Walking the Dog Part II

So Max texts me about how I thought about doing the magazine as more of a 'zine and then do the flashy slick shit on the web. I actually felt better about it. I like the idea of more hands on, and the ability to have content continuous, AND issue to issue. I'm thinking of blogs, short articles and Tuesday music reviews and Friday movie reviews, or maybe staying away from that - we want to be new and exciting. I miss the staple cut and paste work of a 'zine. I'm sure the computer will play a huge part in it, but I think layout will be less restricting. 

Walking the dog is the only real time to listen to music. I've been going to the Library a lot lately and getting music. I'm in a weird place when it comes to music. I can't do pop. I used to love the Beatles, Beach Boys, Modest Mouse, and other straight pop rock music, but now my ears demand more. My shuffle now has the composer John Adams, Eric Burdon, Minor Threat, James Brown, Sexton Blake, Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis - and it's on shuffle. Jesse, my girlfriend, listens to nothing but pop. My friends not only listen to pop, they play pop music for a living.

I'm not anti-pop at all. I still enjoy it, but when I'm alone, I need more to it. I have been loving the minamalist composers like Phillip Glass, Steve Reiche and Adams. It has been fun rediscovering bop with Davis, Coltrane and the Monk. It seems like there is so much sound that hasn't been discovered, or hasn't been given enough listens. The guitar seems so over used, and no matter how many guitar geniuses and guitar gods are out there, it's old. The clarinet did not get enough decades to mature and be stretched to the audio limits.

I have been trying to learn piano, but I don't practice much, so it's failing. I mention this because sometimes the composing bug bites me and I go to sleep to whole symphonies that I have written. 

Alex Ross wrote a book called the Rest is Noise. That book opened a lot of doors musically for me. Modern composition music is rich and experimental and beautiful and ugly. There is a lot of it. 

That's the thoughts I had while walking around the neighborhood with my dog Nanuk. As soon as I can figure out how to post pictures on this sight, I will post some of Nanuk.