Joshua Van Tassel

Here’s an update on this tune. It feels a bit strange putting this stuff up here for anyone who stumbles by to hear, but its good. Why not? I can’t really think of any reasons. If you have some let me know, and I’ll definitely think very long and hard about what you’ve said.

Yesterday I posted a rough demo idea of a tune I was starting to work on. I thought it may be interesting (maybe only to me) to keep track of the growth of this tune on this little site. See how tall it is after a few days, how much faster it’s growing then all the other songs, find out what it’s eating to make it get tall so fast, etc. So here’s the first part. Super bare bones, but you need to start somewhere….. to have a start….like, a beginning, you know….. Anyway, you get it.

No matter how tall I get I still look exactly the same, weird..I’m like a sea monkey…. 

I’ve been trying hard to finish up a batch of tunes lately, but just can’t seem to do it, and I’m realizing that’s ok. I’ve been talking to some artist friends lately who show such patience in their work, and once they reach that point in a piece where they know know there’s only a couple things missing, they don’t try to force all the square pegs in the round holes. So I started working on some new stuff. Here’s a little demo of a thing I’m going to work on today.

Both are shaking the tree. In my case the christmas tree. Here’s what it sounds like. I miss Christmas sometimes.

Toronto cab drivers are some of the hardest working, toughest, and most family orientated people I’ve met in my life. They always seem to have some kind of interesting story or opinion that if you’re willing to listen, they’ll tell you. Last night my cab driver wanted to talk, and I listened. Here’s a little conspiracy theory for you from Steve the cab driver, with some suuuuper creepy am 640 talk radio afterwards. …..

Obviously judging from the whole nature of this site, I’m interested in sounds. Music is organized sound which is one of the reasons I love it so much. All of us in our daily lives are bombarded by millions of sounds all at once, and we rely on our ears and brain to sort them all out for us.

Some of these become really special to us, and we keep them close and need to hear them at certain times when we’re happy, sad, scared, etc. Sounds act like an emotional anchor for people in times of stress.

I met a really cool person the other night who brought one of these sounds for me to hear that was special to her. She carries this beautiful little music box in her purse at all times almost, and trusted me enough to lend it to me to have a listen to. Here it is for everyone, and maybe it’ll do the same thing for you that it does to her. If you have a sound like this, keep it close and use it often, and maybe it’ll save your life.

this is what special looks like with the top off.

Chicken broth + rice + raisins + cashews = my girlfriend is a genius

I got to do some good work yesterday, here’s a clip from a sad little song I’m working on. I think since my guitar is smaller then most, he gets upset and only wants to sing sad songs about being so small. Poor guy. He still sounds good though, and I don’t think he should try and over compensate for anything. No fast red cars for my guitar.

january was a good month for me. My full time job was to make tea and create interesting music. Now I’ve returned to some form of “reality” where I have to go to “real job” most days and communicate with other humans using actual language, not just strange sounds transformed into other strange sounds. I’m home in the lab today, and remembered how great it was to do this every day. If you’re making art on a daily basis as a career, don’t quit your day job, it sounds like you have a great one.

I have a fantastic friend Ainsley who is making a very exciting record right now, and she lent me her vibraphone. It’s such a peaceful wonderful instrument that I just had to make it do something peaceful and morning like right away.

I promise not to make any jokes about bad vibes on this website. 

Out of all the microphones in microphone land, there’s arguably one that is the duct tape equivalent of the recording world. The tried and true, indestructible, use it on everything (even on the presidential lectern) SM 57.

For years every engineer regardless of how experienced they are have been using these mics. Except me. For some reason I thought that maybe I could try and get some new and different sounds, things unique to myself. Why use the exact same gear everyone else does? Do all painters have to use the same brush? Do all basketball players wear the exact same shoe? It all sounds quite noble, until I realized what I was recording sounded pretty terrible.

So here’s my public apology to the 57 in audio form, a nice little dark break beat recorded with one mic, and kaoss pad type stuff added after using the 57 again. How could I be so foolish? I love you..

I’m so sorry….never again…..I can’t live without you….