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January 29, 2008
Something about those Tarot cards... it would be a lot of fun to write a song for each
one of them. 78 cards there, plenty of ideas.
For motivation, next month is the annual RPM Challange,
where the challange is to write and record an album in February. 10 songs or 35 minutes
worth of music. Just for the hell of it. It's like me and the Bobby's MP3 by Midnight
times 10, divided by 29.
So back to the Tarot cards. Can anyone think of a song about Tarot cards, or about one of the
cards? No, Dylan's "Lilly, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" doesn't count, although it probably should.
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January 26, 2008
Somewhere or another, a long time ago, I'd seen these tarot cards. They're from what's known as
the Rider Waite deck. I've just come across it again online and I find the
illustrations fascinating.
The wand, (which stands for creativity, among other things,) appears in "thin air", held
aloft by a mysterious hand issuing from an odd cloud of vapour. The background is a landscape, looks
like Tuscany or Spain, featuring distant mountains and a castle on a hill.
It cracks me up that these "wands" all have little sprouting shoots coming out of them.
Here's one of the Major Arcana cards- strength. This illustration
features a woman who tames a lion by her gentle touch. I've seen other cards
where strength is illustrated featuring a strongman like Samson
prying open the jaws of the lion- somehow, I like this illustration better.
Some people are scared by the whole concept of the tarot. It seems like black magic, or
devil worship or something evil to them. Those people
shouldn't be worried, it will never have any effect on them.
Some people find it all rather silly. Maybe it is, but then I wonder if those people are
moved by music or art or good writing. These cards are allegories, every one of them
is a song. Can they used to predict the future? In a sense, because they
can be used to uncover things hidden in the present.
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January 23, 2008
Now, this is exciting. Last year I began working with Mr. Pepper on his grand vision,
a three-CD set which will tell the story of America. Not the America
of history books, well, not the ones we learned in school, anyway, but the America of
the vanquished Indian, the America of the displaced and the dispossessed.
Sadly, I was unable to do more than record a few demos for this project. (That's
the same guy under the cow head hiding behind the mic down at the bottom of the page here) But now
he's released number one, the red CD from the project, and he needs our help.
So visit his site over at CD Baby and listen to a few cuts, and if the mood strikes you, buy
one or two of his CDs so he can afford to finish the next two. It's a worthy project,
sort of in line with what Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen do, only he's one of us from 'chust across the
river in York county.
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January 22, 2008
Of course, the digital recorder traveled with me...
I've posted these field recordings on FreeSound.
The Beach at Night
The Beach by Day
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January 18, 2008
I was forced to take some time off and do some traveling last week. Yeah, that's an
ocean beyond the plane. I think change is good sometimes, don't you?
There's a new song featured today- a classic by The Blame.
The Spons-O-Meter registered a pressure increase while I was away- thanks Roxanne!
I'm liking this year better already.
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January 12, 2008
The Spons-O-Meter shows another bump today- thanks Trance!
Trance's song Real, Love Is Real has become a ringtone. I'm not
sure how that happened.
And Robert Bobby will be heading off to the Folk Alliance Conference soon
to mingle and hob-nob. Someone there will know where the phrase "hob-nob"
comes from, I bet. Have fun!
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January 1110, 2008
I had a really funny post written about this calendar. It turns out that the joke was on me.
I didn't realise that on this calendar the weeks start on Monday.
Puts an entirely new twist on 2008 for me. I think I'll keep it.
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January 5, 2008
Here's the new design. It's all bright and shiny now, isn't it? Note the Featured Song
box over on the right. This is a new thing here at Steam Powered. It's going to
change every so often, but I don't know how often yet.
There are links on the left that you might have never seen before. They were always
there on the old site but they kept getting pushed further and further to the bottom.
This won't happen now.
The new logo is a picture of the meter section of my digital recorder combined
with a picture of a "VU" meter from my cassette deck. New things and old things,
cheap things and not so cheap things all work together here.
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January 4, 2008
Testing, testing...
Is this thing on?
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Featured Song:
#076
The Blame
Kaya
mp3
or
ogg
4:09
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