Minutes

New Year's Day with Mike, Anna, Kim, Chris and Leesa. So fortunate for good friends and family. Tomorrow we cold plunge in Kolvos Passage. This is a HAM operator I recorded New Year's Eve, 2007. Link to the post.

All greenhouse all the time until this thing is up and Leesa is in, so not a ton of practice until next week. But there's always sound, like this rebar grinding by Jason. Link to the post.

This hike yesterday near Seabeck with my brother and sister, brimming with mushrooms. I found one big beautiful fresh Chanterelle, and many more long gone. Audio coming soon. Link to the post.

Old Notebooks 3: I think I know a way we can destroy commercials. I loved this line. That's Adam Greenfield and Duke Novak in a scene from Shag. Link to the post.

Old Notebooks 2: This is another Shag Carpet cue. Mike asked me the other night 'what happens when Neil (Wilson, drumming friend on many projects) just goes for it and tears it up', rock-wise. This was the first time I got that on tape I think, way back in 2002 or so. Real dry drums in that basement of his. I dig those low horns, which I think are all Greg Sinibaldi. Link to the post.

Old notebooks. This was the seed of a Christmas tune for Baby which never got fully realized, and we ended up using it for my brother's movie Shag Carpet Sunset as the theme for the puppet show. Link to the post.

My mom and dad have a statue of Elvis on his deck facing the street, where passing cars may pay homage. On Christmas, one of their neighbors drives a decorated car cranking Christmas tunes–always Elvis when we see them. Joy. Link to the post.

Every Christmas for the last few years I free associate songs with my niece and nephew. Here's one tiny clip. These make me very happy. Link to the post.

The influx of friends and family is about to begin, and it's time to put all my fancy plans and thoughts aside and be present. This blog is just about to wrap it's first year. When it's come up in conversation with people, I get the question "Why?" in a few different forms. What's the goal? What's do you want the world to perceive? I'm mulling over this a...

Not the most festive-sounding thing, this was in the same notebook as some of the stuff I found for Bizzy Bizzy the other day. "Seed Dirge"? I have no idea why it was called this, but I remember try these changes out in quite a few Baby tunes. Link to the post.

Edie (our dog) was going apeshit at Kim and Chris's party last night when Sean started singing. I wanted to post a bit of that here but no recording, alas, as I took her outside so everyone could hear. Leesa, David, Sean and I talked at length about a Cmon Cmon reunion and a remix of our second record. I played this, the last track we did for that second, unreleased record, and Sean had no rec...

Went to my space yesterday looking for other versions of the Christmas Ball song, and I found this arrangement I did for Gerald Kechley's Orchestration class at UW back in 1998 or so. Some clunkers, but I think I reused the counterline in the second vibraphone part for Bizzy Bizzy. This is all canned sounds from Ableton. Link to the post.

Another Christmas arrangement, this one by Baby, my band with Josh Stewart, Ian Rashkin and Neil Wilson. Matt Wainwright, whom I have not spoken to in wayyyyyyyy too long, did the cover you see here. Damn I loved playing this song. One time we play the Ballard Firehouse and closed with this, and the crowd insisted we play it again. You can buy the ep here. Link to the post.

Guitar Cult had our first get together in a year tonight. Joy indeed is in the world. Link to the post.

Christopher Delaurenti paid me a nice compliment when he said "Ben McAllister's Sleeping with the Radio On has a charming, wish-I-thought-of-it ending that I dare not give away." I posted that yesterday, but here's the piece's opening. It was originally called Bizzy Bizzy, but I changed it to the more literal Sleeping with the Radio On, something I literally do alot....

Here's take of the Christmas Ball Melody that appeared at the end of my piece for Degenerate Art Orchestra's one show. You'll hear Neil pull the string that starts the melody from the actual ball, then the orchestral arrangement I did kicks in. I can't believe that this little music box is still functioning, and not beat to hell. I title this piece Bizzy Bizzy originally, for the t...

The Christmas Ball I mentioned the other day - a melody I've used and reused. Here's the original, straight from the ball. Link to the post.

Got into practicing Shifts again, as I get ready to publsih it with John. These scalar and shifty lines are starting to feel natural after practicing them for ages - I guess I've turned the corner in bringing them into my vocab for improvising. Link to the post.

The Christmas ball (see yesterday's post) has been under our tree every year since I was a little baby. It plays this melody and counterline I love, and have used in many many many pieces. Here's one, from a film I did music for just about 20 years ago (!) called Emergency Pants. Link to the post.

Link to the post.

As clear as yesterday's first light, I remember hearing that my sister was FINALLY born one December night while my brother and I stayed with family friends. "You're sister's finally here!" I had heard my parents talking about potential names, and somehow "Jennifer Lee McAllister" is the one I understood to be a keeper, so much so that I'd spread...

I've had this vocal line of Sean's stuck in my head all day. I really miss this tune, so it's been iterating in my head, as I listen to it internally from all angles and audition directions to take it. Link to the post.

Played with AI part separation on post 41 - it does some hallucinatory things with the vocals. Link to the post.

Two random sounds left on my voice mail - one Arabic or Farsi or something similar to my ears, another some relentless hold music I had to cut up. Tis the holiday season. All of the Christmas lights were sold out in this Armageddon scene you see here - empty Target shelves. Link to the post.

Link to the post.