So one of the biggest things I’ve got out of this class is a will to keep bloging. I believe bloging gives me the perfect chance to rant, rave, and spew my opinions. Though I haven’t exercised my bloging to much aside from class work, I plan take full advantage of this new era in digital journalism. In every story I’ve wrote so far I’ve managed to throw some personal opinion in at some point witch throws the whole thing out of whack. Writing a blog gives me the perfect chance to go off and state my opinion about whatever I feel.
The main influence in keeping me going with the blogs was when I found a blog written by one of my favorite musicians, Brendan Kelly, the bassist of The Lawrence Arms, a punk rock trio based out of Chicago Illinois. The Blog is titled “The bad Sandwich Chronicles” and can be found in the “Influential musicians” portion of my blog list. So Brendan has already wrote some of my favorite songs from the last 10 year, so it’s not like I haven’t already been impressed by his writing. He tends to write about 1000 words everyday about his life, what’s going on in the world, giving cheesy advice, and just going off about random bullshit. It’s so great! It would always make my day to come into class and slowly read through what Brendan had to say while Robs given’ us the low-down on what to do. I’ve even recently found myself logging on daily checking for updates.
Being a fellow musician I understand how important it is to exercise writing at every possible moment. Seeing similar thoughts as mine with a strong mix of humor and opinion mixed in that’s posted by someone I truly respect as a writer has influenced me to do a similar practice. I’m hoping to shoot for 3 blog posts a week. That’ll be the goal. I plan to Rant ON and ON!! Spew senseless Jargon about anything and nothing, and most of all, confuse the fu*k out of everybody!! So if you’ld like to stick around and see what the future brings, I invite you all!!! Who knows what crazy topics I’ll come up with!?!?! Anyone have any Ideas???
Sunday, March 15, 2009
What I Learned from Steven King
First Off, I honestly wish I had put a little more time into reading this book. I tended to skim through a lot of it and though I did take in most of it, I’m sure there was still a lot more information I could of taken out of it. The main thing that I really took from Steven King and applied to my own writing was to “Kill your Darlings.” The reason I took the most out of this is because In my writing I notice that I love to go off on rants about things that don’t particularly pertain to what I’m writing. The rant can be connected to whatever I’m writing but normally it just tends to carry me away from my main subjects or interests and goes off in to a completely opinion based world in my head. Almost every article I’ve wrote so far has some kind of rant that I’ve looked over when I was done and said, “what was I thinking, as comically golden as this is it’s just got to go.” People don’t want hear about how much I hate George Bush in the middle of a review of my favorite show, Grey’s Anatomy . The Book also got me to clear my head, and clear off a spot to write as opposed to me cramming myself into the corner of the bed. The last and most important thing I’ve taken out of the book is to keep trying and never give up. You just have to keep writing even if you’re going nowhere, and then take the exercise you get out of it and to put towards future writing and projects.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Music downloading vs. the record store down the street
Happy Trails on 3rd and Monroe Corvallis has been in business for 35 years. The store has always brought us the best in hard to find and independent music. As we enter an age of digital technology where the downloading of music becomes easier and easier they see business getting harder and harder.
According to Doug DiCarolis, Happy Trails owner, the first big hit came against them came in the late 90’s with the invent of Napster. Since Napster was introduced and made music sharing become widespread Music stores all over the world have had problems staying in business.
Now days we’ve moved on to I-tunes a totally legit process of music downloading music. The problem with I-tunes is that although the music is all paid for and legal, it still doesn’t help the small record store. According to Doug, it takes away from the artistic qualities of the musician, “You don’t get the packaging and the sound quality’s not as good. People just don’t care.”
Doug pointed out a similar industry that’s starting to walk down the same line and that’s the book industry. What need is there going to be for a local bookstore when you can just download any book onto your electronic organizer. All it’s going to do is put more people out of work and ad to the already struggling economy.
One surprising thing that we’re seeing come out of this era of music downloading is believe it or not a rise in the sales of vinyl records. Another Happy Trails employee Dave Trenkel describes vinyl as “a one of a kind artifact that you just can’t replicate.” Record companies seem to be embracing the comeback of vinyl as well. A lot labels are even packaging vinyl records with coupons for a free digital download of the album purchased. Talk about new technology meeting the old.
All in all only time will tell what happens to the little record store on the corner. Music sharing was a huge hit for the industry and with the fallen economy on top of that things just aren’t looking to good. “Ultimately, it’s going to come down to a vote of what the people want, and so far they voted us out.” says Doug. All I can do is urge you to support your local music and book stores. Though the idea of downloading your books and music seems innocent and harmless enough, you’re never going to think of the little guys it’s going to hurt until they’re gone.
According to Doug DiCarolis, Happy Trails owner, the first big hit came against them came in the late 90’s with the invent of Napster. Since Napster was introduced and made music sharing become widespread Music stores all over the world have had problems staying in business.
Now days we’ve moved on to I-tunes a totally legit process of music downloading music. The problem with I-tunes is that although the music is all paid for and legal, it still doesn’t help the small record store. According to Doug, it takes away from the artistic qualities of the musician, “You don’t get the packaging and the sound quality’s not as good. People just don’t care.”
Doug pointed out a similar industry that’s starting to walk down the same line and that’s the book industry. What need is there going to be for a local bookstore when you can just download any book onto your electronic organizer. All it’s going to do is put more people out of work and ad to the already struggling economy.
One surprising thing that we’re seeing come out of this era of music downloading is believe it or not a rise in the sales of vinyl records. Another Happy Trails employee Dave Trenkel describes vinyl as “a one of a kind artifact that you just can’t replicate.” Record companies seem to be embracing the comeback of vinyl as well. A lot labels are even packaging vinyl records with coupons for a free digital download of the album purchased. Talk about new technology meeting the old.
All in all only time will tell what happens to the little record store on the corner. Music sharing was a huge hit for the industry and with the fallen economy on top of that things just aren’t looking to good. “Ultimately, it’s going to come down to a vote of what the people want, and so far they voted us out.” says Doug. All I can do is urge you to support your local music and book stores. Though the idea of downloading your books and music seems innocent and harmless enough, you’re never going to think of the little guys it’s going to hurt until they’re gone.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Ocean Profile
Monday night at Fireworks in south town Corvallis you're liable to find a bar completely full of people eating great food, drinking good beer, and listening to good music. Monday is Open mic night at Fireworks and is now hosted by Fireworks owner Ocean Liff-Anderson. Ocean is a Charismatic man who is full of triumphs in running and operated his restaurant but most of all succeeds in keeping the music playing almost every night.
As a musician I can definitely say that Corvallis has had a dying scene. Over the last few years I've seen a huge decline in amount of venues and events that help the music keep going in this town. It's truly great for a guy like Ocean to focus so much on upholding Fireworks as not just a restaurant but a venue as well. When I witnessed a local musician asking Ocean about booking a possible show before he could even give it thought he said "Let's go for it!!," with the kind of enthusiasm that this town needs when it comes to local music. Not a night goes by when you can't walk into Fireworks and find Ocean at his computer searching the net for his next artist.
Not only is Fireworks a great venue but a local producer, John Ulrich worked with Ocean and used Fireworks open mic night to film a Documentary on the Local Corvallis music scene called. "The Hearts of the Valley." The documentary features local musicians that have all come together to kill the fear and embrace the freedom of going up in front of an audience and performing what they want to at their hearts will. I will update my blog with information on where to find the documentary as soon as I find out more on it.
One of Ocean's may other achievements is keeping Fireworks stocked with organic locally grown produce along with locally brewed beers, my favorite is the Ginseng Porter by Oregon Trail brewing. I don't know how the corporate chains do things but I can go off forever on the good local re-sourcing can do for the economy.
Ocean is a man dedicated to bringing good food and local music together. The environment he’s set at Fireworks is that unlike any other restaurant or bar in town. The lighting, scenery, and a little running waterfall make it the perfect place to sit down and enjoy a choice beverage while listening to your favorite local artists. If you want to catch Ocean in action be sure to check out open mic night on Mondays at 9, or just stop in any night of the week for some beer and Pizza. Ocean this one’s for you, CHEERS!!!
As a musician I can definitely say that Corvallis has had a dying scene. Over the last few years I've seen a huge decline in amount of venues and events that help the music keep going in this town. It's truly great for a guy like Ocean to focus so much on upholding Fireworks as not just a restaurant but a venue as well. When I witnessed a local musician asking Ocean about booking a possible show before he could even give it thought he said "Let's go for it!!," with the kind of enthusiasm that this town needs when it comes to local music. Not a night goes by when you can't walk into Fireworks and find Ocean at his computer searching the net for his next artist.
Not only is Fireworks a great venue but a local producer, John Ulrich worked with Ocean and used Fireworks open mic night to film a Documentary on the Local Corvallis music scene called. "The Hearts of the Valley." The documentary features local musicians that have all come together to kill the fear and embrace the freedom of going up in front of an audience and performing what they want to at their hearts will. I will update my blog with information on where to find the documentary as soon as I find out more on it.
One of Ocean's may other achievements is keeping Fireworks stocked with organic locally grown produce along with locally brewed beers, my favorite is the Ginseng Porter by Oregon Trail brewing. I don't know how the corporate chains do things but I can go off forever on the good local re-sourcing can do for the economy.
Ocean is a man dedicated to bringing good food and local music together. The environment he’s set at Fireworks is that unlike any other restaurant or bar in town. The lighting, scenery, and a little running waterfall make it the perfect place to sit down and enjoy a choice beverage while listening to your favorite local artists. If you want to catch Ocean in action be sure to check out open mic night on Mondays at 9, or just stop in any night of the week for some beer and Pizza. Ocean this one’s for you, CHEERS!!!
Profile and Happy Trails story comming soon...
So my profile is done!! I just have to be able to sign onto the net with a differen't computer so I can post it. Also I'm working on a story about the Happy Trails Record store and the comeback of Vinyl records. This story is serisouly going to be great, I've already wrote half of it and interviewed some friends at Happy Trails. I figure this is my last story so I'm going to go out with a bang and put all I've got into it. I also intent on doing my presentation on Friday about this last Happy Trails story. Hope you'll enjoy!!
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