Rain

Good job, I love it. And I feel like a complete moron, although I already knew that my fields of interest were rather limited, so there were more chances of me knowing about the Vitruvian Man, Plato and words like Crepuscule than the highest paid athlete or the festival of colors in India. Craig mentioned the time aspect, and I must say that even in cases where I knew the answer, I barely had the time to retrieve the information, and sometimes not at all. That being said, I have an old brain (51), cluttered with tons of useless information - and it seems to rely more and more on the fact that data can be stored on a computer and recalled will, so it's getting lazy.

Thank you guys! I sincerely appreciate.

From an old project, but I just realized that everything in there is done with Cakewalk instruments. Figured I'd share it with my old pals on this board. It was recorded/sequenced in Sonar 6. Essentially it’s just me squeezing as much as I could out of those two chords with each new “verse”, approaching them from a slightly different angle each time, as you would for a soundtrack, while trying to remain true to the macabre/70’s horror film vibe of the song for 4 minutes. And then the weird finale. It’s called 1440 Monument Avenue, and it’s an ode to the now defunct Museum of Funeral Customs that used to be located at that address. I used Dimension Pro for the piano - a patch called Alien Piano that I used to use all the time, tweaked just a little, and Z3t4 and Rapture for all the the synths. Roland Groovesynth for drums - layered with a few drum samples from Dimension. It’s not properly mixed, but whatever EQ (used for sound sculpting purposes), reverb and compression plugins were used, it was all Sonitus (I’d been a fan of those way before Cakewalk acquired them from Ultrafunk). The only non-Cakewalk plugins would probably be two freebies: Camel Crusher (a distortion plugin) and LoFi by Ephonic. I say probably because I think I recognize the sound and I used those two in almost every project back then to tighten up things a bit. I love that Z3t4 patch at the end so much! I think it’s one of the factory ones, although it could be something I downloaded off of KvR back then. I’m not sure I even tweaked it at all (I may have tried to dial the reverb back a little but it’s still drenched in it). It’s so beautifully layered and so huge in term of frequency range, from the low end to the sizzling distortion on top. A thing of beauty, but it really needs all the space. I imagined some kind of Dr. Phibes-esk character playing some weird organ-type of instrument, but that doesn’t sound like an organ at all. I sincerely hope that Bandlab re-release those old instruments. They were such an integral port of my workflow. I guess this song is also an ode to them. Oh and there's no video, it's just a pic. As much as YT sucks, it's still the best platform to share music, imho. It's just a song idea, anyway.

Skinny Puppy gave their last show earlier this week. I wanted to see pics on Facebook, so I typed "Skinny Puppy" in the search field... Even after I typed Show Search Results, this remained at the top of the page. I'm surprised they didn't call my nearest relative and send emergency services to check on me.

That sounds like a brilliant strategy on the part of the principal. Too bad there aren't more people like him. And indeed, we are quite the opposite. I have attention surplus disorder. And my childhood reinforced that trait. I grew up a solitary kid, spending most of my youth with my grandparents. There weren't many kids in that neighborhood, which is a good thing because I couldn't stand kids (expect girls - I had a very deep interest in the opposite *****, whether they were my age or whether it was their mother or even grandmother). Little boys were too noisy and hyper for my taste. And they weren't attractive, so, who cares... lol The main attractions in our small neighborhood were a church, 2 funeral homes, a convent, and the cemetery, across the street, a mere 75 ft from our doorstep. And my grandparents' house totally belonged in that type of environment, what with my über Catholic grandmother, and her taste when it came to decoration - dark wood, tapestries, velour, red and gold, and all. We used to listen to the obituaries on the radio twice a day - that's where I got acquainted with Bach because the theme song was Air on a G string. I liked drawing, painting, reading, writing, listening to music, and that kind of stuff. I remember spending hours sitting in the stairs staring at a painting of Piazza San Marco that hung above, and getting lost in there, and trying to reproduce it on a piece of paper with my pencils. If I was forced out of the house, I'd hang out in the cemetery. So I guess this type of environment reinforced a tendency to let myself be completely absorbed into one thing. I could spend hours on my bed staring at the ceiling and never get bored. My other favorite places were the Church and the retirement home where we visited my great-grandmother every Wednesday. I was fascinated by the fact that she had everything she needed in that one room - a tv, a radio, a bed, a rocking chair, and books - and even her own bathroom! And people were bringing her meal. She never had to go out. And it was quiet. I thought this had to be the greatest place to be, after the cemetery. Surprising that I would become such a shut in, uh?

This!

That's one thing I never managed to do. I remember when I started working for that company in the 2000's and my colleagues were telling how cool things were there because they were allowed to listen to music (using headphones, obviously) while working. For me unless it's something like a string quartet or a piano concerto, and what I'm doing something is essentially just copying and pasting, I just can't. And most definitely, anything with vocals is right out. Heck, I can't even listen to music when I'm eating. A movie or a TV show's just fine, but music completely pulls me in, and my brain's trying to understand and figure out parts, and I get all kinds of visuals, especially if there's guitar, it's like I see the parts being played. The only exception would be when I'm doing chores around the house, but even then, I tend to drift off and forget what I was doing. Same in the gym.

That's it. No more peyote in the desert for you, mister!

People who listen to Bieber and Rihanna probably won't be able to tell the difference. Heck, it might actually turn out to be an improvement. Me I'm glad I have endless supplies of "new" old music to discover, stuff that I was too dumb to "get" earlier in my life. This way I do not depend on contemporary releases. Right now, I'm still right in the early days of the Gabriel/Hackett era Genesis - in my world, Selling England By The Pound has yet to be released, so I have that and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway to look forward to. It's a very exciting time. Heck, maybe someday I'll "get" Yes.

Pink Floyd - Apples and Oranges

Syd Barrett - Baby Lemonade

Beck - Lemonade

U2 - Lemon

Angus has some interesting stuff in his rig.

The Cure - Another Journey By Train

The Cure - Jumping' Someone Else's Train

Gordon Lightfoot - Canadian Railroad Trilogy

This word really doesn't mean what I thought it would mean. Reassuring because it's something us musicians are especially susceptible to developing, and I was worried that I would have to find an OB if I ever suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome or something. Those guys use some very scary tools...

Indeed. And I know at least a few of them. Seems exorbitant to me, but then again, I used to spend even more than that on smokes, and that was over a decade ago. Not counting what I wasted in bars.

Your friend can tell his wife that yes it is MANDATORY. And totally justified.

Got that one on DVD years ago. Almost forgot about it. Cool stuff!

Looks like Le Studio, Morin Heights in my native Quebec. Also known as Rush's Abbey Road. Tom Sawyer was also filmed there.

Both Lifeson and Lee seem to be able to keep themselves occupied, but I think that being a musician is not something you can turn off. That being said, I think people's reaction isn't based on the fact that musicians keep on making music in their old age, but on the fact that they decide to do so using an established name. Of course, it's theirs to do what they want, but if the name is worth touring under, it's a name that probably means a lot to millions of people and it's bound to elicit a strong reaction. I think maybe Queen found the most elegant way to go about it with their Queen + Paul Rogers, and Queen featuring Adam Lambert. For my taste anyway.

A real eyesore if you ask me... Just kidding, I wouldn't know. I never leave home. I've seen photos that friends back home posted on Facebook - I wasn't even aware of that thing before that. Heck, I've not even seen the completed Allegiant Stadium. I think we have a football team now, and the local hockey team is doing relatively well if I understand correctly.

Johnny Burnette - Tear It Up