POWERPLANT

Between working, playing GBV songs for Bob Pollard himself, and playing way too much FFXI, this weekend I was able to churn out two new songs for my latest HCMJ project, known as 'POWERPLANT.' The album started as a massive concept album about a rotten corpse missing the lower part of his body, dragging himself one handful of radioactive dirt after another across a post-apocalyptic horrorscape. While I still hope the album is able to follow some sort of abstract narrative form, it has definitely started to deviate a little from the original intentions.

Most of the time I'll write the songs first, then watch as an album sort of 'finds' its concept. I'll listen to it all and think "what is this really about?" But POWERPLANT is the first time I went headfirst into making an album knowing what it was going to be about, what the 'story' was, and how some of the narrative would play out. But as I start recording more spur-of-the-moment inspirations and start laying down Julee Cruise-esque vocal tracks on some of the songs I've already recorded, I find that more and more it's becoming a vague expression of my own personal fears and insecurities.

And they aren't even played out in an exactly 'clear' fashion. No more of that "I will always love you" or "you are so beautiful" bullshit - now it's all about the twisted creatures crouching in the well lit hallways of my youth - and no matter how long I cowered in the corner, when I looked up it's right fucking next to me. Or the half-dead being, decaying next to me in my bed at night - back turned to me, facing the wall. It's all been just exploding these last few days, these new hyper-visual daydreams. The terror I hoped to capture before with POWERPLANT was almost superficial, more haunted house that actual gut ripping horror. Now I can see the album finally crystalizing into this depiction of the horror at the core of human insecurities - or my own personal insecurities at least.

This is probably coming off as extremely pretentious, but I swear my intentions are honorable. Maybe one day I'll actually finish the album and you'll have a chance to hear what I'm talking about. (lol)

Discipline

I finally finished the update for thesailing.org. Now the Sailblog page has a bit more functionality - recently update blogs are marked with the World of Warcraft 'server up' icon, and dusty blogs with the appropriate flashing 'server down' icon. This way, instead of just a big page with 4 hyperlinks on it, the Sailblog page will help keep you informed when your favorite member has updated their blog! There's still more I'd like to do with the page, possibly imbedding the last post using the blogger API, or at least throwing in some RSS feed buttons next to each blog.

A news update for the Infinite Sound Tour was added, as well as all of our confirmed show dates up to this point. I'm thinking about changing the way the Shows page works too, maybe having the nav bar link directly to the shows archive, displaying less images and more information. I'll have to tool around with it a little bit.

In other news, I decided against the PvP ring in WoW. I was so close to having enough honor for the Vindicator's Dreadweave Stalkers (feet equip) that I just ground out the 40 Eye of the Storm tokens needed to purchase it. Another off-piece slot epic'd out! Now all I need are 2x Vindicator's Band of Dominance, the Vindicator's Pendant of Dominance , the Vindicator's Dreadweave Belt , the Vengeful Gladiator's Touch of Defeat (stat-loaded wand), and finally the trinket. After that, I should be preeeetttty fucking leet. I would have an epic in every slot. Then maybe I could play more FFXI!

I've also been writing and recording some music - a few pieces from the new NIN album, Ghosts I-IV, I found inspiring in the same way a lot of the FFXI soundtrack was. The trick is expanding the moments of burst-inspiration into a practically recorded song. I'm sick to death of the drum options in logic. I can only bitcrush a pre-built drumkit so much before the songs start sounding 'samey.' What I need to do i drag my compy over to our new practice space, mic up Gus' drums, and start recording loops and samples. Some songs on POWERPLANT (the follow-up to my still-unreleased 'somethingambient') require actual drum parts performed all the way through. Others have drum tracks already programmed, and are just waiting for good samples to be dropped into Logic's drum machine.

Lack of good portable recording equipment is also holding me back. My once-awesome minidisc recorder no longer turns on, and without it I don't really have any options. Tape won't sound good enough, tiny digital recorders won't sound good enough, and laptops are too big and fragile to take to the places I want to gather samples from (abandoned factories around my home and such). One thing at a time I suppose. These are the things that swirl around me all day long, while I'm stuck at work from 10-5. Then I have from about 6pm-3am to get as much done as possible before passing out once again. I think when I'm old and dying I'll look back on these days fondly.

Oh, and don't forget to download the NEW FUCKING NINE INCH NAILS SINGLE! The same freaking month that Trent 'drops' Ghosts I-IV he releases Discipline, the new single, and hints at a new album on May 5th. WTF?! Making up for all of those 5-year album gaps I guess. Anyway, if you haven't heard it yet you can download it for free from the official NIN site. Enjoy!