Some Great Artist Interviews: My Own Reflections

 

The Emperor's Birthday public holiday this Monday in Japan, so a good time to post another 180 second fake Kyoto FM Mix of 3 of my tracks from Bandcamp as a SHORT to YouTube.

Other Things

Spring weather the last few days, very nice.

Watched 2 great musician/ artist/  interviews yesterday.

Mattias Eklundh: 

Mattias is so positive, and such a force for good, and being independent (and METAL).  What struck me most though is how totally different his upbringing was from mine. Mine was very much Cats In The Cradle.  

But it was Mattias's Freak Kitchen in the last 6 years that got me involved with 7 and 8 string guitars and writing and recording my own songs that really meant something. A huge recent influence, and I have met him a few times now.

Dennis Leigh ( stage name John Foxx, Ultravox founder):

I found John Foxx particularly interesting in his approach and way of thinking that is very similar to myself.  A very Quietly spoken man. Something else I relate to.

In reflection in retirement I feel I was always really an artist (drawing and making things was always my love, and did Art as a subject all throughout school), but it was drilled into me I had to have a real job and ended up doing Electronics and Software. My art and tech are very much done like painting. It isn't a performance, but a work created in a studio over time.  After finishing my Fairlight Instruments High End Sampler era, I moved on to other things and didn't need to do it again.   

Also his SYSTEMS OF ROMANCE & METAMATIC albums had such an impact on me on their release. I think I try and combine the sounds he did back then in what I do now with the Sequenced synths and Heavy Guitar. 

Like this quick thing I did yesterday.  Sequenced synths & heavy guitar. I will probably change the comic to something else before making it a YouTube SHORT:

 

Spring weather the last few days and took this in someone's yard in a midday walk yesterday. 

So my nose has started rehearsals for the real HAY FEVER season already. 

I expect most accesses to this blog are just bots and scrappers.  Doesn't really matter, as no one ever (well actually twice) comments on anything here anyway...   

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

6, 7 or 8 String Guitar?

 

For 30 years I just had a 6 string Squire, that 16 years ago I shielded and put a Humbucker in the bridge of. Hated the tremolo as it was just a detune lever and unusable. But with the humbucker, I could use high distortion without the hum and I did a lot of recordings with it.

In retirement I have spent much time recording and using 6, 7 and 8 string guitars. I had thought a Ibanez RG with locking nut and trem would be  the end game of the ultimate guitar for me, but not at all. Down tuning and heavier guitar music lead me to the 7 and 8 string guitars. 

I have my guitars in DROP tuning now, even my bass, but found that doesn't work with an 8 string. The lowest string is too floppy that way, doesn't sound great at the really low end, and I am not interested in heavier string gauges. I already have a Jazz Bass. So the 8 just stays 1/2 tone down tuned, and it ends up the 7 gives me as many usable low notes. The ones that sound good. Being fixed bridge is also so much easier for tuning and setup.  Tuning is something I fuss about a lot, and more strings and trem make it even more tedious. I find the bridge pickup on the 7 sounds better than the bridge on the RG too. The RG sounds really thin.

Will be keeping them all though, but will probably give the Squire to the grandson when he is older. 12 months ago I was really into Melodic Techno with no guitars, so have no idea where I will go musically in the future.

The track on Bandcamp  6, 7 or 8 String Guitar? 

The Reaper project:

808 Style

 

MUSIC+COMICS scheduled Saturday morning 8:15AM release.  Music a little different, maybe, in this one. 

More MS-20 synth noises.  

Should the D-50 have been 808 styled? Not at the time, and the more modern look was right for it. The font they developed that was used on the D-50 and other products was called BIOFORM. I used to have a copy of it. Real SciFi looking and I loved it.

Other Things

Had the last of my main medical procedures done yesterday.  Nice weather today after snow and rain this week, but I will be taking it easy.  Will go back 3 times for some related things that will be more painful for a bit, starting in a week and a half. 

Valentines Day to day, but I bought a cake at the Keihan Department store during the week when they first went one sale and we had it then. It was good. 

Found out from an X post yesterday that mangaka MIYAGAWA AKIRA had continued MASAMUNE SHIROW'S  APPLE SEED world in 3 books that were published from 2012. This was news to me, so tracked them down second hand and will have them shortly.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Big Tech Yanking Your Chain

 

Enshittification was the word of the year added to an Australian Dictionary a year or so ago now. Such is the state of the world, and this talk and interview with the author goes into more details.

Anecdote how Uber will pay one driver more to make him a cheerleader, while everyone else gets very little is one tiny part of the bigtech algorithm in his talk here.  I have seen the same thing with random encouragement in all kinds of things I have done from Google, like in these YouTube SHORT view counts of mine.

We are all having our chain yanked. 

Other Things

The guitars of THE ALFEE: 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

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