Lucky Dog Audio Post

Back in May, I was lucky enough to be out front when Patriot Lady walked by. I asked her if I could take her picture and she obliged. I then asked her if it would be ok if we were closed on July 3rd since the 4th fell on a Saturday. She paused for a second and then said, "I think that would be just fine." So Scott and I are gonna take the day off tomorrow. We'll be checking email if you really need us otherwise we'll talk to you Monday.

Thank you Patriot Lady.

Another in the "Recent Work" catagory:

This spot makes me smile. Friendly VO, nice music and sound effects work that celebrates the playful vibe of the visuals. After trying several approaches on the car sound, we decided that the toy-box look needed a toy-box sound. Foley lip-buzzing by yours truly, modded with a "bubbly" vocoder effect.

For more, (and certainly more coherent,) behind the scenes commentary, see our friends at Third Degree.

Just saw this on Adfreak. It's like the Lazer Beatles radio spot that we produced for Bumpercar but different.

Summer is here which means it's time to break out my summer wardrobe.

Yeah... my "summer wardrobe." That means T-shirts.

So I was digging through my bureau yesterday and found some old Ts in my bottom drawer. I totally forgot I had these! Two were given to me, two were thrift store finds, and one I bought impulsively without proper inspection. Purchase/acquisition history aside, these are some real doozies. Wow. I really shouldn't wear these in public. What if I ran into another parent from my kids's school?

This one's pretty obvious. You just don't wear a black T during daylight hours in the summer. It's just too hot for that. Great album, btw. I really like the colors in this T. But wait. See the knife the guy on the right is holding? Yeah. I didn't notice that when I bought this. And then when I noticed the knife, I realized it was simply a reference to the OJay's song Back Stabbers. But then I also noticed that the T-shirt manufacturer had misspelled the name of the band. It's supposed to be spelled O-J-A-Y-S not O... And then I realized that this T-shirt is in really bad taste. Unfortunately the I'm-wearing-an-ironic-plush-toy-T-shirt thing hasn't really caught on yet. Discover Kymaerica? I don't want to talk about Kymaerica. Not that there's anything wrong with Kymaerica. It's just... well... what it is... Kymaerica is a land (and some waters) that somewhat co-existent with our linear world... Oh... Let's not go there. This one's too small.

for Tunanoodle:

Our couches have decided they're too cool for us. When they first moved in, these albino twins just stared blankly in different directions and sighed all day. We tried to get to know them but they shunned our advances. Sure, they were polite about it but we got the message. You can look but don't touch. No loitering. Buzz off. Get Lost. No ands, ifs, or butts.

We just thought they were bored. Little did we know that their ennui masked ambition. Clandestinely, they were making plans. Grand schemes involving networking, booking agents, and photo ops. They wanted more than a couched life. And they were willing to work for it. We have to admit, we admire their tenacity. Maybe one day they will land that most coveted of couch posts and bask in the limelight of couching by rising to that most hallowed of occupations as Couches-On-A-Talk-Show. Perhaps their recent work is nothing but a life in rehearsal for that day. But we can only make guesses. Our couches are too busy to talk to us.

Recent appearances:

Posing for book covers.

Hanging out with up and coming rock stars.

Here's a new radio spot we produced last week that's airing in Nashville. It's kind of weird. Especially the opening chord. I think that has something to do with pandiatonic harmony. Anyway, the whole concept behind the dialogue is some kind of inside joke. I don't get it. Apparently there was an invasion in the 1960s that I was never told about.

Maybe I'll ask Bumpercar to elaborate.

I was super excited this week to be informed by Darren Solomon that my qchord/omnichord youtube video had been added to In Bb 2.0. (That's me in the corner, third row, far right.) As I said before, this is one cool project - a collaborative spoken word/music piece that culls it's contributions from youtube uploads. And what an awesome assortment of instruments - three guitars, bass, glass marimba, Kaoss pad, rhodes, toy sax, trumpet, clarinet, vocals, banjo, Korg DS 10, EMX-1, piano, qchord, and omnichord. I look forward to watching this list grow. There's definitley a slot open in the bottom right, but who knows, maybe Darren will add more columns and rows in the future.

Being an ambient piece, the overall impact of the music here is somber. And I feel like this tone is also heightened by the videos themselves. Viewed individually, these youtube vids emote a feeling of isolation, each being of a musician working alone. But isolation is overcome by the way in which all of these pieces come together. The sum is greater than the individual parts. And the intention here seems to be just that. If you visit the site, make sure you play the spoken word piece (third row, far right). It's a poem written by Australian author Daniel Donahoo. The last line could almost be read as a mission statement, "This is not about what I produce. This is about what others receive." I feel that that says a lot about the spirit of this collaboration. That said, hats off to Darren Solomon for putting this together.

Here's the full text in case you feel like reading along.

Information
By Daniel Donahoo (2009)
she unplugs the device
no bigger than her thumb
from the computer and it smells electric.

“My life’s work,” she says. But, it isn’t her life’s work.

You see, we store information like an Escher painting.
It shouldn’t all fit in there. But, it does.
And every day we manage to fit more and more into smaller and smaller spaces until one day
she says,
we will be able to fit all the information the world has
everything that everyone knows and believes and dreams
into nothing.

All the words and pictures, the voices and videos,
the ideas and the daydreams,
the games
the past and the future.
It will all be there. Stored and filed.
Tagged with relevant keywords.

Our hard drives will be thin air.

They will make nanobots look like elephants.
And elephants will be in there too. Tagged. Accessible with search terms
like ivory and mammoth,
like largest land dwelling mammal

We will process away at nothing and understand everything.
We will think of the word and the information will slip in, not through our ears or eyes –
but straight thorough our skin. Information will breathe in and out of us.

Our knowing will permeate as deep as it does wide.
Our work here is to learn

so much,

to be so full of knowing,
that all there is left to do is unlearn.

Humanity must get to a point where we let go.
Leave the useless ideas and the spent ideologies in the recycle bin.
like an adolescent brain shedding neurons.
like a snake slithering from its old skin.
like an old man who has come to understand so well the point where reality meets the intangible that he is able to decide which breath will be his last. And, he will enjoy that breath more than any other he has taken his entire life.

And, her life’s work is more than four meg flash drive.

My life’s work, she says, is the impact that this has.

This is not about what I produce. This is about what others receive.