Nothing is not music

Looking back over the past 12 months' output, and knowing my firmly entrenched spot down here in the music industry ditch, I'm pretty sure nobody is gonna be ringing me up for any year-end, 'best-of' awards. But, ya know what? Someday we will all be dead and gone and dust, and those awards don't mean squat. Ego games are a waste of time. So we just do our best, wherever we are, and go from there. If I'm relegated to the ditch, so what? One man's ditch is another man's, uh, muddy home. Anyway.

Let's look at the past 12 months:
-- I've released 6 albums:

a lo-fi pop album (Straight Time)
70's singer-songwriter style folk album that is very dear to my heart(Gone)
a slick LA album with some of my best songwriting(Nightly Never Ending)
an online covers album (Classic Country)
a back-to-basics cassette release featuring a stellar live band (Cape Disappointment)
a groovy keyboard krautrock return to my roots and my favorite release of the moment (Owl), which is also a full-album video

-- I reconnected with Jordan Johns, my favorite drummer in the world.
-- I put together a band with Jasper Leach, a bay area treasure, Tom Ferguson, also a wise-cracking one-of-a-kind gem, and Marissa Deitz, who is mega-musician way beyond my league. We toured and recorded new music!
-- Played Hickey Fest! Legendary.
-- Recorded 32 songs in 6 days at Sisterly Silence Studio.
-- Got back on the road for the first time in years!!    It was amazing.
-- I lost one of my best friends, Willis, and put together his music for the world to enjoy.
-- Connected with Dangerbird Records, who are very supportive and really rad dudes. Wuzzup Aaron, Peter an Andy!
-- Watched the dissolution of Super Deluxe!   Ugh, why?? A dream gone too soon.
-- Created my most ambitious pop-music multi-media performance, the Cube, which was kind of insane
-- Connected with Joel Jerome and Jimi Cabeza de Vaca, two legendary LA musicians and fast friends.
-- Found the Bodega Dunes, my new favorite place! Went there repeatedly with my family.
-- Camped at Mount Shasta, Castle Lake, Steep Ravine, and Donner Lake.
-- Initiated a collaboration with Matthew Nauser on his upcoming documentary film project!   It's gonna be amazing.
-- My music got written up by NPR! Even though most of the article was excerpts of what I'd written, it felt like a really cool validation.
-- Saw LaMonte Young in concert, Phillip Glass, the Zombies (who sucked, geez)
-- Undertook the largest art installation of my life (Lightlines) in collaboration with Campbell Landscape Architecture, Stu Campbell, and my buddy Taurin Barrera.

In short, it's been yet another whirlwind year, abundant with gifts, surprise, sadness, joy, everything!

Thank you to all my friends and enemies, to Dangerbird, Talkshow (arnold and jamie!), and Super Deluxe, for making this a very special year.

Even though I will be featured in zero year-end lists and celebrations of whatever, fuck it, my life is beautiful and very productive, and I finally digested through all my heavy emotions and now riding a good groove, lets hope it lasts (fingers crossed).

Love,
Bill

I have been working on a MAXmsp patch that is my comment on the election.

It's called "Blah Blah Blah Election 2012"

In it, I created an interface between two different videos feeds -- Obama at the DNC and Romney at the RNC.   For Romney's portion, I added a special timed jitter feature that makes him look kind of rainbow-ish / demonic / strange.

These videos both feed into a 4 X 4 grid of separate screens.
A fader in the middle controls the amount each feed goes into the grid.

I run a video analyzer on each portion of the grid.   When it hits a threshold value (which I set) on its minimum color value, it triggers a sample.

For the samples, I recorded myself saying "blah blah blah" using 14 different notes, most consonant but a few dissonant.   Audience applause is triggered once the volumes of the "blah blah blahs" reach a certain volume.

Here is a screenshot of the interface: