Music of the Decade

Since the decade is winding down to an end in a couple weeks, I've been thinking about all the good and bad music that was created over the past 10 years. This is my top ten albums list of the decade.

1. Tool - 10,000 Days
2. King Crimson - The Power To Believe
3. Saves The Day - Stay What You Are
4. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
5. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
6. Tool - Lateralus
7. Portugal. The Man - Censored Colors
8. Porcupine Tree - Fear Of A Blank Planet
9. Radiohead - Kid A
10. Rush - Snakes & Arrows

Drawing The Line

I was in Nashville this past weekend, which was an interesting experience.

My band played for record label executives at a band showcase, which was more fun that I thought it would be.

My band finally played the Metro this past Friday night, which was a great experience and exposure for us, but I digress.

I have spent probably 6 years of my life wondering where I as a musician and an individual fit into modern music. I have flirted with electronic music in the past, and have thought lately about either incorporating electronic drums and synths into my current band (which is now called No Exit) or starting an electronic side project. If a musician doesn't embrace technology that usually get left in the dust, and I have no intention on getting left behind in the musical landscape.

Along with wondering how I can survive as a modern musician, I've also felt the pressure of time on my available window to "succeed" as a musician trying to survive in the modern world. I'm 24 years old, and for most people that's a young age to be, but for a musician I'm an old man. So I feel I'm always working against the clock.

This past weekend playing both the Metro (biggest show of my career) and playing a showcase in Nashville, I've had all those thoughts about technology and age on my mind. Can I "make it" as a career musician before 24 and playing in a rock band?

All my opinions and assumptions are currently changing as I write. Over the past couple years I've become more and more of a fan of the band Porcupine Tree, which is kind of like England's answer to Tool and Radiohead and a return to album oriented experimental rock music. The new album by Porcupine Tree entitled "The Incident" is the freshest piece of music I've heard in years.

It is an empowering musical statement, and an artistic tool to show self-awareness. While there are some use of electronic music on the album, it is mainly just a well composed and arranged rock album full of progressive and experimental song elements. I think it's a beautiful album. To see such a fresh and creative album coming from a group of guys who are in their mid-40s who have a band have been around for 20 years, but only now getting commercial success makes me feel much better about my place and status in the music world.

The centerpiece of the 2 disc album is a 55 minute long song titled "The Incident" whcih is broken down into 14 parts and covers the entire first disc.

Steve Wilson who is the guitarist/lead vocalist/lead songwriter of Porcupine Tree wrote "The Incident" as a conceptual piece, and I really like the concept of the music. I wish more music had the depth and psychological awarenress as "The Incident."

"There was a sign saying ‘POLICE – INCIDENT’ and everyone was slowing down to rubber neck to see what had happened... Afterwards, it struck me that ‘incident’ is a very detached word for something so destructive and traumatic for the people involved.

And then I had the sensation that the spirit of someone that had died in the accident entered into my car and was sitting next to me. The irony of such a cold expression for such seismic events appealed to me, and I began to pick out other ‘incidents’ reported in the media and news,” continues Wilson.

“I wrote about the evacuation of teenage girls from a religious cult in Texas, a family terrorizing its neighbors, a body found floating in a river by some people on a fishing trip, and more. Each song is written in the first person and tries to humanize the detached media reportage.”

Prelude Of The Gulls: Scaling The Whales

I had to change the name of my blog again.

I had a lucid dream the other night on mushrooms in which I was at sea basically as like a Capt. Ahab type character and I was looking for my white whale. Then I had a similar dream to that again last night, in which I was on a boat at sea looking for a group of whales that I couldn't find.

Since having these dreams I've had this phrase in my head "Scaling The Whales." I feel I've reached the part of my Drive To 2011 where my journey has been distracted by my attempt to scale the whales.

I assume that the "whales" I'm looking to scale involve music. Even within that phrase the word scale has multiple meanings and music has scales, which only leads me to believe I'm looking for something with music.

I'm in the process of starting a new side project with one of my oldest friends and former bandmate from 5 years ago, which is a total departure of what I've been playing. I hope to get some our of music online very soon, it's all improvised and more electronic than about anything I've ever done. Our music is a mixture of King Crimson, MGMT, Animal Collective, and free-form jazz. We're thinking of naming the band name Weather. I like it, it's a very simple name and weather invokes all different kinds of mental images to people when said.

I had an interview at DePaul University earlier this week as part of their admissions process trying to get in there for grad school, and Dr. David Ehrlich who interviewed me said I exceeded all expectations he had after meeting me, and that he is recommending for DePaul's Public Policy Studies graduate program. So I'm pretty excited about that, and now I'm on the scholarship hunt. It'd be cool to be going to grad school this fall, and DePaul was my No.1 choice, so it's great that I got in there and now I just have to figure out everything else in my life.

Iambic Strays

Yesterday I had quite the experience. I had never taken psilocybin mushrooms before, but yesterday I had gotten my hands on some and it was quite the ride. I've taken LSD before and psilocybin is somewhat similar, but also quite a different kind of psychedelic experience than LSD.

Previously when tripping on LSD I would just listen to music or watch visually stimulating movies, but with mushrooms I decided to be more active and I played music for most of the experience with my friend Ryan, and even recorded some of the music I was playing.

I liked being able to create with tripping, I find that to be more productive than just the experience itself. Psilocybin made me feel differently than LSD does, probably because LSD is a more intense experience, and like you don't even have time to feel while on it.

LSD makes me very anti-social, where mushrooms made me want to be very social. I think I angered/annoyed quite a few people yesterday, because I just felt wanting to be social and "trip texted" a bunch of my friends who I don't think were amused by my comments and out right buggery. Regardless of what I did and felt the experience was great, and definitely worth doing again. Mushrooms are a more functionable experience than LSD is.

The psilocybin definitely influenced my style of drumming while playing, and made me play more primal and free-jazz like drums. The music sounded somewhat similar to Zach Hill, who is now one of my favorite drummers in modern music. Hill's style of music I think is the direction of music I'm heading into with my drumming.

Confusion Will Be My Epitaph

The world can be full of surprises. When I was 17, I formed a band that radically changed my life at the time and made me look at the world in a new and different light. I formed that band with a guitarist a couple years my younger, who was the Neal Cassidy to my Jack Kerouac. I revisited the past today.

Ryan who was the guitarist in the band, or as I refered to it as musical institution, that is (IN)Discipline showed up at my house today. Ryan is such an interesting character. First of all he's a brilliant musician, and just a phenomenally creative individual. Secondly I've never met anyone like him. Since (IN)Discipline broke up in 2004 Ryan lived a couple of years in Driggs, Idaho, followed by a stint in Little Rock, Arkansas and now is back in Michigan/Chicago area.

Ryan has more crazy stories than I do, and he has all the crazy stories I want. He came to me today with the intention of maybe forming a band. Right now it's all in talk and prepartion phase, but I already feel like it is going to happen and be bigger than when we use to play together. People always told us that we were ahead of our time, and we pretty much were. Now the experimental progressive music we use to play 6 years ago is much more acceptable and popular today.

What we don't have is a rest of the band, but we both have ideas of individuals to fill in the gaps. Now for me the question is do I want to bring back the monster that is (IN)Discipline or whatever we name we give the group? How would this effect the rest of my life right now? Will we be able to get gigs? I was all set for grad school this fall, and I'm playing in a band right now, but for the chance to be in an active band with Ryan again I would probably be willing to change the course I'm going in.

Now I'm afraid if I get too comfortable in Chicago that I could miss this musical opportunity, which is the creative outlet I've been waiting for.

Playing with Ryan would allow me incorporate my electronic drums and bass pedal synthesizer and all this equipment I have that I can't use because of the current music I play. With Ryan and me the rules are simple just be creative and don't think about what you're doing and you'll be fine.

It's funny that I originally planned on blogging on a totally different subject and this is how it turned out.

Capture The Flag

I co-founded the band American Flag over 2 1/2 and now almost three years ago, and now after all the work, sweat, blood, fun, traveling, loudness, and creativity that ride has been put on hiatus.

I had a long conversation with Josh, one of my best friends who also happens to be the singer/guitarist/keyboardist in A. FLag, and it dawned on me yesterday that A. Flag isn't going to be active anytime soon.

Sure we haven't played together since November, and people have been asking me for months when are we going to play next and what we are up to and I'm left to just answer "uhhh."

American Flag is on permanent hiatus for the time being. I hope sometime in the future we will raise Flag again, but Flag has been lowered for all intensive purposes.

Josh is playing with an electronic group now called Garganta and I wish them luck and hope they have a lot of success and can ride the electronic music gravy train.

I had a friend tell me once that he thought American Flag's music reminded him of Animal Collective, and I never understood until yesterday how much of a compliment that really was.

I've been listening to a lot of Animal Collective, Crystal Castles, and Martin Dosh recently and I'm starting to like all of those acts respectively. I'm really taken with the work of Martin Dosh who has his own band Dosh and also drums for Andrew Bird.

I kind of feel like I'm going through a divorce. A. Flag hasn't been active for months now, but it felt like a separation not a divorce, and now I'm realizing that separation has become a divorce. I'm kind of down not now in realizing all this, I thought I'd grow old with this band, but now I have to look to the future, and hopefully like my favorite band King Crimson who has been on hiatus numerous times only to return American Flag will do the same.

I'm thinking more and more of starting my own band, but I don't know what kind of band I want to form. Something Avant Garde? Maybe Jazz? How about Funk? Acoustic/Electronic Hybrid? World Fusion? I guess I'll just buy a ticket and take the ride and see what happens.

Music: Dosh - "Capture The Flag"

Rules For Music

I hate to do this, but after yet again another arguement over music I find I have no choice but to make some things clear. Sorry to sound pretenious, not my intention.

1. If you can't sing you're not a singer.

2. Just because you can dance does not make you a musician.

3. Just because you know how to edit audio, does not make you a songwriter.

4. Stealing other people's music should be a crime. Artists create art with a certain creative impulse in mind. To take someone else's art and present as your own with a few things added or changed is a crime to the original intent of the original artist's intent.

5. Lyrics have nothing to do with music at all. If you're good at rhythming words than go be a creative writing major at a community college. Music is called music for a reason.

6. There is more meaning to music than something to dance to. Do you think people danced to Gregorian Chant? A little clue they didn't. Music is art and is made to create an emotional response, which at times may be dancing, but is not strictly limited to it. If music doesn't make you think then it's not very good music. Good music inspires people.

7. You wouldn't trust an illiterate person's book review, so why does everyone who knows nothing about music take it upon themself to feel righteous and dignified when insulting and criticizing someone else's musical taste they don't like? I've studied music for a very, very long time, and have been playing music for even longer, and I would never tell someone their opinion on music is wrong, yet a lot of people have no problem telling me I'm wrong when it comes to music. I don't get it. I wrote my first concerto when I was 17, I'm not musically stupid. I'm not afraid or sorry to say it, but Kanye West is an idiot and not a musician, nor is lil' wayne and all these idiots who make up the so-called "popular music" today. There is a very big difference between being an entertainer and a musician. A musician is an artist and an entertainer is not. A DJ is not a musician, he maybe an entertainer, but if you don't play a bloody instrument then you're not a musician. The idea of non-musicians making music is absurd. As soon as one composes and plays music you enter the realm of being a musician. I'm tired of this daydream fantasy of people who don't want to work hard to achieve a skill so they play fucking guitar hero and think they know music. Am I the only one left in this world that believes that sampling someone else's music and claiming it as your own is not artisic and is not musically inclined? I wrote a lot of music, and the first thing to know about writing music is it is very hard. It is not easy to write music, so insted of using pro-tools and cutting and pasting someone else's songs, write your own damn music. What happened to creative outlets? Are we so desensitized by society that people don't know how to be creative anymore? It makes me sick to my stomach to look around at the profession I have chosen and see nothing but marketed hacks and uncreative weasals. The problem with digitally created electronic music whether it be rap or techno or whatever is, those kinds of music have no soul. There is no organic element to it at all, it is ridiculous to call it art because there is no primal creative element you either take someone else's creation and mess with it or you cut and paste computer programs to come up with 'beats' for you. If there is a primal creative element please someone show me an example and prove me wrong, but I don't see it or should I say I don't hear it.

Let's face it, a lot of music today sucks and is just terrible and seems uninspired. Oh where of where is the Mahvavishnu Orchestra when needed.

A Man More Intelligent And Insighful Than Myself.

I've been talking alot of music with people lately, especially since the show I played last friday at The Elbo Room. Some of the talk has been technical as far as equipment and mechanics, but much of it has been musical philosophy. Why do I like the music I do, why do I play the music I do. Why is certain music popular more than others, what are people are listening to in music.

Much of my musical philosophy is based on my musical heroes and influences. People who know me, notice that whenever I talk about music I mention the name Robert Fripp quite often. Robert Fripp is kind of like the center to my musical philosophy. I think the man is genius, and is a very true and geniune artist and human being. Robert Fripp actually walked past me this last August at The Park West in Chicago, and I don't really count it as meeting him I was next to him and felt just such a benevolence of his being. With that said, I thought I'd post two videos of Fripp speaking. To most people they probably don't care what Fripp has to say, but I think even to non-musicians Fripp can be insightful and he's a great philosophical thinker/speaker. The first video talks about Fripp's career in the late 70's and he talks about playing with David Bowie and Blondie and is pretty interesting. The second video is from the mid 80's and is Fripp discussing musical philosophy, but not in the sense of judging what music is good like most people do, but the relationship of music to people and understanding music. I think it's very thought provoking and is where I derive my philosophy as far as a musician and artist comes from. More musician focused, but still insightful.

Electric Feel

I was motivated today and had plenty of free time so I added a couple more songs on my myspace page. By request I added another The Smiths song being "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want." I was also feeling a little frisky so I haphazardly did my own acoustic version of MGMT's Electric Feel.

If interested in checking them out my myspace page is:
http://www.myspace.com/williamcovert

I intend very soon to put some more political and social stuff up on here.

I Advance Masked (A Poem For Knowledge)

Can it be true that music might redeem our fallen world?
Can it be true that music can heal our world?

Silence is our friend, silence is our friend.
If only WE CAN LISTEN to our Friend.

Silence is our friend, if only we can say Hello. Say Hello to our friend, and hello to ourselves.

Love Cannot Bear that even one person be denied its place in paradise.

Music is our friend. Is our friend reaching out to You?

Acrylic Waltz

The past two days I have spent a good deal of time messing around with my brother's 16 track Yamaha digital recorder, and I have some fruitful results from that chaos. I put a new song up on my myspace page www.myspace.com/williamcovert that is a newly recorded song I just finished today.

From this previous weekend it had got me thinking about different types and kinds of music, and I started messing around with drum beats that were in 3/4 time signature or what classical dancers would call a waltz beat. Out of messing around with a waltz beat I wrote out some drum parts and recorded Acrylic Waltz. Some parts of it are polyrhythmic where I take a 3/4 beat with my feet and play 4/4 on top of it with my hands or vice versa. I had been listening to a lot of Bill Bruford and Gavin Harrison recently (more so of Gavin because he's on the cover of this month's Modern Drummer Magazine) and both of them were influence in my drumming on the song and the whole idea really to play in an odd non 4/4 time signature for the base of the song. I'm hoping to maybe get some more music recorded and online as well, I don't know though we'll see how the creative process goes.

Artist or Aficionado?

I have been thinking to myself the concept of artist or aficionado. I have always viewed myself as an artist and as a creator, but am I wrong in my views? I think a lot of people I meet tend to see me more as an aficionado rather than an artist. I have a strange obsession with art, specifically with music, and when I tend to really like something I research the hell out of it to know everything I can about it. I did a 50 page thesis paper in college of Bill Bruford, who is someone most people haven't heard of, but over the past six years is someone I've spent a large part of time researching and listening to and analyzing his drumming style.

I use to think my compulsive reseraching on artists I like and of music in general was always a plus, and I thought it just helped me as an artist and made me more well-rounded. Then I started to think would an artist really give a shit about all this shit and care about what all these other musicians and artists have done or are doing? Wouldn't an artist just care about his art? Now it's got me thinking where do I exactly fall into this as far as artsist or aficionado.

People tend not to like aficionados inclduing myself. Aficionados tend to be self-righteous assholes, who feel they are better than you because of their scholarly like knowledge of a subject or thing. They tend to be pompous and pretentious and boring to talk to because they tend to steer a conversation into a realm of talking and thinking that they have more knowledge of than whoever they are conversing with. That's one reason I change my major in college and got out of being a music major, because a lot of them were assholes who thought they have some kind of musical blue blood and it drove me crazy.

I have now come to the conclusion that even in my personal pursuit is to be an artist, what I give off is the personality of an aficionado and that sucks. Most of my friends think I'm pretenious and think that's how I want to come off to people, but it isn't. Even in my band I have been called pretenious, that should have gotten me thinking right then and there, but it didn't. I got into another long winded Beatles arguement with no end in sight, and for me I don't care to change people's opinions with words anymore. An artist doesn't communicate his/her art in words, he/she communicates with his/her art. I think maybe because I was out east and not playing gigs full-time or playing with a band full-time it sort of drove me to communicate more with my words than I'm use to, and I need to get back to focusing on my music and if people don't like it oh well. I'm thinking back on the last couple months when I get into some heated muscial debates that were pointless in making heated and I feel like an idiot for it, I feel more like a pompous aficionado than an artist and that's a feeling I don't like or want to have.

I think what drove me to become a pompous musical asshole is because of the music I play and like. As a musician you want to be liked because you want fans. Nobody wants to play to an empty venue. Is it art if no one is paying attention to it or even recognizes it? I think the wanting to be accepted as a serious and good musician drove me to intensely ridicule music I don't like i.e. The Beatles out of some jealous I have for the lack of my own mainstream musical success. Being a fan of progressive rock bands like Emerson, Lake, & Palmer doesn't help either. Keith Emerson himself said that the reason people didn't like ELP was because they were too good at their instruments. I think I started to adapt that virtuoso like cynicism of I'm too good and play too hard of music for people to understand, and I was really in the wrong and I usually never admit when I'm wrong. A real artist doesn't care about mainstream attention or care about what other people think of his/her art. Robert Fripp one of my musical heroes always said, "Never become so popular that the public take an interest in you." Now realizing my faults in my musical pursuits I hope to become less pretentious in my musical career and in my personal attitude and personality. In making myself more humble I'm thinking about going out on a limb and starting to listen to and feel out music that I would not normally listen to or know much or anything about. I feel the drive to go into unchartered musical waters will be good for me, and hopefully will influence me in a new way and get the creative juices going. Will Bill abandon rock music for some other musical form? Maybe I'll end up abandoning drums all together and focus my energies at synthesizer or chapman stick who knows what time will bring.

I will say this new drive to discover music I wouldn't normally listen to has given me a new foundness for the group Battles and their music. I think they're a great rock/electronic hybrid and could be a window to the future of how rock music can carry on as a form of innovative and creative music. For those unfamiliar with their music, which I'm still becoming familiar with below is a link to what I've seen thus far as their best performance from the tv show Later With Jools Holland. Their use of electronics especially the way they "treat" and synthesize the vocals I think is pretty cool and definitely original. What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSkU5GJmtXc