Visiting Max Mathews at the Computer History Museum (now with photos!)

Sunday I went to a special event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. They hosted an event called "A celebration of Max Mathews and 50 years of Computer Music".

Max Mathews is one of the first people to see the potential of the computer as musical instrument, and was one of the first to use it to generate sound. He also invented the "radio baton", a kind of hybrid instrument/controller.

He is a giant in the field of electronic and computer music (the software package "Max/MSP" is named for him). He's 80 years old. And I got to meet him. And see him play violin with another old friend - Jon Appleton.

Jon was my musical mentor at Dartmouth College. I took any class he taught, and completed an independent study with him as well as taking courses from his electro-acoustic music graduate program. He had tremendous impact on my music and life - something I have yet to properly thank him for.

I had not seen him since 1991 - it's been 16 years! Jon left Dartmouth not too long ago and took a position out in Stanford, so I figured it was just a matter of time before I got to see him. This event at the Computer History Museum was perfect - he'd be speaking, performing, and there'd be a reception. I am pleased to report that he remembered who I was and that we were able to chat briefly.

Jon also introduced me to a few of the many electronic music pioneers there, including a (re-)introduction to Jean-Claude Risset, who had been a guest lecturer at several of my classes at Dartmouth and John Chowning, the acknowledged discoveror of FM synthesis (below are Risset and Chowning).

Also in attendance were Tom Oberheim and Roger Linn, both friends of Jon's. Roger was sitting in front of me during the concert and spent the whole show shooting photos with his arms crossed in front of him. His head is in several of the shots I took. I wanted to ask him about his upcoming "Boomchik" drum machine project with Dave Smith, but the opportunity never arose.

Turning around in my seat to see if I knew anyone else, I found myself staring right at ambient music legend Robert Rich. We started talking and it turns out we had a common friend in Phillip Blackford. Such a small world!

The speeches were more or less interesting. Jon's was by far the best, as it was both brief and entertaining. Max Mathews also gave a brief talk. He's the sharpest 80-year-old I've seen in a long time. Gives one hope about growing old.

The pieces were also great. Jon and Max actually played a duet (shown in the top photo - that's Jon on the left, Max on the right, and Roger Linn's giant head in the middle) - Max played violin while Jon conducted using the radio baton. There were a few tape pieces. An interesting duet between a DVD "worm" and an attractive young woman on radio baton. And a piece for clarinet, bass clarinet, and recordings of processed clarinet. Very interesting. Just being in that environment hearing that stuff took me back to college.

I wish I could have stayed a bit longer to meet more folks at the reception, but it was getting late, a long drive back up to the city, and my left leg (which has been very sore lately) was acting up, so I called it a night.

A great time out. I hope to see Jon again soon for dinner or something, and was pleased I got to meet so many people I consider famous!

A picture's worth

Personal Life Media

One of the better things about getting older and wiser is everybody else I know has gotten older, too. Some have even gotten wiser.

Tim Bratton is someone who's been wise for a long time. He was instrumental in the development of my professional career. He and his wife Susan Bratton are a true Silicon Valley power couple - true entrepreneurs. I've known them for at least 10 years(!) and they are always looking for new business ideas.

Yesterday they launched their latest venture: Personal Life Media.

It's a sort of combination of Podcasting, motivational presentations, and lifestyle content. In their words:

Personal Life Media is the first network created for the so-called “cultural creatives” market segment: those who share common attitudes that value life-long learning, self-actualization, authenticity, idealism, activism, a global perspective, ecology, the importance of women, altruism and spirituality.

...The new network provides socially-conscious lifestyle content on issues central to our lives: relationships, dating, marriage, intimacy, life purpose, wealth creation, healthy aging and longevity. Additional areas of interest including life coaching, ecology, sustainable living, new music, beauty innovation and cosmetic surgery, passion at work and play, ethical sales and business practices, spirituality, personal and global transformation. Tantra, Kama Sutra and expanded lovemaking are also featured in the debut programming.
Nineteen show hosts produce fifteen weekly audio shows distributed online for download or streaming and in iTunes, on iPods and MP3 players.

They plan to include advertising for revenue generation. I think there are some other opportunities here, too - some people will be willing to pay for quality subscription content, and I am willing to bet that some content providers would be willing to serialize their existing content or create new content as infomercials or "advertising" for DVDs and books.

While the content isn't my personal cup of tea, I think the business makes sense - when people want to change their lives, regular, daily reinforcement is key. I think the Brattons also have a good feel for their target market, and this is reflected in their choice of material.

The idea of replacing cassettes with Podcasts is an obvious one. Personal Life Media has figured out where the money in those replaced cassettes really is, and suggests a path where users can ultimately get customized, personalized content in the future.

The site still has a few rough edges (I always find stock photography somewhat painful; the "your show here" seems a bit out of place; it's too hard to find the latest downloads), but for a small-company launch, this looks promising.

Congratulations, Tim and Susan!

Decayed, Decayed = Done

I have finished my record for the RPM Challenge.

I am very proud to give you "Decayed, Decayed". That link will get you a ~60 MB zip file containing 192 kbps MP3s of the tracks comprising the record. It also includes a PDF file of the liner notes.

I am using Blurb.com to create hardback books of the liner notes (the PDF is their comp). Includes tons of photos, all lyrics, and the blog entries I wrote while creating this record.

If you're interested in one, let me know and I can tell you what it costs. You'll also get an audio CD of full-quality files mixed into a single gapless album.

This was a challenging and exciting project. I hope you enjoy it!

Fitness update

I've been meaning to post a follow-up regarding my fitness situation.

Since November, I've lost over 10 lbs. I currently weigh about 172 and have gotten my body fat under 19%. People are noticing that I've lost weight, which is great, and I feel much better now that I don't need new pants!

I'm going to keep at it - just not as hard core - and try and get below 170. My blood pressure is also back into a normal/safe range, so we can consider this more or less done for now.

Hooray me!

I have accepted the challenge

The RPM Challenge, that is. You can follow in great detail on my page there. I will also post notable milestones and stuff here, too.

Here's what I wrote for my first blog entry there:

Alright, let's do this.

Why?

Having spent so much time over the last few years returning to pop/rock songwriting and singing, shifting over to something new like "hip-hop" is both refreshing and a bit intimidating. Of course, it's going to be my version of hip-hop, but that's what makes it interesting for me, and presumably for the listeners.

The challenge is that I am trying hard to make something with artistic value - it's far too easy for me to just crap out something that sounds like music. I could bang out 10 1-minute songs (like The Residents' "Commercial Album") in an afternoon. I could do a 35-minute improvisation in, well, 35 minutes. But that's a cop-out. I want to make a real record.

I've been kicking around the idea of a record called "Decayed, Decayed" for a while. I've been making music for over 20 years - two decades. I'm also getting old. Entropy wins. Things fall apart. I thought it might be fun to write some "answers" to songs I've written during my life. Create something about disintegration - of my self, of the world, of life - we live in apocalyptic times. And tip my hat to rap and hip-hop, as well as some old favorites.

"Rock is dead." "Hip-Hop is the new rock." Does it then follow that Hip-Hop is dead?

I remember being completely blown away hearing "The Message" in grade school. I grew up breakdancing to Run-D.M.C., grooving to Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" (the scratching in it changed my life, seriously), and thrilling to the music technology used in so much early hip-hop. That stuff just seemed so much more inventive, exciting, and futuristic than boring old guitars and drums. Tracks like Afrika Bambaataa's "Looking for the Perfect Beat" and "Planet Rock" sat on mix tapes next to Thomas Dolby and Gary Numan.

I hacked together a mixer out of stereo components and Radio Shack cables and destroyed many records making my own "scratch dubs" and cassette edits. My brother and I "discovered" the Beastie Boys via the "She's On It" 12-inch single before "Licensed To Ill" dropped. Everyone else hated it - we loved it.

In college, I dug into Public Enemy around the same time I dug into the original MC - musique concrete as created by Pierre Henri and Pierre Schaeffer. I also started listening to alternative electronic groups like Nitzer Ebb and Suicide, who seemed to have something in common with hip-hop and Detroit techno. Minimal, stark tracks consisting of little more than a drum machine, bass synth, and somebody whispering, talking, or screaming.

A few months ago I started thinking about what sort of record I wanted to make after finishing my faux new wave epic with Sid Luscious and The Pants. All these thoughts went bouncing around in my head. I thought about some of the new hip-hop that I really like - DJ Shadow and the Mo' Wax gang, Missy Elliott, The Coup. I figured I'd give it a try.

Then the RPM Challenge came along. Hip-hop is the news - it should be made fast and disposed of fast.

Alright. Let's do this. Here we go.

Comments in Moderation

Just this weekend, I realized I actually had some comments from real people and not SpamBots. I turned 'em all on. I promise to be more vigilant about that in the future, so the 3 or 4 of you who are actually reading this can both make comments and see them show up.

A few days in the life

Over the last month, I've managed to get down to 177 pounds. My blood pressure is more or less 120/80. Some days the systolic is a bit higher, some days the diastolic. Definitely moving in the right direction. A few more pounds to go. I'm hangin' in there.

Work is settling down a little bit. Or at least I'm hitting it with a better attitude.

Going on a little vacation soon, away from all of this San Francisco madness. Iran will be done with school in a few more days and then there's...oh man, holiday shopping. I need to take care of that.

What do you all want?

Me, I know I'm hard to shop for. I made one of those Amazon gift lists, but no one ever buys me stuff from it. Friends and family say it all looks like homework. What can I say? I am a sucker for books that I can pretend make me smarter and slightly less-crappy-sounding versions of CDs I already own!

My Top 10 Albums of 2006

Here's my list of the 10 new albums I enjoyed most in 2006. This doesn't mean I listened to them the most, just that I made it all the way through at least once and didn't say "oh man that sucked."

1. Scott Walker - "The Drift"One of the weirdest things I've heard in a long time. Mysterious, disturbing, beautiful. A David Lynch movie in music, all the more remarkable because it's made by a guy who was a pop star in the 60's. Apparently recorded with no compression! "It's a swanky suuuuuit..."
   
2. Tim Hecker - "Harmony In Ultraviolet"
   You only need one Tim Hecker album. This is it. Ambient. Sounds like the music of the spheres played over a static-y radio. Any track is as good as any other, and the album itself works great in sequence or shuffle.
   
   
3. The Church - "Uninvited, Like The Clouds"
   Same shit they always do. I really like about half of it. "Block" and "Song To Go" (the first and last tracks) are great. Good production, nice guitar playing, and their typical semi-psychedelic lyrics.
   
   
   
4. The Knife - "Silent Shout"Yeah, it's pretty much the same song over and over again, but that one song is pretty good. Clever use of limited/unique pallette. You definitely only need one record by this band. Having checked out their others, they're all pretty much the same.
   
   
5. TV On The Radio - "Return To Cookie Mountain"
   Soul/Indie. Not solid the whole way through, but interesting. This is one of those "gimmes" - pretty much everyone making a list this year stuck this one on there. It's good, not great. So everybody includes it.
   
   
6. Mastodon - "Blood Mountain"
   My heavy metal favorite this year. These guys are great. Not as good as Leviathan, but better than 95% of anything else that came out with distorted guitars and yelling this year. Not as derivative as Wolfmother, but not as catchy, either.
   
   
7. Tom Waits - "Orphans"
   It's Tom Waits. He puts most other songwriters to shame, even with his "odds and sods". Another gimme that everyone put on their list this year. I don't know if anyone can actually listen to 3 CDs of his 'junkyard blues" back-to-back, but in smaller doses, he's unbeatable.
   
   
8. Tie between "Pick a Bigger Weapon" by The Coup and "Mo'Mega" by Mr. Lif
   Neither one of these hip-hop albums is great the whole way through. But if you took the best halves of each, you'd have something. No thuggery here. Some thoughtful, angry, and catchy hip-hop. Try "We Are The Ones" from The Coup's album and "The Fries" from Lif's joint.
   
9. Wolfmother - "Wolfmother"
   They really like old Black Sabbath, Zep, and AC/DC. Do you? Not particularly inventive, but blissfully free of the tongue-in-cheekery that kept anyone from really enjoying The Darkness.

So there you go. There were some other albums that were contenders - Neil Young's campaign ad "Living With War". There were also a bunch of records (like every year) that people hyped to death which completely mystified me. Coming soon: the list of non-2006 things I "discovered" in 2006.

Arnold's Law

We're all familiar with Murphy's Law.

Recently I've become more familiar with what I am calling "Arnold's Law":

No matter how full or empty the locker room is, once you pick a locker, someone will appear next to you needing to get into the locker occluded by your locker door.

I've been spending a lot of time at the gym lately and found this to be ridiculously true. Hell, the gym can be closed and someone still seems to appear out of nowhere. It's nuts.

Anyhow, work is settling down a bit - part of it is the usual end-of-year "nothing's going on". Part of it is my group is just in a bit of a lull. Regardless, it's a nice change. Lots of other big pieces moving around, but I am not heavily involved (yet).

I haven't spent much time working on music, just been monkeying with some new equipment (new mic pre, new mic, some software upgrades). Noodling around, coming up with some ideas. Also trying to find new people for the band and rehearsing for the upcoming Palace Family Steak House gig.

Also been spending some time with Neverwinter Nights 2.

Got back to DC on a business trip and saw some family and friends. The leaves were turning, it was raining, it was sunny. Made my heart ache a bit for the past.

And as for the gym? Well, I'm down to 179 and my blood pressure was normal this morning (it's been close all week).

As for music and such, the things I've been enjoying lately:

• Tim Hecker "Harmony in Ultraviolet" - Ambient.
• Pan American "For Waiting, For Chasing" - Ambient.
• Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto "insen" - Glitchy ambient.
  
• Cranes "Particles and Waves" - Still doing the same weird gothy thing. I still like some of it.
• The Knife - "Silent Shout" - Off-kilter disco.
• The Church - "Uninvited, Like The Clouds". It's a new Church album.

What are you all up to?

I'm fat and I have high blood pressure

184 pounds, at 5' 10", which gives me a body mass index of 26.4. That's "overweight".
180/34 blood pressure, which is smack in the middle of what is considered "pre-hypertension".

While being fat is annoying, I'm mostly concerned about the high blood pressure. I don't smoke, don't drink to excess, and don't eat a lot of salt. So what else is there?

Stress? Check.
Lose weight? Yeah. So there you go.

Looks like I need to lose 15-20 pounds. And get life a little calmer. By eating salad or something.

Everything Must Change, Only One Thing Can Change

A few days ago, a manager I respect said

"Your problem is you're too nice! You have to stop that."

Yesterday I woke up at 4:45 am for a day trip to Seattle. The office visit wasn't unpleasant so much as unnecessary. I didn't get to do the thing I was nominally flying up there for, and key players neglected to show up for some of the important meetings that had been scheduled. Aside from a muffin and coffee hastily downed before getting on the plane (since, you know, liquids are bad), I didn't get to eat.

Sometimes when I fly I can fall into a deep sleep, only to pop up wide awake and restless for the remainder. Once that happens, the flight is pretty unpleasant. Not enough room in the seats to even sit comfortably with my shoulders. Can't even reach down and get items out of my bag. So I flip rapidly through songs and think.

I realized I'm pretty annoyed. And I haven't really had time to do anything of substance (or even update this blog) in the 6 weeks since I returned from teaching. I haven't been able to get to the gym much. I have nearly 6 hours of meetings every day, plus "real work" to do.

In short, everything must change. Of course, I can't change the way my employer does business or how it treats people. I can't change the world news. I can only change myself, change the way I live, change what I say "yes" to.

So I'm going to.

This is the sort of deep personal introspection sitting in a middle seat in front of the bulkhead for 2 hours gets you.

At least the hives haven't come back.

Hives

Last night, about an hour after dinner, I started feeling itchy and noticed a few bumps on my arms. I figured I had been bitten a few times by a bug. By the time evening session was over, the bumps were expanding and spreading.

By then I figured out that I was having some sort of allergic reaction. But to what? I guessed it was something I'd eaten at the dining hall, but I hadn't eaten anything different from what I normally ate, other than one particular sauce on some tofu and vegetables.

Did some reading on the Internet and realized I probably had hives. Wasn't much I could do by now, it was 11 pm. So after I finished writing up the student rubrics at 2 am, I went to bed.

I woke up at 5 am this morning scratching at my own throat. In the men's room I looked in the mirror and found myself covered in a bright red bumpy rash from neck to knees. My skin felt like it was on fire. I took the picture above.

I wandered around outside in the pleasantly cool air until 8 am when the health center opened. The nurse was concerned. So was I.

She gave me some Benadryl and told me if I wasn't better by 3 I should go to the clinic. Well, looks like the Benadryl did the trick. My hives are all but gone, though my skin is still pretty sensitive. And I feel like I'm half asleep, though how much of that is the Benadryl and how much is the 3 hours of sleep I got is unclear.

Today was also the last day of class for the students. I met with each of them for a few minutes to cover their rubrics and final exams. A good bunch.

It's also about 100 degrees outside, so tonight I will probably stay holed up in one of the air-conditioned commons rooms and get some work done. Lots going on at the office and of course, I'm right back in it come Monday.

Quite an experience being here. Pleased with the students and their performance. A good term, if not life-changing. I'm ready to go home, though.