100 days of creativity: March 2010

DAY ONE-HUNDRED!

Really enjoyed the 100 days event. Despite the frankly horrible venue, it was warm and friendly inside.

Lovely to chat to people I only knew from twitter updates, and see the culmination of 100 days of great artwork and ideas.

And to walk in and see my tape keyfob vid projected on the wall made me feel proud.

And the fact that the performances were predominantly female comedians - and that this didn't seem unusual - was great.

Had to display my art 'creatively' as it was pretty precarious on my plinth.

I did a quick tape insert when I got back to my friend's.

Am I a better person? I'm a better guitarist, and more efficient at making pieces of music, and less procrastinatory, and generally more confident in being creative.

These are some of the pieces I'm most proud of:

DAY NINETY-NINE

Final track. 55th one!

This is based on @benpartridge's random wiki article surfing.

I clicked that and got to a page about Zavodovski Island, which is a small island near the Antarctic with a volcano that engulfs the island.

Found this picture and was inspired to make a track about it.

http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1900-13=&volpage=photos&photo=110091

Tried to do something icy, sparse, warm, volcanic.

Wanted to collate all the techniques from previous pieces, and use all my instruments.

There's a bubbling volcanic bassline, icy whistling, a little windy drone at the start, some augmented radio, and some warm sparse free-form guitar. It's odd but it works I think.

DAY NINETY-EIGHT

Drew a monkeyfish. Oh, there's a red squiggle under that word. They don't exist? They should.

And here is a nice acoustic echoey track. No distortion!

DAY NINETY-SEVEN

Did some prep for Wednesday's event and yet another track.

Woozy bluesy noodling. Just a pick up the guitar and play job.

Actually though, there's a bit of post-production on this. I don't like doing that usually, I like to be able to play something, and then that's it, done. But I was checking out some of the fx on ableton, and that's been kept in.

Never would've thought, 97 days ago, that I'd have recorded 53 pieces of music. Definitely gonna do more creative stuff after the 100 is up. Need a break though, and want to do some more considered, thought out pieces.

DAY NINETY-SIX

Couldn't get the tone right on this, and so it's a bit of a mess. Tried mastering it, but to no avail. The bass is just too noisy and feedbacky. Drowns out the guitar.

Anyway, I recorded it and uploaded it. Slow sludgy metal noise:

DAY NINETY-FIVE

People pissed me off today. Stupid decisions made in a panic, people not listening to reason, and it rubbing off on me. So here's a poem that doesn't really relay these things:

Far away from prying hands

The clutch of panic:

constricted restricted

clouded

contagious

Shut away;

I wish

Kind of a shame I did Ira yesterday. Would've been appropriate for today. Probably just me shouting into a mic though.

DAY NINETY-FOUR

Final part of the deadly sins project. Ira, meaning Anger.

Starts off gentle but with a vague undercurrent of dread, then something happens, which causes a bubbling, rising synth drone seething with anger.

I was chatting to a friend about when I got burgled and how I was enraged, apoplectic, murderous. The memory brought it back.

DAY NINETY-THREE

50th track! yeah!

Did I go all out and create something spectacular?

Well... not exactly. There's a nice tune and humming hidden there, but it's beneath loads of distortion, grit, and grime.

DAY NINETY-TWO

I did that new logo for the blog. A bit late. Nevermind.

In a last ditch attempt to enforce some sort of cohesion on this project, I've done another cassette related photo

My boss found this in a charity shop. An indonesian bootleg of english folk songs in heavyweight casing. Good enough in itself, but the info 'this pack has been proved for casette protection from heat for hot countries' steps it up to awesome.

DAY NINETY-ONE

I think this is my 49th track. I did a different version of nexus spill and a dnb track I didn't upload, so I'm counting those too.

Definitely reach my target of 50. Brilliant! I think it's gonna be more difficult to find coherent collections of tracks to work on and send out as demos.

Was gonna give my calloused fingers a break today, but there's a mouse roller scroller button on my pc keyboard and I realized I could use it as an expression pedal by careful placement on the floor.

So, this is FX heavy and lots of wah, with echoes sustained forever.

Goes awry at 2 minute mark but I pull it back. I suppose that's always a danger when you just play freeform, with no prep, and don't really know how to play guitar.

I wasn't feeling especially indignant, but I just read Philip Roth's wonderful book Indignation, and there was a little residual empathic indignation

DAY NINETY

Slow, haunted bassline played on guitar, looped, then echoey reverby guitar played freeform on top. Slowly turning the wah up and down in between notes

Haven't felt like doing anything on the bass guitar for a while. It doesn't like being tuned in. Or being played.

Anyway, I think this sounds pretty good. Difficult to get the balance between imbuing with my 'sound', and not sounding too similar to everything else. Especially when working on something new every day.

DAY EIGHTY-NINE

Tried the same thing as yesterday, feedback on one instrument interacting with playing on another, but it doesnt work as well.

I'd had a few drinks, and came back and did what I could. The bar was also a steak house and had a boutique inside, and it looked like an Estate Agents from the outside. Odd mix.

Reminded me of the Baixa part of Lisbon where boutiques are open late at night next to cool bars. There it made sense.

So, appropriately, here's a track where the 2 parts don't quite work together.