Category: Series of posts
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New Project Update
I’ve just posted an update to the Kickstarter page about where we’re at with mixing the new record. You can check it out here. In the meantime, here’s to rallies in the rain: April 15th, 2015 at Shaw University.
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The Core is Getting Soft.14: Bang a Slate
One of the digital tools I threw in the mix of my new record is SSD4, the drum sampler made by Slate Digital. It was the first time I used something other than an electronic drum machine to program drums. The closest I’d come to fake “real” drums was the time we sampled a drum…
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Dirty Harry Does Diversity.1: Magnum Tucked In Tweed
One of the weirder phenomena of early 21st century cinema has been the emergence of Clint Eastwood as would-be spokesman for various groups marginalized by the white male power structure his famed ’70’s character Dirty Harry once defended with a famously long phallic symbol. Million Dollar Baby (2004) concerned itself with issues of gender and…
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Top 40 over 40.19: Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali Live in Concert
In this series of posts on musicians doing high quality work after 40, little has been said about their audience. Today’s post will start out with them first. Last October, I went to see the Pakistani group Rizwan-Muazzam perform at the Reynolds Industries theater at Duke University. I knew little about these performers from Pakistan, other…
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Top 40 over 40.18: Peter Hughes and Dipa Ma
I was once listening to an episode of Car Talk on NPR and heard a woman call in to Click and Clack with the following dilemma: she had a Honda that was running perfectly, and that had proven to be very reliable over the years. Nevertheless, she found the car boring. She found herself eyeing…
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The Core is Getting Soft.13: Trackball Runs Over Mouse
People who are interested in gear like to thing big. Big things, big bucks, big sounds, big….balls, implicitly. But sometimes it’s the little things that get used the most. While working towards completing my new record with producer Scott Solter, a frequent theme of our conversations has been poking fun at gear hounds who elevate…
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Top 40 over 40.17: A Different Kind of Swans Song
Most of the musicians I’ve written about in this series are ones that were important to me when I was younger because of work they did themselves when they were young. I’ve written about records they did after turning 40 that either came close to or equaled the quality I heard in their earlier recordings.…
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24 hours till Kickstarter ends…how long until everyone has health care in the US?
With less than 24 hours left, there’s only $135 to until my Kickstarter hits its goal! Please help out if you can, either by contributing or spreading the word. You might end up being the one who puts us over the top! It ends at 12:28 pm on Tuesday, September 2nd. One of the things…