Joshua Van Tassel

So I’ve been working away steadily sometimes, other times not, on a lot of new music. Most of it seems to fall in 2 categories :

1. stuff that’s good for listening at 2:30am on Saturday night after you get home from being out participating in whatever nefarious activities you get up to these days

or

2. stuff to listen to on Sunday mornings while you recover from the aforementioned night out.

I’ve been thinking about putting it all out as one record, then thinking about other stuff, then realizing that wait a minute, no one actually cares how it comes out or maybe if it comes out at all! Liberation, therefore I do whatever I want I suppose.

So.

I’m putting the night time stuff on an ep that’ll be up here for a very affordable price in download form hopefully in the next 2 weeks. I work better with deadlines, so if there’s nothing here by Valentines day, send me a get-your-shit-together email.

So here’s the first tune on it, called Octopus. Have a listen, and if you like it, come back in a little while and grab it with all 8 arms and a mastering job.

According to this lady who had a very interesting voice and an even more interesting hat on.

When an idea comes to you, sometimes you take note of it in the first place you can find that’ll hold it. Sometimes you’re in such a hurry to get it down that you not only forget where you put it but what the idea even was in the first place or what the hell you were going to do with it or if it was even any good at all. This is one of those. I found it tacked on to the end of a piece I’ve been mixing, sort of 5 minutes down after it ended. It’s not particularly good, I just think it’s neat to find these things and try and remember where they came from or why.

It’s so nice and sunny and I’m up early, and here’s something that made me happy. If a loop was condensation I’d be in the middle of a large threatening dark cloud that covered most of the eastern part of the city.

a loop and good night.

Surprised? Hmmm.
Played with some great folks this week and had some fun. I got to witness a group slow dance while playing a over of “helpless” and had someone yell a request to play “Kokomo”. That was a first.
Here’s a little thing from this morning, there’s no pipes buzzing and all is quiet. Except for the neighbor above me literally coughing his lungs out and smoking weed at 10 am on a Sunday morning. To each their own.

As a bit of an audio pervert, I set certain rules for myself pertaining to sounds I won’t record. Some are for moral reasons, others because I just don’t like the sound and dont’ think anyone really wants/needs to hear it. Crying and mournful sounds aren’t something I’m interested in listening to on repeat in my headphones, and neither are the sounds of homeless or less fortunate people. I’m extremely lucky to do what I do for a living, and have a nice cozy apartment where I make all sorts of things and spend time with all sorts of people. I don’t feel the need to take advantage of hearing something people would consider starnge or funny coming from the mouth of a person who may or may not have the mental capacity to understand what they’re saying. It cheapens things and I feel as if I’d be taking advantage of someone else’s compromised situation. HOWEVER, this homeless lady

really pissed me off, so she gets blogged. Some of you may have seen her. She’s very aggressive and frequents the TTC. She happened to be on my subway car giving her speech about nt having eaten for 3 days and she’s very hungry and can we please give her money for food life is hard we don’t get it. Well color me pink, I happen to have a really good salami sandwich and apple in my bag that I was going to eat, but she obviously needs it more then me. I offer her the sandwich expecting maybe a cursory thanks, even mumbled, whatever. What do I get?

whispered “go fuck yourself.”

sorry? Come again? Oh, go fuck myself. Rrrrrrright. The one person on this entire car who will actually take his ipod headphones out of his ears, acknowledge you, and then give you food. Of course, telling me to fuck myself will insure that once again my ever dwindling Nova Scotian spirit of brotherhood and helping one another out shrinks that much more into the urban sprawl. I’m sure you could sense that about me, and in your quest to procure money to buy drugs and god know what else, heaven forbid someone should actually try to give you EXACTLY WHAT YOU ASKED FOR. Food. Sorry, my apologies. I’d reach into my pocket to give you money but I’m too busy fucking myself and getting out my H4 to help support your habit.

I tried, and I’ll continue to try.

It’s new music Tuesday! There’s some of this out today and some of this too. They both sound great. Nice to know there’s interesting and emotionally effective stuff still being made and supported. If I had $40 I’d tell you what I’d do…..

It’s been a couple days since I’ve been here, my apologies to the on average 7.3 of you who visit, especially to the 0.3. You’ve probably got a lot of things to deal with being only a percentage of a person, and the last thing you need is a lazy musician sound blogger not updating and giving you something to read. I really messed up your day and I’m sorry.
So a person close to me has been going through a really rough time, probably the roughest any of us will really have to deal with. it’s made think about a lot of things, but mainly how as people we don’t seem to react in a completely truthful way until the chips are really down and the end seems to be near.

When someone is terminally ill, generally flowers, letters, cards, and all sorts of different kinds of love in tangible form seem to pour in. That’s fine and I understand that it’s important to feel supported in times of need and stress. What my point is is why we have to wait until the point where it’s almost too late to really make these things known to each other? Are we then doing it to put ourselves at peace more so then for the benefit of the person who is receiving the sentiments? It’s tough to say.
I wish, and not to sound too “give peace a chance lets make our utopia heal everything” about it, we could express even some of these things to each other that we seem to reserve for that last moment. I know there’s many of you out there who do this on a daily basis, and I congratulate and admire you. I don’t and I’m really going to try. I talk so much shit sometimes that I have close friends who don’t know when to take me seriously. That needs to change.
Preachiest blog entry in the history of my little space ( 1 year last week by the way, happy birthday joshuavt.com!!)*, but I feel like this is important. here’s part of something quiet I was working on last night when it was snowing and I couldn’t seem to find some sleep.

** thanks a million times over to web lord Robin Senior for keeping everything here and oh so easy for me to pontificate and play ambient sounds.