What Do You Want for Christmas in Detroit

She doesn't give away things, she gives away empowerment, first of all to herself and then to everyone she can.  If Christmas is about a kid with a good idea, here's one:

She came from desperate circumstances as well and from that all of this grew.

Merry Christmas, Veronika.  You're every bit of the spirit.

"Swing Kids" (movie) - Dance, Young Jitterbugger, Dance

Before reading anything else about "Swing Kids," it's important to recognize the film for an immediate award:

Possibly the most Hollycrapulous telling of Tale of the Nazi Era 

With cute-as-a-button actors and the worst acting anywhere short of a Michele Bachmann tent revival, this movie delivers its full measure of awful.  There is a bit of observation of the social anomie that came from the prospect of becoming HJ's (Hitler Jugend or Hitler Youth) but it's relatively shallow and predictable.

The only character with much depth is Arvid, the kid with a club foot but a blazing ability to play like Django Reinhardt.  There are two live Django sets (i.e. Arvid covering him) and these are outstanding.  He also delivers a very special speech prior to his climactic moment but it's ludicrous to believe he truly would have been able to speak like that without a Nazi putting a boot in his face.  Nevertheless, the words are powerful.


(Ed:  so why in the world would I watch it?)

The dance, young jitterbugger, the dance.  This was the last time in history that dance had real elegance but I don't believe things will stay that way as you know how that story goes from "Footloose."  People need to dance, the trouble is so many don't know how to do it.  The kids in the movie knew the steps, all of them.  The dance scenes in this movie are exceptional, twerkers need not apply.

And the music.  Swing may be the most naturally-exciting music there has ever been as they used almost no electric instruments.  Symphony orchestras have more power ... but they don't got that swing.

Note 1:  Charlie Christian was one of the first to play an electric guitar and he did it for Benny Goodman.

Note 2:  The review doesn't give any indication of modern performance of the Django Reinhardt tunes and it appears all the music for the soundtrack was under license from the original artists.


My ol' Dad was a Swing Kid as he was sixteen in 1939.  He wasn't in Germany but swing was global or at least as much as the Swing Kids could make it that way.   My ol' Dad was quite the scientist but he loved swing and, man, that cat could dance.  The movie focuses on the Swing Kids of Germany and really not very well but it does give a glimpse of the revolutionary aspect of the era as so much it's thought everyone just rolled over and that's just not true.


(Ed:  you're telling me there's Christmas in Nazis?)

Noooo.  There's Christmas in Swing Kids.  In the end they won, didn't they.

"Wilder Thing" by Bad Silas (audio)

There might have been a little misbehavior in Second Life in the Bad Silas Days and, in all humility before the Committee for Tasteless Public Spectacle, I offer "Wilder Thing" with lyrics definitely not suitable for cubicle life, children, anyone with any sense of taste, actual musicians, anyone in Massachusetts, etc.

You can hear it via the Ride the Dragon podcast or via direct link to the song: "Wilder Thing"


(Ed:  don't even tell me there is any Christmas in this!)

Well, sure.  Think of it like an ugly Christmas sweater.  You've got it and now what the hell do you do with it.

The Great Reno Gambling Lesson

If you're not a tumbleweed there's not much reason to be in Reno but my family was traveling across the country and we stopped to eat, a not-inexpensive proposition with six kids and a dog.  For the convenience of restaurant customers, gambling machines were installed in each booth so no-one would ever have to miss a minute of gambling just because eating is sometimes required.

Charmed by the casual decadence, my ol' Dad decided it was time for some paternal stuff and he announced he would teach me a lesson about gambling.  He spilled a bunch of quarters out of his pocket and said he would put all of them into the machine.  Anything that comes out of it I get to keep.

My eyes brightened with same financial lust of any greedy insensitive kid.  This will be so good.

Rather than chase shaggy dogs, we'll hop right to the last quarter as of course he had planned to lose all of them so this one was just the end of the routine.


Ding ... Ding ... Ding


Quarters come shooting out of this thing all over the place.  He had hit some kind of jackpot and there were quarters galore in winnings.


So, thanks, ol' Dad, for the lesson and, hey, thanks, Santa, for the quarters.

"Spanish Key" - Miles Davis (static video)

Jazz makes some of you uncomfortable but try rolling with it and letting it grow.  Miles Davis was, in my view, the father of it all as Chick Corea is the reigning god of fusion and deservedly but before him came Miles Davis.

(Ed:  what's Christmas about this?)

This is one of my best!  This is why sax players get the girls.  It's the secret, man.  Go forth and learn how to play one.

Mellifluosity - An Under-Used Word

Mellifluosity is not a word that's used much, largely because I just invented it.  Mellifluous is when something is not only melodious but smooth as buttah, baby.  Therefore, the mellifluosity of a thing is how much capacity it has to be mellifluous.  Something high in mellifluosity would be blowing out melodies and rainbows in every direction and anything low in mellifluosity ... would go to L.A.

No additional progress on the Silas TechnoHypnoGroove Christmas Song due to a bangin', blastin', punch you in the damn face headache ... which I think is a fair excuse for slackness.

It's an intriguing exercise for me as this one is for shaking up the percussion and getting some major groove-o-matic as you can't get coolness out of simple beats.  Plus, women won't want to make babies with you.  Completely pointless.

Miles Davis once said, "all synthesizers are programmed white."

I doubt he would say that today largely because he's, well, dead but also because the expressiveness of synth has gone light years from the Walter Carlos days.

(Lighten up, please, trans-people.  He was Walter Carlos then and she's Wendy Carlos now.  Either way, my ass is kicked on playing a synth.)

As synthesizers may or may not be programmed white but drum machines are definitely programmed by demons who seek to sap your soul of motivation such that they may more easily inject their demonic influence and you will become someone forever obsessed with trying to get Filipinos to stop burying chicken eggs.

(Ed:  what does all this have to do with mellifluosity?)

Because it don't mean a thing if it don't got that swing.

The Face of Racism

Something I've learned from Facebook is that no matter what I say there is someone who will regard it as racist.  I have no intention of addressing that matter but I do have this for you.

B&W study for "Head of a Youth" by Paul W Ruiz, an Australian artist.


Here's the final work, "Head of a Youth"

There is no editorial and you don't need one anyway.  All the picture needs to say it says by itself.

Getting Your Sound Right in Second Life

There are two huge rules I learned over the years.  The first is never read open chat while you play.  The second is to open an IM window only with the venue host.

The reason for the first is that in the Bad Silas Days, people would try to break me up when I played and things got so outrageous that the only way to do the gigs was after midnight.  It's not that anyone actually did anything but it didn't faze women to get naked and say all kinds of raunchy things just to see if it would crack me up.  It would.  So that created the don't read chat rule.

Note:  you'll attract a lot of cougars doing this and take fair warning, young grasshopper, them cougars are dangerous.

Reading chat is necessary, tho.  If the venue host is worth anything, she or he will send you feedback messages on how your sound is coming through to the world.  Cat looks to me for the technical as I can usually tell what causes the audio problem and let you know.  We mean always to help and have done it many times.

It's difficult as a musician when you get your groove and you really don't want to divert any thinking away from what is driving it in your head.  Nevertheless, it's still a live show and part of that drive is the energy from the people listening so you do need to give some attention to it.  How much is your call but there can be important messages you really need to see.

As to keeping an IM open with the host.  This one is just common sense to me.  If the host can't reach you in chat then she or he will try to reach you by IM.  You absolutely need a channel open to the host at all times.  My preference is IM as then I don't have to search through chat to find the message and it will light up to bring attention to it.

We want to help and we can do it.  If your stream has trouble, we can set you up on another one.  If your audio clips then we can usually tell what instrument does it.  Most important to keep in mind is that your sound may be perfect on your end but it may not get transmitted that way depending on the complexity of your kit.  Keep that channel open with the host and you will know immediately.

That's how it works at Cat's Art MusikCircus.  Also important to know is the audience there is always highly-focused on listening.  This isn't a hey, baby, what's your sign kind of place.

The Silas TechnoHypnogroove Christmas Song

The loop plays in the background right now as it's hypnotic for some stupid reason I don't even understand.

Yes, it does have bells.  A Christmas song has to have bells.  And it has angel voices as you've got to have angels plus a li'l cherub with a triangle.

(No, I am not making this up)

It also uses a big synth with arpeggiation as you wonder where did that come from.  Where indeed.

It might have groovulousness.  This is the in-between with playing guitar with it.  Usually I kill the loop when I sit down as it will be there when I come back but still it plays.  Mystifying effect.

The object isn't to be shocking, maybe like Hendrix doing "The Star-Spangled Banner," but rather to use the voices that feel relevant to how I want it to feel.  There will be no disrespect in it or the song is a fail.  It isn't going to fail ... or I murder it before it ever sees daylight.  Life is hard for one my loops.

If not this loop then I will work up another one.  It's a very slow build as I use a lot of instruments and I can pass that off as growing ambience ... but only for so long.

I love how this stuff comes out of nowhere.  I start thinking, man, you need to be playing something and maybe not even anything in particular in mind ... just make some music happen.  Then it does happen and all I can say is thank you to the Necromancer.

(This Necromancer doesn't steal souls or have any other nasty habits, he just likes to talk to them.)


Sometimes people from Facebook may read this and question what's real but if you don't know already then you probably never will.  Facebook won't teach you anything except that I will not back down from my positions on things and I won't be intimidated into it.  Facebook is just a performance.  Some realize it and likely many don't.  I don't mean just for me but for themselves.

The thirty days of Christmas aren't going to stop as I have no intention of taking positions on things because the absurdity of world relationships becomes less interesting when it's predictably ludicrous.  For example, typically conflict in the Middle East means fuel prices rise but now I hear the price of fuel in the $2.xx dollar per gallon range.  Somebody is gaming the whole world.  Unknown who that someone may be but it's probably to break Putin or some such grand endeavor and then it runs back up again.  Roly poly fish heads, eat 'em up, yum.  There's money going down and there's money going up.  Hi de ho.

So there's no debate as oil goes down, it goes back up.  We've seen this so many times and all we know from that is roly poly fish heads, eat 'em up, yum.  I'll be going with the Silas TechnoHypnoGroove Christmas Song instead.

Right now it gestates as there is Near Coolness but I'm thinking the next one is The Coolness ... or the one after that.

An Important Day

Such a day doesn't need flags and bunting
and there should not be any tears
although sometimes they will come

It's just important it be remembered
and known for what it was
and continues to be

Anything that ever existed
exists forever
or as long as anyone remembers it

It probably doesn't matter which.

Sometimes words have two meanings
and sometimes many more
or none at all

We remember the feelings and the visions
but the words not so much
just the sounds

Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie,
all kinds of crazy bands
like collecting music

Stevie Ray Vaughan played for us
looking so happy for the last show he did
and then he was gone

Collecting rocks and moving dirt
but finally the grass is dead
and flowers grow

And we could feel so daring
when we went skinny-dipping
in the pool at night

Or sometimes winding up in hospitals
I'm sorry for how much that hurt
but I love to ride

There is selfishness in risk
and love
but how can life be interesting without both
and I apologize

Even though I would probably do it again

Having done these things, I will always do them again
and so will you as that's what we remember
and smile.

Shirley Temple Hates My Drum Machine

There is no evidence Shirley Temple ever hated anything ... but ... if she heard my drum machine, she would hate it.  Cat seriously hates it as she has heard it a lot.  I hate it too and not because Cat hates it as I hated it already.

But ...

There are drum kits in most synthesizers and the layout of the drums on the keyboard is largely the same for all of them.  I don't have them memorized but maybe C3 is a kick drum and each other key has another component of a drum kit or some type of percussion sound.

So I got a loop going and I wanted zero chords, there would only be snippets from each voice and it was my intention to use a lot of them ... which I did.  That made kind of a cool groove but then I started screwing with a drum kit.  I've been doing this for years and I never liked using a keyboard for a drum kit ... but ... lighten up and give it another go.

That turned a groove into a gas and that's got to be good, right.  There was the boring basic drum sequence from the machine but the drum kit on the synth allowed me to add 'off' beats to make it a whole lot more groovulous.

Off to the guitar and then musical heaven.  It's not recorded as I was just screwing around before there was to be a show.  The thought came to my head and so I had to try it but there wasn't time to develop it.  Making a jam band trip isn't hard as you lay out four bars on the looper and twiddle lead lines until people beg for mercy.  What I want here is similar but I want the bars to be more than chords that really only set the color of the walls.  That makes it more complicated but that's cool as we discover in a subsequent article that complicated music is more likely than simple music to make women want to make babies with you.  If there is any other purpose to music, I'm not aware of it.

I don't know if Santa Claus or the Necromancer brought this one to me but thanks.

Christmas in Havana

Obama has opened an engagement with Cuba with the purpose of normalizing relations.  This is the most positive foreign policy move I have seen in decades and if you need a reason to open relations with Cuba then you show me only you have never seen Cubans dance.

This, in my view, is akin to #IllRideWithYou on Twitter.  An Australian saw a Muslim woman take off her headgear for fear of being attacked in retribution for the hostage incident in Sydney.  The Australian girl asked her not to take it off and told her I'll ride with you.  From that simple thing a movement was born.

There's nothing but goodness that comes from opening relations with Cuba just the same as when you ride with someone and talk with them.  Caribbean cruises are going to get a whole lot more interesting and it looks like Australia just got a whole lot cooler.

The only ones who might have reason to be annoyed by opening up with Cuba are people in Aruba.  As a vacation destination, Aruba is much more South where it's really not far from the coast of Venezuela. Cuba is much closer and bigger.  It was the party capital of the Caribbean once before and I'm sure they can get right back there again.

Any questions?