Session 1311 (Owigin Lodge) 11/11/13 I missed the meeting this month. But as my sesh, I contributed to an art/music collaboration project by Reinier Loopik. He made 14 drawrings, with accompnaying story, and members of the Interroclef Lodge made songs for them. Eventaully you'll be able to see the whole thing here.
But here's the two songs I contributed: Session 1310 (Owigin Lodge) 10/05/13 For this month's meeting, I played two sets of things. The first was the final two movements of my clarinet septet. I wrote The Crone a couple weeks ago and The Warrior the day before the meeting. Both, as usual, with pencil, paper, and a pint. I have them glommed into one file here, just coz I'm lazy. You have to imagine that movements V and VI are played attacca. VI. The Crone & VII. The Warrior On the day of the session, Michael Wertz and I did a traditional Svelte-o-ween sesh. This was our first Svelte session since January 2012! Please to enjoy:
Horseshoe Crabs Session 1309 (Owigin Lodge) 09/07/13 Once again, I used this month's meeting to play work in progress on new movements of the clarinet septet. Each movement was written with paper and pencil - usually while drinking a beer, sometimes while sitting next to a river in Utah - and then entered into Finale unedited. For the last one you have to imagine the contrabass clarinet is an 8ve lower and squonking like a digeridoo with laryngitis.
III. The Smith Session 1307 (Owigin Lodge) 07/06/13 I did another pencil and paper sesh, and wrote another movement for the Clarinet Septet (see below). Also towards the end of the day, Kawa put out a call for someone to send her a track to throw some vocals onto. A "pop-up" track swap. So I did. But her laptop failed so she didn't get to do any vox. :-( Anyways here's the stupid thing I made for her in like 5 minutes. Session 1306 (Owigin Lodge) 06/01/13 For this session I sat in a pub and wrote with pencil and paper. Then I entered it all into Finale at the end of the day and heard it for the first time. Will probably edit it a bit for the final version. This is the first movement of what will be a 7 movement suite for Clarinet Septet (Eb Piccolo Clarinet, 3 Bb Clarinets, Alto, Bass, and Contrabass). I had to use a piccolo sound and an organ sound for the extreme registers because none of my virtual clarinet instruments cover the range of piccolo and contrabass clarinets. Need to figure out how to expand the range in Kontakt. Session 1302 (Owigin Lodge) 03/30/13
This month features works in progress for an international 3-way track swap/roundrobin/free-for-all between myself, Reinier, and Guillame.
Here are my 4 starts which I'm waiting for the other dudes to finish:
And here are my 3 additions to songs which were started by Reinier. They might not be completely finished yet (cuz Guillame may add to them?): Session 1302 (Wig-O Lodge) 02/02/13 This session Alan Blondin and I (collectively known as "Mmmmmmmm") did a song for each of the folks having a b-day just before and after that day: Kate Wife of Micah, Nicholas, Salane, and Darling Freakhead. See if you can figure out who each song was for. (Hint: The song for Darling Freakhead is called "Darling Freakhead.")
Sushi_with_My_Straight_Friends Session 1301 (Wig-O Lodge) 01/12/13
Here's another exercise in using Finale with Kontakt for orchestral shizzle:
Orchestral Sketch 2
Session 1212 (Wig-O Lodge) 12/08/12
For this session, Mick and I each wrote a "jazz standard" chart. Session 1209 (Wig-O Lodge) 09/01/12
Here is a track swap song, started by Dren, completed by me:
Dren n Skalrk
Session 1208 (Wig-O Lodge) 08/04/12
This was a very brief experiment I did, to learn how to get Finale to work with Native Instruments: Session 1207 (Wig-O Lodge) 07/07?/12 Again, not really clear on the exact date of the meeting.
This is another arrangement I did for my Bro-in-Law's club's musical: These are arrangements I did for some demo songs "Brother Lemuel" wrote. He provided the scratch vox and a few basic tracks and I did the rest. These are really rough.
Ur My Drug Session 1205 (Wig-O Lodge) 05/05/12
I made this for a work project... it is the putative sound track to a cat video that doesn't exist yet: Session 1204 (Wig-O Lodge) 04/07?/12 This was for the April session - not sure what day it actually occured. These are all arrangements I did for projects variously commercial and artistic. The original tracks were composed by the mysterious and possibly ficticious "Brother Lemuel." I arranged them, added this and that, produced them.
Black and White 1 (.mov) Session 1112 (Wig-O Lodge) 12/03/11 This session is two new installments for the 20th Anniversary edition of Scary Christmas by myself and Edward Current. The first song is by me, and the second is a collaboration between me and Edward. Session 1110 (Wig-O Lodge) 10/08/11 For this session I installed and learned to use Logic. Here are my first two songs using that software:
Party
And here is my first piece using nested tuplets (for Darling Freakhead):
Session 1104 (Wig-O Lodge) 4/30/11 Here is the piece I wrote for two tesla coil musical instruments (which I call "teslaphones") for the Open Spark Project:
Concerto Grosso for Two Teslaphones You can see the video of the actual performance (and a blog post about it by Doctor Popular) here: Watch the video, why not?
Session 1102 (Wig-O Lodge) 2/26/11 Please find enclosed a session by Loopklok, which is a joint session by myself and Reinier "Dooie" Loopik
Dooie's start, my finish 1
Session 1011 (Wig-O Lodge) 11/27/10 Here's another installment of my impending rock opera, Amazons of Planet Zena. I prevailed upon the great Karry Walker to help out with lyrics. Here's one of the pieces she wrote. Amazons of Planet Zena - The High Priestess' Soliloquy Session 1008 (Wirgin Lodge) 8/21/10
Amazons of Planet Zena - The Meeting, Part 1 in which Captain Max and the Professor are greeted by the Amazon congregation. Session 1007 (Wirgin Lodge) 7/3/10 An homage to the King of Pop. R.I.P., Michael. Session 1006 (Wirgin Lodge) 6/5/10 This is my attempt at immitating the score to the trailer for the movie Inception. Inception Green Screen fake score Session 1004 (Wirgin Lodge) 5/1/10 This is the first batch of songs from an extended "composer tennis" game that Dooie (a.k.a. Reinier Loopik of Clutter Lodge) and I did over the past several weeks. I started 3 songs using Nanoloop app on my iPod. Dooie started 10 songs. O.O. We batted the songs back and forth, adding stuff, mangling eachother's tracks, etc. Below are finished or semi-finished results of 6 of the starts. For 3 of the songs, I'm posting two versions... one version that I was the last person to add to, and then a version that Dooie finished in a very remixy kind of way. Indicated are the order in which each track was worked on. E.g. SRS means Steven started it, Reinier added to it, then Steven finished it.
1. Hussein In Da Membrain - SRS Session 1001 (Origin Lodge) 1/29/10 This was a roundrobbin game, where 7 of us each started a song, then we rotated the tracks until we all had contributed one or more tracks to every song. We did this over the course of Dec 2009 to Jan 2010.
The Icy Yes - Started by Nat, Finished by Kelek Session 0912 (Um, Wig Lodge?) 12/12/09 For this session I used a bunch of recordings I had on my cell phone:
Bathroom - this uses a recording of me whistling in the bathroom at work (I like the reverb in there). Session 0909 (Um, Wig Lodge?) 9/27/09 Yet another sketch for "Amazons." Session 0908 (Origin Lodge) 8/22/09 Another potential sketch for "Amazons." Session 0907 (Wig Lodge) 7/25/09 Session 0905 (Origin/Wig Joint) 6/6/09 This session is a collaboration between myself and Reinier "Dooie" Loopik... a.k.a. LoopKlok. For this session we created a new game which I like to call "The Transporter." Cuz you see like the transporter in Star Trek, our game takes something whole, deconstructs it, then reconstructs it somewhere else far away. And just as the transporter in Star Trek sometimes malfunctions and the object is turned inside out and horribly mutilatled on the other side, so does ours. What we did was this. We each made two complete(ish) songs - one with audio and one with MIDI. For the audio one, we chopped it into loops and sent those loops to the other guy. But we did not send the other guy the final mix of the song - so the other guy had to create a NEW song using those loops without knowing what the original song sounded like. It's kinda like putting together a puzzle without the box. But kinda not. For the MIDI song, we sent the other guy just a MIDI file, with no track names, no instrument settings. Just a bunch of MIDI. Oh, and no drum tracks. Here's what we came up with:
1a. Dooie Start - Loopz And here it is! 4b. Steven Start, Dooie Finish - Loopz
Here's the lyrics, which Dooie wrote: Session 0904 (Origin/Wig Joint) 4/25/09 And yet another. Michael Wertz wrote the lyrics for this one. Scene 4, Rallying the Troops Session 0903 (Origin/Wig Joint) 3/28/09 Here is another installment of "Amazons" work in progress. Scene 3, Amazon Ritual Place Session 0901 (Origin/Wig Joint) 1/31/09 This session is a track swap between Mick (Darling Freakhead) and I. We each chose 4 bands to imitate, generally doing instrumental tracks and leaving vocals plus this and that for the other guy to complete. We did our starts the preceding week... taking about 8 hours total but spreading it out over a couple days. Then we did our finishes on the day of the meeting. We didn't know which bands the other guy chose for us to complete until that day. Mick's starts, Steven's finishes:
Twilight (Vampire Weekend) Read the lyrics. Note, the lyrics for "Aja Rikki in the Years" were created by copying lyrics from several Steely Dan songs, and then alphabetizing them.
Soul Singer (Aretha Franklin... Mick did the vox on this one, obviously) Steven's starts, Mick's finishes:
I talk all breathy (Linkin Park)
Session 0812 (Origin) 12/20/08 Yet another sketch for Amazons of Planet Zena, A Space Opera
Session 0811 (Wig) 11/29/08 I hereby declare Opera Clause again. For yesterday's session I did a sketch for the first number in a new rock opera. Don't bother trying to understand the words, they're specious drivel and gibberish. Amazons of Planet Zeena - Intro Sketch
Session 0810 (Wig/Cromorne 13/Origin Joint) 10/18/08 For this session I did a track swap with Fabrice Bertrand (a.k.a. "LabSynth") who lives in FRONCE. We did this over the course of about a week. But we each spent a total about 8 hours on the session. I swear. We did 2 songs...
Fabrice's start, my finish:
Session 0809 (Wig/Origin Joint) 09/13/08 For this session I did a track swap with Reinier Loopik (a.k.a. "Dooie") who lives in the Netherlands. We sort of did this over the course of 2 days. Or 4 days, if you take the time difference into account. He did his starts on last Saturday night (I think) and I did my starts on the next day (last Sunday). Then he finished my starts last night and I finished his start today. Or something. I've decided to start a brand new Ancient Tradition... which is to include the starts so you can compare them to the finishes. It's particularly appropriate in this case since Dooie and I completely destroyed each other's starts. I may even play them at the meeting (tonight?) this way. Note that Dooie did 2 different finishes to one of my starts, and then made a megamix that includes both my starts and his start. I called that one a bonus track cuz I think he did it the day after he finished his finishes. Or something?
ChinMusic - Steven's Start
Session 0808 (Wig/Origin Joint) 08/30/08 This month's meeting was CURSED! Cursed, I say. Andy's speaker blew out, Emil's CD was blank, Kelek's songs had some strange (unintentional) distortion on them. But somehow we muddled through. Kelek and I did a track swap session. Below are my finishes to Kelek's starts... as well as my starts. Hopefully some day Kelek will post non-messed-up versions of her finishes. For some reason these songs have no names. I don't know if Kelek has names for them?
Kelek Start, Steven Finish 1 Session 0807.2 (Wig/Origin Joint) 07/26/08 These songs are my contribution to a "Hat Lib" game that Nicholas, Michael Mellender, and Nate Seltenrich (a reporter for the East Bay Express who's doing a story on the Society) played together on the night before the session. We each wrote 7 plot fragments (Hero A, Hero B, Setting A, Setting B, Quest A, Quest B, and Bad Thing/Villain_) or 4 imaginary musicals and threw them into various pots and pans. We then drew one of each type of element from each pot and assembled them into 16 different plots. THEN we picked and chose the various chunks of the resultant plots that we liked best and assembled the final plot. Here's what we ended up with:
Hero A: The Prince of the Eagles Then we divvied up who would write music for which segments. I was supposed to do 3 songs but only finished two. Here they are:
Session 0807.1 (Wig/Origin Joint) 07/05/08 This is a track swap collaboration between Karry Walker and myself. The bonus track is a remix I made of "Skanky Whore" during the week between the day we did the session (7/5) and the day of the actual meeting (7/12). We decided our band name is "Spit Swap."
Started by Karry, finished by me: Session 0803 (Wig) 03/29/08 And here's my Wig session for March. I started out intending to do 20... but only got to 12... still and all, 9 mins of music ain't bad. This is the first time I've done a true volume session by myself in a loooong time! I didn't bother naming them. Who has the time? 1 Session 0803 (Origin) 03/08/08 This is a session I did for the O-lodge... it is a sketch for a piece for "Pierrot + Percussion" ensemble... flt, clt, vln, vc, pno, perc.
Session 0711 (Origin) 11/10/07 This is a collaboration between myself and Darling Freakhead for the Origin Lodge meeting. We started at 2pm so it's really just a half day. We pretty much recorded two tracks at a time on each take... e.g. Mick playing guitar and me keyboard, then we'd go back and do drums and bass, etc. We also took turns coming up with the idea for each section... tho we also developed the ideas together.
Session 0707 07/21/07 This was a "joint" session between Origin and Wig Lodge. Although the only exclusively Wig person there was Gregory (I guess I consider myself bi-lodgal). Once again, I presented more crap from my opera. There was another O-lodge meeting or two in sometime between June and August of '07. Not really sure when they were... of if I dreamed the whole thing. But I presented more opera crap so yeah... It's all on that page linked above. Session 0705 5/26/2007 Opera Clause! I worked on my opera some more. You can check out the latest and greated sketches here. Session 0704.2 4/15/2007 This is another installment of my opera, "Dionsysus". This scene is where Dionaysus and the satyr, Ampelos, frolic about and experience young love. Session 0704.1 4/3/2007
OMG - I haven't updated this page in so long (it's actually 6/22/07 as I type this). These recordings feature
me (kybds, perc, drums & bvox), Garth Kauffman (lead vox & improvised lyrics), Alan Blondin (gtr & bvox), Nick Baca (drums & bvox) and Emil Besson (gtr, bass & bvox).
Session 1
Session 2 Session 0703 (Origin) 3/3/2007 The first half of this is the same as last session's piece - second half is new stuff I did for an O-lodge session.
Session 0702 2/24/2007 Yet another opera sketch Session 0701.2 (Wig Lodge) 1/27/2007 More opera sketches
Session 0701.1 (Origin Lodge) 1/20/2007 I have officially declared OPERA CLAUSE! (page 392, chapter vxii, Appendix M). IOW, these are sketches for an opera I'm working on. As are the tracks "Ritual", "Euhoi", and "Dithyramb", below.
Session 0612 12/17/06 In response to a request by Brother Bunny, I did a few piano impovisations in this session... like I did on my 2nd session ever. I interleaved them between the other songs I did for, you know, effect.
PnoImprov1
Session 0611 11/26/06 Here are two sketches for an opera I'm working on about Dionysus: The following are a collaborative day-session with me, Alan Blondin, and Garth. Everything except the first song were improvised in real-time, vox and keyboards together:
Krunkulous Session 0610 10/28/06
This month I did like 4 sessions. Or 8 half-sessions. Or something. With various combinations of people. Here's what I played at the meeting and who made it.
Session 0609 9/16/06 This session was a collaboration with Brother Garth and was made over a series of 4 half-sessions. So - um - yeah - I guess you mightt say it's not really ICS. But we say it is! So there. Session 0607 7/30/06 After constant brow-beating from Nicholas I posted the story and MP3s from this session to the ICS Forum. So you can read about it and listen to it by clicking on this HYPERTEXT LINK. Session 0512 12/17/05 This is another session by myself and Michael Mellender. We gave up trying to name our band.
Session 0511 11/17/05
This song is the result of my cheap-ass boom box freaking out while I was listening to one of Bunny's songs. It sounded cool so I recorded it and saved it for a rainy day session. If you're curious, you can listen to the CD freaking out by itself by clicking on this HYPERTEXT LINK
These two songs incorporate inexplicable mysterious messages I found on my answering machine. Wooooo!
This song just hurts to listen to. Enjoy! Session 0507 07/17/05
Read the lyrics Session 0506 06/12/05
Session 0505 05/01/05 This session was made in collaboration with Brother Michael Mellender. Session 0503 03/04/05
Did a session this time with Svelte.
Session 0502 02/20/05
Did a session this time with Svelte.
Session 0501 02/22/05 This was a joint session between Bunny and me. Bunny created 11 drum loops and sent them to me, thinking I'd choose a few of them to start working from. Heheh. I lined all 11 up in succession, and began recording parts for one mammoth song. I then sent this monstrous creation back to Bunny, and he added some bass, guitar and a little vocals. All of the parts that we added to the drum tracks were done on the day of the listening session, which explains some of the sloppiness - especially the bass, which was corrupted somehow, but Bunny didn't have time to fix it before the meeting. This will be a fun tune to polish, eventually. Session 0412 12/12/04 Merry XXX-Mas!
Session 0411 09/24/04
Did a session this time with Svelte.
Session 0410 10/09/04 This is a mash I made of a bunch of songs by other people: This is an ode to a dead kitten someone left outside my house: Session 0409-2 09/24/04
Brother Michael Wertz and I did another Svelte session today, finishing up our opera, "Eye Eye Sailor".
Session 0409 09/04/04 This is the first collabortion between myself and Brother Niklaus. We did an "Exquisite Corpse" thing where we each wrote down a little theme on a piece of paper and handed it to the other. Then we started with the theme we were handed and made music with it for a couple hours. Then we swapped sessions and continued/expanded/refined what the other began. We kept swapping - about 5 times in all - till we had two pieces that we both worked on. Theme written by Steven, begun by Nico.
Vice versa.
Session 0409 08/22/04 This is yet another collabortion between myself and Brother Michael Mellender. Since we found out some other band is already called "Black Noise" we have to come up with an new band name. For now we're just "They Who Must Not Be Named"... or TWMNBN for short. Oh yeah, and this session is the beginning of a soundtrack for a non-existent film about an evil baboon-goddess-worshipping cult in either India or Africa or thereabouts.
Session 0406 06/27/04
This song is a new movement for a large piece I am working on: "Requiem" for Choir and Organ... which is an extension and ellaboration of an earlier ICS session called "Requiem for a Doll"
I started this song just as my fellow bretheren began to arrive for the listening feast. So I had people lay down additional tracks as they arrived... Vocals and Lyrics: Brother X Rhythm guitar: Brother Bunny Lead guitar: Brother Salvatore Tambourine: John Queen Session 0402 02/22/04 This is a session I did in the persona of my secret identity, "Doctor Q."
1. Erectronica Special Non-Session Session - Nicholas' Birthday 02/01/04 This is a one song session I did as a commemoration of the Most Holy Day of Remberance and Gratefulness in Honor of the Descent to the Earthly Plane of Our Reverend Supreme Tiger and Leader, Brother Nicholas.
BLÄKK NÖÏZ (a.k.a. "God Got Jealous") 11/22/03 This is a collaborative session I did with Michael Mellender (co-founder of ICS) for the Origin Lodge. This is, I believe, the first inter-lodge collaborative session as well as the first time someone has done two consecutive sessions for two different lodges. Whoop whoopy. NOTE: These are meant to be listened without a pause between...so I recommend you download them all, then throw into a playlist in SoundApp or WinAmp or something and then listen to them all in a row to get the full effect. (What We Made) With Our New Technology (Jesus Fucking Whore) BLÄKK NÖÏZ (the umlauts are supposed to be on the consonants too but HTML won't let me do that)
Session 0310 11/21/03 For this session I did some songs with Michael as Svelte. However I also did a sort of work day/polish thing (I made the songs in one day and then spent a day or so polishing them). It's a soundtrack for an imaginary fantasy/adventure movie/video game:
I. Flite of the Wyrmmlairds
Session 0309 I did a collaborative session with Brothers Salvatore and Bunny, for which we call ourselves Sweat Lodge Tryad. Oh yeah, and I also did a "work day" thingy...which means I spent a day continuing work on a project I had started earlier. In fact, it was something that I started a year ago, sketches for an opera about Alexander the Great
Extra Credit 10/10/03 - The Duck Tape "Rock About the Roll" Contest Entry
Sessions 0307 and 0308 I wrote the first 9 movements in 0306 and the other 11 in 0307 20 Tiny Pieces for Wind Quintet
Session 0306
Session 0305 6/29/03 - The "Polish Session"
Session 0304 5/10/03
Session 0303 3/30/03
Read the libretto by Lem Jay Ignacio
Other Projects by Brother StephenMy YouTube pageMy "serious music" MySpace Nanny Eating Dingoes (Steven and Michael Mellender) MySpace Bunny on the Stove (Steven and Bunny) MySpace Svelte (Steven and Michael Wertz) MySpace Svelte web site Doctor Q. MySpace Doctor Q. web site CircusMusic (my "commercial music" site) Wig Lodge Home Page |
