a bunch of monkeys".

I Don't Wanna Grow Up

2007-04-30T23:16:00.000-06:00

I'm such a geek.

I'm a geek with some sort of psychological disorder. I refuse to grow up. If I grow up, then I grow old, and then I die, and if I'm lucky I might be able to sire some offspring before I am removed from the gene pool.

My self-diagnosed psychological disorder has little to do with not wanting to grow up. What it does allude to is some sort of attention-deficit-combined-with-obsessive-compulsive-tendencies mixed-in-with-a-healthy-dose-of-depression-and-insomnia. But that's another story for another time.

As a child, I did not partake in organized sports like the majority of my peers. I was considered the "strong, silent type", and spent most of my time alone, being creative or brooding. Spending much of my time alone, I developed countless hobbies and interests -- so many that I could not become highly proficient in any of the endeavors, as I quickly became bored or impatient. I, like every child, expected immediate progress, or immediate results. In some ways, it amazes myself that I managed to become a professional musician, given the amount of dedication, commitment, practice, and discipline to develop the necessary skills in order to become a skilled musician. I suppose I could dismiss it to having a high degree of natural talent and ability.

Simply because I am so busy that I do not have the time to do much of anything, I thought this was the perfect time to resurrect an old hobby of my childhood. This must be definitive proof that I am clearly insane, as a normal person should know his or her limits of what one can accomplish in a given day. I, on the other hand, figure that things such as food and sleep are merely obstacles in my way from getting everything done that I want to, and given the fact that I am in my early thirties, and I can only expect forty of fifty years of quality living before I leave this mortal coil, time is running short. Still, I have said this before -- and I will state it again, that in order to get everything done I need to in my lifetime, I will have to live at least another three hundred years.

Hence, a partial reason why a refuse to grow up. In my own twisted way, I am stopping time dead in its' tracks. Too bad father time isn't heeding my kicks, screams, and incessant pleas to please slow down!

I should consider playing with my toys again.

Come to think of it, having children of my own would provide justification for playing with toys again. I could explain to everyone else that I am spending "quality time" with my children; and they would consider my behavior as normal. Little would they know that I am playing with toys for the sake of playing with them, quizzically with a bottle of whiskey in hand.

Status of the Makeover

2007-04-28T00:36:00.000-06:00

The ~~reclamation~~, uh restoration continues on my new Canwoods.

For 2-3 weeks now, whenever time can spare, I am pulling apart my drums, cleaning, tweaking, tuning, polishing, and replacing damaged parts on them. With each part I replace, with each piece of chrome I polish, and with each drum I clean, the drumkit looks better, and sounds better that it ever did -- that is since I have become its' rightful owner.

As of today, each drum has been completely disassembled, the bearing edges cleaned of gunk, the drum shells cleaned with Windex and/or wood cleaner (also remember that Windex cures all that ails you).

All drumheads have been replaced including the resonant heads, which are often neglected. An Evans EQ pad now provides the desireable amount of muffling I wished in the bass drum. All tuning lugs have been greased with petroleum jelly. New stands and hardware has been purchased, all chrome components have been cleaned and buffed to a gloss shine with chrome polish. A new snare strainer has been replaced, as the old strainer was damaged beyond repair, as well as a 50-strand snare installed on the underside of the drum. The tom mount on the bass drum has been upgraded with new parts. Lastly, new bass pedals, hi-hat stands, and snare stands have been purchased to accommodate my new kit.

Given the fact that I have spent between 3-4 hours cleaning each drum, you might say I have already invested a lot of care and attention to my new babies. In fact, I have spent much more time restoring them, than I have had playing them.

Though the drums look a lot better, and sound a lot better than what they did when I first received them, all is not finished. There is still a lot of work to be done on them before I can consider the restoration complete. The following details what still needs to be done:

The bass drum hoops need replacement. I would like to determine a way I can stain replacement hoops to match the color scheme currently on the drums. This will prove to be difficult, as I would think only a master craftsman would be able to create an exact match.

The bearing edges need to be evaluated. I am fresh out of large, smooth, perfectly flat surfaces such as a granite slab.

Some hardware still needs to be replaced. The triple-flanged hoops on the snare drum will likely need replacement, as they are rusted. I may consider replacing them with die-cast hoops, but those are very expensive. There are a few tuning lug casings which require replacement on the snare. I may as well just redo them all.

I am missing only 1 piece of hardware. This is the ever-important throne. I have already identified what I will buy, but it does not come cheap.

The biggest job of all will be redoing the lacquer finish, which (I hope) will mask all the scratches, gouges, dings, dents, and other imperfections of the finish. My research has concluded that the restoration of the lacquer finish, without affecting the stain of the drums, is possible. This is also very risky, as I could really mess up the appearance of the drums, if I do not express due diligence where required. The end result will be -- if I may say so -- breathtaking.

If I have very little to do this summer, it is likely that I may be able to accomplish the entire restoration project by the time the Savoys return from their summer hiatus.

Not only am I looking forward to playing my Canwoods on the gig; I can't wait to record with them.

One Year Later: How My Life Has Been Improved With a Pair of Studio Monitors

2007-04-17T15:20:00.000-06:00

I have a hard time believing that it's nearly been one year since my Behringer Truth Studio Monitors were delivered to my door. I can assure myself that the purchase was not in vain; the speakers did get a lot of use (not abuse) over the past year, and they still sound fantastic.

They do not, however get quite as much use as I would like -- as they only have two volume settings: medium-loud and very loud. Setting the dial on the amplifier to 1 ensures that the sound level in the vicinity of the speakers makes it difficult to speak over. Turning the dial past 3 will ensure that the neighbors will soon be annoyed, and anything past 5 will ensure that your crystal and china collection will spontaneously shatter, as well as any eardrums within 1 meter of the speaker cones will bleed.

They're great for listening to your favorite music; however they aren't great at building or strengthening relationships.

Shortly after the initial purchase, you may even recall how I became unruly, noting that I could hear artifacts in my compressed music, and that I would have to re-encode my music collection once again. I chose 192 variable-bitrate AAC encoding as my codec of choice, but I wonder if that wasn't good enough. Still, I suppose I should worry about quality once I have my CD collection in its' entirety, in my hard drive first.

If you have been wondering about my progress re-encoding my music and finishing the import of the remaining CD's in my collection, let me assure you that it is a work in progress. For example, I bought Tool's latest album 10,000 Days last May, and it remains enclosed in cellophane wrapping, as-yet un-listened. I assure you, I resolve to crack the CD and listen to it, before the 1-year anniversary of its' release.

Sadly, due to the inherent craziness of my schedule, I don't get a lot of time to sit down and just listen to an album anymore. That might be why it's taken me so long to encode a 600-CD collection. And it's not about the time it would take me to encode: With the dual-core processor, I can encode an entire CD in less than 5 minutes. I could have the remainder of the collection ripped in an afternoon.

Well, I don't have an afternoon to spare.

What is important, is how I feel when I sit on front of the speakers. It is absolute musical bliss, hearing music uncolored, and the way the artists and producers meant it to be heard. With these speakers, I have heard details I never had never heard before. This might just explain why I have listened to a lot of Massive Attack and Statik Sound System (and other ambient techno artists from Bristol) in the last year.

As far as Statik Sound System, Tempesta II was "one of those CD's" that I went on a crusade to find, after discovering them as a DJ at CKUL (pronounced skull) radio in Lethbridge during my university years. One late evening The Mydnyte Mystryss and I were finding material to accompany our mix of Industrial and angry Alternative music, and out of sheer luck, one of us grabbed this disc. "Statik Sound System", one of us commented; "This might sound interesting". And it was. It was very cool ambient trip-hop, and I knew I had to find that disc to add it to my collection.

It took a few years, but out of sheer fluke, I found a copy of Tempesta II while on tour in 1999, in all places but a pawn shop in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

Life is serendipitous.

I am looking forward to the next several years with my studio monitors as my musical companion.

How Many Drums Does a Drummer Need?

2007-04-11T22:26:00.000-06:00

You know you are addicted to ~~drugs,~~ er, drums when you can't have more than just one. My first drumkit was an el-cheapo made-in-Taiwan no-name brand that had seen better days before I even purchased it for $100 in 1989. I likely sunk in some $400 just to get it playable, and it served me well, even through the days of my first band, Hot Chocolate Boy.

By the time I began to collaborate with JL and create The Anglers, I felt like I outgrew my cheap drumset, and I wanted a more professional instrument. I spent the entire summer of 1993 working my bollocks off so I could buy my new drumkit -- a 6-piece Tama Rockstar DX in a deep metallic blue finish. It was a huge improvement over my little blue sparkle jazz kit, and it served me well over the years, earning enough mileage to likely circumvent the earth at least twice. It also happens to be the only drumset that I purchased new.

I used that kit as my primary drumset throughout my career, including bands such as The Anglers, Left of Centre, ZanZee, Legacy, Mule Shoe and many countless one-offs, sit-ins and recording sessions. As good as it has been to me over the years, there is one nagging thing about my Tama Rockstars: They are classified as an "entry-level" drumset, and as such, have compromises in the quality of construction. It is not a professional-level instrument, but it is well enough for the working-class drummer or student. I kept it in shape and it still sounds good, even after all the gigs and the miles and the (one) car accident -- but I have heard some drums sound better, much better than my Rockstars.

When I began teaching, and gigging on a heavy schedule, I realized the limitations of having only one drumset, as I had retired my P.O.S. jazz drumkit, and later sold it to a relative. A second drumkit was necessary to teach; I could sit at one and demonstrate while the pupil sat at the other kit and copied the rhythms I had just shown them. Furthermore, as my teaching schedule got more hectic, there were some nights and weekends where I needed one drumkit in the club, and the other at my studio waiting for my next student.

It became imperative that I needed a second drumkit -- one small and portable; one that could be packed up in a pinch. Thus, in 2002 when my good friend and mentor Bernie Anderson closed his drum shop, I was lucky enough to buy a piece of drum history, a late 80's or early 90's PureCussion portable drumset -- one in his personal collection which he gigged with regularly.

The PureCussion kit is a wonderful instrument -- completely collapsible, and easily fits in the back of an MG. It sounds good -- for its' size, and for the fact that the drums are only single-headed. These drums have seen a lot of gigs, and (mostly) rehearsals, but I have used it for shows such as the Best of Broadway series at the Esplanade, Medicine Hat Musical Theater's Grease, Fut in the Hat's I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It On The Road, and the Savoy Blues Band.

Now that I play in two bands, I am beginning to see the limitations of having two drunkits,; I really would like to have one drumset living in cases, ready for the moment the telephone rings. I could essentially load and go to the gig, ready for anything. No packing, no hassle; just load and go. Furthermore, being a professional drummer, I still don't have a professional-level drumkit.

Until now.

Last week, I bid on a set of Canwood drums, and out of sheer luck, I was the only bidder. The seller mentioned that the drums had seen a lot of miles, and they would likely need some maintenance -- something I was prepared for.

Canwoods are high-quality hand-made custom drums built in Lloydminister, Alberta. They are comparable to flagship models of major drum manufacturers, including Ayotte, DW, Yamaha, Gretsch, Tama , Taye, and many others. We are talking top of the line here.

On Saturday, my new Canwoods arrived at the local Greyhound station, and I could not wait to pick them up. I brought them home, eagerly opened the cases and began to assess what kind of shape the drums were in. As you can see from the photos, the drums were a little beat up; the finishes were scratched, there was some rusting and pitting on the chrome, and the heads needed replacement. My objective was to give them a quick-and-dirty cleanup job and get them playable in a matter of a few hours. This required a trip to the local music store to buy some replacement drumheads.

I had the drums in a playable condition by dinner time, and I took them to the Blue Turtle to test-drive them that very night.

Not only did they meet my expectations, they exceeded them in terms of sound. In fact, they were the topic of conversation of the entire band. Even my folks came by to the club to hear them, and they were very impressed with my latest investment. These drums sounded fantastic, and they served me well that night. I fully expect these Canwoods will become my primary drumkit for the next several years.

I wanted to get this drumkit playable and sounding good in the shortest time possible, and I think I have accomplished that. The drums are currently sitting at my studio being used when I teach. They will return to their cases once I begin gigging with Tung N Groove in about six weeks.

The long-term project for my Canwoods is to go through an in-depth assessment and restoration program. This will include refinishing the drums. I hope I only need to redo the lacquer, since I already love the color. It may take me several months, even a few years, but in the end this will be a drumkit that every drummer will drool over.

So how many drumsets does a drummer need? At least three, but I have yet to determine if a drummer needs more than that.

Tung N' Groove Site Officially Open

2007-04-02T22:17:00.000-06:00

The Tung N' Groove Website has been declared officially open. I had to move up my schedule, as it was brought to my attention today that Tung N' groove's debut has been moved up to May 18, 2007 at the Redcliff Hylton.

We have a lot of preparations to complete before we are ready to hit the stage that May evening, bit it's going to be worth it. It will be well worth the wait.

Welcome, Tung N' Groove

2007-03-28T23:42:00.000-06:00

You knew it was coming; I knew it was coming: Another f***in' website to manage. I have no idea how I am going to keep so many websites afloat, yet in the same breath, it doesn't make sense for me to boast about my new band on here, when it should be perfectly kosher to do it on it's own site. A permanent link to the Tung N' Groove Website is now available on the Nav sidebar.

At this point, the site is barely active.... and I mean such. There are no posts, and I am uploading relevant material when time permits. That means, hopefully by 2030, the site should be finished, and by then, the band should have broken up more than twice.

The site will of course, cater to all thing relevant to Tung N Groove, should include upcoming shows, a biography, the song list is already up, and anything news related will be published on the site. Rest assured, I will allow all other members (DH MA and KR) to freely contribute their thoughts on the site.

After two years of incubation, 2007 brings you Tung N' Groove, Medicine Hat's newest slutty Classic Rock sensation.

Tung N' Groove Makes Another Step Forward

2007-03-25T16:05:00.000-06:00

Our showcases at local clubs have paid off. The Blue Turtle and the Royal Hotel -- with only one showcase at each club, have booked Tung N' Groove into their clubs this summer and fall. We are very excited to be an official local act, and we are looking forward to entertaining crowds young and old.

The next task at hand is to learn another 30 songs before August -- perhaps sooner, if we can pick up some more gig dates in the summer at other bars and pubs around town. We will be examining the feasibility of playing the Redcliff Hylton, the Mainliner Pub, and the Silver Buckle. this year.

Acquiring a PA system for the band will also occupy our summer.

This is near-perfect timing, as the Savoy Blues Band is just wrapping up a few dates in the next few weeks, before going on our annual summer hiatus. MA and I are going to be gigging lots in the coming months.

Amidst all this excitement, I have one other nagging project. To create a website to promote Tung N' Groove. Looks like I will have to manage yet another webpage.

We Grooved

2007-03-19T21:24:00.000-06:00

48 hours have since passed since Tung N' Groove played their "second" gig at the Royal Hotel Saturday Jam on St. Patrick's Day. This was the perfect time to "redeem" ourselves from the disastrous first performance at the Blue Turtle a few weeks back.

Since then, we have been hard at work, learning a whole pile of new songs, tightening up old ones, and working on the ever-so-important vocal harmonies that seldom makes (but often breaks) a band.

As I have mentioned earlier, we have been going to local jams periodically to "test-drive" the material we have been practicing. The reasons for this are plenty: Of most importance, is this allows us to present the material in a live environment, and we can see how it works on-stage. We receive feedback from other patrons and musicians, which gives us some indication if the music will "sell". It gives us experience, and even though most of us are experienced in playing clubs (with the exception of our bass player KR), every new band is different. We need to get a feel for we listen to one another on stage. You can't do that in a rehearsal environment.

Lastly, but not of least importance, is that attending these jams allows us to showcase the new act, generate buzz, and sell the band to club managers, so we can be hired in the future.

The plan is working.

After a number of delays, Tung N' Groove managed to get on the open stage around 4:30 Saturday afternoon. By this time the Royal was getting quite busy, and the excitement began to boil in our blood. It took about fifteen minutes to get our equipment hooked up into the host band's PA, and get our sounds before we kicked off our set.

We opened with the Judas Priest song "Burnin' 'Up", which was likely not the best of openers, but it was enough to grab the attention of a number of patrons and musicians lingering about.

The rest of the set consisted of Mr. Big's Take Cover, Robin Trower's Day of The Eagle, April Wine's Enough is Enough (which I sang lead vocal on), The Scorpions' The Zoo, Led Zeppelin's Livin' Lovin' Maid, and Foreigner's Juke Box Hero.

I think the band was a lot more relaxed than our first performance; We felt so much more comfortable at our instruments, and our playing showed. The music was solid; the vocals were not strained, and the harmonies clicked in as they have been at practice. I felt we played very well, and judging by the crowd's reaction, we hit a home run.

After our set, we settled down for a few beverages, and mingled with a few of the other musicians who were present. Their comments were, to say the least, very candid and warm. A few of them even said they were blown away by the level of musicianship, the professionalism of our act, and by the material we showcased.

I for one, can say that this was one of only a few jams where I sat at someone else's drumkit and actually played well. The host drummers' kit was set up in a way that I felt was uncomfortable, but for some reason I played solidly; and with enough of my personal flair that I felt I wasn't compromising my abilities.

Even the managers of the Royal Hotel poked their heads from behind the bar, and sauntered to the dance floor to check us out. This can only mean a high potential for bookings this year.

Yes, Tung N' Groove is here. And we mean business. Look for us in the coming months; it's going to be very exciting. When we first started MA and I agreed we wanted to raise the bar as to what people expected in local talent and live entertainment. It might be egotistical, but I think this act has what it takes to accomplish just that.

The Status of v3.0

2007-03-16T15:06:00.000-06:00

Google has announced that the new Blogger is no longer in beta (and for you blogging junkies, you have known this for quite some time). It seems that the transition of my sites have been rather transparent. I suppose this is a good thing; I hope that the new version will allow me to get a little closer to the vision I had for this website.

mcfro.blogspot.com has been going through a very lengthy period of renovation, and I expect it will continue to be this way for most of 2007. But here and there, there will be little, almost unnoticeable changes, and only through the passage of time will the site complete its' metamorphosis. So what, you say, is taking me so long?

Well first of all, it's not just one site I manage. I manage two weblogs, the other being the work-in-indefinite-progress ZanZee tour journal, plus I am a major contributor to the Savoy Blues Band website. I tend to choose to write in the journal which best suits the subject I choose to write about. For example, if MA and I ever decide that Tung N' Groove ever needs a website (which it likely will), then I will have to maintain yet another website.

The second thing that is most crippling, is that my schedule is extremely busy, and I often don't have the level of alertness necessary to write in a blog, or edit code. With two bands on the go, a dozen students, an album to produce, and a full-time day job, I have little time for anything else, even my private family life has been suffering. And as of late, I have been trying to spend less time on the computer, and more time with family. Sadly, the blogs are being put a little further behind in priority, which is tied with sleep at the moment.

Here is a preliminary roadmap of a few things I expect to be implementing into this website in the coming days/weeks. This list has been written mainly for my reference:

Integration with Google Calendar. Much like the Savoys Website, implement a calendar on this webpage that reflects my upcoming performances. These can pertain to any act; Savoys, Tung N Groove, or any other gig I am asked to sit in on. This is to replace the archaic iCalX.com method of advertising my upcoming performances. No one has yet complained, but even I know that viewing the data on the iCalX website is cumbersome and annoying. The time has come to simplify the information and make it more accessible using Web 2.0 technology,
Metatags. The new Blogger has allowed the use of tags within new posts. Since my site has been converted in its entirety to the new format, tags should be inserted in all older posts, in order to make searching the site a little easier. This may take an awful long time, as it will be a tedious, and painfully repetitive process to edit some 300+ posts. Thank the maker I do not have a blog with thousands of posts. I could kill two birds with one stone, and edit the entries that have spelling or grammatical errors at the same time.
Badges of [dis]honor should be streamlined. Only use the ones that are necessary. That means to keep SiteMeter, The Creative Commons license, and the BlogsCanada tag. When the above changes have been completed, the site version will be upgraded to v3.1
Consider re-modification of the layout, which includes the sidebar, and the "little things" that add personality to the site, i.e. posting footers changed from "posted by MC" to something ridiculous or amusing, like was once used: "MC was committed at".
Consider retiring Animal as my profile photograph. Consider using another photo, real or fictitious.
Continue the search for a new Blogger Beta Template. This may require taking elements of 2 or 3 different templates to arrive at one that I am most pleased with. Perhaps I should consider making a temporary blog to judge the progress and accuracy of the coding process. Once the new template has been successfully hacked and customized, it may be implemented into the original mcfro.blogspot.com site, where the version number can be increased to v4.0.

Second Test Drive on St. Patty's Day

2007-03-16T13:16:00.000-06:00

The new band, now tentatively named (and spelled) Tung N' Groove, have been working diligently away since our first near-disastrous appearance at the Blue Turtle several weeks back. We have accumulated at least 8 more songs to our repertoire, which means we have more than a full sets' worth of material. To put it another way, we have more than one-third the necessary material we will need to play a live show.

At this point, we felt it would be advantageous to test-drive the second batch of songs, in a new environment, and in front of a different clientele. About 2 weeks back we set the date of the next performance, which happens to be tomorrow.

St. Patrick's Day. The third-worst day of the year to be at the bar (First and second-place goes to New Years' and Halloween, respectively).

Tung N' Groove will be at the Royal Hotel for the Saturday Jam, commencing at 3:00pm. Stop by, drink some (disgustingly green) beer, and enjoy some local talent.

Synchronicity

2007-03-12T20:22:00.000-06:00

Let me tell you a little story: For as long as I remember, my life has been immersed in music. Perhaps that might be why I didn't listen to that garbage on LP that all my peers were listening to in their homes -- I'm talking about the Minipops, the Smurfs, or any other product of the early 1980's. By the time I grew out of my diapers, I grew out of music directed towards young ears, and was listening to my parent's record collection, which included many artists. I remember fondly listening to Steppenwolf, Fleetwood Mac, The Doobie Brothers, CCR, and The Guess Who.

Even back then, I had my favorite artists, and when I was five years old, my favorite band was The Police. I am pretty sure I wore out my parents' copy of Ghost in the Machine, listening to Spirits in the Material World, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, and Invisible Sun on repeat until it drove the neighborhood mad.

I really don't know what it was that I loved about the band, but even back then I knew they had a unique sound. In my adulthood, when I "rediscovered" the Police I can safely say that it was the drumming that was one of the most defining factors in the Police's sound. Perhaps the seeds of me becoming a drummer were planted way back then, when I first heard Stewart Copeland's drumming.

Being as young as I was, I never had an interest in the career, or affairs of a band. I recall seeing copies of Synchronicity at relatives' houses; even listened to the album on occasion. I thought it odd that I had not seen a new album since then, but never bothered to ask anyone what happened to the Police. Only years later I learned that the band split largely due to personality clashes.

I guess I never had any sense of disappointment in me that I never had the opportunity to see Copeland, Summers, and ~~Sumner~~ Sting in concert, mainly because I was far too young at the time, and the chances of them reuniting was about a likely as myself being hit by a Soviet Satellite.

I, as well as countless thousands of die-hard Police fans secretly hoped for a reunion one day, though after some twenty-five years, our hopes were dashed. The last two months have been very exciting, when rumors were flying that the Police had reunited, and were rehearsing in Vancouver, British Columbia. I was brewing with excitement, and it was soon announced that the British trio would open the Grammys.

I was parked in front of the television that Sunday night, secretly praying that they would publicly announce a world tour; and I could care less of ticket prices. No matter the location, no matter the price -- I was going. This was going to be the tour of the decade, if not, the tour of the century.

I must have been hit by that Soviet Satellite, because the next day, the Police formally announced their world tour. Checking Ticketmaster, the Police announced dates in three Canadian cities: Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal.

Guess what?

I chose not to buy tickets. The ticket prices for the Vancouver show (the concert closest to my city of residence) was way out of this world. Then I would have to take at least two days off work, and book airfare and accommodations while staying in Vancover. I was looking at spending between 1000 and 2000 dollars just to see my favorite band of all time.

Hey, everything has a price. And the expense far outweighed the joy.

But there were still rumours that not all the concert dates had been confirmed. There were whispers on the radio, and rumors on the web. I knew that if the Police played anywhere in Alberta, it would be affordable for me to go no matter what the price.

I have been holding this in for more than a week.

I have my tickets to see the Police in Edmonton on June 2nd, and I have good seats too.

Ticketmaster had given me far better seats, like almost front-row, but I was unwilling to pay $225+ per ticket. But for $100 per seat, I got seats at center field, 8 rows up from the ground.

I know in the archives of this blog that I have ranted and raved about going to concerts of some of my favorite artists, namely KMFDM and Garbage, but this is even bigger than those two combined. Everybody goes to see the Rolling Stones in concert, namely because many think it's the last time that the Stones will be around in their neck of the woods. So what? The Stones tour every couple years. The Police haven't toured in almost 25 years!

The only thing (in my opinion) that could top this is if Zeppelin reunited, with Bonzo on drums -- and that is, simply put, impossible.

And my apologies to Shirley, cause she's the hottest thing in fishnet stockings, I'm sure she'd understand: it's the Police. It will never happen again.

Shot Nerves

2007-02-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

I'm on vacation. I don't have to write in my little weblog if I don't feel like it. Truth is, I haven't felt like much of anything this week. I have been so burnt-out, that the only thing that makes sense is sleeping, playing video games, and the consumption of copious amounts of whiskey.

The Savoy blues band gigs tonight at the Silver Buckle. It should be fun; the Buckle has a certain vibe to it, it's cool, rustic, and laid-back. We will be debuting a few new songs tonight, specifically, I will be singing Tower of Powers' "Diggin' on James Brown". That should get all the patrons grooving in their seats.

Tongue & Groove's first so-called "gig" at the Blue Turtle on Tuesday was interesting to say the least. The jam was attended by some of Medicine Hat's finest musicians, so you might say it was a "tough crowd". There was another band's equipment set up on the stage, so right away, you might say we were already at a disadvantage.

Musicians generally don't like playing on other people's rigs. It's kind of like wearing someone else's underwear; you don't really feel as comfortable as you should be.

Overall, the band and our material, was very well-received. Even the bar owners expressed their enthusiasm and appreciation for the new act. The other musicians were quite impressed with the level of professionalism of the band and difficulty of the material. The bar patrons were cheering, clapping, dancing, and drinking -- doing what bar patrons should.

But that's not to say our performance was perfect. Far from it. For what mistakes we made (which were plentiful) we made up for in energy and stage presence. In my opinion, we played like crap. Call it first-gig jitters; call it what you will, but our set started off badly, and that set the tone for the remaining songs.

The stage sound was horrific, and the monitors were poor. I couldn't hear anything; not even my own voice. It was just a sonic assault that didn't quite sound like noise, or music, but something inexplicably in between. Looking and listening for our respective vocal harmonies was an exercise in ear training not quite unlike searching for your keys at the bottom of a murky pier, after accidentally dropping them.

So the sound wasn't that great. The vocals probably sounded like rush-hour traffic, our nerves were shot, we were on other people's equipment, and the adrenaline was pumping.

We never played better. That's probably because there was nothing to compare it to.

My thoughts on the matter is that this is the worst that band will ever sound. It will only get better and stronger from here.

Our first performance might have been a bit premature, but it had to be done -- and sooner rather than later. We now have a much better perspective on the dynamics and limits of the band. We know what works, and what doesn't, and we know what's happening, and more importantly, what needs to be fixed.

It's back to the rehearsal studio on Sunday, to prepare for the next round.

Tongue N' Groove to "Debut" at The Blue Turtle Tuesday

2007-02-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

I am on vacation this week. Nonetheless, my week is already filling up, and I have my doubts that I can even get out of town for a couple days.

In my last post, I made mention that my new band, Tongue N' Groove has been rehearsing diligently in recent weeks. We are pleased to announce that we will be appearing at a few clubs in the next few weeks to "test drive" the material.

This Tuesday (that's tomorrow), there is an open stage at the Blue Turtle, beginning at approximately at 9:00pm. Tongue & Groove will be there, and we expect to play a half-dozen songs or so.

I hope any of you interested parties will stop by. I am excited to see how this new band operates from the stage.

We Have Liftoff...

2007-02-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

Or, at the very least, countdown has begun.

Two years back, after I had been delivered my "walking papers" from Mule Shoe, I set out to create a new band, on my terms. After several interviews and quasi-iterations, I wound up with a three-piece lineup consisting of myself RH, and MA. We had about 6 "rehearsals" which really consisted of us sitting around with acoustic instruments, singing along to my iTunes collection, consuming copious quantities of beer. Inexplicably, RH stopped showing up for our practices, he never returned my phone calls, nor did he ever give me any reason why he lost interest in our project. But that's all in the past now.

MA and I continued forward, with a little less wind in our sails. As time went on, we did less practicing, and more drinking and goofing around. MA even stopped bringing his instruments to band rehearsal; it just became our night of the week to blow off some steam, and have some good laughs. We did some recording, and we picked new songs and dropped old songs from the repertoire.

It's really funny how things work out.

Fast-forward to this year, and Mule Shoe is no longer a band. DH agreed to record his solo album with me. MA of course, wound up being the new bass player for the Savoy Blues Band, and he turned out to be the perfect fit for our style of big-band blues and funk. DH knew about the Savoys and my little side project since we began recording. As the album progressed, it became clear that he would need a band to "back him up", and promote his recording.

Thus, the two projects became one.

DH has joined MA and myself in the new project. We even spent several weeks looking for a fourth member to round out the band. At this point, we found a barely-legal wizard bass player by the name of K. He seems interested and enthusiastic about our little band, even if he is a little quiet.

What I am pleased to inform you of, is that we have entered full-band rehearsals. This was something that never happened until last week. If I may say, the first few practices have turned out to be quite exciting. With a few rough edges aside, the band sounded like a band from the start. Everybody is doing their homework, and only a few issues are ironed out at practice.

And let me tell you, the material we have been picking are not particularly easy. They are either physically demanding, requiring all four of us to have complete command and control of our instruments, or the vocal arrangements are complex and challenging to sing -- even for a band that has three experienced singers.

There is nothing easy about this band.

As a teaser, here is a brief list of some of the material we will be performing.

Say Hello - April Wine
Jukebox Hero - Foreigner
Too Late For Love - Def Leppard
The Zoo - Scorpions
Limelight - Rush

There is a lot more than just this in the pipeline.

We had our second practice this afternoon, and for the first time, we ran through Jukebox Hero and Too Late For Love. Both songs aren't terribly difficult with respect to instrumentation, but with respect to vocals, are quite challenging. But what I am pleased to announce is that all the vocal parts are there, in pitch, and it sounds huge.

You can expect to see us in bars, pubs, and clubs by April. I can't wait to see what the local response is going to be, which I expect it to be quite positive. I will be posting our appearances on the tour dates section when they come available.

In case you have been wondering, we are tentatively called Tongue N' Groove.

The Ad Said I Could Gain Three Inches If I Purchased Their Product

2007-01-29T20:51:00.000-07:00

...So I did.

Within 48 hours of purchase, a 20" intel iMac was delivered to my door direct from Cupertino, California. I upgraded to a 2.0 GHz intel dual-core processor from my 2.5 year-old 1.8 G5 Power PC processor.

The reasons for this purchase is multi-faceted, but I felt I could use a machine that could crunch all the audio processing I am using while recording DH's album -- and my 'archaic' G5 is barely keeping up with 24 tracks of audio.

The other reason for upgrading involved my folks. You see, their (current) computer is a Strawberry iMac they purchased in 1999. They have been long overdue for an upgrade, and they don't necessarily need "bleeding edge" technology. So I agreed to sell them my old iMac for a reduced price.

Speaking of "bleeding edge" technology, the iMac I purchased isn't brand new. It's been refurbished, and is approximately 1 year old. Nonetheless, it came with a 1-year warranty, and still packs double the processing power my old Mac could do. I had many reasons for choosing an older computer, versus a technology that is cutting-edge.

Technology such as computers depreciate in value at an alarming rate. If a person needs the latest and greatest gadget, the consumer is going to be taken (financially) to the cleaners. I saved a huge bundle of cash by buying a refurbished computer from Apple. Somewhere in the vicinity of $400-500, to be frank.
I didn't feel I could afford a brand-new machine. Two thousand bucks isn't petty cash. Spending 1400 bucks on an older machine lessened the sting.
I was specifically looking for a model with a larger screen. As much as I would have loved to buy a 24" iMac (the current Core 2 Duo model) just wasn't in the cards, and the price tag was well out of my range. The refurbished model won again in this category.
Buying an older model computer allows the manufacturers time to work out the bugs. My Macbook is the prime example of this. I have lost count how many times that laptop has been in the shop, and it still needs to go back for repairs.

I guess what they say about "bleeding edge" technology is right. It is a two-edged sword. Either you try to keep up with technology, spending many thousands of dollars on the latest and greatest, but what you pay for, doesn't always work the way you want it to.

The Intel transition is still occurring, and even though it has been a year since Apple released their first computer with an Intel chip, there are still many, many programs out there that do not run natively on the Intel architecture. This means that many of the programs I use (games fall victim to this problem more often than not) either work very slowly, or not at all.

Had my recording software not been Intel native, I would not have upgraded. Fortunately, GarageBand and Logic were two of the first programs ported to the new architecture. A lot of the third-party synths and effect plug-ins I use haven't released Universal binaries, so either I am forced to wait, for find other options.

With all that being said, I feel a lot more confident in myself, now that I have gained three inches.

MacWorld San Fransisco Drinking Game

2007-01-08T20:12:00.000-07:00

In tribute to tomorrow's Apple keynote, here are the official rules for the MacWorld San Fransisco 2007 Drinking Game:

If the text is too small, clicking the image should enlarge it.

As Merlin Mann from 43 folders said: We'll be so drunk by 11:00AM tomorrow.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/70081891@N00/

Little Mosque on the Prairie

2007-01-03T23:40:00.000-07:00

It's about time that Muslims aren't portrayed on prime-time television as Christian-hating war-mongering radicals.

Now let's see how long it will take the American media conglomerate to start showing shows like this. Consider how long it took American television to portray African-Americans as successful, law-abiding citizens. Some might argue that even that hasn't happened yet.

Double Your Pleasure

2007-01-01T22:57:00.000-07:00

For the last couple of weeks, I have been experimenting with monitor spanning ion my iMac. After the initial glee had worn off, I began to have my doubts about whether this was, exactly what I had been yearning for since, well, probably ten years when I first saw a computer with two monitors.

I always felt that I was limited by screen real estate, but now I realize that there are consequences. In a sense, this cut the video capabilities of my computer in half, since the video card has to work to support double the real-estate on my computer. And at this point, performance is everything. I need to squeeze out every single last Megahertz out of my computer just to process all the audio I have been tweaking these months.

At least I got the monitor as a loaner. I can return it, and I think I will in the next few days. I think I will only plunge to two monitors if, and only if, I wind up with a laptop as my primary computer in the near future.

That being said, it was a fun experiment. I guess I realized that my money would be better spent on a larger screen than by trying to support two screens at once.

It's like these two screens give me vertigo. They give me headaches, I feel that one screen is allotted for only one hemisphere of my brain. I find it difficult to process all the information presented to me at once.

I guess I have a one-track mind. I already suffer from sensory overload, and I find two screens to be visually distracting. I need to find a way to minimize the distractions I have at the computer in the first place.

My desk to too small for this kind of setup anyway.

2007 Musings

2007-01-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

So much for my holidays. Tomorrow, it's back to the rat-race, and I don't feel the least bit rejuvenated. The last ten days has been chock-full of family functions, feeding and watering houseguests, and doing much-needed work around the house.

Overall, Christmas was pretty good to me, although I didn't get the super-thin 12" MacBook Pro I asked Steve Jobs... er... Santa Claus for, I did get a video game that paid homage to two of my childhood passions: Lego and Star Wars. In addition to some much-needed clothing, I also got the Complete Calvin and Hobbes Box Set, which I have only managed to read one of the three volumes.

I thought for a while that I would take this post to reflect on the 2006 that was, and what I could expect to see in the next year. That project seemed like far too much work, so I'm not going to do that this year. I can sum up 2006 six in one word: Madness. I really bit off more than I could chew, and by the looks of things 2007 isn't going to be any better -- in fact, it looks like it's going to be even busier -- at the very least, until September.

The MacBook has been in the shop for two weeks. It still is suffering hardware issues, though the "random shut-down" problem had been fixed, there are issues with the battery. The computer kept telling me that there was no battery attached to the computer, even if there was. Thus, the battery never took a charge. A laptop that can't operate on battery charge is no more than a really small desktop computer. I started to miss the MacBook so much, that I decided to pull out the derelict iBook to see if it worked -- and if I could diagnose the problem. It started fine and ran flawlessly for about five minutes. Then out of nowhere, the screen went garbled, then turned black. So that means the video card is gone, and that's soldered onto the Logic board. It's almost not worth fixing, unless I can find another logic board for about 25 dollars -- which translates to not very likely.

I haven't gigged in a few weeks, which is, in a sense welcome. The same goes with teaching. By next week, my schedule is going to fall back into the chaos it usually is.

DH has also taken some time off recording his album for the Holiday season. However, that project will be put back into high gear in a couple days. As far as progress goes, we are in the middle of tracking the seventh song, and drum tracks for three songs have been cut. So, by any estimations, I guess we are about 2/3 finished the album. That could be translated into another three months until I can breathe a sigh of relief. I never thought that it would take us this long to record the album.

Don't ask me what resolutions I made for the New Year. I don't make resolutions.

Now This is What I Call Shopping!

2006-12-22T16:29:00.000-07:00

I think my favorite shopping trip of the Christmas season is when I make a trip to the liquor store, grab a shopping cart and fill it with goodies of all colors and flavors.

This afternoon, I took a trip to the local Superstore and found the isles mostly picked clean. Here is a succinct list of what I managed to acquire for my holiday festivities, though I think I might have to hit a few other stores to pick up the items that the Superstore had been sold out of:

6-pack Corona Extra
6-Pack Newcastle Brown Ale
1 bottle Hennessy Cognac
1 large bottle of Gibson's Finest Whiskey
1 bottle Glenfiddich Scotch
1 bottle Captain Morgan Spiced Rum
1 bottle White Rum
1 bottle Drambuie
1 bottle Gin
1 bottle Vodka
1 large bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream
1 bottle Southern Comfort
1 bottle Baja Rosa
1 bottle Blue Curaçao
1 bottle Raspberry Sour Puss
1 large bottle of Amaretto
1 bottle Malibu Rum
1 bottle Kahlua

Already in my possession is Tequila, Creme de Menthe, Creme de Cacao, Inferno Vodka, Triple Sec, Galliano, and a few bottles of various wines.

I am still looking for a bottle of Melon Liqueur, and a few more flavors of beer, most likely Heineken, which I think I will pick up in the next day, but I think I will shy away from domestic beers this year. Buying spritzes, mixes, lemons, limes, and various sodas will have to wait until tomorrow as well.

So if you're looking for a place to party over the holidays, you need to look no further than my house. I have just begun a ten-day holiday from work, so I expect to have this cache consumed by then.

Did I miss anything?

Dear Santa, er Steve

2006-12-17T12:10:00.000-07:00

As it is getting closer and closer to that special day, I figured I had better write Santa Claus a letter and tell him what I would like for Christmas.

Though contrary to popular belief, Santa does not live at the north pole. He lives in Cupertino, California. And his first name isn't Santa. It's Steve.

Dear Steve:

It's MC Fro, and I have been especially good this year. I have never strayed from the fruit company, and continue to believe in the wondrous Macs and iPods you produce. I would like to tell you what I would like to see announced at the MacWorld Expo in San Fransisco this January: An ultra-thin 12" Widescreen MacBook Pro.

I would like to to have Intel Core 2 Duo processors, hopefully with a speed bump. If not, I would be very pleased with 2.16 or 2.33 GHz clock speeds. Even though the screen is 1" smaller than the Original MacBook, I would hope to see the same 1280 x 800 resolution, with support for monitor spanning, thus I could greatly expand my work surface by attaching a large flat-screen montior. I am going to need a lot of workspace on my screen while I finish up DH's solo album.

I require a minimum of 1 Gigabyte of RAM installed, because I will need to run Rosetta, and all the plugins I run while recording under Logic takes up a lot of RAM, so I would hope that RAM can be expanded to a high-capacity like 3-4 Gigs. I would like a high-capacity hard drive, perhaps 160 Gigabytes might be a good starting point. A dual-layer Superdrive would be acceptable to my needs.

A graphics card will absolutely be necessary, and I won't settle for the Intel-GMA 950 processor that steals my RAM. The ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB of RAM is the absolute minimum for my needs, but if you can fit 256 megabytes of RAM on it, I would be very pleased.

The built-in iSight camera is not necessary, but welcome. It is already included in all other MacBook models, so I would expect you would include one in this model as well.

Built-in Wireless technology is already included in all other MacBook models. I am looking forward to using Bluetooth 2.0 with an Apple Wireless Keyboard, and a wireless Mighty Mouse, then I wouldn't have to worry about using the 2 or 3 available USB 2.0 ports for my input peripherals. As for Airport-Extreme, I certainly hope it has the technology to support the 802.11n draft spec. The infra-red Front-Row remote is a cool gadget, and I would probably use it more than I think I normally would.

I know you will include at least Gigabit-Ethernet. I wouldn't expect any less, but it will certainly suit my needs when I need to hook up multiple computers to do all the heavy computer processing when I am mixing DH's album. This goes without saying, but I need firewire on this model. I know it might be a tall order, but if you can spare 2 firewire ports, It would make my life much easier.

The Magsafe power adapter is the coolest invention you have made for portable computers. Furthermore, I would hope all new form factors for your notebook computers will include a magnetic lid, which is present in your current MacBook. It's so much cleaner than having the hooks and release buttons. Furthermore, you do not have to worry about moving parts getting worn or breaking.

I would like to see a thin form factor, and an aluminum enclosure, a 3-speaker built-in sound system as which was present in the old 12" G4 Powerbooks. To keep things straight across the MacBook board, I would be ecstatic if it had that funky blue backlit keyboard.

I hope you can cram as much juice as possible into that thin battery, I sincerely hope I can get 6 hours of battery life out of this model. Weight is also an issue with me, as is portability. If this book could weight less than 5 pounds, I would be ecstatic.

A price point of about $1749 US.

I know I am being rather demanding about my specifications of this small, ultra-thin MacBook Pro. But I think if it were produced, everybody would drool over it. Anyone who had this book in a coffee shop would be the envy of everyone around. I know you and your elves are fantastic engineers, and I know you and your crew can produce something as wonderful as this. If I hear about this product this January at Macworld San Fransisco, my credit card will leap out of my wallet onto my desk like a spawning Salmon. I, of course, would have no objection to finding a pre-release model underneath the tree this Christmas morning.

Respectfully yours,

MC Fro

mcfro.blogspot.com to be Translated to Multiple Lanuages

2006-12-09T14:39:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention the website The Dialectizer provides translation services for those who might have trouble understanding my attempt at writing "Proper English". They support translations into a number of dialects, including Redneck, Pig Latin, Elmer Fudd, The Sweedish Chef, Hacker, and a few others. In order to try out the accuracy of their services, I decided to translate my last post. I think they got it mostly right: When I read: "Slap mah Fro" during the Jive dialect translator, I nearly fell off my chair laughing.

Here are the results:

Redneck:

As ah jest menshuned on th' Savoys Webpage, th' ban' has been invited t'be special guests at a charity fundraizzu at th' Blue Turtle this hyar weekend, cuss it all t' tarnation. We were pleased t'find out thet we were also featured in today's edishun of th' Medicine Hat Noos.

ah's gittin' excited about playin' th' Turtle this hyar weekend, cuss it all t' tarnation. Th' ban' will be featurin' a lot of noo material, menny of which will feature yourn truly on lead vocal, ah reckon. ah hope mah voice will hold out until th' end of th' weekend, cuss it all t' tarnation.

ah might be needin' menny doses of thet bad, bad, likker.

Jive:

As ah' plum menshuned on de Savoys Webpage, de band gots been invited t'be special guests at some charity fundraisa' at da damn Blue Turtle dis weekend. We wuz pleased t'find out dat we wuz also featured in today's edishun uh de Medicine Hat News.

I's gots'ta be digtin' 'sited about playin' de Turtle dis weekend. De band gots'ta be featurin' some lot uh new material, many uh which gots'ta feature yo's truly on lead vocal. ah' hope mah' voice gots'ta hold out until de end uh de weekend.

I might be needin' many doses uh dat baaaad, baaaad, whiskey. Slap mah fro!

Sweedish Chef:

Es I joost menshuned oon zee Sefuys Vebpege-a, zee bund hes beee infeeted tu be-a speceeel gooests et a chereety foondreeeser et zee Blooe-a Toortle-a thees veekend. Bork bork bork! Ve-a vere-a pleesed tu feend oooot thet ve-a vere-a elsu feetoored in tudey's ideeshun ooff zee Medeecine-a Het Noos.

I em getteeng ixceeted ebuoot pleyeeng zee Toortle-a thees veekend. Bork bork bork! Zee bund veell be-a feetooreeng a lut ooff noo metereeel, muny ooff vheech veell feetoore-a yuoors trooly oon leed fucel. I hupe-a my fueece-a veell huld oooot unteel zee ind ooff zee veekend. Bork bork bork!

I meeght be-a needeeng muny duses ooff thet bed, bed, vheeskey. Bork bork bork!

This could provide me countless hours of entertainment. Sadly, a "Val-speak" translation protocol is not yet available on the site, however one is available here. Like, I could totally barf out!

Savoys to Rock The Turtle This Weekend

2006-12-07T22:45:00.000-07:00

As I just mentioned on the Savoys Webpage, the band has been invited to be special guests at a charity fundraiser at the Blue Turtle this weekend. We were pleased to find out that we were also featured in today's edition of the Medicine Hat News.

I am getting excited about playing the Turtle this weekend. The band will be featuring a lot of new material, many of which will feature yours truly on lead vocal. I hope my voice will hold out until the end of the weekend.

I might be needing many doses of that bad, bad, whiskey.

Under [Permanent] Construction

2006-11-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

So I decided to upgrade to Blogger Beta. You can expect a number of changes to this site over the coming months, when I can spare time.

Savoys Gone Digital

2006-11-13T16:38:00.000-07:00

MA, our new bass player has decided to jump into the world of cyberspace and set up an "official" webpage for the Savoys. You can access the site here. I expect the site will be dedicated towards band-related news and upcoming performances. We might be able to use it as a portal to keep in better touch with our fans.

A permanent link has also been added to the sidebar.

IE Devoured Again

2006-10-25T21:32:00.000-06:00

Less than one week after Microsoft launched their next-generation web browser, IE 7, the Mozilla foundation released Firefox 2, once again upping the ante for standards and quality in a web-surfing environment.

Microsoft's new version of Explorer was boasted to have many technological, "innovative" advancements such as tabbed browsing (I've had that for years), RSS feeds (been using those since Firefox 1.0), and "instant search box" (been standard with Firefox since its' inception), and anti-phishing security measures.

Okay, the anti-phishing thing was an impressive addition to IE's features -- and it was something that, apparently, hadn't been integrated into other web browsers -- that is until yesterday.

In fact, the anti-phishing measures as described in this message have been available to end-users if they were informed enough (and willing to use beta software) to use the development releases of Firefox 2.0. So I guess IE's inclusion of this technology wasn't as innovative as it was first perceived.

I have already installed Firefox 2, and it is a definite improvement over its predecessor. It's blazingly fast, secure, the aesthetics are more pleasing, and the availability of seemingly countless extensions are a home run, which it seems to be, as the new version has already been downloaded a few million times since its' release yesterday.

It seems that the only thing Microsoft managed to accomplish with the release of IE 7, is play catch up. They're going to be in the dust by the time they release IE 8, which should be out sometime next century.

Change of Season

2006-10-18T22:48:00.000-06:00

You heard it here first: The winds of change are blowing.

It will not happen overnight; it won't happen next month. But rest assured, by this time next year, there is a distinct possibility that I will no longer be a resident of Medicine Hat -- and this is not entirely by my choice.

This is something I have to come to terms with, and it will likely take several months to accept. I can only explain my feelings in one word, which is shock.

I honestly wish I could put into words what's been going on, as I think that being completely overwhelmed and overtaxed is preventing me from thinking clearly. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I was capable of a clear, concise thought. It must have happened sometime during the first year of writing my blog.

I have a great many decisions to make, one of which is related to this very early post. I have to decide, ultimately, to stay here, or to move away. I have to decide if I should continue working, or to return to school. Either choice portends further decisions. If I choose to return to school, what should I study? Will I have to take a year of upgrading before applying to a Masters' program? Can I afford to accrue the debt-load associated with such studies? At this point, there would be no point stopping at a Masters' degree -- it would be straight through to a PhD. Conversely, if I choose to work, what do I do? Can I even get a job? It most certainly won't be in the field that I currently work.

And what about music? Do I set up a teaching practice in my new locale? What's the competition like? Do I have to resort to serving donuts at Tim Horton's? Not like it matters, anyway, for I hear a starting wage at Tim's is more than what I make at my current occupation -- and I have a University degree!

I'm tired. Very tired of holding my ankles while I am being taken advantage of.

But the Devil you know is often more comforting than the Devil you don't, which is probably why I have spent the last several years of my professional life in a rut, risking little. At least the bills got paid, and I could pursue my music career during the evenings.

It sounds so appealing -- so inviting. This is a chance for a new life. A part of me does not see it that way. I keep thinking that I am throwing something else away, even though I can't determine what that is.

I fear that I won't be able to network with other musicians in my new locale, and get work. I fear that I won't be able to to earn enough to pay the bills. I fear that I am leaving my family and friends behind -- and I shouldn't, because I've done it before, and I know better.

I fear that I won't make the cut and I won't be admitted to the university program of my choice. I fear that I will financially dig myself into a hole that I will never possibly be able to crawl out of. Forget the "Freedom 75" plan; I'll be working until I gasp my last breath. I have been working 16+ hours per day, 6 days per week, and I still can't seem to break 30k per year. With my credentials and experience, I should be making more than double that.

I am paralyzed by fear.

When my life takes this drastic turn, I plan to continue writing. The dynamics of this blog will continue to reflect that of my professional life, my academic life, and the fantasy-like life that is partially created by me, and the rest that is created by the fantastic life of being a professional musician.

In the coming months, there is work to do. There is money to save. There are finances and debts to consolidate. There are renovations to do, students to teach, gigs to play, and an album to finish. There are jobs to apply for; and resignations to write. There are renovations to complete, a house to buy and one to sell. There are things to pack, move and unpack. There is a university to re-apply to, and courses to register, if I so choose. There are hugs to give and tears to shed, friends to cede, and new friends to make.

All this has left me so overwhelmed, that I find it difficult to breathe.

Hard At Work

2006-09-30T12:43:00.000-06:00

DH is currently hard at work laying down guitar tracks for his upcoming album.

I'm kicking back and just enjoying the show.

This photo was taken with Photo Booth on a 13" MacBook.

We Brought Down The Great Wall of China

2006-09-24T14:47:00.000-06:00

The past few months of over-extending myself has finally caught up with me. I have managed to catch a cold that changes its' symptoms every few days. Currently, it is residing in my head and lungs, and I cannot hear in one ear. It's been a miserable week, and no amount of Ricola or Hot Toddies are helping my condition.

Amidst my nasty cough, the show must go on, and I dragged my sorry self down to the historic Medalta Potteries site, where I would be performing in Phyllis Sinclairs' CD-Release Party.
Bizarre, would be one way to describe the experience. I have never done a show in a museum-like institution, but the room was more than large enough to accommodate a stage, PA system, and a few hundred guests.
However, I had my doubts that having such an ordeal would be a wise idea, given the number of priceless artifacts that are present.

My fears were confirmed as soon as we began soundcheck. Between by bass drum and Gene's Bass firing through the PA, there was enough sound pressure 100Hz and below to rattle one's intestines, and send vibrations throughout the building, and thus send thousands of priceless clay artifacts from their display shelves to ultimate doom on the concrete floor. I even joked with Gene that we would be held responsible for bringing down the "Great Wall of China".

The opening act was Edmonton's Stew Kirkwood. His opening show was fantastic. In a strange twist of fate, when I was introduced to him, he took a long look at me and asked "Do I know you from somewhere? Have you ever gigged in Edmonton?"

It turns out that one of the first Anglers road trips out of town, we drove to Edmonton in mid-January in a snowstorm to play this dump called "Eco-City / Rumpus Room". We played the last night the place was open, before it was condemned. About six bands played the gig that night, and one of the bands featured was called "Welcome". Turns out that Stew Kirkwood was in Welcome, and gigged with the Anglers some twelve years ago. Certainly Stew and I laughed at the serendipity that allowed our career paths to cross again, after many years. I am amazed that his memory is so sharp, otherwise I wouldn't have known him from Adam.

The Phyllis Sinclair band took the stage sometime around 9:30 to a house packed-full of folk aficionados. We had as many people as 8 performers crowding a small stage, however that did not deter our enthusiasm. Last night, everything came together (for some reason, all gigs seem to come together at the last minute). The 90-minute performance was packed full of eclectic music, anecdotes, jokes, and even plugs for herbal tea. There were many highlights to the night, but certainly one of the most spiritual moments was when Phyllis brought up the local Search for the Stars winner Jesse Dollimont. She wowed the crowd with her haunting rendition of Emmylou Harris' Boulder to Birmingham.

One other touching moment was the band's last number the Saxophonist, a tribute to the late Medicine Hat Jazz player Lyle Smith. Young prodigy Andrew Jenkins brought the house to their feet (I mean this literally) when he brought the saxophone to his lips.

The rest of the band was fantastic. Tegan Davidge had a command of the violin that few possess. Gene Clelland bass talents were certainly heard and felt in that live room. He was a solid bass player and his contributions to the show were greatly appreciated. Lou Bernard has some fantastic chops on the guitar, and his presence was appreciated, even if he had to disappear immediately after the gig (he had play a Cold Shot Gig). As for Billy Jones, well he's likely the most talented steel guitar player in North America. Just two years ago, this master was on tour with Canadian institution Stompin' Tom.

And Phyllis was an absolute delight. It was her show; her party, and her kindness reverberated through the walls. The crowd was eerily silent and appreciative during the encore when Phyllis sang acapella. I must give credit to anyone who has the gumption to fly solo in front of a packed house, and all the lights, and all the eyes are on you.

I can't thank Phyllis enough for the opportunity to play with her (and the rest of the bandmates) these past few weeks. It's been one wild ride.

Hopefully I can soon tell the legend on how a Dead Eagle became a Blue Turtle.

Last Weekend In Pictures

2006-09-17T12:01:00.000-06:00

If any of you have been watching my recent tour dates, you will know that all that was written in last weekend's gig was "private function". The Savoys have returned from our hiatus, and I can't think of a better way to celebrate the return of this "new & improved" act with a road trip to Kananaskis.
The Savoys were retained to play a wedding for friends & family of the band. It turned out that there were no shortage of musicians there, and they were all itching to play.

We played in a large reception hall that had no running water, no "facilities", and there was barely enough outlets to plug all our electronic into. We thought it would be likely that we would blow all the breakers the moment we began to play. Luckily, this was not the case.

This was the debut performance with our new bass player, MA. I think he was a little nervous, as he told me that he didn't sleep a wink the previous night. I think we were all a little jittery, as it took us a number of songs to get into our groove. By the second set, we were cookin'.
Did the crowd ever like the blues. The dance floor was packed for every song. The wine & beer flowed from their bottles and kegs, and in true wedding fashion, everyone was merry.

It wasn't long until the performance turned into a big jam. We began featuring many of the guests on the stage, each taking their turn at the guitar, on the drums, or on the mic. We even had some killer harmonica and trumpet players join us for a few numbers -- and they had killer chops!
Certainly the biggest rush we had, was when we were joined by Juno-Award winning artist Jesse Zubot. We pulled out some Led Zeppelin, and brought the house down with our version of "Rock and Roll", complete with a smokin' guitar solo. Even yours truly played a drum solo at the end of the song.
You can see why they call me "MC Fro". The proof is in the picture.

As the night wore on, it became apparent that we were going to be playing until the wee hours of the morning, and the Savoys were running out of material. I am sure those who still remained at the party were well on their way to having hangovers the next day, and even though they ate up any song we could throw at them, they began calling for some more "traditional wedding band music".

This usually makes any musician cringe with fear. This means Foxtrots, Polkas, Butterflies, Waltzes, and the dreaded "Bird Dance".

And we played them all. Starting with the Beer Barrel Polka (more commonly referred to as "Roll out the Barrel"), and moving to "There's no Beer in Heaven", we even started writing our own polkas, since we all couldn't agree how some of these old songs went. We closed the night with the horrific Bird Dance, and the crowd ate it up.

Even though I can safely say that I have never had so much fun playing polkas and the like, I certainly hope I never have to play one again.

We managed to return to our hotel in Calgary some time after 3:30 in the morning and promptly fell asleep due to pure exhaustion.

Busier than a Bee; Crazier Than A Shit-House Rat

2006-08-30T22:31:00.000-06:00

I should receive an award this month for getting next to no sleep at all. Delirium has completely set in, as I often find myself working until the wee hours of the morning, only to awake a few short hours later and head off to work.

Rinse, lather and repeat.

Gigs, gigs and more gigs. They just won't stop coming in. I fielded a call from local Folk artist Phyllis Sinclair who asked me to play drums for her CD-release party on September 23rd. It sounded like it would only take a few rehearsals, and since I was not booked that day, I agreed.

Unfortunately, the next caller wasn't so lucky. I was formally asked to play drums for this years' Music Theatre production of West Side Story. It broke my heart to turn the gig down.

Musical Theatre productions are an absolute riot. The camaraderie is fantastic; you bond with the cast and crew. The shows are spectacular, and the crowds are immense. It is widely expected that over the course of eight days, nearly seven thousand people will see the show -- and every single spectator wants to be there.

It's not like playing a bar where a small percentage of the patrons are there because you are there; a large percentage could care a less that you are there, and the remainder of the patrons don't even know that a live band was even playing. In this sense, a musical theatre production is much more rewarding -- if you thrive on applause.

The problem with Musical Theatre productions is that they are a massive time investment. One month prior to the show, you can expect to invest 20 hours per week in said production. The week of the show, all your energies are focused on delivering your best performance possible. Everything else falters, including your work, sleep, and relationships. The icing on the cake is that you are not paid. All you get in the end is a pat on the back.

It's largely for these reasons that I could not accept the Musical Theatre gig. I have other gigs that are making me money.

DH's album is coming along nicely. At the rate it's taking us, it will likely be a year before the album is complete. It is sounding like even though he is pleased with my efforts, that the time frame is unacceptable, and he has asked to increase the number of recording sessions, so that we might have the album finished by the end of the year. We are in the middle of tracking the second song. My guess is that we will begin working on the third song by early next week.

Next weekend the Savoys will be playing a private function in Kananaskis. This is a big gig, where we will be breaking in our new bass player, MA. He's been doing his homework; he will be ready for the gig.

The question is, are the rest of us ready to play the gig? Some of us haven't played in months!

As you can see, this month has been crazy. It has been so busy in fact, that I have had not the time, nor the energy to hop on the phone and begin scheduling my students for the fall. I was hoping to start teaching in less than two weeks.

Welcome to my life. Insanity isn't such a terrible thing.

Now, about that raise....

An Open Letter to Matt Good

2006-08-08T22:52:00.000-06:00

When you have a friend who is going through a difficult period in their life, does your heart not get heavy? Do you think of them often, and hope that they can find solace and move on soon? Are you empathetic to their condition? Do you hope your words carry more meaning if you have been in the same position?

Does the same apply to someone you have never met?

What if it were someone you cared about, but you have never met, nor he (or she) never even knew you existed?

Well, a colleague and fellow musician of mine -- one whom I admire for his art, his personality and his dedication to philanthropy, one whom I call a "friend" (in its' broadest of terms) is in this position.

For those who are informed, Matthew Good is having a tough year. He had been discussing this "fog" that clouds his mind, which was impairing his ability to work, to create, and even perform. A few days ago, he let the proverbial cat out of the bag and told us -- almost lyrically, what's been going on. Around this time, Matt published a photo of himself backstage of the Calgary Folk Festival, and the look on Matt's face can only be described as haunting.

And it broke my heart, as well as the hearts of thousands of his fans across the world.

And his fans came out in droves of hundreds, each leaving a note of sympathy, encouragement, and their condolences. In a usually politically-charged forum, where trolling is not uncommon, the tides were turned and every reader gave back to Matt the sheer love he had been giving his fans for more than ten years.

I read every single comment, and it nearly drove me to tears. In a strange twist, and in response to this recent post, many fans thanked Matt personally for saving their lives.

He has probably saved many more, possibly mine as well, for example, in 2001, the moment after I totaled my car in a horrific collision, I jumped out of my car unscathed, and the first words out of my mouth were: "[I] died in a motor crash, I came back for you; the perfect version of myself". I realize this example is a little ludicrous. Matt's not an Angel by definition, but his music has helped me get through some dark periods of my life.

I considered writing Matt to express my condolences, though I thought it a little esoteric to jump on the bandwagon and say something so abstract that -- despite the best of intentions -- might make him feel uncomfortable.

I suppose that might be why I am writing about it here instead.

I know about that "fog" Matt described. It clouds my vision daily. Usually it just scatters the light around so that no shadows fall, and the twilight that surrounds me makes it difficult to see; to focus. Sometimes the fog gets so thick that there is nothing but blackness. It has sometimes gone on for days on end, being blind, deaf and dumb, rendering me completely incapable of feeling anything.

But I have learned that the sun will rise tomorrow. And amidst the fog, something new may happen. We may anticipate, or even dread the days when a life-changing event will occur, but it is much harder for us to see the small progressions that happen every day.

Matt's lyric that likely struck the most profound chord within me was "I am just a boat on the ocean; I'm just a ship lost at sea." I have been wondering if this is how Matt has been feeling recently.

With the number of people who feel like they are ships lost at sea, you'd think we'd be bound to cross paths with another lonely sailor sooner or later.

Myself, along with countless thousands of your fans, are there with you in heart and spirit Matt. And thank you for being there when all that surrounded me was that damned fog.

I'm About To Collapse

2006-08-05T12:14:00.000-06:00

This summer is going be my ultimate doom. There just seems to be no downtime for me, and in some ways, I suppose it's good to stay busy; on the other hand, I have no time to decompress. When September rolls around and my students return, I hope I don't end up spreading myself too thin.

Comparatively, this week was more productive in DH's recording project. By the time he arrived on Monday evening, I had the recording gear set up and working soundly. We immediately set down to work and managed to cut 95% of the vocal tracks for the first song.

I really don't want to get into the gory details of recording vocals, simply because it is a repetitive and tedious process, and not of much interest to the common reader.

All in all, I think we can work with the material that we obtained Monday night. A few of the tracks have a small amount of ambient noise, but I think we can get rid of those with a little "studio magic".

In other musical news, this is the first week in seven years that I have worked with the ZanZee band. Thursday and Friday's performances went well, given the fact that most of the material they are performing, I have never had the chance to play with them before. For the most part, it's just like old times. There are lots of smiles, and there are lots of "little issues" between the band members that haven't been solved over the years. I call these issues "little", because they really don't affect me emotionally, nor would it prevent me from being re-hired in the future.

It's really not my place to comment on these issues.

For the most part, it's turning out to be a blast, and it doesn't hurt to earn a couple extra bucks (if you even saw what my credit card bill was last month!)

Murphy's Law

2006-07-25T21:27:00.000-06:00

So this is week two that my little recording studio is in business. DH came over last Monday to check out the equipment, listen to a few projects I had in the works, and brought me demos of the material he planned on re-recording and releasing -- to the public, I hope. He must have been somewhat impressed with my work, since Wednesday found us tracking the very first song. Between 7:00 and 10:00 PM, we had the guitars, bass and a rough drum track cut. Things were moving swiftly and sounding impressive.

Saturday I placed half a dozen mics around my drumkit, and proceeded to cut a preliminary drum track. If it was good enough, it might end up being the keeper track, but I had a few ideas for the drum parts that I wanted to run past DH for his approval first. Several hours of tweaking the drum track over the weekend resulted in a decent drum sound, however, I think I made a few critical errors, and I think the drum part will have to be re-cut. So that was my first mistake.

Yesterday, DH returned to the studio, to check on my progress, and lay down the vocal tracks to the first song. What transpired over the course of the evening was nighmarish. Everything that possibly could go wrong, did.

In four hours, we couldn't even get a keeper vocal take. I had equipment troubles of every kind. I couldn't even use the new tube preamp (hence, expensive) I bought just to use on DH's voice.
By 10:30 I only had snippets of about half the lead vocal track.

I had wasted many hours of my time preparing for the session, moving equipment up two flights of stairs, setting up microphones in the bathroom, and connecting several components in the adjacent bedroom across the hall. Nothing seemed to work.

DH didn't like the sound of the bathroom. He didn't like the headphone mix; tracking vocals in the hallway went marginally better. One of my computer interfaces decided to go on strike, and every track we tried recording had random digital pops and spikes every few seconds, lending otherwise keeper takes useless.

After several hours of frustration, we moved the gear back downstairs and tried a few more things. disconnected my Mackie Spike and instead used my Alesis MultiMix8 as my recording interface. At least we eliminated the source of the digital spikes and pops. By then, it was nearly 10:30, and I was frustrated, tired, and I wanted a stiff drink. DH was getting burned-out, both vocally, and physically, and I think he was a little bummed that we didn't make as much progress as we had hoped.

The more complicated my studio grows, the more things don't work right. I am wondering if I should just stick to a minimalist recording setup, instead of having loads of impressive electronic equipment littering my basement.

Having a recording studio (albeit a small one) is a learning experience. Not only am I learning the art of, but learning to deal with artists who have opinions, and I have to troubleshoot every little issue. I worked more problems last night than I have had to in some time. May I say that perhaps my day job is easier?

You're right; I'd never say my day job is easier.

It's a Cruel (It's a Cruel) Cruel Summer

2006-07-17T22:29:00.000-06:00

So much for "summer", which is meant to be a time of relaxation and fun. Once again, I end up on taking on too many projects, and I spread myself too thin. As the Beastie Boys said: "No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn", or in my case: "No Sleep 'Till Death".

On top of my 40-hour per week job, I still find myself teaching. I have a select few students who insisted on continuing their studies over the summer. It's cool, I guess. I guess it means that they are inspired to learn, and that is one of the best compliments a teacher can have.

Even though we are on hiatus, the Savoys have been hard at work, ensuring our newest member, MA, will be ready to Gig in September. If I have not mentioned it, our first gig this fall is a big one, as we will be performing for a wedding in Kananaskis, where some of Canada's most talented musicians will be attending. I don't like saying too much, but there will be Juno-award winners there, and they will have the itch to jam. I had better bring the camera, as I have no idea when will be the next time that I will get to make music with musicians of such a caliber.

My mother has also been begging me to make music with her on Tuesdays. It is looking like I will be doing so again tomorrow night. It's contemporary jazz, so again its a style of music that I'm not too familiar -- or comfortable with, but I am a sucker for a challenge, and I treat every gig as a learning experience.

And by now, we all know about my reprise with ZanZee in two weeks. What fun that's going to be; It will be just like old times (and I assure you, that there is no tone of sarcasm in my voice). I love Dave and Arleen like family. I can't wait.

But I saved the biggest news for last. It seems that I have retained my first recording studio client.

I am in business!

This weekend, I made an effort to play catch up on an old band I used to gig with, and I found myself at the Royal Hotel to catch a Mule Shoe playing their last gig. Ever. When they took their break, the whole band congregated around my table amidst a packed bar, and we chewed a lot of fat, you might say. I spoke to DH, the lead singer at great length, as I knew for some time that he was planning on writing a solo album. So we spoke about this, and, making a long story short, I asked him how he felt about recording his album with me.

He liked the idea. He liked it so much, that nary a day went by before he called me and offered to take me up on the offer. DH came by this evening to check out my recording setup, and he brought a CD of unfinished demos he had been working on the past year -- or at least since my untimely departure from Mule Shoe.

You see kiddies? This is why you never burn your bridges after you crossed them.

So DH played me the material he had been writing, and to say I was impressed was an understatement. In two days we agreed to re-convene and put music to (hard) disk. Not only will I be engineering and producing DH's solo album, but I will be playing drums on the recording.

C'est magnifique, n'est-ce pas?

This is huge news, for little ol' me. I'll be sure to let you know how things work out on Wednesday.

Encore!

2006-06-30T21:17:00.000-06:00

I am the recipient of the "World's Lousiest Blog" award for the months of May and June, graciously donated by myself to myself. The award is for "excellence in apathy, lethargy, and procrastination, resulting in a lousy blog with a dwindling readership". I was too lazy to attend the ceremony and accept the award, so I accepted it on my behalf.

I have written so little these last two months, that something green and ugly began growing between the keys in my keyboard.

Something happens to me every spring, and it seems that every year it gets worse: It's the result of taking on too many commitments and responsibilities. When summer rolls around, and my schedule begins to open up, all I want to do is nothing.

At the turn of summer this year, I hit burnout. I often spend my [spare] evenings in front of the computer, hoping that the music that blares through my speakers will awaken something creative in my belly.

It hasn't been happening.

What has been happening, is a furious spending spree; all kinds of new cool gadgets now reside in my house, as I slowly and steadily build my recording studio in my basement. I could tell you about my purchase of eMagic's Logic software (now owned by Apple), or I could tell you about the large-diaphragm condenser microphone I purchased last week in Calgary. Furthermore, I could tell you about my new drum equipment, or the new notebook computer that will fuel my future mobile-recording business. But why should you be interested in those toys?

As for my super-hero-rock-star alter persona, and my illustrious teaching career, well, summer is here, and that means no students for two months, and no gigs for a while. As I have likely mentioned before, the Savoys take summers off, and honestly, I don't mind the break.

What I find interesting is how things come full-circle, and I realize the importance of never burning bridges once you have crossed them. After nearly seven years, I found myself being invited back to re-join ZanZee in a short-term reprise.

Yes, in four weeks time, I will be making music with the first band to take me across this beautiful country. Since Dave and Arleen spent a number of years playing the Cruise Liner circuit, I managed to lose touch with them, as you never know when they are back in town.

How happy I was when I heard from them a few weeks ago. Imagine how flattered I was when they asked me back to play August long weekend with them. One. More. Time.

And so what if its not going to be in Minnedosa this year? A gig is a gig. It doesn't make any difference if you play for 20 people or 20 thousand -- as long as the people you play for like the music you make.

So if you can stomach the Cecil Hotel on August Long Weekend, that is where you'll find me.

Carolina Storm Squad? Gimme a Break!

2006-06-20T20:51:00.000-06:00

She Looks Better Than She Sings

It blows me away what happens when the US gets their meathooks into a proudly Canadian sport.

No, I am not going to whine and pine about how the Oilers lost game seven to the Carolina Hurricanes. Actually, I am quite proud of my team, they were the eighth-seeded team in the playoffs, and weren't expected to make it past the first round. But in true Albertan fashion, they played with heart, determination, and gave it everything they got.

They believed in themselves, and so did we.

I'm proud of my Oilers, even if they didn't take Stanley back home to ~~Northlands~~, er, Rexall Place.

They can call it any name they want. It will always be Northlands -- with the snowflake at center ice. And while I'm at it, the Saddledome will always be the Olympic Saddledome.

But what's in a name, anyway?

Cam Ward. Well, here's an Alberta native who played the game in true Alberta fashion, and was awarded the Conn Smythe trophy. And with the number of Albertans on the Carolina Hurricanes roster, they may as well have given Stanley to Edmonton.

But this wasn't what was bugging me. For it occurs to me that in order to get Americans excited about Hockey, they need something else to get excited about:

Like cheerleaders.

WTF?

I can understand a game as boring as basketball (another Canadian institution) needing cheerleaders -- but hockey?

Hockey is fast, cruel, and violent. Have you ever met a professional hockey player who had all his teeth? -- Gretzky doesn't count. Gretzky was God on ice; nobody dared to check him. As far as I'm concerned, any hockey player that made it through the season with all his bones intact didn't play hard enough.

Bring any Canadian college frathouse to a hockey game, pump them full of beer, and by the time the first fight breaks out on the ice, they could care a less if there were a dozen scantily-clad babes with their boobs bouncing up and down.

Hockey fans don't need the cheerleaders during intermission either. That's when we watch the Zamboni, and reaffirm ourselves that the Zamboni driver has the coolest job on the planet.

On top of this, we think Don Cherry has good fashion sense.

Now that you understand where I'm coming from, lets get everyone in Carolina to repeat the following: Cheerleaders? Hockey don't need no stinkin' cheerleaders!

All I Need Is A Name

2006-06-13T19:54:00.000-06:00

Last week my recording capabilities increased by a factor of 4. With sheer luck, I happened across an eBay auction which offered this firewire-capable mixer for the same price I paid for my Mackie Spike. It didn't take much reasoning to convince myself that this has been the recording interface I had been waiting for.

The MultiMix 8 Firewire will simultaneously record up to 8 tracks of 48k audio -- in layman's terms, that's CD-quality audio.

I was happy with my Mackie Spike, though it had its limits. I felt that the Spike would not allow me to effectively track a drum set, and recording up to 2 tracks at a time is tedious, especially if you are recording a full-size band.

Speaking of which, I nearly have the infrastructure necessary that I could consider my studio "open for business". All I need is a name... And a webpage, but first things first.

So I have been racking my brain, trying to conjure up an original, catchy name. Unfortunately, the only things that are registering are foul, like Buttfloss Studio, and I don't even know what that is.

On a more realistic note, I considered the name Townie Studio. But here is the other catch: My studio is 100% mobile, and I would like the name to reflect the mobile nature of my studio. Running With Gear is a name that just won't cut it.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Oh, Heartbreak

2006-06-05T21:56:00.000-06:00

I hope the rest of the Stanley Cup games aren't as disappointing as this one.

Actually, I would say the first half of the game was some of the best hockey I've seen this year. The other thirty minutes -- well, it occurred to me that both teams lost it, which would explain such a high-scoring game.

Still, the game-winning goal should not have happened. I should be watching overtime right now.

The Application Deadline Has Already Passed; So Don't Bother Applying

2006-06-01T00:06:00.000-06:00

What an interesting and turbulent few weeks this has been. I am often too tired to post anything, but that's the story of my life.

So what's been going on?

I guess the biggest news is that the Savoys that was, will never be again, but this is the story of all music. Before you jump to any conclusions, let me assure you that the band did not break up. We were dealt a whopper this week when the bass player BW, decided his interests would be better served elsewhere.

I am a bit saddened that he chose to move on, but I respect his decision, and I don't like him any less because of it. It really doesn't change anything. Music is Business. All this means is that someone else will take his place at the gig.

People must think that musicians are fickle, and hold grudges for years. I suppose thanks to the Beatles, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and countless others, that members who leave bands hold reservations against one another. Let me assure you that it is the bad breakups that get all the publicity.

From what BW told us, his decision to leave the Savoys is a purely professional decision, and I believe him. His ears are the major source of his income, and he felt that playing with us affected his hearing. If he can't make his living because he can't hear, then what good does it do for him to continue playing with us? It's not like we make enough to pay all your bills -- at least today.

I will miss BW at our shows. He was always smiling; constantly cracking jokes. It made the gig fun, and it helped the camaraderie of the band. He had a great ear, and was a competent musician.

But it's no more than a job. So before September, the integral role of Bass player for the Savoys must be filled.

Before you get any strange ideas, let me assure you that we have already retained our applicants. Those who we considered have already been contacted. We thank anyone else who has supplied a resume; we will keep it on file for 3 months.

Unfortunately, I don't feel it right to discuss who has been retained, until we feel that we can make the news official. You might have to hold tight for a few weeks until we are able to audition the selected person(s) and make an official decision.

Looks Like I'll Have to Re-Encode My CD Collection Again

2006-05-28T23:22:00.000-06:00

In the last month, I have been in musical bliss, listening to (and recording) tunes at my computer with my brand-new Behringer Truth B2031A speakers. Refer to my recent post when I unpacked the behemoths.

Though they sound spectacular for the money, I am suffering from a nightmare; the speakers are too damn good, as I can hear flaws in the music, attained when I imported my CD's into the computer. Being the audiophile I am, this painful.

I have always been conscientious about the quality of music I listen to in my home. Upon the purchase of my iMac in October 2004, I felt that encoding my music at 160kbps AAC (also known as MP4) would suffice. Unfortunately, it's not doing the trick for me anymore.

So tonight I decided to experiment, and import the same track at various encodings and bitrates to determine what would be the best codec for me to use -- without sacrificing boatloads of hard drive space. I obviously had to choose a well-produced track, one that I would enjoy listening to repeatedly, for the task. It didn't take long for me to determine that the candidate for the experiment would be Ginger's Solid Ground from their 1996 Suddenly I Came to My Senses Album. The following were the candidate encodings for the experiment:

160 kbps -- The original encoding, and the lowest limit for quality, as far as I was concerned. File size: 4.9 MB;
192 kbps VBR (Variable Bitrate Encoding). File size: 5.9 MB;
256 kbps VBR. File size: 7.8 MB;
Apple 'Lossless' Codec. File size: 29.9 MB;
AIFF. File Size: 41.9MB.

I placed all the files into a playlist where I could locate the tracks quickly, and switch from one file to another, while listening for flaws, clarity, and warmth. I also took the file size into account when choosing the best quality codec.

At 160 kbps I could hear that the music wasn't as liquid or warm as the higher-quality counterparts. But after that, it became quite difficult to hear noticeable differences in the sound file at the higher bitrates. Using variable bitrate encoding is a fantastic way to have pristine quality recordings, without sacrificing a lot of hard drive space.

As for the AIFF file and the Apple 'Lossless' codec, they just took up too much space for them to be candidates. Furthermore, the AAC files at 192 and 256 kbps VBR were so good, I couldn't tell which file I was listening to. So once again, I tossed my subjective ears aside, and used file size to help me choose a winner. After some deliberation, I chose 192 kbps VBR as my codec of choice, as it was only about a 20% increase in file size, and I could barely tell the difference between the compressed file and the uncompressed CD-quality AIFF file.

With my CD collection appraching 600 CD's, it will take an incredibly long time for me to re-encode my entire collection. Thus, I think I might just re-encode select CD's, my favorites, including ones that are well-produced. There are still some 150 CD's that have not made it into my computer yet, and I don't have the spare time to invest in such an endeavor, solely to please my ears.

If you think I am anal about my music, you are likely right.

On Receiving Praise

2006-05-11T23:27:00.000-06:00

Tonight was the debut performance of the "Best of Broadway" show that has been monopolizing my spare time in recent weeks. The culmination of all our efforts will be summed up in three nights. If tonight was any indication, the two performances this weekend will be successful. Approximately 250 musical theatre enthusiasts attended tonight's show, so I expect that this will be the smallest crowd we will entertain this weekend.

But that's not what's bugging me. Actually, I was quite pleased with the outcome of tonight's show. What is eating at me has much to do with the camaraderie of the shows' performers.

I understand the merit in being kind to people. But performers are an insecure bunch. They are overly critical of their own performance -- and I'm no exception. I don't talk about it, but I scrutinize my every performance, noting every small error I make.

Because I am the sort of person who wants to achieve perfection, even though I know it is impossible to attain. It is my motivation to work harder, to study my instrument and deconstruct it to its' bare elements.

In order for me to pull off such a show requires a great deal of mental focus. 30 minutes prior to the performance, I am concentrating on the music, going over last-minute details so I can deliver the best I possibly can, to those who paid good money to see the show.

Perhaps other people notice this, as one of tonight's performers spoke to me mere minutes before the curtain went up and told me that I had this "awful scowl" on my face. In response to the observation, I smiled, loosened up a bit and told her I was in a good mood, to forgive my awful complexion, and that I was channeling my energies.

I felt I played well tonight, but it was far from a perfect performance. Still, in the last few days, members of the chorus -- many of them whom I have never met, and wouldn't know them if I ran into them on the street, have been telling me (in passing), how much they loved the sound of my drums, or how I played.

Of course I did the right thing, and told them "thank you".

I don't know where or when the complex developed, but when someone tells me how much they liked my playing, I can't help but think they are full of shit.

I mean, who listens to the drummer? I am no more than a foundation; a supporter. I am not the show, and I don't play a show like this to be noticed. I do like performing, but when I do a show like this I want to do my best to make the soloists look (and sound) good.

Perhaps the reason why I don't like people paying me compliments is that I think they are trying to kiss my ass.

But then, tonight I realized something important. How do I know that these performers are kissing my ass? Maybe they really were listening to me. More importantly, perhaps they were involved in a show in years past when the percussionist played poorly, or did not support the soloists, or played too loud and drowned the troupe out.

This is epistemology. How do I really know what these people thought of me? Yes, there is a contingent of performers that will kiss your ass, because they like theirs to be kissed in return. Some people like to give credit where it is due. Some people generally mean what they say, but truth-tellers are getting fewer and further between.

I consider myself to be a very humble person. There were approximately two times in tonight's performance when the Master of Ceremonies and the soloists recognized the bands' efforts, which of course, was met with fantastic applause from the attendees. Yes, these sorts of things are baited to elicit applause, and a part of me wanted to crawl inside my bass drum and hide, but all you are supposed to do is smile, like doing a show like this required no sacrifice on your behalf.

Yes I love to make music. I make too many sacrifices in my life (like sleep) so I can entertain audiences. I like it when people like me.

You like me; you really, really like me! I say, as I hold the world's smallest trophy.

Microsoft boss Bill Gates doesn't want to be the world's richest man - Yahoo! Canada News

2006-05-07T22:01:00.000-06:00

Microsoft boss Bill Gates doesn't want to be the world's richest man - Yahoo! Canada News

A thought came across my mind when I read this story. My thoughts had little to do with Bill Gates, but what he said at the very interview, made two cells in my brain rub together in concert.

Gates claims he wouldn't want to enter politics. That's fair enough; it's his perogative.

But then I got to wondering why doesn't Gates want to enter Politics, when it is largely regarded at the proverbial playground for the wealthy?

The answer came to me quickly. It's simple. It is greed and power. If you can land a place in public office you can vote on bills that may benefit, or adversely affect your wealth.

We know that absolute power corrupts absolutely, so if we extend the cliche to governments in power today, we see a never-ending cycle where those who are in power, do everything they can to remain in power. This has many faces, dictatorship, communism, fascism, socialism, even capitalism is based on this premise. If it is written in the Constitution that the leader must step down after a set number of terms (as in the US Government, for example), then the leader often does what he or she can so that his successor will remain in power.

Strange as it sounds, it is true. It's always about who is at the top of the pecking order, and to what lengths they will resort to, in order to stay at the very top.

As for power, I would say Gates holds a great deal of power. He can indirectly affect the Stock Market. He is, as he has been for at least 10 years, the world's wealthiest person. Why wouldn't he want to enter public office?

Well it's simple. He's already won. The only person that could (financially) touch Gates is Warren Buffett, and he's got one foot in the grave. Gates doesn't need public office to further best his position in the fortune race.

Discussing the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a $30-billion charity, is another matter altogether, and will have to wait for another post.

Say What?!

2006-05-07T21:40:00.000-06:00

I have no idea if I should run with this headline or not:

Bush's Best Moment as U.S. President Was Catching a Largemouth Bass

Reading the story, I sense the author tried to turn this into a smear campaign. The President was obviously joking.

This just goes to show you that creeps will go to no end to turn your every word against you. My loyal readers will tell you that I am no fan of Bush Jr., nor his political agenda. But I believe in giving him credit where it is due. Journalists will take any remark made in jest and contort it to sell newspapers. I have seen it happen countless times in my local newspaper.

Perhaps this issue goes a little deeper, that the problem lies not in the interviewee, but with the media conglomerate as a whole. You are damned if the media is privately owned; you are equally damned if the media is owned by the government. Perhaps the media should be held more accountable (or liable) for the content they choose to publish. There is such a thing as libel, which is taken very seriously, but when a journalist takes what is said out of context, they can make their readership believe anything they want.

The Breasts of Bodway -- Part 2

2006-05-07T21:08:00.000-06:00

I fear that there will be few postings by yours truly this week. If you frequent my tour dates link, you will know that I am performing at The Esplanade on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the "Best of Broadway" reprise. A show of this size and scope can't be delivered on a whim, and that's why I am involved in dress rehearsals all week.

It is going to be a long week chock full of late nights and early mornings. If you like Broadway Showtunes, and if you have the time, I suggest you buy a few tickets and bring a friend. I feel this show features some of Medicine Hat's best [musical and acting] talent. Tickets are available at the Esplanade Box Office, or by visiting www.tixx.ca.

You know when I return, I hope to have a bunch of photos. In addition, I will tell all my new and returning readers how the show went.

... That is, if there is any readership left by the end of this week.

Cheers!

I Shake My Head In Disbelief...

2006-05-06T17:24:00.000-06:00

In today's news:

What complete trash. You know it's a slow day in the news when this kind of tripe is published. Stop the world; I'm dizzy and I want off this ride.

Second Anniversary

2006-05-05T21:24:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of mcfro.blogspot.com. and what a strange year it's been. Everybody get out your cardboard hats and noisemakers, as we "ring in" this milestone.

It has also been a very successful year, as nearly 1700 visitors stopped by to see if yours truly had something important to say.

Critics will argue that the slope of the graph is in an obvious downward trend, but I digress; I think things are looking up. Since February, this site has seen an upward trend in site visits, and I expect the trend is going to continue.

If we compared and contrasted the performance of each month to the same month of the year previous, I am sure you would agree that the 2005-2006 year of mcfro.blogspot.com was -- on average -- more successful.

As I reflect on this previous year, and I look forward to the next one, a few things come to mind:

I should write more frequently. My personal and professional life is busier than what it was two years ago. I find it difficult to motivate myself when I push myself 12-14 hours per day. Writing then becomes a chore. I am dealing with a lot of fatigue, and most days, I find it difficult to sit down and write an entry, which often eats up at least an hour of my time.
I am surprised that I am still writing after two years. What a commitment it takes to maintain a website -- even one as simple as a blog. What keep me coming back, is of course, you -- my readership -- no matter how small it is.

...

...

It's coming to my attention that I have no energy left to write tonight. I should reserve any further musings about my life and my Sleepy (Hollow) town for another day.

My DAW Expands (Part 23; I've lost count)

2006-04-29T23:34:00.000-06:00

Editor's note: This has been a week of depressing blog entries. I thought I would lighten the mood a little with this post.

I have had the itch to spend some money in the last couple weeks, as the Savoys are on a 6-month hiatus, and I was hoping to put those earnings into good use, before I allocated those funds to paying bills.

On Thursday morning, Purolator arrived at my office, delivering a package to yours truly. The contents within were a pair of nearfield studio monitors. As you can see from the photo, what I purchased were Behringer Truth B2031A's.
Before I get into some gory details, I would like to explain, for the uninitiated, what monitors are, and why they are desirable. You see, studio monitors are constructed in such a way that they realistically reproduce the most accurate sound possible. Believe it or not, but those home theater speakers that you blew a few paychecks on are built to sound "bigger" than they actually are. It's no secret, but subwoofers are now included in a lot of home theater packages to cover up the corners they cut in designing your main listening speakers.

The most neutral speakers are those designed to reproduce the same volume at all frequencies. Audiophiles will call this a "flat speaker" -- and what makes this so desirable in recording studios is that it will mean that the mix produced on these types of monitors will likely sound good on almost any system.

Many listeners do not like the sound of studio monitors the first time they hear them. That's because they have been conditioned to hearing "bombastic" sounds, with a lot of bass; they aren't used to listening to speakers that will reproduce all frequencies at [nearly] the same volume.

I humbly admit that I am an audiophile, and I wish to have the best sound I can afford if I am listening to music, or producing music on my own. For many years, I have been researching studio monitors, waiting for a time when I could afford a good pair that was within my budget. These are key words here.

Studio monitors come at all price points. You can get a cheap pair for about $300, though many models cost ten times as much. Price was an important factor, as I wanted to get the best bang for my buck. I found it very hard to justify spending nearly $2000 on a pair of Mackie HR-824's. Conversely, I didn't want to buy a pair of speaks that I would be unhappy with.

After much deliberation, I decided the model that I would be most happy with, both acoustically and economically were the Behringer Truths'. These speakers promised to deliver 95% the sound quality of the Mackies, but at 25% the cost. I was sold on the Behringers as soon as I read the specs and features.

The Behringers came loaded with a 450-watt system -- 150 watts dedicated to each woofer, and 75 watts to each tweeter. A large number of switches on the back would allow the studio engineer to tailor the sound of the speakers to the room acoustics. Automatic power-saving features, and built-in limiters to control signal spikes were also very desirable features. Finally, the speakers displayed a surprisingly flat frequency curve, as demonstrated on the final photograph.

As I gleefully unpacked my new purchase after work on Thursday I quickly noticed that these speakers are deceptively heavy. The speakers are only about 18" high, 12" wide, and 12" deep, but they weigh in at 33 pounds each. The weight is largely due to the large magnets used to amplify the signal and drive the speakers. Given my small frame, you bet I was relieved when the speakers were delivered in two boxes.

I soon had the speakers mounted on my desk, connected them to the audio interface on my computer, and plugged in Matt Good's Avalanche to test them.

Within 2 seconds I was blown away with the detail, large soundstage, and clarity the speakers produced. I heard details in music that I had never heard before. I could hear minute breaths in a singer's performance; I could hear their lips pursing and smacking as they prepared to deliver their next line. I could swear I was hearing music in three dimensions (which isn't possible in a stereo system). I barely opened up the speakers, running them at about 40% of full power, and it was so loud that it hurt my ears. The Truths produce crisp, detailed highs, with a lot of midrange, and ample bass. In fact, many listeners would think that so much bass could come out of a pair of 9" woofers. There's a lot of bass -- but not the boomy kind that you hear in car stereos. This is a very tight, controlled bass.

So how did they sound? In one sentence, they blew my Bose 201's out of the water.Within a few hours, MA came over to jam, and drink a few beverages. He was excited to hear my new speakers. I had him sit in the sweet spot, popped in a CD, and turned the Behringer's up to a comfortably loud listening level.

MA is an audiophile, so he would be a tough person to win over -- especially such a product that is not considered to be "top of the line". His reaction should have been captured on video. Within 2 seconds, MA nearly fell off his chair, shaking his head in disbelief. I swear I saw a tear drop. To say he was totally blown away would be an understatement. We spent the remainder of the evening drinking beers, relishing in musical bliss. After some four hours of listening to music at a decibel level that should have damaged our ears, we were surprised that once the music had been turned off, that our ears weren't ringing. The Behringer Truths delivered such accurate sound, that it wasn't harsh -- and harsh tweeters are usually the culprit in giving any listener hearing damage.

Conversely, I will profess that these are not the best speakers I have heard in my life. But for the buck, I can say that there are few products that could compete with the Truths. They give speakers at much higher price points a run for their money -- they really are that good. There are limitations though. The highs begin to get harsh at high volumes. The bass frequency only goes down to 50Hz. If you like listening to rumble, or are into producing Hip Hop, Electronica, or any other styles of music with a lot of bass, you might want to invest in a subwoofer, like the Behringer B2092A, which will produce frequencies down to 30Hz -- which is below the threshold of human hearing. Beware the sub though: When you introduce a third speaker into your listening system you have to worry about phase cancellation, and much greater care must be taken to accurately tune your speaker system.

Forgive the pun, but the truth is that I don't want to listen to music on any other system; only the one that sits in front of my computer.

Like Begets Like

2006-04-29T00:53:00.000-06:00

I have promised myself to curtail entries related to the Medicine Hat triple homicide, but it is a hot topic, and a quick blog search has found a lot of bloggers are discussing this, and some of it I found to be unsettling.

According to Carnacki, one of the authors of The Mystery of the Haunted Vampire, explains the two alleged killers initially met online at a Goth/Industrial friend-finding site (not unlike mySpace or Buzznet) called Vampire Freaks.

I am a bit of a curious sort, so I navigated to the Vampire Freaks site, and went hunting for profiles belonging to the accused. It didn't take long to find them. Their profiles did little to excite me, interests were riddled with violence, hatred and other ilk associated with the Goth subculture. Had the events of this week not transpired, I would have dismissed their interests as fiction. It bothers me to think that these two people might have been so impressionable that they actually believed in the demented messages of the artists they admired. My opinion is purely subjective, as I have never met the accused murderers; I have no idea what drove them to (allegedly) murder three people in cold blood.

These profile pages a not much different than sites of similar ilk. There is room for registered members to leave messages for everyone to read. Both his and her profile had very few messages on their profiles -- that is, until news of the slayings became national news. Then the comments flowed like the blood that must have soaked that living room floor red.

Vile and abusive comments were plenty and frequent. Many comments threatened bodily harm, even death as a means of vengeance.

I don't know why people do this... Are they really that stupid? Are they really that angry at the accused? Or is it because the anonymity of the internet allows people with no common sense to act so childish? Furthermore, there is little point in leaving these abusive comments, as the accused do not have the means (anymore) to read them.

If people feel the need to vent, they should do so constructively. Why do you think I've been blogging about this all week?

The Propagation of Fear

2006-04-28T23:27:00.000-06:00

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes another reader finds the thoughts you write on your blog powerful enough that they feel obliged to comment and link you on their blog. I hope I made some sense, as I was quite drunk at the time I wrote that post. Mucho karma goes to Juniper for the gesture of kindness. While we are talking about her, I suggest you navigate to her latest post, where she discusses her feelings and thoughts about the Goth / Vampire subculture.

I would like to protect the identity of Juniper, but readers should decipher the fact that we are from the same community. Juniper and I go way back, perhaps some twelve or thirteen years, when we first became friends. Though I can't remember the last time we saw one another, we still frequent each other's blogs as a means of "playing catch-up".

The triple homicide in my city has given my little website a surge in traffic. I am getting a lot of readers who are researching the massacre, and trying to dig up as much dirt as they can find. Sorry readers, no dirt on the Medicine Hat Massacre, only facts. I have been sued once, and that was one time too many. I'll keep the libel to a minimum, thank you very much.

The police are still being very tight-lipped about their investigation, which is keeping readers and the media salivating at their feet. Local authorities are saying additional charges could be laid, though they are not saying what those charges are, and whom they would be laid against. Members of the Goth subculture are saying that they are already being singled out, getting nasty or pious looks from strangers, perhaps even receiving threats.

I was right when I said in my last post that this would strike more fear into an already terrified community. And this fear isn't going to go away. It will return in waves. I expect that the trial will go on for months. If convicted, Steinke will likely receive a maximum sentence. The 12-year old daughter, being a young offender, will get a far less severe sentence. She will be released when she turns 18 (if not, sooner), and will receive tabula rasa. There will be a media circus, pending her release, solely to remind the locals of the terror that tore the very fabric of our community. I hope that once she is released, that she never returns to Medicine Hat. Not so much due to the potential of someone seeking vengeance against her, but so those who have been affected by these murders -- and the community as a whole -- can put the past behind them and move on.

Giving a young offender a second chance is Canadian Law, but the Young Offenders Act is obviously broken, and needs a rewrite soon. A 12-year old knows better; taking the life of another human being is legally and morally wrong. I believe if you commit an adult crime, you should be doing adult time.

Hanging onto the past isn't necessarily a good thing, and it is something I do, much to my chagrin. I find it convenient that United 93 opened in theaters today. I consider it to be little more than propaganda -- a means of re-kindling American patriotism, and further justify American military presence in foreign nations, by reopening closed wounds.

I have no plans to see United 93. Ever. It's time to quit brooding; it's time to put the past behind us and rebuild -- but that doesn't mean we have to forget.

Pride, Prejudice, and Death

2006-04-25T23:50:00.001-06:00

See, my sister got raped, so a man got killed,
Local boy went to prison; the man's buried on the hill,
Folks went back to normal when the closed the case,
But they still stare at their shoes when they pass our place. -- The Tragically Hip

As the stomach turns in my sleepy hometown, some juicy new tidbits of information have been released in the Medicine Hat triple homicide, which made national headlines yesterday. I am unsure if the news was official, but CBC Radio publicly stated the 12-year old girl that was arrested in connection of the triple murder was in fact, the daughter of the slain man and woman, and the biological sister to the pre-teen male, whom was also killed either late Saturday night, or early Sunday morning.

This also means that to protect the identity of the youth who was charged in this case, the names of the deceased cannot be released to the public. But that protection of confidential information has already been blown wide open, as local media have already published names of the deceased.

Medicine Hat News, I would highly suggest contacting your insurance broker and your legal counsel; the potential to have a claim against you for publishing what is considered to be confidential information may be in the works.

But that isn't what I wanted to discuss here. Even us internet journalists -- "bloggers" we are often called, have to play ball by the rules.

But somehow, journalists think that it is in their divine right to disseminate information that is little more than filler; designed only to sell newspapers and inject even more fear into an already frightened community.

What I heard this afternoon on Wild Rose Country, a CBC Calgary Talk Show, made me so angry, it nearly made me sick. The host, Donna McElligott, interviewed two Medicine Hat News Journalists, who were covering the Medicine Hat massacre. One of the guests, Tenille Tellman, explained to McElligott and the CBC listeners how she researched the persona of the adult accused, Jeremy Steinke.

Interviews with area citizens who knew of the accused described to Tellman that Steinke and the 12-year old female were "Goth", or "Vampires". To further explain this subculture to her readers and listeners, Tellman explained that she researched the internet, and though she did not disclose -- to my knowledge -- the sites she searched, she explained she entered "Medicine Hat" into a search box and found some sixty-odd registered members who published public profiles on the web. She did not indicatecite if Steinke had an on-line profile, however she did indicate that she found a large presence of these "goths" or "vampires", who dress in black clothing, wear black makeup, engage in scarification or other forms of self mutilation, and listen to stark, depressive, or otherwise angry music.

It was about then that I switched off the radio, which (conveniently) was about five seconds before I would have ripped it out of the dash of my car and would have thrown it out the window.

I consider this to be journalism of the lowest common denominator, and Tellman should have known better. What Tellman accomplished in her public address on CBC Calgary radio this afternoon was classify this triple murder in the same category as the Columbine Massacre, and to a lesser extent, the Taber Shooting (more than likely, due to geography).

With respect to the accused being considered of being members of the "goth" subculture, I have two words for Tellman and the rest of the world: So what?

So what if the accused dressed in black clothing? So what if they wear black makeup? So what if they pierce, tattoo, brand or otherwise mutilate their bodies? So what if they listen to music like Marilyn Manson?

Instead, what was accomplished was instilling more fear into a community that is already scared senseless. Would it have made any difference if the two people accused in this murder case wore oversized clothing and listened to Rap music? Would it have made a difference if they wore fashionable clothes and tried to blend in with people of their own age groups? Would it have made a difference if the color of their skin were different? It shouldn't; but it does.

The community of Medicine Hat is a small one, with less than 60,000 residents. There are a higher-than-average percentage of senior residents in this city, and it is -- largely -- a religious community. I can almost hear the sermons at the churches this Sunday, as evangelist preachers will rant about the evils of the "Devil music", and how it poisoned the minds of the accused, and drove them to murder those three people in cold blood. I can see the reaction of this -- as it has already begun -- as the residents of Medicine Hat will have a greater fear and resentment to those who dress in black clothing and wear black makeup.

I imagine more violence will rise out of this tragedy, that fearful and ignorant residents will pick fights with these "goths" on the sole assumption that if they look the same, they must act the same, or at the very least, hold the same beliefs.

I want to say this for the record: Why are the "goths" being singled out as mindless bloodthirsty barbarians? This is prejudicim, and it is wrong. Why should they be looked upon as if they were some sort of religious cult? Most "goths" are no different that any other subculture; they just wish to stick out, rather than blend into their surroundings.

In my teenaged years, and young adulthood, I noticed that my peers had two types of personality traits: some wanted to not be noticed, and others wanted to stand out against the grain. In other words, there were trend setters, the trend followers -- which we often referred to as Lemmings. In this case, I cannot say whether Steinke et al. were considered as trend setters or trend followers, but I can safely say that they didn't want to be referred to as part of the masses.

If a person wants to dress a certain way, there must be some reason. One thing that I have been trying to come to terms with in recent years is to determine why people do the things they do to themselves. By this, I mean, that I don't understand how a person can be so unhappy with their self-image, or their life, that they must resort to tattooing, piercing, or cutting themselves in order to make themselves feel more attractive. The only conclusion I can surmise is that these acts of pain are -- in some way -- sexually gratifying for them.

But this doesn't make them cold-blooded killers; and neither does the music they listen to.

In my youth, and formative teenaged years, I had witnessed so much prejudice, ethnocentrism, and racism that I decided to do something about it. I went on a crusade, grew my hair long, dressed in offensive clothing and did my best to educate everyone I knew about the wrongs of "judging a book by its' cover". When I look upon it, I became so involved in my beliefs that I began to preach to anyone who cared to listen.

I spent much of my young adulthood talking to my peers, and I managed to knock some sense into many of them. It was obvious; at first many of them were scared by my appearance, and after time, they began to appreciate and respect the golden heart that existed under my fearful appearance. I cannot count the number of times a person had said to me: "You know, when I first met you, I thought you were scary, were an asshole, were violent, were some Devil-worshipping ingrate, but now that I know you, I have discovered that you are one of the kindest people I have ever met". This was the point where my brain would exclaim: "Hallelujah! We have converted another infidel!"

To bring my rant back into perspective, I am sick and tired of the ignorant masses categorizing subcultures, thus creating a moral panic into the community. The media is such a powerful tool, and it allows those with the [publishing] power to instill fear into the masses, and this is a product of circumstances the masses don't understand. By this I mean that the masses don't understand why some people choose to dress in black clothes and black makeup -- which is exactly the same reason why they don't understand why some people drink alcohol, or abuse drugs. It's the same reason why they don't understand why some religions don turbans.

It's ignorance, pure and simple. And I have had enough of this uneducated intolerance.

We can't migrate beyond the facts, and the facts are that the two people accused in the local massacre were a 23 year-old male and the 12-year old daughter of the deceased. The clothes they wore, and the music they listened to -- is irrelevant information.

And the same goes to the "Trenchcoat Mafia".

Please prevent the spread of fear. Use your brain.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

2006-04-24T20:34:00.000-06:00

I can't believe the news today;
I can't close my eyes and make it go away -- U2

My hometown is generally a peaceful, quiet place. I don't have to worry about getting mugged on the street for 25 cents, the street gangs (if any) keep themselves out of sight, drug dealers and pushers keep low profiles, and even prostitutes are hard to identify on the street at night.

When a triple homicide happens within a city block of the house you grew up in, you begin to have your doubts about the safety of your neighborhood. In fact the whole city takes notice.

On second thought, the whole Country takes notice.

This photograph of the murder site has hit front-page newspapers across the country. When I fired up my web browser this evening, staring at me on my home page was the haunting photograph of the house down the street; entangled in Police security tape.

For much of today, Police were tight-lipped about the investigation, but once two suspects were apprehended in Saskatchewan, details began to emerge. A good friend of mine, who happens to have a high-ranking position within the Medicine Hat Police Force, had the grisly task of releasing the details to the media in a news conference this afternoon.

The bodies of a middle-aged man, a middle-aged female, and a pre-teenaged male were discovered at the residence yesterday. No details of the cause of death have yet been released.

Today, Jeremy Allan Steinke, 23, and a 12-year old female were arrested in rural Saskatchewan and each have been charged with three counts of first-degree murder.

This has hit me like a football in the groin. My heart goes out to the families of the deceased -- and I have never met them. I hope the families can find some solace at this dark time, and return to their daily routines once the emotional wounds close. I hope they can find it in their hearts to forgive the two suspects that trespassed them, as it is the Christian thing to do. I believe that the suspects, if convicted, will be charged to the fullest extent of the law.

I may post some additional thoughts on the matter once more details of the triple homicide are released. At this point, I am going to have a drink in the victims' honor, and spend the evening in silence.

BackityMac Now Offers CD/DVD Burning Support

2006-04-16T13:10:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a new backup solution called BackityMac. I was quite pleased to learn that the author has now offered CD/DVD burning support in the latest version of the software.

Whimsplucky has been receptive to the relative success of his product, posting an update to the program nearly every week. Each version includes tweaks and bugfixes, as well as listening to the community for suggestions for further improvement in his product.

I consider this to be a great, no-frills, simple backup solution for those who don't know the Library folder very well, or know how to manually locate our email files, Address Book resource files, or iCal calendars (I luckily do).

At this point, BackityMac is becoming a very solid competitor in the Backup utility market, but there is room for improvement.

I am still a fan of incremental backups. It speeds up the backup process significantly (that is, after the initial backup). I however, am unsure if a disk image file will support incremental backups, as it is a "read only" file once it is compiled. To offer such support might require the program to migrate to another form of archiving, such as .tar or .gzip, and that may be undesirable from the programmers' perspective. This may also impact the users ability to encrypt their archive, a feature I find most desirable.

One small change in the program that shouldn't require too much work would be the inclusion of one more checkbox, that would allow the user to select if they wanted their Desktop folder backed up. I consider this important, as I often keep a number of "active files" on my desktop. These files are either archived or deleted once I am finished with them, but I consider them to be essential files which I would dearly miss if they went missing.

Here is another concern: The user can choose to back up their iTunes Library. Does this mean only the iTunes folder is backed up, or is the entire Music folder backed up as well? I ask this because I use Garageband frequently, and I have Gigabytes worth of digital audio that I would hate to see go missing in the event of a crash. I plan on purchasing Logic, and wonder if this backup solution would support these files as well. Speaking of the iTunes Library, I should search the release notes, as I am curious if BackityMac also backs up the iTunes Library .xml files, so that the users' playcounts and ratings are preserved.

I assume that a "Full Home Folder" backup would accomplish these tasks, and I might be able to use that feature once I have an external SATA - Firewire drive enclosure in my possession. My home folder is insanely huge, and it would likely take me an entire day to back up my Home folder and burn it to DVD-RW. I likely don't have enough burnable media to facilitate such a backup, but that's another matter altogether.

Overall, BackityMac is still one of the best solutions out there for Mac users. Since its' initial release it has been a Universal binary, thus it has been optimized for both PowerPC and Intel platforms, which makes it an ideal choice for those who have brand-new Macs. As this application is donationware, the price can't be beat -- you choose the amount you wish to donate. I gave Whimsplucky a healthy donation.

I look forward to seeing what new features will be included in upcoming versions of this program.

UPDATE: BackityMac seems to hang when I create an encrypted archive. I am not sure if this is a BackityMac issue, or if there is a problem with Disk Utility, which creates encrypted disk images. I might have to repair permissions before conducting another backup.

One Door Closes...

2006-04-10T23:29:00.000-06:00

And another one opens. That is the way of things; the way of the Force. And it is also the way of a gigging musician.

This weekend marked the final performance of the Savoys -- at least for the 2005-2006 season. For those who managed to drop by one of our performances over the past fall and winter, on behalf of all bandmates, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If it wasn't for your support, for your kind words, for the drinks you bought us, or for your applause, we wouldn't be where we are today. We gig because we love performing; we gig because we love the attention; we gig because we love you all. It is one of the best highs in the world -- to be recognized and to be appreciated.

Our last three performances were at the Cecil Hotel. This was not the first time I had the pleasure of working at the Cecil. If my memory serves me correctly, I played there last year.
The Cecil is the kind of place that nearly anything can happen, and there were definitely moments when I thought I had seen it all, only to realize moments later that I was only naive to think so.

Take for instance, Friday night. It may have been after midnight, but for all intents and purposes the time it happened is irrelevant. There was a couple at the bar, for what appeared to be spending a romantic evening out. From my vantage point, which happened to be a stage at the far end of the bar, it appeared that they were in their early to mid twenties. I didn't think they were too drunk, but I soon found my estimations to be incorrect.

We were well into our performance, filling the bar with old-school blues when this old Cougar decided to look for some prey. When I say Cougar, I mean it. It was obvious that she had been around the block a few dozen times. She had to be in her mid to late fifties -- her hair was fried from home perms, and had the brownish-grey tinge of mouse fur. Her face had been wrinkled from too many cigarettes and hard nights. I don't even recall what she was wearing; she was unsightly; repulsive.

And apparently, quite horny.

The male half of our young, cute couple must have had a great deal to drink. The cougar caught sight of him and somehow convinced him to dance with her. I am unsure if his date for the evening had any say, as I didn't take notice until later. Now the age spread between the two was noticeable, she easily was old enough to be his mother -- which I first took notice when the two of them took to the dance floor.

It only took a minute or so until the Cougar went in for the kill. All I saw was the beautiful, young blonde who accompanied the prey to the bar, throw a fit, and march up to the dancing couple. The cougar was in the process of inspecting the young male's tonsils with her tongue. The young blonde pushed the two of them apart, and proceeded to beat the piss out of her date.

The cougar seemed indifferent to the violent exchange between the two -- even though the blame so clearly fell on her shoulders. After standing on the dance floor, alone for a few minutes, she sauntered to the seating area, presumably to ensnare another victim.

I didn't see what happened to the young couple, but I am sure their relationship was seriously damaged afterwards. I have such a hard time believing that the guy couldn't see what he was kissing. If she tried anything like that with me, she would have been pushed away and abandoned before she could use her tongue for anything more than speaking.

All I can think is that the beer goggles he was wearing must have had an awfully strong prescription that night.

The final gig is the one where emotions run high. I have a tendency to get a little emotional nearing the end of the last performance, but Saturdays' gig didn't end with the shedding of a couple tears like I had expected. Part of that may be attributed to the fact that I kept my alcohol consumption in check, as I had to transport all my gear home.

From the opening notes of the first song Saturday night, I knew it was going to be a magical performance. Everything began to click. The band melded into the most solid groove we ever had. I soon became amazed at the consistency of our performance. We were playing on a lever that we had never achieved before. The solos were spectacular, the groove was deep and solid, and the time never wavered.

As far as my drumming was concerned, I believe it was the best playing I have ever done in front of an audience.

And the only thing that bothered me about this fact was that the bar patrons were completely indifferent to our presence. They likely cared less what material we played -- in fact I wondered if they cared that we were even there at all.

The Cecil is the bar in town that likely has the cheapest alcohol prices. That being said, it attracts crowds of the lowest common denominator: problem drinkers. These are the people that binge until they can no longer stand, or speak with an ounce of coherency. They might as well be wallowing in their own urine, and if they were, they likely wouldn't care. Fights occur frequently, which is amplified by the factors that the bartenders don't cut anyone off, nor do they keep bouncers on staff. In such places, I do my best to keep to myself, avoid eye contact, and stay out of the way.

I am a little saddened that the Savoys will not perform again for six months, but the hiatus comes at the most convenient of times. I can now dedicate more time to my students, which will be performing in a recital situation within a months' time. The Best of Broadway reprise will be taking place in a month, and there are a number of rehearsals I will have to attend for that show. Lastly, but not least, this will allow MA and I to begin collaborating again and put together our Classic Rock act. The next few months are going to be very busy.

I said this last year, and I am going to say it again: When the Hell am I going to do my taxes?