The ground has been shaking quite a bit in my world over the last few months, and I intend to share…
As per usual, I’ve been day dreaming what I think are some pretty sick changes to the layout of the site, and to the way I can present all this info to you…
And I’ve gotten Zach and Kelley back to the drawing board to put the screws to the whole thing…
Some shit is obvious, some subtle.
But it’s all coming, whether you like it or not, god dammit.
11/30/10 - Lucid Mechanism tomorrow night @ Great American…
nSLASHa side project – Lucid Mechanism – tomorrow night 10PM @ Great American Music Hall
http://on.fb.me/eYbZ0h
This gig is in the name of all of those hours spent in band class in elementary/high school that became the gateway to our mutual obsessions with music. Come represent, because music is always one of the first things to go when the school budgets get raped.
So… This track has a little history behind it. Originally released around ‘02 “the Illusion of Hope” was a bit of a segue into another track… An instrumental, complete with a few tame recordings of the ocean I had made in pacifica and one of the few tracks at the time I had produced completely independently of the rest of the band.
It was one of my personal favorite pieces I’d ever done, but the original production left – something to be desired – but that particular record had taken nearly 9 months to complete and I didn’t have the time and abilities then to flesh it out like I’d imagined.
Now fast forward a handful of years. Whit and I grabbed a car and headed down to Half-Moon Bay a few weeks ago, and after making some new and more interesting recordings (and videos I was inspired to return to that original Pro Tools session, and finish what I’d started.
And, with Mikey away in France for a while, I had some time to kill before I could release “Just As I Thought”, so this seemed like the perfect way to occupy my mind for a bit…
And incidentally, the whole idea behind F/ux was that it was supposed to evolve, and not be some static thing I released and forgot about a year later. So releasing this song as the second single before “JAIT” started to make a lot more sense and seemed more in keeping with the original concept.
I spent a few weeks tracking new parts (including the waves of Half-Moon bay) tweaking and sweetening what was good from the original, cutting what sucked from the original, mixing and mastering myself. I finished around 5PM (sunday Oct 3rd) afternoon, and the song itself was online just a few hours later… Which is pretty fucking cool if you think about it…
So here it is: “the Illusion of Hope”. Re-imagined and complete.
It’s one thing to “go to work” all day, and it’s another thing entirely to work your ass off on something you love. If you’re not working towards something in your life that you enjoy or satisfies you everyday, even if it means working 80+ hours instead of 40… well then you’re just doing it wrong.
Sorry, but you should do something about that. Seriously.
Last night: last meeting of all the “big swingin dix” to finalize a lot of stuff for the app. Legal, Graphics and UI… Mikey heads off to the east coast today then on to France a few weeks after. As such, well be finalizing this bitch over 2 continents and the fucking Atlantic. I’ll be working on the PR side of things, and wrapping little details on the graphics here…
All in all though, this thing is fucking beautiful… and is been so fucking cool to see it grow from a simple idea into what it is today, and what it will inevitably become in the coming weeks. It’s probably the closest I’ve ever come to fully realizing a piece of art I’ve dreamt up in my head. It incorporates everything I’ve ever done or been interested in… from sound to visual arts to games and interactive shit… into one living breathing piece of digital goodness.
Beta testing got pushed back a bit, but frankly that’s cause were really making this shit up as we go. (I hate how when i write on my iphone, it always auto-corrects “shit” to “shot”. I do live in Oakland, but I sooo rarely use the word shot). so sometimes we realize how good or shitty an idea or concept is only after we’ve tried it. But in doing this were really figuring out what’s going to work and what’s not. So I think in the end it’s going to make for a bad-ass experience for the final users (you!).
Soon, I’ll be back on the final stages of mixing and polishing “just as I thought”… But you guys, the public, are the final piece to it. And the app is the key…
On another note, goddamn… It was good to get away and breathe fresh air and swim and build a fire and go 4 wheelin and kayaking and pass out to the sounds of thunderstorms and rain outside… Maine has all the physical features of Cali and more, without dealing with all the hyped up assholes. I highly recommend it.
I was inspired to return to that original Pro Tools session, and finish what I’d started.