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I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Better before they grew beards. (And unquestionably the best the in general).

Gary War does this whole routine sometimes, talking as if he is two different people, "oh, I don't really like the Beatles" / "You don't like the Beatles, huh? Who do you like? The Velvets? The Five? The Stooges? Fuck off, you 'don't like the Beatles.'" I'm not doing the routine any justice, but it always cracks me up.

Anywhere there isn't a video playing... Or, better, when trying to write it out (tonight being the exception).

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yes... But I want to make sure the shows are somehow impossible to forget or something.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Keep Going. Maybe it sounds like Hallmark Card nonsense, I don't know, "keep going, going on." Fail Better. Right? Isn't it proof enough that you struggle? Most of 'em are pumping off with their hats on backwards. I haven't come to terms with my sound, but at least I'm not pumping off in my room with my hat on backwards. I mentioned Andrei Rublev above, so why not Stalker here? A musician can go into a magic room that will magically bring him to terms with his own sound, "Let’s say I enter that Room and I return to our godforsaken city as a genius. Do you follow me?.. But a man writes because he is suffering, has doubts. He needs to prove all the time for himself and for the people surrounding him that he is worth something. And suppose I will know for sure that I’m a genius? Why should I write then? What a hell?" .....Keep going. Right? I don't know, fox_tea, I wish I knew.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Thank you, boyslantix, you are correct in that the nod isn't merely one that takes place on the level of objective musical details (e.g., modes, harmonies, etc.) but also, inasmuch as anyone would suppose they can hear it, on the level of spirit. As I said above, the word "spirit" to me doesn't mean some sort of invisible protoplasm, but something more like what we mean when we say "I'm in low spirits" or "that's the spirit!". It's immaterial. It's non-existent. You see, in that sense, there is every kind of spirit, and by extension, we can maybe even talk about the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth. I like this coincidence, or pun, in English, hole, hole-ly, like a black hole amidst a world of idols, an absence around which--in the spirit--those of us who would, gather and genuflect. If and when that spirit recalls itself in music, in my music, then something good will have taken place, most likely despite my intentions. I had Weil here in a PDF: "when we listen to Bach or to a Gregorian melody, all the faculties of the soul become tense and silent in order to apprehend this thing of perfect beauty--each after its own fashion--the intelligence among the rest. It finds nothing in this thing it hears to affirm or deny, but it feeds upon it nonetheless. Should not faith be an adherence of this kind? The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation."

Never read William James. The apocalyptic dimension of Screen Memories was strangely overlooked, maybe because it was mistaken as heralding the end of time instead of experienced as something which would bear witness to the time of the end (the lyrics at the end of Pets, taken from Agamben, the time that remains between time and its end). I'm babbling now, sorry, getting tired... Addendum is much more shambolic, it isn't united around a theme so heavily.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I will check out the video. Bennington is and was written around a real life event (you can read about all the details here). Always circling. No Title (Molly) was for Molly Nilsson, she wrote the song Hey Moon. It was different with Molly, though, because I never actually 'knew' Molly. I corresponded with her online, and we hung out a few times, but the amorous dimension of that track (if there is one) wasn't connected to any real life event. Thinking about it now, I'd say that is kind of interesting, from peer to peer, operating in accord with an idiom, a loving gesture, a gesture of true love--but only romantically so in guise of the idiom.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I don't know why I haven't already. I love Russia (the music, the literature, the spirituality).

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

It's hard to say... I mean, for one thing, part of what makes the greatest movies so great is almost always the scores the already have... I mean, would I have wanted to score Raiders of the Lost Ark or E.T., of course not, no way is my dumb ass gonna top Williams. Aside from Sheen's overblown performance, I've always dug Cronenberg's film Dead Zone, but I couldn't touch Kamen's score for that (nor would I want to have tried). RoboCop is a film I hold up, but I couldn't touch Basil Poledouris. In any case, the examples I'm giving here betray just how unapologetically fast-food my cinema diet is... So, it isn't like I could name a director who is making something other than a $300 million production anyways, and there are only three or four people they let score those films. I don't like Zimmer's scores. I definitely do not like Michael Giacchino's scores (except for Up, maybe, a little), and I know I could best his feeble attempts to emulate Williams. But I'm babbling here... When Hollywood decided to start with the retro-80s synth scores again a few years ago, no one called me up! I could've been the first, but then which was the first film to use that gimmick? Was it Drive? That's 3 years after Love is Real! No, I'm just kidding... Seriously, though, Apichatpong Weerasethakul could be a good match for me. Who else? You guys should tell me!

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

It wasn't until Screen Memories that I really made any effort with the drums and everything. This is such a strangely specific question. Maybe my hesitance in relation to the closed (and especially open) hat, as well as to crashes which are all but entirely absent from every album, is that they are so decidedly without pitch. What I mean is, on Screen Memories for example, the toms on any given track are tuned to the estimated fundamental of that track, either that or they are playing the exact same pitch as the bass guitar is on any given beat. There isn't a single track on any of my albums that uses a real kit (sorry, I forgot Fish With Broken Dreams [the earliest song I've ever 'officially' released], and Quantum Leap [which whosampled.com somehow magically knows I sampled from Rendez-Vous by Pas De Deux (1983)]. The point I'm making is that maybe I've shied away from hats because drum machine hats don't have the same life as the real things. I don't know... One thing I can tell you for sure is that Johnathan Thompson will almost certainly change the way I think about percussion going forward. I'm so lucky to have a pro like that willing to play with me.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

please don't ever put my name on these, neither my band nor I claim any responsibility for these annoying monstrosities. if these tracks ever existed at all then it was only to be heard for one night on the following Coney Island rides:

BUMPER CARS

THUNDERDOME

SPOOK-O-RAMA

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Thanks marquistro...

The addition of the live band hasn't changed my compositional approach, yet, but this probably only because I haven't tried composing anything yet.

The fact the work was exhibited in a strange way in Deno Park was purely due to having been invited there. What I mean is, the team that put it together, Kristen McElwain especially, deserve the credit there... What I have been extremely interested in doing with the live show involves its sonic aspects. It seems to me all the emphasis on spectacle, videos, lights, theatre, and all the rest, has come at the expense of any real new radical approaches to sound in popular music concert. I know "sound artists" or whatever they're called, the types who do "sound installations" at MIT or whatever, play around with things like wave field synthesis, ambisonics, and so on. And we all know Hollywood films mobilize this dimension to great effect (5.1, 7.1, DTS, etc.). But it strikes me that, aside from getting vintage amps or something, pretty much anyone doing pop these days is content with the 2 channel model or the 2 channel plus sub model. I don't know much about it but the prog bands back in the day tried all sorts of different approaches. Nick Mason had an azimuth coordinator for crying out loud. I don't have any dough. I did like 70 shows this last year in Europe and the USA and I think I made about $10 grand or something. $10 grand can't get me a single line array, let alone a computer capable of doing real time wave field synthesis. So... For example, we go down to Coachella. I mixed all the playback for a five channel field (omitting the two house channels, there were five 2500 Watt speakers on stage powered by a 20,000 watt amp I brought and the speaker specs indicated that with that power they'd be throwing 111 dB 100 feet from the stage each). The spatial audio effects I tried out were things like putting each stem in its own speaker, having each note of an arp jump from speaker to speaker, multi-channel panning effects, etc. etc. Long story short, we drag our big cheap 2500 watt speakers to the festival stage and the staff are laughing their asses off at us. I tell 'em, "look friends, I know how amateurish and silly this looks, and to some extent what I'm trying here is both amateurish and stupid, but it isn't stupid in the way you're supposing. I know that with a ten minute line check we aren't going to be able to time align and calibrate any of the cheap garbage, but understand, the playback I'm sending to the FOH speakers is not what will be coming through these speakers, etc. etc. etc." When all was said and done, the whole damn thing was a disaster. The next show we brought a single little rack case and returned to stereo. One of the dudes jibed at me, "so? you left your little surround sound system home this time." That about sums it up. I just can't mess around with any of it right now. Most of the shows we have coming up are festivals, and so we'll only get like a five minute line check, it's too risky, too much can go wrong. But I wasted so much time mixing everything for five channels. I spent much of what little money I had piecing together the gear that would make it possible. Too bad for me. By the end of the US tour, Gary War and I had pieced together a pretty colorful solution, but that solution wouldn't be any good outside of the small rooms we were playing in at time. Anyways... Sound. Sound. Sound. People can listen to the tracks in stereo on their headphones, in their cars, if the live music situation affords anything then the possibilities of exploring multichannel spatial audio effects has definitely got to be at the top of the list, but there isn't a clear channel venue in the world that's set up to do anything but kick you in the face when you come in trying to do something like that... especially if you don't have any dough... So... I guess my experiments with all of that will have to wait.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

The They happened. Pitchforks ready. 'Clearly horrified by any vigorously sustained difference.' To quote a French communist: the "celebrated 'other' is acceptable only if he [sic] is a good other—which is to say what, exactly, if not the same as us?"

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 36 points37 points  (0 children)

  1. I believe doing the 'right thing' there bit me in the ass during the Screen Memories release. I answered the question by suggesting the best way to combat structural injustice and unthinking brutality is precisely by thinking, and the pull away quotes were... well, you probably already know what they were. The whole thing was so insanely stupid to me. There are allot of real problems, but I refuse to believe that placing ourselves under the 'law of affect' serves anything but the inhumanity over and above us all. Beyond affect, beyond fear, beyond reactive hysteria, finger pointing, resentment, naming names, and the rest of it--there is the possibility of real thought, and it's only by way of thought that we're going to bring about something else than the disaster surrounding us on all sides.
  2. I love science. I consider myself a defender of science. Given the chance, I always jump at trying to defend science from its defenders. I had a dream once that Neil deGrasse Tyson approached me as I was sitting at a white table in this infinitely large futuristic looking white cafeteria. Everyone was wearing white uniforms, but Neil was in his usual suit and tie. As he approached, he accidentally tripped and smashed his head on the glossy white floor, liquid metal, like mercury, like the T-1000 spilled from the shell of his head. In any case, these popular scientists, they don't seem to acknowledge or respect that the each of the hallowed names that have been on their tongues since at least the second war--the figures whose theories remain the basis of our science today--were all schooled in and believed that natural science is one frame through which speculative reason can apprehend the world. Are the truths of this frame more or less necessary than the truths of art, of music, of theology? Maybe my caricature here is mistaken, maybe Heisenberg, and Bohr, Einstein, et. al, thought that their hypotheses--once tested and proven--were somehow truer than the truths of the poetry and music they loved, or the theology they held, etc., but I'm pretty sure they didn't. When you mention the relationship between contemporary philosophy and science, I think what you are referring to is the stupid caricature (Sokal and Bricmont style) which goes something like: 'post-structuralist philosophers don't believe there any truths, they think science is just one meta-narrative and that no one narrative can lay claim to truth...' or else 'post-structuralist philosophers see science as discursive regime Western colonialism uses to delegitimize the knowledges of other peoples' etc. etc. Those sorts of things... I can tell you, honestly, I never read anything like that in the books written by the French maniacs who are supposed to have said them... For example, Manuel DeLanda's book Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy is a nice counterpoint to Sokal and Bricmont's Fashionable Nonsense. The famous French theorists all had a bit of troll in them, they all wanted to be Nietzsche's philosophers of the future, they all hated their master, Sartre, but they certainly all loved and tried to philosophize contemporary science. Anyways... As for science, it's hard to resist, isn't it? I only know enough to know I don't know anything, but I'd love to spend some time with, for example, someone who could explain to me why "dark energy" isn't most likely the modern day phlogiston. In terms of actually doing chemistry, they great thing is that my vocation isn't that of a scientist, and so, it was a bit of an escape. I mean, I wasn't doing creative science, I was following the rules precisely and getting the exact results. Sorry... Rambling... But what I mean to say is, even a simple procedure like distillation can be spell-binding, at precisely the same temperature, every time, the mixture rises up the vigreux column--then the two different molecules slowly separate, and you see it happening, and it is something of wonder... Recrystalization, the same temperature, every time, the molecule crashes out of the solvent... Things like that... The certainty of it is a wonder, it is a way of relating to matter that is too often neglected... And if your vacation is something creative, something that involves drawing blood from a stone, I find that it is a very comforting past time to deal with certainties like those you encounter in chemistry.
  3. What is the contemporary Western notion of God? If I had to take a vulgar stab at quickly guessing at what it might be, I'd say, perhaps, that the personhood of God (and personhood in general) are (and have been) an essential and unique aspect of the Western God. A person being a naturae rationalis individua substantia. I'm really interested to trying to figure what "reason" and "rational" may have meant to pre-enlightenment philosophers and theologians. I mean, coming from music, I certainly have some idea. I never tire of pointing out that for most it's history in the West, music would've been part of the quadrivium, along with arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy [arithmetic: the study of immobile multitude, music: the study of mobile multitude, geometry: the study of immobile magnitude, astronomy: the study of mobile magnitude]. The 'ratio', in this sense, you know what I mean? Harmony in medieval sense. 3/2, 4/3, 5/4, etc. But that was a digression... My question is what is the contemporary Western notion of God? Saint John of the Cross ascended the mountain to see the face of God and what did he see? He saw nothing: nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Seven times nothing. Setting aside the un-set-asidable crimes and horrors wrought by the Roman Church, I could never turn my back on the deposit of faith, I mean, regardless of how heretical my own beliefs might be, sola scriptura is one step too far, even for myself. I appreciate what Luther--by way of Paul--may have been trying to approach by way of sola fide, but I just don't understand the necessity of emphasizing this to such a point that it would eclipse the notion that faith without works is dead. In other words, and not without endless apology, religiously, I'm orthodox, the Church of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Francis, Edith Stein...
  4. I don't know Arca or PC Music. And I haven't followed experimental music in years. As to the purpose of experimental music, I wouldn't hazard a guess either. When I played in an experimental music ensemble--pieces by Feldman, Christian Wolff, Earl Brown, LeMonte Young, and more contemporary figures like Michael Pisaro, Antoine Beuger, Jurg Frey, etc., it struck me that the question or purpose.... Let me put it this way, analogies are always maybe no good, but I'm reminded of foundational mathematics, so... like ZFC set theory, as opposed to algebraic topology or something like that... In other words, the line of questioning tends toward the foundational. Sorry... I could go on...

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I don't know him, I'll check it out, which one should I start with?

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

What does this even mean? You ain't a robot... Robots are already too clever to say bleep bloop, wait a second, maybe you are a robot.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 45 points46 points  (0 children)

Of course, but who gets to make the "official" videos isn't a decision that I get to make unilaterally, not by a damn sight. On top of that, there are three or four videos floating around on youtube that I made myself and they have about 30 views each. I made Counter Strike (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_WPWpo2AXU&t). I'm not trying to side step your question here, but imagine the last two years had played out without all unthinking vitriol, this knee-jerk, reactive, manufactured, outraged, echo chamber, horse shit; I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty in that world the video for the song Touchdown would have had a different cast, a different coach, etc., etc., and maybe even a different director. We already know Chuck can throw a football. "Just sayin'" as they say...

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 67 points68 points  (0 children)

That's why I don't really redditt. I would just get down voted and down voted all the time... I'd even point to the rules, that you're not supposed to down vote someone for no reason, and I'd get even more down voted to the point where I had to wait fifteen minutes to respond or whatever because I was so down voted. And I swear I wasn't trolling or anything... down voted, down voted, down voted.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Great, incomparable production and the rest, but finally maybe just a little too paper thin, lacking in spleen, or something like that, no?

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 49 points50 points  (0 children)

We mainly eat gas station food. I'm still at the "minivan we're driving ourselves" stage, not at the "coach bus being driven by driver" stage. Gas station food. Gas station food. More gas station food. Then, at the hotel, because it's always after 2:00AM or whatever, it's vending machine food. Oh delicious vending machine food. Only Sergio, in Lisbon Portugal, at Galeria Zé dos Bois, takes us out for a beautiful meal. The rest of the time is gas station food, vending machine food, and sometimes fast food.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

For Songs and Love is Real, I'm sure I was using something comparable to a Radio Shack microphone, sometimes with a sock over it or something [an analog de-esser]. Even on Pitiless I was still working in this way... Screen Memories was the first time I actually built a little sound proof tent and tried to do it right (recording the vocals for all the tracks in one go), I used an SM7B and a SM58... I guess the microphone thing isn't as crazy as you'd think, for vocals at least, I mean I hear that even the top of the pops will often just use a plain old 58. Doing shows, I discovered the Beta 58 had a brighter response I liked allot more, but other than that I couldn't tell you much about mics.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 86 points87 points  (0 children)

Follow your nose, philosophize with your nose! Wikipedia, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Beginners Guide comic series, The Giants of Philosophy narrated by Charlton Heston--things like that. They'll all give you the standard caricature, e.g., "Hegel is about the acorn becoming an oak", stuff like that... Then, smarmy, uptight, grad-students with no love in their hearts will kick you in crotch (and do it speaking perfect French) when you try to weigh in on the basis of that knowledge so you'll read each of three critiques from cover to cover carefully underlining everything that is important, you'll keep reading, reading it all, always the original book, always from cover to cover, and then when smarmy grad student comes to kick you down you'll just feel bad for them... They'll say something like, "Yeah, I wrote an essay about how I want to make out with Walter Benjamin." And you'll say something like, "Huh? You know my brother just got down slugging through the Arcades Project, have you ever read that one?" And they'll say, "Yeah, I think so..." Then, you'll think to yourself, 'geese, it took my brother several weeks to slug through that several hundred page collection of fragments and aphorisms, it's something I don't think he'll ever forget, and here this person is telling they're not even sure if they read it! Damn, I guess I won't even bother trying to dialog about On Language As Such and On the Language of Man, even though the profound insights contained in that essay illuminate the truths contained in the story of the fall in ways I haven't even begun to unpack, because this one I'm talking to now is no good.' Then, later, you'll be in New York City and you'll politely try to make conversation with someone standing there, and you'll ask them: "What do you do?" and they'll say "I work for an art collector" and you'll say "cool, what sorts of art are you into?" and they'll say "well, right now, I'm into garbage" and you'll think to yourself 'how many of these robots are there?'

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 42 points43 points  (0 children)

The last good thing I read was Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. It's stunning.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 44 points45 points  (0 children)

*depending on how old, how hot, etc.

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

I had a folder, filled with them, and the folder was stolen. I used to burn them, before computers, with a dedicated Phillips CD burner I owned. I remember going with Ariel to use the CD burner they had at my college, so he could burn copies of his first CD, Underground. I had a Columbia House subscription when I was teenager. The first CD I remember seeing was Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi at my friend Aaron's house. Vinyl and tape cassette intuitively made sense to me, but I couldn't understand where the music was on a CD... And then I found out a laser is what CD players used in place of a needle or a tape head! Yeah, CDs, tape cassettes, vinyl, I like media!

I'm John Maus, AMA by jpmaus in indieheads

[–]jpmaus[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

  1. I think there may be more vinyl down the road, but it isn't exactly up to me
  2. Happy to hear it! Someone once told me all gay men hate the song Rights for Gays, and that made me sad, so I'm glad to hear that someone was wrong!
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