CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-03-22 15:08:52 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Here's another work in progress.  A little different from the others I've posted - covering a lot of musical territory on this project.  Needs new drums, but the big things I haven't recorded yet are lead guitar and backing vocals.  Going to have a friend who is an excellent rock guitarist sit in on this one.

2013-03-20 00:52:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I should be keeping track of the instruments I've used in this recording project.  I'm doing sessions after hours at the music store where I teach lessons, so I have access to a wide variety of instruments to record with.  Several of the instruments I've used have been sold already.  I wonder if the owner would have liked to know what their new axe had been doing.

For example, since I recorded these tracks, the banjo, guitar, bass, and mandolin that I tracked with have all been sold.  I should start leaving notes on the instruments saying they've appeared on record and with the bandcamp address for the songs.  Customers might be interested in that.  Maybe some of them might buy a track or two (or the whole album, when it's finished).

There's a gorgeous Rickenbacker bass in there now, and it sounds so nice I've been recutting a lot of previouslyfinis... more »

2013-03-20 00:34:49 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

This is wonderful. Calvin and Hobbes animated using the actual strip as keyframes.

Also: I miss Calvin and Hobbes.

2013-03-19 02:01:06 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Here's another demo - a calypso tune. There's no lead instrument at all yet, I'm still not sure what instrument I want to do the lead, so right now it's just two ukuleles going full tilt with bass and drums. 

In the end this may go to another singer, or be recorded again in a different key. Or it may continue in its current form, with some mistakes fixed, and be okay. I hear it differently on different days.

2013-03-19 02:00:04 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

So, progress continues on the album I'm working on. There's gonna be a lot of stuff. There are some 30-odd songs in the pull list, and lots of sessions still to go. I haven't even started bringing in other people yet, it's all been me so far, and nobody really knows what all I'm working on.

When tracks are finished, some will go up at http://doctorpogo.bandcamp.com/  as early releases (there are two up there already!), and when they are all finished they will be assembled like Voltron into a massive double album of awesomeness, at an advantageous price.

And all the while I'll be posting some in-progress tracks to my Soundcloud page, for anybody curious, and for anybody who's got an idea to add. Here's a swing number with no drums and a scratch lead part (it's going to get replaced later with some nice clarinet by my lovely wife).

2013-03-09 20:41:44 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I've been working on an album, at last.

It's a lot of work.  Just finding as many of my songs as I can and gathering them together has been hard.  I'm totally careless, breezing around leaving stuff I've written in old notebooks or on old computers, not keeping my own songs in practice or even in a list.

So I've been digging.  And this sudden interest in archaeology has left me with a list of more than 30 songs and half-songs and instrumental tunes and lyrics.  And those are just the ones that are finished enough that I think I can make something of them.  I have to relearn all of these songs, some of which I played constantly for a week or so when I wrote them, and then put them away to work on other stuff because I didn't have a gig coming up, and then forgot about them until now.

As I relearn each song, I record a basic version of it withguit... more »

2013-01-09 10:10:37 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

So I've been a busy bee with my recording gear lately.  I produced nine new tracks for my friend +Sarah J, some of which have been released as name-your-price downloads on her bandcamp page (http://thesarahjshow.bandcamp.com/).  

I produced a new, fully orchestrated version of one of my friend +seanrox rox's best songs, which is available for download at his reverbnation(http://www.reverbnation.com/seanroxdotcom/song/15698636-gypsy-love-2013).  I also produced an EP of original songs and gospel music by one of my composition students.  

And the long-rumored Doctor Pogo album is in production at last.  The sessions for it began with this song, which my friend Katy wrote for her children.  I played it with her one night, and she liked the way I played it and told me to keep it in my set.  So I did, and recorded this arrangement of it as a gift for her.

2012-12-12 08:23:34 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

So, my friend and lil' sister +Sarah J and I made an album last year of her songs, produced and released in kind of a hurry just before she left for New York to go take over the world.  It was pretty good, I think she sold a bunch of 'em.

A couple months ago I started rooting around in the master takes folder for that album, thinking of finding a couple good sounds to use as samples for another project.  But what happened when I was listening to the tracks was that I heard a bunch of songs that I wanted to take another crack at.  So I did.

I unwrapped Sarah's old takes, vocal, guitar, and piano, recorded at Brian Mallard's Luminous Studio in early fall of 2011, transferred them to my Korg D1200II and got to chopping.  New drums, new bass, new leads, new everything.

I've been sending the resulting tracks one at a time to Sarah as Hanukkah gifts. Here... more »

2012-11-21 01:43:44 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Please advise ;)

[Via Princeton Record Exchange]

2012-11-06 17:21:44 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

It's important to remember today what a vote is, really.  A vote is a specific request to the government to use its overwhelming power to force my opinions into the lives of my neighbors.  Or, at least, the opinions of the person I'm voting for.

My neighbors are also petitioning the government today to use its power to force me to live by their opinions, or the opinions of their representatives.

I'm not saying don't vote.  I'm still going to vote.  I'm saying I shouldn't vote for anything that I wouldn't be willing to force my friends and family to do, even the ones that don't want it.  

I mean it literally - imagine holding a gun on them and forcing them to go along with whatever item or platform it is you're voting for - could you do it?  If I couldn't hold that gun and give the commands myself, I can't just vote forsomeb... more »

2012-07-04 05:15:39 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Here's a worthwhile endeavor.  +Amethyst Arsenic was good enough to publish a couple of my poems a while back in their second-ever issue, and they actually paid me, in real money, which is seriously a rare occurrence in poetry journals.  They're a good magazine, and good people.

They've teamed up with some other fine magazines to create a paper edition featuring some of the work they've collectively published over the last couple years.  They could use some help with the project.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/291851257/biline-best-indie-lit-new-england-vol-1

2012-05-08 17:45:28 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

My little sister, doing good.

2012-03-09 18:06:26 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

This is terrifying. I found myself moving my head to dodge objects in the video.

2012-03-04 10:56:35 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Hey, gang. This is my friend and little sister +Sarah J, found wandering the streets of LA in the middle of the night wearing her guitar, singing fine songs, and giving somewhat awkward interviews.

I did some work on that album they're talking about there. You can get you one at www.thesarahjshow.com for only $5!

Always good to hear your voice, Sarah.

2012-02-26 04:55:38 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

One of the most fascinating illusions!

2012-02-22 02:55:09 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

My good friend, little sister and bandmate +Sarah J worked at this school for a while. Many of her other former and current bandmates are faculty here. It's a quality operation, and they deserve to stay open.

2012-02-22 02:10:02 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Hey, if you're in the Columbus GA/Chattahoochee Valley area, and you're free, you should totally come to HOT WALKER BAND at THE LOFT on Wednesday, or HOT WALKER BAND at SOHO BAR on Thursday.

The Hot Walker Band was an original outfit operating out of Miami in the late 1970s until 1981. They won a Hemingway Music Award (given by record companies at the Southeast Music Expo) for Country Music in 1980 (interestingly, the Latin Music award that year went to Miami Sound Machine). The members have gone on to a variety of adventures around the world since then. But Stan has gotten most of them back together, and thrown the other members of his current project, the Fiddler's Blues Band, into the mix for good measure.

If yesterday's rehearsal is any indication, it's going to be AWESOME. I'm amazed and honored to be allowed on stage with these folks. Some seriously... more »

2012-02-20 03:58:09 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

A professional production company, but one that generates material through artist collaboration, remixing, and social networking?

Maybe it's not the new business model that is gonna take us into the future. But it's pretty neat for right now.

+seanrox rox, what do you think of this?

2012-02-12 06:53:11 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

This is amazing.

2012-01-24 18:00:22 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

The true story of John Stump, composer of the legendary "Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz."
I've always wondered.

2012-01-03 23:04:50 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

What human rights and LOLcats have to do with each other.

2011-12-29 19:37:35 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

This is pretty awesome.

Apparently MIT will begin offering courses through this new program this spring. The courses are free, open to anyone, and if you demonstrate mastery of the material, you can get a genuine credential for it. There will be a charge for the credential, but the university insists it will be 'affordable.'

We'll see about that last bit, but really, this is pretty cool.

2011-12-11 12:41:08 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I want this to be in my yard.

2011-12-10 22:06:49 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I was the host of the fabulous weekly open mic and music director for Fountain City Coffee in Columbus, Georgia, from March of 2010 until June of this year.

I'm returning next weekend for a show, starring as many of my friends as we can cram on stage.

2011-12-06 05:01:26 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

‎(grabby hands)

Those of you that know me personally or have seen me perform solo will be familiar with my stage name, Doctor Obadiah G. Pogo. This originated with a band I was in, an acoustic surf-bluegrass project called Dr. Bongo!. All the members of the band took Dr. names, all of which ended in -o. There was Dr. Bongo, the leader, and Drs. Magnifico and Mento, and me, Dr. Pogo.

Everyone's name was significant to them somehow. This is what I named myself after: a folksy possum from the swamp, full of good-natured, vaudevillian humor and not-so-good-natured observations about the world.

Finally, after years of delay, Fantagraphics released the first volume of the Complete Pogo. There will be 12 in all, comprising the entire run of the greatest comic strip of all time.
more »

2011-12-03 04:45:38 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

I've never thought about it quite this seriously, but now that I do, it's totally awesome.

What starts as a fan question about whether the monsters on Scooby-Doo should ever turn out to be real turns into a genuinely insightful commentary on why Scooby and the gang are a subtle and important lesson for kids on the value of skepticism.

"Because that's the thing about Scooby-Doo: The bad guys in every episode aren't monsters, they're liars.

The very first rule of Scooby-Doo, the single premise that sits at the heart of their adventures, is that the world is full of grown-ups who lie to kids, and that it's up to those kids to figure out what those lies are and call them on it, even if there are other adults who believe those lies with every fiber of their being. And the way that you win isn't through supernatural powers, or even through... more »

2011-11-29 02:44:36 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Watch this in HD, fullscreen.

Whoa.

2011-11-28 06:41:23 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

There was an entry up on +Boing Boing about this a bit ago, but it seems to have disappeared.

Anyway, here's the deal: Elvis Costello has posted an article to his website declaiming his new box set, "The Return of the Spectacular Spinning Songbook."

He is encouraging his fans not to buy it, as the $250 price tag "appears to be either a misprint or a satire."

Instead he recommends a box set by Louis Armstrong, which I also recommend, because you will never go wrong with Pops.

I love Elvis Costello.

2011-11-24 04:22:51 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Here's something.

The winter issue of Amethyst Arsenic is coming out early!

Since it's a holiday weekend, and it's almost December anyway, the editors decided to go ahead and release it. This is my first real publication after taking a break for many years. There are a couple of my poems in here, both of which have never seen publication before.

Be sure to check out the pieces by the other contributors, as well. There are some really good things. It's hard for me to pin down a favorite until I've read some of them again.

This is their second issue, and so far it's a pretty cool venture, so go give them pageviews and support. Thanks!

2011-11-09 10:14:39 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 4 +1s)

This is fairly comprehensive and strictly by-the-numbers.

People continue to say that there's no message - well, here it is.

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1

#ows

2011-11-08 03:27:32 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

This is a pretty cool resource for music historians and/or aficionados. Music Ngram Viewer tracks notes and chord sequences in 60,000 optically scanned public-domain classical scores. It would have the potential to track popular sequences that were then copied by other composers: http://bit.ly/mZjGR9

2011-11-01 05:20:23 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

2011-10-30 05:58:52 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Absolutely fascinating. This has some pretty incredible implications. At least one of the Easter Island heads has been excavated by a private research group [1], and has been discovered to have a carved body.

Were the Easter Island heads originally on much lower ground? Or were they buried by the original creators?

Easter Island is an internationally recognized World Heritage Site [2] and is also considered to be the most remote inhabited island in the world [3]. Anyone interested in #Anthropology is probably very familiar with the (887) massive stone statues that are scattered around the island, and anyone would be intrigued by the mystery behind them. It falls right in line with the incredible puzzle ancient sites like Stonehenge, the Pyramids, and Machu Picchu provide (in terms of how exactly ancient people constructed them).

What do you think happened on... more »