badlybent.ca

OR - “I must be outta my %&#@ mind”

Someone who either thinks I’m more talented then I am, or really really hates me turned me on to something called “The RPM Challenge“.

The RPM Challenge is something to inspire musicians to record, in a similar way that NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November challenges authors to, well, auth.   NaNoWriMo Challenges writers to write 1,700 words per day for the entire month of November.  It’s an exercise to get people writing.  The good people at the RPM Challenge, and also the ones at fawm.org (February Album Writing Month) have taken this idea and given it a musical spin.  They are challenging songwriters to record 1 Album (10 songs, or approx. 35 minutes of recorded material) during the month of February.

That’s right - less then 3 days per song to get it all down and finished.  And then, when you’re all done, send a copy of the CD to RPM Headquarters and they’ll put stuff up on the net…and other stuff.  I’m not really sure everything that happens, but I know that I really want to give this a kick.  I’ve already gotten 8 songs written that I’ve wanted to record for a while now, and this is the perfect reason.  That still leaves 2 to write though, and I think it would be extra cool to actually write 2 during the month of February as well.

For all the gory details go to rpmchallenge.com and check it out.  There are message boards for people that need collaborations, inspiration, help, etc.  so you’re not alone in this.  They also aren’t nearly as concerned about recording quality as they are just you getting yourself down on “tape”.  And of course, the bastards just had to pick the shortest month of the year, didn’t they?  Oh well, I guess most people are locked inside their warm cozy houses at that time of the year, and starting to go a litle Stir Crazy anyways.  At least those of us in northern climes anyways.  I live in Canada and the only winter activities I take part in are A) Freezing my nuts off, and B) Drinking more Vodka to try to prevent (A).

If any of you follow my blog or podcast (remember my podcast?) then you know that I’m a huge fan of trying to get songwriters writing.  My Sieve Song Challenge aimed at doing the same thing, but at the rate of 1 song per month.   That reminds me - in the next couple weeks look for a new podcast aimed at songwriting specifically.  It will recap the Songwriting Challenge as well as reintroduce it, better and stronger then it was before.  Yay.  I’m actually really excited about that.  I’m also all fired up about the RPM Challenge.  As I get songs done I’ll put em up here for you to check out as well.

If any of you are songwriters as well, I’d encourage you to check out the RPM Challenge and sign up, and if you do, drop me a line and let me know, I’d love to hear about it.  I’d also be more then happy to showcase some of the talent right here and on my podcast as well.

I’m also going to introduce a new Song Challenge of my own for February because I figure if you all are going to be recording and/or writing anyways you might as well kill a couple of buzzards with one rock.  Also, it never hurts to have a little more inspiration when you’re writing tunes.

In fact, if you sign up for the RPM Challenge and let me know, I’ll email you 2 song ideas every day (if you want) from the time you let me know you’re going to do it, until the end of February.  Wow, way to give myself more work to do.  Meh, it’s all part of wanting to help people write songs…..

So let me know if you’re going to do the Challenge, and if you are, good luck.  And oh yeah, if you need a hand with some co-writing, or guitar stuff, or something, drop me a line as well.  Always happy to help, as long as you promise to thank me in your liner notes in your Grammy Winning album…..

Take Care and Happy Writing!

Stevie Z

Last night marked the last of the Semi Final rounds of the Cambridge Songwriting Competition, and the second straight night I’ve been up until after 1 am in the morning….and loving it!  I’ve been a judge every week now for about 5-ish weeks, and I have to say that it’s truly been an awesome experience.  I’d heard of and/or seen a couple of the competitors before, but the vast majority of them were people I’d never heard the music of previously.

Let me explain that I don’t really like going to bars to see people perform.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy live performances, and don’t want to support local artists, in fact quite the opposite:  a true measure of a performer AS a performer is what they can do live.  Practically anyone can sound good digitally, however to perform live is to perform without an AutoTune net, so to speak.  And besides, some bands (Big Sugar, Gogol Bordello) can only be experienced properly live.  The problem I have isn’t with the venues themselves, either.  The bar as a concept is a great place to see live music - good food, good drink, decent acoustics most of the time, and an intimate setting for the performer(s) and the fans.

The problem I have with bars is the people in them.  Not all, of course. Ninety some-odd percent of the people are cool most of the time, but all it takes is one or two asshats to really ruin things.  I know, I’m too uptight.  I’m working on it though.  That’s another reason that I don’t perform much as well - I can’t stand jerks in bars.  And also, I don’t play Freebird.  Ever.

I do have to say though, that so far at the Cambridge Songwriting Competition it’s been really good.  A couple of jerks of course, but overall the crowd has been fairly respectful.  It’s being held at a bar called Mulligan’s in Cambridge, and the place has an interesting setup with a stage and area that’s almost a separate room, but not quite, so the entire bar can watch and listen to the performers, and us hard-core song junkies can sit up close too.  It’s also got an owner who loves good songwriting (ask him if he’s ever heard of some guy named Bruce Springsteen) and also likes to support local artists.

I believe that there was 65 entrants, and I’ve seen almost all of them.  The songwriting has run the gamut from mediocre to completely mind-blowing, as have the performances.  That’s what I love about a thing like this competition though - it gets people out who have maybe never performed their songs for an audience of strangers before, especially strangers who want to hear their songs.

One thing that organizer Robbie Hancock has done, which is fantastic, is to make it purely and completely about the song.  He’s drummed that into the judge’s heads every single week, and testified it to the audience too - “The Song Is the Star” as he puts it.  It’s not a ‘talent’ competition.  It’s not about who’s prettiest, or who can sing the best, or who the best guitar/piano etc. player is - it’s about the songs they’re performing.  ARE YOU LISTENING CANADIAN IDOL?!?!?

I’d rather hear a decent song performed by the writer then some over-produced, over-hyped and overdone song any day.  Don’t get me wrong, a well-polished and well-produced song can be awe-inspiring too, but there’s something about a songwriter onstage, just them and their songs, (with a person or two accompanying them sometimes) that really makes it special, and really lays bare the true art of the song itself.   Without an entire fleet of instrumentation or effects to dig through, the song itself becomes the focal point, and that’s where the magic happens.

I’m hoping to showcase a lot of the entrants from the competition over the next weeks on the podcast (yes, I do still have a podcast, and yes, it’s going to be re-launched shortly) but I’m waiting until the competition is over before I start approaching the artists regarding their material.

If you live anywhere within driving distance of Cambridge, Ontario, and you’re not undergoing open-anything surgery next Wednesday, June 24, 2009, I invite you to drop by Mulligan’s for what will truly be an astounding evening of entertainment that you would be hard pressed to find anywhere else.  Tickets are available online here, or at the door for a couple of bucks more.

Stevie Z

Pea Ess - Oh yeah, the judges for the Finals will be:

Miss Angel Brown
Carroll Baker
Greg Fritz Hinz
Glenn Reid

and Yours Truly, Stevie Z  ( you didn’t just click on that link…did you? )

By Stevie Z

Well, it’s April 16th.  As I start to write this, actually, it’s April 14th.  I’m hoping to get a jump start so that it comes out in time.

April the 16th of 2009 will mean that I will have been married to The Luverly Michelle for exactly 4 years.   I thought it was 3, but I was corrected….fairly sternly as a matter of fact, that it was indeed 4.  Time has sure flown.  When I started my podcast and blog I decided that I was going to wait for episode 100 to divulge the entire story of our wedding.  That was about a year and a half ago though, and since I’m only on episode 17 or so, by the time I reach episode 100 I probably won’t even REMEMBER what the story of our wedding was - I’ll just publish episode 100, eat my dinner pill, fly my jet car home, and go to sleep in my capsule on Mars.  Get it?  See, by the time I actually do publish episode 100 it will be the distant future and……never mind.

Since the Ballad of Steve and Michelle could fill several blog posts, I’ll focus on a Reader’s Digest version of our wedding, give you the key points to whet your interest, and then direct you to an upcoming episode of The Sieve! (my podcast, which I assure you DOES exist)

The Luverly Michelle (hereafter in this blog post referred to simply as “Michelle” to save ink in the court transcripts which will likely follow) and myself (hereafter referred to as doofus Stevie Z)  got married in a Cancer Hospice.  Wow, even typing those words has brought back a flood.

In order for the wedding to happen as it did, a number of things had to go off perfectly, most of which should never have happened.  Caterers that shouldn’t have been able to do a smaller wedding in such a short notice were suddenly free, people that weren’t supposed to be able to attend because of out of town trips suddenly found their plans changed, ministers that weren’t supposed to be able to officiate found a space on their calender, and people that shouldn’t have been in any condition to help plan a wedding made sure that things were all lined up and ready to proceed.

By now the words “Cancer Hospice” have probably burrowed into your mind to the point where you’re ready to start skimming through this post to figure out what the hell I’m talking about.  As I said, I’m not going into too much detail here, but suffice it to say that Michelle’s mother was a guest at the hospice, and it was her situation that prompted the venue.

I’ve typed this particular paragraph about 4 times now, and I honestly can’t find the way to say what I want to say, so I will say this: perhaps some of the greatest amount of thanks and….I can’t even figure out the WORD to use, should go to the staff of Lisaard House (the cancer hospice where we had the wedding) for first of all suggesting the venue in the first place, and making sure that things went the way they should.

The next biggest helping of thanks, Kudos, smiles, hugs, kisses and Love, should go to Michelle, who was my gorgeous bride four years ago today.  I still don’t know why she agreed to marry me, I mean, I sure as hell wouldn’t have married me, but she did, and I’m thankful every day for it…..especially when she lets me buy music equipment and Macs - which, by the way, I have been informed is my birthday/anniversary/Christmas/Easter/Valentines/Groundhog Day present for the next year.

Thank you Sugar Beet Babydoll Honey etc etc.  I love you even more then I did before - 4 years more, to be exact.  Here’s to many more years of me not quite pissing you off enough to leave me.

Love ya Sweetie,

Stevie Z

By Stevie Z

Sorry to paraphrase James Brown there, but I’m very, very, very happy.  Okay, just very very happy.  As of Thursday, April 12, 2009 I’m the proud owner of a Mac Mini.  It’s 7 inches x 7 inches, by 2 inches high, and apparently as powerful as heck, especially when compared to the Windows Vista PC I just got rid of.

I’m still suffering from a lot of frustration, however it’s a different kind of frustration.  With the PC it was frustration because the hardware and software weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing, and trying to get it to do what I wanted was insanely painful, if not sometimes almost impossible.  With the new Mac, because I’ve never used one before, I’m the problem here.  I’m trying to learn a completely different language and ‘culture’ so to speak.  Things that I’m used to calling one thing for the last 20 years, for example, now have a different name, and a different way of going about using them.  It’s a fairly steep learning curve, for sure, especially when me have small brain.  With the Mac it’s not that frustrating because I know that once I figure out how to ask the ‘puter to do something, it will do it - quickly and easily.

I’m not ready to drink the Mac Kool Aid yet (Apple Juice?) but I do have to say that the Microsoft way of doing things blows chunks compared to the Apple way of doing things.  Most things are so much easier, more intuitive and more efficient then with Windows.  Oh yeah, and the Mac doesn’t hang and crash every time I try to open audio processing software.  That helps just a smidge.

The only real downside that I’ve come across so far is that there is some software that I’ve loved for years that is Windows only, and I have a really really nice Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse that isn’t Mac supported, and so I’ve had to buy a new Logitech keyboard and mouse combo….which is white, like my Mac.  Now my monitor, speakers and Toneport are all black, as is my computer desk, and The Luverly Michelle won’t let me buy all new white stuff.  Actually, I don’t want to buy all new white stuff anyways, so it’s all good.  I DO, however, apparently need to return my brand new Logitech keyboard and mouse combo because the ‘d’ key is futzed and throws in letter “d”s all over the place for no good reason.  I think I found them all, however if you see a spare “d” kicking around this post, you know why….

So, as I learn to navigate the world of Mac, I’m really looking forward to actually recording music and podcasts.  My first 3 songs are already in the works, and I hope to have a new podcast out by the weekend.

Now, off to re-subscribe to the 40 or so podcasts in iTunes again……

Yours Mac-ingly,

Stevie Z

By Stevie Z

Obviously, the Conservative Party of Canada (formerly the Reform and Alliance parties before they merged.  Maybe they decided to change the name because the Canadian Reform Alliance Party spelled “CRAP”, which, in my opinion, is more accurate ANYWAYS, but I digress….wow, and only 6 words in, too.)   Anyhoo, obviously the CRAP doesn’t read my blog at all, because HERE I plainly asked them to stop sending me their propaganda shit in the mail.

Not only have they NOT stopped killing defenseless trees and sending me the remains (by the way, you want to see the Conservative’s attitude towards environmental issues?  Take a look at how much stuff that they’ve cut down trees, processed using toxic chemicals, printed using MORE toxic chemicals, and then mailed to me, all of the previous using fossil fuels and creating more greenhouse gasses.  Thanks, Stephen Harper, for thinking that one through!  Kudos to you!

Actually, I’ve started saving all the shit they send me…them and Rogers Cable.  I get flyers from them too….almost EVERY SECOND DAY!  No foolin!  So I’ve started saving all the crap the Conservatives send me….and I’m thinking of shredding it and dumping it in their office here in Kitchener.  It won’t be considered littering, I’m sure - their offices are already full of useless garbage…oops, I mean Conservative Party Members….hehe…I said “members”.  Come to think of it, that’s not even a double entendre, because when I say ‘members’, I mean well…libel is a gray area, isn’t it?  Come to think of it again, do you realize that the word “libel” is only a couple of letters away from “Liberal”?  Or that if you switch a couple of letters in the Hadron Collider, you get Hardon Collider?   And the Conservative Party of Canada is only a couple of letters away from “big business loving, ass-kissing, ignorant, heartless bastards”?  I’m not saying they ARE, just that the spelling is REALLY REALLY close.

Um, what was I talking about before I started frothing ?  Oh yeah:  today I got the second stupidest letter I’ve EVER received or even SEEN in my entire life.  The first stupidest (but not by much) was a letter from Sears Canada outlining all their new great Sears Club (IE Credit Card) bonuses, etc. and how much they’d love to present a brand new card.  It was all very standard stuff, if it hadn’t been addressed to Michelle’s mother, whom had PASSED AWAY SIX MONTHS PREVIOUS!   “Bah, easy mixup” you say.   It wasn’t the fact that it was junk mail addressed to someone who had shuffled off this mortal coil, but the fact that Sears Canada was joyfully offering a credit card addressed “To The Estate of…”  Now THAT is stupidity.  I’ve still got copies of that letter, and I’m saving them for a major Sears asskicking someday.

But back to my ORIGINAL, original point:  today I received a letter from the Conservative Party of Canada.  ADDRESSED TO ME.  Let me stress that:  It was very much addressed to me, with my name, and address and everything.  I opened it, and there were 2 pieces of paper inside.  One was a letter with a lot of writing on it, which I couldn’t read because it was in Polish.  The second was Polish on one side, and english on the other.   It explained in fair detail how much a supporter my local candidate was, is, and always will be of the Polish community.  Neato.  That’s great, I’m glad he supports the Polish community.  I know many Polish people back in Thunder Bay.  In fact, my all-time favouritist teacher was Polish.  Ah, Mrs. Orzech, thanks for showing me that being an idiot was going to make life difficult should I proceed down that path.  I also LOVE Polish food.  I DO have to wonder, however, why our local candidate (Stephen Woodworth, btw) informed me of his special love for Polish people since I’M NOT POLISH!  Seriously.  I’m Ukranian.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not offended because he though I was Polish…after all, Poland has more culture then a lot of countries - the USA comes to mind…but that he ASSUMED that I was Polish because my last name starts with a Z, and has a lot of consonants in it.  It also has a Y at the end of it.  I could understand the confusion a LITTLE more if, say, it ended in an i instead.  But a Y?  I’ll tell you Y - because, like most Conservative candidates, from what I’ve seen, have no clue, and don’t CARE to have a clue.  Look at how many CRAP members have had to resign IN THE LAST MONTH or so, because of everything from stealing speeches to mocking the relatives of brave soldiers killed in Afghanistan, to belittling Native Canadians.  It shows a deep ignorance, and, dare I say it, a RESENTMENT of Canadians.  At least, Canadians that don’t own banks or oil companies.

This is an ACTUAL jpg taken from Stephen Woodworth’s website,  for a link.  I think it probably is a great representative of the slack-jawed, dairy cow, deer in the headlights kind of intelligence of some of these people.

Wow.  I guess I should take it down a notch, eh?  I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.  If you’re a Conservative supporter…well, that’s what democracy is all about, eh?  To each his own.  Besides, it’s not like the other parties are throwing up much in the way of alternatives.

One last thing though, even if you’re as pissed off and frustrated as I am over this joke of an election (that, according to Harper’s own “election laws” should be illegal) then don’t NOT vote.  Seriously - if you don’t vote at all it counts as apathy.  If you vote for one of the ‘fringe parties’ then it gives those lunatics validation, so don’t do that either. Spoil your ballot by doing one of the following:  A) put an X at the bottom and write “None of the Above” next to it, or 2) Put an X at the bottom and write “badlybent.ca” next to it.  A vote for Stevie Z is a vote for….well, me, I guess, but I’m not running.  Maybe next time.  Problem is, someone once said something along the lines that if you’re going to wrestle pigs, you’re going to get muddy yourself. 

   Of course, I’m just sayin’

   Stevie Z

By Stevie Z

    To censor or not to censor?  That is the question.

    Lemme explain:

   As most of my readers know I have a monthly song challenge called (appropriately enough) The Sieve! Monthly Song Challenge.    As I’ve always stated from day one, if anyone were to submit something that was outright racist, sexist, hurtful or hateful, whether in Guest Blog, Song Entry, or even comment form, I wouldn’t allow it, or I’d delete it.

  But…..

   What about something that may be construed as offensive to someone.  What about something that’s kinda funny, especially in the context, and especially considering the source and intention, but, as I said, could possibly be deemed as offensive? 

   Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to hop on the “Politically Correct Bandwagon”, and I oppose being on any sort of wagon at all - I much prefer to be off the wagons wherever possible, band or otherwise.  

   To get a little more specific:  a song was entered into the song challenge that had something in a line that in my opinion, was funny, and compeltely harmless, but some people might object to it.  As a knee-jerk reaction I asked the songwriter if they’d mind changing it, and they did without complaint or arguement.  Actually, I believe that the line is even funnier now, but that’s not the point. 

   Here’s what I’m asking people’s opinions on - did I have the right to even ask someone to change something they’d created?  Should I have just put a litle disclaimer at the beginning of that particular tune?   I could pull out the “it’s my challenge so I have every right to decide what goes in and what doesn’t” line, but that’s not how I feel about it.  Other then extreme examples that are meant only to hurt, should I allow anything and everything?  Should I reserve the right to go to someone and say “Um, that one line in there about (…..) kinda worries me, would you mind possibly changing it”?  What if they say “no, the line stays”? 

   The other reason I bring this up is because I’ve really gone out of my way to keep ‘flame wars’ from erupting.  Every time conversation degenerates into virtual shouting then pretty much all meaningful conversation comes to a hault.  This particular corner of the intertubes is mine, and I want to keep things as pleasant as possible, but should that include censorship from contributors because someone might take offense?

   Since I know that quite a few people that are much smarter then me read this, I would really appreciate your comments below.   And if I did go too far when I asked someone to change that line in their song, should I offer to play the original version instead if they wish ?

   Of course, I’m just askin’

   Stevie Z