Joshua Van Tassel

Due to modern technology, all of us have now been given the gift of foresight, or in pop culture terms spidey sense. We know when our cell phones are about to ring. How? Any electronic device that we happen to be within 4 feet of that has speakers starts to buzz like a swarm of angry hornets, and we immediately look around at the people close to us and everyone makes a very overused and generally terrible joke about whose it is.

It really isn’t enough to put your phone on silent; I have a good friend not only turns his phone off at concerts/events, but actually takes the battery out. That’s dedication, or, a paranoid obsession. either way, I think it’s cool.

I however am not usually that clever, and while working on music this morning my phone began the pre ring which went directly into the track I was recording. As my homage to the phone gods and radio waves, here’s a short kind of annoying piece using that buzz. I’ve learned my lesson and have been listening to the same sound in various forms for about 45 minutes. Check it out for 1:30 and give yourself a reminder.

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They’re in your phone and they want out.

Todays music maker is dish soap. Long have I gazed on the little bubbles it sometimes makes as I squeeze it just so to hear that sweet little whistling, and a slight pop. As I washed a mug this morning it cried out to me, ” I have a song in me!!! Take me!!!” I did the best I could to capture everything it was saying in it’s watery squeaky voice. I’ve also had too much coffee to early without anything to eat. I may be hallucinating.

Anyway, here it is. The goal with these things is to take just one otherwise “ignored” item and to try and milk it for all it’s interesting sounds, or at least enough to make some sort of music. Anything in the piece comes from that object specifically. It’s a lot of fun to try and do a few of these a week, it’s like doing push ups in morning. Geek push ups. If you have an something interesting sounding at home and you make something with it, send it to me and I’d be proud to post it here. Then again, I think everything sounds interesting, so just make music.

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I spoke a while ago about releasing something that resembles a record, and even though I’ve been on a bit of a break from it, the plan still exists. Here’s a preview of a finished tune from said album that is forthcoming….hopefully…soon…..ish. Let me know what you think, in this case specific to the tune. Or any other really pressing issues you want to get off your chest.

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One of the most interesting parts of being a musician that I’m constantly learning about over time is the whole process of making an album. Every single person you talk to has a different way to approach it. Some need a multi thousand dollar a day complex in Hawaii, others demand vocals done in a church bell tower, and some just want to drink tea and hide in their basement. It’s all relevant and it all works differently for different people.

I’ve been lucky enough lately to do some remixing with stop.die.resuscitate and myself for a few artists that I really respect and love. We were talking yesterday about the whole process, and on a purely geek level, I love doing them because you get a behind the scenes look at what the artist has done to put their song together. You get to hear the separate vocal track, complete with the foot shuffling and usually inaudible grunting of the singer, the creaking of drum stools, and dozens of other interesting sounds that get lost in a full mix of a band. The other crazy thing is that sometimes you listen to individual tracks and realize that alone they sound TERRIBLE, but through the magic combination of whatever each of those musicians do, it adds up to an amazing performance/song.

Here’s something I’m working on for the brave and the bold, Ronley Teper. She’s one of our most creative and interesting song writers, and she’s the only person that lets me use samples of my cat, bees, dolphins, and rusted cans all in the same set…..

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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….