Work vs. Play
Well that was a long stretch of nothing, wasn’t it? As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted anything in a while. I think this is because posting here used to be something that I could do to procrastinate while I was at work, and now it’s something I should work on instead of doing other things. This has become part of my non-paying, no-boss-having “job” of leisure. In other words, I don’t want to work, but would prefer to bang on the drum all day. Also, this NYTimes podcast actually kept me pretty busy – I understand now why most podcasts are kind of like unedited live radio shows. You record a 45 minute show and you’re done. All this editing and sound effects and music is really time consuming. But we’re done, and they’ll be posting all three 12-minute episodes on the site tomorrow, just in time to promote the new Funny Pages section on Sunday. Enjoy them. Please don’t yell at me that they’re not really podcasts, because I already know that.
Now then. To business. My new job as a non-job-haver comes with certain responsibilities (which I make up and can ignore whenever I want to). I hereby propose a challenge to myself, which I also accept. To keep the juices flowing, I am going to post one piece of work per week until further notice. This may be a complete song, or it may be some kind of experimental thing, a mashup, a remix, some audio of me eating cheese, who knows. Not every one will be good, or even tolerable. Many of these things will not make any sense to anyone but me, and some of them will certainly suck. But there will be one a week, so that’s got to be worth something.
I’ll post the first item later today (now I have to go buy some fat shorts and eat some lunch), and then every Friday until I can’t take it anymore, or until I am given one million dollars to stop. Get ready America…
Comments
Glenn says
Are you familiar with the catandgirl.com Donation Derby? If people send her money, she sends them a cartoon of how she spent the money!
While this idea may not translate directly into song writing/producing well, it might be able to be stretched into use. (e.g. people could donate towards a song, or pay to have certain ideas added into a song...)
I just really like the idea of the fanbase being able to support directly, and getting some sort of direct feedback for it.
Incidentally, in "Brookline", I think you might have made the atomic lemurs upset with the pronunciation of "Oregon". It's "Or eh gun", rather than "Ore-gone".
Keep on rockin'
Glenn
Arlo says
Cool! Sounds just like Songfight!, but without all that pesky competition!
Edminster says
Oooh... Maybe week one could be the cheese-eating, and week two can be a remix of week one!
There you go, two weeks out of the way!
JoCo says
Glenn: I hadn't heard of that, but I like it. Direct support and feedback is a cool thing. If I can actually get this thing-a-week going, maybe that's a nice place to plug in that kind of a feedback loop. We'll see, I may just be talking out of my ass. I mean, it might only last for two weeks.
Arlo: yes, I choose not to compete!
Ed: Now you've got it. That's why it will only last two weeks. My only idea so far is eating cheese.
JoCo says
Oh yes, Glenn, tell the lemurs I'm sorry, but the schwa sound just doesn't cut it for that particular syllable in that particular word. Also, Oregon sucks. Kidding!
Glenn says
Oh no. You've offended the lemurs. I cannot be responsible for what happens next. It's all out of my hands.
A challenge: I dare you to right a volcano song, using the term "pyroclastic flow"! Lots of Hawaiian words you can pronounce as you like. There's a bulge near Sisters, Oreogn, which might just be a new volcano in the making. Plus, we've a a volcano right in the middle of Portland! How cool is that? No word yet on whether in contains a mad scientist's lab.
superjerk says
I don't know about the rest of the stuff, but a song about volcanoes would just have to be cool...or hot...or something.
JoCo says
Everyone loves volcanoes (except for the people who are burned alive by them).
Joy says
The lemurs have previously attacked John Linnell of They Might Be Giants. He has since repented.
JoCo says
Linnell has for a long time been a puppet of the lemurs. You think a HUMAN wrote Particle Man?
David Kraut says
Ah, and so it begins. While searching your blog to find out the name of that drum sounds kit you told me about, I found this entry. Who could have imagined where this post would take you two and a half years later?
Congrats on what sounded like a very successful and cool SF show and looking forward to your next NYC performance. (Wife and I watched Spiff's videos of "Re: Your Brains" and "Creepy Doll" this weekend to make up for our 3,000 mile distance from the show)
Mike says
I would also like to commemorate the beginning of the project that resulted in the wonderful metal case of CDs that I purchased at your recent show in Somerville. My current unemployed status gives me the opportunity to skim several years worth of your weblog posts to see all the good stuff I missed.
Thanks for all the great music and I look forward to hearing what you do in the future.