Economic Fallacies Machine

 

The animation is a steam punk Economic Fallacies Machine. Trying to be Monty Python-ish.  

The song is about the vocal tone to me and is too much "Old man shouting at the clouds".

Ended up writing 3 different song lyrics for this piece of music. The first 2 on repeated listening ended up not being what I needed to say at the moment.  Have them filed away though for the future.

Pseudoscience are things like Astrology, Homeopathy, Flat earth, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Detox Diets.  Psychology borders on pseudoscience.  Economics is a step up from Psychology, but far from a science with laws of nature and repeatability.  

Economics has a big tie in with politics and is manipulated by it. Real Science doesn't.  Real science can get a probe to land on an asteroid 6 years from now.  Economics can't precisely determine anything 1 month into the future.  As someone who had to be precise and accurate in my design engineering career, that economics is half bullshit annoys me.

So much discourse from Politicians, The Media and Government uses almost Pseudoscience Economics to justify what they do.

Some of those economic lies and fallacies:

• Trade deficits cost domestic jobs.
• Raising the minimum wage kills all jobs. 
• Government spending always creates wealth. 
• Price controls lower the cost of living.
• Tax cuts always pay for themselves.
• There is a lump of labor.
• Government budgets are like household budgets
• Taxing the wealthy always hurts the economy
• Hard work is a guaranteed path out of poverty
• Economics is an objective science
• Trickle-Down Economics
• A rising tide lifts all boats
• Price Stability
• Austerity
• Free Market
• Job Creators
• Right to Work
• Deregulation

That call to "get rid of the red tape!".  Deregulation.  Watching CLARKSON'S FARM, it looks like there are far too many regulations, and at least some should go, and not be up to a single authoritarian council member for their personnel use. Their bad behavior isn't regulated or reviewed is the problem! But in other cases, such as building codes in Australia, because they got rid of regulations to have independent building Inspectors, the builder did it themselves, and at least one apartment block in Sydney is now unlivable and dangerous for the owners who can't live there or sell it.  If crooks aren't regulated, bad things happen. 

Don’t let that there is a Nobel prize for Economics fool you. Economics is not a science, and yet there are no prizes for psychology, sociology or anthropology.  That there is a prize elevates economics  in the public mind it does not deserve.

The Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman wrote a New York Times article mentioning "a Corporations only goal is shareholder value".  Of course bad people then use this to justify anything that may harm people or the environment.  Enshittification is just bad people doing bad things to other people for monetary gain. 

It is self evident that a corporation must be a good member of society to not harm the society it is in.   "a Corporations only goal is shareholder value" is a lie, not a scientific law of nature. 

So I have a problem when the half lies of an economist sets the course for anything. If a civil engineer did that designing and building a bridge for a highway, it would collapse. Economists should be held to the same standards as an engineer building a bridge to not to collapse and kill people. If they can't, then the advice is worthless, and may as well just use Astrology. 

Lyrics:

Economic fictions get retold
Like they're some holy truth,
But these are just opinions
No science, no proof

Economics and politics 
are not bound by hard facts
Just fluffy nothingness 
holding us back

High Priests of Business 
Selling power to the sky
but the system they have built
Rests on sand and half lies

They preach from the ledger
Where human worth is priced,
And sacrifice the future
To keep their charts concise

Keeping with my "unusual" 8 bars of instrumental, then 8 bars of vocals, then repeat song structure in these #MUSIC+COMICS.  Trying to not do what everyone else does is interesting for me.

The Reaper project. 

Guitar is my down and DROP tunned Ibanez GIO 7 string. My favorite guitar for a while now. Just a beginners guitar, but once I shaped the nut properly and set it up, there is nothing wrong with it (except GIO on the headstock).

The output jack could be better, and I did buy a quality unit to upgrade it, but haven't bothered to change it yet, as I don't use it on stage, just sitting in my tiny home studio. Recorded DI and tones from Neural DSP Modeller Vst. 

That Sennheiser e945 microphone has made a difference to recording my vocals for the better.  It is summer here now and the cicadas in the tree across the street make an incredible racket in the day time, but have found closing the studio window shutters reduces the noise significantly so it doesn't get in to the recorded vocals. 

The track Economic Fallacies Machine on Bandcamp.

Other

A year ago I moved to Win11 and left behind my Win10 only audio interface and driver. In that move I lost the ability to use Winamp or Guitar Pro and Reaper at the same time.  Sound output was only one at a time no matter if sharing audio driver or not.  The driver also had no LoopBack. 

In the last few days I installed VOICEMEETER Banana, and have now paid for a license and virtual inputs.  This has resolved those and OBS issues I had, well enough anyway.  At least I can play GuitarPro to learn a guitar part, while playing thru Reaper now, like I could back in Win10. Winamp doesn't crash if Reaper playing when it opens too. 

Still getting the hang of it, and what issues it can cause, and it isn't something I need all the time. When using Reaper to record, I use the native ASIO drivers, and bypass VOICEMEETER, at least so far.  I am not a streamer so features for that kind of thing isn't something I need.

The last week has been so hot and humid in Kyoto. I made the trek out to 京都第二赤十字病院, (Kyōto daini sekijūji byōin, Kyoto 2nd Red Cross Hospital), near Marutamachi Station 3 times for the 3PM visiting time.  The trip requires changing train 3 times and 12 minute walks each way, which isn't much, but the weather made it so hard at that time of day.

Walking to:

Walking back to station

There is a GUSTO just near Marutamachi Station, and ended up there for an early dinner each time before making the trek home. Had enough of GUSTO for the time being.

The robot in the GUSTO there has a broken wheel and makes the same klunk klunk klunk sound all Sydney Supermarket trollies do.  The first GUSTO I have been to where things like ICE and hand towels had run out. Many more young people there than my local place.

August 2 2026, was 11 year Anniversary of our adventure with Kidney Stones. Early afternoon 2015/8/2 I had a sharp pain in the back. It quickly got worse and I could do nothing but lie on my back on the floor and I got my wife to call an ambulance via the EMERGENCY NUMBER. I talked to them to go to Royal North Shore Hospital Emergency. 

A Firetruck arrived siren blazing,  then they called the ambulance. Off to hospital. I had no idea what this terrible pain and illness was, but Emergency soon had me on Morphine (and the world was really wonderful again) and into an MIR to tell it was Kidney Stones.  That was a huge relief.  

Daughter rushed to Hospital with her boyfriend too, but the panic was over then.

I stayed overnight and with use of drug to enlarge the water works path, was fine in the morning and I caught a taxi home. Didn't sleep at all in Emergency though as the ECG equipment I was attached to made a loud beep every 5 minutes to indicate all was well!

That was the first of 2 Ambulance trips to emergency I have made.  Worth it, as if you come in via an Ambulance you bypass the EMERGENCY WAITING ROOM which will add many hours before any treatment would start. Our private health insurance covered the ambulance fees. 

10 years ago I was converting a number of my vinyl records to high res MP3 files. The stuff that had never been rereleased on CD or just rare album like the music to Australian TV series AGAINST THE WIND.  I had made an RIAA equalizer and recorded them into REAPER.  I had a Technics DIRECT DRIVE D2 Turntable and an OROTOFON cartridge.  

I had some 120 albums and once I had recorded 12 or so, I sold them and my turntable. Practically gave them away at the time. No one wanted them in our area. Vinyl always had sizzle, pops and clicks, no matter how well they were cleaned and looked after.  I just loved CD for the silence the music came out of. 

Vinyl when it came back was of no interest to me. Still not.  I prefer HiRes MP3, what I can carry around with me. 

Wife still has all her albums and I do still have a few 7" 45rpm singles. No plan to buy a turntable at the moment though. Would just take up space we don't have.

Next week is OBON here in Japan. A public holiday, many extend a few days. Doctors and Dentist clinics closed.  All rather too hot to go anywhere. Thinking I may not make it to Hyogo for the GHOST IN THE SHELL animation artwork before it closes end of August. It isn't a full exhibition but a smaller display in a 3F gallery.  The multiple Hospital visits last week have shown me in this weather that is probably just all too hard. 

The Random Rewards and the addiction they generate in a creator exemplified by our random YouTube SHORT views. 

All just manipulation by the Tech Bros. 

Bots are so active on X. 2 weeks ago had a jump of 10 followers, then a week later a reduction of 10.  All about them getting followers and cash from X for garbage.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

The Illusion of Equivalence (Weasel Words)

 

The Illusion of Equivalence Practiced by Politicians, the Media, Business & Advertising... speaking with forked tongues. 

None in the mainstream media dare mention climate-change at all during recent extreme weather events, the power of the fossil fuel industry at work, world wide.

A Heavy Guitar & Synthesizer Punk (not polished performances, DIY aesthetic ) Philosophical Nursery Rhythm at 145BPM.  With a nod to Frank Zappa and how easily we confuse activity with substance. 

Lyrics: 

Beauty ≠ Love
Silence ≠ Peace
Belief doesn't make it real

Love ≠ Freedom

They may not say
What you think they did

The words are important

Movement ≠ Progress
Progress ≠ Growth
Certainty ≠ Proof
Reason ≠ Meaning

Freedom ≠ Choice
Choice ≠ Power
Justice ≠ Law
Law ≠ Order

The words are important
They may not say
What you think it did

Information ≠ Truth
Knowledge ≠ Wisdom
Truth ≠ Beauty
Wisdom ≠ Truth

Put it on Bandcamp earlier in the week and to our Instagram to no fan fare what so ever.  That is about the extent of our promoting a new release.

Other Things

I like how the last 10 songs I have done sound. Okay with much of the vocals too. Doing a new song in about 3 days means I haven't really spent a lot of time on them, but I don't have any audience so I just do as I please.  

All in G flat (F sharp) with similar riffs and melodic stuff. But that is okay. Ervin Berlin wrote 1500 songs just using the black notes on the piano. 

Written the lyrics for the next one too, Bad Bosses.  Had a few, but second worse boss I had for 2 years at a financial software developer. He took the cost of living pay increase for the year of a team of 12, and gave it to himself instead, and bragged about it. He had the Marketing department promoting himself rather than the companies products, and I don't get how they didn't see that. 

All involved in Sabotage of Potential of staff and Credit Hoarding.  All companies, as looked back on decades later, paid the price though for being so stupid. 

Pain been a big thing with wife and SHINGLES again this week. Hasn't been a good time.  Not going to go into details though. 

Last weeks YouTube short, MONSTERS OF PAIN only had 10 views! Was that because of school holidays here or just algorithm related things I wonder?

I have been doing all the cooking and cleanup single handily for the last 4 weeks or so now.  Something I needed to do, and haven't minded it at all. 

I still haven't baked anything despite keenly following BRITSH BAKE OFF. Just so easy to buy a fancy cake or patisserie here, something very rarely do anyway.

Our JBL RUN2 headphones finally had one earpiece fail during a train trip this week (of a few visiting hospitals) , and I immediately ordered the current JBL RUN3 model when I got home. Couldn't not have music while out and about.  The sound isolation they provide is really good, BUT the Italian songs they had in Saizeriya on Tuesday were so loud they couldn't keep it out! 

I like being able to pull out the earbuds, and have them hang from the top of my ears using the IEM cable over ear way to wear them. That is great, but having to plug them into my phone in my trouser pocket, the cable gets in the way with my train travel card and such.  So have ordered a Lavodio Bluetooth Wireless Audio Receiver, and see if that is more convenient for me, despite being another thing having a rechargeable battery.

The thing iPhone users without a headphone jack could use. 

The clip holding it to your shirt was broken at the hinge before I even opened the shrink warped box. The size of the plastic hinge components is about 1/3 the size of an old Sony Noise Cancelling Earbuds unit I have, so it is just a mechanically bad Chinese design. The strong spring in the clip broke its own plastic hinge component. 

Getting a replacement wouldn't fix that, So I hot rodded an attachment with a clip from SERIA and a bent paperclip.  

This receiver with the JBL RUN3 is good in the trips I have done with it so far.  

Been watching the new THE GHOST IN THE SHELL series. It looks great, and like the manga.

But it is just the same stories I already know, which is kind of a disappointment. Better than ARISE though. That was just dull for me.

YouTube algorithms are garbage now. Doesn't show you much of what you subscribed to, and more likely something related to what you liked on Facebook or searched on Amazon for.  

I am so aware now of the pricing associated with BRANDS and the age groups targeted for different things.  Still getting shown videos of how great the SSL2 MkII audio interface is, justified having around low noise preamps BUT mostly the brand name.  So many useless unboxing videos just repeating the marketing material 😒.

The Internet now has more BOTS on it than PEOPLE, officially.  That is what the access stats for our own website showed from a few years ago.  No shock there at all, and that isn't a good thing. With AI just stealing everything, I don't put my artwork on their anymore. I do put up music, but that is okay, as BOTS are the only ones to listen to it besides me. 😃

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Monsters Of Pain: SHINGLES

 

The childhood "Chicken Pox" virus you had as a kid, lays dormant, and can/will strike painfully
as a run down elderly person. Shingles always seemed a strange harmless name for it to me.

I had Shingles 10 years ago, wife has it now and 3+ weeks into the pain. She didn't start the within the 72 hours treatment  window as she thought the internet told her she had some thing related to a shoulder issue she has.  So PAIN has been a big thing for me in the last weeks, even though not my own pain this time.

I had KIDNEY STONES about 10 years ago too, and that is incredibly painful, but after an ambulance ride to ER and getting Morphine everything is right with the world in short order.  Other drug opens up the water works and it flushed it out easily.  Went home next morning. But that was in Sydney, and don't know about what happens in Kyoto here these days. 

But the real pain I had to endure was after an extensive Hemorrhoidectomy 9 years ago. The first 4 weeks were agony, but I wasn't approaching normal again till after 10 months. Back to normal was after 12 months. The Surgeon had said pain should last no more than 2 weeks, so I was in no way prepared. But the reason I came down with Shingles was because I lost a liter of blood one week and almost passed out once. That was the driver for getting my issue fixed. 

People with some kinds of terminal cancer, have constant extreme pain. Read some don't think giving them Morphine is "right", but have to say that ignores how terrible extreme pain is and giving them Morphine IS the right thing to do to make their end more pleasant.   

Guitars using the NEURAL DSP MODELLER vst for AWSEOME METAL tones. Even if the song isn't METAL.

The animation is reusing something I did from first learning MOHO V12 animation bones on single images, but effective enough for a SHORT and the popcorn brained. 

Lyrics:

Monsters of pain,
A weight on your soul,
Sandcastles crumble
As you lose control.

Pain is a monster,
It tears at your skin.
But standing united,
We're going to win

The tides are rising,
The shore disappears,
Drowning the secrets
And fueling your fears.

Again, not a traditional song [Verse/Chorus repeat] structure, but [Verse/Musical bit repeat]. Why would I want to do what every one else is doing?  The music industry/ record industry is irrelevant to me. 

Worked out to record DI guitar for Neural DSP Modeler, I need zero latency monitoring of a distorted guitar tone. So my signal chain is guitar to Mackie 402VLZ4 and the output of that goes into the Rubix22 inputs. The TAPE OUT of the mixer then goes into a LINE6 distortion pedal and into my ORANGE micro amp, to a 10" cabinet have under the desk.   REAPER is set to AUTO on the GUITAR TRACKS so it doesn't output the recorded signal during recording. 

So I play back the backing through my monitors, while I play the guitar and listen to my ORANGE guitar amp. ZERO latency. 

Other Things

YouTube has been showing me many guitar related channels again. Phil McKnight is one that has had some really interesting stuff to me over recent years.

Like he made 2 of the same guitars, but put a True Temperament neck on one and spent 6 months playing them to work out if it really was better.  His first problem was it took 6 months to get a True Temperament neck after he ordered it for $1,000, and that really shocked him, being an American, where next day delivery is normal.  His journey was interesting as he knew others didn't like the better tuning as it made guitar "sound like a piano".  But over his 6 months of using both guitars, for the first 3 months he preferred the sound of the traditional frets, but in the end found the True Temperament was "better".   It is subtle though.  

Made me realize True Temperament definitely isn't a must have for me.  

He also has a lot of videos about "are expensive guitars worth it or not?".  The thing with over $1,000 guitars is that they don't play better and the attraction is other things like the beauty or recapturing something from your youth (if you were really into guitars then). 

In this one from a couple of months ago he discovered GUITAR Marketing for young people is all about expensive custom shop and boutique guitars. All FOMO based.  For old guys, the opposite!

I have seen the same thing here, where Osaka Sound Messe is all about expensive boutique guitars, and that this is some how normal. NOT spending $4000 means your not even in the game. The kind of X advert for guitars: 

Japan is kind of a different case, where keeping up appearances is important. Really Important. iPhone market share is 60%+ in Japan and 20%+ rest of the world, as it really is expensive, and THE thing to have. The clothes people wear, accessories and your company title changes how people relate to you.  

There is a TAMAHOMES housing area not far from here, where all the "reasonably affordable" smallish homes are all variations on the same 8 or so components. I think Australia should have something like that. But some of the places still have EXPENSIVE cars like BMW and MERCEDES BENZ parked out front, which to my non-Japanese way of thinking is just really wrong money priorities. 

In another of Phil's videos where he talks about expensive guitars he says there are many that just don't care about expensive (over $800~$1000) guitars and I am one of them. 😊

Another thing I have come to realize over the last few years is that I aren't a guitar guy,  and only care about the recorded sound of a finished piece of music I do in my studio. Synthesizers are even cooler, and the studio/DAW, and having my own RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP is what I am about.  Don't care about bespoke guitars and the culture around that.  

I was involved with developments of the Fairlight Instruments CMI series II & III in the 1980s, but I never had or used one, and really don't care about the new CPU System on a card Freshwater Instruments has done. Lots of CMI fans do though.  To me a CMI is so limited compared to what anyone can do with the REAPER DAW and simple gear now.  But I think the fans are Synth People/ Collectors the same way the Bespoke Guitar buyers are. It isn't about them using whatever to make music, even if they do that sometimes. 

Came across Kenny Gray Comedy+Music and love it. He has videos on Instagram, but I just love his GARY NUMAN-ISH INDOORBOY

 

I wish I had written that song.

Was expecting to go to THE GHOST IN THE SHELL exhibit in Hyogo this week, but it is extreme hot here 

and info from the site says it is expected to be extremely crowded and you need a ticket with a time to enter.  That is not any fun, and with my wife in the condition she is have put off going. I may get there before it closes August 30th, but maybe not.  

Much on display is in the MAKING OF books I have had for decades, and it was the original manga work of Masamune Shirow I saw last year that was the real must see to me

X has always had a massive problem with bots/ farms.  I get so tired of the engagement farming and even good guys can post way to much.  Keeping up isn't worth the trouble, but luckily I don't have notifications on for any social media, don't use the Apps at all, so it can silently all go past without bothering me. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

I'm Not A Rockstar: Cancer takes another...

 

A bit faster at 145BPM than recent tracks. 

Guitar, synths, techno drums and the synth noises/ sweeps are a KORG MONOTRON

Something of a reaction to being a care-er in recent weeks, and for many, the fashion and look aspect of being a musician are so important, and aren't anymore when I am a grandfather in my late 60s. 

The Sennheiser e945, in a small desk stand with mesh pop filter has simplified my singing setup/tear down in our tiny studio and I seem to be able to hear myself better now.  Putting vocals on something is so much easier now.  Coming up with Lyrics isn't something I spend any time doing.

Much of Marty Friedman's book Dreaming Japanese I read last year seems to be fussing about his hair, being short and fashion. He was a rockstar. My own hair was so important to me in the last years of High School, but not in the 50 years since.

Lyrics:

I'm not a rock star, 
no fancy shoes 
no fashion sense
No fancy hair
An ordinary guy, 

I'm not a rock star, 
a  family man, 
a steady guy.
no fancy shirts
no make up
Just An ordinary guy, 

I'm not a rock star.
no flashing lights,
no big guitar,
a quiet life
just an ordinary guy,

I'm not a rock star.
no stadiums,
no screaming crowds,
no limousines
Just a quiet life,

On Bandcamp.

I put it on Bandcamp  and posted to X and Bluesky about it a week before releasing the Music+Comic. But my followers have zero interest in any music I put there.  It is just my own vanity publishing project.  Okay with that as I have already had my own 15 minutes of fame in another field over 20 years ago.

Will I do another new song this week? Don't know. I seem to be out of inspiration, or maybe the domestic things occupying my time make it unnecessary .  

Other Things

The kitchen in our now 7 year old new house in Japan used to be my wife's domain. Took me years to be able to make anything there, but I have been preparing meals the last week+.  Caring for others makes you feel good, and being able to look after myself when I need to is back at the level it was when I lived in Australia.

Australian political cartoonist Pat Oliphant, who made it in the USA, has passed away, aged 90 this week. There is a  glorious film on him I need to track down. The Trailer:

2 cartoons he came out of retirement to do:

Oliphant  favoring neither liberals nor conservatives.  'We Are in a Forest Fire of Ignorance'

8 years ago during down sizing I ended up throwing away about half of my once cherished Cinfex collection. Issues 74 to 119. I kept 85 the 2001 issue

But the once great magazine of cinema special effects had lost anything of interest to me way before then. They went out of business during COVID. I wasn't the only one that cancelled their subscription.

Once the industry changed to hiring a bunch of disposable CG animators and their workstations, there was little of interest to me in an article saying "we used XXX software" and "YYY wrote a cool shader to do ZZZ".

I changed too. Narrowing my interests to what I can actually be involved with in some way, or be useful to me in my own creative adventures in retirement.

Facebook is a very different thing now compared to when I first joined. At first it showed you stuff people you knew posted, even if it was an outside link. Now it rarely shows anything people you know post, and for me it is all about the groups I am in.  Only 3 or 4 I know post anything at all now.

I don't post actual personal stuff there any more. Just my MUSIC+COMICS.  It is the place people I know DM me. 

The English Musician Composer, Hans Zimmer, Peter Gabriel collaborator, once Fairlight Instruments CMI III demonstrator/support person Rodger Bolten has passed away, I learnt 2026/7/17.  Just a couple of years younger than myself. I never met him in person, as I left Fairlight Instruments the time he joined. He had been posting about his hospital visits and treatments the last 2 years or so, and stopping the treatment for his cancer a few months ago.  He had it rough recently, collapsing in his apartment and the fire brigade rescuing him. Waking to huge weeping swellings on both knees, a side effect of a chemotherapy drug administered 2 years ago and now banned. A long list of rather terrible things, but he always appreciated the hospital and staff treating him.

He was the first person ever some 2 years ago to video call me out of the blue.  We talked about old CMI III things, such as the System Floppy Disk I made for the first system to get to the UK.  RIP

 

Enshit-tification by Cory Doctorow, interestingly explains what UBER and TIK-TOK did, but not that  YouTube is doing the same thing. Manipulating the metrics to exploit creators and users.

My blog and song of a couple of weeks ago, BAIT AND SWITCH SUPPREME was all about that too. I dislike intensely that a smart phone is now required to even allow many online accounts for 2FA, and a phone has a built in end of life with non replaceable battery and software made obsolete for pure profit motives.  We are all just cattle to the tech industry.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Who Are You & What Do You Want?

 

Who Are You when the titles and status are no longer in play?

An important life question to know the answer of.  Some men have a big problem retiring and not having their position anymore.  There is a common story that "many" Japanese Men follow there wives around like wet leaves stuck to their wives shoes after they retired. Don't be that old man!

Also what Mr.Morden asked all the ambassadors in Babylon 5. 

Another of my amateur Heavy Metal/ Techno/ Pop/ Nursery Rhythm/ MUSIC+COMICS . It isn't a generic verse/chorus structure but rather 8 bar alternating musical bit and verse with 2 longer musical bits.

They don't have a repeating chorus either.  Just what I am doing at the moment and no set in stone rule I have set my self.

Jut straight ahead 4/4. I have tried to get into Prog Metal, but the stop start nature of it isn't what I need.  May be amazing technique, but that isn't attractive to me. 

I seen advice to record the vocals 10 times and comp together the best bits to make the perfect take. I don't go to that much trouble. 2 or 3 takes and just keep the best one for each verse. I will listen to the completed track a 1,000 times and may decide, like this time,  some words could be better, then record those verses again, 2 or 3 takes. I am the only one to play a track more than once so it really doesn't matter in my case. I am not some guy trying to go PRO and make a career out of music.

The rhythm guitar is this 8 string going through the DONNER 10 Band EQ (to cut lowest 2 bands)  into the POD EXPRESS BLACK Anvil+CAB. 

The melodic guitar is my Ibanez RG350. The drums and synths are very Dubstep/ Techno and I like that. The bass sequence is almost just a pedal tone, but it does drive it along.

Simple hummable riffs and melodies are all I am after.  This one kind of reminds me of the vocal sound of THE EAGLES (rather than Tull's Ian Anderson of a previous one), even if I am not a fan of them, but due to the tone and register of my voice and the multitracking. 

The track Who Are You? is on Bandcamp.

The Demon is a Copic marker on paper sketch I did a few years ago. One of 2 demons in an old Japanese illustration I have in a book somewhere. 

In MOHO V12 pro I assigned BONES to it and manipulate those to warp the illustration a bit to make it move a little.  

Lyrics:

Who are you,
and what do you want? 
The truth will set you free.

When titles and status 
are no longer in play.
Who do you see
at the end of the day?
 
Sift  through the pieces 
 find what lacks.
Tear the shadows 
Bring light back.

So drop all the armor 
and step from the dark,
See the version of you 
that you really are.

あなたは誰なのか 
 そして何を望んでいるのか？ 
真実はあなたを自由にする。

肩書きや地位が 
もはや意味をなさなくなったとき。
一日の終わりに、
あなたは誰を見ているのか？
 
断片を一つひとつ
見極め、欠けているものを見つけ出せ。
影を引き裂き、
光を取り戻せ。

だから、すべての鎧を脱ぎ捨て、
闇から踏み出せ。
そして、
本当の自分を見よ。

EDIT: 2026/07/22 Next day has had around 600 views (then it is just turned off on the SHORT feed, completely artificial numbers), but most only watch the first 9 seconds, which is even before when the drums come in!  The POPCORN BRAINED. 

The FB stats same deal. Turn tap on/ turn tap off after a fixed number.

 Enshittification and dumbing down run unabated. 

Other Things

Second time to replace closed back KRK KNS8400 headphones rotting earpads. An earpad and headrest set from Amazon.  Much prefer open headphones BUT recording vocals need closed back, and these isolate really well.

The realities of getting older with a sick spouse were our lot for the last weeks. Nothing serious, but trying. Luckily I didn't have to go anywhere at all. Preparing meals and the clean up after.  I had 帯状疱疹 too about 10 years ago. 

Met up with youngest son for morning after putting it off due to heavy rainy season rain for the last 2 weeks.  He gave me this late FATHERDAYS gift.

An AKIRA + EVANGELION mashup piece. Very cool.

And the rainy season is now officially over so the humidity and temperature skyrocket.

Kyoto Live House GATTACA July 17 - Anima Tempo JAPAN TOUR 2026

7月14日(火) 京都 GATTACA  

開場 17:30 / 開演 18:00

前売 ¥3,400 / 当日 ¥3,900 / 学割 ¥2,400 (+1Drink)

Anima Tempo is a Mexican Prog Metal Band I hadn't heard of. 5 bands in one night sounds like it finishes late.  Has Rikugo in the line up at a place I haven't been to before, but isn't far from here. But can I go? 

Would like to see them again. They supported Freak Kitchen last year, and the first time I saw them.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN