Platzangst - Road Gator



First completed track from my latest album-in-progress, None O'Clock.

EDIT: The above player is a bit wonky with my own anti-script plug-ins, so here's another one if the above doesn't work for you:

road gator (pre-album mix) - platzangst

One of the things that has prevented me from releasing more music is that I get bogged down in the planning of albums. I say to myself, "hey, why not crank out an album in a month for the RPM project in February, break some logjams, get this train moving again?" And I start putting together some ideas, jotting down notes, fiddling with the software...

And then I see a larger theme for the album, something more interesting besides "bunch of songs I made at about the same time", and I start building towards that theme. And then, things start to get complicated. Because instead of just cranking out some music, I'm confining myself to certain avenues, marking boundaries, placing limits, and in some ways making things more challenging and complicated. Which, of course, goes against the whole notion of "cranking something out".

You cannot imagine how many half-formed albums I have laying around. Projects that have stalled in the face of the self-created uphill battle I've made of them. And I think they'd be pretty good, but, y'know, I need more time and energy than I have at the moment in order to do them properly.

What I really need is to quit my job, or find one of those magic jobs people seem to get where they always have time to screw around on the Internet at all hours. Ain't no Intarwub in the plastics factory. But I like eating and not sleeping under bridges too much, and I doubt the bridge has wi-fi. So for the moment I'm stuck.

Which brings me back to cranking one out.

I'm trying.

It's going to be something fairly simple, not something I find particularly challenging, no real strong theme. It's going to be electronica - danceable, I suppose, but not rave, more downtempo stuff, a bit of funk, a hint of jazz, and NO THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS, YOU SEE? YOU SEEEEEEE???

I'm going to make this thing and then it is going to BE THERE, and then at least I'll have another album out after oh god too many years.

And then that raises the question: if I can do that in short order, why couldn't I do another one? And then another?

I just got a mailing from Solielmoon, an industrial/experimental-oriented music store and record label. They were touting the latest release by Muslimgauze. But here's the thing:  Bryn Jones, the guy who was Muslimgauze, has been dead for ten years. And they're still releasing new stuff from him every so often.

He was one of those guys who just worked furiously and cranked out a lot of stuff. They estimate he recorded 200 albums worth of music, for multiple record companies, and there's still banks of stuff yet to be released. You might argue as to whether it was all good stuff, but in some circles Muslimgauze is still well-regarded and his works always sell enough to justify putting out the next posthumous album.

And maybe that's something to consider. Is it better to get hung-up on making an album that conforms to some relatively ambitious goal, or is it worth just trying to blow several albums through the tubes and get them out there and worry about quality later?

I'm not getting any younger.

Here, here's my one-sentence review of AnimeIowa, which I pre-registered for months ago since they said they weren't going to do single-day passes, anymore:

Apparently, I am not really all that much of an anime fan.

Nothing happened at Wizard World Chicago that didn't happen before. I found some interesting stuff to buy and read, met up with the attending Shocktraumanauts for dinner at Maria's, hung around at the Hyatt after hours.

I had neither table for hawking goods nor pitches to toss at editors, so I got no job offers, and wasn't expecting anything along that line.

But, I kinda wish I'd had a table. You know, it just wasn't going to work out this year: I had no real active comics projects, my backcatalog of images I'd be willing to try and sell as prints is kind of minimal at the moment, and there just wasn't enough money to go around. Still, as I drifted by tables where people were selling prints and comics that I knew I could exceed in quality, I kinda thought I ought to be doing the same thing.

Okay, granted: they all may have been losing money on the deal. I did pass by a lot of sub-par creators - hell, I breezed by very good artists whose work just didn't appeal to me that much for one reason or another. But, still, they were out there, trying, and they had comics or art on the table.

Well, why not me? What I took away from Chicago was something I've always known, and this year was just a reminder:

1.) Yeah, okay, my art isn't as wonderful as I'd like, but it is better than some, and if those guys can put out comics, so could I.

2.) And what I really need to do is somehow find the time and energy to actually do the work.

It's that last part that's the problem.

Tomorrow - well, Thursday, today - is the start of a week vacation, with a chewy Wizard World Chicago at its center. Rumors about the con's dwindling attendance for both fans and pros makes it unlikely this one's going to affect my threadbare "comics career" in any way, but I am looking forward to seeing the Shocktraumanauts that will be there. Not going as a pro (in fact, where I used to be able to use my meager credits to score free professional entry to the con, this year you pretty much have to be buying table space to avoid buying a ticket), so there's no pressure at all. I mean, I'll take business cards, to be sure, but I'm far more likely to make industry contacts by having the traditional dinner with Phil and the rest at Maria's than any stomping about the floor and waiting in portfolio lines.

Have an idea for a video for one of my songs; might try to shoot some footage with my digital camera during the trip - not high quality, but the idea doesn't require it. Wonder if there's free video editing software out there?

Having a working laptop means I may be able to update this journal during the con. If anything amazing happens, I'll let y'all know.

Anyway. Busy day, Thursday, and then a long drive early Friday. I'll need some vacation to relax from my vacation.

Country music has to hit me just right to work, and a lot of it doesn't. I like this, though, and while they never broke my guitar, United Airlines has put me through some gawdawful bullshit in the past, so this video strokes me in a number of fuzzy places.

If anyone out there understands WordPress and ComicPress AND can show me how to apply them to a webpage layout of my own design AND could suss out how to make 3 or 4 such sites "talk" to each other through a central hub site without breaking teh Intarwubs AND can help me accomplish all this on the cheap OR can provide a recommendation for someone who could do all of the above, drop me a line, okay?

Chris Ware: painfully revealing human misery and making you chuckle all at the same time.

Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.

So, a friend sent me a link to some article about how PETA asked the Pet Shop Boys to change their name to the Rescue Shelter Boys or some silly crap like that - really PETA, make yourself look like complete drama whores - but in the process I found a link to a new video by the pair, which has the double advantage of A) being a catchy tune, and B) being visually interesting. Enjoy.

 

I wonder if I can find the new album in the freebie bin, hur hur.

Just curious to see if anyone I know is going to show up at AnimeIowa this year. Just got the registration card in the mail, and possibly early registration would keep potential costs low.

I'm planning on going to WizardWorld in Chicago during the previous weekend, but AnimeIowa is within very convenient driving range, so if there's a reason for me to go I can probably fit it in. However, I'm kind of ambivalent about going if all it turns out to be is a big shopping trip. (Especially after coming off what will be a very expensive con.)

I have no idea if there will be any reason for me to try and go as a pro/artist myself; probably not. Don't know if I can swing table fees, anyway.

Come to think of it, I can't even find any Artist's Alley-type info on the AnimeIowa website, at all.