Making SHORTs Of Interest

 

Still haven't found what I'm looking for, but maybe this is closer to THE  music + comics style where the speech balloons aren't animated, but other parts of the frame are. Removes the frustration of having to wait too long or the speech balloons pass by too quickly to read.

Guitar started very STATUS QUO, but it mostly went elsewhere. Been using the same, or very similar ZebraHZ bass, lead and other sounds last few musical things as I just love them.  The melodic guitar has the Valhalla DSP Space Modulator Super Resonant Flanger on it that gives this just on the edge sound to me.  Love sequenced synths, metal power chords and melody, so this seems to be maybe SynthRockPop as far to melodic to be metal, and there is no shredding. 

Just joking, but not really 😅, did this comic too:

Other Things

THE RAT IN A CAGE guy, Billy Corgan seems to have taken over from Rick Beato as the guy with the really interesting interviews worth watching to me.  And it was Rick Beato's interview with Billy that brought him to my attention.

I had heard of Smashing Pumpkins, but  hadn't heard any of their music till Rick talked with Billy about tracks like Jelly Belly a couple of years ago.  I then got a few of their albums, and even bought the Smashing Pumpkins BIG MUFF PEDAL.   

Billy's latest interview with Patrick Mata and his Kommunity FK and the founding of GOTH music was all new to me. Hadn't heard of the US bands they mentioned during this, but did know of most of the UK bands mentioned.  Being in Australia, then Uni and working at Fairlight Instruments meant the music media I had time for was limited and I had more important things to do.  I had never read any of the music magazines or newspapers either, so gossip and trends local and overseas were not even on my radar.

Billy, unlike Rick, has the annoying habit of interrupting his guests, but he was also a very successful alt musician, guitarist, singer, song writer and was in the world they talk about and really lived it. He is very well spoken and philosophical. Rick is more a failed jazz musician that became a producer, even though that did mean he played a lot on his artists records. 

Last year I went to the SHIROW MASAMUNE Exhibition in Tokyo on his manga that includes APPLESEED and GHOST IN THE SHELL. A week after I went to Tokyo and attended the exhibition, it was announced it would open next in Osaka.  An Exhibition on the making of the Animated Film GHOST IN THE SHELL has  just opened in Tokyo.  It has much of the artwork found in these books I have had for many years:

I expect this one will also make it to Osaka sometime, but will not be disappointed if it doesn't. I have already seen many of the original film's background paintings.  It is all very cool, but it is the manga artwork that interests me most, and I have now seen that.  So if it comes to these parts I will attend, but it isn't worth the effort to go to Tokyo for it to me. 

Came back to halfway through episode 7 of the HALO TV series on PRIME after a few days, and instead of RESUME, was met with START YOUR FREE 7 DAY PARRAMOUNT+ TRIAL.   A hard no to that. I wouldn't have started watching it if that was originally the case.  Netflix Japan recently lost all STAR TREK and assume something related for PRIME too.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Hit Song Writers

 

Diane Warren | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan interview is really interesting, and a drive to make the above MUSIC+COMIC. In D Flat/C# Dorian @ 135BPM. Powered up the MS-20mini for the first time in awhile too.

Brian Cadd has a story that he was in the studio with THE POINTER SISTERS to record one of his songs, and he was playing the piano in the session. They decided they wanted to change the key to suit their voices better, and as he couldn't do that himself, they had to get another guy in to play the piano. He just laughs it off. Being a great song writer and being a great versatile musician aren't related.

It seems Diane Warren is a bit that way herself, great at the words, emotion and melody, and that is the bit that counts. Maybe a bit like Irving Berlin, but they didn't go into it.  

Makes me feel a bit better about the music I am making.

Added some recent tracks to my Assorted Bits 3 album on Bandcamp.

Other Things

So the FAIRLIGHT INSTRUMENTS 50YEARS pin arrived in the mail today, for attendance at the Event held 2025/12/19 in Sydney. I was one of the ex-staff on Zoom that attended. 

The type of thing worn on a suit. I rarely do that.  Put it on my hat maybe?😀  Not that anyone I expect to meet will ever have any idea what it is about.

I had my first medical procedure on Monday, 2 days ago and it was painless and took all of 5 minutes. Will go back in a bit over a week for #2 to be taken care of.

Urasawa Naoki's ASADORA vol 9 English was released yesterday and I ordered my copy.

After watching THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY for the first time, Star Trek leaving Netflix last week and BONES repeats starting on Netflix this Sunday,  HALO TV series on PRIME seemed the best option. 5 episodes in and it is holding my attention.  Never played any of the games but know about MASTER CHIEF. For something that started as a FPS, the TV series has a very human core to the story. 

Watched part of a JAMES CAMERON interview in the last weeks and there was one part where he says after finishing Titanic, he spent many years doing other things like the deep sea dive and working with NASA making cameras. The guys at NASA were super smart and driven and paid little attention to films and what the latest buzz in that, what was his world, was up to, and he hadn't met people like that before.   I had spent years in a similar NASA frame of mind where the trivia of movies was a waste of time and there were far more important things to do. Part of the reason I can catch up on things in retirement.  

I expect the local to me Art Museums and Galleries I have regularly visited over the last 3+ years  will have some interesting things on this year, but am not aware of anything yet. I thought that for months at the beginning of last year, then the mangaka MASAMUNE SHIROW exhibition opened and that was a surprise and a delight.  

But the overnight trip to Setagaya/Shinjuku Tokyo showed me how tiring things get for me as I age. The previous year I went to Nagoya and visited 2 exhibits in the one day, even if I did have to rest in the Anno exhibition. It is further to Tokyo and I could just manage the one exhibition and getting to lunch and dinner.  I have to pace myself even more.   

A week after I visited the MASAMUNE SHIROW exhibition, they announced it would move to Osaka. The same happened after I visited Nagoya 2 years ago for the Mamoru Nagano  exhibition, and it to came to Osaka a few months later.  So this year I will wait to see if a popular exhibit gets announced as going Osaka. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

It Seems Good At First...

 

A Quick Thing I did yesterday and put on X as a 60 second HD landscape music comic and came back today and made a short from the same basic comic as the 120second original music in HD portrait format.  

This one has the spaces in the panel to show the animated background, which I like.  The last few things I did were all 138BPM, so this is a slow 100BPM, but the instrument sounds are pretty much the same.

And I can never hear how something actually is during the recording of something. I need time away from it to be able to really hear what it is like.  Same goes for my writing and drawing too.

Other Things

Watched the Rick Springfield interview and it was very good  :

Comments on Australia's Tall Poppy Syndrome appreciated. Australia almost ignores this guy that did so much, and I had my own experiences.  Mental Health also.

Will try and get an appointment Monday, and try each day till I do get to start my procedures I went on about in the previous blog.  

I bought this tool to be able to more conveniently set the intonation on my Ibanez RG350 with the Edge II bridge.  That bridge only has a screw to loosen the saddle, and lacks a screw to move the saddle back and forth a controlled amount.  This fixes that during the adjustment of each saddle. 

I also uploaded this Fake Streaming FM Radio Mix 6 from a week or so ago.

UPDATE: 2025/1/25

Uploading at 8AM Saturday morning shows the fake FM Radio with mixes of 3 of my tracks with some DJ chat gets far more views than anything else.  I assume that is because they are  being shown to Japanese, and my others aren't, or if they do, get swiped away quickly. 

Compared to NON SHORT video views. No one sees non SHORT videos any more. Especially not being a YouTuber. 90% of videos the YouTube AI serves to me now are just garbage. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

A GOOD FRIEND, A Minor Surgery

 

A Minor Surgery ... I hope. And not the ordeal of 2017. But thinking about that and I came up with the above comic this morning.  The surgeon had lead me to believe I would by fine in 2 weeks, but that wasn't the case at all. It was just an overnight stay in hospital and tomorrow should be just a visit to the doc and walk home a couple of hours later. I survived the 2017 ordeal, but it did take 12 months to be back to normal. It was only(!) hemorrhoids, not cancer or anything life threatening, but still an ordeal as painful as kidney stones but lasting a months.

A GOOD FRIEND helped me get through that, just by being with me. 

Since I retired he spends everyday with me too, and I realize that our time together is not unlimited, and he will be 10 this year.  

Whatever happens, he will be with me to get through it too.

I have to make the appointment from 8:30AM on their website on the day you want to visit to get a patient number and approximate time.  You have to arrive 5 patients before your turn and it takes about an hour by train to get there, but that is only twice an hour by the direct route.  So leave home around 2 hours before your appointment, and they do the surgery 9:00~12:00 then 16:00~18:00! 

Complicated. Getting there at 8:30AM and sit in a Hotel Lobby and make the reservation seems the easiest. But discover I can make a reservation at 8:30AM, then tell them when we can get there, about an hour later.

This is a variation of the HD music comic, where the background is animated between panels. I kind of like this, and having all the text on screen at once isn't frustrating the way it is when I animate the speech balloons. 

Got a reservation, and even using the web interface and just copy/paste my details in at exactly 8:30AM when it opened I was still patent number 28 in the morning! 😧 . 

Update: 2025/1/22

Visited doc. Filled out all the forms, waited, had first consultation and got medicine. I will initially go back once a week, if I can get a reservation that day, for a minor procedure, Rubber band ligation, then do that for 3 weeks. Then after that there are 3 more things to take care of that are a bit more painful to heal.  

So have a plan forward that isn't the ordeal I originally went through.

That is good 😊.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

偽物 (FAKE) Streaming FM RADIO Mix 3

 

偽物 (FAKE) Streaming Kyoto FM Radio Mix 3. 180 seconds of faked FM radio broadcast mix of 3 tracks from my ASSORTED BITS 2 & 3.  On Bandcamp, Assorted Bit 2 and Assorted Bits3.

Posted this about 8AM Sunday morning and it had 150 views the next time I looked at it to see it was there.  And after a few hours, YouTube stops posting it to the SHORTs feed, resulting in this:

I would think most seeing it wouldn't get that it is a fake FM stream, and that the music is actually by an old Australian white guy in his late 60s happily living in Kyoto.

And the Danny Sapko SHORT I posted yesterday morning 8AM got all of 14 views when I checked it this morning, 24 hours later.  I guess his face didn't appeal...

All just the algorithm.  YouTube certainly offers up so much junk on my feed now that I don't want to watch, that it seems to have no idea what I like or have already seen. The AI driving the algorithm now is just broken... 

Other Things

PRIME offered THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY and I realized I had never seen it. About a third the way though before going to bed last night.  A spaghetti western, with everyone but Clint Eastwood dubbed into English.  It looks great and that music is so iconic now.

A story from Matt Damon on how Netflix wants their new shows produced from the standpoint that the audience is actually on their phone doom scrolling while only half watching. 😲 “you re-iterate the plot 3-4x in the dialogue because people are on their phones.”  Generally dumbed down and made extremely obvious.  So why haven't Netflix considered instead that they should make a show so interesting it actually holds your attention?!

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

DANNY SAPKO: I am the ONLY person on the Internet to NOT talk with him this week

 

DANNY SAPKO seems to have filled my YouTube feed the last weeks, with his shorts, talk, talk, talk and name calling out more popular Internet Musicians. Then this week he seems to be interviewed by many of those Internet Musicians.

I guess that was his aim. To build his brand and, maybe, be the BEHS playing Rick Beato of YouTube. He is entertaining enough, and THAT seemed something to do a quick MUSIC+COMICS on this morning. 

No doubt I will hear all the things that are a "bit off" in the music later and just have to fix them, but feel it is "okay" after a few non critical listens, and wanted to get this short out 8AM Saturday morning Kyoto time, rather than one of the fake streaming FM station remixes I had actually prepared earlier.

Other Stuff

My Facebook feed now has so many AI generated posts. An AI generated illustration, then a long rambling ChatGPT generated essay about something designed to not get to any point, or generate anger for "engagement" which is what the algorithms are after.  Nothing from anyone I know anymore. 

I was happy to find CAR STYLING New Era #2 at the bookstore yesterday.

I have a small collection of the originals, including the last issue in 2010 where publishing has to shut down and can't continue. Also an issue of an earlier restart attempt that had a slightly different format. 

A significant publication in the world of product design for decades, that seems have gone back to specifically focus on transportation again. I maybe retired but still follow this stuff.  Will probably do some comics about some aspects of it.

I didn't expect to, but found this chat with Penn Jillette really interesting, as it has the unexpected interest in music and Bob Dylan.  Dylan's music was on the radio when I as a kid a lot, but it never engaged with me, even though I knew he was a master story teller in song. 

Not sure if just old age, but I am far more interested these days in a documentary about something that actually happened than watching fiction.   Am watching Season 2 of FALLOUT though, and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere much in the 5 episodes have seen. A third player? A Virus from that 3rd player?  First season seemed to have gotten to the point faster, and this filling in the backstory..

Just got a call on my phone and remember I have used this as my ring tone for 8 years or so now... edited to take away the slow start. 

This week ASTERISM released KICK DOWN THE WALL CD/BOOK album and I also picked up last years (best ? METAL ALBUM) THE HAUNTED CD. 

SONY has gone the route of a premium ASTERISM release with a book for your 4,500yen.  Not an impressive book to me though. A few photos, many "artistically" blurred, and others of rocks, plants and lots of white on pages.  Not like the impressive PLANET METAL release at all.

THE HAUNTED will be at UMEDA CLUB QUATTRO in July and am considering going. Don't know their catalog though, just that Ola Englund is in the group now. It is an onslaught to get through. This modern metal doesn't leave me with any catch riffs or melodic fragments to sing to myself. Like Ola's SWOLA intros with growling vocals. I need to play it more, but yet to find that much fun. I may change though.  ASTERIMS is more fun to my ears.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Fake FM RADIO Mixes Music Promotion

 

I have spent the last couple years of my creative time making music and animations, posting to Social Media sites, then repeating that. I don't have any fans or audience though, so just a few acquaintances may see something, and that is about all.

Even putting some EDM in this and showing another side of what we have done.

So instead of posting new weekly music again this year, I thought I would try making a few YouTube shorts, with "Streaming KYOTO FM RADIO mixes and DJ chat", using the 60 or so shorts tracks I made in the last year+.  And sprinkle in some Japanese DJ chat. 

You know, try promoting what I already have that has gone mostly unheard.  All the tracks are on Bandcamp, and NO ONE bothers to go there.

Made up a background image "inspired" be the Radiko app used by all Japanese Radio Stations, for streaming their broadcasts on the Internet.  In the latest I make it MEGACURVE KYOTO FM and added an FM style call sign.

They are all about my 3 music tracks in the short, but the DJ chat implies "on FM RADIO" which gives a different feel from what I have been doing till now with the comics and animation. FM radio still has a place in the car or office I guess, especially with news and weather reports, other wise a music streaming service is way ahead. I keep the vocal clips really short and a complete sentence.

Will see how it goes.

Not paying for Premium X, hating what most of Social Media, doesn't give anything I post much visibility, and something I don't consider worth the time. Japanese X is way better than English Twitter though!

An interesting thing to come up with. No idea where the idea came from. Others done this before? I haven't looked.

Other Things

This NASCAR at Le Mans 24HR, "duck out of water" doco is really good. Despite the "primitive" car, it actually finished.  It was the loudest thing on the track, "lots of fun", a "fan favorite", as the American V8 converted much of its gasoline to noise😄

Also watched a doco on the 100th Anniversary of THE NEW YORKER.  The only thing I have ever seen from that has been absolutely wonderful cartoons. Like this:

Near the end there was a bit about the current editor. So successful and lucky in his professional career, but private life, not so much. He had disabled parents and his daughter is profoundly autistic. He plays acoustic guitar to relax and unwind. Said you don't have to be good at it to enjoy something. That seems to be the way things go.

Did this 3 minute comic 11 months ago, and it has had all of 12 views. It looks like one thing, but ends up in a very different place. I think it is interesting, even if the center section could be made "more engaging".

Wife has been studying "advanced for Japanese" Kanji and sitting exams every few months and passing so far. I will go back to studying more written Japanese myself this year, as it is one of the most useful things I can do.  So cut back on making weekly MUSIC+COMICS for nobody, and work on something useful instead.  Will still be making music sometimes though... I need to.

Will probably have a "minor" surgery this week, and hope it doesn't knock me about like the "non minor" surgery I had 8 years ago did. Was told be fine in 2 weeks and back at work. That involved 4 weeks of agony for 8 hours a day and even though I was back at work after 6 weeks, took me 12 months to fully recover.  Edit: 2025/1/15 I got bumped to next week due to wife's appointments and house insurance things.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

DJs, aren't just DJs: Fighting Off The Blues

 

180 seconds of fake Kyoto FM radio broadcast of 3 tracks from my ASSORTED BITS3 album

Alpha Station FM Kyoto is a local station here, but we get poor reception. Online radiko version has better sound.  Voice is clips of a bit of Kyoto weather, Train incident announcement intro, the coming weekend is a 3 day weekend..., Cherry Blossoms need the cold... from MORNING GOLD DJ  Akita 

So been listening to IRVING FORCE again and had this Tiesto gig pointed out to me:

That resulted in the MUSIC+COMIC post I did yesterday:

Which made me think back to my discovering Melodic Techno and DJ Cassian about 2 years ago now and that may be a thing I could move a little closer again too. 

My last 2 music comics here have a soundtrack that is 3 of my minute tracks DJ MIXED together, and even though I like them, the tracks themselves are just slight variations of the same thing.  

I hadn't made anything for a week and that got me down. I had planned to go to the mall for lunch, but was having fun making the one at the top, I ended up not going, and making a chicken cheese toasted sandwich instead. Can go tomorrow instead.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

STAR TREK, the original series, leaves the building

Netflix removes all Star Trek Jan 8 2026, and I spent the last few years catching up on the DEEP SPACE 9, VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE I had only ever seen the first 1 or 2 seasons of when they first came out.  Mostly very good.

The last few weeks re-watching the original series, which was always on a Sunday afternoon in continuous repeat when I was in High School and I mostly didn't watch.  Rewatching now struck me how good some episodes were, and how terrible others are!  A few, like CATSPAW, I didn't bother to finish and went and found lists of best episodes to see instead. Much of the dialogue and acting is so stilted and unrealistic, and then there is the American '67~'68 culture good and bad. 

But it still became a cultural beacon. 

We can currently watch PRIME and NETFLIX, and I have been shocked a lot of the time how few movies there are on these services. I have never seen The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, and it is just one of the many I have gone to have a look at and found not available. They seem to have focused on their latest "hit series" and little else. 

So with the start of the new year, we seem to have changed our routine a little.  For the last months I had been making a Music+Comics thing once or twice a week, and don't feel any need to do that at the moment. Had a forced break for a week with visiting kids and grandson, and it just isn't worth the effort at the moment. I did do the FRUMP-OKER thing, but that was a bit different using a "cover not-cover" and not a thing I do regularly.  

Music wise been back listening to Irving Force and his Metal SynthWave. More my thing than most of Steve Vai or MINISTRY, even if I do love random tracks of their stuff.  

Will probably continue to think, go for long walks listening to music and ponder which creative direction to go in next for a bit longer...

But made this after going for a long walk, then taking a nap...

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

New Year 2026 Rolls In

2026 January 2:  Have kids and grandson visiting, but aren't up to much other than that. The cats hate the intrusion. 

When they were out yesterday afternoon, I went for a longish walk, contemplating what to do in the next weeks. Listened to the last 30 minutes of my own music and I really don't mind it. All very much the same, and not sure I should, or need to change that a bit. I only have to please myself and if I continue to have fun doing just what I am doing, I don't need to change anything at all.

This morning I finalized my 2025 expenses spreadsheet I use for tracking my finances and printed it out and put in a file I have for these.  

I put up my newly printed Renwa 8 / 2026 Calendar pages and it is very open at the moment. The only actual  important things in the next 3 months are a yearly Tax document submission, wife's birthday, a minor surgery 😐 and a Dental appointment. 

The ASTERISM - Kick Down the Wall, their new CD, and Urasawa Naoki's manga ASADORA #9 in English will be released in January and have now penciled those in.

More will come up I am sure. They always do.  

One thing about being retired is that it is always like the time between Christmas and New Year for many people, when you forget what day it is.  So that I do know what day it is, I mark off in green the days and see what important stuff is on for today when I get up in the morning. I have a few codes I use for things like that and mark them on the calendar too.

CorelDraw has a Calendar generating script and I have been using that and making my own and printing it (usually in B/W) for probably the last 10 years. I used to have when I had to pay bills marked on it, but now it is what events I will attend and what creative things I have done, and birthdays etc.  2 years ago I bought a calendar that was almost this format and used it for awhile, but I always find making my own means I can put something in for many months in advance, that you can't actually buy a calendar for yet. 

I am not expecting to get any illustration enquiries any more, but we will see. The rise of AI and the way Google search changed during 2025 with AI summaries completely killed illustration enquires from our website.  

Most accesses have been by AI BOT SCRAPPERS using the content for training AI systems, then Google using that content to directly answer search queries, and even generate images and illustrations. Maybe I should be flattered, but see it as the continuing enshittification of the Internet, and nothing I can do anything about.  

Same thing plotted in this bit on Stack Overflow, a programmers forum.

I may now be truly retied.

Our daughter may visit us for a few weeks end of March or April. A few other family things may happen.  Wife is going on a 10 day trip in May.  

I don't have any big goals anymore, other than stay healthy and active again this year.  I expect to continue to make cartoons, comics and bits of music.  I did around 60 pieces of music last year, and put most of them on my Bandcamp page. I hope to continue to get out and visit a local cafe regularly and listen to music there.  They may release some great movie I don't even know about yet, that I will have to see.

I haven't sculpted anything for 3~4 years now, and maybe the urge to do that will return. Maybe not. Or something else will come up that I will just have to have a go at. 

What will be will be.

2026 January 6: A lot of not great things happening around the world, and nothing I have any agency over.  Seems just like that scene after he goes over the edge, dances down the stairs to the Gary Glitter anthem... then it all goes BOOM very quickly. But rather wonky and off... If you aren't subtle enough, the bots leave a million comments in support of it all, and being AI driven now makes them smarter than before. All the bots being used to generate income from rage and engagement from the posters outside America in third world countries.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN