Category: Rants

The Brain Worms, The Brain Worms

Watching this morning’s Democracy Now, well worth a listen if you can stomach it. Absurdities pile upon horrors and one thing that just cracked me up is the title, “The Honorable,” ahead of RFK Jr.’s name. He’s a tragic mess and in some dreadful way, the perfect face and voice of the demise of all that is right and good, with his warped flesh, destroyed voice, and utterly ridiculous and homicidal positions. “The Honorable” and a horse’s ass, there’s no honor near or about him, whatever is honorable in this world, he is other things, that’s a punch line, “The Honorable” label sitting there in front of him as he testifies at the remains of our legislature. Fun times.

I wont post a photo of him, we can’t have that here, one has standards. I will share this amusing bit from Elle Cordova:

https://youtube.com/shorts/ilry6T71hUA?si=tcsp9HA-e9wRx412

What will be, after all this? What will be.

Crafting Craft Music in This Worldly World

Greetings fellow travelers.

One of my favorite moments on my new album This Worldly World
is the outro on Tropical Snow. That whole piece flowed out of me in a fun process of observing, really. I listened and let my hands do what was asked of them by the music as it emerged. Took a few short hours and was very complete, and the ending part was a delicious surprise.

Sometimes, sometimes and not always but sometimes for me, creating original music is easy and fun and satisfying. It’s almost always fun and satisfying in some unique ways, but not always so easy. Tropical Snow was all of these, and when I hear it, I hear a calm and peaceful place in myself which I’m glad exists, and that I can visit sometimes.

A nerdly guitar note – I used my Joe Meek VCQ3 optical compressor rather heavily on this track, especially near the end. Hard compression can be a really cool guitar effect, but I usually don’t have much use for it. For this, however, it was just the medicine on the lead line near the end, when the song fades into the sunset.

Semi-nerdly related notes – I used, on this album, three main instruments: a Martin acoustic, a Fender B-bass, and my one-off custom Telecaster-ish bit of magic which came to me by luck and circumstance decades ago. For the drum tracks, some of them are me playing hand-percussion at home, others are edited and looped studio tracks from some of the great drummers I’ve worked with in sessions over recent years. The vocals are almost all mine, and I still don’t use autotune for anything. It’s a choice, not one to be on a soapbox about, but a solid choice for me because I like the unique quirks in our human voices, and I do not consider them imperfections at all. I wish less recording artists and producers would squash the “real” out of their human voices, but that’s just me.

As for soapboxes, I will get on mine to say I think Ai-generated music and other Ai-gen content is a Bad Thing That Causes Harm. Caps for emphasis. Especially regarding artistic or creative work, it is antithetical to creativity. It makes me sick and I wish it would go away. There will be examples of gooder (sic) uses of it, but I think in sum it is Bad For The World (more caps, more emphasis). Part of my passionate opinion there comes from my knowledge of the joy and discovery involved in creating (ahem) CRAFT MUSIC! A term which makes me cackle – it came from a colleague of mine in jest – he said that’s what music made “the old way” or words to that effect may eventually be called, like Craft Beer and such. Slow food? Anyway I worry for younger folks who enter a world where this exists, where you can text-prompt a thing to make a thing and there it is and whoop, you’ve done little with your hands, little with your mind, and less with your heart. I hope instead they go to music lessons, practice their scales diligently for hours upon hours, feel the exhilaration of mastering a difficult passage which had once seemed daunting and out of reach, and then play it joyfully with their hands, with their hands. And I’m sure many of them will, and I hope folks encourage it. It does wonders for a body and soul. I guess I wouldn’t harumph so hard about Ai-slop if it were not for the absolutely horrible environmental consequences it brings, at a time when we should be actively and literally saving the earth from doom. This is of course, the kind of thing I rave and rant about in some of my songs.

Well, I hope you enjoy my Craft Music, Slow Food record, made by me mostly, with the help of a few great human friends, and a pair of wonderful cats. Still waiting a few days til I finalize track 14 – which will have a few more voices chiming in at the end, per this fun. Then after that I’ll send it to all the streaming services.

OH! Also, streaming release of Russ Ellis‘ Songs From The Garden album TBA soon, in another post. It’s been available on CD and on Bandcamp since November of 2021, and along with being a personal favorite of mine, it is also Berkeley Cat Records’ biggest seller. It too, was made by human voices and hands! Quite a great bunch of ’em, in fact.

Til next time, Good morning and good luck,

Eric

Berkeley supervises a mix

Exile On FB Street

Peculiar end to my Facebook saga:  After trying unsuccessfully to quit, numerous times over the years since 2007, I was unceremoniously banished on December 24, 2024. They won’t tell me why other than that they can’t confirm my identity. Well, that’s a chuckle, because, I can’t, really, either!  Who am I?  OK, well I mostly know. Eric Din. Eric Roy Dinwiddie. Same same.

But FB. I could go further with the effort to get back in, but nah. I wasted some time there, as one does. It’s a time-wasting engine, designed to suck your energy oh and yes they are ruining society in myriad ways. Bye bye. So the 1500 or so people who I was friends with there, they can still find me if they want to, and anyway FB wasn’t showing most of them my posts anymore, which was frustrating.  If I shared a cat photo it would get all sorts of likes and loves and awwws, but post a new song and like, two, three people respond. I get it, I prefer cats too. But how much is indifference from my pals, and how much is FB simply not showing the Bandcamp or other external links to them?  No way to know, and weeds grow in the mind.

I have less weeds in the absence of all that.

Twitter, I quit that venue the day whatshisbutt took over and called it “X,” I mean, come on, the worst rebrand since New Coke, and as much a failure.  Everyone should quit but they won’t cos I don’t know why.  I guess the more followers one has there, the harder to leave, and I get that.

So now this blog is a tree falling in the woods.  I wonder if anyone sees it.  I could look at the stats but I don’t care that much.  I’ve become indifferent to indifference.  I feel at peace with myself and my work and my art and my cats and the earth.

Last year saw some monumental disappointments, near and far from me.  My longtime friend and more recent career coach died by his own hand, a little more than one year ago, and that’s still very hard for me to even comprehend.  His choice, he rests in peace, no judgement here, but I do wish he had chosen to stay.  Then the Nov. 5 debacle to end all debacles.  And right now not one but two of my dear old friends are dealing with cancer, and I pray for their victories and health.

What does it all add up to here for me on this Thursday morning with a little welcome rain approaching this weekend?  Gratitude.  For this moment and all the moments.  For all the moments with each of the aforementioned friends, which I remember so vividly.  I have in this life tried to spend my time with people who savor life and music and art and tend to treat themselves and others with love and respect.  And the mind in its vastness can hold so many memories and some in startling detail.

60, I’ll be 60 soon.  With some amount of surprise, I now feel that’s an accomplishment in itself.  I like the number, I like the age, so much more than I had earlier expected to, somehow.  I keep my memories with me, they are wealth.  Even the hard ones, all gifts.  And in some contrast to the state of the world, my own life has been full of luck and good work and good play and wonder and joy over these recent years.  We never know when something will go awry and I am grateful for every good moment.

This song, which went live in the streaming worldly world today, was a nice step in my journey, dealing with some of the above.

Meanwhile, in Dystopilandia,

half of all internet traffic is now bots. Glory be, we’ve lost the meaning of life. The meaning of life being closely tied to being alive, and this being a darkly comical hellscape of things that are not alive, poking at us. Some are feeding the ravenous maw of AI “learning” monstrosities and others are more directly criminal, trying to hack your accounts for any number of nefarious plots. Nostalgically I recall the web “crawlers” of old, indexing the “web logs” and websites, so we could find an interesting read quickly without wading through a dumpster fire of advertisements and cookie agreements, and how cool the Internet was or seemed to be before greed and ugliness swamped all.

Meaning of life, meaning of life.

I make a record, I write a post, I record a podcats (sic) I do these things with my hands and voice and thoughts and tools that yes, include computer technology throughout, but I have no desire to have the tools overtake the joyful tasks and make me merely an observer of them. I don’t want this for our kids, either, I worry for them and I am glad to have lived before this. I don’t even like the little prompts on my text app – “Can I call you later?” “In a meeting,” or whatever. No, you see because I choose my own words, I choose my words because I am alive and have the human gift of language.

Creepiness abounds.  LinkedIn, which I like for some things, is all heavy into AI every which way now, it seems. I go to make a post – I usually just re-share my mewsletter (sic) and the first thing I see is a “Rewrite with AI” prompt.  They also send emails telling me how many “impressions” my posts there have gotten in a week and how many times my profile has been found in “searches” there. These notices are automated of course and if I upgrade to Premium I can see who these mysterious searchers are, and hey, I don’t mind a hustle, everyone on LinkedIn is hustling one way or another and the platform needs to make money like anyone else so fine fine. I’m actually going to take a LinkedIn Learning course about AI that seems geared to understanding and adapting to the reality of it and not simply “leveraging” it, for the love of yawn. I want to know more about this because it’s not going away and I honestly fear it may drive us all mad.

Anyway I don’t want to have a machine talk or write for me, and that won’t change. Like the New Orleans chef in Apocalypse Now saying “I don’t want it! I don’t want it!” and ripping off his shirt, I do not want it. I do not want it, Sam I Am. Not over here or over there, or with a tiger or with a bear.

I will do my own bad writing. I will do my own good writing. Sometimes I may even write something great and feel good about it. Again, the meaning of life. These kinds of things give our lives meaning. And this I want.

The mad rush to AI-everything and “mine” stupid bitcoins is speeding the heating of the planet, everything is being deregulated by dangerous maniacs, and people are thrilled to be able to “make” a song or movie or novel or essay or resume without doing much but “prompt” an AI-chatterboxthingy.

I don’t want it.
Hi tiger.  Bye tiger.

Nerding Forth About Time Signatures, Time Machines, AI, and The Future

A few weeks ago I experimented with a Ska pattern in 7/4 time. It worked spectacularly and I loved the result, so completed and published it as Inside the All Night Ska Disco at Area 51.

Just yesterday I started messing with a ska-adjacent pattern in 6/8 meter, and it got very tropically islandy shangri-lala delighty, so I am eagerly following through with that.

By humorous coincidence, yesterday I came across a ridiculous, probably AI-written, “summary” of Ska music, in the increasingly rotten Inter-mess. In this garbled splutage, it was stated that Ska music is in 4/4 time. Fie, unimaginative robot!  Ska music is usually in 4/4 time, get it right. It IS in 4/4 until someone does otherwise, and I am sure plenty of earlier examples do exist before mine.

“The future is unwritten,” Joe Strummer reminded. Good thing to note, generally, and why especially now, I would think.

So far my attempts at creating a magic sci-fi time machine to put every eligible voter back to Nov. 4 2024 for a make-up exam have failed. We certainly shouted it from the rooftops last year, said loudly and clearly what will happen if that election goes south. It. Is. Now. Exactly. As. Predicted. Whoopsiebears, now they mad. Wiser persons than I may understand it.

I did manage to fashion a 1983 time-capsule, that was fun. Orwell said there might be trouble, and, well.

Good morning!  I’m sipping a nice Peet’s French Roast, brewed in an old-School drip coffee maker from the before time. We’ve probably had this trusty machine since the ’90s, ever faithfully delivering its oh so important yield at the start of each day. Obsolete it is not.

Driving a Chevy Bolt, and GLAD I never got a Tesla. Horrified, that what has been one of the leading EV-makers is now so irrevocably tainted.  It’s not fun times for Tesla owners, as drama ensues, and presumably used models are not fetching “Blue Book” as the brand plummets straight to hell.

What next, we wonder?  I dunno, Joe, the Future is full of Uncertain Tea. But as you say, unwritten.

I’ll keep recording new original songs whenever the inspiration strikes me, and post them here or here per my whim. Whims are good for artistic direction, I find. These tunes are also in the big ol’ streaming world, including now YouTube, so, find ’em anywhere – Pandora, Apple Music, DEEZER, Spotify..  As the pipelines get flooded and polluted by AI-generated content, I’ll be among the artists creating our own material. For what it’s worth, and I don’t know what it’s worth, but it feels right. As long as it feels right, I will do it. One small part of the vast human discussion. The cats seem to enjoy it.

In Defense of In Defense of In Defense of Ska

And oh what fun we had

It’s been a few years since the first edition of Aaron Carnes’ unique and amorous history of Ska music and culture landed in the book-o-sphere. I recently ordered and received a copy of the expanded 2nd edition and yet I haven’t found the time yet to read it, what with work and creative endeavors and the apocalypse and things. SO! Delighted am I to learn that Aaron himself sat down and READ ALOUD the entire thing over several days of recording sessions to create, an audio-book. Now that’s my speed. We can now hear these stories as told by the author directly, and I applaud this fervently.

I recently listened again to the UpTones episode of the In Defense of Ska PodCast in which they interviewed myself and Paul Jackson. Apart from a few crunchy bits (there are always a few crunchy bits), it turns out to be my personal favorite, of the audio interviews we have done. In part because I learned some things, realized some things that I hadn’t really considered before, which become much more plain, in hindsight.

One rather humorous piece – neither Paul nor I, nor any of our bandmates, to my knowledge, were very aware of the up and down trends in ska’s popularity. We just always loved ska, it was never in question. But in 2002 when the UpTones played our first show in over twelve years, it turns out, I learned MUCH later thru Aaron’s work, we couldn’t have picked a less trend-observant moment to re-emerge!

Didn’t care then, don’t care now, in terms of our choice, it’s fitting, really, yet I do find it delightful. Puts some context to things. Why, for example, was this kid in the front row yelling, “YOU’RE SAVING SKA!!” at us? Flattered though I was, I wasn’t aware that ska needed any saving, and besides, what a responsibility! We carried on, played shows all the way through to 2018, with, again, some lineup changes along the way per our normal, finally winding down after the Albany, CA funfest I mentioned in a recent post here.

OH! And in that post, I was mistaken, there IS a poster for that Albany show, silly me, and I have it on my wall here as well. Another Paul original, and here is a photo of same:

While I abstain from predicting the future, that was the last UpTones show to date, and the obstacles to ever create another one seem insurmountable from here. So it goes, as Mr. Vonnegut would say. In an odd bit of prescience, the East Bay Express article by the same said Aaron Carnes before the above gig, quotes me as saying, “The Uptones have always been an outlet, letting some steam off and turning some suffering into joy and getting moving instead of getting immobilized by the situation,” Din said. “The way I look at it now is any show could be our last one. Or it could be the beginning of another round of shows. I tend to accept whatever it is.”

And accept it I do. Maybe the kid who yelled “you’re saving ska” is leading their own group, now! I rather hope so. Aaron is moving on from this epic project, after two editions and an audiobook, and dozens of podcast interviews with many of the players and characters involved over decades of ska’s unique and powerful history. He has defended ska, and defended it well, and as a fan and participant in this wild story, I tip my hat. Bon voyage on your next literary adventures, Mr. Carnes, and thank you.

Oh one more fun bit – my song Donkeyfish, now track 1 on my Poppin’ the Ska solo-ish album, is directly inspired by memories of all of the above.

All best,

Eric Dinwiddie
Ska fan

Originally posted at https://berkeleycatrecords.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-in-defense-of-in-defense

A Journal Entry Of Sorts

I do the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Some have called this the definition of insanity but I prefer to see it as dedication.

Now then, making records. Berkeley Cat Records has a slogan – a tag line, if you will –

We’re from Berkeley. We are cats. We make records.

And it’s… TRUE!!

By gosh we do this.

I have some webby updatings to do, on this and a few other webbysites.  To bring my archive up-to-date. Been rather prolific, this year, and I’m pleased with my output. Each track is unique and different, so in this regard I guess I lied earlier. I do the same thing, that is, I get up (early, wow, very early these days) and make Peet’s coffee (various blends, current fave is Big Bang, no they don’t pay me to say that, it’s a Berkeley thing), and some days, some mornings, the light bulb over me head says, hey, here’s a track or a song idea! And I go there. Expecting what? Why, Petunia, I just don’t know.

Trying times, trying times, what a cliché that becomes. 2024, what the FUCK?! OK damn, my great friend and confidante, my career counselor and living Buddha Garden rock star beautiful human being Luke Kreinberg, died by suicide earlier in the year. It hardly feels real and if I start in talking about it I’ll write a novel, so let’s call that a headline. Grief sets in long and slow as comprehension of this slowly forms in my dumbfounded and stunned heart and mind.

Politics, another headline, shall we?   Biden, the drama, then Kamala, the campaign! The energy, the enthusiasm, the embrace of good values, decency and the rule of law, the rejection of all that is horrible, and then.. The most staggering debacle. It tests my optimism.

Optimism. I have lived most of my life with an intentional, deliberate optimism. Even in difficult times, in my personal life or career or through difficult events in the world around me I have chosen through and through to be optimistic. Part of it is calculated. I’ve found that pessimism can lead to the expected (bad) results and optimism can seem to help to lead to good outcomes. You get the result you imagine, to some degree. It’s not magic or hocus pocus, I think the current popular word for it is intention, setting your intention.

This year, yeah, it’s been tested a bit, this willful optimism of mine.  And becoming aware of that, becoming conscious of this inner struggle, certainly informed some of my songwriting and creative efforts.

A month after Luke’s passing, I went to see a psychotherapist. Private, expensive, several sessions, somewhat helpful. Smart fellow, wise and doubtlessly expert in his field. Younger than me, by at least ten years. After the 3rd visit I thanked him and canceled. You know, making records costs a bit, too. And I found, that the process involved in telling this gentleman, this professional, my stories and trying to understand myself a little better, is not wholly different from my process in writing and recording my own songs. Things are revealed, things I like and sometimes things that surprise or even disappoint me. In short it helps me work on myself, to hopefully become a better person. Well, funny thing – I even at one point some months ago said I was done making records for a while. Ha! That didn’t fly, so, well, I decided I can afford one or the other – record-making or therapy.

To become a better person. Now that is a worthy goal. And it’s one worth saying out loud at this time in our world, I believe.  Because there seems to be, among our fellow man, an embrace of values which are indecent. And I chose every word in that sentence. Our fellow man. Yes, also in women and in humankind more generally, but in men, I speak of men, men who have lost their sense of honor. Who have somehow been influenced, or brainwashed, if you prefer, to celebrate and reward simply the worst possible traits men can have. That is a mistake, and a dire one, and I doubt any good will come of it.

Meanwhile nature bats last, and she’s at bat. Instead of focusing our considerable human genius on dealing with the climate crisis intelligently, with the sort of organized focus which landed men on the moon, the human race is instead fighting wars over territory, power, religion, oil, water and vengeance, dumping more carbon into the atmosphere than ever before.

So how’s my willful optimism doing? Well, surprisingly ok. Because after all, it is willful.  What am I doing, with my time? Well, continuing to make art, for one thing. NOT making “art” with generative AI (I laugh out loud as I write this), and striving to be the best version I can imagine of myself. And I know, I know without doubt, that my friends and colleagues, and untold millions of good people whom I don’t know personally, are similarly striving. And THAT realization changes my optimism from willful, to easy and natural.

Our capacity for self-invention is considerable. And that’s some good news.

A Week Ago And Only Once

HERE is a scan of the set list I played at Ivy Room last Sunday. Blogging it as a memento, as it was a fun slice of life. Funny detail? I’ve started to use non-cursive print lately, along with my usual BLOCK LETTERS. With a pen, mind you, these ancient instruments.

I’m scheduled to play a set for Peter Montgomery’s 60th birthday party, at Gilman, in January, with a luminous cast of luminaries. Here’s the flier for that, as created by Peter himself:

And good morning

Sensible Comments Lurcheth Toward Babylon To Be Borne

Due to appalling lunacy I have completed my Sensible Comments album, and it will be foisted onto the unsuspecting streaming services on April Fool’s Day, because of course it will.  You may view the titles and (in theory) hear some audio snippets here -> ericdin.hearnow.com

As part of Berkeley Cat Records International Science Labs’ ongoing adventures and research, I distributed this release through CD Baby, instead of my usual Distrokid.  I was surprised to discover how different their artist-facing interfaces are.  Both excellent in their own ways, but rather than get into that here, I will instead quote myself from the album:

Tomorrow is a day
Yesterday was one also
There have been some before
Presumably there will be more

-from Derogatory Matrons, track 2 on Sensible Comments – a 14-track album of what I have the temerity to call songs.  I confess it’s one of my favorites.  Definitely not a pop album.  More in my experimental vein, you might say. Existential rants of bafflement and madness. Or as we call it here, Tuesday.

Already live in Bandcamp, per tradition, and on April the 1st I’ll update the release date there. All perfectly sane, don’t you think? Enjoy responsibly.

 

Barbercontenheimerglobbus

Resharing this from my Substack..

In which..

Ba Ba Ba, Ba Barbarella, Ba Ba Ba, Ba Barbenheimer, Ba Ba Ba, Be Bop a Thing..

Hello! It’s Caturday and there are things to be done. Cats to be played with, guitars to strum. Rivers to jump in, if it can be arranged.

What of the movies? Barbenheimer, or as I prefer, Oppenbarbie. Will I set foot in a movie theater for the first time in lo these many years? I might. I hope it’s not too loud. My last movie theater experience was bad. Too loud, and, lots of commercials! Yes, commercials. You pay the cover, you pay for parking, you buy the popcorn, you’ve paid, right? Captive audience, commercials. No mute button. This plus internets has made me stay home for my movies. But.. Barbarellaheimerbarbenopalypse.. I think it’s on. I may need to experience this moment of popular culture in its undiluted form. The Barbie preview – I pulled it up on Apple TV yesterday, and wow. I think I like. As for Oppenbabyheimerdude, I have read quite a bit about him, and his brothers, and his colleagues and friends and lovers, over the years. A fascinating and complex man to be sure. Epic moral dilemmas, giant world-changing science with huge secret team in the desert, why not? What we need is both films, side-by-side or even overlapping, to save time and maximize popcorn value. I’d sit through commercials for that.

OK, CONTENT! All of this is content. The writers and actors strike brings up so many fascinating issues. AI does its inevitable advance and hoomans try to understand it. An amusing feature to all this is the ads I see on FB and elsewhere – telling me to use AI to write blog posts or songs. I find it darkly funny that people would spend money to buy ads and target me with that message. I can spell out the reason, that will never appeal to me in any way at all: THE MEANING OF LIFE!

The meaning of life. I enjoy writing, creating, recording, and all of these things. I do them because they are fun. I learn things about myself, by doing them. I might entertain some people, or even inspire them, sometimes, by creating and sharing things that start in my imagination. So, no, thank you, dear AI company, I think I’ll not have you doing the fun bits instead of me.

Hey, my second solo album comes out August 1! This is the title track, sort of, and it may address some of these hot topics. Be well, stay cool and hydrated, <3 E