badlybent.ca

By Stevie Z

I was cleaning up my hard drive the other day, and realized that I had several GBs of music on it.  All, of course, gained through legal and proper means.  I needed the space, however, so for the past week or so I’ve been going through the collection, literally song by song, and deleting those that I didn’t think I needed to hang on to.

Then I got to thinking:

If I want to hear the new album by, say John Hiatt, I just have to fire up Bit Torrent, and in a few minutes, poof, there it is.  It’s too easy.  There’s a truism out there that it’s hard to really appreciate anything you didn’t work for, at least a little.  This can be seen, for example, in the lifestyles of a lot of either the children of very wealthy parents, who were given anything and everything,  to a lot of people that I’ve seen on Welfare and/or Unemployment Insurance.  If it’s handed to you scott free, then there’s almost no way you can appreciate it as much as if you’ve really worked for something.   Of course there are exceptions to the rule - when I was 15 a neighbour gave me my 1967ish Fender Telecaster guitar, for free.  I love and appreciate that more then you could ever imagine.   The general rule, however, stands. And this will especially hold true for my home studio, when it finally comes together, because I have been waiting, and trying desperately to piece one together, for 23 years.

In order to bring this back around to my point, I’ll switch to another musical artist, Bela Fleck, banjo player extraordinaire.  I remember when I was about 20 or so driving in my car and listening to CBC radio (Canada’s Public Radio) and hearing a jazz instrumental which featured predominately a banjo and a harmonica.   It was one of those moments where I actually had to pull over and listen, pretty much staring at the car radio.  I was floored.  And transfixed.  At the end of the song, the announcer gave the artist, the track title and the name of the album.    I immediately started driving around town, trying to find a music store that had the CD.

Being as this was Thunder Bay, and being as it was a jazz banjo playing band, I couldn’t find it.  No one in town had it.  Not even the place to go at the time for odd and import stuff - St. James Stereo.  They could, however, order it for me, it would take about a week.  So, I paid the $29 and waited.  It was literally driving me nuts - I needed to hear that album.  I talked about it to everyone I knew, I thought about it a lot, and after 5 days started calling the poor folks at St. James Stereo every day.  It finally arrived on a Saturday, and I drove straight there.  I bought a portable CD player (the ones that were like the Sony Walkmans….I believe they were called Sony Discmans) and the Car Accessory Pack.  I wanted to just drive around and listen.  Or maybe grab a burger and park at the Friendship Gardens and listen.  I just wanted to hear it right now!

That CD changed the way I listen to music, to a small degree, but that’s not really the point here.  I treasured that CD.  I still do to this day.  When The Luverly Michelle and I move to our new place, I’m finally going to have my own room to turn into my music studio.  On the walls I’m going to hang, framed, 10-15 or so CD covers from the jewel boxes of CDs that have affected me over the years.  That one’s going up for sure.

One of the reasons I treasure it so much, I believe, is because of the incredible amount of work and patience it took to get it.  I drove ALL over town, to about 5-8 music stores.  I had to order it, I had to wait.  I honestly think that if I had just heard the song, gone online, downloaded it and listened to it, it wouldn’t have meant as much to me.

The other reason I think that music has become so disposable is because now people can have so much of it at once.  I love Warren Zevon, for example.  If I wanted to, I could go to BitTorrent, and within a day or so most likely download his entire catalog.  Then, I’d zip through the songs, giving each one a listen once, deciding my favourites, and maybe even deleting the ones that didn’t immediately grab me.  Tell me if this has happened to you:  You  purchased an album and started listening to it, and as track after track went by thought “don’t like that one much, that one’s kinda cool, that one sucks” etc.  Then, after owning the album for a while, sometimes days, weeks, occasionally even years , you start to find the tracks that maybe were ‘just okay’ are now becoming your favourite tracks ON the album.  Now, if you’d downloaded them, you might have deleted them without much thought.

I used to work with a guy who would download a pantload of music, burn it to a CD, listen to it for a couple of weeks, and then just toss the CD out.  Forget the environmental aspect of it, but I think it’s just sad to treat music that way.  Even CDs that I’ve purchased and turned out over the years I didn’t really like, I’ve always given to charity so that they could be resold and maybe end up in the hands of someone who will appreciate them.  Same thing with books.  I don’t think I’ve ever thrown a book away either.

So whether you download music or not, do yourself a favour - spend a few days listening to the tracks you’ve just downloaded, even the ones you don’t think you like - you might discover some great songs that you would have otherwise deleted.

Stevie Z

Damn it feels good to click on that “WRITE” button in Wordpress again…..

So, now that I’ve got a lot of crap out of the way RE my life, I think it’s time once again for The Sieve! Monthly Song Challenge.  Last year, when it was on, I made some observations, and listened to some people’s reasons for not entering, etc.  Bearing all that in mind, I’ve decided to make some changes to the challenge.

The main thing I heard from people was this:  I don’t have time to write, record and mix a song in 30 days.

Indeed, on more then one occasion I received a fantastic song after the deadline.  So I’ve decided to expand the challenge from 30ish days, to 60ish days.

It will work like this:

1. At the beginning of the month, I will issue the guidelines for the song (genre, topic, and words/phrases to use)
2. People (um, myself included this time) will then have till the end of the second month following to complete and enter their song(s).
3. At the beginning of the following month, I will issue ANOTHER challenge, which people will then have 2 months to complete.

Okay, confusing enough yet?  Here’s an example:

I will issue a challenge today for January, which will be due by February 28th.

On February 1, I will issue another challenge, which will be due March 31.

This way, everyone has a full 60 days to write, record, mix and send in their tunes, and by staggering them like this, as of March 1, we will have results every month.

In order to fill some of the space while we’re all waiting for the first Results Show of 2009, I’m going to be podcasting the incredible entries that were sent in for the last challenges, both the ones you’ve heard, and the ones you unfortunately (because of me) didn’t get to hear yet.

Also, if any previous entrants have any other material they’d like to send in for airing as well, I’d welcome that.  Off the top of my head I know that John Meadows and Bob Goyetche have written at least a couple of other songs, and I’d be more then happy to play em here.

If anyone has any questions, then fire em in to me at badlybentpub AT yahoo.ca

If not, then I present, with trembly anticipation, the  criteria for The January/February Sieve! Song Challenge!

A) Genre - I’ll make the first one of the year an easy one, plus we’ve already lost over a week, so I’m going to make the genre an Open Category this time.

B) Topic - Since this will air at the beginning of March, let’s make it about Renewal, Reawakening, Rebirth, that kind of thing.  That should take our focus off the snow, for those of us that live in such climates, and get us thinking about spring.

C) Words -Renaissance (ha, you didn’t think I’d make it TOO easy, did ya?) Bonus points if you can rhyme it with “pants”.  Only kidding……sort of.

Wow, great to have something to work at again…I haven’t written anything more then grocery and ‘To Do’ lists for the house lately, can’t wait to hear what wonderful songs ya’ll are going to come up with.

Now go write something!

Stevie Z

It’s been a hell of a few months.  Actually, in the grand scheme of things, compared to some people’s lives, I guess I don’t have that much to complain about.  A lot of people had and have it worse off then me, so I’ll give ya’ll a brief rundown, and stop me if I start whining:

First of all, I’ve been working on home renovations.  Not huge layout-altering stuff, but over the last few months my house has pretty much been completely painted.  Top to bottom, literally inside and out.  It’s also been fixed all over the place, and decluttered like crazy.  We are now the proud renters of a 10×10 storage space that’s packed to the rafters with stuff that, for the most part, turns out we didn’t really need.

The Luverly Michelle(TM) decided that it was time we sold our house and moved.  I’ll get into more detail at some other time about why that was her call to make, but we both knew when we bought it that at some point she’d need to move.  So, we engaged the services of THE best real estate agent this side of the Pecos (we call her our Real Estate Ninja) and made the mistake of asking her for a list of stuff we should do to make the house more salable.  And, much to our dismay, she gave us a list.  A huge list.  Of course, it was our decision to do anything, but since she was the expert, we did it.  We would have gotten everything done on the list, except for a couple of things like money and time.  See, I didn’t think things through quite enough, and had relegated some things further down the list, and turns out we couldn’t do them because they were dependant on outside temperature, which was rapidly plummeting.  Ever try to paint exterior trim on a house at +3 Celsius?  Yeah, it’s a blast.

Then, while painting outside, I fell off the ladder.  Nothing too spectacular, I was only about 4 feet up, in fact, I kind of ‘jumped’ down instead of falling when I felt the ladder shift.  Guess I just landed a little bit wrong, and did something to my lower back.  You know those really annoying back injuries that just hurt enough to piss you off and keep you from doing stuff?  It was one of those.

Then after that had finally healed, I managed to whack my kneecap hard enough trying to run through a doorway (and missing it slightly, apparently) that I could barely walk for about 2 weeks, and after 2 months was still pretty sore.

Hmmm, I think I’m starting to whine now….so I’ll leave the injuries there.  Those were the major ones anyways.

Ever renovate your home with your spouse?  Well, not literally “with” your spouse - obviously you use paint brushes and hammers and stuff, but I mean alongside your spouse?  How did that go?  Yeah, it went a ton worse with us too.  Between the regular life stresses, plus extra stresses, and then the stresses of renovating a house to sell it, well, The Luverly Michelle(TM) and I were getting along about as well as two rabid marmots with PMS and hangnails, stuffed in a sack, dunked in water and then shaken vigorously.  But with less fur.  Only moderately though.

That pretty much sums up most of the crap.  I’m glad that 2008 is over with, and I’m really looking forward to 2009.  Of course, a guy who keeps getting kicked in the nuts would probably appreciate a punch in face, just for something different…..

I’ve actually got big plans, social medially speaking.  Look for The Sieve! to be back in full force in the next couple weeks, along with the possible launching of a NEW podcast.   The Sieve! Monthly Song Challenge will be back up and running in the next couple of weeks too, and I’ve tweaked it a bit based on some comments I’ve received from people.  I’m hoping to really get people writing some great stuff too - in times like this, with economic uncertainty, plus all the other crap that’s going on in the world, it’s always a good thing to create inspiring and amazing art.

I’m also helping a couple of people in getting their online presence up and running as well.   Hey, I guess I can start calling myself an expert now!  Neato. 

I’m also going to be re-launching my band that a friend and I had last year, new direction, new sound, new songs, and I’m starting to write and record again.  It’s amazing the stuff that you can accomplish when you’re not spending every spare minute and dime working on a house.  Go figure.

 So, I’ve missed you all…..well, okay maybe not ALL of you - some of you I didn’t miss one bit….and you know who you are…but the rest of you I’ve missed a lot.

Looking forward to a prosperous 2009!

Stevie Z