02 15 12 09:46 |No comments yet The Year In Review

Peter DeStefano are sharing the fruits of our labors with the world this year in the form of The Year In Review Project. Our 12 years of collaborating on one thing or another have yielded 4 seasonal EPs to be released quarterly in 2012. Click here to be taken to our Bandcamp page and have a listen and or download them.

02 01 12 12:05 |No comments yet Into the Dragon

So I've launched a new Project with collaborator Peter DeStefano called The Year In Review. REALLY glad to be putting the fruits of out labor out into the world. We're releasing a song per month via Facebook and THEYEARINREVIEWPROJECT.com. January has been delayed due to some mind blowing cranial facial pain I've been dealing with, but I was at the Dr. this morning and steps are being taken to lessen the constant steel-toed-boot-to-the-face feeling I've been medicating for for the last week. 

 In other quarters, I've started a 7 song dub project, singing my achy heart out again. Trying to wrap that up soon so I can return to working with Anwar  (Has-Lo) on our Train and Dial record. 

 Also, Company of Thieves and Bat for Lashes are 2 artists that have been blowing my mind this week. Click on their names in the previous sentence for a video from each of them. Safe for work and inspiring.

And, I just did some music for the MediFast health products company. An acoustic rock number with some synth sweeps and swooshes to complment the graphics. 60 second national TV spot, good stuff.

03 07 11 1:30 |No comments yet Help Wanted?

Bolt Thrower, Gillian Welch, Empire of the Sun, My Chemical Romance, Bilal, Wayne Hancock, Justin Townes Earl, Janelle Monae, Goldie, Craig David or Massive Attack?

12 03 10 09:40 |No comments yet The Future Looks Like a Dude with a Gun

Another whirlwind whipped quarter for me and mine. Scored 'Biography : Morgan Freeman', as well as 'Inside Story : Halloween' and 'Inside Story : Silence of the Lambs'. Released "I Hurl Myself Towards Glory" with Do You Need the Service. Click the link over there to get it from Amazon. It's a good, chllenging, instrumental listen. Also our house is complete. In an attemtp to put in a new kitchen ceiling we wound up basically gutting the entire downstairs and starting anew. There are some images at my flickr page of what that was like. We can't even look at those images as they instanty raise the blood pressure.

So between the above, alien bacteria being found in a California lake, Glee on Fox, and Christina's very successful semester at MICA and UArts, it's been a hell of a time. Been brainstorming recently about disributed human-based computing. That's a real concept and practice, I didn't make it up. Basically giving a question to a group of people to gnaw on in collaboration with a computer, or in this case the cloud. More on this soon, but when hacked up and fried it will be a great business plan.

I've started a Tumblr feed, though I'm really into it's anonymity, so I'm not going to mention it here.

Also looked up Timothy Day on linked in recently. There are many of us. Thinking of having a party and just inviting all the Timothy Days in the world.

09 20 10 09:38 |No comments yet The season of our disarray

Things found in the pile of life that accumulated on our bed over the weekend : a Paslode nail gun, 2 cycling kits, a laptop computer, a cat, a window screen, underwear, computer speakers, a hammer, 23' of 8 channel mogami cable, a bottle of bulleit bourbon, a disco ball key ring, 1 smartwool sock. That pretty much sums up this home renovation project. In the course of stopping a leak and putting up some new cabinets we've basically gutted and rebuilt our entire house, with us and the cats in it. Speaking of the cats, we have ordered a proper adult sofa and were considering having Babe declawed to protect the cozy fineness. But in light of his recent late night sprint laps up and down the stairs I am considering having him entirely de-legged. I'll just carry him about in a fashionable little tote. problem solved. Damn cat. Topsy turvy. Photos to follow.

07 19 10 08:46 |No comments yet 2010 Ronde van Mullica Road Race

2010 Ronde van Mulllica, Mullica Township NewJersey. 6AM found Ryan and Jenn hanging out with Pauly the 7 toed cat while Ellis and I loaded up their car with gear. 7AM found us registering and warming up in Mullica Township NJ. It was a very warm 7AM. 7:55AM had us at the start and getting yelled at for chatting during the pre-race prayer (yeah, are you kidding me?) It's a 10-ish mile loop, mainly flat but with some false flats. The finish was preceded by a 2 km gentle incline that really had me burning. 1 significant crash at the top of the second lap had 20 guys down on the ground, many didn't return to the race. 20 guys DNF total due to injury or the heat getting to them. I plowed through 2 water bottles and was soaking wet after warming up. Ryan and Ellis stayed with the pack for an average speed of around 25MPH. I was dropped after avoiding the crash, shared some work with a few small groups, but a lot of guys were dropping out/off. So I finished solo several minutes after the bunch. Ellis took 21, Ryan 43, and I placed 53. The Miley Cyrus really got us amped up and ready to rock. Afterward we went here : Ate some free crabs: but Ryan didn't. He thinks seafood is gross :

06 03 10 08:55 |Only one comment Let's put hair in panty hose

Christina is off to South Korea for 2 weeks. She touched down in Seoul on the 31st of May and is installing a show and touring about the country looking at things. Meanwhile this whole oil spill thing has me baffled. In a system where companies are beholden to shareholders and the economy is beholden to these companies we need to look to the shareholders for regulation. And as far as I can tell, we are the shareholders. I'd like to propose looking at our retirement accounts and purging all BP stocks from them, even at a loss. BP and its drilling contractor should be decimated by this catastrophe. It is corporate natural selection and it is the only way to insure other companies take note and not let this happen again. Now if I could only remember how to log into my investment web page...

03 04 10 10:20 |No comments yet the Healthy Philadelphia Initiative

Mayor Nutter is proposing taxing high sugar beverages! This is great news.

01 27 10 09:20 |Only one comment Testing 'til failure

Here's the list : 1. Score 3 documentaries for the Biography Channel : Bill Murray, Joaquin Phoenix, Rodney Dangerfield. 2. Re-Hab the leg I broke off. 3. Get Christina's latest work installed and looking great at Tiger Strikes Asteroid. 4. Go to Tokyo for this that and the other thing. 5. Start scoring 2 more shows for the Bio Channel and the Golf Channel. 6. Upgrade the home studio to accomodate all this work. 7. Start building a base for a successful season of Category 5 Bicycle Racing. 8. Record a new record with 'Do You Need the Service?' 9. Celebrate the hell out of 2009/2010 New Years! and on and on and on . It's been a wild 3 months, with no end in sight. This bronco's going to continue to buck I'm afraid, but we've got a firm grip on the reins and great rodeo clowns to bring 'er in.

Tonight is President Obama's first State of the Union Address. I'm not looking forward to the apologizing he's speculated to be planning. This administration goofed not be cause they tried too much, but because they tried too little. So here we are with no Change, and no change.

  This informational image is pretty amazing. Not sure how upsetting it is, seeing as how our 401k and IRA plans are loaded with investments that benefit from the spending extremes there, but it's still pretty funny.

Looking forward to the weekend which has me meeting my new, and first, cycling coach Bill Elliston. We're going to do a Lactate Threshold test and check the power generated by my injured leg vs. my good leg. 

Photos of all the above are viewable. Click the Flickr badge over there --->

Pew pew.

11 15 09 2:02 |No comments yet The work and the fruit and the still of the night

Writing the music for these documentaries has been amazing, and a welcome challenge. I've roughed in a few hundred bits of music to be used across three documentaries covering a total of 4 hours of air time. I've been beating up on my hard drives and instruments to the point of steaming up my little room. The first 'Biography : Bill Murray" shipped out yesterday. It was a great effort from the team to get the master tapes and ancillary stuff in the mail early and safely. Next up is "Biography Rodney : Dangerfield" followed all too quickly by "Biography : Joaquin Phoenix". Between those, my "normal" client work and trying to maintain a training schedule, it's been a hell of a 7 months since my accident. I'm happy to report that the limp is almost gone, and I'm back on the bike commuting into work.

In other thoughts : China has me very worried. We're sending boatloads of money over there by purchasing their products, then having them lend it back to us. Their interest and concern over the pending health care reform has me worried. Do we really want the US health system to be subsidized by a foreign country? I agree with Bill Hicks when he calls the deficit a farse and illusion, until now (it seems like funny money to me). But, China is a very real creditor that can extract payment from us in a myriad of ways. And just wait until they really get cracking in unmanned space exploration missions in the next 50 years or so. Wowza.

Chrissy and I had a great 3 day jaunt to Miami to celebrate the wedding of Trisha and Brian. Check the link to TriianBurbank over there to see their jewelery company's output. Very cool stuff.

10 08 09 2:21 |No comments yet Walking the walk

Chrissy and I left the house at the same time on Tuesday morning. I looked West and saw the sun, she loked East and saw the sun. It was as if fulfilling an ancient prophecy. Sun and moon perffectly inline with the sweet hamlet that is our stretch of McClellan St. It was cool and quiet, leaving for work at 7AM has it's benefits that way. This was also one of the first mornings of me walking without a crutch or cane. Actually I still keep the cane with me for travelling, to aid getting in and out of the bus, but I'm able to walk fairly well without it. My surgeon advised me to resume normal activity as I am able, but not to take up kickboxing anytime soon. And not to fall off of my bike for a year. Which may prove difficult. I was also able to install the new ceiling fan which had been sitting unused since before my accident. Felt good to be up on a ladder getting things done. We've also installed a new bike rack in our living room to replace the hooks that our little cat Babe was able to pry from the wall by hangin on the rear tire of my bike. Yes, it made quite a racket.

I support the proposed calorie tax and healthy lifestyle rebates. I support raising the tax on alcohol and tobacco (which PA has just done). I support tap water consumption, it 'aint gonna kill you. I like a phrase Ryan used tonight, cultural dissonance. There is a massive cultural dissonance at work in a culture that wants universal health care, but doesn't want to be healthy.

There were fireworks directly above our house last weekend at the grand finale of the St. Nicholas of Tollentine festival around the corner. I witnessed the processional of the saints and all. We arrived too late for our annual chocolate-cello cordial, but had a good time saying hello and singing along to "Volare".

By the way, this is hideous and hopefully will keep people from eating in Burger King :

08 05 09 11:51 |Only one comment Do You Need the Service?

I'm appearing on keyboards with Do You Need the Service? on August 18th at King-Fu Necktie. Mercury Radio Theatre is on the bill as well. Should be a nice evening of instrumental denting. Rehearsals have been going very well. I'm looking forward to our recording session at Gradwell House at the end of August. EDIT : the show was an attendence success but a playing failure. I thought we sounded loose and not committed to the music. Commitment to a moment is something I've been thinking a lot about recently. Especially while doing my re-hab for my leg. I've been asking myself if I am fully invested, committed, to what I'm doing at the time.This came up recently in a meeting I had with some creative associates. As a creative, are you investing your time wisely, are you committed to your goal or project? Seems a simple thing, but it's almost too simple. I certainly don't ask this enough of myself. My commitement to re-hab and a successful return to cycling have energized and motivated me in other areas of my doings as well. BTW : a band, 'The Paver' a trio from Chicago opened for us at Kung-Fu. Check them out. They brought the bass driven rock. 

Also, should it be more expensive to be unhealthy?

08 02 09 1:27 |No comments yet Gentle Johnny Way Jingle-Oh

So I built a $200 Linux PC for our living room. Installed Ubuntu and Boxee. Hooked up a $40 MSI Wireless keyboard and we are off to the races. Discovering the latest in French indie music from La Blogotheque. Amazing HD nature footage on Earth-Touch HD. Also enjoying my flickr stream and pandora on the big screen. And finally able to playback YouTube content on a TV. Everything looks and sounds great. It took some doing, but it was well worth it to have access to content w/o having to use a real computer for it all. I think these very specific, well curated, media outlets are the future of entertainment. Despite our whoop-ass Comcast cable package, I can't remember the last time we watched broadcast TV.

My recovery is going well. Slow and steady will win this race. I'm sleeping through the night and haven't taken a pain killer in weeks. Looking forward to seeing my surgeon on August 18th and hopefully getting upgraded to advanced weight bearing. Funny phrase, upgraded to.  I've been cycling 6 days a week for the last 2 weeks. On the trainer, don't worry. Going nowhere slowly, but feeling great about being back on the bike. Using a newly acquired PowerTap Comp power meter to chart my progress back to riding strong. 

Enjoyed a killer dinner at XIX lastnight. Atop the Bellevue Hotel. Oysters we're perfect and the fish dishes were stunning. Glad to be able to welcome Anne Schaefer and Aaron Hedley back to Philadelphia after their long road trip.

06 15 09 2:25 |No comments yet Stomp Clap Stomp Clap

Wow. Not sure how I missed this. Here's Dante's video for "Tucker Stomp" we had a great time making this record in Detroit.  Dante is easily one of the most ambitious and creatively honest hip-hop artist I've ever worked with.

Untitled from Havoc Detroit on Vimeo.

06 05 09 3:26 |Only one comment Every button has a sweet spot

At least that's what I though, as I lay in bed at Hahnemann Hospital after emergency surgery fo my displaced femoral neck fracture. See, the morphine machine had a sweet spot. It would beep after a satisfying click of the hand held control and administer it's gods. The bed's controls also had a sweet spot. I could press across the control without result until I came to that spot in the center that sent my legs up or down to the perfect spot. But there was one button without a sweet spot in the room. The call button, the 'help' button, the 'more endocet, stat' button. I could press and press with no click or beep to alert me to a successfull notification of my discomfort. It was only a few moments later, that the voice of the teacher from the Peanuts cartoon came shuttling into the room via loudspeaker as the voice of the nurses station call center. To make matters worse, the bottons were switched between my and my room mate ( a fidgety leg amputee who insisted on taking sugar packets with his percocet) So my call would alert his nurse and his call mine. And the speaker/microphone system  was so poor that no one could understand anyone. It got to the point on Friday night that I would call for a nurse and just say "bnoogah blah goobah huweay", and "be right there" would be the reply. It was infuriating and funny. Just like this whole temporary disability situation.

Great care at Hahnemann Hospital though. I'm recovering well. I'll post X Ray photos next week after I get the stitches out. Bnogbah!