Saturday, January 30, 2010

the learning machine.


as you may have read in last month's issue of alternative press, there have been rumors of me finally recording an album after years of playing shows to audiences of anywhere from one to six people. while some of you may have been spreading these rumors, and many more of you hoping they were true, up to this point they have indeed been nothing but rumors. with this in mind, i'm happy to announce that such is no longer that case, and in fact, you'll be able to have a copy of my debut 'the learning machine' for your household come this summer.

that being said, things are very much still in development. the eleven track album currently has seven songs guaranteed their respective slots and the remaining four slots have a few potential tracks to fill them. i won't bother telling you what's included as the song titles will unfamiliar to everyone, but eleven tracks it will have. also, though the seven certain ones are fully written, there has been no recording as of yet. that and then deciding what to do with the tracks once i have the album assembled. while i would love to actually have a proper album produced, i may just wind up burning my own and selling them for two dollars. that being said, if any of you have any insight on producing an indie album, do tell.

anyway, shortly put, look for 'the learning machine' in some format this summer, and you'll find it. i'll keep relevant updates coming on here. until next time,
trace.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

little yellow demons.

*disclaimer*
if you've children in the room who are already picky eaters, you may want to shoo them away. if they are adversely affected by the opinions held in this post, the writer hereby dismisses all responsibility.


i hate corn. i hate the smell, the taste, and the texture of corn.

that's basically the summation of this whole post. now, of course, the rest of the post is explaining what that means.

now, i want to be clear. when i say "i hate corn," i'm using a very general term ("corn"), to describe a very specific food (plain corn). i explain this because i don't want people who have been kind enough to feed me before (particularly my mother and people from my mission) thinking that they gave me meals i had to gag down. in complete honesty, i can remember very few meals past the age of thirteen that i had a sincere dislike for. why is this? because if corn is in it's proper place, it's really not all bad. let's take a look at corn's pleasant side, shall we?
good corn.
corn is basically good when it's not left to its own to taste like corn. corn in a casserole? delightful. corn on the cob? what a treat. popcorn? no one could question it's appeal. however, you'll note that in each of these, corn is one of two things. a) fresh, or b) part of a greater whole. one of these two elements must be present. much like myself. if i'm not a) fresh (as in, "funky fresh," not as in sexual harrassment "fresh"), or b) part of a greater whole (with other people), i can become very unpleasant to be around. possibly because of my smell. that could also be the same as corn. however, i guess corn's smell dissipates when with other things. i'm not sure mine does... but i digress.

see? i can enjoy corn in a sense. if it's not overpowering, it's fine.

but all too often, i get a glimpse of corn's darker side...

bad corn
i wonder if corn just needs a chaperon, because it isn't bad when it's supervised. it's only when we leave corn to it's own design things get bad. really, this is only canned, creamed, or frozen corn served as a stand alone. a side. something to be eaten kernel by kernel. yes, rest assured, it is that bad. to me, anyway. i'd like to say that's not the same as me like we compared earlier, but i'll let you all decide for yourselves.

the smell, the taste, the texture. i cannot bring myself to enjoy corn in this capacity. i'm sorry, and i'm sure that most of you disagree with my frightening caricature of the corn kernel. however, i stand by my position. sorry corn, you're like the friend i only want to see if you're with other people i want to see more. or like me, as i generally am the friend people only want to see if with other people they want to see more. dig?


well corn, have a good day. i'm sure there are still plenty of people in the world that are still happy to devour your wicked little self. now if you don't mind, i'm going to hang out with my friends, the peas.


Monday, January 18, 2010

rockin' in the treetops.


for those of you who don't know me as well, you may or may not be aware of the fact that i enjoy making up stupid little songs typically narrative or first person in nature. and good news to fans of stupid little songs typically narrative or first person in nature, it would seem the typically narrative or first person in nature spark is back. whether this "good news" is actually good is of course debatable. however, it is nice for me.

when i first started playing music (on a conventional instrument) i was taking piano lessons in elementary school. i was going to play the trumpet in school band, but thankfully my mother offered the piano lessons as another option, and with liberace dreams in tow, i accepted them. now, i only kept these lessons up for so long, and today, i am admittedly no expert on the piano now, but two very valuable things came as a result. one. i can still remember several songs i learned to play including "money can't buy everything," "magic man," "money can't buy everything," and one i'm particularly fond of, "oom-pa-pa." two. to this day, most of my understanding of music today remains based in what i learned during this time. after said lessons, i tinkered around with the piano off and on, never really taking it too seriously, and talking about how much i'd love to play the drums.

key in a few years listening to weird al and whatever my brother listened to. mainly fat wreck chords and moon ska. thanks, sky. twas a good time.

then onto my high school years. desperately trying to fit in as a punker with my bleached, twisted-spike hair and cut off cargo paints my parents were kind enough to simultaneously give themselves perpetual headaches and me great happiness when they purchase me a drumset for a birthday. with saturday morning lessons, and constant noise in the house, i can honestly say that i learned to love creating music ("music" being used liberally here) and my piano lessons started showing how helpful they really were as i got more curious about other instruments as i began to actually gain some ability with a drumset. it was a long process going from trying to play the tune of the a-team theme song to actually playing drum like i was "supposed to," but it was a lot of fun. also fun was having a bassist and a guitarist ask me to be a drummer. before you ask, no. we never did anything but school talent shows. but i'm fine with that. it was a delight, even if it wasn't for the audience.

also, my later years of high school offered me the opportunity to try my throat at singing. it was... entertaining, if not a bit painful for everyone else. still, between the kindness of a good drama teacher and a remarkably patient choir director, i was able to survive and enjoy performing in musical theater, the audience was able to survive my performance, and anyone in my car was able to survive the ride home in my jeep. and by "survive the ride home in my jeep," i mean listen to me singing west side story all the way home. passengers were allowed--nay, expected--to join. it was wonderful and i to this day have a soft spot for show tunes because of these experiences and my theater friends. and i'd imagine you can sometimes hear some broadway influence in what i sing now.

as high school went on, my parents were again kind enough to humor my musical annoyances and i was able to try my hands at both guitar and bass guitar. between lessons for both from various sources and my brother's humoring me, i really grew to enjoy them. there are still a few very basic melodies i wrote on both instruments that i'll still play when i pick one of them up. it's usually a little embarrassing, but very nostalgic, so i still do it. same with a few i made up on the piano, including the sea-sick saloon number that my mother still may have nightmares about. you probably would too with the number of times i played it on the house piano.

cut to high school graduation. upon ending high school, i leave my home, guitar and drumset to go to my freshman year at byu. i buy a djembe hand drum and exist for a while doing nothing musically other than "bang on my drum all day." well, that and making amateur tracks with hammerhead rhythm station and windows sound recorder. they were good days... i really should post some of them. they're very much amateur, but entertaining just the same. and i can say that because i'm at least somewhat subjective now thanks to the fact that i put them together about six years ago.

cut from college to the mission ("the mission" being a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). lots of work and not a lot of anything else for some reason spark a lot of ideas and many lyrics were written in a two-pound tesco notebook at night when we had half an hour of free time.

then back home. for the first few months back i had the opportunity of finally finishing/polishing the songs i had started on the mish and was able to put the words to some acoustic guitar and was able to reacquaint myself with my drum set which was delightful. after that, i returned to byu, school started again, and i essentially have spent the time since then playing the same four songs over and over and over again... and wishing i had something more interesting to play.

last year for a few months i was able to play with some computer software and write some digital music which was great, but the analog half of my musical self was still unexercised and flabby with neglect.

but finally, it feels like i've the drive to actually have something more interesting to play. two big reasons i think. first, it's just been so long since i've done much of anything creative that hasn't involved a computer that my desire to finally peaked high enough and it's gotten me out of my creation slump. second, for the first time in ages i've found people to play with, which is a huge boost. this vague shape of a band is a wonderful excuse to start creating again. and funny enough, i find myself being willing to sing in the thing.

that's really what the whole post comes to. i don't consider myself a singer. to be honest, i don't really consider myself a musician. save the drums, my competence on any of the instruments i profess to play is really quite sub-par. i hesitate to consider myself any sort of artist, but if put to the rack over it, i'd consider myself a writer. if you were to take the time (as i admittedly have, and you'd rather not) to look trough my old class notebooks from high school through college you'll see notes sided by countless poems i'd written about anything from my loathing of math to royalty lamenting the need to marry outside of the family. if you look at other sources you can find pieces for the stage including monologues about self confidence and witch burning, and a one-act about story-telling elevator boys. look at even more obscure word files and you can find dozens of unfinished short stories and who knows what that i started and abandoned for whatever reason. after all of my experiences, i still find myself most comfortable with a pen and paper in a desk or performing something that was written there. or eating a grilled cheese. that's also very comfortable. anyway, i guess after ten years of pretending to be an artist, i'm ready to forget the fact that i'm not a singer and sing anyway.

and so faithful reader, you just read twelve paragraphs of lund history so you could read the that last sentence and finally realize what this post is even about. and really, that's the entire post. i think i'll put that line at the bottom in fancy text to make up for making you read all of this for one line... i'm now writing stuff and putting it to use. as in, acting like they're viable works and having people play along with me. should be fun.

goodbye. sorry for being so long-winded and unentertaining. and much thanks to my parents for being supportive in my many worthless and musical pursuits, especially when they were the same ones. goodnight all!




Friday, January 15, 2010

rorschach bell.


greetings.
we're going to try a little something with this post. i'm quite curious to see how it turns out. a little background first.

no doubt many of you have seen or heard of inkblot tests, more formally titled rorschach tests after their creator. the idea behind the test is that a participant is shown an ambiguous shape and the participant projects meaning onto it and says what the object "is." of course it's not really the shape of anything. it's completely random. the meaning it has to the viewer is only that which the viewer projects onto it. dig?

so i was eating taco bell today, as i often do, and on my way to my seat grabbed some extra hot sauce and napkins for today's post. here are the rules. as you scroll down the page, you'll be shown six sauceblots. your job is to decide what you think each is, and write it down. the blots will be numbered, so when you're done, post your numbered answers as a comment if you could be so kind. the only rules are that you only look at one sauceblot at a time and that you don't look at anyone else's answers before you have your own. we don't want their answers influencing yours.

and yes, they may not be exactly symmetrical. in an ideal world they would be, but with the resources as hand, we'll make do.

so... go ahead. start projecting meaning.



scroll down.







sauceblot one.







stop.

scroll down.









sauceblot two.







stop.

scroll down.







sauceblot three.







stop.

scroll down.







sauceblot four.








stop.

scroll down.







sauceblot five.









stop.

scroll down.







sauceblot six.





you're done! now remember, make sure you've recorded your answers before you go any further so that you don't see the answers that other people have placed before you put your own down. thanks! i look forward to seeing what everybody says. i'll post my answers as soon as i finish posting this whole thing.

thanks all, see you next time.

Monday, January 11, 2010

pizza.



i plan on eating more pizza in the next little while.

Friday, January 8, 2010

owain phyfe.

hey friends. it's been a while.

this is a quick post to share a bit of writing I did in one of my psychology classes. we were asked to write a quick paragraph or two about ourselves to help other people remember us. did i get a bit carried away? perhaps. on the other hand, they'll probably remember better for it. and
as many of you may not really know me very well, i thought i'd post it to help introduce myself.

About... me.

The name is Trace Lund. Trace as in a synonym for residue; Lund as in the Swedish university. I’m a junior or senior depending on how you view my credits, as many psych majors are. My main interests in psychology are abnormal and developmental psych. Hopefully by the end of my academic journey I’ll be able to obtain a doctorate. But how knows? Maybe I’ll wind up being a traveling minstrel instead. Ideally, I’d be able to do both. I play a few stringed instruments, as well as general percussion, so it’s a fair possibility, really. I could travel the nation—nay, the world—spreading delightful music and programs designed to help all those willing to hear my words on psychology.

So. Hopefully you weren’t looking for anything to profound. I think the mental image of a mandolin-playing psychologist with a monocle (and possibly a traditional Victorian garb) may prove to be more helpful in remembering this than my age or town of origin.


i'm sure they'll all want to be in my group now. and no doubt this was very insightful for you. hopefully your new year is going well. maybe i'll post something worthwhile in the near future. maybe.

and here's the link to explain the title.