Archive for November, 2008

7 items.

Gestures Glass Master

November 29th, 2008 | by alan

At this moment I am burning a ‘glass master’  of Gestures…a ‘glass master’ is the disk one sends off to the disk making presses.

Listening to Gestures as a complete unit there are several things for which I am happy, a few dissapointments, mostly related to the three tunes recorded years ago (before I really knew how to get good results) but all in all, it is a tremendous feeling to be finished.

And just as before…I’m really excited about my next project!

Gestures should be on sale by Tuesday, December 9th at CD Baby, and available through iTunes a week or two later.

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Gestures…almost there!

November 16th, 2008 | by alan

I’m wrapping up the 7th of 8 tunes for Gestures today. I’m really looking forward to getting out of my ‘recording brain’ and getting back to ‘writing brain’.

The track I’m recording today is called Balance…and it’s in 15/8 (for those of you who care) and it’s really, really hard to play.

Thankfully, the last cut on the recording is a techno piece…so these are the last acoustic instruments I’m recording for this project. After this I can escape the Bat-Cave (my wife has taken to calling my recording studio ‘the Bat-Cave‘, which I do like better than VSA Entertainment, though I think I may have difficultly securing the trademark on ‘the Bat-Cave‘…but who knows, if Batman wins their law suit anything is possible).

Here’s a teaser…the first track from Gestures: Faces

 
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Always curious…

November 8th, 2008 | by alan

…if I should write about my failures as well as my successes on this Blog.

I’m behind on Gestures, and a couple of the musicians I wanted to use on the recording have postponed so many times, I’m about to sequence their parts instead of waiting further. To make matters worse, I was let down by a possible distributor for the Damnation Girls…very frustrated at the moment…but I’m sure things will get better as long as I keep working.

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GPC

November 5th, 2008 | by alan

Georgia Perimeter College is where I did my first two years of undergrad schooling. It has a remarkably good music program. Why do I say that? Because it is basically a 2 year community college.

But they have Susan McEwen, a great common practice period theory teacher, and an amazing ear training teacher.

I was invited back to GPC today to talk about my career and play Destiny Manifest.

The students seemed highly receptive, it was a lot of fun!

Everyone there was remarkably kind, and I hope I get a chance to play my work for them in the future.

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Hmmm….

November 5th, 2008 | by alan

Those of you who know me are about to start rolling your eyes.

I think the main reason Obama won has to do with frustration, disgust, and anger toward the Republican party (Jim Cowart is right about that). How can anyone live up to the expectations we have put on this guy? He’s supposed to balance the budget, fix the economy, reform health care, save the country from terrorism, put an end to corporate greed, and re-instate the freedoms we lost over the last 8 years (gay marriage, patriot act, stem-cell research, etc). When he fails/falls short, what will become of the Democratic party and this amazing win for African-Americans?

Despite what liberals feel at the moment, Obama is not a super hero.

I want him to succeed. I hope he surrounds himself with the right advisers.

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Jeph Loeb fired from Heroes…

November 4th, 2008 | by alan

There has been a lot of chatter online about Jeph loosing his job. Most of the chatter is negative. Everyone seems to have an opinion that Heroes ’sucks’, Jeph’s non-Tim-Sale books ’suck’, etc.

And yet, Jeph’s books are consistently on the best seller list.

Is that because he (coming from Hollywood) gets to play with the iconic characters more than most?

I don’t think so. Icons always sell well, but they don’t always sell in the top 20, like Jeph’s books.

Jeph has worked on Smallville, Lost and Heroes…arguably three of the best genre TV shows of the decade.

The truth is, I’m not a big fan of Jeph’s writing, but it isn’t because I think he’s a bad writer. I think he is very smart. I think his books and screenplays are well thought out and based on interesting premises. I just have different taste from his.

I like long, epic runs on stories, like Bendis’ DareDevil, or Brubaker’s Captain America, or Gaiman’s Sandman. I like stories with lots of meta themes (again, Sandman is a good example), I like stories that say a lot about the human condition and its connection to creativity like Brian K. Vaughn’s Y the Last Man.

These just aren’t the kind of stories Jeph tells. He tells great episodic mysteries like The Long Halloween or Hush. He tells wonderfully simple, fun, ‘blockbuster film’ style stories like Jeph’s Superman/Batman book (which has never enjoyed success without him). He tells small human experience stories guised in genre fiction like Teen Wolf, or Superman for All Seasons.

When I have to write a story like one of these I will probably look to Jeph’s work for inspiration and structural concept because he is a great writer.

I’m bummed for Jeph, because it seems he is taking the blame for something that isn’t his fault. And possibly the blame for something that cannot be different.

Heroes did really well in the ratings 2 years ago. But did it do so well because it is a great show? I don’t think so. I think it did well because there wasn’t much competition. I think that it is the kind of show that should expect to have about 8 to 9 million viewers. NBC wants 11-12 million viewers. This is at the heart of the decision to fire Loeb. Is 8-9 million viewers a low number? Most shows would kill for those numbers. Unfortunately, Heroes cannot sustain itself with numbers that small because its reach has exceeded its grasp. There are more characters and plots than can easily be managed. And the stories call for more than a meager special effects budget.

I am interested to see how this plays out.

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Election Day…

November 4th, 2008 | by alan

My recent post: ‘I hate Politics’ performed in the opposite way I intended.

I actually got more e-mail from my conservative politically active friends.

Today, someone is going to feel like they lost, and I hate that.

Perhaps a better way to talk about these ideas would be to focus on our similarities rather than our differences… I feel a reminder about what we are trying to accomplish is in order.

I believe Americans want the same things, we merely differ in terms of execution.

We want to pay fewer taxes. We want to see wealth amassed for ourselves and our (in my case, hypothetical) children. We want the budget balanced, the national debt lowered, the GDP increased, thus increasing the value of the dollar.

We want to feel safe from war and/or terror.

We want everyone in our own country and everyone in the world who is just trying to raise their family to feel secure, to know their children will do better than they did, to find a way to better themselves and the world around them.

We want the world to respect us as Americans for helping, or for trying to help in a wide variety of ways.

We want to trade with other nations, we want them to get a good deal as much as we want a good deal.

We want to help foreigners  enter our country legally so that it benefits us as much as them to be here.

We want to know that those who employ Americans are out for the best interests of their employees, rather than only their own personal interests.
We want to develop renewable, safe, energy sources that reduce the world dependence on oil, which is a finite resource.

We want a health care system that allows people to get medical attention when they need it that does not over-burden those who do not.

We want to be free to live, love, and worship in anyway we choose so long as that way does not infringe on the rights of others.

So what are Republicans and Democrats fighting about? The way we should achieve these goals…that’s crazy!…Stop it. I think it is easier to gripe than it is to do the hard work of solving the problems.

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