The Cinematic Orchestra

Awesome stuff.

The Cinematic Orchestra is a 7-piece Electronica and Jazz outfit. I'm not sure how I'd categorize them, but they intertwine characteristics from a plethora of genres. They are known for their ability to mix together the samples of turntables with instruments such as a double bass, saxophone, trumpet, guitar and drums. In their live performances, they often improvise throughout a lot of their music between all the samples, but it's often difficult to tell where the improvisation starts and ends. For some groups, improvisation may mean complete chaos, but for this group, it seems so natural and fresh.

Recently, I picked up "Every Day". What sets this album apart from the rest of the music is the DJ and the keyboards. I love the samples that are in each song, especially the sample on the song "Every Day". I can't tell if the voices are sampled or are actual people, but about 6 minutes into the song (I know, it's a long song, but more than worth it.) There's a group of voices that sing and just blend in so well with the rest of the song. All in all, a very solid group with a unique sound that people should listen to atleast once.

It's worlds different from what you hear on the radio, but give it a listen and a little time. It's a little strange on first listen, but I think you'll find it worth it.

The video here is of the song "To Build A Home". It's a little different from the rest of their stuff, but I love it.

A Quote!

"It's because I can't sound like my heroes that I can sound like myself." - John Mayer

A Video: Boonaa Mohammed

This is a video from TED in Toronto. If you haven't heard of TED, TED is a forum of where people share ideas in Technology, Entertainment, and Design. Their stuff is really quite interesting, so you should definitely check out some of the stuff on their website if you have time. Check out the video. don't stop the video before it ends! I love it.

Lost In The Trees

Lost in the Trees is a band that I've recently discovered. They consider themselves a folk orchestra. I'm not really sure if that's what I'd consider them, but I do know that they sound pretty amazing. With 7 key band members, each playing their own instrument, you would think that it would be a little much. However, the band composer, singer, and guitar player - Ari Picker - is very good at layering each instrument on top of each other, which creates a grand sound in the end. Every instrument - from the violin to the accordion - definitely brings its own to the table. I haven't heard any of their EP's, but from what I've heard online through Myspace, it's pretty good music. It's something fresh and new - even for me. I'm looking forward to finding out what becomes of this band. Hope you enjoy them as much as I am.

Check it out:

Fireplace by Lost in the Trees

Growing up

Growing up in two places gets confusing, really confusing. You leave one hoping that the other won't change, but deep down you know you're just joking with yourself. You hope your friends will stay the same, but again it's something that isn't going to happen. When you return, you realize that you've grown in different ways, experienced different things and that your friends have seen drastically different things. It's crazy how that happens. It's like you're meeting someone new in a familiar body. Nevertheless, the person you once knew is in there and somehow you're connected through the events that were experienced together. You talk about the past and reminisce together. It's interesting to come back to a place that you used to call home, where you used to understand the colloquialisms.

I come back "home" - if you can call it that - expecting what I once knew, but it's different now. Not necessarily in a good way, but also not necessarily in a bad way. Just different. Time does that to things; it changes them. It's time to learn what to do with the change and how to react to it.

A Quote!

"You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket." - Frank Sobotka from The Wire. Season 2, Episode 11

So true.

The Tallest Man on Earth

Recently, I've gone to the grand old Amoeba Music in good ol' Hollywood. It's a great place.The place has everything - cassettes, LPs, vinyls, posters. They have everything you'd ever want in a music store. The employees are very, very knowledgeable about their music. It's the first time I've heard of requests over the store's speakers for "an expert in the White Stripes" or "someone who knows their LPs". If you're ever in the area, you should definitely drop by and pick up some stuff. It's bound to be an experience.

I hadn't gone to a music store recently, so I splurged a little on CDs. I decided to be daring and to get a couple CDs of artists that I had heard of, but never really took the time to listen. One of the albums I got was The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man On Earth. Although I wasn't really enjoying it on the first two listens, I am now able to see why people like his music. In fact, I would like to say I'm a convert.

One thing that he's very good at is conveying emotion. From the phrasing of his lyrics to the arrangement of the instruments, it is evident that his music is heartfelt and not the contrived emotions that are often heard on songs that fill the radio. In the darkest passages, you can hear the pain in his voice. Throughout the album, there are passages marked with joy, happiness, and laughter. Occasionally, his voice trails off into the distance, making the lyrics seem like an afterthought. Perhaps, these are a reflection of his emotions. At any rate, some may find that his voice is the most repelling feature, but it's the thing that attracts me the most to his music. With all that said, put his album on your record player for a whirl or two. Give a man and his guitar a chance.

Here's a video of a song that's not on The Wild Hunt, but is a song that I enjoyed a lot.

"With all this fever in my mind I should aim for your kerosene eyes
Oh, you're just a target in the sky
Where do my bluebirds fly?"

Concerts and Such

Alongside of 3,999 people, I got to see Mumford and Sons last night. It was quite spectacular. Most people were obviously fervent fans and had memorized the lyrics to just about every song. The crowd had an amazing energy and vibe to it. Lot's of people were singing and just having a blast. Thankfully, the people around me were quite melodic in their singing. A very fun, solid concert. I'd go into greater detail about what went on, but I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise.

I do, however, have two complaints. First off, whether you're with your significant other or with a friend, there is no need to talk throughout most of the concert. Honestly, I don't care to hear your commentary on every song and the arrangement of the band members. Nor do I care to hear you explain to your significant other what instrument the musicians played at the end of every song. Second, I do not care to watch the concert on your iPod or camera. I mean if I wanted to watch it on some screen, I could just buy a DVD and hang out at home. It's really not necessary for you to tape the entire concert is it?

At any rate, if you have the chance, check out Mumford and Sons. Give it a listen.

[A suggestion for future concerts: Perhaps, we should have general admission coordinated by the height of the people. Ideally, the general order would allow the short people to be given priority to enter the concert venue first. I'm guessing this group would generally consist of Asians. I wasn't that short at this concert, but I did notice a few people that were just a few inches below the average height...]

A Quote!

Another useless fact that doesn't get you any farther in life, but you'll probably remember it...

"Unbelievable as it may sound, that keyboard layout was designed in 1873 as a feat of anti-engineering. It employs a whole series of perverse tricks designed to force typists to type as slowly as possible, such as scattering the commonest letters over all keyboard rows and concentrating them on the left side (where right-handed people have to use their weaker hand). The reason behind all of those seemingly counterproductive features is that the typewriters of 1873 jammed if adjacent keys were struck in quick succession, so that manufacturers had to slow typists. When improvements in typewriters eliminated the problem of jamming, trials in 1932 with an efficiently laid-out keyboard showed that it would let us double our typing speed and reduce our typing effort by 95 percent. But QWERTY keyboards were solidly entrenched by then. The vested interests of hundreds of millions of QWERTY typists, typing teachers, and computer salespeople, and manufacturers crushed all moves towerd keyboard efficiency for over 60-years." - Diamond, Jared in Guns, Germs, and Steel.

For the record, this book is not about keyboards...

Passion

Being passionate about your work does strange things to you. It's one thing when you don't really care about how your work reflects you, but when you do, things are wildly different. My work has become exciting in a strange way. Whereas most of the work I was given before was done to a degree that I knew would be sufficient, the work I do now, I'd like to think, is definitely done to the best of my abilities.

On the other hand, it's taught me something about who I am. Clearly, it's good when I don't put out my all - as it shows me in a light that isn't positive. Somehow, I have to motivate myself to do my best despite the fact that what I'm doing isn't what I'd want to be doing. I need to train myself to be able to give forth my best in whatever I do.

On Procrastination

Just an interesting quote I found online while reading this article (Later by James Surowiecki) in the New Yorker:

"The philosopher Mark Kingwell puts it in existential terms: “Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing. . . . Underneath this rather antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all.” In that sense, it might be useful to think about two kinds of procrastination: the kind that is genuinely akratic and the kind that’s telling you that what you’re supposed to be doing has, deep down, no real point."

Salesman Pete

I've come across this video that's pretty entertaining. So here it is:

Salesman Pete from Salesman Pete on Vimeo.

Driving and Relationships

Having begun my job in Orange County, I've done one thing a lot and that is drive from point A to point B. It's pretty fun, I must admit. I've learned a lot though when driving. It's that you're given this sense of trust to have a vehicle by your family, your community, and ultimately the government. If you go out and do something stupid, it's your fault and you will have to pay for it through trust and, of course, money. At the same time, you give other people on the road your trust that they won't do something crazy that may cause you or anyone else any harm. However, you do look out and make sure that they aren't doing anything crazy. I think that's similar to the way that I see my friends and family.

I'm given this amount of trust that I do treasure and I hope that it never grows sour. I trust them and want to be a part of their lives. At the same time, if they are doing something strange, I'll be there to see what's going on. Hopefully, it will be help that is welcomed.

On Art and Critics

I recently read a great article about a critic - Greil Marcus - that wrote books about musicians and their songs. His style of writing is a little different from what you'd expect. He tries to get into the songs and feel them. His article was truly fascinating.

On his style of writing, Greil Marcus says, "To trace anybody's work, what they produce, what they put into the world, what you or I respond to, to somebody's life, their biography, is utterly reductionist. It's simply a way of protecting ourselves from the imagination, from the threat of the imagination."

A great quote that I found was this: "John Irving, the novelist, once said to me, "You know why that is? It's because people who don't have an imagination are terrified of people who do." I don't know if that's true, but we live in culture of the memoir, where we're not supposed to believe anything unless it's documented that it actually happened. Never mind that most memoirs are more fictional than novels. We want that imprimatur: "This really happened. This is really true." You can respond to it. You can feel "okay" about being moved by it. Whereas with art, whether music, movies, novels, painting, ultimately, to be moved by art, by something somebody has made up, is, from a certain perspective, to be tricked. To be fooled. You made me cry, and you just did it like you hypnotized me. I love that. Not everybody does"

If you have time, you should definitely check it out. Van Morrison's Moments of Disbelief

Being Offended

Over the past few weeks, I've struggled a lot with some stuff - two words, actually - that's been said to me. It wasn't anything that was said out of hatred or with malicious intent. It was just another comment - a comment in passing - that caught me off guard and, to some extent, offended me. I didn't explode or anything. Knowing me, it's pretty hard to offend me. It's just been something that I've held onto for a while. It's taught me something.

For me, when I get offended by something, usually that whatever it is means a lot to me. I never realized that it meant so much to me until now - after thinking about it for a good month. Whenever I do get offended, I hope that I become more introspective and see why a certain chord was struck - not just shrugging it aside as I used to. There's nothing to gain by just shrugging it off.

Sometimes, however, it may be wise to shrug certain comments that people make off - especially if it's not exactly constructive... At the same time, it's good to learn to see things from other people's perspective and see why they said certain things they did. When the comment that I mentioned earlier offended me, I realized that I was offended because I identified with those people. I called myself one of them. However, in the process, I've also learned that maybe there are issues with this group. What started as a comment in passing has become a learning experience for me.

Standards and Potential

There is always a standard in everything that we take part in. When I’m cooking something, for example, I expect things to be pretty good; you know, not inedible, but not like Emeril style. In some things, however, I expect perfection from myself – which I admit is a lot of pressure. In other things, however, I just take anything I get – in other words, I don’t expect myself to do too well and accept failure. I’m sure each and every one of us has preconceived notions of how we should do given a certain situation.

Thus, it’s clear that in everything I do, I have this idealized version of myself that I try to live up to or beyond. However, I feel like this is almost a depressing exercise. A lot of times, my opinion of myself is better than I actually am. So I walk away from whatever the task may be tired and defeated. It’s tough being the Ben that lives in my head [you know, tight abs, man boobs, the works… Haha… not really]. Often, it’s rather damaging to myself when this does happen.

Lately, talking with some people has opened my eyes to this. By comparing myself to this general standard of people, I will have achieved nothing. I will probably just let myself down, and not allow myself to perform as well as I could. However, the key to this is to compare myself to my potential. This is something I hope to teach myself over the next few months. It’s not about what others can do, but rather about my personal ability to do this. Similarly, I shouldn’t measure the ability of people against this same standardized measure of ability; to do so would just lead to disappointment in both parties. Rather, I should try to measure the ability of people against their own potential and praise them for achieving it. I think by doing this, the people I work with and myself will be edified.

So some questions I’m going to ask myself are: What is my potential? Have I reached my potential? What’re the potentials of people around me? Is it reflected in the way I deal with them?

We’ll see how it goes…

On Dreams

Speaking of dreams...

Generations

Each and every generation works differently. Our parents' generation was a generation that had to work hard to get anything that they wanted. As a child, if they wanted to go play baseball or something, they had to get on their feet and get a group together. However, they were used to working hard. Similarly, in college, many of our parents had to hold a job on the side to simply stay in college. There wasn't an option.

Our generation, however, is a generation that gets what they want. As a child, I grew up playing soccer and baseball and whatnot. My parents drove me to soccer practice and picked me up afterwards. There wasn't much effort on my behalf. All I had to do was be awake, put some clothes on, and walk out of the house and sit down in the car. In college, it's not really a necessity that I have a job, rather it's something that I'd like to hold onto to have that extra spending money. I know it's not necessarily the same for everyone, but as a general statement, I think it's true that we have it better off than our parents.

As a result, this influences the way we think. Yes, we may be hard-working - just like our parents. We may be just as ambitious, but one thing I lack is patience. I'm someone that wants to see tangible results. Immediate results that come as fruit from our labor. Thus, when I start a big project, it's just so easy for me to give up when things get difficult. I will have this giant dream to drastically change the world, but when troubles come my way, it's difficult for me to carry on. It's something that I believe is a shortcoming in me. I'm a dreamer, an idealist that dreams of utopia and saving the world. Unfortunately, all these dreams are too short-lived to be anything meaningful. Hopefully, however, I can dream long enough to make some of them come to life.

On Style

"it is virtually impossible for a man to dress well if he does not select his own clothing. With few exceptions, sophisticated dressers - be they men or women - rarely trust their wardrobe choices to a second party, no matter how respected or beloved that person might be. The man who aspires to cultivate a feel for stylish neckwear must be willing to immerse himself in the trial-and error process of its screening selection. A man can learn as much from a failed purchase - the tie that looked so smart in the shop but now rarely escapes his closet - as he can from one he cannot stop wearing. Confidence comes from being able to make the right decision, not having it made for you." - Alan Flusser, Style & the Man

As I was reading this book, I found this quote to be something that goes beyond dressing yourself. Interesting, interesting... I suppose it takes, at the very least, a little bit of faith to gain confidence.

Being Content

The other week, I was sitting at a booth in a pizza parlor with a friend. As my friend was getting food, I ended up talking to another man sitting in the booth right next to me. He sat there, reading his Bible with one of those neon yellow shirts that people doing construction wear. He started talking to me about his job and what he did. It was truly fascinating. This man worked for a power company. For a living, he turned off the electricity in the homes of people who failed to pay their bills. He told me about how people would send letters to him out of anger and hatred. All in all, it seemed like his job would be exactly opposite of what most people would want to do. To have to deliver bad news to people was his job.

I can't imagine doing that job - just the nature of the job would make it difficult for me to do. This man was someone that I had met for just a few minutes and had huge amounts of respect for him. I wouldn't be able to do what he's done. Perhaps, dealing with people and pissing them off was what he wanted to do, but I really doubt it. Perhaps, he had this job out of necessity, since he couldn't find work elsewhere. It was amazing how he could tell me about his job and smile about it - not in a smug way, but in a very genuine way. I could tell he was content with what he had.