Apparently, this sort of thing has precedent – According to the article Jay-Z, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg have all done similar musical product placements.

Am I insane, or is this … well, insane?

I totally understand the desire to make money, I mean everyone knows that hookers and coke don’t pay for -themselves-. But shit, product placement within songs? What the fuck is the world coming to? I guess this sort of thing shouldn’t take me by surprise… but I don’t know, I guess I thought that there were still certain lines one didn’t cross, like blatant advertising within the music itself. I guess I’m wrong. I haven't forgotten Sigue Sigue Sputnik, but wasn't that done sort of ironically?

I think what I find most offensive about this is that it treats listeners as little more than marketing targets. Why develop an audience when you can develop a targeted demographic?

But hey, why tilt at windmills? I suppose that to properly honor the Almighty Dollar, I should embrace this new trend. Better still, I should try to expand upon it.

I guess I’ll change the name of the band to Amish insert-product-name-here Fight. You know, sell the name itself to anyone who cares to purchase it. I mean, why just pimp out the content of the material? Why not the whole band name?

Let’s see… Amish Subway Sandwiches Fight.

Or, Amish Wing Street Two-For-One-Tuesdays Fight.

Hm, those don’t exactly roll off the tongue.

Miller Presents Amish New Cold Filtered Draft Rake Smooth Taste Fight. Lite.

Sizzler presents Amish Steak Fight?

Amish Shake & Bake Fight?

Oh, the possibilities are just endless. I can already hear the hookers and coke starting to pile up. And that’s what this is all about...right?

BBC News Article

It's sort of funny, back in the Fall of last year I was asked by a producer friend to help out on a project as a freelance keyboardist, but I ended up doing nothing but sampled string arrangements. By coincidence there was a cello available, and so I recorded some live cello on top of the sampled strings to add some depth and realism. It sounded pretty good in the end, so I guess that for a keybordist, I make a passable cellist. Well, it's funny to me anyways.

9:00.

Email: checked. News: read. Breakfast: eaten. I probably ought to get started on something. If I worked in an office I’d be doing something by now. Maybe one more cup of coffee is what I need.

10:00.

I know I should be doing something. There’s a whole list around here somewhere. Ah, here it is, I’d better review it. Well, I don’t really feel like doing that one. Or that one. Those two items could wait. That other one isn’t really all that important. Still, I know I should be doing something. Maybe I need more coffee.

12:00.

Lunch, now -that’s- something I know how to do. I guess I haven’t been very productive so far today, but it’s only noon. There’s still plenty of time left to do something important. I’m sure I can get something important done today.

1:00.

I’ll bet Moby is doing something important right now.

2:00.

I wonder what time of day it was when Roger Waters wrote the lyrics to “Comfortably Numb”? I should try working at that time of day, I’ll bet that’d help. I wonder if there’s anything good on the History Channel?

3:00.

Panic starting to creep in. Shit, I still haven’t done anything today. Maybe there’s something interesting in the mail. No, just more credit card offers. Maybe I should make more coffee. I’m going to resist the urge to turn on the Xbox, because if I did that I wouldn’t get anything done today.

5:00.

This sucks. Why can’t I get started on something? Maybe I should review the material I have so far for the new CD. Or should I just start something new, without listening to what I already have? Do I need more song beginnings, or should I just focus in and try finishing something that’s already done?

7:00.

How the hell did I manage to get through this entire day without doing anything? Isn't there something I should be doing to ensure that tomorrow isn’t the same?

There's got to be a better way to organize my time. I'll bet Moby organizes his time.

Maybe tomorrow's day’s the day I’ll make some progress on the new album. Maybe I’ll finally organize my CDs, clean up the studio, get the oil changed. Yeah, I could do just about anything tomorrow.

I wonder if there’s anything on the History Channel?

So I’m happy to report that the search is over, and noise.to.signal.05 finally has its wheels (I call it the Mystery Machine). Coming soon to a town near you (Great Dane and ghosts optional).

In other news, I’m just finishing up a remix for the song “French Connection”, by Bay-Area group Simon Stinger. Tentatively titled the “Freedom Fries Mix”. More on that as it develops…

I call the seller in the morning, and make arrangements to go check it out. On the phone, the seller says that this was his wife’s van, but that she wants a convertible. This seems like a slightly odd story to me, but not all that strange. So I go to look at the van.

Now, the van itself is okay. Not too beat up, runs a little rough but not too bad. But the more the seller talks, the less his story adds up. He’d said on the phone that has long been his wife’s van, but now he says he’s only had it a few months. Odd. Also, the van has had the full “used car lot treatment” – which is to say, the interior’s been detailed and the engine compartment’s been steamed. Now, it’s no big deal when someone has a car detailed prior to selling it… that’s pretty normal. But most people don’t bother to steam clean the engine compartment… except for used car lots. I guess that having a spotless engine compartment makes some buyers think “oh, what a clean car”. But it makes me think, “What are you trying to hide here?”

As the seller and I talk, he starts seeming a little… oily to me. it comes out that he’s a “former” used car salesman. Okay, no big deal, everyone’s got to make a living, and some do it by selling cars. But in the context of what I’m starting to learn, it’s making me wonder if he's not a dealer who's just masquerading as a private seller. So now I’m a bit suspicious, but I decide that the van’s good enough that it’s worth having it inspected. So I make arrangements, and meet the seller at the garage.

While I’m waiting for the results of the inspection, I run a CarFax report (which, for anyone thinking of buying a used car, is a really good idea). It turns out that this van was repossessed back in November of last year. So now I’m starting to “get it”. This guy used to be a used car salesman (or maybe he still is), and now he makes money by purchasing repo cars, doing some basic work on them himself, then flipping them for a profit. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but there are some reasons I was hoping to avoid buying from a dealership, and used car salesmen are one of the big ones.

A few hours and a hundred-or-so dollars later, I get the report. It’s not good; according to the garage owner, the van has never been properly maintained. It needs front end work, A/C work, ignition work, brake work… you name it, it’s got problems. All told, the mechanic estimates the van needs about $2k worth of work. Not good.

When the seller learns about this, he tries very hard to convince me that a) it doesn’t really need all that work, and b) his buddy the mechanic could fix it for a lot less. This is where the used car guy really starts to come out in his personality.

Lots of hemming, hawing, and general sales pummeling later, I decide to make him an offer, based on how much I think it’ll cost to fix all of the van’s critical problems. My offer is quite a bit less than his asking price – but fair, based on what needs to be fixed.

So, what does he do? Does he try to haggle? Try to convince me that, no, my offer’s not really fair and I should reconsider? Try to convince me that the van’s worth more?

Nope. He unceremoniously gets in the van and drives off, never to be heard from again. No handshake, no “I’ll think about it”, not even a “I think your offer is low – how about X”. He just flat out leaves.

Which is pretty much what I would have expected a used car salesman to do.

While Chris Randall takes on the considerable task of booking shows, I’m working on procuring a van suitable for touring. We’re going to buy a van rather than rent one, because it’s just more cost-effective under the circumstances. So I’ve been scanning the classifieds and other sources, looking for something appropriate.

What I didn’t know when I began this process was that there’s some sort of Vast Conspiracy in place, whose sole purpose appears to be to prevent me from buying the van for this tour.

The first van I found wasn’t registered or insured, which was a problem, as I wanted to drive it over to a mechanic to have it inspected. Long story short, after several discussions with the seller I took it upon myself to get temporary registration and insurance for the van, as the seller was apparently too lazy or too disinterested to do this himself. Once I’d dealt with all of that, I called the seller to set up a time for the inspection. Guess what – the seller decides at the last possible opportunity that he’d rather not have it inspected after all. Or rather, that it can be inspected but not if the mechanic intends to do anything “invasive”. Invasive? You mean, like uh, inspecting the mechanical condition of the van, for example?? Hm, that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the transaction, now does it? I’m leaving out the semi-amusing part of the story wherein the seller tries to convince me that it’s crazy to want to have an independent third party do an inspection on his van, since it’s “perfectly fine”.

So, on to the next van. This time the seller lived a good 45 minutes away but I made the trek over there, since it seemed like the van fit the bill and was priced about right. I made sure to ask upfront this time if an inspection would be a problem. No problem, but what the seller didn’t tell me until I showed up was that hr couldn’t take the van anywhere to have it inspected until the following weekend (this was on a Monday). So I made an appointment to have it inspected the following Saturday. On Thursday I got a voice mail from the seller letting me know that he’d just sold the van out from under me. Nice one. If it weren’t so annoying, this would be laughable, since the seller had gone out of his way to tell me what an honest and fair person he was. I guess he was so busy being honest and fair that he didn’t have time to call me and say “hey, there’s someone else interested – let’s talk”. Ugh.

Every other van I’ve found so far that fits what I’m looking for, has been sold by the time I’ve called about it – including some that were sold the same morning they were listed. So for now, The Vast Conspiracy is up by a few points, but maybe their spies will overlook a listing and I’ll prevail.

I’m starting to have visions of hitchhiking across the country…

Somehow I forgot just how much of a pain the ass it is to tear down and set up a trailer-full of equipment several times in an evening.

The show itself went well – a reasonable performance I think, no real technical problems, a decent stage & sound system, and a supportive audience. You can’t ask for much more than that.

I owe a debt of gratitude to quite a few people for helping make this happen. Van, who programmed the lights & video and assisted with the live arrangements, Chris & Lisa for help and words of encouragement along the way, Anne for coping with my mood swings and general grousing about the live show…all without resorting to the use of either duct tape and rope -or- a blunt instrument of any kind… Ilana for reminding me that once I’d finished rehearsals I had to actually book the show somewhere. And of course Eric for offering ARF a slot in his record release event.

So now the next step is to get this production stuffed into a van and out to a few cities. Should be interesting; traveling thousands of miles a week is another thing I haven’t done for a while…

Today's the last day of rehearsals, so with the exception of a few small technical issues, the ARF live show is "good to go". That was substantially more difficult and time consuming than I expected it to be, but I think the results are going to be worth the trouble.

Special thanks are owed to Van for hanging in there and getting the lights and video done, despite a variety of stumbling blocks that included replacing about 90% of the lighting equipment with different gear, mid-way through the project.

No shows have yet been scheduled, but that's next on the agenda... more as it develops.

Musically, the goal of the live show is to more or less remix the exisitng material, presenting it in a way that's familiar but also different. In other words, if you've heard "Fellow Prisoners", you'll recognize the songs. But they won't be the same songs exactly. Some are structurally similar to the album version, some are not.

There are a few reasons I'm taking this approach. One is to make the set a different experience from the CD. That's hardly a new concept, lots of bands do that. But it also gives me a chance to exorcise a few demons. For example, some of the material on "Fellow Prisoners" is pretty old. "Wellington" for example dates back to 1998. I'd like to think I've evolved a little since then, so the approach to "Wellington" is different live. Also, there are elements of some songs on "Fellow Prisoners" that tend to make me wince, hearing them now. So those elements go away. And, in the process of translating the songs to a live context, some new ideas come up that seem worth exploring.

In a nutshell, I'm shooting for: different enough to be interesting to those who already know the album. And interesting to anyone hearing the material for the first time.

One of the challenges for ARF live is creating an onstage keyboard setup that's flexible and reliable. I've never been one to trust computers - especially on stage. But for this show, (and for the first time in my experience) the majority of sound will eminate from PCs. This means using, among other things, a number of software-based synths and samplers. Trying to make these all work -and- be reliable is a little tricky. But I think we're getting there.

The benefit to doing it this way is that the show becomes a lot more flexible - it'll be possible to include more improvisational elements than you might typically expect from electronic music. I suppose that initially the differences between performances won't be dramatic, but as ARF Live gets its sea legs so to speak, it should be possible to make the improv element more and more central to the show.