Conrad Blog:

21, finally drinking.

Ok so tonight I went to two bars and had some drinks. The funny part was... I went with some church friends (and some non-church friends). We went to this great blues bar downtown called Rosa's first and then to Mother's.

I had sips of people's bear... didn't really like it. Then I had a coke with some crap in it which was good and not very alcohol-y. Then I had a Jeager-bomb (however you spell it) which I could NOT down in one shot, wimpy me. Hey cut me some slack this is the first time in my life i've ever had any real alcohol. Then I had a long island tea thing, which kinda tasted like tea mixed with a little bit of vomit. But not bad, actually. After that I got a bit buzzed which was kinda nice. Listened to the (amazing) music and ate my pretzels and drank my water. Buzz started to wear off and we went to Mother's where I had another Jeagerbomb, this time finishing it off quickly in one dose. That's really the long and short of it.

So I want to bring in my recording gear and do live recordings of the bands in Rosa's sometime, because they are amazing. Anyone reading this should consider going there sometime.

And to those that think its odd that A) matt good had some alcohol and B) had it with his church friends, my real logic is this: In Europe, people drink, and its no big deal. They don't have the alcoholism problems that we do here in the States. Its because we attatch this stigma to it sorta that it becomes a big deal. I don't think its a big deal. And when school starts I'm of course going to be completely dry because I signed a lifestyle statement saying that I would be, and I try to have some integrity. But the point is that a little bit of alcohol is actually GOOD for you, for one, and for two, its my fricken 21st, give me a break. Anyway, I had all my buddies pay for me, and that was awesome.

I hate everybody.

...who is dumb. GRRR. I had a recording session lined up since like DECEMBER or something. We agreed on a flat price. We agreed on the time. Then he says that all his money has to go to school. Regardless of whether or not this is true, its STUPID. I hope you're not reading this gar. Sorry if you are.
Anyway, I kinda buy gear with these sorts of sessions in mind. If my studio were only for me, it would look a lot different than it does now. So i spend money on things that are both good for me and good for bands to try to bring in some business. So far this "investment" has been a rediculous failure. Anyway... If you know any bands that want great recording for cheap (cheaper than the website says, I really need business), you know who to talk to.

I'm 21, dangit!

So yeah, today (meaning yesterday) I turned 21 at about 6:30 pm. I leave for st. louis for a wedding tomorrow, so I am sober and I'm probably going to try to go to bed very soon. if i can. Stay tuned.

Pedalboy's second semi-annual hard drive crash.

Ok, so i see a pattern here. I build a recording computer, record an album, and then shortly after releasing it my hard drive freaks out and I lose data. So what do I do? I build another recording computer, record another album, and shortly after releasing it, waddaya know, my hard drive crashes. My studio computer won't boot up. The bios thinks its a different model than it is. At least all my songs are on an external drive, but this is bad enough. Just thought you all should know.

My Name Is Asher Lev.

I just finished reading "My Name Is Asher Lev" by Chaim Potok. Good book about a conservative jewish boy trying to reconcile a prodigious artistic gift with his family, friends, and religion. Seeing as how lots of people including myself have dilemmas such as this at some point I was hoping for a happy ending. There is no happy ending. I'm thoroughly depressed. He is still a young man painting honestly when a specific painting of his causes his longtime friends to abandon him angrily, his parents to reject him and never be reconciled to him (though there were many attempts), and the leader of his hassidic jewish community forces him to leave. He ends up moving back to europe without reconcialliation from anyone. I'm thoroughly depressed.

Kate, dangit...

Good quote by picasso that encapsulates my aesthetic philosophy. "Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth."

Why doesn't anyone like me?

Poop. I was almost content with the enthusiastic but very very small response to my "Falling Action" cd. Then I listened to it again today. Granted, it is 4:30 am and my judgement as to what exactly is "good" is probably a little bit skewed, but I think this stuff is good. Darn good. I'm sorta stumped. I sold lots of the "cacophonic" cd. I sold like 25 of the falling action. Is $8 too much to pay for a cd these days, or what? Perhaps its because releasing a cd at greenville is no big deal. Perhaps its because honesty is boring. Perhaps its because I have a big head and the music really actually really does suck. Perhaps its because I never play live. Perhaps its because I don't network with people much. Perhaps i'm dumb. But if I'm dumb, I'm an ANGRY dumb person.

On second thought, I don't really think that my music is that great. I just think that a lot of the stuff people like sucks. Like the R&B fools that I record. The most amazing thing about them is that they actually think that they are working HARD at this thing called "music." They are wrong on three counts. 1) They are not working hard. 2) They are not WORKING at all. 3) They aren't making music. What right do they have to call themselves musicians? They don't make their own beats. They don't write very original lyrics. They don't put any of themselves into it. In fact, they are hippocrical in almost EVERY syllable. They are a mockery. They don't live the live the rap about. And to top it all off, they don't know what fricken BPM is. This is getting rediculous.

I want to start a record label. A nonprofit one. Offering free (or nearly free) recording to artists that I think are honest. To me, honesty is the thing that separates us from the (musical) animals. Honesty is what gives a rockin band something to rock about. Honesty keeps Hilary Duff out of a job. Musical honesty is what I value. Honesty is hard to find sometimes, though.

Back to the record label idea. I don't really have a good plan to bring this about. I don't have the resources to advertise, to front money for duplication, etc... I don't really have the time to be doing this either. Making records takes a long time. Time that I should be spending setting myself on more respectable careers. One must fund their passions somehow. It is unfortunate for those who love the humanities that they cannot make a living doing what they are best at.

Back again to the record label idea. I can't really offere anything to artists to answer the "why should I record a CD with you?" then to say that I will record you very cheaply, and thats about it. Pedalboy has no fan base. If pedalboy did, he could afford duplication and make more cds. Its too much work to make them yourself and still keep a high quality standard. So its pretty much out of the question to tell all the pedalboy fans that there's this other band that's awesome and that you should buy their cd. Where does one find large numbers of people who appreciate the kind of music I am talking about? Wierd, eclectic, folky, sincere, whatever it may be? I don't know. But if I ever find out, I may just go through with it.

Anyway comments are appreciated. Help me market myself and others. What do you all think of the idea of a non-profit record label? Can you help push the pedalboy? Want to win a date with Ted Hamilton? POST.

You know you don't get out much when...

Ok so I had this dream last night. I was (for some unknown reason) going to flame someout out for not knowing the difference between wood and steel. So i reply to his message and make my own inspirational "you are dumb" post, citing things like "there's a fricken RAILROAD over that CATWALK, man!! That's STEEL!!!!" and, "Wood rots. If wood was in charge of the world we'd all be dead!" And while I'm doing this (I appear to be saying it all verbally), I am drilling large holes into the wood backing of the steps leading up to the recording studios at greenville. Even though in real life there isn't a wood backing. Go figure. I can't really remember why exactly... but I was. And there was some girl sitting higher up who I was explaining all this too. She seemed interested, the wierdo.

Ok so here's where it all gets odd. As I became more awake this morning, I started to realize that my "posts" on the "forum" took the form of the holes in the wood!! In order to reply to a post, you just drill holes into the wood of the nearest wood plank!!! I realized this because when I went to reply again, I realized there was no way in heck i was going to fit all those works onto that wooden plank. And then I thought to myself... "Just why am I writing words on a wooden plank again?" The world may never truly know.

And I still want to know how we encoded whole ideas into little drill holes in wood. that could be a useful technigque for us nerds after the french rise up and destroy all our technology with the mega-bomb!

Take me away.

So I'm trying to work up to the "write a song a day" thing that I told myself I would do this summer. Hopefully that will all get posted here. Here's the beginnings of something I wrote last night I think (these days are all running together) and I started recording it tonight. Propellerhead's Reason is one of the COOLEST programs out there. I have drums that are tight and bass this is pink floyd-ish and piano that doesn't suck and guitars that will form a nice bassis for this project. So without further ado, the song.

To set the musical scene, the chord progression is kinda just an alternation of a B major to a C major chord. The bass is playing the augmented fourth now and then. The whole thing is rather creepy and stuff.

The lyrical idea:
Is there a time for shorter vision?
Is there a season to let your intruige fall by the wayside?
Cuz I want to let you crush my inhibition
And I want to learn to follow intuition.
So take me away.
Take me away.

I will post demo when there is demo. right now there is only a capella crap 3 am last night tape recorder recordings of me singing the bass line into the thing and the lyrics and melody so i wouldn't forget them.