Posts tagged music
Makin' Latex
KINK ENGINEERING: The life and times of a latex saleswoman...
What the inside of Merlin Mann’s Ipad looks like when he’s making things in Garage Band.
(Source: soxiam)
I’m not re-blogging this as a favour to my buddy James who composed this song.
I’m re-blogging it as a favour to you - who should listen to it.
He’s got a Morrissy / Red House Painters / Woody Guthrie vibe going on, and he’s lovely.
“Some time has passed and now I know it
I ain’t done growing up
Nor do I expect or will that I ever will
I’m hooked on fuckin’ up
I wanna spend some time on you”
Back Story: James taught himself guitar in grade 10 on a rusty, bent and broken, horrible classical acoustic guitar that he found in his mother’s crawl space. It was strung with steel strings instead of the nylon that should have been there, and the neck was badly warped. That combo made for a year of bleeding finger tips, and crippling hand cramps… but he had a rabid dedication to his craft.
Then he finally saved enough for his first electric guitar (from bussing tables at a breakfast restaurant) and his music began to truly blossom. That day and he turned right around, handed me his crappy acoustic guitar, smiled and said…
“Your turn”
What do you say to that? You say “Ok” and start working at playing that damned thing.
I don’t get much oportunity to play guitar nowadays, but it’s still one of the most zen things that I do. The result of learning guitar for me was finding a love of singing… that eventually led to being in musicals, which lead to dropping out of the “becoming an engineer” job pathway, which (eventually) let do working with latex for a living. Guitar skills transferred over to a Ukulele also played a big part in sinking my hooks into Archean’s heart. (El’ Scorcho by Weezer on Ukulele doesn’t work for everyone, but when it does… oh, boy does it!)
So… thanks James.
I wanna spend sometime on you. I ain’t got no map to where I’m heading. I don’t know where I’m heading but I know I want to go with you.
(via jamesfromthesongs)
20 Plays →
Plea from a Cat Named Virtue: My pick for best song of 2003… I know, I know, it’s a little late, but if you don’t know of the Weakerthans - You should!
The song came to mind as a perfect cross between the sleep deprivation caused by last night’s cat-terror-awakening and something I heard on Roderick on the Line E16 about over-produced music. It also speaks of card catalogues… so it was doubly-double dealing in my stream of thought.
Before making this post, I was actually trying to buy and gift this album (Reconstruction Site) to Merlin Mann as a thanks for producing so much amazing work-spiration on Back to Work and 43folders (all part of my move from cube-job to self employed) via an Itunes purchase, but aparently you are not allowed to be nice to people who are across a border from you.
Thanks I-tunes/music laws, way to promote world peace.
Anyway, this one goes out to you #hotdogsladies - You are NOT wrong about Sloan, and the Weakerthans are not afraid of dynamic range in their recordings.
They’re my pick for the past decade.
#notabrick
1) I’m moving our email list over to Mailchimp (I have heard great things about the service)
2) Mailchimp has proven that chosing your audience is very important to reaching potential customers… what better place to catch nerdy people who might need to promote their business with an email list? Merlin Man and Dan Benjamin? Yes… those are the right people.
3) BEST ADVERTISEMENT OF THE PERSONA OF YOUR COMPANY EVER “Mailchimp… they sponsored this episode and then they totally ask us to write a rock opera. Because that’s just how they roll. Mailchimp“
Why’s it so good? Well… I’m not getting a red cent for linking to Mailchimp half a dozen times in my blog… I just really love what they made happen.
Also, if you are not listening to 5by5: Back to Work podcast and you care about productivity and using your time wisely and with passion… you should. It’s great. It’s funny. It’s inspiring and useful. Merlin Mann’s writing and videos were instrumental in the origin of Kink Engineering (Aka: Me leaving my day job and starting this crazy latex company)
Mailchimp wins the internet.
Sometimes There’s a Man (Part I)
As heard on Back to Work s01e14, here’s the first part of my rock opera about Dan Benjamin. Graciously commissioned by our friends at MailChimp.
Tune in each week for the next part of the album. We’re committed to doing four, but, personally, I’m happy doing one of these a week pretty much forever.
70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! on Vimeo (via Vimeo)
Another beautiful video found by “yourmonkeycalled”
OK Go - This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine version - Official (via OkGo)
Aaaand… this is why I love this band.
1) Idea
2) STOP AT NOTHING… to create idea in the most extravagantly amazing way possible.
3) Give it to the world and assume that the world will treat them well.
Yes. Yes it will… I certainly just bought your album, and some concert tickets.
So should you: Toronto OKGO Gig April 23rd.
OK Go DECLARE THEIR FREEDOM!!!
I just did this for myself in February… largely inspired by their video “This too shall pass”. So… go get them boys (by them, I mean yourselves and the world!)