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Music

Creativity Grant

I have been awarded a creativity grant by the Maryland State Arts Council! This is truly an honor, and much needed.

Maryland State Arts Council

I used the grant to create physical copies of my album entitled Found and Chosen, which I will be giving away at my upcoming show at the Hamilton Gallery in Baltimore.

I finished all the work for the grant, and awaiting the arrival of the recordings. I’ll talk more about them in a different post.

This ended up being A LOT of work – more than I had originally calculated. I loved every minute of it, and I’m full of gratitude and happiness.

Music
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Joie de Vivre

NCR Half Marathon

Another first for this month – Beverly and I ran a half marathon! A few years ago, I never thought I’d find myself doing this. Thanks for Beverly’s training and guidance, we had a decent time.

Joie de Vivre
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Joie de Vivre

Bay Bridge 10K

I did something today that, before last month, I never thought of doing. We ran the Maryland Bay Bridge 10K.

I’ve driven over this bridge at least 100 times over the years – either visiting family or coming/going to college. I know people have walked the bridge during certain events, and I always thought it would be neat to do that. And it was everything I’d hoped it would be. The view was stunning. It was windy, but not brutal.

I’m getting better at this, and even a little faster. Speed, however, isn’t my goal. I know I slow my partner down, but she is very patient with me. I just want to finish each race we undertake, not get hurt, and I don’t want to be the last one. Today, we were solidly in the middle of the various heats/ranks for gender, age, and even total runners.

The Two of us on the bridge
A map of our run across the bridge

After the race, we visited Chestertown, as it wasn’t too far from where we parked for the race. This is the house I lived in for my last two years at Washington College.

House in Chesterown

We stopped in Annapolis on the way home. I took Beverly to Chick & Ruth’s “Delly,” a staple of my childhood. We walked in and put our names on the list after a group of Naval Academy midshipmen. I made a joke to the hostess about getting seated sooner, and she did! It was awesome.

Waiter ringing up checks in Chick and Ruth's deli, Annapolis, MD

This place hasn’t changed a bit! It was great.

A very nice weekend.

Joie de Vivre
Categories
Opinion

Tár

We went to see Tár this weekend. I really, really enjoyed this – and I’m going to say a few things about the film, and hope I don’t spoil anything.

A post pandemic #MeToo tale with several twists, Cate Blanchett holds us captive as the composer/conductor Lydia Tár. I won’t discuss the plot, which you can find on wikipedia, but I want to say I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the cis old white guy world of classical music (performance, recording and, to an extent, publishing) through her eyes. It’s a rich film. Some things that come to mind: the way the camera follows Tár as she harangues a student at Juilliard, or the dialog of a public New Yorker interview, the hundreds of small details that director Todd Field slips onto screen, and the the decor of the various homes and office was wonderful.

I’ve been spending the past year thinking about and experimenting with improvisation, which is the complete opposite of this world, and there are dozens of examples on display. It brought me back to days pursuing undergraduate degree, music history and even my time working along side the classical music buyers at An Die Musik in Baltimore.

We talked about the movie after we left the theater, while we were laying in bed, and over coffee this morning. There’s a lot to unpack in here. There are a few things that don’t add much (the metronome and nighttime fridge scenes) and don’t lead to any obvious conclusion. The point is, there’s a lot to think about, and it’s easy to return to this story after leaving the theater. I look forward to watching it again, but encourage you to find a good theater with the comfy seats to experience this film. The sound and music production is fantastic.

Opinion
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Music

Edward Gorey’s Oven (S.Ex 16)

Here’s a little number I call “Edward Gorey’s Oven.” Enjoy!

Sound Experiment no. 16.

Music
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Music

Four on the Floor

Andy is a friend from work who also plays guitar. We were talking about a podcast where the host asks each guitarist guest a question: “What four pedals are on your board right now?” The idea, I think, is to find out what four effects pedals are most important to their sound.

Andy has sent me a few audio clips of him playing through four of his pedals. It’s super cool, and it gave me an idea.

I wrote a tiny JavaScript function that randomly chooses four of my pedals, and displays the list on a web page. Here’s an actual example:

I hooked up these four pedals and made some sound. While this combination works really well together, I’m not sure I’d have put this together without this program. I’m going to use it for a week or so, and see what happens. I predict I’ll discover a lot of useful combinations I wouldn’t have otherwise chosen.

The program itself is very simple, and only checks to see that it hasn’t chosen the same pedal twice. I get decide the order of the pedals in the signal chain. One pitfall is that it may suggest truly unusable combinations – perhaps four distortion pedals (I have four distortion pedals). Maybe that would be cool for a second, too.

Next, it occurred to me that I might want split the signal at at the top of the chain with a signal blender. I like to record stuff as I go, and lately I’ve become interested in the idea of re-amping the signal. To do that, I need to record the dry signal directly from the instrument (an instrument might be a guitar, bass, tape deck, my iPhone, drums, some keyboard, thoughts transmitted directly to the pedal board, etc.). I also sometimes transcribe guitar parts so that I can recreate it in MIDI, and having a clean signal makes it easier.

So, the signal blender sends one channel to the pedal board, and the other channel straight to the direct box. The direct box sends the pair of signals to my computer, and both are recorded into Ableton Live on their own tracks.

I can also envision adding a looper after the pedal board, on rare occasions. I use loopers extensively, and they can record/save loops. Making loops in this step of the chain could be helpful. But, it’s not actually part of Four on the Floor.

Future iterations might include a switch that modifies the number of pedals: Two, Three, Four. I think more than four will lead to endless noodling, which is what I often do. For now, four seems like an ideal number. I could pre-sort the pedals into categories, to avoid having four distortion pedals show up, or four reverbs, etc. I think this might crimp some happy accidents from happening, so I probably won’t. Finally, I can see adding a way for other people to use this function. My pedal inventory is contained in a hard coded array, so I’ll have to make an easy way for others to add their own inventories.

I think this is an interesting little device. I like the constraints. I’m going to spend the next few months kicking this around.

Music
Categories
Opinion

Twitter, The Watcher, and the change you want to see

Please be advised, dear reader – I’m going to share my thoughts on the show made by Netflix called The Watcher below, and there is a potential spoiler. Don’t worry – that is several paragraphs away from here, and I’ve marked it with a subheading.

If we’ve ever talked for any length about social media, I’ve probably mentioned that all the big platforms will eventually go away. Ice melts, even the biggest bergs in the ocean (sadly, truer today then when I thought of the analogy). Remember when AOL was monolithic?

I joined Twitter in 2007. A lot of good came from my participation. I made a lot of good friends, I learned a lot that helped my career path, and it was a positive experience. Sitting in front of monitors all day in a closet of an office at Johns Hopkins Hospital, I felt a connection to peers in my field. One time, there was an active shooter in the building, and I knew about it 20 minutes before the administration alerted the building occupants because of Twitter. Once, there was an earthquake the shook my home. I had never experienced one before, and local folks on Twitter confirmed that’s what had happened. Etc.

For me, things changed when:

  1. Twitter switched from linear posts to algorithmic feeds, and
  2. When 45 was elected. The divisions in our country became more visible (to me, at least).

My feed on Twitter shifted to more news/politics, and every day seemed to bring some new disquiet. I quit Facebook a few years ago, and aside from some FB only events/posts, I haven’t missed it. As a visual artist, I feel the need to be on Instagram, and to smaller extent, TikTok. I use Snap Chat with my partner, my buddy Dusten, and kiddos. I have limited my Instagram use, and regularly remove it from my device.

So, Twitter is now under new management, and a lot of folks I like are leaving. Other’s have described the potential perils of the new management, and I particularly appreciate Dave Troy’s thoughts and ideas on this. It makes me a sad, even though I’ve been an extremely passive user these past few years. Change is inevitable, as I’ve been telling people for years.

About a decade ago, I had a very healthy LinkedIn account, with 500+ contacts. Someone on Twitter pointed out that LinkIn was allowing various people to appear in targeted ads without their consent. Everyone was opted in by default. I thought about it, and decided I hadn’t gotten any real opportunities from LinkedIn, and so decided to delete my account. I had mild regret over that decision a few times, because I wasn’t able to backup the contacts, and, years later, decided that maybe I did need to hang a shingle out on linkedIn and wouldn’t it be nice to have those old contacts? So, now I’m back on LinkedIn.

I said all that to say I am weighing the value of staying on Twitter. My pal Jenn says she’s staying. She’s my favorite technologist, and I respect her and her opinions more than most. I had been keeping my Twitter handle warm, thinking it might become useful in the future, when I want sell more of my work online.

And I have a nostalgia for when I was able to use Twitter effectively – to develop relationships and opportunities. I miss those days.

On the other hand, social media is tiresome, and I’ve come to resent platform algorithms, the influencers, and a lot of performative advice given copiously by strangers. Not to mention political hostility. There’s just so much bad noise.

I suppose these ruminations have reactivated my feels for… blogging! I’m grateful to still have this shingle, which I’ve maintained for longer than I’ve been on Twitter. I use it to document my art, and rarely, the occasional opinion. I think it’s time to share more of those, hence this long article. It also reminds me of another loss, of which I don’t think we ever fully recovered. Google retired Reader, which was the best RSS tool I’ve ever used. I’ve tried Digg reader and Feedly, but neither really measure up. Hey, Automattic! This seems like a no-brainer for folks the power ~60% of the CMS market! Why not make an RSS tool to go along with WordPress and your other fantastic tools?

A big part of blogging for me used to be connecting with people on this blog, and on their own blogs. I disabled comments back in 2013, when the gale of divorce kicked up. I wanted to close my shutters over the windows, and just be quiet for a while. If you’ve read this far, and want to comment, please email me jim.doran@gmail.com. Maybe it’s time to enable them again? But, I think the choice to disable comments and the loss of Reader changed blogging, at least for me.

I recently started reading The Haunted Looking Glass. It’s a collection of Edward Gorey’s favorite tales of ghosts, ghouls, and grisly goings-on (selected my him). It includes stories by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, M. R. James, W. W. Jacobs, and L. P. Hartley, among other masters of the fine art of making the flesh creep, all accompanied by Gorey’s inimitable illustrations.

I picked this up to take to Yarmouth. Beverly and I read it to each other before sleep in bed. I can see why Gorey liked these stories. Oddly, some of them just stop abruptly. Imagine you are walking through a rambling Victorian house as a grandfather clock starts to chime at midnight in the distance, when your candle blows out, and you step off what you thought was a landing to find you are falling, falling, falling thought the darkness. That would be abrupt, yes?

The Watcher

Beverly and I just finished the Watcher. I hoped it might shape up to be a “Haunting of Hill House” type twister. Not so much. I recently finished The Devil in Ohio and Dahmer, both good October fare. But The Watcher left me feeling much like the incomplete stories in The Haunted Looking Glass. It claims to be based on true events, but imagine if you brought an Agatha Christie novel on vacation and you enjoyed tripping over red herrings and false leads, only to read that Hercule Poirot can’t solve the mystery. Or, can you picture yourself watching seven episodes of a season (when maybe two could have done the job) only to find you are falling, falling, falling through what should have been a satisfying conclusion? I feel conned by this show. On the other hand, I thought about the show for days, and it made enough of an impression to inspire me to record these thoughts. So, yay?

The Change I want to see

I’m looking into making my own RSS reader and I’ll share my work on this soon. I found some encouraging tools that I think I can use to cobble something together. I miss following folks. If Twitter really is borked, maybe this is at least a partial solution. More soon.

Opinion
Categories
Opinion

Fender vs. Ibanez, a tale of customer service

I’m a fan of affordable equipment. I’m also a fan of quality and I want to share with you a story about customer service.

A few years back, I bought a Fender Mustang GT40 desktop amplifier after watching Nick Reinhart demo the thing on the Fender YouTube channel.

It’s got some really cool amp + effects modeling built in, and I was particularly fond of the USB connectivity to my computer. This became my main studio amp, which I used frequently. I became quite attached to it, mainly because of the USB connectivity and the clean pre-amp setting. It’s absurdly lightweight, sounds good, and has an app that lets one make signal chains from an iPhone. I bought one for my daughter, and my bandmate bought the newer 100 watt model on my recommendation.

Last year, the female USB connector broke – it simply came out of the back of the amp. It had just been sitting on my desk – it has never left the house.

Fender doesn’t service their own amps unless they are under warranty. I called all the local repair places in Baltimore that I could find, and no one will touch this amp.

I asked Fender if I could just buy the USB connecter to fix it myself. Here’s what Caesar A. Tapia (Gear Advisor, Fender Musical Instruments, AZ) had to say:

The part you are looking for is not offered on the consumer end.

You would have to go to an Authorized Service Center for a direct replacement and installation.

You do have Warranty coverage for 2 years from the date of purchase on new amps. The process is fairly simple, You’re welcome to bring your amp to a Authorized Service Center with your purchased receipt to have it evaluated under warranty.

None of the Fender service centers are close, and I didn’t have a working car. In fact, one of them is in a guy’s house, which is cool, I guess? My warranty expired a few years ago, anyway. If your Fender Mustang or Rumble amp is older than 2 years and it breaks, apparently you are out of luck.

I managed to take the amp into a repair placed recommended on the Fender website. The tech explained to me that when one of these break (under warranty), Fender usually instructs them to pull the amp’s board out, snap it in half, and pitch it. Fender then sends another one. The are made in China and very cheap. This explains why “The part you are looking for is not offered on the consumer end.” It’s not the micro USB enclosure that I needed, but rather an entire new board. The tech also said this policy also extends to the Fender Rumble amps.

Fender no longer makes the parts needed for my amp.

These are disposable amps. I’m stunned.

By comparison…

Around the same time, I picked up a Chase Bliss Blooper pedal on Reverb.com. It was listed as new. When the pedal arrived, I noticed one of the knobs was missing the micro-screw that keeps the knob attached to the pedal. I emailed Chase Bliss, and they immediately sent me a couple of new knobs, free of charge, no questions asked. The knobs seem to contain more metal and engineering than the tiny female connector I need to repair my warranty-less Fender Mustang GT40 amp. Or, so I thought. Aside from this excellent customer service, I will say that I love Chase Bliss’ pedals. I own several, and haven’t exhausted their possibilities.

A bit later, I bought an Ibanez AF55TF Tobacco Flat Hollow Body Electric Guitar on Reverb. It played like a dream out of the box. I removed the protective foam padding from under the bridge, and ran into some trouble with the intonation. I wrote to Ibanez for help. They sent me a manual, and after a follow-up email, an engineer patiently wrote a very detailed explanation on how to set up the bridge myself. Fantastic! Above and beyond, as usual. Thank you, Ibanez!!!

Okay, back to the Mustang GT40.

Here’s another drag about the snap-n-pitch method. The Mustang allows it’s operator to create and save amp/effect combos, which can be recalled in the amp at another time. I’m guessing those would be lost to the owner, once the old board is “snapped and pitched,” unless they happened to be shared on the Fender website, which is something I am not interested in doing. But, you’d need to be aware of this before servicing the amp. FYI.

I was happy to pay for parts and labor, but that is no longer an option, as the tech can’t get the part(s). I was also told I’d be better off just buying another Mustang – it would cost about the same.

Okay, so what if I was willing to buy another Fender garbage amp? I will admit I considered it. I reasoned the newer models would probably be better – more solidly built, with more features and better performance. Yet, after reviewing the newer versions of the Mustang at Guitar Center, I see they don’t have the same presents – they are dumbed down.

Maybe Line6 is the way to go?

And here’s something else that really bothers me. I’ve gotten used to consumer grade products having a very limited life. DVD/BlueRay players don’t last. Apple wants us to buy new iPhones and iPads every few years, because they are a hardware company. Major household appliances tend to expire within 10 years. Running shoes don’t last, and shoe makers discontinue popular and well-loved models annually. I’m sure you can add your own examples to this list.

Musicians get attached to their gear. Vintage amps and guitars are sought after, and good gear can become integral to a musician/producer’s sound. For myself, I find something that works, and I stick with it. I’m stunned that I got suckered into buying cheaply made, disposable garbage by two brands that I trusted (Reinhart & Fender).

In conclusion, I’m very disappointed in the quality of this amp. I think I do understand Fender’s seeming lack of interest in helping me – the business model of this amplifier seems to follow other consumer grade disposable devices, and customer service isn’t built into that model.

I miss being able to use the amp. It was lovely while it lasted. Whomp whomp, lesson learned. I will never buy a new piece of Fender gear again. I’m not going to punish myself by saying I will boycott Fender stuff completely. I’ll just find stuff in secondary markets.

Opinion
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ART

I made sandals

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they arrive at a fork in their road. They are faced with a choice. For some of us, we decided long ago what our answer would be. Some of us have no choice. For some of us, the fork is still in the drawer, hanging out with the spoons.

The choice I’m speaking of, obviously, is to make shoes, or not. I took a break from my regularly scheduled deadline production and I made some. They aren’t practical in the conventional sense, but, they can be useful.

I’ve been thinking about this project for a long time, and I have stored up materials to make other kinds of shoes. This month’s Punk Frocker’s challenge prompt is #pfSewNotClothes, so I thought I’d dip my toes in and finally start this project. I’ll write more about it when I refine this process and develop the other prototypes.

I think it’s pretty cool.

ART
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Animation

Sweaty Eyeballs 2022

The Lunatics entered the greater world at the 2022 edition of the Sweaty Eyeballs festival here in Baltimore. Always a big inspiration, this year’s festival did not disappoint! The Baltimore showcase was sold out, too.

Here on some pics from the night.

Looking up at the screen in the parkway theater before the show
My friends and family seated in the theater.
Beverly and Me
Myself and my old friend Jeff Zukor
Me, My daughter and close friends
Animation
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Dioramas

One Day Sale

The Murder By Hand Society’s advertisement in your local circular. One Day Sale! And this one is in the shop…. on sale!

Metal tin box opened showing an advertisement of various hand tools
Metal tin box opened showing a drawing of an advertisement of various hand tools
Dioramas
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Joie de Vivre

The Edward Gorey House

I love Edward Gorey. I’ve talked about him before today. I’m happy to report that we made the pilgrimage to his house, The Edward Gorey Museum. It was a thrill to stand in his former home, to marvel at his many drawings and works on view. We spent several hours there, and we even ate breakfast one day at Jack’s Outback, where Gorey frequently had both breakfast AND lunch.

New England is lovely this time of year. We explored Yarmouth, and Provincetown. Here is a partial account of the trip, in photos.

Joie de Vivre
Categories
Animation

The Lunatics

Hey folks!

I just finished an animation called “The Lunatics.” I made a 13 minutes video showing how I made it, which can be viewed on Patreon. I hope you will consider joining me there!

I started this video in earnest on August 6 and finished on September 24. I completed over 100 takes in this one (not all of which are in the final edit). I’m very happy with how it turned out. Enjoy!

Animation
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Joie de Vivre

SPX + OLD 97’s

On Sunday, Lily and I made our annual trek to Bethesda for the Small Press Expo. The last one to be held in person was in 2019, for obvious reasons, and it was thrilling to attend in person once again. Most of my favorite publishers were in their usual spots, and we both picked up a few treasures. Sadly, I forgot to take any pics.

It probably reads as goofy, but it felt really good to be there. I’ve missed this event a lot.

And then, to make matters even better, Beverly and I went to see the Old 97’s with Chloë. It was one of the better September Sundays to occur so far this month, I assure you.

Joie de Vivre