Steve Ball

May Day

Evening Work: May Day (6.4M mp3).

Bass theme by Paul O'Rear, improvised together on Friday evening after a long and rather grueling week. Song version also underway.

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Prometheus: Sardukar

From the Archive:

Prometheus, Sardukar (3.7M MP3).

Prometheus source painting by Max Imholte.

From the 1994 self-titled Prometheus CD, featuring Sanford Ponder, Pat Mastelotto, Nigel Gavin, Chris Rhyne, and SB. The dual guitar melody in Sardukar is fractal, that is it was literally generated from the Mandelbrot set and orchestrated for rock band.

About the title, Sardukar:

the soldier-fanatics of the Padishah Emperor. They were men from an environmental background of such ferocity that it killed six out of thirteen persons before the age of eleven.

Their military training emphasized ruthlessness and a near-suicidal disregard for personal safety. They were taught from infancy to use cruelty as a standard weapon, weakening opponents with terror. At the apex of their sway over the affairs of the Universe, their swordsmanship was said to match that of the Ginaz tenth level and their cunning abilities at in-fighting were reputed to approach those of a Bene Gesserit adept.

Any one of them was rated a match for any ten ordinary Landsraad military conscripts. By the time of Shaddam IV, while they were still formidable, their strength had been sapped by over-confidence, and the sustaining mystique of their warrior religion had been deeply undermined by cynicism.

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Electric Gauchos: Seven Ate Nine

Evening: Listening to my music collection in shuffle mode this evening while cleaning out my impossible inbox, and this came on:

Electric Gauchos - Seven Ate Nine (6.2M mp3).

This was improvised live in June of 2004 by Electric Gauchos Fernando Kabusacki | Travis Metcalf | Derek DiFilippo | Fernando Samalea | Steve Ball.

Video version:

This reminds me of how much great music is waiting 'in the can' for a more formal release. This also reminds me of how much wonderful time I spent in Argentina and Germany playing with my various Gaucho brothers throughout the nineties.

Quiet but strong best wishes are flying South for the current generation of Crafties working diligently at this very moment in Mendoza.

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Fly By - 11

Evening Work: Fly By - 11 (4.2M mp3).

A recapitulation of the Fly By 01 theme.

Eleven down, one to go.

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Partial recap of the past week:

a.) Easter Sunday brunch date with Regina in Ballard followed by office assembly and clean-up in the new music room. Then, more work on Media Center Vista sounds including a new "launch sound" composed to sync with Bill Flora's new Launch animation. Also, hours of editing on about three hundred various click and transition sounds for additional consideration. Getting down to the wire. "Bunny" mac and cheese for dinner to celebrate Easter and good vibes sent down to Mendoza.

b.) Excellent food and drinks last night with Regina plus BrianL and CarolK, ShaneW and StacyW in B&C's newly renovated house. Excellent color choices and many funny stories and histories. Music by Elbow poured from Brian's Media Center box in the Kitchen. Only a few momentary lapses into discussions about work, Media Center, WinFS, Life Journal, timelines, and innovation (or lack thereof) in huge companies.

c.) Friday night I stayed home and made ~400 transition sounds while Regina went out to sing and dance at the Triple Door w/ the girls.

d.) Thursday night, a four hour dinner and discussion with ActiveWords CEO, Buzz Bruggeman. Turns out we have much in common. Inspirations flying in all directions.

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Daily Music Sketches: Update

Relistening: Fly By - 08 (4.08M mp3).

From so high above, the fires below seem to dance gently across the fields. And surprisingly, nearby there is a great highway full of night travelers, also apparently moving slowly, an illusion from being so far above the earth.

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Updated the 'Daily Music Sketches' section of this site with the first ten installements of the Fly By project. For some reason, Fly By 08 seems to be getting a large number of full downloads (multiple gigabytes per week.)

I also notice that at least 60% of my hits are coming from Asian language sources, likely Chinese. No idea what is going on with this.

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What Might Be

One more shot from last night:

SB, Buzz, Scobleizer: in compelling conversation about what is vs. what might be.

More specifically, what if there were widespread intelligent agility instead of expanding rigid bureaucracy? What if there were efficient and essential Active Words instead of overly complicated over-promises? Or, what if there were distributed expert acquisition decisions instead of conservative (and often short-sighted or visionless) oversight?

A good friend of mine, many years ago, used to speak of the intentional adoption of work as a 'mobile intelligent unit.' At the time, the idea was expressed as a necessary model for present and future human evolution. Intentionally working in flexible, MUIs may also be a useful model to study and apply to the next generation of software (and music) development projects. In fact, if you look around at what is going on in the post-bubble (and perhaps the 'post-band') landscape, there are small networks of people delivering amazing new scenarios from some surprisingly small and flexible configurations.

It occurred to me today that Buzz and Robert and Mats and Pete and David and Steve and Kevin and Andrew and Todd and Peter (and everyone who came out for the 'show' last night) are part of a loosely-knit but tightly-coupled community of evolving MIUs.

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Speaking of mobile intelligence intersecting with, the dreaded and horrible phrase, UGC (User Generated Content), it looks like RS posted a couple of Roadshow photos directly from his phone to Flickr.

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House Concert

Evening Event: housewarming house concert to celebrate expansion into Regina's new place across the hall. An evening of new music by a new 'diet' Roadshow power trio playing for excellent people, fueled by excellent food and encouraging creative conversation.

Roadshow 2006

Regina, and still life

Dark silhouette

Setlist
Not Coming Back
Night Wall
Needle and Thread
Schwing Thing
Just What I Needed
I Want to Live Here
Dark
Seventy-Seven
I am (not?) in Love
Gravity

acoustic encore, late in the evening: Naive Melody (for Dan's all-star's)

We ran the set straight through, and (sadly) dropped Paul's new Ballistic Blue to keep the overall length managable - I hope to get this dancable ditty up and running for next time. Midway through the show, everyone present was given the opportunity to introduce themselves saying who they knew and/or how they came to be at this event.

This was a warm and engaging body of people from many diverse but overlapping worlds, including Joel and John Palmer, Del Engen, Jean and Gary Anderson, David LaVallee, Pete Wilson, Mats and Kate Myberg, Robert Scoble, Buzz Bruggeman, Todd and Maureen Hanna, Angela Nelson, Andrew van Leeuwen, Kevin, Aidan, Ethan, and Erika Ekert, Laura Kelley, Hannah O'Rear, the Greenwood Allstars, Steve Turnidge, Peter Dervin, Justin Armintrout, Luis Santana, and many others.

Special thanks to Lee Silberkleit for helping us with the sound reinforcement. In the moment, I thought of about one hundred other folks who may have enjoyed being here for this event. For those absent, there will be many next times including June, July, and August.

I'll post a few more photo phunnies and stories from the evening later today. For now, we're off to the gym to take an aggressive stance against pesky spring birch allergies.

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Nice email this morning from Erik Wollo in Norway who we met when we both opened for Marotta/Griesgraber last year at the Sunset. Eric both writes and performs some stunning, soothing music: check it out!

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Meaningless Words

Early Evening: as I began working on lyrics for 'April Fools' I noticed that there are certian words that have had the meaning sucked out of them, mostly from overuse. Example: very.

What would our conversations be like if we simply stopped using the word "very" ?

For me, 'working on lyrics' = singing. I find that songs essentially write themselves when I just begin singing and/or playing after a period of practice.

From one view, the period of practice extends back to 1986, and before that 1978. These were two points in time where I turned a corner and spent significant segments of my day to day life devoted to the practice of music.

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April Fools

Evening Work: April Fools (4.89M mp3).

Song skeleton now with enhanced bass flavor crystals and twice the foolishness of the major leading brand.

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Earlier Evening: conversation regarding business and culture and design and technology and the future with Greenthumb brother Pablo Mandel from Buenos Aires. Was it only ten short years ago that we played live with Greenthumb in Mendoza?

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Earlier Afternoon: Regina closed on Opal #101 after much planning and faxing and prodding the proprietors of painful paperwork processes. Best wishes to Indu on his new life and travels in Singapore.

A new era unfolds across the hall beginning this weekend.

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April Fool

Evening Work: April Fool (4.8M mp3).

This song skeleton emerged from hallway practice over this past week.

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