Rock. Tool.

This is The Wrong Dictionary.

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

"Giant Wave" by Mark Mallman

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

I am looking forward to buying this little number.

It's a stand-alone portable PA with inputs for a mic, three instruments and a CD/iPod. All the reviews say it's a steal.

http://www.google.com/m/products/detail?client=safari&hl=en&oe=UTF-8&source=s...

I ordered this microphone.

 

It's a Blue Microphones enCORE 100 Dynamic Vocal Mic. It directly competes with the Shure SM58, the reigning champion of all-around live vocal mics.

I have used the Shure on many stages, but have never used a Blue. According to all the reviews I have read, listened to or watched online, the Blue e100 is comparable or better than the Shure in almost all respects--and it is currently $20 cheaper. The price is unlisted in shopping search results as per retailer terms of service with Blue Mics, but authorized dealers like zZounds and American Musical Supply will privately tell you via shopping cart or email that it costs $79 before shipping. The Shure mic is running at $99 these days.

The reviewer in the video below places the Blue e100 ahead of the SM58 in every category: durability, sensitivity, frequency response, feedback rejection, overall sound purity, even "sexiness."
The only category in which the SM58 dominated was in reducing noise caused by handling the mic while in use. Shure sure makes a solid microphone.

Note: The reviewer sells only Blue live vocal mics on his website--a conflict of interest as far as journalistic integrity goes, but trust me when I say this man echos everything else I have seen. He probably only sells Blue because it's the best for the money.

I'm excited to get mine.

The Tool String Quartet: Tribute to Tool's "Aenima" Album

Dedicated to all you twisted, brilliant, nerdy souls out there.

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

What Eyedea Meant to Me

Eyedea, the hip hop MC and all-around musician-philosopher from Minnesota, died in his sleep on October 16th, 2010. No one knows how he died yet. We'll probably never know how, as is often the case with beautiful human beings of note. Frankly, I would like to know exactly how he died, and I want it backed up with evidence and testimony from people who should speak out (you know who you are).

I knew Eyedea, real name Michael Larsen. Mainly I knew him through his music. I also got the chance to speak to him a few times while living in Minneapolis, Eyedea's hometown for life. My hometown too, intermittently. In person, Eyedea was a live wire, though he had a smoothness to him. Kind of like a benevolent velociraptor: methodical, alert, and ready to explode at a moment's notice. He smiled a lot.

I exchanged a few emails with him via MySpace back in the day. We traded thoughts on life and music. He signed his emails "Michael," so I addressed him as such. Michael was kind, frank, and personable in the email medium. Once, I sent him an MP3 of a track I had created with music and lyrics. He replied, "It's pretty cool, but you could do more with it."

Indeed. Eyedea was always exploring new ways to do more with his own mind. His mastery over the hip hop vernacular was simply not enough for Eyedea. He expanded into punk, rock, jazz, and uncategorizable musical forms.

He proved his freestyle muscle hundreds of times, most notably at Scribble Jam 1999 and Blaze Battle 2000, taking the crown in both events. He was only 17 and 18, respectively. He outgrew the idiom immediately afterwards, releasing studio albums devoted half to the battle aesthetic, half to philosophical explorations.

Eyedea's voice was distinct. A middle- to high-pitched rasp. A bit on the nasal side. He was no James Earl Jones, in other words. To me, and probably to many others, Eyedea's voice was an acquired taste. But once you got used to the unusual voice, the rewards were plentiful. I spent days, weeks, months, years, and yes, an entire decade, getting to know Eyedea's music.

I am still trying to pick apart some of his earliest rhymes. Even when the words fly by too quickly for the mind to grasp, Eyedea's delivery style was compelling enough to listen to over and over again. His passion itself--that was the "hook" to his poetry. When he rapped, it was the verbal equivalent of 20 massive fists punching holes in the concrete wall between the conscious and the unconscious.

In this, Eyedea was a John Henry of sorts. You know the legend of John Henry: Holding nothing but his trusty pick-axe, he raced a newfangled mountain-tunneling machine in a battle between the human spirit versus technology. In the end, the technology won by default: John Henry died from exhaustion.

Maybe that's what killed Eyedea. Exhaustion. Maybe he thought himself to death. And maybe the machine Eyedea was fighting was the robot that lives in all of us, trying to take over the mind and heart. He railed against mindlessness. He drove himself through the thickest parts of his own internal struggle. Where there was entanglement, there was Eyedea: Slashing, thrashing his way towards the truth. He took the road less traveled. He took the most difficult routes he could identify.

Eyedea was the bar by which I measured all other MCs, including myself. I look at my own music, and I ask myself whether it would be honest enough, raw enough, genuine enough, for Eyedea. I feel that although he was well known for his verbal fireworks, what Eyedea most valued was sincerity. Still, I always had a little pretend battle going on between myself and him on a technical level.

In short, Eyedea inspired me. He was the vine that grew slowly, covering the structure of my musical and lyrical aesthetic. Those vines will live on in me and countless others.

There can never be enough said about Eyedea. One man cannot sum him up. Help me. What did Eyedea mean to you? It can be small or large. Doesn't matter. What matters is, if Eyedea meant something to you, let us know. You can post a comment here on my blog, or on Facebook, or just anywhere. Let's brand his legacy in the popular consciousness while the iron is hot and the pelt is exposed.

Mariachis stormed my coffee shop this morning looking like a million bucks.

Nine nice young mariachis, El Mariachi Juvenil, stopped off here at Starbucks in Azusa, my usual morning spot, on their way to a gig. They were all smiles and good vibes and holding sandwiches. They humored my request to pose for me -- minus one mariachi, who was absorbed in a conversation with someone off to the side.

They were nice enough to pose, so I'll be nice enough to pimp them out. Here you go:

Their business card reads:

Front:Haga Su Fiesta Inolvidable con El Mariachi Juvenil (Make your party unforgettable with the Youth Mariachi)
Camino Real (Royal Road)
David & Rosalva Martinez
Información (626) 334-1193

Back:Mariachi Juvenil
Camino Real
Musica Para Todo Ocasión (Music for All Occasions)
David & Rosalva Martinez
Información (626) 334-1193

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

Earth Hour, or Twearth Hour If You Will

blackout 3
Originally uploaded by polkabike

This blog is about social media. Talk about a broad topic. Allows me to write about, oh, I don't know, how about Earth Hour. I found out about it through Twitter.


I joined Earth Hour fifteen minutes late tonight. At 9:15 p.m. I turned off all my lights, shut down my computer, turned off my music and just laid there in my bed with my shoes and clothes on.

I thought about tigers, as @cara19 has pointed out I am doing a lot of recently. Tigers are what some people are deep down. They struggle bravely to live peaceably as a human among humans. They sometimes lash out, but they are tigers. One does not begrudge a tiger its instincts. One does not try to reason with it, make it purr or snuggle with it. One stands at a safe distance and respects the magnificent beast.

I rested the mind.

I laughed. Yeah, I laughed. Why? Because tension was melting away. For once I was lying down not because I was exhausted but because I had some social reason to do so. To express solidarity with people who care more about things like Earth Hour than I do.

I am a cynic. I do not believe Earth Hour will save the world. I do believe it can heighten consciousness. It can provide a sense of community.

At 10:00 p.m. I turned on one light and for once it was enough. Glad to have my computer back. I love my toys.

On Twitter, I found others doing Earth Hour in a variety of ways.


Amazing what you can do in the dark, isn't it.

Two songs to capture the spirit of Earth Hour. The first is a dark and stormy hip hop song by underground lyricist Acey Alone called "Lights Out". Sayid and High Priest guest rap. I can't find an online version or sample for you to listen to but here is the song's Last.fm page.

The second is a rawk song by Bad Religion. The chorus goes:

I'm a 21st-century digital boy
I don't know how to live but I got a lotta toys
(Listen to the whole track on Blip.fm.)

Those lyrics state a problem worth considering, do they not? Did you do Earth Hour to any extent? Did you not? How was that for you? Do you care all that much?

It's okay, you can be honest. This is Man of Many Words.

Why West? Because It's There.

Saul Williams
Originally uploaded by Jeremy Farmer Photog

I want to help people overcome their fears. I want to be that T-bone collision that gets people off the highway and onto the back roads. To become pioneers, all of us.

Do you realize how gripped you are with fear? Do you know you can do anything you want - at least in comparison to what you are doing?

I love Saul Williams. His song "Coded Language" has saved my life. Gave it meaning, enriched it, reinvigorated it - dozens of times. An apt excerpt:

"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand.

"The current standard is the equivalent of an adolescent restricted to the diet of an infant.

"The rapidly changing body would acquire dysfunctional and deformative symptoms and could not properly mature on a diet of apple sauce and crushed pears."

Listen to the whole track if you want.

That whole idea - that we are accidentally living life normally when we could be living it extraordinarily and making the extraordinary normal - is one of my motives for organizing Westward Invasion 2009.

Another motivation is that the United States is often pooh-poohed as too domestic for any self-respecting traveler to bother with.

In fact, some people think the United States is actually five or nine different countries bundled into one monolithic beast of a bureaucracy. In fact, people are different wherever you go in this country. I want to talk to them and see all their secret gardens, don't you?

Besides, even if you think you already know the U.S., consider that "A fish knows not wetness for wetness is all it knows. Make friends with whales and birds to learn water."

As you were.

Or as you want to be.