Monday, October 10, 2011

El4D - Daydreams




Check out EL4D for more songs, free album downloads, etc.


10/18/11 El4D - Daydreams Album UPDATE!!

(This is a little bit about the album i've just finished, Daydreams)

It’s 2011, almost October, and i’ve just turned 24. I’ve finally accomplished something that i’ve been meaning to do for many years, something that i have wanted to get done before i died, and something that i’ve learned a lot from and have had a lot of fun doing: the completion of my first album - the fantastic, psychedelic, and often times downtempo, Daydreams.

Daydreams is a collage of unorthodox songs that began as a set of conceptual ideas, guidelines, and thoughts that slowly blossomed into and ultimately became the album that you hear today. Almost each song has its own unique history, from Remembering the Walk, which began as an experiment in ambience, to R0DNEY K1NG, which turned out to be a giant glacier sliding slowly to an almost complete stop, in Las Vegas, of course.
[Strings] was borne out of the albums’ last track, the aptly titled [Remember Me] Now. I challenged myself as a musician to almost completely refrain from using the musical instruments that i was familiar with, and instead, to try to compose a song, not from the ground up, but from samples that i had amassed, grouped together selectively, and then cut and had my way with. It was like building an entirely new image that had never been seen before, out of things that had. I used some of the puzzle pieces from this box and some from that box – rather obviously, some of them had trouble fitting.

[Strings] emerged out of the acute strain of chaos that ultimately and abruptly caps off the album. It expands upon the dimension of [Remember Me] Now, and becomes an invitation to one of Calvino’s lesser known electronic cities. This one, existing next to one of todays digital clouds, somewhere between discs and processors.
Many songs have doubles, parallels, different avenues, versions and ‘perverted versions’. I didn’t know what to do with them at first, i just kept trying to explore these different ‘environments in sound’, these ‘places in audio’, these words that better describe worlds. I drove myself mad, playing around, exploring, hoping to ‘find’ the proverbial one. Sometimes it happened. Other times it happened twice*.

Often times I felt like i influenced my music too much for my own good. I wanted a new challenge, some new ‘rules’. I had all of these old toys, and no one to play with. So i attempted to do something which i’ve never been very good at, namely working with other people:

Philosophengang in German means ‘the philosophers walk’. I think that may have been what Nietzsche called it, i’m not so sure. On yesterdays walk, Toby Bryan was our philosopher. I attempted to be the ground he tread.

Monsieur! with Veronica Karrer has always been one of my favourite stories in song: I played Veronica some innocence on the guitar and within a few minutes she produced the eloquent piano lead that will never change. The song, in it’s infancy, reminded me of a place i had never before been. Monsieur!

And I’ll say this: I’m not one for religion, but my friend is a prophet. On a road trip to Arizona a few years back, Elijah introduced Veronica and myself to Alan Watts. We had enough time to make it through six or seven CD’s of his and whenever i heard a line that i particularly liked, i wrote down the track number, disc number, timestamp, and a few words to help me remember. These notes inevitably became Alan, Revived.

This leads me to my good friend, teacher, and roommate, David Thomas. David is featured on Cubby T, Introspective Tea, and Remember Me [Now]. Even before David ever hit an electronic drum pad that had been connected to my laptop, and even before either of us ever knew he would, David had been one of my greatest assets in terms of musical help. It was as if he sold his soul to the devil and got something that he could never repeat, but could convey using his whole body. Without the devil knowing, he threw a few moves my album's way.

I want to thank Chloe Myaskovsky for her amazing artwork - her painting doesn’t look like my identical twin brother, Yuval, but rather it looks like me, Elad. This is according to my mother, our mother, which is saying a lot.

I want to thank Miles Gussin (and David Thomas again), for teaching me that silly word that is as hard to spell as it is to learn, ‘rhythm’. Miles would bring his setup over to my apartment and we’d each stare into our screens working on music day and night, stopping just long enough to help each other out, listen to each others work, and stay high. It’s certainly worth mentioning that in the beginning Miles and i did not have laptops. He would bring his giant computer tower over and i had room on my desk with a separate flatscreen, mouse, keyboard, and cables for him to work on. That’s dedication. There’s more i can say, but Miles knows what’s up.

I want to thank Monica Finc for so many things that i really don’t even know where to begin. She saw me in some of my best and worst times musically. She heard my songs almost as many times as I heard them, and yet she always encouraged me to continue, reminding me when i forgot. She continues to remind me today, and probably still will tomorrow, and that’s just her reminding me. I hope i give her as much as she gives me.

I want to thank wholly everyone for wholly everything. My family in particular is owed an undeniable kudos. You will each be thanked individually, with time and as we meet. Thank you all.

-e.a. 10/10/11

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Lover.

Bukowski, on Los Angeles:

"I'm here to begin with and then you build around that. Or I build around it. I've lived most of my life here and I've simply gotten used to the place. I can't even get lost, sober. And just the other day I found out where the L.A. zoo was. And the women here seem to love old men. I've never seen women like that. At the same time, I'm suicidal and there's the smog to help me out."


Humans, humans, humans..

"From the archeological record, it's inferred that Neanderthals evolved in Europe or western Asia and spread out from there, stopping when they reached water or some other significant obstacle. (During the ice ages, sea levels were a lot lower than they are now, so there was no English Channel to cross.) This is one of the most basic ways modern humans differ from Neanderthals and, in Pääbo's view, also one of the most intriguing. By about forty-five thousand years ago, modern humans had already reached Australia, a journey that, even mid-ice age, meant crossing open water. Archaic humans like Homo erectus "spread like many other mammals in the Old World," Pääbo told me. "They never came to Madagascar, never to Australia. Neither did Neanderthals. It's only fully modern humans who start this thing of venturing out on the ocean where you don't see land. Part of that is technology, of course; you have to have ships to do it. But there is also, I like to think or say, some madness there. You know? How many people must have sailed out and vanished on the Pacific before you found Easter Island? I mean, it’s ridiculous. And why do you do that? Is it for the glory? For immortality? For curiosity? And now we go to Mars. We never stop."

-Svante Pääbo (Swedish evolutionary biologist)


Article

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Po'em

Berkeley, how fun
How similar you are
too.

[Bukowski, and crew]

So similar,
that street brew.
That jazz trumpet drifting
cross the electric pond reflecting,

You,
eclipsing.
You

[And..]

Berkeley, World;
How i have loved..

Familiar to,
familiar as
my brain,
under
stood
you.

Friday, August 26, 2011

"Kaiser is where God lives. I am not so sure it is at churches."


Mario S.'s Yelp Reviews
http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=TgfvhtGxMKjlzLTuq6Hb4g



Oliveto Cafe

I met a first date, Craigslist-derivative, from among the many responses, mostly naked pictures of women derived from one or maybe two men, I guess, who acquire e-mail addresses. I can't quite figure that scam. But, she had long flowing black-brown hair with blue eyes; she wore a gray and white plaid trench with an inexactly similar Gap scarf, part American Indian and Nordic. When she moved, it was like she was scattering pixie dust. Her coral-colored finger nail polish and the smoke that was her hair dazzled. The first thing I noticed was the open drink menu, turned to an early page. It said: "Negroni," which was exactly what I wanted. She ordered a Moscato. Hers was lighter, a bit like Lillet Rouge and mine was viscously thicker and stronger. We immediately enjoyed each other's company and the drinks made us loose and giddy. It is hard to be serious when someone seems to like you. You open up, say just about anything, and you may even read a poem to her. It was the poem I read at the Calistoga Inn and then another one, and she didn't seem to get it. I guess you have to read poems to know what they mean, but I am not like that. You don't have to know the meaning of every word, but you hear them. There's enough of the sense of where something is going to know that there's a wonderful world opening up. So, I stopped. Maybe the woman who was correcting papers at the other table heard me and could appreciate what made me want to be a writer. When I was in intermediate school, I sat in the Kaimuki Public Library listening to T.S. Eliot read "The Wasteland" on a record player. We ordered the beet salad with almonds and watercress or arugula with a subtle dressing. It cannot be beat, pardon the pun. She ordered and got the cannelloni, I the hen. I am allergic to wheat, so I didn't want any of hers. My hen was moist, glazed over with herbs and oil. It was hot and perfectly cooked. I loved the stuffing. There were two more drinks for her, and I had a glass of red I let the waiter pick. I had planned to say: "What you would like, but by then I was less articulate. The man, who made my drink, wore a black shirt. He had a moustache and beard. His glasses were black-rimmed. He was strong and reminded me of a close friend, who had the same smile. It's as if he had traveled the world and he had seen everything and the Negroni was a reflection of his wisdom. And the waiter, I bet Spanish, thinner, I think long hair, and beard. I remember his modesty, and respectfulness. How he made me feel was like I was royalty. I want to tell both of them now, how good I felt, how safe to be myself with this woman, who was making me feel good. Everything the waiter did was kind. The bartender was professional when he brought the drinks. There was no flaw, no complaint, only the sense of being in a fine room with generous friends. In all, the meal and drinks were about $70+. I left $20. It was not just a light meal; it was being in a room with people who made you feel better than you might feel about yourself.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Friday, August 19, 2011

Daydream in Blue

I looked at the setting sun from my post at the coffee shop. I didn’t just look, i stared. Big, beautiful smiling circle that it is, as it were. Almost wholly unreal, on a day like this, how the sun just sits there as if it sat its whole life.

I watched it explode in brilliance and in light, and thought of how now, as people, we forget that we live off of it, we try to take care of it, but at the end and beginning of each day we can’t do much but admire it. Pretty with no doubt, is our glowing orb of life-bearing light.

Then I saw a plane fly by, the kind of plane that ferried human passengers all around through the sky. From one port of air unto another, the plan was to move all the passengers, with little delay, until the end of time. What must those passengers be thinking, thoughts coursing through each of their minds, as they become ferried as they were; to be. From the same port to a similar position, later in time.

Further down the line come more checkpoints and options and dotted lines. This one to go here, as that one goes there, and following the laws of thermodynamics that leads to problems that change but never go and disappear. They just keep on changing, only to reappear as different things in different scenes.

A nightmare, must be this dream! I keep watching the plane trailing away, up higher in elevation with all of those same people that flew out of sunny L.A.

It’s the passengers time; the lucky ones’ sitting on the west side, gently looking at the opposite of this suns’ rise. The moon comes over opposite, gently bugging the tide. The passengers that sit to the east crane their necks, each trying to catch the last glimpse of that big ball fleeting in the sky, before it slips underwater, determined; efficiently having set.

They’re all hopefuls, we’re all hopefuls as of yet. From my position on the ground i thank the gods that i’m not challenging physics, rationality, and Bernouli through heavier-than-air jets. Jets made of space age materials that we as a people have harnessed, pretentious.

And so i digress. I try to do what they told me, in class and in all those years that have now become history lessons. There’s no stop to looking at the light as i trudge forth, as Icarus begins his fall, blind. With boots strapped on so hard that my veins turn black as they beg to be untied. I go running as i begin to notice markings on this planes aft side. Vertical stabilizers marking DHL or Fed-Ex or some other shipping collective leaves only one clear meaning: All those passengers i quantified, all those souls flying over this great divide, all of this strolled in my imagination as i sat perplexed outside...

Thursday, August 18, 2011

DMT laced Jibber Jabber from an alternate universe!


"I feel like the lazy river i've been trying to get to for weeks." -JB

"This is like smoking acid." -JB

[staring at a fire] "Dude, I see a fucking Phoenix staring at me in 3D!" -JA

"I see the fabric of the fire." -JA

"This is a shamanic thing." -JB

"I haven't seen avatar but this shit is way better."

"They should make a 3D movie of just fire in HD." -JB

"I want to get all magic-schoolbus on this [fire]." -JB




Image by samantha magowan



(( Anyone else have any memorable chemical quotes? ))

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

From the Artoons Series


by Peter Duggan









Courtesy of the Guardian
(( http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/series/peter-duggan-artoons ))

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Bukowski Starter Kit

(by Charles Bukowski)

ah

flamingo pain,
burnt fingers trying to
light the last of this
joint
in a place described
by terrified ladies
with money in their purses
as a “rat hole.”

“you can spit on the floor here,”
I tell them.

but no, from
a safe
distance, it appears
they’d rather discuss my poetry.








one thousand dollars

all of my knowledge about horse racing
told me that this was a sure bet.
I bet one thousand to win.
the horse had post one
at 6 furlongs.

the bell rang and they came
out of the gate.

my horse turned left
ran through the fence
fell down and
died
right there
at 7/5.

when I tell people this story
they don't say
anything.

sometimes there's nothing to say
about
death.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Lovely po(e)m

‘The skin on the back of your ear feels so weird’, he said
‘No, the skin on the back of your ear feels so weird’, she said
Her green eyes locked with his,
He stirred his coffee, she stirred her tea.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Blast from the ill-literate past

For a long time i wondered what drugs would do
Then i took them
And knew for ever that i knew.

And i know
That it's been four years
and I seem to have been thinking
About maybe, when
I should stop drinking.

But it's been about
Four years
Since i've been thinking, and thinking,
Thinking that i thought i knew.
Because i forgot what i saw
The things that i thought
And the experiences washing over me
Like a tide in an astrological inquisition.



Sunday, April 3, 2011

It all happened so slooowly

"The fact is, i don't want my book to be taken lightly.
Telling these memories is so painful for me.
It's already been six years since my friend went away taking his sheep with him.
If i try to describe him here, it's so i won't forget him.
It's sad to forget a friend

Not everyone has had a friend.
And i might become like the grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything but the numbers.
Which is still another reason why i've bought a box of paints and some pencils."

-antoine de saint-exupéry


David Baerwald via Sean Penn


"I wake up and you're not there
But your clothes are in the closet
And your scent's in the air
If it ain't an answer
I don't care
Why was I born?
Well I was born to love you..."

-d.b

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

[Thanks to coincidental perspective laced epiphanies]

My eyes cant believe what they’re seeing;
Dreams of you receding,
Like waves
In a shallow bowl of water
There comes a tug.

With me in it,
And looking out through the glass,
And from within its bounds;

I swim as i walk,
I pace back.
And forth,
and back.

[No one talks]

And as the levels drop
The last few level thoughts,
Writhe
As the few last bubbles
Float up, from the bottom
They burst, up top.

And In certain angles,
As i lay on the ground
In this bowl that is life,
The that that is me
Shoots a quick glance back.

My eyes cant believe what they’re seeing;
Dreams of you receding
Like waves
In a shallow bowl of water
Getting drained.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

A Dialogue, or An Assorted Platter of Thoughts

'Life is like dancing. If we have a big floor, many people will dance. Some will get mad when the rhythm changes. But life is changing all the time"
-Miguel Angel Ruiz

"But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner than needed it most?"
-Mark Twain

"If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future."
-Winston Churchill

"In three words i can sum up everything i've learned about life: It goes on."
-Robert Frost

"They look behind at every step and believe it is a dream."
-William Blake




'Richard Feynman and His Diagrams' by Orlando Leibovitz



"There is a smile of love. And there is a smile of deceit. And there is a smile of smiles. When these two smiles meet."
-William Blake

Monday, February 21, 2011

Shadowtricks.

One must hate himself if he hates his shadow,
Everything it stands for, but who's the one standing?
Cut down the middle, split – I've meddled
Like civil war, a country bent – but standing.

So when it falls, will I rise?
If it's the moon, am I the tide?
If I blame my luck on his stride,
Will the sun shine green on that other side?

Oh, that boy - his wheel/squeaks incessantly,
Don't you hear?
But is that what causes the old floor to creak?
If aged oak is as true as day,
Then let Dylan say as he do,
I am meek as wood, 'tis true.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Not dead, yet.



[Personal Selections of Nietzches Epigrams, out of 'Beyond Good And Evil']

72. Not the intensity but the duration of high feelings makes high men.

76. Under peaceful conditions a warlike man sets upon himself.

79. A soul that knows it is loved but does not itself love betrays its sediment: what is at the bottom comes up.

81. It is terrible to die of thirst in the ocean. Do you have to salt your truth so heavily that it does not even-quench thirst any more?

88. One begins to mistrust very clever people when they become embarrassed.

97. What? A great man? I always see only the actor of his own ideal.

98. If we train our conscience, it kisses us while it hurts us.

104. Not their love of men but the impotence of their love of men keeps the Christians of today from-burning us.*

106. In music the passions enjoy themselves.

113. "You want to prepossess him in your favor? Then pretend to be embarrassed by his presence-"**

117. The will to overcome an affect is ultimately only the will of another, or of several other, affects.

118. There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.

123. Even concubinage has been corrupted-by marriage.

125. When we have to change our mind about a person, we hold the inconveniences he causes us very much against him.

126. A people*** is a detour of nature to get to six or seven great men.-Yes, and then to get around them.

[ 129. The devil has the broadest perspectives for God; therefore he keeps so far away from God-the devil being the most ancient friend of wisdom. ]

131. The sexes deceive themselves about each other-because at the bottom they honor and love only themselves (or their own ideal, to put it more pleasantly). Thus man likes woman peaceful-but woman is essentially unpeaceful, like a cat, however well she may have trained herself to seem peaceable.

132. One is best punished for one's virtues.

134 All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.

166. Even when the mouth lies, the way it looks still tells the truth.

175. In the end one loves one's desire and not what is desired.

180. There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a cause.

[ 184. The high spirits of kindness may look like malice. ]

[ 185. "I don't like him."-Why?- "I am not equal to him." - Has any human being ever answered that way? ]







*If Christians were really passionately concerned for the salvation of their fellow men in the hereafter, they would still burn those whose heresies lead legions into eternal damnation.

** My own asterisk goes to #88?

***Ein Volk: the polemical and sarcastic thrust of this epigram depends on the heavy reliance of German nationalism-both in Nietzche's time and in the twentieth century-on the mystique of the Volk