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tallchris wrote:Hey Tim,

What are you singing on "Red Pen" after the line "I don't want to control"? To my ears, it sounds like "You are the sun of Babar", but I don't think you are singing about the elephant's son on this one.

This may just be my favorite BP song to date.

Not Tim, so please pardon me, but I just want to guess and see if I'm right:

"I don't want to control you, I just want to bombard you now."

And I agree, awesome song.

What would you have to learn? A lot of technical stuff, like getting keyboard chops and all that?

No, not chops. I don't care about the chops.

Kraftwerk are, by no means, technical geniuses in that way at the synthesizer. It seems as if it would be easy as hell to make some great keyboard-based songs.

Synthland is a whole different thing than the gtr/bass/drums.

There's only one Kraftwerk for a reason. It's hard to make disciplined, focused music, but I think this is especially true of electronic music.

The options at one's disposal are infinite and extremely different from each other.

The paradox of choice--it is very difficult to know where to stop and very easy to dither and end up with nothing or a mess.

I am not sure I'd know where to stop, is what I'm saying.

So I was wondering what kind of stuff you would do with the synthesizer if you actually had all the time/know-how you think you need.

Probably the same kind of music I make now, translated to synthesizers.

A lot of bands have tried to do that translation and failed.

I find it more impressive when bands do what New Order or Wire or the Fall did (more or less successfully, by my reckoning): completely translate their sound. Rather than just tinkering with keybs and drum machines and samples.

But it's undeniably easier to just bend whatever I would normally do to suit whatever I hear in my head.

I'm finding it doesn't take much to adjust. Just a little bit of keyb and drum machine and sampling....

Hey tmidgett!

Is it officially The Year Of The Bro?

It's the Year of Reclaiming the Term "Bro" via Voluminous Meta-Broing.

I think I hear some faint horns towards the end of "Pitch" on the new _Congress_ ep. Is it really horns that I am hearing?

No horns. Is it disorienting? We worked pretty hard to make it sort of disorienting, so I hope so.

What are you singing on "Red Pen" after the line "I don't want to control"? To my ears, it sounds like "You are the sun of Babar", but I don't think you are singing about the elephant's son on this one.

Jurgis is correct:

"I don't want to control you, I just want to bombard you now."

Dear tmidgett:

Regarding iced-tea; lemon or no lemon?

Hai Tim!

Totally unimportant question: lately, in photographs depicting (the) Bottomless Pit in performance, you appear with one or another of the Electrical baritones, so obviously you're still using the first one as well as the "new" one. What governs the decision to use which one on a given song live? Are they tuned differently, or is it a sonic thing with the different pickups? Or something else?

Gear-curious,
M

Regarding iced-tea; lemon or no lemon?

I prefer it with lemon, no sugar.

For some reason, you can't get Lipton bottled ice tea with lemon and no sugar.

They have 'no lemon, no sugar.'

They have 'lemon and sugar' or 'lemon and artificial sweetener.'

But no 'lemon with no sugar.'

It's too bad.

Maurice wrote:Totally unimportant question: lately, in photographs depicting (the) Bottomless Pit in performance, you appear with one or another of the Electrical baritones, so obviously you're still using the first one as well as the "new" one. What governs the decision to use which one on a given song live? Are they tuned differently, or is it a sonic thing with the different pickups? Or something else?

Maurice, the all-metal one is 30" scale length, and the yellow (alder-bodied) one is 32" scale length. The former is tuned to A-flat (true baritone) and the latter to E-flat (more like a traditional 6-string bass).

The metal one does have a narrower frequency range and brighter, sharper sound, irrespective of the tuning. Partly this is due to having P90s. The wood one has a lot more bass and is cleaner-sounding, which is partly due to having humbuckers.

They're well-suited to their tasks, though I joke that I should have had one 7-string made and called it good.

I'm hoping to have a third baritone sometime in the next ten years, if Kevin ever has time to build it!

Hi tmidgett, how're you!?!

Speaking of baritones. I got one. The regular Japanese Fender Jaguar one. It's tuned to B, and it sounds amazing.

But I have a hard time trying to write a song with it to include it more. I find myself doing too much 'translating', trying to find out what I would be playing on a conventionally tuned guitar. Should I just start playing on it as though it were a guitar and not worry about keys and chords and just go with the tried and true patterns I'm used to, or what?

I'm not really articulating my question well. I suppose what I'm asking is how do I incorporate this more? because it fuckin' wails. But like you pointed out with the synthesizer stuff above, I don't want to do things just because I can. It does have to serve the purpose of the song. How do I find if a song has a baritone in its purpose?

In conclusion, what the fuck?

Tim,

Hello. Thanks for the recommendation of Albany Park Auto Clinic. They listened to what I said and fixed what I asked them to at a fair price and didn't kill me on the towing charge. Good people to do business with. Thanks again,

Bob

But I have a hard time trying to write a song with it to include it more. I find myself doing too much 'translating', trying to find out what I would be playing on a conventionally tuned guitar. Should I just start playing on it as though it were a guitar and not worry about keys and chords and just go with the tried and true patterns I'm used to, or what?

That is what I did, although I found the instrument doesn't really lend itself to being played like either a guitar or a bass. It's it's own deal.

I'm not really articulating my question well. I suppose what I'm asking is how do I incorporate this more? because it fuckin' wails. But like you pointed out with the synthesizer stuff above, I don't want to do things just because I can. It does have to serve the purpose of the song. How do I find if a song has a baritone in its purpose?

Yeah, I don't really know. Once I started playing it, it felt like my instrument, so that was that. I didn't really have to work at the inspirational part of it.

However, as noted, I think it requires a distinct approach to get the most out of it. You can just hammer on a guitar, and you can toink out individual notes on a bass, and they will sound cool. But I don't find myself doing either of those things very often on a baritone guitar.

There's a little world of bass and guitar things that you can do at the same time on a baritone, and I find myself enjoying that world the most, rather than just guitar-type or just bass-type playing.

Hello. Thanks for the recommendation of Albany Park Auto Clinic. They listened to what I said and fixed what I asked them to at a fair price and didn't kill me on the towing charge. Good people to do business with.

Those guys are solid.

I called the other week about getting the A/C fixed in my van--I'm trying to sell it, but we were gonna use it on this little tour we did, etc. We ended up renting.

Anyway, I called about it, was hemming and hawing, and Wally asked if the compressor had been updated from R-42 to R-48 or whatever.

Then, as if he had just thought of something useful, he suggested I try 440 air conditioning. "Wow, no, what's that?" "Four windows down, forty miles per hour."

Ha. Ha.

Hey Tmidgett,

Does Misery really love company???

tmidgett wrote:

I think I hear some faint horns towards the end of "Pitch" on the new _Congress_ ep. Is it really horns that I am hearing?

No horns. Is it disorienting? We worked pretty hard to make it sort of disorienting, so I hope so.

Well, I think I hear horns, but there are no horns. I do find that mildly disorienting.