2006 Concerts
This year, I've seen The Orb and David Gilmour in Chicago. Both shows were incredible. After the Orb show, I spent a couple hours hanging out in their tour bus. I finally met one of my biggest musical inspirations, and it was just a cool experience all around. I got some music-writing tips from Thomas Fehlmann, and Alex Paterson was really fun to talk to. He's definitely got a sense of humor like no other, and it shows in their music.
Sigur Rós played at the Riverside Theatre in Milwaukee on May 10. The sound was incredible; they have a very competent crew working for them. As we were leaving, I noticed the beautiful mixing board they used; I thought it cost nearly $50,000. I mentioned it to Gavin, who said it was definitely in the thousands. When we asked the crew, they said it was upwards of $160,000US!!! Amazing.
I finally got my Moog
After years of hearing Dr. Moog's synthesizers in almost everything I listen to, I finally splurged and bought my own. The Minimoog Electric Blue Voyager is now the foundation for rebuilding my studio. I sold off my keyboards and electronics a couple years ago to make ends meet, and now I've finally become financially solvent enough to start again. Next up: Logic Pro, a MIDI controller, an audio in/out controller for my computer, and an Alesis Andromeda. I might even add a Korg M2000 if I decide I need a decent vocoder....
2006 Brings Some Changes
Almost everyone has resolutions for the new year—it's part of the ritual of marking the milestone in time. My resolution is to start writing again. Those people who come to my web site expect to see something, and I've failed at providing that something for a long time. That aside, I'm going to attempt to write something new each week.
A few things will happen this year: my 10th high school reunion is scheduled, I will become debt-free, and I will finally start writing music again. I will purchase a Moog Voyager Electric Blue analog synthesizer and whatever computer software I need to start laying down the ideas in my head. I will see people for the first time in 10 years, not knowing what is in store. (In a way, it's strange: I'm sure people who knew me very well 10 years ago really don't know anything about me at all.)
* * * * * *
Everyone who knows me well, knows how badly I wanted to leave Pittsburgh when I graduated from high school. I went far away for school, lost touch with many friends, and essentially disappeared. I had my reasons for wanting to leave, but they were, in retrospect, silly. I visited Pittsburgh three times in 2005, and each time, fell more and more in love with the city. There's something about the view from Mt. Washington, the almost-instinctual politeness of the people, and the proximity to an airport that's worth a damn. I expect that I'll return to Pittsburgh soon, on a permanent basis. I have been contemplating this for a couple months, and feel like it's worth a try.
Today I'm going to try to find a Harman Kardon pre-amp for the stereo system I got this weekend. The system is amazing, but has no inputs for a turntable! I will try to find the rear-channel separator device, too, to get the full Dolby 7.1 surround-sound features the stereo receiver offers. (My neighbors will soon hate me—the subwoofer is phenominal.)
Subversion
I'm not really the computer geek I'd like to be, but I finally got Subversion installed and running on my web server. Subversion (svn), if you don't know, is a version control system that allows multiple people to make changes to a single codebase at the same time, managing the files in such a way that no one overwrites the next guy's changes. It's pretty cool in any environment, from the one-man team (i.e., me), to the 300-man team. For me, it's useful in that I will have a way to track my work for clients; it's a way to prove that I've actually done work for them. I can also make changes to code that are reversible. This allows me to keep a fairly accurate historical account of changes to code.
Getting the svn up and running was a pain the ass. As you may know, I use Dreamhost to serve my sites. Apparently Dreamhost runs NFS file systems, and Berkeley DB, which is the default database used with svn, doesn't play nice with NFS. So instead of creating the default repositories, I had to use the fsfs database system:
svnadmin -fs-type fsfs create /path/to/repository
Then I added all the crap from my web root via this command:
svn import /path/to/webroot file:///path/to/repository
As such, the svn repositories worked! Once that issue was resolved, I had to address the next problem: how to deal with the working version. The working version is where edits are made. Because my site is fairly simple, I decided that my web root would also be my working version. (I'm not exactly sure how smart this is. Nor do I really care at this point.) To be safe, I made a copy of my web root folder. Then I deleted the entire contents of my web root—remembering that my svn import command (above) copied the entire contents of my web root into my repository. Now I check out the code:
svn co file:///path/to/repository /path/to/webroot
This is a one-time, slow process, as it copies all the files back into my web root. However, they are now logged in svn. A message will appear that indicates revision 1 is now active. This is where it gets cool....
Using my absolute most-favorite computer program ever written, BBEdit, I can set up ftp access to my web root. I can make changes to any of the files that have been checked out into my web root directory on my remote server. Then, back in the terminal (via my SSH session), I can run "svn commit", and the changes I've made via ftp are committed to my working (and simultaneously live) version.
If I screwed something up, I can "svn cat file.ext > file.ext.tmp" or something to that effect; a copy of my file is made and I can revert to an earlier version of either a single file, or, if need be, the ENTIRE build. Fantastic!
Concerts for 2005
This year brings a few great acts to Chicago, so I can finally see some of the bands I've enjoyed for years. Erasure plays the Chicago Theatre on April 30, 2005. Kraftwerk plays Chicago June 4. And the concert of the year: Dead Can Dance, playing Chicago October 10.
Updates:
Erasure - best concert I've been to so far. Lots of 80s tunes, which was really cool.
Kraftwerk - essentially the same playlist as Indio. Great effects, imagery. I really want one of their synths.
Where credit is due...
The image used above is a slightly altered, cropped version of a photograph of the 2006 BMW 330i. The original photo can be found at BMW USA.
Writing
New tunes are coming. Watch this space for more information. I'm starting to work on some great stuff.
Hearing
Watching
