I have been monkeying around with YouTube video editor. I compiled a few things and played with their filters. This is what I got…
Ian’s dinosaur dream:
Molly’s story:
Molly & Ian tell a story together:
Molly’s dance class:
Well, that’s it (for now).
It was a fun family project. We told the kids that birthdays & Easter would be light as we were putting a lot into the swingset. I’m not sure they understood or cared. Our moms helped with the purchase, too. Bethany & I looked online at 6,487,932 swing sets, and narrowed it down to 15 or so in our price range. I made a spreadsheet to compare them, because OCD or something. Looking at the roadside swing sets at those places that also sell sheds and rocking chairs, we got a similar product for about ⅓ or ¼ of the price, albeit with no installation.
Installation is expensive, and now we know why. Ha ha. Everyone who knew we were getting one gave warning, so we weren’t surprised, but it was an interesting task.
It came in 3 boxes from Walmart.com, and we did in-store pickup because I measured & it all fit nicely in the family vehicle.
It took two weekend days with one week night in between to get it done, but the first weekend day was slowed by the kids “helping,” a move-the-tools-in-because-it-looks-like-rain delay, and maybe even a “let’s undo that part because I put it on backwards” moment. The week night was hindered by the fact that as soon as I attached the ladder & sliding board, the kids needed to test it out.
Bethany & I enjoyed the kids helping. We do the Home Depot Kids Workshops so both kids are comfortable with a hammer & a screwdriver, and we have done some other stuff at home like carpet removal and hanging curtain rods where they have actually helped.
My mom even got video of the little man showing off his ratchet skills;
We have been at the house for a few years now, but the project this year is another step to getting the back yard to where we want it, and next year we’ll work on the front. Having some trees removed recently & moving our garden really opened up some space in the back yard. I’d like to put in a fire ring, and a toy car race-track play area. I actually proposed removing the Bean House to make room for the latter, but I was vetoed by a 2yo boy saying “Unh-uh, Daddy. Hoooome. Hooome. Daddy, unh-uh.” I really hope the beans take off this year. I have some sprouts popping up already. I have some squash around it too. I don’t think the soil is all that great there though.
I even recently built this Pinterest inspired potting bench…
Back to the swing set, we even got a few extra add-ons from Amazon, like the steering wheel, telescope, telephone, and some handles. I think I want to replace the kitchen area tarp walls with some chalkboard-painted wood… and eventually when the canopy fades or dry-rots, I’d like to replace it with some type of solid roof.
At any rate, I encourage you to tackle a project as a family. I encourage you to get kids outdoors. I encourage you to not be afraid to give young kids some tools with a bit of guidance and a lot of supervision. I encourage you to get them into building, gardening, cooking, and the business of imagination. I encourage you to try projects yourself, and don’t be afraid to involve the whole family. It’s amazing how much you can learn through Google, YouTube, and a maybe a few tries.
I think the kids like it…
So, recently turning 40 has me reflecting on life in general (which is pretty damn great) & on my accomplishments as a “musician” even though I’m not actively gigging right now.
I’m pretty self-deprecating of my musical talents, but I am proud of the major part of the aural art that I helped create. I compiled and uploaded a few of my favorites after using Audacity to clip out some silence and mp3Gain to try to get all the volume levels somewhat similar.
If you’ll indulge me I’d like to give my thoughts & memories on each of these songs that I was proud to be a part of with AiXeLsyD, Gasoline Dion, & Ernie and the Berts. If I have any of the stories, names, etc. wrong, please correct me in the comments. Being that these are punk rock(ish) bands, you may find the content explicit and/or objectionable. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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[SoundCloud/YouTube] | Tommy came up with this cool shuffling progression and I played a super easy solo over it. I believe we kept the first take of the solo even though at the time I thought I could do better. It’s not perfect, but it’s fun. It was cool to open shows with this then rip into something completely different. It was called “Tommy’s Jam” until an inside joke on a local message board inspired the new name.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | Probably the first song that I wrote that I liked, and probably the first original that we worked on in the band. We dug on this & recorded it a million times. It morphed a bit, but was basically the same simple jam. Ben doubling the vocals an octave lower and the guitar part at the end really fills it out.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | Tommy had recorded this song solo, and it contributed to the itch that I needed to scratch when we formed Gasoline Dion. I really liked the melody. I think he stole the lyrics from Space Ghost or Brak. This song to me is about not being a square peg that’s forced into a round hole. I liked singing background vocals & playing guitar.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | Erin wanted to start a band to play rocked-out Willy Wonka covers. That never happened. This did. It was the first original that stuck, and an early recording became the soundtrack to a friend’s video project. Dave learned to play drums in/for this band. This is a nice simple driving groove and is the perfect vehicle for the introduction of Erin’s gnarly gravelly voice.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | I wrote this on the outside of seeing someone with a broken heart. I thought it was pretty catchy. The “whoa-oh’s” are overkill but oddly necessary in my humble opinion. I think An-Die, Ben, & I are all singing on multiple tracks here.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | This riff was a leftover AiXeLsyD riff that almost became part of two songs but never really went anywhere. Mike had some leftover Who’s.Keeping.Score? lyrics that Dave & I re-arranged. Dave & I work really well on arranging musical parts & lyrics. I really really dig Tommy & I singing together on this one.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | Erin supposed that a local hero may not really be a hero on this one. Maybe he read that weird urban legend. I really like the guitar part here, although it’s missing some kind of effect in my head. Wah? Phaser? Not sure. Erin let me just go goofy with background vocals here. I felt like Danzig or that Not-Danzig guy in the Cult. I love how this song builds into chaos.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | This is where it all pulled together, and it was the last proper thing we recorded. Ha ha. An-Die wrote the riff & lyrics, I arranged them. Ben came up with the guitar noodling& octaves riff. I think I came up with the stupid guitar part for the verse. I really dig my guitar solo here,even though I went too long. (Oddly, this sounds a lot like “Anything, Anything (I’ll Give You)” by Dramarama as played by Buckcherry.)
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | I was listening to a lot of the Unseen, I think. I don’t really write political stuff that often. This was taking the piss out of that genre. Dave sounded better on it with vocals. I scream “feet” in the background and give the creepy laugh at the end. We lost the original lyrics, so Dave used what he remembered and made the rest up on the fly. I don’t really think any one ever tried to intemperate a deeper meaning. If they did, they didn’t tell us.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | It was hard to tell if Erin was serious or joking a lot of the time. He had a deadpan delivery, and it was hilarious. To deliver this ridiculousness so seriously is hilarious to me. I think I sort of came up with this riff over top of his bass line.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | It’s “Dave Ugly’s Girlfriend”, not “Dave’s Ugly Girlfriend.” People always seemed to get that wrong. Dave Ugly played bass & sang for one of our favorite local bands, Useless Torment. I don’t tell the story as well as An-Die, but Dave was apparently saying he loved him, and An-Die was playing the “even if…” game, and arrived at this. I remember being “mad” when Sum 41 came out as a punk band rapping. I think Boner played guitar on this one and Ben played Drums?
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | I don’t know if we could do this one today. People seem so easily offended. It’s just a joke. We don’t really care if you wear girl pants. We’re not insinuating or implying anything. We look ridiculous too. Another Dave vocals song, I am screaming the high parts. All of us are in the beginning. I think the breakdown was inspired by hardcore /screamo kids in skinny jeans doing the windmill and Peelander-Z’s “S.T.E.A.K.”
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | Dave suggested I try a little more dynamics with space and clean. Dave is usually right. You can do a lot with the same 3 chords over & over. This was a slice of Erin’s life, full of his observations. We almost got permission to go in & shoot a video there. Somebody must have really listened to the lyrics. He had “nicer” ones prepared just in case we needed to sell out.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] |I think An-Die hated this one. I liked the noodling& the melody. The lyrics are super dumb & trite. The song was made infinitely cooler when Ben put in that volume swell in the final mix. That was never there, then we started doing it live after he did that to the recording. This could probably be punched-up a little bit more.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | Tommy sings like an angel. I have no idea what in the hell he’s talking about here. I think Dave & Mike made this honky-tonk-ish. I played a little solo under Tommy’s vocals at the end because nobody ever told me not to. The end sounds like the Misfits’ “NY Ranger.”
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | Erin stole this one from a band called Suck-Your-Brains-A-Go-Go. I don’t know if they ever recorded it. I should ask the man who wrote it some time. We made it ours. I think Bengt punched-up some of the guitar & added a bit of harmonies during the recording process.
[SoundCloud/YouTube] | Same thing as the first track, second solo take by me with a wah pedal this time. Dave is also on guitar making crazy noises and soloing in between all of my notes. Ha ha. If you don’t “get” the speaking part, watch the Josie and the Pussycats movie some time.
I’d love to know what you think, or to read/see/hear your own memories about these bands or in any bands or projects in which you have participated. Did I miss a song or two that you may have remembered or liked? Comments (or likes or whatever is deemed social-media-appropriate) on the songs on SoundCloud or YouTube would be awesome and greatly appreciated, too.
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Check out the playlist on SoundCloud:
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Check out the playlist on YouTube:
Can you Dig it?
I think you should be able to download a zip of the collection on Google Drive or SendSpace if you’re so inclined. If you can’t get it there, let me know and I can email it to you.
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The AiXeLsyD stuff:
The Gasoline Dion stuff:
The Ernie and the Berts Stuff:
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Check out some related posts:
Anchorhead vs. Galactic Empire
I have seen Galactic Empire blowing up lately, and I love it… but it makes me wonder what happened to Anchorhead, who was doing it first. (Yes, I know scores of metal versions of Star Wars songs are all over the Innerwebs, but these guys are the best.)
Here’s some side-by-side comparisons…
…and check out this incredible entire live show! Apparently all these cats ever left was one EP & a handful of performances. Their guitars have so many strings, it takes 12 parsecs for any non-force user to make their way across the fretboard.
I did download all I could form MySpace, but all I could get of some of the stuff was some snippets of songs. Their interpretations are proggy, masterful, eerie, and dark. I would love to get my hands on the EP.
Obviously, these scruffy-looking Nerf Herders rock too. The costumes and video production are all-out. The metal seems happier if that’s even a thing. They used kickstarter to fund their eventual takeover of the galaxy. Galactic credits go far with the Empire. I’m anxious for their full-length album, too.
It looks like of the two, these guys are the only ones currently in existence.
I would love to see a fan mix of the movies using either of these guys to score the entire thing. I don’t think Disney would go for it, unless like Darth Lucas they realize they can make more money by selling the movies again to the same people that already own all possible formats & variations.
Bonus: Check out Sarlacc!
Guitars Demoed this time around
The other night I broke out some of my toys for some fun. Some cats demo their stuff online, so I decided to make a video of my jam…
Here are the guitars used:
Here was my setup:
Ran it into a Planet Waves tuner pedal, out to a Y-splitter cable. One end went into an Ernie Ball wah pedal then into a Fender Blues Jr. The other end went straight into an Orange Micro Terror rockin’ a Laney 2×12 cab.
Here are some photos if you’re into that kind of stuff:
I’d be interested to know what you think, if you own a guitar like one of these, or if you have something even wackier to share. Please, comment up.
Thanks to Farcebook, these two articles about Finnish band Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät came on to my radar:
Besides being awesome new (to me) enjoyable punk rock, I feel like it served as some sort of cosmic reminder, warning, or inspiration. Not only to me, but to everyone who happens to read this.
Not feeling a bunch of paragraphs today, so I will hit you with a bulleted list.
I’m sure there’s more, but you get my point. Notice little things like this in life. Be thankful for your insight. Be thankful that there are others out there reminding you to put forth your best effort. Learn something or learn about something often. Make some noise that gets heard.
Check out these videos.
…and more.
I need to get my hands on some music & get a peep at this documentary. Anyone already have these cats on their radar? Tell me more!
Lars Frederiksen
The other day I plugged my crappy old Insignia Pilot into the truck stereo’s auxiliary input, & I started playing the songs on my trusty & hardly ever updated mp3 player in order by song title. I have no idea why I decided to take it off of “random”, but I did. (Sadly, my 500 GB hard drive has stopped working and unless it’s fixed I’ll lose a TON of music, so whatever this Best Buy generic brand mp3 player holds may be it for my collection for a while!)
I thought that “song titles that start with numbers” would be a pretty cool playlist. I’d thought I’d share some of my favorites.
I noticed I’m missing a song that starts with 8. Ha ha. What songs would you put on your numbers playlist? Dig any of these?
Insignia Pilot
