Years ago, my ex-wife, a graphic designer, used to scream about the onrush of ‘idiots with a Mac and a Laserjet!’ during the advent of ‘desktop publishing.’ It took a long time to convince average people that, despite what Apple and Microsoft were telling people, not just anyone can make a proper newsletter or a logo or anything decent looking.

Positive was the audio version of DTP. I confess: because of my long-standing loathing of the recording process (all those cables!), I was only to happy to think that a computer program would make everything ‘point and click!’ I of all people, fell under the sway of the glamour of PC evil and Danielle’s dreaded curse.

I’ve spent the last ten years learning the craft of recording properly. Re-mixing Positive is my final penance for my initial hubris.

As I’ve ranted before, re-mastering a record is a lot like the experience of Ebenezer Scrooge. You get to see all yer past sins again and again. And again. And as I’ve also […]

So how is the opera thing going? Not bad. Not bad. Glad you asked. Actually, the thing fairly well writes itself. It’s an odd thing, but it’s clear I wanted to write something about Detroit; that Detroit is the big catalyst of my entire life, since I got here. The real issues are always two:

Is it turning into just a series of songs?
Why the fuck didn’t I pay more attention in orchestration class?

The first issue doesn’t concern me now so much. I’ve moved along far enough where basically everything is developing out of the same four themes I’ve presented in the teaser medley. In fact, the worry now is that there is too much ‘unity’—that the end will seem like 400 variations on the same four ditties. Beethoven may have been able to take four notes and turn ’em into an hour of interesting ‘organic development’. But hey, he was Beethoven. (Which begs the question: would he have still been […]

Well, we’re getting there. Finally. 😉

I’ve tried thinking about how to describe my feelings about doing a new mix (not a ‘re-mix’ boy do I hate that term.) One thought was: ‘high school reunion’. Visiting people you haven’t in years to see how they’ve aged. But that’s not really a good metaphor.

Actually this is a lot more like plastic surgery. The kind of plastic surgery that’s supposed to be psychologically all wrong.

“Now Brenda, you’re just fine the way you are. Why do you feel a need to change anything? Can’t you learn to love yourself the way you are?”

Yeah, right. The problem with that analogy is that, as I’ve said, I never planned on Positive being heard by the general public. It just took off a bit. But then, it stalled. It just wasn’t up to par recording-wise and people hear it—even if they can’t articulate that. People feel it’s not ‘finished’ sounding.

Moving back to the plastic surgery […]

Been doing a lot of dance gigs recently—building the ol’ chops to play live again. And I’ve been wondering about why people dance to some songs and not others. There are lots of songs that we’ll play that are just slammin’ but the dancers? Ho humsville. Then other songs, that everyone in the band feels totally ambivalent about? The dancers lose their minds. There is a middle-aged stampede to hump the stuffed tiger. (Don’t ask.)

Now you could say that the above situation is because ‘the band’ likes songs that are more musically interesting than the dancers, but this is only partly true. Though I would agree that there sure is some perverse (and inverse) correlation between musical quality and general dance-ability, this is not always for certain; not by a country mile. In fact, I can’t figure it out. All I can say about it is this metaphor:

I’ve railed against Lady Gaga’s lack of musicality before. But since then I’ve learned something else: people think she’s seriously hot. […]

Dear JC,

On 24 May you wrote that the re-mastered version of Positive would be available by 1 August of this year.Well, it’s now the fifteenth and I’ve heard nothing about this for quite some time.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall that your last record was also delayed. And the one before that. And so was the one before that.

You know I support you, mate. But let me ask you: Why bother telling people about new albums if you never come anywhere near the target? Why not try putting out a new album after it’s done and not talking about it beforehand?

Hoisted on my own blog-petard. How embarrassing.

The raw truth is this: The sun got in my eyes. So it fell out of me bag on the way to school. And my dog ate it. And then things got really tough.

But seriously ladies and germs, there’s been the usual delays which result from trying to […]