Category: Uncategorized

This is another test for mobile entries. This time it’s from my iPod. I am waiting for davey at de dutch. They offer free wifi here. I am also testing out the iPhone interface for Movable Type. It’s pretty simple and straight forward. I notice that I am writing fairly short sentences – this must be because it’s somewhat labour intensive to type on a touch screen compared to a real keyboard. All this said, I am typing way more than I ever would have on my Sony phone. That in mind, I am going to have to rethink the way I display mobile entries on my website – an excerpt with a rollover to expand might be more appropriate. I’ll try that out first.

I have 5 minutes to write about this photo. It is of Rick Underwood conducting the Greater Victoria Concert Band at Alex Goolden Hall in downtown Victoria a couple weeks ago. AGH is literally a block from where I live, and it’s a beautiful venue. It seats a fair number of people too, and it always sounds really good. The acoustics are fantastic.
Often times I think about what it is like to be a conductor. Whenever I compose music, I am mindful that the instruments that get played are following my every instruction, at all times. No practice needed from my players, just attention to detail required from me. That can be daunting, but what it really means is that to make a piece come alive, I need to sit down and pick up the instrument that I am asking to be played. Not only does this make droning or looping sections more active, it often time adds to the overall dynamic of the song. Yes, it is very easy to loop something and make a track rest of on the progression of layers, but to me I can hear the flatness of this and it feels unfinished until there is meaningful movement from non-percussion parts, either in tone, frequency cut-off (filtering), volume, or otherwise. I find that I have done a lot of work on replacing volume dynamics with filter dynamics which can make a song sound fuller or more muddy, it depends on what else is going on.
To me, static instrumentation makes a song sound dull and uninteresting. Oddly enough, I am finding that rock bands are more guilty of playing an organ and not adding any dynamic aspects to it than electronica composers, even when the rockers are actually playing it with their fingers. Even though the “anti-techno” movement from hardcore rockers is long dead for the most part, I still think from time to time about what may have inspired or help tip the anti-techno movement to become a mainstream attitude in the early 90s. Perhaps they heard bad techno, or didn’t hear it on the right medium; you need a sound system capable of reproducing all frequencies, not just midrange or treble the way some folks had their stereos set up back in the day. Listening to electronica on a cheap or misconfigured stereo is not unlike watching a movie on a projector in broad daylight. You’re probably not getting everything that you were intended to get from the movie makers — you’re missing part of the dynamic range. With electronica, a lot of the substance is in the lower frequencies.
The other thing that I wondered about was the auto-pilot approach that a bunch of rock bands had to dynamics with electronic lead sounds. It sounds like some of them just put it on, looped it, run to their other instruments and played the song. No doubt this monotony drove people away from liking it – not just that “it’s cheating” (I don’t think it is or was), but it was boring and lacked life. I know when I hear some new bands doing this, the electronic sound becomes my least favorite sound of an otherwise acceptable song. In fact I find it can get to the point where it’s obnoxiously unchanging. I can’t remember the name of the song, but the Dandy Warhols do this. Perhaps it’s the fault of their producer, or maybe it really is artistic intent, but to me it sounds like compositional neglect. Maybe they need an equivalent of a conductor to bring it all together more cohesively.
Dynamics bring energy and feeling to repetitive parts that need to be repetitive to support other elements that have tonal changes or melodic changes of their own. This is done as a matter of course in most concert bands and symphonies, stated by the composer and interpreted, reinforced and accentuated by the conductor. It is something I am appreciating more and more each time I go to a show or listen to music that has had that care and attention given to it. This is something I do in my own music as a way to make otherwise unrelated parts work together to build something bigger. I also have done this in my design work – things like textures being added on a gradient, or a more complex photo vignetting where the vignette is not light fall-off, but rather color and shadow intensity deepening into the corners. It makes the context more intriguing and adds a complimentary complexity that contributes to the overall end result. I believe it leaves the viewer or listener with a slightly different feeling.
I really enjoy making these cross-media observations and extending theory or practice from one media form to another where it makes sense. Does anyone else have any examples of transferring either theory or practice from one source into another art form? Where did you take from and what did you do with it?

1 PM PST with Retroid from Morphosis Recordings.
More info available on the Pacific Front Sessions page.

I’ve given some thought to what has happened in Canada in the last month, and what is happening in the United States right now, both economically and politically.
Boy, if you could have told me that I would be writing about economics and politics on my blog about 6 years ago, I would have been very, very skeptical. Traditionally I have found the topics to be dull and boring, but not so in the last couple of months. That isn’t to say Canadian politics haven’t been boring – I give Canada’s quintet of leadership through boredom full credit for keeping up their usual bickering and knack for moving nothing forward and ensuring status quo for Canada – maybe it’s better that way. Perhaps we don’t need new laws (*cough* C-61 *cough*) so perhaps the leaders of our country can’t decide what to do because they don’t really know what they should be doing. The Copyright bill (C-61) would be the strongest indication of this – a minister by the name of Jim Prentice put forward a bill to do with photography ownership, mp3s, essentially anything to do with ideas. I have listened to quite a few radio shows on this subject and read a substantial amount through Michael Geist’s website since, and the conclusion that I have come to is that Jim Prentice put forward a bill after consulting with corporate and government groups – record labels, US DMCA, etc – none of them being the public (who he works for), and then put together a bill based on what they wanted. I do not get the impression that he particularly knows what he is talking about, especially after reading Michael Geist‘s hammering of his bill, where Michael made 61 recommendations to improve the bill – one exhaustive one each day for 61 days straight. If Jim Prentice had a read of this, I would think he would feel very humbled. There is nothing embarrassing about consulting the experts. There is so much intelligence in Canada, are we not big enough to employ it?
The less-than startling conclusion here is that Jim Prentice, after all of this, appears to be much less intelligent than Michael Geist. Does that boil it down too much to an uncomfortable level? Is that fair to say? I would say it is, and I would also say that it is how people are making decisions about how they decide who they want to lead their country. In this case, Jim Prentice was appointed to be Minister of Industry, and Michael Geist is not a politician but rather a Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa. So in this circumstance the matter of intelligence does not have a lot of impact on what is about to happen. But south of the border, the case for intelligent leadership is making itself.
From my observations north of the border, John McCain just does not articulate himself in a way that comes across as particularly intelligent. “I know how to do that” is he uses quite often without any suggestion of how exactly it is that he’s going to pull off the things he promises. And I believe it’s the source and the reason why polls are showing that McCain failed to win any of the Presidential debates. Perhaps people want transparency.
All of this at a time when the nation of the United States finds itself it financial turmoil, in a twisted puzzle of money and policy that will require a lot of thought to unravel and correct. People are not wanting an ordinary person to run their country when the problems are beyond the scope of ordinary inspirational leadership. There is a need for critical thinking that questions and rationalizes, instead of just “knowing how” to do stuff as John McCain suggests he does. This is too vague, too random, and frankly it underestimates the intelligence of the voters. I wont even get into his choice for running-mate – I think that is best summed up by John Cleese’s observations. (Thanks to Adam for the link.)

What makes good leadership?

When this question comes up to existing leaders in various fields – not just politics – there is usually some references that look like this:

• Communicating complex ideas in understandable ways
• An unthreatening ability to work with people to get things done
• Being at the right place at the right time
• The ability to empathize
• Confidence to take action
• Knowing when to let someone else lead
• Seeing the big picture – it’s not just about you
• Being recognizable as a leader, even when you don’t officially have the title on you – yet

Part luck, part skill, part instinct. One of the things that I have admired about the Clinton camp in this election is their ability to get behind Obama and lead from a position you’d not normally expect people to be able to lead from. That is part of their strength from my point of view, and I get a feeling a lot of others see it that way as well. While the Palin/McCain camp wants more aggression and literally chants “fight, fight, fight” at their rallies, we have something completely different with Obama/Biden – discussions of plans and solutions with tangible handles on them. It’s very different.
I have to admit that this post has been almost two weeks in the making – one of the items I’ve been wrestling with is “what does leadership mean to me?” I don’t have all the answers myself, but I did spend quite a bit of time on that very short list above. Everyone has an idea of what makes a great leader, and I have no doubt you come across one regularly. What is it to you that makes good leadership? What traits do you admire about that person you know that not only directs but also inspires those around them?

AFK (Pacific Front / Proton Radio :: Victoria), Fractal (Pacific Front / Tide Pool :: Victoria), Kenzie Clarke (Cist / Bitchin’ / Mother’s Cupboard :: Victoria), DJ Sheldon (Anthrowolf / Beat Merchants :: Victoria), Dodd (Returning Saturn :: Victoria)
Info: 250.885.5552
Tickets: $15 before 11pm, $20 after
Venue: Sunset Room (1810 Store St., Victoria)

AFK will be appearing at the Sunset Room for VEMF 2008 from 11 PM – Midnight.

I’ll be spinning some atmospheric tracks at Whitebird Lounge. Join me for a drink – I’ll be there from 10 PM – 12 PM.

The makers, or should I say, the marketers of Firefox 3 have come up with a clever campaign for the new version of Firefox. Break a world record for most downloads of a piece of software in one day by getting people to pledge to download on a certain day. Well that day is today and it would appear they’ve swamped themselves. I haven’t been able to connect to the Spread Firefox site since I got the email from them to download about an hour ago. Firefox can’t connect to the spread firefox website. This is a special kind of fail.

Postponed show – special 2 hour mix by AFK. To air at noon PST on Proton Radio.

Lineup to come..