the Low hello


I really haven’t ANYTHING to say lately. I am really busy with work lately, but also have been finding the time to work on a new little EP for Part Time Songs… It’s gonna be a song we played live in the Low Hello, a song I demoed for the Low Hello and a brand new one. The previously written songs being re-recorded. My first 3 song EP. Can you even call that an EP? Seems like it should be illegal. I’m hoping to finish that before me&D leave for Paris.

Oh yeah! We’re leaving for Paris on April 13th! I am très surexcité. (I am not sure if that French is a correct construction. Or if this parenthetical note is, either). It could not come soon enough.

After that, the plan is to put down final drums on the studio EP we’re working on. I wish I had something more solid to let you listen to, but I don’t at the moment.

Oh yeah! Check out Google Sky. I really like how it lets you overlay a historical sky map. Nice touch.

Till next time!

Well, my first post about the Wordpress migration got deleted, because I hadn’t changed a MySQL server name in a config file. I backed up the old database, and restored it to the new database server. Then I made the post about the migration and then I deleted the old database. Turns out the posts were still saving to the old database, and I only realized that after deleting the old database (because of the “Um, there’s no database called that” error I got). Anyway, whatever. I think it’s all set up correctly now.

Another weird thing is that my blog at thelowhello.com got haxxor’d (or however the haxxors would spell it. Any haxxors out there?)… I got an email from Google saying that my site might be harmful to people’s computers. I did a Google search, and here’s what I saw:

haxxor

So, yeah, stuff in German and French about a Caribbean online casino! Great! I opened up the last post I had made in that blog, sometime last summer, and saw that yup, there was that text and some other Javascript in there. Great again! So Wordpress somehow allowed a SQL injection somewhere… I deleted the offending text and saved the entry, but this actually came at an all right time, because I had been planning to stop hosting that blog anymore and letting the URL lapse. Because we don’t need it anymore and I don’t plan to use it (or that URL) at all.

Anyway, I guess I have some reading to do about Wordpress vulnerabilities. Should be an interesting project. Probably should check plug-ins, too. I haven’t written any myself, so at least I know it’s not *my* code.

So I was digging around my hard drive and FTP space for old songs and things to make sure I kept safe in a pile of stuff to eventually become the first Part Time Songs EP. The regular EP is going well, too, but now that things and ideas for that are falling into place, my mind is starting to wander towards future songs.

Anyway, I thought I’d post these couple of songs… They are the Low Hello related… One was a demo I made for the band and the other is jam at the beginning of a practice (while I’m not all that great at freeform jamming, this one sounds pretty all right in certain parts):

File Under Sole (uses my melodica in an actually pretty nice way)
Jam (ROCK!)

Been working on a couple things… Here’s a couple of demos…

Making Predictions: this is a demo of a song I’m most likely including on the upcoming EP; things aren’t exactly in proper time and tight yet, but I’ve been enjoying where this one is going.
I Got Carpet: even though the performing band the Low Hello no longer exists, Robb and I are (allegedly) racing to the finish to each finish the EP we started back in the spring. The race has been a slow one, with various periods of action and inaction. Here’s the song sans bass but with a solid scratch vocal.

This basement we played in. In retrospect, kind of a cool venue.
last show woes

little did i know

1888 German map of Buenos Aires, courtesy wikipedia

One really weird thing about the name “the Low Hello” is that when I look at the hit stats for thelowhello.com, there is ALWAYS someone from Argentina doing a search for “hello, how low?”, the Nirvana lyric, and ending up at our site. Like totally different seeming people (in different cities, but mostly Buenos Aires, but all with different IP addresses and ISPs). Like this one:

http://www.google.com.ar/search?hl=es&q=Hello%2C%20How%20Low%3F&btnG=Buscar%20con%20Google&meta=

Hey there, everyone! Hope everyone is well out there in internets land. I’m doing all right, myself.

I’m a bit sad about the band fizzling out the way it did, but then again, I am actually quite relieved to not have to play anymore shows this year. I DO know, however, that the bug will bite again, and I will want to present new music live to people in the future, perhaps in the spring (the earliest conceivable time I expect to have anything done enough to present). So, at this moment, I am wondering if perhaps I made the worst mistake ever by bowing out of my current group. But it’s only fair to them (perhaps they will continue on and do fun exciting new things sans me) and myself. I only hope I can find musicians (who are also awesome people in general) as quickly and painlessly when I need them as I did with the Low Hello, and previously, with Tenille. Dan’s been a longtime collaborator up till now, so I’m hoping maybe he’ll want to help out on the new recording. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. I’ve got a lot of writing and arranging to do before then.

Anyhow, I continue along on my own, proving to myself I can create good stuff again, without the artificial constraints like “Oh, I should write an uptempo rock song, because nothing else goes over well with the audiences we play to”. Which is great. Overall, everything is looking up and positive, but the sadness remains. It’s like breaking up with someone, even if you’re the breaker-upper. It’s still kind of a sad affair. You’re left doubting your worth and abilities on your own, and doubting if you’ll ever find anyone that’ll click in the same way it clicked when the broken relationship was new and fresh. But eventually you do and life goes on. Gimme another week or so, I’ll be totally over it. But strange as it is, it’s kinda refreshing to feel sad in this way. It doesn’t happen much lately.


I’m getting awfully close to finishing the main structure of the vocal booth in the basement. I’ve got three walls up and have designed the door side. If I had a large vehicle tonight, I’d go buy the wood for the remaining parts. Might have to wait for next weekend. Or perhaps I can fit these bits into the Saturn. I should put up some photos of what I’ve got so far. The door side is going to be three pieces, two 1′ by 6′ pieces, and a middle portion (2′ x 6′) that will serve as the actual door. Add some hinges and a latch, and it should be good to go. Then a 4′x4′ piece for the ceiling. Then some kind of sound proof insulation, which I still need to look into.


I did delve into making some music this weekend. I’m stealing little bits from myself from the past (the verse chords from Recess, but played on piano, and much much slower; the bridge guitar riff to Lying Down (SOM version), transposed a step lower and being used as a motif in a completely new song). I used to somehow think that borrowing from my older ideas was plagiarism in some weird way, but obviously it isn’t. I’m not sure why I used to think that. Reuse and recycle for a greener America!


I realize these past couple entries have probably been super boring for anyone that is looking for an entry about… whatever it is I normally write about. Thanks for reading anyhow!

I added some new videos at http://thelowhello.com (’Summer Insects’ and ‘I Got Carpet’)… I am pleased with the FLV format the videos are posted in. I found a plugin that lets you convert an AVI file into an FLV file, which makes it play in a little flash player, rather than having to download and watch a 150MB AVI file. The quality is crappy, but that’s because the source video’s quality was crappy. But this effectively lets me get around the YouTube limit of 100MB without having to cut a single song into two parts, so I’m happy.

Other than that, not much new to report… What’re you up to?

Hello there again. First, just wanted to say that things with the band are all right. After summer, break from shows (while I write some new songs). Then record maybe, then play shows. Do that pattern. Always write and record, then play a few shows in “support” of the new material. We’ll probably just keep giving it away for free anyhow, unless some kindly indie label were to like to help us out at some point. Sounds will change, interest will return, things’ll be cool.

My wife and I played Super Tennis* this weekend. Super Tennis is a game where you totally ignore the rules of real tennis, and basically hit the ball back and forth, chasing after it no matter how many times it bounces or how out-of-bounds it is. The point is to keep it going, and let me tell you, it was quite a workout. It’s been a while since I played tennis of any kind, much less the grueling game of Super Tennis. I woke up kind of sore today, but it’s mostly gone away.

I spent some time this weekend too working on a small piece of music in the basement. There are no lyrics, but I sing a lyrical melody — it’s so rough it’s even still got my timekeeping cymbal hits in there. I recently got one of these and Fruity Loops 7 in order to mess around with arranging stuff, and I’ve really taken a liking to Fruity Loops (I got the producer’s edition, which allows you to record live audio in addition to the regular MIDI arranging stuff). It’s pretty sweet. It’s also the first time in a while that I’ve taken the time to study a piece of recording software… FL7 is pretty deep… it’s got several different ways of doing things in many situations and the way the pieces work together is somewhat foreign to me (I’m used to just using CoolEdit to do live audio recording; the last time I did any MIDI was in 1997, and I used this crappy program called “Recording Studio”, that let you input notes into a graphical music score). But it’s looks like the piano roll and mixer features are going to be pretty fun to use and probably will improve any recordings I do. I need to learn a lot about compression and EQ (generally, what are acceptable ranges for EQ on guitars, basses, etc)… I’ve got a couple books on the topic, but I just haven’t internalized the information. I’ve got a lot more hands-on to try out, it’ll probably stick after that. And with FL7, I’m starting to like the idea of having those components (mixers, effects, etc) in software, because the program seems to run really smoothly and everything really well integrated. No cables to worry about, etc. Anyway, I did this song, it’s my first thing with FL7, so be nice.

Ok… sleeptime now.

*Super Tennis is not recognized by any sports governing bodies to actually be a sport.

monkeys like music

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