The Pope Should Be Arrested

Why is it that if you are the leader of an American cult that rapes children you are arrested and charged with a crime, (as you damn well should be…) but if you are the leader of a worldwide cult that rapes children, you get to make speeches in stadiums?

For background, read Christopher Hitchens’ latest.

New Ladytron

Ladytron – Black Cat

I can not get this track out of my head. Highly recommended. It’s as though you’ve been transported to an alien world that has been put on lock-down and controlled by a sinister police state. But in a good way.

Enjoy.

Ghosts I-IV

Thank you, Trent, for giving us a road map.

It’s not like we hadn’t already been leaning towards some kind of download/web release even before the whole Radiohead phenomenon happened, but Trent Reznor’s roll-out of his new album is a ‘how-to’ for groups in this post-record label age.

For the two of you who aren’t familiar, basically, he offered a part of the album for free, the whole album for $5, and more elaborate packaging for a whole lot more. He sold out of the expensive option in hours. I opted for the $5 download, which came with some great artwork and liner notes. (I will never, ever, get over my geek obsession with liner notes.)

So Friday, after work, I stoped by the Borders that beckons me every day as I make my way to the train (some days I fend off its siren song – some days, I am not so lucky…) and I see the new NIN in the music section. And even though I had all the music on my Creative that was in my pocket, even though I had all the pictures and liner notes in a neat, easy to reach folder on my desk at home, I picked up the CD package, brought it to the counter, and bought it. Why? Because I think the album is brilliant, easily the most mature, considered work Reznor has done. But more than that, I love the ‘world’ that he has created with the release of the album, and want to be part of it in any way I can. (Within reason, of course. As nice as those $500 packages look, daddy still needs money to buy formula…)

This is the new paradigm. Give music away to let people live with it. If they love it, they will go to all ends to be involved with everything you do going forward. We’ve started down this road with So Sto, and there will be much more to come…

Making Music

It’s hard, in the bustle of the morning, getting the kids to their various schools, shoveling a bagel in for breakfast, maybe even finding time to say more than three words to my wife before we head our separate ways to our day jobs that we both tolerate but have no passion for, to find time for a coherent thought. But I had one just now as I sat down at my computer.

Outside of my family, music is the most important thing in my life.

Now, it’s easy to say that, and many people have and do on a daily basis, but today, just now, I realize how much of my waking life is spent either thinking about music I’ve heard or music that I want to make and then hear. I mean, I can’t get through a 5 minute segment of my life without a melody or a lyric or a beat running through my head. So what does that mean to me? Funnily enough, not what it used to. If you’ve ever been in a band, at some point, most likely in your youth, you thought music, and more specifically your music, could make a difference. Could change the world. But then you grow up, your music doesn’t change anything other than you and maybe your bandmates, and you start looking at and reacting to your music in a different way. It doesn’t seem so important. It feels like more of a chore. As you mature, it becomes more and more difficult, in the bustle of your adult day, to find cracks of time to commit to making music.

But today, I’m reminded that Someone’s Story has written some pretty damn good songs. And sure, we may never be a Cut Copy or Hot Chip. But you know what? I’d put our songs up against any of theirs in a Pepsi-Challenge, and I’d be willing to bet that 40 years from now, people could still discover one of our songs and be moved by it, while if they came across a song by the aforementioned groups, they would peg it as very much a product of the time it was made.

Sour grapes? Ok, possibly. But I truly believe it. And it’s the reason, despite the complications of working with two other adults that have other, more pressing commitments that sometimes relegate our little band to no more than an afterthought, that I soldier on, writing songs, making music, trying to express just what it is that moves me through this thing we call life.

Unintentional Hilarity Ensues

“We need someone to create an easy to search streamable library of all the recorded music in the world.”

I can’t say I’m familiar with the writer’s work or the site. And the article overall makes some decent points. (Despite the dubiously snooty title – Something Important Is On the Horizon In the Music Business – really?) I just thought the quote highlighted above was hilarious.

Vladimir – What Have You Wrought?

No doubt you have been following the story closely, but in case you’ve missed a twist or turn along the way, here’s the latest on the fate of Nabokov’s last, as-yet-unpublished novel, The Original of Laura.

To sum up:

The original Laura manuscript lies in a Swiss bank vault, awaiting it’s fate. On his death bed, Nabokov asked his son, Dimitri, to burn the manuscript, feeling that it was imperfect and should never be seen by the public. Well, it turns out Dimitri is quite the procrastinator, because here he is, at the ripe old age of 73, wrestling with the decision of whether to honor his father’s dying wish, or to release the final work of one of the greatest authors ever in the history of the written word (in my estimation…) for the literary world to appreciate.

It’s a fascinating story, and one that Ron Rosenbaum, author of the excellent book The Shakespeare Wars, is intricately involved in. He has two excellent articles about the amazing story and his involvement in it, over at Slate. Do yourself a favor and read it all….

Projects In the Queue

Currently, we are working on:

Finishing the lullaby project (why do I feel I’ll be writing that in 2012?)

Programing and rehearsing the live show

Writing and recording the follow-up to Ghost Given Up.

We have some big plans for the follow-up that include a loose storyline told through 8-10 episodes of a TV show set to our music. Ambitious? Yes. (I mean, I can’t find the time to do vocals for a couple of lullabies. How in the hell am I going to find time to shoot ten 20 minute episodes?) But I am crazy excited at the possibilities…

She…

… wakes me up at dawn

with her favorite nightgown on

And I must seem pathetic looking from her eyes

We crush, from a satellite to a cave

Now there’s nothing left to save

But we’ve gotten this far on a bag of tricks and lies

Delicate Demise

Welcome To the E-Mail List

I would be remiss if I didn’t say ‘hello’ to those of you finding the blog from the Someone’s Story mailing that was sent out this afternoon.

Welcome.

And if you’re here by other means, and would like to be placed on said list, head over to the main site. You can sign up on any page.

Hope you bookmark, delicious, technorati, or whatever else this page and we see you daily. Thanks.

Back On Stage

We’ll be back on stage at R Bar on June 19th.

I’d just like to point out that the stage has not one but two stripper poles.

Calm down now…