<a href="http://www.felbers.net/mt/archives/001527.html">fanatical apathy: your congress in (covert) action</a> 1024LinksdanielMon, April 14, 2003publish<a href="http://www.prandial.com/archives/004496.html#004496">the prandial post: when the news is the news</a> 1023LinksdanielMon, April 14, 2003publishSo done 1022MinutiadanielMon, April 14, 2003publishDemosIn said fear and trembling. I have updated my music link to go to <a href="http://artists.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/hope_against_hope/">the daniel wayne miller americana project IUMA page</a>, which has on it 2 new songs--American Dream Town and Just Say Yes--and a new mix of Numb Us, which collectively make up the new demo. I also threw up the old stuff worth keeping. IUMA isn't great, but it is a lot better than mp3.com now...as many songs as you want, can seperate them into "albums", and a Real audio format. I didn't have any problems uploading the mp3's. No strings attached; I just hope they can stick around; they had an emergency a year and a half ago and almost went bye-bye; fortunately someone bought them and kept the site up. It's a charity gig for them I'm sure. If anyone wonders about the glamorous life of a DIY musician, here are two shots of me recording American Dream Town: <img src="images/recording01.jpg" /> <img src="images/recording02.jpg" /> Like I said, everything else is done on the floor. Here is the text for the demo sleeve:<blockquote> TheDanielWayneMillerAmericanaProject - demo v.0.2 - 01. Just Say Yes Just say yes, just say ok. Say, "You're right, I'm just perfect today." 02. Numb Us It's like the first time--it's over before it even began. 03. American Dream Town Don't hate me 'cuz I'm beautiful. Don't go lookin' for my long lost soul. Some time and money is all you need. They'll give you a shot and start to kneed you face like dough--there's no need to know yer true light within, just spin spin spin. Slap a logo on your chest and don't worry 'bout the rest. - contact: info@danielsjourney.com - web: http://danielsjourney.com - audio instructions: listen either very softly or very loudly with the washing machine on and after no less than two pints, unless you are an alcoholic, then please skip the pints, or a baptist, in which case skip the entire demo if you would - thank you for choosing to consume quality American Dream products</blockquote> ... mistakes we knew we were making: "Theese town, theese American Dream Touuuun?" Yes. This is alt.country after all. Sort of. Think an uptempo Nick Cave. Drums and voice way out front? Yeah. My Korg recorder should have a big sticker on it: ALL YOUR MIDTONES ARE BELONG TO US. Sounds good in the 'phones. Numb US vocal 2? Yeah. Couple fuck ups that I kept. I say "ever" instead of "even" one time, and it's so far back it's practically an audio easter egg, but at the end of the bridge I was trying to sing the octave on an already high note and my voice just stopped and I said "shit". Second drum track on American Dream Town? The Hip Hop 2 setting. Old school baby. Flipped the channels during mixdown. Highlight of the whole thing for me was nailing it coming out of the bridge. Not exactly like *playing* the drums, but considering what I've got (just what's built into the Korg), I think I do a good job. 1021MusicdanielThu, April 10, 2003publish<a href="http://www.archive.org/movies/prelinger.php">internet archive: prelinger archives</a> 1020LinksdanielWed, April 09, 2003publishLark News<a href="http://www.larknews.com/">larknews.com</a> Too too funny. 1019LinksdanielWed, April 09, 2003publish<a href="http://disseminary.org.v.sabren.com/">the disseminary</a> wisdom wants to be free 1018LinksdanielWed, April 09, 2003publish<a href="http://www.arianafrench.com/">artnotes by ariana french :: an art news & art history weblog</a> boo ya 1017LinksdanielWed, April 09, 2003publishData lossIn the last two days I have been unable to locate two files that were of some importance at the time (in both cases I have moved to contingencies or dealt with it). I really hope there is another spindle of CDRs getting shipped from storage right now. I can't remember from last June. 10 months is definately over the limit for temporary living conditions. We are both so ready to get settled with all our things in Sarajevo. That said, I think we've done a stand up job in the interim. How many of you would: + Watch DVD's on your computer while laying on your bed, which is comprised of two foam mattresses. + Dresser: cardboard boxes stacked on top of one another. + Stereo: computer speakers. + Music studio: one corner of living room. + Office: another corner of living room. + Library: another corner of living room. + Chairs, total: 5--2 goodwill, 3 borrowed. + Total working surface: I dunno, maybe 3m^2. Everything else gets done on the floor. 1016MinutiadanielWed, April 09, 2003publishWhat a Ripoff!<s>If you go to <a href="http://www.iuma.com/">IUMA</a> and search for my old band, "hope against hope", you will find two</s> [Update: I just changed my "band name" so this probly won't happen now anyway.]...NEEDLESS TO SAY mine was the first. Now, I don't mind, coincidence and all that, except for two things: they are from Orlando--oddly close to where I performed AS hope against hope, and they are on IUMA. That means when they signed up they SURELY saw that there was already a "hope against hope". I wonder what they were thinking? "WE were the first!" "WE'LL get signed and let the lawyers take care of it!" "WHO cares?" "WE capitalize H, A, and H!" OH I see they have <a href="http://www.hopeagainsthope.com/">hopeagainsthope.com</a>. Well good for them. I wonder if they waited tooth and nail (ha that was the worst pun ever) as I let that one expire a year and a half ago. Grrr...ok I'm over it. "Get over it." I'm over it. :) 1015MinutiadanielWed, April 09, 2003publishTom Conlon in London<img src="http://danielsjourney.com/images/tom_conlon_feb03/DSCN0435i_w.jpg" alt="close up" border="7" style="border-color: #cccccc" width="300" height="100"> I know I have a few English readers, and you know I've <a href="http://danielsjourney.com/index.php?file=blog_2003_02_27.xml&id=1">talked up Ton Conlon already</a>. Well, he's playing in London: LONDON, ENGLAND *-Wednesday, May 21-* 7:30pm - Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) for more info contact Rachel Bulkley at Rachel@ciwem.org.uk http://www.htb.org.uk LONDON, ENGLAND *-Thursday, May 22-* Harvard Club of the United Kingdom for more info contact Roxane Zand at RoxZand@aol.com or Winnie Li at WinnieMLi2002@aol.com or wli@post.harvard.edu LONDON, ENGLAND *-Sunday, May 25-* 8:30pm - Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) for more info contact Rachel Bulkley at Rachel@ciwem.org.uk http://www.htb.org.uk 1014MusicdanielWed, April 09, 2003publish<a href="http://stuarthughes.blogspot.com/">stuhughes.blogspot.com</a> journalist who had his foot blown off in northern iraq is blogging about it.<blockquote>Saw the surgeon this afternoon and the die has been cast; the foot goes tomorrow. He said when he opened up the wound yesterday he knew he had no options. There's no soft tissue left to connect any new vessels onto, so the decision's been made for him. Obviously it's a heart-breaking thing to come to terms with but in a way it's been made easier by the fact that there are no options to consider. The saddest thing is that I have five perfectly perky toes held in place with a meccano set of pins and bolts but, in medical terms, that's not enough to save my ballrooom dancing career. Like a killer virus, the landmine has done what it's designed to do with perfect precision. I feel no bitterness but I hope whoever manufactures the things is pleased with their handiwork.</blockquote> 1013ElsewheredanielTue, April 08, 2003publishIn other news, a photo I took of John/Rotoscope is being used for their next concert poster, and it looks gooood: <a href="http://meticulous.com/clients/cannonball/rotoscope_2003_05_23.jpg">one for the 'folio</a>. 1012ImaginingdanielTue, April 08, 2003publishYour inner child could beat up my inner child.There has been a recent thread on the <a href="http://arlingtonmusicscene.com">Arlington music scene email list</a> concerning criticism. Long story short, someone took it upon themself to post their negative opinion of the demos by one of the bands that pretty much everyone in the scene knows. A lot of us rose to their defense. The someone said in return [I'm paraphrasing here], "Hey, can't you take criticism? You won't get any better if you can't." Meanwhile I'm recording my demos, as always, in fear and trembling. Here are some of my thoughts, along with a couple great quotes off of the list: [] Equal to the elation of a new creative moment--the finding just the right chord, words, or little sound that makes a great song--is the destruction of the negative comment--the reminder of a mistake that we hear every single time we listen to the tune, which has been exponentially more times than the critic...<blockquote>One thing I will always have a lot of respect for are the people who just go out and do it. I will always support the musicians who make original music, put it out there for others to hear and then continue to push forward in a business that can beat you down day after day if you don't focus on the positive and keep things in perspective.</blockquote>--Mike Holden, <a href="http://mikeholdenmusic.com">mikeholdenmusic.com</a> Art work is a delicate house of cards, emotionally speaking. Artists are generally the most insecure people around. Secure people (or those who have convinced themselves they are or have built up tough exteriors) go into stock trading and on the board of record labels. We express the insecurity everyone is feeling; we are closer to it; we are working with that soft heart. You don't walk up in an open heart surgery and poke the heart while the doctor is massaging it. [] Not all mistakes can be fixed. While it is true in theory that you can always go back and re-track something, there are budgets to be concerned with, especially at our level--money, and more importantly, time budgets. Given enough of both, we could always go to a better studio and spend more time with a great engineer, producer and musicians. [] Art is business, but art isn't business. This is an issue I have been struggling with for six years. There is a severe paradox occurring with art, in that true art cannot be born in the bed of commerce (perhaps there is a necessary differentiation to be made between performers, creatives, and those creatives who just happen to fall right into marketplace), and yet in order to feed ourselves, in order to become "successful" in the eyes of others, the art must be consumed. How do we strike that balance? I would love to just be a song writer, but when the words that come out of my creative self are things like they'll give you a shot and start to kneed your face like dough and pacifist me and the guy in the lexus...just numb us, who else is going to sing that? They are words that only work in the context of my life, in the context of my own creative unfolding. Art rarely works outside of a context which includes some understanding of the artist. If you simply judge a song by it's technical merits, you are missing much of what makes that song valuable. The critic on the Arlington list did not have that context; those of us who responded did. "Technical merits" begins to get hazy quick anyway--who is to say what is good art, "technically"? This is why most great art--especially visual art--is not fully appreciated until the artist is dead. If you go to a gallery of modern art, how will you judge that art? "Anybody could do that." "This work comes out of a movement which occurred in Rome in the 1950's blah blah blah." How about you are looking through a window into that artists soul. How about what is the artist trying to communicate? How about what was the context in which this was created? [] Play nice. <blockquote>the problem that i see is that demos....aren't really demos anymore. a demo is something that you used to give a club owner, your buddy, or yourself as a work in progress. other words, limited distribution. welcome now to the world of MP3.com + cdr's! give your "demo" to anyone and within minutes it can and will be made available to the entire modern world, with no boundaries. your demo has now been released. there's no turning back. people will consider this music to be a reflection of you, your capabilities, and your direction. for better or for worse. if you find yourself making excuses for your recordings, then maybe its time to head back to the basement or the studio for a while longer.</blockquote> --Scott Spelbring, <a href="http://dragonflyeast.com">dragonflyeast.com</a> This is a very interesting observation, and it applies to more than just music--what about us writers who blog? How many typos, retractions, and just bad writing gets out there now that we blog? How many people have called blogs "crap" because they judge the entire form on the forms of the past and without any context for the work? This is a new aspect of creative consumption that I am very interested in, both its merits and it problems. You can begin to see the great conflict commerce has created within art. A market--a manipulated market at that--has created for us the benchmarks by which our work is judged. It is only through our consumption that we can do anything about it--by subverting what is currently considered to be cool, we become the cool-makers. In the end, we can control the market, and if we say we want authentic, honest and pure art, then eventually that is what we will get. And in the end, money can't create honesty. [] But <a href="http://joshjoplin.com/lyrics/itsonlyentertainment.htm">It's Only Entertainment</a><blockquote> Amanda of the underground brings high art to her lo-fi sound. Her nifty hipster friends agree a band's only as good as its scene. Save us Polly Jean, we know not what we mean It's only entertainment Don't make it so hard Don't make it so hard Freddie's demographic grows, angry boys in baggy clothes. As critics eulogize the songs, and record store clerks mourn along. And the years go by and the chords don't change. We're all Pat Boone by different names</blockquote> By the amazing <a href="http://joshjoplin.com">Josh</a> <a href="http://danielsjourney.com/index.php?file=blog_2003_03_03.xml&id=2">Joplin</a>. [] <a href="http://danielsjourney.com/index.php?file=2002_05_19_new_archive.xml&id=76962874">Historical</a>. 1011CommentdanielTue, April 08, 2003publish<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/TRAVEL/DESTINATIONS/04/08/trv.travel.bosnia.ap/index.html">cnn.com - tour guide's work: bosnia tragedy - apr. 8, 2003</a> 1010LinksdanielTue, April 08, 2003publish<a href="http://www.createbands.com/">createbands.com</a> 1009LinksdanielMon, April 07, 2003publish<a href="http://www.stickymusic.co.uk/albums/album.phtml/alb=GUMCD43/">sticky music: albums: life, death, god</a> v cul spoken word. mp3's... 1008LinksdanielMon, April 07, 2003publishIain Archer<a href="http://www.stickymusic.co.uk/artist.phtml/artist=iain archer/sid=d12669181299503868e545fd9eece0e9">sticky music: iain archer</a> One night during the last <a href="http://greenbelt.org.uk">greenbelt fest</a> I hung out with this cat until the wee morning hours. And I mean the wee fooking mrnin' 'ours. He (among others) was very pissed, and somewhere someone has some video, shot with the night/low-light lens, some of it shot by me, some of it featuring me, of us all being very loud and silly. But before that we talked for a couple hours about music and everything else under the sun. His wife's name is Miriam too. He had played with Bill Mallonee earlier that day and that was the first time I saw him. Anyway, today I stumbled upon <a href="http://stickymusic.co.uk">stickymusic</a> via <a href="http://jonnybaker.blogspot.com/">jonny</a> and was like holy shite! He also has records out on <a href="http://www.icc.org.uk/">ICC</a> but I couldn't find them on that site, nor more mp3's. But check out the sticky site for mp3's...And hopefully I'll see Iain again this year...and hopefully I'll be playing myself at GB--I'm reading about Iain and listening to Tom Petty--I HAVE to go record my demo for GB RIGHT NOW. C YA! Update: Reader and venue booking agent for GB Harvey Jessop emailed me a link to a newer Iain mp3 on <a href="http://www.delicatessen-reading.org.uk">delicatessen-reading.org.uk</a>. <a href="http://www.delicatessen-reading.org.uk/archives/000010.php">Here is the page with the link to the mp3 on it</a>. Also of note on the site is the <a href="http://www.delicatessen-reading.org.uk/archives/000004.php">Bill Mallonee page which uses one of my photos without attribution</a>. *<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/1.0/" title="free just isn't good enough for some people">ahem</a>* ..ah well I'm sure it will be rectified...he was good enough to point it out anyway. :) 1007MusicdanielMon, April 07, 2003publish<a href="http://www.destroyevil.com/">destroyevil.com by katie bush</a> 1006LinksdanielMon, April 07, 2003publish<a href="http://www.lovekatie.com/index.html">all systems go by katie bush</a> 1005LinksdanielMon, April 07, 2003publish<a href="http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0104/1040w/">introducing the 1040w</a> 1004LinksdanielMon, April 07, 2003publish<blockquote>whoever dies with the most toys deserves to die.</blockquote><a href="http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0303/somejokes/">modern humorist</a> 1003QuotabledanielMon, April 07, 2003publish<a href="http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/5554317.htm">the miami herald - army chaplain offers baptisms, baths</a> He calls himself a Southern Baptist evangelist, and justifies the war and killing with a verse from the Gospel of Matthew, which he often recites... 1002LinksdanielSun, April 06, 2003publish<a href="http://www.e-sheep.com/">e-sheep.com</a> 1001LinksdanielSun, April 06, 2003publish<a href="http://www.e-sheep.com/thinice.html">thin ice</a> 1000LinksdanielSun, April 06, 2003publishDoug Engelbart - Invisible Revolution<a href="http://www.invisiblerevolution.net/">doug engelbart's invisible revolution</a><blockquote>Have you ever used a mouse? Have you followed a link on a web page? Sent an email? Used a window on a computer? Used video teleconferencing? Then you live in Doug's world.</blockquote>Great site documenting the making of the documentary about one of the men who started all of this stuff. Lots of info, a blog, video clips, and <a href="http://www.bootstrap.org/">links</a> <a href="http://www.liquidinformation.org/engelbart">to</a> <a href="http://www.liquidinformation.org/engelbart/glossary/index.html">other</a> sites. via <a href="http://russellbeattie.com/">russell</a> who also has <a href="http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/20021130.html#012147">some links to additional sites and video</a>. 6ElsewheredanielSun, April 06, 2003publish<a href="http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000344.php">back in iraq 2.0: the long march</a> holy shit! in case you didn't think this was for real, this is an amazing story! 5LinksdanielSun, April 06, 2003publish<a href="http://www.walkingbirds.com/">scottandrew.com</a> really good stuff free for download 4LinksdanielSat, April 05, 2003publish<a href="http://creativecommons.org/learn/features/doctorow">cory doctorow at creative commons</a> 3LinksdanielSat, April 05, 2003publish<a href="http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/bcr3/bcr3_200304_420_2_eng.txt">institute for war and peace reporting</a> bosnia: ashdown reins in bosnian serbs 2BalkansdanielSat, April 05, 2003publish<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/05/international/europe/05SERB.html?ex=1050210000&en=569e2150b8a3ac6f&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER">serbia to issue arrest warrant for the wife of milosevic</a> as part of a sweeping crackdown on organized crime after the assassination of the country's prime minister on march 12, serbian authorities said today that they would issue an arrest warrant for mirjana markovic, the wife of former president slobodan milosevic. 1BalkansdanielSat, April 05, 2003publishDerrida the movie in SoFla! <img src="http://www.gravattville.com/blogpictures/derridabanner400.jpg">999ElsewheredanielFri, April 04, 2003publish