Steve Ball

Watching My Input (Vocal Version)

Evening Work: Watch My Input (Vocal Version) (5.2M mp3).

watching my input turning down my output
finding out if these shoes fit
rub my feet on the carpet

unplugged from your socket
sold your heart-shaped locket
I traded in my rocket
I emptied out my pocket
and reset my clock

stopped chasing your carrots
stopped feeding your parrots
stopped fearing washing away the stain
stopped singing the sad score from yesterday's game

be pleased to meet the mercury man
he's going to take and break his bread out on the witness stand
and sing and share and sell and celebrate his patented plan
jumping over a trip-wire, a burned-in frozen fake-fire
forgetting, regretting, how upsetting
you just wouldn't, no couldn't ever understand

watching waiting drifting dating
contemplating fasting fading

watching my input sinking in a tar pit
start me up I can't stop it
wake me up I can't help it
rub my feet on the carpet
need an electric shock to restart my clock

* * *

Watch Your Inputs

Afternoon Work: Watch Your Inputs (5.1M mp3).

Listened to the new Tori Amos CD in its entirety last night and vividly remembered seeing her at Nightstage in Cambridge on her first US tour supporting Little Earthquakes. I'm just really catching up to the amazing songs and stories in Scarlet's Walk, and here she is again with another large body of work. Just when I begin to think that I'm even mildly prolific, I turn my head and see the world is accelerating ahead very quickly.

Then again, it's probably wise to remember that Tori does not have a more than fulltime job working on the next version of Windows. And with another 3 CD box set on the way in 2005, I should not be tooooo hard on myself.

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A question came up in a future-oriented brainstorming meeting yesterday, a meeting that happened to be the highlight of my otherwise long and rather mundane day: "what is it that keeps us -- in every moment and everything we do -- from being able to deliver quality?"

This is a question with which I have some history and passion.

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Eno Interview from 1980

Evening: Stumbled on to an excellent (and long) recorded Brian Eno interview from 1980. Extremely prophetic and inspiring discussion. Interview: (75.1M mp3).

Blurb about the interview:

'Charles Amirkhanian and Brian Eno discuss Phonetic Poetry, how Brian writes his lyrics, and the spirit of inquisitiveness at KPFA Radio recorded on Saturday February 2, 1980. Eno also discusses the artist Peter Schmidt and their work on the Oblique Strategies, being a producer, Process vs Product and looping. Part I ends with some thoughts on Steve Reich and his music.

Part II starts with “the history of the recording studio as a compositional tool;" and collaboration with David Byrne on ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’. Eno also talks about and listens to Elvis, The Supremes, Sly Stone, Lee Perry and Jimmy Hendrix. Then he offers some unfinished pieces from collaborations w David Byrne.'

Excellent discussionn and interview. Some of my favorite quotes:

"I've always been interested in art as a system of knowledge rather than as a system of decoration"

"you don't have to like the work to respect the function taking place"

"in art, as in science, it is very hard to talk about who does what first... people are bound to come up with the same results"

"you design your music to accomodate the level of skill that you have available to you rather than sitting at home thinking 'boy I wish I could play like Eric Clapton'."

"..one of the great liberating things of New Wave was the idea that people could once again release demos and release things they had done in garages and very crude acoustic situations, and that one didn't regard these things as: 'oh, isn't that great song but pity it's so badly recorded' -- one tended to say 'isn't that in interesting recording quality.' So, I tired to really work to say that recording is a business, a different medium from traditional composition, and consequently all of one's approaches to are somewhat in question, and up for grabs..."

"their cultural mythology is to do with the view of the artist is as kind of impulsive, drug-taking romantic... but there's another kind of artist as well, there are artists who think about what they're doing and talk about what they are doing and want to articulate it, and who don't believe as a lot of people do that talking about something reduces its mystique or deflates the work in some way. << it enhances the mystique >> I think it could do, you can make a work richer obviously by seeding it with a number of connotations, which you can do by talking about it. I suppose my difference from them is one has the sense that they improvise at almost every level. I don't improvise at every level. I improvise at certain levels, I improvise with a strong anchor."

"when I was at art school there was a real revolution going on in most of the arts which later came to be called conceptual art, but which initally began as 'process art' or 'system art' , the role of the artist was not to specifiy unique products, and to come up with sort of 'single perfect creations', but to specify procedures that were in themselves interesting, that which could then give rise to a number of different results... I became disenchanted with results that really weren't very interesting. I thought that it should be possibe to have both interesting procedures and interesting results. And it seemed to me, the clue to doing that is to watch your inputs carefully."

and many, many more.

* * *

It is an extremely busy and productive time. There is much backtracking and music that could be filled-in over the past month. Recent energy highlight has been the re-emergence of the SB Roadshow live featuring Travis Metcalf on guitar and voices, and Paul O'Rear on bass and voices. How energizing to be part of a three-part singing guitar ensemble again. BTV correspondant, David LaVallee took some photos which I'll share here this weekend.

More live shows coming up in February.

* * *

Hit or Miss?

Early Evening Work: Hit or Miss? (5.31M mp3).

Today's Songtile was originally drawn in late winter of 1985, almost exactly 20 years ago to the day. At the time, the Sony Walkman was in widespread use across college campuses including my own. I had (and still have) a rather large vinyl music collection, however, almost overnight, thin black plastic headphones began to show up in classes, lounges, and coffee shops as people began moving their music collections to more portable cassette tapes.

How far we've come.

* * *

On a related note, the logistics of this ongoing, daily, long-term "Music Diary" production project are not new to me. During most of the year in 1985, while completing my EE degree at University of Illinois, I drew a daily cartoon called "Hit or Miss" for the "Daily Illini" that hit for some and missed for many.

"It's a good thing he's not a political cartoonist!" Perhaps ironically, the first writer had no idea I also did a regular, weekly, award-winning editorial cartoon that same year.

So, who to believe? Should I give up? What I do clearly sucks and is not worth doing! Why bother with any of this? I am constantly amazed at how we humans assume our individual taste and personal point of view are somehow objective or universal.

The point of all of this? Following on from the Neal Stephenson blurb on correspondence from earlier this week, it is interesting to notice that confusing self-esteem issues can arise when an audience simultaneously both actively loves and hates what you do. Perhaps even more interestingly, it is clear that the value of this kind of committment to daily ongoing creative work can not necessarily be measured by direct audience feedback.

In 2003 I began correspondence with a Canadian artist named Duncan Weller who had found me on the web and ordered some CDs. Duncan just sent me a copy of his latest illustrated children's book "Spacesnake" -- wonderful illustrations and story!

Interesting to see what one's own work may inspire in another artist. I have been and continue to be both nourished and energized by Duncan's work.

This is particularly good advice from the inside cover of Spacesnake:

"Always love people and use things,
Never use people and love things."

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Character Sketch

Evening Work: Character Sketch (3.1M mp3).

* * *

More fun and relevant quotes from the Travis Hartnett mailbag:

"I read an interview with some Nashville session guitarist, and he said that people on the periphery of music and such were always talking about their relationship to 'The Arts', whereas all the actual musicians he knew always talked about money."

And this gem:

-----Original Message-----

From: Travis Hartnett
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 7:33 AM
To: Steve Ball
Subject: Does the "Con" stand for "Conflict"?

ConWorks board fires co-founder Richter

Thursday, February 10, 2005

By REGINA HACKETT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER ART CRITIC

Matthew Richter, executive director and founder of the multidisciplinary arts organization known as Consolidated Works, has been fired by the ConWorks board.The firing follows an administrative shakeup at the edgy arts organization in the south Lake Union neighborhood.

Program director Chris Weber resigned in late January and managing director Carol Bull resigned shortly thereafter. That left only Richter carrying the administrative load. ConWorks also has four curators, in visual art, film, music and theater.

Just after Weber resigned, Richter fired visual art curator Dylan Neuwirth after Neuwirth told The Stranger working at ConWorks was a "f---ing nightmare." Said Richter at the time, "If (Neuwirth) sees his internal relationships as so negative, it makes sense to end those relationships now."

Weber had worked at ConWorks for two years. Bull was there for two months. Two weeks ago, Richter hired artist John Sutton to replace Weber.

"I'm in shock," said Sutton, who is now the only administrator on staff. He said he had no administrative experience but was committed to seeing ConWorks' programming continue.

"I believe 100 percent in Matt," he continued, adding that he was waiting for a meeting with the board to decide whether to stay or not. "The board gave Matt 10 minutes to clean out his desk."

The ConWorks board, which fired Richter Tuesday afternoon, met last night in a session not open to the public to discuss its reasons for the firing, among other issues.

Richter was not available for comment. He founded ConWorks five years ago with Meg Shiffler, who became ConWorks' visual art curator. She left several years ago to attend graduate school in museum studies on the East Coast.

Board president Robb Krieg confirmed Richter is no longer with ConWorks but refused to elaborate on the reasons. "We all love Matt," he said. "He's a founder and visionary. We acknowledge that and are tremendously grateful for what he's done. There's a lot to leadership, and that's all I'll say about it."

Krieg said the organization was in good shape financially, that it retired its debt last year and is operating in the black. Ex-program director Weber said he "completely supports" the board's decision to fire Richter.

"The basic structure of ConWorks, the building and the potential are great," Weber said. "Even though that potential is there because Matt created it, he had a bad case of founder's syndrome. He's a big ideas guy but not a good manager. He was in the way. I don't think ConWorks would survive with him in charge."

ConWorks' latest series, titled "Vs." and concerning the meaning of opposition in art, opens Feb. 18 and runs through April 3.

Matt is an old friend and has done much to support Seattle Guitar Circle, even BootlegTV over the years. Best wishes to all of the characters involved.

* * *

Correspond

Evening Work: Correspond (2.7M mp3).

-----Original Message-----
From: Travis Hartnett
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 11:28 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Can't remember if I showed this you when I first found it:

Why I am a Bad Correspondent

by Neal Stephenson

"Writers who do not make themselves totally available to everyone, all the time, are frequently tagged with the "recluse" label. While I do not consider myself a recluse, I have found it necessary to place some limits on my direct interactions with individual readers. These limits most often come into play when people send me letters or e-mail, and also when I am invited to speak publicly. This document is a sort of form letter explaining why I am the way I am.

When I read a novel that I really like, I feel as if I am in direct, personal communication with the author. I feel as if the author and I are on the same wavelength mentally, that we have a lot in common with each other, and that we could have an interesting conversation, or even a friendship, if the circumstances permitted it. When the novel comes to an end, I feel a certain letdown, a loss of contact. It is natural to want to recapture that feeling by reading other works by the same author, or by corresponding with him/her directly.

All of this seems perfectly reasonable---I should know, since I have had these feelings myself! But it turns out to be a bad idea. To begin with, a novel has roughly the same relationship to a conversation with the author, as a movie does to the actors in it. A movie represents many person-years of work distilled into two hours, and so everything sounds and looks perfect. But if you have ever met a movie actor in person, you know that they are not quite as dazzling and witty (or as tall) as the figures they play in movies. This seems obvious but it always comes as a bit of a letdown anyway.

Likewise, a novel represents years of hard work distilled into a few hundred pages, with all (or at least most) of the bad ideas cut out and thrown away, and the good ideas polished and refined as much as possible. Interacting with an author in person is nothing like reading his novels. Just about everyone who gets an opportunity to meet with an author in person ends up feeling mildly let down, and in some cases, grievously disappointed.

Authors are participants in a kind of colloquy that joins together all literate persons, and so it seems only reasonable that they should from time to time stop writing fiction for a few hours or days, and attend public events, such as conventions, signings, panels, seminars, etc., where they should exchange ideas with other authors and with other members of society. Therefore, authors such as myself frequently receive invitations to do exactly that.

Letters or e-mail from readers, and invitations to speak in public, might seem like very different things. In fact they are points on a common continuum; they have more in common than is obvious at first. The e-mail message from the reader, and the invitation to speak at a conference, are both requests (in most cases, polite and absolutely reasonable requests) for the author to interact directly with readers.

Normally, my only interaction with readers is to go to a Fedex drop box every couple of years and throw in the manuscript of a completed novel. It seems reasonable enough to ask for a little bit more than that! After all, the time commitment is very small: a few minutes tapping out an e-mail message, or a day trip to a conference to speak.

For some authors, this works, but in my case, it doesn't. There is little to nothing that I can offer readers above and beyond what appears in my published writings. It follows that I should devote all my efforts to writing more material for publication, rather than spending a few minutes here, a day there, answering e-mails or going to conferences.

Writing novels is hard, and requires vast, unbroken slabs of time. Four quiet hours is a resource that I can put to good use. Two slabs of time, each two hours long, might add up to the same four hours, but are not nearly as productive as an unbroken four. If I know that I am going to be interrupted, I can't concentrate, and if I suspect that I might be interrupted, I can't do anything at all. Likewise, several consecutive days with four-hour time-slabs in them give me a stretch of time in which I can write a decent book chapter, but the same number of hours spread out across a few weeks, with interruptions in between them, are nearly useless.

The productivity equation is a non-linear one, in other words. This accounts for why I am a bad correspondent and why I very rarely accept speaking engagements. If I organize my life in such a way that I get lots of long, consecutive, uninterrupted time-chunks, I can write novels. But as those chunks get separated and fragmented, my productivity as a novelist drops spectacularly. What replaces it? Instead of a novel that will be around for a long time, and that will, with luck, be read by many people, there is a bunch of e-mail messages that I have sent out to individual persons, and a few speeches given at various conferences.

That is not such a terrible outcome, but neither is it an especially good outcome. The quality of my e-mails and public speaking is, in my view, nowhere near that of my novels. So for me it comes down to the following choice: I can distribute material of bad-to-mediocre quality to a small number of people, or I can distribute material of higher quality to more people. But I can't do both; the first one obliterates the second.

Another factor in this choice is that writing fiction every day seems to be an essential component in my sustaining good mental health. If I get blocked from writing fiction, I rapidly become depressed, and extremely unpleasant to be around. As long as I keep writing it, though, I am fit to be around other people. So all of the incentives point in the direction of devoting all available hours to fiction writing.

I am not proud of the fact that some of my e-mail goes unanswered as a result. It is never my intention to be rude or to give well-meaning readers the cold shoulder. If I were a commercial best-seller, I would have enough money to hire a staff to look after my correspondence. As it is, my books are bought by enough people to provide me with a sort of middle-class lifestyle, but not enough to hire employees, and so I am faced with a stark choice between being a bad correspondent and being a good novelist. I am trying to be a good novelist, and hoping that people will forgive me for being a bad correspondent."

* * *

Flight Risk

Evening Work: Flight Risk (4.4M mp3).

Earlier Evening: Bill Frisell, at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard with Pete and Toby. Another "I can't believe he's doing that" evening. Inspired, and sleepless.

Nice to see a pile of friends including Johnni and Gordon. Quote of the evening from Jeana: "is the urban legend true that you write and record a new piece of music every night?" Quote of the evening from Bill Frisell on stage: "I'm sorry to whoever it was I said 'F**k You' to. We love you."

* * *

Just Passing Through

Evening Work: Just Passing Through (5.05M mp3).

This image is from a photo that my dad took from my parents backyard on Jan 7th. He sent it to me in an email with the subject "Just Passing Through." Turns out, among other relevant immediate futures, this is also apt description of my (public) January Music Diary. It's been an extremely busy and active month, although you may not know it from reading these relatively stagnant pages.

It turns out the songwriting is another actualizing activity that falls into the 'four-hour quantum rule' first noticed and documented by Travis Hartnett. That is, like most home projects, creative endeavours, or 'this will just take a second' computer chores, it actually requires a minimum block of four hours to complete anything of merit.

Most of my January has been sliced into slivers of mode-shifting frenzy whose minimum block is much much less than the four hours required to complete many of the five or six vocal Song Sketches that are underway in parallel. We shall see how the rest of February stacks up against this four-hour rule.

Meantime, some good news: the Steve Ball Roadshow returns to live action in a couple of weeks for a private house concert. Rumor is that Derek DiFilippo may even be in town for this special show. Fingers crossed.

More good news, tomorrow evening: Bill Frisell, live in Ballard.

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