Joshua Van Tassel

blip and zoops to distract you from the punishment you’re inflicting on yourself. For what reason? Well, all your friends are, so who are you to not?

If you’ve read this blog before, then you know I have an on going love affair with sounds of all kinds. Something I love to do is record regular everyday sounds and sneak them into my music making by flipping or reversing or destroying them. Sometimes though, I come across sounds that are just really interesting on their own. Like washing my plastic cutting board. It sounds like a combination between a thunder storm and a spaceship taking off. Today,I love it.

got married this weekend – (and yes I’m aware this picture is pretty bad, but it’s the only one I have….)

let me hang out with their babies –

….and fed me some cucumbers they grew in their garden.

I also spent some time producing a tune with the lovely Sarah Kurtis the other day, and we’re working on a sweet sounding little thing that goes like this so far….

[audio:

That’s what I’m I’ve been thinking about the past couple days while trying to write this piece for an upcoming event. It and 3 others are mostly done ( I think) and I’m happy with how things are sounding. More details when I can….

I did a really fun show with one of my favorite songstresses Laura Barrett a little while ago, and CBC3 has put it up on the “concerts and sessions” section of the site. The weather was stormy, the place was sweaty and loud, but we had some fun. Check it out here

no instrument is too small or too plastic for us to play with laura..

My lady loves it when I update my blog while we’re playing a game. Really. Ask her.

I think it’s fascinating that I’m able to take this picture of a sheep and instantly post it on my site with just this phone. Crazy. I’m not sponsored in any way, but I really do think the iPhone is something else. Something good that is. Once they get audio enabled on this thing I’ll give my laptop to the first person who comments…….

Here’s the sound of me getting the plates for my little car – the woman at the MTO was giving me lots of funny looks as I placed the H4 on the counter and said ” don’t mind that”, and continued to shoot it and me mistrusting looks throughout the transaction, but it’s done.

I also went to see The Dark Knight, as did everyone else in the world. And not unlike mot other people in the world, I thought it was pretty great. Really dark, but really great.
I think what disturbs me most about the movie isn’t the fact that a psychopath playing crazy killing jokes on people is portrayed so well that it’s terrifying; it’s the fact that a real human being had to sit and think about those killing games A screen writer, director, whoever, but someone’s job was to sit and think of complex and horrifying riddles that would involve the deaths of multiple people and keep everyone confused.

the line up for the line to get in line to get in the theater.

Down in front.

We got up to a good looking Saturday morning an decided to take my little dalmation car for a spin to Cherry Beach.
It seems like the really cool thing to do in Toronto is to complain about how shitty Toronto is. It’s too dirty, it’s too smoggy, etc. If these gripes sound familiar, do something about them. There’s a ton of places in the city where you can go and feel like you’re nowhere near the urban sprawl, and this morning I definitely felt like I was in one of them. Lots of dogs, lots of babies, and people just relaxing. It’s summer, there’s a lot of beautiful places here, so go find them.

Ok, I admit, it still looks a bit smoggy, but I won’t let it bring me down…..