Björk – Pluto

Björk koma fyrir í hylki allur þessi er listrænn frelsi. Hún er einn af minn fágun hetja. ÉG von þú njóta this vídeó. Það minn heili springa og minn sál glóa. Með ást.

Riley Guy – “Skeleton Key” Music Video

Artist: Riley Guy
Song: “Skeleton Key”
Album: Tribe Of The Lost Pigeon
Director: Jimmy Frick

Click here to watch it on youtube.

This project has been in the works since the middle of April. This is the first time I didn’t work on a video non-stop, from beginning to end. It was a lot of hours, but I have no idea why it’s here a whole 2 months later. After we shot it, I predicted it would only take a week to finish.

I took 1,844 images and almost used all of them for the video. To make the photos look better than what they came out to be, I began to individually photoshop the pictures halfway through. That sucked so much that eventually I was forced to learn how to use After Effects just enough to mask out some background stuff (like sheets, and wall shadows). I watched 2-and-a-half youtube tutorials that gave me enough info on how to clean up everything. By the end I wondered how I ever did any semi-complicated video stuff without After Effects, but I was also about to throw my laptop out the window because it could hardly process so many photos and effects.

Last night at 3 a.m., I thought I reached a victorious end,  but my version of After Effects wouldn’t let me export the video in a decent format. So this video was close to not even making it out of my computer. Eventually I figured it out, but we’ll save the details for a video-nerd forum.

Now I only need to know how to get this video in non-internet quality onto DVD…

Dreams And Music Videos

Tonight the moon is nearly burning my skin as its full moon-beams shine through my bedroom window.

My dreams have been wild lately. Not completely insane, just super real. I’m settling unresolved issues with people who I haven’t talked to for years. I’m facing imprisonment and capital punishment in foreign countries. I’m experiencing nuclear attacks. I’m living entire lifetimes in minutes.

I guess it works out, because I’m working on a music video for Will’s project, Riley Guy, and need a semi-schizo, moon-inspired neurosis to make this happen and finish already.

I’m running through thousands of photos. It’s not the most fun.

In other news, my production assistant job fell through. The movie isn’t going to be made. Somebody who had money chickened-out on the deal I guess.

“How can I help you finish your own movies,” you ask? Simply go buy stuff!

Coma Show – Wool Warehouse

The Coma Recovery played tonight at a venue I’ve never been to before called the Wool Warehouse. I expected it to be a real warehouse with a bunch of wholesale stock wool, but it was much more like a hotel ballroom.

The headliner was Earth Crisis. I think around 10 bands played. This show had a clever theme; half of the bands were deemed as “Good” and the other half, “Evil”. Basically every band was placed in the “Good” category unless it was a hardcore band.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a show like this. The kids still hardcore dance. They still swing the arms. They still punch the ground. They still kick the air. It’s all fun and games until a security guard gets punched in the face and bleeds, which of course really happened.

Blue October

I worked another show tonight.

I remember seeing Blue October when they were playing the duck pond at UNM. I remember they played there an awful lot. And despite all of the criticisms shared among Jake Tittmann and me between classes, this band still “made-it”.

But what does “making it” even mean with bands?

I work these shows at Sunshine, I get to see the bands pre and post-show, and… I see the fans they have to deal with.

There is a distinct boundary between each fan-demographic, from show to show. After tonight, I’m not sure I’d ever want to be Blue-October.  I also realize that I’m not sure Blue October wants to be Blue October either.

I remember working at the radio station (103.3 The Zone! FM). We used to do these things called “sound check parties” where a group of listeners were entitled to show up early enough at a show to watch the band “sound check” some special songs for a select group of “contest winners”.

Apparently another pop-rock FM radio station called “The Peak” did the same thing for this Blue October show, only the singer and the band didn’t appear to like doing it at all. They douched around playing whatever they felt like, including a half-assed cover of the oldies classic “Blue Moon” while the singer kept his back to the “winning crowd” of 20-or-so gawking radio contest winners.

It was sad, but reasonable, because…what would I do in that situation? Clearly, being a one or two-hit band means performing a lot of mini-concerts like that to “contest winners” who see you, not as a human performer, but a prize that was won for a “rare exclusive group” of “lucky” people.

Admittedly, I have certain aspirations for a rockstar-like status. But it is strictly (I hope) for reasons that isn’t a stigma to being a “rockstar”. So seeing this kind of stuff makes me want to re-evaluate what it entails to be a popular musician at all.

Of course, it all depends on the demographic. Clearly these guys felt that being a simple pop-rock band was the answer. But when a group of these fans (drunk, asinine human-beings) howl nonsense from the stage and drown out a piano/pizzicato violin solo that took you years to master, have you ever questioned what-the-hell-happened along the way?

The answer is compromise. The universe smells it on your band, and so shall ye receive its due audience.

The Dead Weather

Finally, a Sunshine show I was stoked to see.

I didn’t go to Coachella after all. Of course, William let me know about how enlightening, inspiring, and beautiful the 3-day festival was. I tried to ignore the fact that I spent most of the weekend focusing on non-enlightening things. I also got a temp staging job setting up lighting rigs, unloading ungodily heavy equipment from a truck.

The Dead Weather is Jack White’s newest project with chanteur de femme exquis, Allison Mosshart of the kills; Guitarist/keyboardist of Queens of the Stoneage; Eccentrically fat-toned bassist of the Raconteurs.

The best part was the sound check, involving them practicing jams from the new record, plus not-yet-recorded jams.

And just because I’m pompous and music-righteous, I’d like to add that this is the first show where I didn’t have to deal with the low-intelligent results of drunk humans who spew fluids from both ends, putting the cherry on the top of their night, as well as mine. So, my egotisticality likes to point out the inverse relationship to the amounts of bodily evacuations with the level of intelligence to be found in the demographic, and hence, the intelligence of the music.

Cheerio, mates!

Riley Guy Video Shoot

Over the last five days, I’ve been using Dustin’s house to shoot a music video for Will’s solo electro project called Riley Guy.

Day 1 was simple because I only needed to take photos of a series of eyes and mouth positions at the park with Will and Allison.

Day 2 was by far the biggest headache. I hadn’t planned so much of what kind of props and set we would be using, only the visual tricks I wanted to pull off.

Day 3, we began to hit a little more of a stride.

Day 4, we got nothing done as Will’s body gave up while his liver was trying to process half a fifth of rum.

Day 5… I hope to St. Pete that we got enough footage.

So now editing begins. I haven’t looked yet, but I think it will involve going through 1,500-2,000 photographs (it’s a stop motion video), which actually isn’t too bad, considering that normally every video is between 24-30 frames per second; 1,800 frames/minute.

I’m also thinking I need to go to Coachella. Tickets are sold out, and they’re selling circa $700 on ebay right now. Where do these kids get the money? I hope to get mine for $150. Crossing proverbial fingers…

Jamming with the Alien Baby

Tonight I jammed with Joel and his new/temporary side project, Holy Shit! Alien Baby.

It consists of musicians who practice, and who don’t, who decide to rehearse, or who decide to just plain ol’ hop onstage on impulse during shows.

Joel told me about it, as they are playing during Flood The Sun’s last two shows before he moves to Los Angeles with his lady, Ashley.

I came up with the brilliant idea to bring my saxophone to practice and play through this harmonizer called a voice box to see if I’d be down to play a show with them, reverting to my unfledged high-school roots as a jazz saxophonist.

Joel is rather more fledged than I, and it was the first time I got to see him put the sexy vibes through my not-so-sexy student alto horn. We missed each other by one year from being in the same jazz band class. Too bad, so sad.

They play two shows. I didn’t know there was one so soon, so I’m bailing on tomorrow night. Maybe I’ll play the next show, just maybe… that is, if my 10-years-out-of-practice mouth, and ego, can handle it.

Rock, Film, Rock

Tommy and I met up to rock some bass and keys ideas I’ve had rolling around in my skull, including the same tune I was messing with two days ago.

Later, a location scout for the T.V. show In Plain Sight stopped by my (parent’s) house and arranged taking pictures of the house as a possible set location. My parents approved, then let her take panoramic shots of the inside and outside. Eventually I asked her how to get a job on her show. She didn’t say that it’s an easy task, but she was friendly and didn’t seem to judge me for my underlying fragrance of desperation.

Shortly after, I went to go play drums at Brian’s house, watch Battle Royale again, and eat all of his Sweet-tarts that have been in the same place since Halloween.

Pogo

Last night, I saw this Alice in Wonderland remix music video. I’ve watched it over and over and realize how much I miss old-style cell animation.

The guy who makes these calls himself Pogo, and takes mostly sounds from movies and mixes/loops them to make songs.

There’s people all over youtube remixing stuff, but I think this is one of my favorites.

His channel has some movie remixes like Terminator 2, Hook, The Secret Garden, and I feel like I’ve had a moving cinematic over-dose with each one.