30 RUMBLE +++ J. BUCKINGHAM TOWLSON [073009]

Sorry for late. This one gets kind of crazy.

Download 30_Rumble_073009.mp3

Download 30_Rumble_RADIO_073009.mp3

Wild little song, with yet another scene-stealing performance from J. Buckingham Towlson (see other contributions here, here, and here) but I'm not going to dwell on it for too long, because I have other things to talk about. All I'm going to say is that I hope that within this song is not my last reference to player-coach Reggie Dunlop, because I'm not sure I did him any justice.

It's Like NPR, but Written, and with CDs Not Tote Bags

Come September, I will be enrolled in an Electrical Engineering crash-course at Harvard Extension School. Why for? I want to be able to fix and mod my own gear. I want to understand music production in more concrete terms than "this knob does X" and "that knob does Y." I want to establish in myself a pattern of lifelong learning and intellectual curiosity. I want to gain the know-how to create a live-performance robot DJ that makes hipsters mess their tight pants before tight pants go out of style. All of this.

So I'm asking for a little bit of help. The class costs a pretty penny, and I plan to take out loans to cover myself. I'd like to pay as much up front as I can. Here's where you come in. If you have a few bucks and you appreciate my stuff, grab a copy (or some copies) of I Am Not a Sailor I Am the Captain, or a Sasquatch Hunter shirt, or the Father Abraham Superdiscography, or whatever else I have for sale at my store (nothing). If you just want to donate, you can do that using the button on the right sidebar, but please be warned that I will hunt you down using your PayPal information and send you CDs/shirts/Superdiscographies anyway.

I appreciate your help, and I promise that I will spend your money on my enrollment fee and not on frivolous items.

Thanks for sitting through that.

Long writing on the blogs.

As you all know, I have been doing okay with the blogs lately. To wit:

Blastercase. Thank you.

Future Rocket Soul not only likes the songs, but reads the posts.

The POP! Stereo says my gospel is good.

So I'm having fun with that part. It's actually kind of fulfilling if I let myself get into the right mindset. I have a system going wherein I find potentially hospitable blogs via hypemachine, email them, twitter-friend them, follow up a few times, and mark down all of my results on aspreadsheet. For the most part, it has been a pretty happy exercise in public relations, and I'm grateful that the world has evolved in such a way that I can achieve what I have achieved, on my own, without having had to wait for someone to subsidize such work on my behalf. And I have made some great friends along the way.

Then I got this little gem a few days back:

hey man, um, not trying to be a prick but usually when someone doesnt answer 3 of your emails, it usually means that theyre not into your stuff.

(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)

Look: I'm past the point of being able to generate any emotional response to rejection. In fact, I actually appreciate it when bloggers get back to me to let me know that they don't dig my stuff or that they don't think it fits in with their music. That means they took a minute to listen, which is all I ask of them. This email isn't even that horribly offensive. It's just sort of mildy off-putting. So I present to you: me, mildly off-put:

Generally speaking, when someone announces that they do not want to be a prick, that usually indicates that they in fact fully intend to be a prick sometime in the very near future. Same goes for assholes, gossips, or buzzkills. They may at times serve a good purpose - a buzzkill, for instance, might announce that they do not wish to kill the buzz but don't you guys think that we should fill the pool before we dive; and a prick might say, hey guys, I don't mean to be a prick, but my job is to figure out where the TARP money is and you seem to be responding to my requests for transparency with intransigence if not outright impunity, so when you get a break could you fucking tell me - but it does nothing to obscure the fact that they are broadcasting their future actions by announcing that they intend to do the exact opposite. More often than not, these people are fully aware that their actions are going to directly contradict what they just said, but aren't over themselves to the degree that they can just do it without wasting our valuable oxygen trying to convince us that while it may very well seem to be, it in fact is not.

I further argue that if you are sincerely not trying to be a prick and something like the above leaves your mouth/inbox/whatever, you are of the subset of people who are pricks without trying, in which case you should switch things around a bit and try not to be a prick. It's a subtle difference, but then again we are all different, like corn flakes.

Now I suffer from no illusion that anyone that I contact regarding my music is obliged to respond to me. Seems to me that a few follow-ups from my end make sense, but then again, some people disagree. So here we are, two Zax.


There they stood.


Foot to foot.

Face to face.

Some links:

Lego Wu-Tang

Juggalos are people, too.

Song details: Mixed by Nick Zampiello and mastered by Rob Gonnella at New Alliance East, Cambridge MA.