iPumpkin

Happy Halloween everyone. Scare somebody today.

Soft launch

I feel like I've been a real legitimate contributor to the business model that is software for sale ever since I officially purchased Ableton Live 6.0 earlier this year. I heard great things about Ableton, didn't like the fact that the demo version was so limiting so I found a cracked version. Upon using this I realized that my recording life was forever altered based on the fact that the program was so perfect for what I was doing. Well, as I've talked about before, one day my Ableton files were locked as I had been caught with my cracked copy. No authorities knocking on my door or anything, just a sense that I had tried to scam the system and that I was caught. Not a fun feeling.

So, I purchased Ableton with money I didn't really have. I don't regret it. It's one of the best purchases I've ever made.

Ableton has now launched a new version with upgrades and new features. I don't feel that I need it yet, but I am interested in some of the extra instrument packages that they've also launched, their drum machines package to be exact. Well, you first have to upgrade to the new Ableton version before you can use these new add-on packs. So it goes. I'm happy to be an Ableton user, feel good about putting up the money for a legit version of it, but now I'm just realizing the obvious, that if I want to stay up-to-date on all of the reasons I love their products I'm going to have to keep shaking the money tree and hoping a little extra comes down from time to time.

Purchases of the sort are on hold for now. Budgeting. But smaller upgrades are also tempting me. Leopard is out and prowling around my screen as I watch the guided tour on Apple's site. Yeah, it looks amazing. I want to have the best new OS out there, but is being able to stack up icons in my dock and searching for files faster really worth the 170-odd dollars? I will wait on this as well. What we've learned here by me writing is: I am not an early adopter. This is only scattered tech talk, sorry.

What I did buy though this weekend were 2 albums. One physical cd and one iTunes Plus download. I seriously don't think I've purchased 2 albums in a 2-day span for over 3 years. Now that I have a job I actually feel bad about downloading everything I want for free. When I was broke I felt like I deserved that music, those programs, etc...

I felt good about buying the new Rigas cd directly from him after this show at Landet Friday night. Here's my money. Right into your pocket. I plan on enjoying this cd. Thank you for putting it out.

Last night I downloaded the new hollAnd album via iTunes Plus. Non-DRM, 256kbps, finally Apple is moving in the right direction with iTunes. I will never spend money again on DRM music. But I love Apple and hope that more and more Plus albums show up.

Basically, I dropped out of the purchasing of software/music scene for a long time. I had financial excuses. I jumped back into the game and don't feel like I'm being ripped off. I will still DL music on peer to peers, but probably less now. I won't DL cracked versions of programs like Ableton ever again because I can't risk having it one day not work.

I love the idea of paying what you want for music. Radiohead of course has done that. I think I'll try to release something with a PayPal donation button next to the download link just to see what happens; give the consumer a choice. Make them think about it for a minute. Could be fun?

That concludes my Sunday morning random entry. I hope your weekend is/was an enjoyable one. Let's catch up next week.

Två hela år

Well trusty readers, if you've been following along you've read about my hits and misses in Sweden; the ups and the downs. Well, to be honest, some of the downs, like being unemployed and so forth, I didn't concentrate on here so much because of the fact that I am a true believer in spreading good vibes, not bad ones. But like anyone would've guessed, I've had quite the life-altering experience in moving here.

Today I have lived in Sweden for exactly two years.

"Two years" has been a time period I've thought about quite a bit even before moving here. In my pre-move research I read that it took "about 2 years" to get a comfortable grasp of the language. "It could be two years" until you find a job. "The first two years" are going to be the hardest. And so forth.

When I was sitting in Chicago reading this online I thought to myself, "two years, that's a breeze." Look how quick a month can go sometimes. String about 24 of those together and you're there. Ok, not realistic. If you didn't know, two years can be a long time when you begin from the absolute beginning and have nothing to do but claw your way up the rungs of the social ladder.

Oh, so you want to work and by work you don't mean carrying boxes through the snow from a semi truck to a warehouse? Well, that's fine, you'll just have to learn a completely new langauge eventhough you're 28 years old and your brain isn't quite the sponge it used to be.

Ok, so you want to learn how to speak Swedish? That's cool dude, just find the time and resources to be in a class five hours a day, five days a week for six months (you aren't eligible for student loans yet). Crunch those numbers.

Nice! You are interested in sliding into a completely new culture with its own set of customs, traditions and routines? Sweet, how about we just throw you into the mix and see what happens. In oh, about 2 years you'll have a clue. Good luck!

A clue I finally have. I feel like I'm a part of something again. I feel like I am living my life here, for real. I got that job. It took about 2 years. Me and m'sweet signed the paperwork with the realator last night; we own our own apartment now after exactly 2 years of basically subletting and wondering where we'd end up next.

I don't have a climatic ending to this really. I can only say that it's been worth it. Totally worth it.

2 incredibly minor things

+ I understand that not all comments are showing up. Sometimes it will say "0 comments" eventhough there are some comments there. Trying to ammend this. Anyone else using Blogger have this problem?

+ On Facebook, if you choose "we hooked up" as the means of how you originally met someone, that means you took them home after a night of drinking or something of the like. It can't mean anything else as far as first contact goes. This is pointed at my Swedish friends who probably don't fully understand the slang behind the phrase. Got it?!

Toll troll

My home town of New Lenox, Illinois is bracing for a huge population boom. There's your background research.

A couple of weeks ago on my trip back to the States I was riding with my step dad in his pick up truck in New Lenox. He pointed down to the empty construction-in-progress I-355 expressway as we rolled across the overpass. It was weird. This road will always be filled with cars, forever. But as I cast my view downwards, then outwards, there was nothing. No construction workers even. If you were like me and always searched out that pristine new cement to rollerblade or skateboard over, this was heaven. I saw the absolute literal view of "open road".

My step dad told me a story about when I-80 was built in Joliet, Illinois back in the '60s. He and his friend hopped on a minibike with a full tank of gas and rode as far as they could on the open highway just before the road was opened to the public. Well, they covered as much distance as they could on half of the tank that is. The story conjured up a sort of magical summer's evening picture in my mind of 2 pre-teens zigging and zagging between lanes, yelling to each other over the sputter of the motor. I imagined huge smiles across their faces.

Now, if this sort of thing sounds exciting to you, you can, in a way, go do this soon....but you can't take your motorbike. Pump up your tires, oil your chain, take off the front brake and install a EAI fixed cog (sorry, joking), and Roll the Tollway this November. All of these huge roads crossing the US are ugly and pollute the hell out of the air, but I'm going to go ahead and say that they are necessary. I think it's pretty cool that such a car culture can at least set aside a few hours to let cyclists ride somewhere they'll never ever again have a chance to ride.

As far as the $25 enterance fee goes: I was originally put off by this and it made me think how wrong it would be for the State of Illinois to take money from good-hearted cyclists. But after further research I read that the income from this will be used as seed money to build a bike trail that follows the route of I-355 from New Lenox to Lemont. I guess the money has to come from somewhere. But then again, where do all of the tax dollars go? Anyways, any bike trail, bike lane or State-promoted anit-car action is ok with me. So there's where your $25 goes. But still, there's got to be a way to crash this party.

If anyone participates in this please take some pics or at least let me know how it was.

Necessary

Wolfie: Necessary Sailing
Our 1997 demo tape
Now in the podcast section

Enjoy!

The Basement Tapes

There will be more podcasts.

October Railroad Earth

Well I'm still reeling from this past weekend. So many friends and family spread out over 3 days; such a short time to catch up. And by catching up, I mean usually an extremely abridged, Cliff's Notes at best, version of everyone's lives. But I'm thankful to have that. Everyone is doing their own thing. So many success stories. So much moving forward. Everyone is so fucking smart and talented. I'm excited for everyone's future plans and accomplishments. It's also pretty far out that by me coming home and inviting people out that, in turn, other people who hadn't seen each other in years got a chance to hang and reconnect.

And although I didn't come here to play any shows I still managed to get some music-related stuff done. I met up with Michael Lenzi (Resplendent) at his place and listened to a new song he's been working on. The plan at the moment is for him to get me his recorded tracks and set off on the collaborative project we'd been talking about for quite a while now. I guess this means that there's a good chance that Resplendent/Downey will have another release sometime in the future. Couldn't be happier about that.

Haven't listened to my Bubble Shield mixes since I left Stockholm. I finished everything in such a blur, ears ringing, eardrums broken, that I don't even know if it's good or not. I need to give it some time and not rush that release. I can see myself revisiting those recordings and doing more edits and mixing. I simply will not rush anything. The end product will be better because of it.

Dug into boxes and boxes of tangled wires and cassette tapes. I recovered a full length album that Dan Marsden and I did in 1997 under the name My First Flat. We never released that album and I'm not totally sure why. We played one show as My First Flat in a garage once. It was short lived. Of course I have a live recording of that show. It was a matinee.

Unearthed old Slackjawed and Wolfie recordings. Through layers of hiss came my voice and guitar from 1995 on unlabeled Maxell hi-bias. There are some golden moments there, scattered. I want to keep the podcasts going through December and I'm debating which stuff will pass the quality standards test.

Been back and forth on the Metra six times now. Watched hole in the wall Baptist churchs and fried chicken places zoom by. Saw kids playing basketball with one of those chain-mesh nets and a Globetrotter red, white and blue basketball. Swish. One million kids on singlespeed and fixed gear bikes. Crust punks singing for change. Sushi from heaven. Electric snake elevated train taking me everywhere. The bus down Western. Walking up Western. Getting scared. Scaring people. Chicago is dirty and beautiful and busy. It's a world away from Stockholm. I miss everywhere. I miss everyone. It's hard to live-twitter this sort of stuff.