i’ve been contemplating changing my name. i’m somewhat afraid that if the success which has thus far eluded me ever does come rolling in, that TOHO CO., LTD might have a legal problem with the name “transmothra”.

and besides, it really doesn’t go well with the kind of organic music i’ve been making lately anyway.

and my real name, x jeremy jarratt, just doesn’t flow very well, i don’t think. anyway, i’m not so sure that it would look any good on an album cover, should the need ever arise to put some proper name representing me on one of those things. (tho’ i’m bound and determined to make a serious effort at just that, before i die with nothing relevant to leave behind.)

so i think, because no one ever called me “jer,” a shortened form that i actually kinda like (though fuck knows how to spell it), that i will use “jair” as my nom de guerre.

i am open to suggestions, however.

especially since i don’t ever want to be derisively called “Cher” by anyone.

p.s., my birth certificate (wherever it is) is blank (tho’ amended) (talk about lifelong identity crises!)

new song being formed right now.
v. urgent rhythm.
150bpm.
gated reverb on double-time drums. hello 80s!
stereo chorus + delay on guitar.
weird chords. double-stops on top of droning root.
unsure if there will be gtr distortion or not at this point.
coming together rapidly. appropriately enough.
vocals likely to be in style of Lou Reed/Kim Gordon talk-singing.
need bridge section. well, whole thing needs fleshed out.
lyrics being penned in 5… 4… 3… 2…

EDIT:
so far, the lyrics have turned it into some kind of Sisters-of-Mercy-meets-The-Fixx sort of thing. and i have far too many verses (4) before the first chorus comes in, which is currently unavoidable, context-wise. we’ll see how this goes. i smell a massive rewrite looming just ahead….

1. Kraftwerk soon to release new album.
2. Maery Lanahan is fucking amazing. i just heard her song “The Birds” on Rev. Cool‘s Around the Fringe on WYSO. i will be at Elbos tomorrow if at all possible to see her play. go see her shows around here and Columbus.
3. i forgot what this one was.

an infuriating link, thanks to pope_guilty. i’m all for the dissolution of major-label record companies and the RIAA, and vast reform of the entertainment industry as a whole, but consider:

it accomplishes two things the record companies never could get right:

• fairness to consumers, and
• complete annihilation of the concept of getting paid to be an artist!

it also poses the question:

• does an artist’s work suffer if they have something better to eat that ramen? are starving artists truly the best kind?

more importantly, a legal question that perhaps got overlooked:

• is entertainment-slavery going to be legal?

• send back non-working mic pre
• pick up squirtguns for dog training (dollar store)
• pick up cheap wall wart (dollar store)
• look for Chucks (dollar store)
• pick up panty hose and something circular, plus a clamp – make pop filter (dollar store)
• try a more Greg Dulli-ish vocal on the Afghan Whigsy song to get it out of the current funk it’s in

here’s one that i KNOW you’ll enjoy! subversive greeting cards! buy a TON of these things and save them for all your friends birthdays, christmasses, etc. – especially good for sending to Republicans and other ill-minded conservatives! a really excellent collection of the coolest greeting cards i’ve ever seen in my life (and my uncle has sent me some heavy-duty, far-out cards, too)!

go here now –> apoplecticpress.org <-- go here now

for no reason whatsoever, my browser just went from the “my ebay” page to http://www.sloan.org/main.shtml. i didn’t type in anything, it all happened while i was typing that last entry. weird.

i got my dual mic preamp today! the one that i bought off of eBay almost a bleedin’ MONTH ago! and it doesn’t work! at all!

i am fully prepared to launch this fucking thing out of the window and give up on music completely at this point.

• i’ve ruined my best song ten times over,
• both of my working guitars are completely whacked for intonation (an E at the 12th fret is like a half an octave off from an open E, or its harmonic octave – yummy),
• my mic pres don’t work,
• outboard compression is too noisy to even consider using,
• i’m running out of disk space,
• and let’s face it – i’m a shit musician with hackey, hackey songs.

if i had maybe just a little more than $1k (nope! nowhere even close!), i could pretty much fix all but the first and last problem.

grrrrrrrrrr! grrr! grrrr! grrrrrrrrrrrr!!

shit. i just had a philosophical breakthrough of the worst kind. and i feel like Fox Mulder, in the cliffhanger episode where he’s watching an old tape of Carl Sagan giving his congressional testimony on the lack of evidence supporting the existence of UFOs, gun in hand.

i have no soul.

i do what my chemistry tells me to do. or rather, i make choices based on what my chemistry recommends, and carry them out with a statistical margin-of-error. all emotions are illusory. there is no such thing as love.

there is no such thing as love.

i have no soul.

free will has biochemical limitations.

there is no such thing as joy, or sorrow. or love.

i have no soul.

right, so tomorrow morning i have the opportunity to record some vocals for an updated version of my old song “treachery.” i’ve been messing around with it, and i’m thinking of maybe inverting some of the lyrics; switching some words around. mainly, i guess, just for contrast with the original version.

the original lyrics for the break section go:

you turned me out – i turned you in.
you would’ve turned me off – but i turned you on.
you were so bad – i was no good.
isn’t it funny how thinks turn out?

and here’s how i’m thinking of doing it:

i turned you out – you turned me in.
i would’ve turned you off – but you turned me on.
i was so bad – you were no good.
isn’t it funny how things work out?

so…

right, i really should take down that link.

first new visitor-submitted poem! just recieved this instant!
(completely unedited; “poem” appears as it was submitted (including poetic utter lack of line breaks))

(don’t complain to me, people. i haven’t said a thing about it.)

WANTED TO BUY:
Plextor SCSI external CD burner
(or Iomega ZIP drive 250 SCSI external)

vocal session today… am hoarse…

it went pretty well, all things considered (things like the fact that i have all the grace of a chinchilla covered in fire ants and a skill level akin to Charles Bukowski on a bender, trying to ballroom dance – or was it the other way around?). once i had about 20 abortive takes (and those were TRULY bad), i found my spot and went after it.

the end result was somewhere between bloody awful and fucking great. at times, i sounded like that 28 year old Trans Am-drivin’ kid down the street who thinks he can sing like Steve Perry but actually has less ability than Bunny Lebowski… and at times, i sounded like Steve Perry. no shit. who knew? i can hold a note really really long, and keep it in tune so that it blends in with the music perfectly.

so yeah. i ended up with something of a cross between a gooey mess of tuneless garbage and a keeper. i gotta get some more takes in.

i’m not punching in mid-verse, nope. only time i punch is between verses. if i need to redo a line, i redo the whole verse. what i really should do, though, because i was NOT counting on the choruses (chorii?) cutting so close to the verses, is do 2 tracks and bounce them down to one later on. otherwise, that punching thing gets a little scary.

also, i found out that i absolutely MUST redo the guitars. again. i’m 99% sure that the 7k whine i’m hearing is from the Invisible Fence running just outside my window. not sure what i can do about that.

you’d never know in a million years that i don’t own a bass guitar. and it sounds perfect. i’m not tuning down or using an octave divider, either ;)

the song sounds less like Afghan Whigs and more like me now, i think. ooo!, and the drums actually sound great, too!

running out of disk space though. anyone have an old SCSI Plexwriter, or an SCSI Zip drive to sell, loan, or donate?

1) i’m pretty sure i’m like the worst bass player in the world. it’s okay, though, because few guitar players can play bass as if they were bass players. Prince is one. no, i’m not that bad… i’m just judgmental, after having one single take ruined by not-so-perfect timing and mediocre improvising. i’ll do a much better take here in a minute.

2) one time, i was playing bass with my friends Jonesy (gtr, voc.), Kent (drums, very first time and he pretty much rocked), and Brad (i don’t remember what he was playing), and we did one of those moody, dramatic tunes off the second side of U2’s Joshua Tree album (“Mothers of the Disappeared” or “Exit”), plus “Rockin’ In the Free World” by Neil Young. we slammed, and then when we were done, i noticed that the bass strings felt kinda… sticky. i looked down and there was blood all over the bass strings and my right hand. heh heh. me = teh r0x0rz.

3) Netscape is (unofficially) officially dead. thanks in large part to Microsoft’s new deal with AOL. and speaking of Microsoft, their next browser update won’t be until at least 2005, and even then, you’ll have to buy the damn OS just to get it. (sorry, Mac users!) Mozilla is your only hope for a decent browser now.

4) never fall asleep listening to Black Sabbath on headphones. i’m not sure, but i think i’m sterile now, after having done just this the other day.

5) never, ever record EQ or delay. i need to be spanked. hard.

anybody know of a good set of acoustic strings with a plain (NOT wound) G?

if you think that MIDI is just an anooying song file that university-hosted web sites that haven’t been updated since 1996 use to get you to turn your speakers off, you are sorely mistaken.

MIDI was created around a quarter of a century ago to enable people like Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson to have more than their initially-allotted number of limbs. in short, it allows two or more keyboards to talk to each other. the basic idea is that one controls the other, so that by playing, say, a Korg DW-8000, you could also be playing a Yamaha DX-7 (or vice-versa). you could also throw in a computer, or a drum machine, or a sequencer (a device that plays a predetermined set of notes from a program; basically the late-20th century’s answer to the player piano).

the point? i just got my 18 year old TR-707 to talk to my VS-880EX!

so what does that mean? that means that now i can change the drum patterns without having to re-record the rest of the song, since it will now all be perfectly matched (synced) to the beat, no matter what changes i make!

ahem… that means that i can record a basic drum track now and then go back in and add fills and spice it up later on.

what a difference a decade makes! but thanks to MIDI, i don’t have to worry about it.

you can skip this, it’s just music stuff.

just completed tracking on “like we are” – the first attempt was a disaster. i just didn’t like the drum parts. or rather, i liked them very much, but they weren’t what i was hearing in my head. rectified that and now they’re just about as perfect as i could make them on a 20 year old analog drum machine*.

and then there’s the signal routing, which seems awfully complicated when you’re just getting to know your machine. i tried to do this:
guitar in (mono) >> stereo delay & overdrive >> output left-right result to disk
but you have to go into input, track, and send/return mode and fiddle with so much crap just to route the signal, and i couldn’t figure out how i was supposed to assign the input to the send/return effects loop, and then assign the output of that to the recorder. so i scratched it and started over. this time i only recorded the mono guitar signal with compression (which keeps the dynamic range in check so you don’t sound too amateur). so now i’ll just use the stereo effect for mixdown, i guess, or else figure out how to bounce it to two tracks later on when i need to make room for more tracks anyway.

so yeah, redid the drums and then nailed the rhythm guitar in 3 takes. it’s not perfect, but i don’t want it to be.

funny how i can’t play to a metronome, but give me drums and my timing is okay.

i can’t wait to record the vocals. that’s a fun song to do. but i never really figured out a good way to do the chorus part. rhythmically, it doesn’t really seem to fit all that well. i’ll figure something out, though.

i did change one word. i never liked the way “within you i fornicated” sounded (so very dumb). so now i think it’ll be “desecrated.” i think. i dunno. i like “within you,” but i’m not real sure what sounds right that rhymes with “celebrated.” and yes, it does have to rhyme.

thinking about doing an all-out rocka rolla next. something Pixie-esque. just some real bent post-punk art-rock sorta thing. i have nothing yet, but it’s so easy to make up an interestingly kooky song; you just skronk away and then polish it until it’s artful.

EDIT: i should point out that this song is coming together more or less exactly as i hear it in my head, only better, but with less drum fills.

* don’t worry – it sounds like a real drummer. the TR-707 is renowned for its realistic -if a bit uninspired and flat- drum samples. a touch of EQ and they’re great. the secret, by the way, to programming realistic drum patterns is to keep in mind how many arms and legs the average drummer has, and think about how easily a real person could hit, say, a ride cymbal, 2 different toms, hi-hat, and a snare within the span of a split second, while also working hi-hat and kick drum pedals with their feet. i got it covered, yo. if i had a real set i’d do it like that, but i don’t.

wanted: liberal pundits

my goal:
to put together a political commentary website for the purpose of lampooning, denigrating, chastising, castigating, and defaming conservatives and their ill-mannered rhetoric. in a most ill-mannered way, of course.

secondary purpose:
a possible leftist think tank with a messageboard, most likely phpBB2.

tertiary (that means third) purpose:
to get into trouble with John Ashcroft. it ain’t a party til something (or someone) gets busted up, ya know.

you must be:
opinionated, thoughtful, funny, and passionate (yet mature – outbursts are welcome; too much cursing is not, if only because we’ll no doubt get taken far less seriously). and, obviously, you must have lefty/green tendencies. libertarians also welcome, just leave your goddamn boomsticks at the door, for the love of fuck (but do bring common sense; it’s not your “right” to dump unused motor oil down the gullets of beached whales). subversive types extremely welcome. also outright anarchists, if you can follow the advice given to the libertarians.

the setting:
i plan on using b2evolution, a massively upgraded version of the blogging software i use on my own blog. this requires paid web hosting, plus a clever domain name, and you know what that means. i can easily find decent hosting for around $50/year (give or take), so the more, the merrier (if uh, you know what i mean).

pay:
none, unless anyone involved can score us some advertisers. but hey: no guts, no glory.

to apply:
inquire within. please provide samples via link or cut-n-paste. (_hellion need not provide samples, as he is the exemplification of excellent political blogging. see also Tom Tomorrow and Bob Harris for excellent commentary.)

job
just got back from the job interview. it went reasonably well. it was mostly pretty casual, really. the worst thing about it, apart from my usual reckless blathering, was the fact that, being a printer, he necessarily uses a Mac for his office computer. being that one of his main programs isn’t yet compatible with the aging OS X, he’s running OS9, which apparently doesn’t have it’s own IE 5.2 (and probably never will). all of which means that he couldn’t view my translucency-based sites as they were intended. hey, even after several years, PNG may not be bleeding-edge tech, but most iterations of MSIE just don’t do them, or don’t do them well… and CSS translucency is probably out of the question, though i can never find good documentation for browser/OS support of Microsoft’s alpha-filter property.

also, i was nearly two full minutes late, but luckily, i had accidentally taken Route 201 instead of 202 – which turned out to be flooded. so i told him i took 202 and got detoured. rock.

oh, and in the upstairs offices were life-sized cardboard cutouts of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Captain Picard, Data, and Seven of Nine.

goonism
interestingly, on the way back, i pulled up to a stoplight right next to the Troy police station just as i was shrieking along with Elvis Costello’s “Goon Squad” (from his utterly BRILLIANT Armed Forces LP), and for the next ten or so miles was followed by a cruiser. coincidence? probably… but if there’s been any era since that of Senator Joseph McCarthy (may he rot in hell) that had a scarier goon-to-general populace ratio, it’s this one – the one we’re in now.

this wasn’t quite good enough to post to my own blog, so what the hell. i’ll post it here.

i just did one of the hardest things i’ve had to do in a while.

i cleaned off my vintage Roland TR-707 drum machine, plugged it in, and lo and behold!, it still works. problem is, the AA batteries that make up the memory system were shot (why they didn’t leak all over the place is anybody’s guess). so all my old patterns that i worked so hard on years ago were completely corrupted. i mean, Sun Ra makes more coherent sense than this stuff did. only a drummer – and i’m not kidding here – with more than a dozen limbs could’ve played that stuff.

so here’s the hard part: i just dumped the whole thing. cleared. deleted. everything. gone.

forever.

it hurt; i feel like i just killed 64 children. some of them were really intensely cool kids, too. although, like i said, they all got some kind of bad virus and mutated into grotesquely bizarre and disturbing creatures.

the coolest drum pattern i ever made is on a song very very few of you have ever heard, and it’s so cool it sounds like something off an unreleased Peter Gabriel album (until i start singing, that is). too bad. also the wicked drum beats from “monster” (my grunge-era, er, grunge song). also the one i did that very closely replicated Gary Thrasher‘s 626 pattern that we used to record the beautiful Loving Scares track “At 3AM”. but the beats i’ll miss the most is the one from the aforementioned “unbreathed” – they were tricky as shit; so hard to replicate that i’ve tried many times, and failed miserably each time.

so long, old friends.

---

i bought a shitload of AA batteries today.