Giant Steps

Published
by
michael lee
on 12 May 2008
in art and culture and audio
. 27 Comments

Courtesy of Stick. Enjoy the insanity. My favorite part of this record is how Tommy Flanagan, the pianist, basically just gives up on trying to solo over the changes and Coltrane has to bail him out.

commercial break

Published
by
June
on 10 May 2008
in art and culture
. 3 Comments

I thought I’d offer up a “commercial break” to the coverage of The Dailies studio recording process by inserting another piece from my show…then it occurred to me: thanks to blessed Tivo, nobody watches commercials anymore. Hmmm. So, I guess I’m just barging in the studio door during everyone’s moving moment and inappropriately blathering on about art. Again.

Here is what I wrote about this piece (called “Chirp”) in the program for the show: “With this piece, I intended to depict the actuality that culture’s rules and dictums are externally set and that our participation has approved and denied paths and that the choice then, as independent, culture-producing entities, is to negotiate within the existing models and dominant fashions. KIDDING! I do find find something as common as the image of birds landing on my patio to be quite profound though. (And, I felt like I should say more than “Birds are cute. I like painting them.”)”

I have plenty of thinky thoughts about art, but opted to be fairly unassuming in my program notes…this is Meadow Vista after all.

The person who bought this piece at the show said “I started to read what you wrote about this and was like ‘what is this crap?!’… and then…Oh.”

I was kind of sad to see this trio of birdies go…I rather like them.

Now, back to your regular programming.

copyright law

Published
by
michael lee
on 10 May 2008
in politics
. 0 Comments

How convoluted is the US copyright law? The following flowchart was created by Bromberg & Sunstein, an intellectual property law firm, as an in-house flow-chart to help their lawyers figure it out.

Michael Lee Eats Nails for Breakfast

Published
by
michael lee
on 9 May 2008
in The-Dailies and art and culture
. 6 Comments

Kayla came out to the studio to shoot some photos. Check them out here.

6 Things I Love About Overdubs

Published
by
michael lee
on 9 May 2008
in The-Dailies, art and culture, audio and technology
. 4 Comments

The bass and drums are all tracked, 80% of the primary keyboard and guitar parts are in place, now we’re getting to the fun stuff. Overdubs. Corey and I will get to go back into the songs and layer in the secondary parts, small fills, and ear candy jangles. Here’s why I love this part of the process:

  1. You’re playing to songs, not just to charts. By the time the bass and drums are locked, there’s already a full song there. You’re building on a foundation that already feels great.
  2. It’s highly creative. Innovative ideas is the point - you get to come up with, try, abandon, and recycle ideas very quickly, with instant feedback.
  3. We get to play against each other. Corey and I have enough time spent playing together that we have a sense of what the other person will do with a certain section of music. We play our parts, but we also get to play gaps into the arrangement where we know the other person will drop in something amazing.
  4. 1929 Steinway Piano, Hammond B3 organ, Wurlitzer, Dirty 76 Suitcase Rhodes, Clean 88 Suitcase Rhodes - this is an old school record. I love playing these keyboards.
  5. On some tunes, it’s the bed tracks, bass and drums, that deliver the song (on this record, “Feel Good”), but often, it’s the perfect overdub part that just makes you lean back and go “Aaahh” (Check out Corey’s guitar chime on “A Sovereign Nation Sleep Beside Me”).
  6. You get to do science experiments - setup instruments in odd ways, amp and mic them awkwardly, play them in unconventional ways, hoping to get a spark of something amazing and creative. Chad gave me 20 minutes to chase down a rabbit trail on “Kiss Us Goodbye” that ended up being a fantastic science experiment. It involved palm-muted and plucked piano strings, slammed lids, tapped harmonics, getting overtones to speak across a group of held sostenuto pedal notes. The end result barely sounds like a piano, but it is awesome.