Before you really want it to happen, this page will contain a regularly updated tlog of what's going on in
Tastiera-Land. But for now, it contains a stale rehash of things long since past instead. Happy f--king February.
The Tastiera Tlog
March 2, 2976
F--king time machine.
August 28, 2008
Boy time sure flies when you're not updating your tlog.
Well guess what, "Decades" was completed a few short hours ago. No, I don't know what distinguishes a short hour from a regular one, either. But you digress. In few even shorter hours, you will be unable to access any "Decades" material from this site. No, it's not that we're worried about copyright violations or anything like that. Fact is, we've been ordered to remove the songs by aliens from the planet Kramzak, a few of which are pointing molecular disruptors at me as I type this. By the way, did I mention "SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP!"
Anyway, you can probably expect to see "Decades" for sale on CD within a week or two, and then on iTunes and other digital retailers a couple weeks after that. You'll have to excuse me now, the anal probe equipement appears to have arrived.
July 27, 2008
Well now this is really freakin' embarrassing. I was sitting at a bar the other night, and in a very sublime moment, while staring at a Jaegermeister sign on the wall, I realized it isn't spelled that way. I've been misspelling Jagermeister for my entire adult life, culminating in a song on the next album. If you only knew what an enormous role Jagermeister has played in my life, you'd have some inkling of how unsettling this is. Steps have been taken to remedy the problem on this website, but the emotional scars may never go away.
July 24, 2008
It's been kinda hectic here, what with trying to get "Stratospheric" into the marketplace. Now that's done with, how about a few more "Decades" updates? The full set of ten songs is now available, albeit in very small pieces for the newer stuff. "Core Dump", which was an icon of chaos anyway, has now been renamed to "BSOD". "Jagerbombs on Mars" has been expanded, but nothing surprising yet. "Peace on Earth" and "Shine" are now available in their infancy. Probably the most interesting thing - well to me, anyway - is that "Jagerbombs on Mars" now has a full set of lyrics, and "Peace on Earth" has a few lines of them. Ok, back to sleep for now.
July 2, 2008
Well, I mentioned in yesterday's entry that I wanted to get this album out the door so I could work on other things. Today, one of those other things has begun.
I have spent the last several years periodically wrangling with my emotions over whether to sell my music. I won't go into the two sides of the argument here, but basically what's happened in the past couple of days is that I've realized it's really just too easy to sell music nowadays for an indie artist like myself not to give it a whirl. Especially since the people who host this website specialize in just that - distributing CDs and/or digital music for independent artists. I have therefore decided to embark upon a journey that will hopefully end with me being able to tell you to look for my newest album on iTunes (and other such retailers). For those of you who know me and have been following along with the latest happenings on "Decades", I will be leaving this page up, along with all the MP3 versions of the evolving songs, until the completion of the album. But after that point, "Decades" will no longer be available for free (although, again, those of you who know me can probably be expecting to get the CD without provocation at some point).
A more immediate effect of my decision to go professional (yikes, sounds a bit scary) is that "Stratospheric" is no longer available from this site. That will be the first album I submit for distribution to the retailers; you can probably expect to see it out there within two or three months.
All the albums prior to "Stratospheric" will still be available from this web site for the indefinite future. "A Little to the Left" and "Release" will be rerecorded once "Decades" is done, to bring them up to a level of quality that I feel comfortable charging people for, at which point the rerecorded versions will go on sale, but the old versions will remain here.
Finally, I will be putting together a three volume, thirty song collection from all the albums prior to "Release", completely rerecorded and eventually available for purchase by sometime early next year. All the original versions of the old material will, as I mentioned before, be retained here indefinitely.
And there you have it. And so do I. Er... uh... yeah.
July 1, 2008
So you may have seen in the most recent newsletter that there's a rumor floating around about Decades being released at the end of *next month*. If you've been tracking the progress here at all, you might think that's impossible. On the other hand, *I* have been tracking the progress here, and frankly that's why *I* started the rumor. I need a little pressure on me to get this thing out the door, because I've got lots of other ideas I want to follow it up with - some musical, some not, but we'll get into that later. In the mean time, a couple of nights ago I sat down and just said, "Dammit, I'm going to lay down the seeds for at least two more songs before I get out of this chair." So I did. They are now posted in the list of song links at the top of this page, and also here for your convenience: "Core Dump (V0)" has been initiated a second time, while Jagerbombs on Mars (V0) is a brand new idea altogether. 10-4, good buddy.
June 23, 2008
Sigh.
So someone (couldn't possibly be that peehole editor of ours, now could it?) thought it would be really funny to rig my computer so that every time I try to get on the internet to post updates to my songs, I go straight to this porn site. After a month and a half, I finally got bored with that, and I found a hack in about six minutes. And so now you, the adoring fan of
Tastiera, get to hear no less than five updated versions of songs:
- Simple Thing (V4)
- Of Mice and Men (V3)
- Forever (V5)
- Tiny Little (V5)
- Too Easy (V3)
Don't everybody thank me all at once.
Harumph.
May 4, 2008
Well, "Too Easy" turned out to mimic its name. A full-length draft is now available. I've had this song in my mind for a long time, and although it went in directions I wasn't expecting (as is always the case), I'm fairly satisfied with the emotional feel to it. That's pretty much dead on with what I had always envisioned. I wish the topic wasn't there to write about, that's all.
April 30, 2008
Couple new updates from the great Tastiera music machine. First, "Tiny Little" has been upgraded yet again, now to Version 4. A little more piano, a little bit of synth, a couple of volume adjustments here and there, but the biggest change is to the lyrics. I had been struggling ever since I first recorded this song (which is actually only a short while ago) over the impression it would leave regarding my feelings about America. I felt the lyrics could be interpreted to mean I don't love my country, which is most certainly not the case - I still would rather live here than anywhere else in the world. But I didn't want to back away from the message entirely, because I really do believe we're pretty blind about how the rest of the world views us. Then I realized the song could be largely fixed in this sense by changing one word: "country" to "countrymen". And so it goes, and so do I.
Well, not just yet. There's another update: "Too Easy" has been significantly expanded from its initial snippet. It's not a full length song just yet, but it's far enough to warrant being called Version 1, or at least, that's how I'm interpreting the guidlines set forth in the Intergalactic Guide to Song Version Numbering. What, you don't have that book? Well, trust me then, I'm interpreting it correctly.
April 28, 2008
This is getting ridiculous. So first, I had this idea for a song called "Too Easy", about the tragedy of senselessly losing American lives in Iraq. I thought the music to what became "Tiny Little" was going to be the backdrop for "Too Easy", but then it came out way too boisterous, so I scrapped that thought and wrote new lyrics. Then, about a week ago, I thought I'd finally started to bring forth the music to another song I've been wanting to do for a while - "Core Dump", about the end of our reign on this planet and whether that's really such a bad thing. But that music isn't boisterous *enough*, so now I've decided to use it for "Too Easy". So there's no new musical material tonight, but there are lyrics to "Too Easy", along with the music that was originally supposed to be used on "Core Dump". Confused yet? Welcome to a mere glimpse of my world.
April 20, 2008
Wow - two posts in one day. So I was a little bored after turning up the drums on "Tiny Little". Truth be told, I had a fever, and the only presciption was more cowbell. But I don't own a cowbell, so I pounded out a few notes of potential material for "Core Dump". Ok I think I'm done for the day.
April 20, 2008
Drums were too quiet on "Tiny Little". I turned them up. You listen now.
April 18, 2008
Did some tweaks to "Tiny Little". Redid a few vocal lines to give 'em more oomph, turned up the guitars very slightly, and gave it a quirkier intro to give you a better idea what sort of people I'm talking to with this song.
April 13, 2008
Busy day. First, after weeks of banging my proverbial head (and occasionally the real one) against a brick wall, suddenly I blast out an entire draft of a new song in less than an hour this morning. You heard (or at least I'm pretending you heard) the initial snippet of the music as "Too Easy". Well, "Too Easy" is another political song that'll be presented in a different way at some point. But the music was more fitting for another song called "Tiny Little", and so there you have it.
So I'm posting this new song, right, and then I realize I'm a version behind on "Simple Thing" and two versions behind on "Forever". Sorry about that. Been a long week. That's got nothing to do with why I didn't post these new updates weeks ago, but, well,... um,... shut up.
April 7, 2008
Time is something I'll never understand. It is unfathomable that it's already been six months since a good friend left this Earth. And yet it seems like it's been six years that I've been working on the song that feebly attempts to express my personal sense of loss. This album could take another six months to complete. I didn't want to wait that long to bring this one to closure. And so it is that you can now find the final version, minus any kind of mastering alterations I make to the album in general, here. It was never going to sound good enough, but at least now it sounds like I feel, which is all a person can ask.
March 21, 2008
Couple new drafts, first of all. "Of Mice and Men" has been updated to V2. I changed the effects on the vocals so they're a little easier understand (though still indecipherable in a couple of spots, and let's face it, do you really care what I have to say, anyway?). I also added some layers of instrumentation to the chorus, and of course, who can have a song with "mice" in the title without putting a bunch of screaming mice sounds in the fadeout.
"The Wrong World" has also been upgraded to V2. It is hard to believe that song is almost where I want it to be now. For the longest time, I couldn't even begin to get there. Most of the guitar is now complete, and the vocals are probably in their final state. About all that'll be left is the drum fills, which I generally hold off on until the very end with these songs, as I want the fills to support what the rest of the music is doing, and not be a distraction.
Finally, there's a new snippet for "Too Easy", which is going to be quite a political song. I'm really not too happy with the opening guitar sequence, but I really like the middle part, so I'll probably see if I can back from that into a new opening sequence.
"Of Mice and Men" and "The Wrong World" have consumed a lot of my time the past few weeks, so it's good to get new versions of them up here and use that as a "stop it, already" point. Now I can focus on "Too Easy" and another song that's only a few fluttering ideas in my head right now - "Core Dump". Hopefully I can get those fluttering ideas onto my hard drive before they escape through my ears.
March 5, 2008
Just one update today, from snowy downtown Denver. "Of Mice and Men" kind of took off out of nowhere into a full-length song in the past few days. This was one of those songs where I got it started with something very simple, and then the song did the rest with little or no help from me. Proving once again that my relative worth in this whole venture is debatable at best.
February 23, 2008
Not bad huh? I'm updating this page about once a month, so the album ought to be done in, hmm... let's see... four, carry the five... oh never mind, Earth will be hit by a colossal asteroid long before then. But hey, it's the journey that really matters, right? Right?
Okay, this is where you step in and say something like "damned straight!"
You're never gonna run your own music website if you don't start stepping up to the plate in these situations.
So, a few new updates today. "The Wrong World" has finally been expanded to full length. Got a nice good cry out of hearing that one in its entirety for the first time. Lots of work to do on the mix itself, but the structure feels like it's where it needs to be, so that's good. Astute observers will also note the lyrics have changed rather significantly since the last version. I now hate the replaced lyrics so much I won't even bother keeping them around anywhere on this site.
In other news, "Sweet Gravy" was going nowhere as a concept, so I turned the car around rather sharply. Apologies for the side curtain air bag on your lap, but I think this'll work much better, thanks. The song is now called "Of Mice and Men", and it even has some lyrics. As far as the music goes, it's only a snippet so far. But hey, every bad song started as a much shorter bad concept. Okay, back to the meth lab - little behind on my bills.
January 28, 2008
Well it's not like I haven't been doing anything for the past month and a half. And in fact, it's not like I haven't been doing anything with this new album for the past month and a half. It's just that I haven't been able to crank something out that would even qualify as a reasonable work in progress. Until now.
To be perfectly forthcoming, one song in particular has really messed it all up. I can say with little hesitation that "The Wrong World" has already caused more moments of agony than any other song I've ever written. Given the nature of the subject matter, it would be right near the top of that category even if I wasn't having any problems with it in the musical sense. But I seem to have lost my capacity to settle for experimentation in the case of this song. It's like there's some *thing* out there - some perfect ideal that represents what this song should sound like - and it just sounds like hell to me if I'm not at that point. So it's almost as painful to post the song in its current state as it has been to work on it. But it's even slightly more painful to notice that in singing about someone who really knew how to live, I'm short-circuiting my own ability to do that. So you can find the latest version at the link above as Version 0a.
Two other updates. The first is a very slightly modified "Simple Thing". I felt the ride cymbal in the chorus was too quiet, so I cranked it up to where you can't hear anything else. I've also added a single choir-sounding chord to the transition after the first chorus, and I tried to upgrade the vocals in the final chorus, although there's certainly a ceiling on how far that can be improved with me at the mike.
The other update is a newer, and in my opinion, much cleaner-sounding, version of "Forever". I had the vocal EQ settings all wrong the first time around, and changed some levels on the vocals throughout the song.
December 4, 2007
New draft. Forever. Check it out. I'm tired. Bye.
November 18, 2007
At the ripe old age of 38, I think I have finally come to peace with the idea that I will never understand inspiration. It took weeks of agonizing to come up with lyrics to "The Wrong World". Then I sat down with a coffee at a Barnes and Noble store, and cranked the whole thing out in an hour. So today, I'm thinking I want to get a start on the next entry - "Forever". I sit down with a coffee at a Starbucks (one of fifty-seven such stores on 16th Street Mall in Denver), and I crank the whole thing out in a half an hour.
Time out, Sherlock - no, the secret isn't as simple as sitting down with a coffee somewhere. Usually that has about a 10% success rate. I wish I knew how to get into the musical "zone" on purpose, but I guess I'll have to just settle for it being a surprise whenever it happens. As surprises go, I could do a lot worse.
November 6, 2007
A sense of humor, to me, is one of the most important tools to have at your disposal when something terrible happens. I also believe it makes you live longer. But there are moments, scattered across your life, where there's no escape from somberness. This past month has included such moments for me and my friends, who have lost one of our own. I won't go into detail about the impact Dave Lackey had on my life just yet - I'm still processing that much anyway. But the latest entry to this album - "The Wrong World" - is my feeble attempt to start. Hopefully when all is said and done it will be remotely worthy of his memory, even if only from my isolated vantage point.
October 6, 2007
Rockies. Can't friggin' believe it. One game from the NLCS. And now for something even more spectacular. No, wait a sec. That won't work. Let's start over.
Sun. Came up this morning. And now for something even more spectacular. There's a full draft of "Simple Thing" available. This is probably as far as I'll go with this one for a while - time to work on other songs. But in the mean time, I have to say I'm quite impressed with Cakewalk's Dimension Pro synth. All of the guitar sounds on this song to date are entirely synthesized. I'll sprinkle in the real thing in the end product, but at this point I'm thinkin' I'll probably keep a lot of the synthesized stuff too. Unless I don't.
September 4, 2007
Yes, it's begun. So a lot has happened since I finished "Stratospheric" in March. I took a little time off from music, but not much. Then I got the itch again, and I decided it was finally time to upgrade my music software. I had gotten quite used to SONAR, but I was tired of all the crashes (I was using the very first version ever released). So I bought their latest edition, along with a new software synthesizer, and I installed it on my old machine. Right away, I liked the new interface. I loaded up a few instruments and, over the course of less than an hour, threw together a little snippet to test it out. More on that in a moment.
Well, the sounds were great, but it was crackling a bit. I determined I didn't have enough memory. So I bought two gigs more, cracked open the computer, installed it, turned it back on, and VOILA! You have just FRIED YOUR COMPUTER! NICE WORK, BUDDY!
A week later, I had a new computer, with Vista (which isn't as bad as I thought it would be), a new sound card, and a much lighter wallet, which is great, because my ass was really hurting from carrying around the heavy one.
Anyway, everything works great now, and it doesn't crash anymore. (Yet). Meanwhile, that little snippet I threw together for no other reason than to test the new stuff out has turned into a larger snippet of the first song on the next album: "Simple Thing". In fact, I didn't even need to change the first line of the lyrics.
Another interesting tidbit about this song - the melody in the chorus (which is where the snippet ends) might sound familiar to those of you (both of you in fact) who listened to the last album. This means the drugs worked. Er,... I mean, so, actually, the same sort of melody shows up near the end of "Dreaming of Magic". When I came up with the last part of that song, I almost nixed it in favor of using it as an entire song at a later date. But in the end I kept it as a part of "Dreaming of Magic". And now I'm using it in another song anyway. And there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it. It's good to be the composer.
