HOME

MUSIC

2001 Archives:
May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2002 Archives:
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2003 Archives:
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2004 Archives:
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2005 Archives:
January, February


ENLOWSPEAK

GAMES

Song of the Day
(on permanent hiatus)


AIM: Lenlow1
lenlow@gmail.com

......Friends......
Brother Matt
Sister Kate
DRS1
RedBill
Millinerd
Shmannie
Abe
Hannah
......Other......
Fark
MetaFilter
B3ta
Friendster
Internet Movie Db
Parallax View

......Web Rings......
< ? bostonites # >
< ? Blog+Philes # >
< ? spellage # >



Clix.

Everyone's making music! Peep the new hit single from Millinerd. He actually writes music and plays a real instrument! Showoff.

---

Aw yeah, De La Soul is playing at the Middle East this Sunday. Some sort of a "Party and Politics" Concert Series. Oh well, I'm still gonna go. Maybe I'll slip Maseo a Lenlow CD he can spin.

Whaaaaaat.... 25 bucks?? There better be a lot more "Party" than "Politics" goin on.

---

My coworker Jim is a really good cello player. Cellist, if you will. Turns out he's not too bad at writing the classical music either. When I was all "hey look what I made on my computer" he was all "cool, it took me a long time to make a little song with my new 8-track recorder." And I was all "let me hear it, yo!" So he played me this cool song he wrote and played himself. If you're like me you'll be impressed. It reminds me of the main theme from "Fargo".

Surprise surprise, I decided to remix it. I mean hey, license-free! I soon realized that anything I did to the song would bastardize it, so I was a little apprehensive. Surprise surprise again, I sped it up and added dancy drums to it. There's even some cheesy techno riff in there. I decided to limit myself by using all license-free material. So all the drums and cheesy techno riffs are samples that came with my software. So the money should start pouring in any day now...

---

I highly recommend browsing around the gallery at SpaceImaging.com. Dem are some right purty pitchers.

I like to look for pictures of some of my favorite places I've been. (Keep in mind I don't travel a ton.) They don't seem to have any pictures of Belize... bummer. Nothing from York or Whitby in the UK either. But here's a pretty cool photo of Canyonlands National Park (Utah). I believe that's where the Green and Colorado rivers converge. I was there for spring break my junior year and it was beautiful, but not the conventional kind of beautiful. The desert/canyon/butte kind of beautiful. You know, butte-iful. Ha.

---

I had a scare last night when my computer decided not to boot. I brought it into work today and now it's OK. Good story, huh? Props to coworker Johnny for teaching me that when you install a new video card, it's a good idea to take out the old one. My new video card has a TV tuner, which is nice.

Oh, I guess I forgot to tell people that I built my own computer recently. Props to my coworker Snash, who provided me with most of the leftover parts and most of the motivation. I ended up spending a little over $300 and came away with a pretty sweet machine. Oh I guess closer to $500 if you include the wireless router and adapter. But anyway, I'm really enjoying having my own hard drive big enough to hold my MP3's, interweb access in my room, and the sweet tune-making software.

Oh here are some cool links I keep meaning to post... I forget where I saw most of these.

Awesome video of a fireworks factory on fire. I hope the cameraman's OK.

This dude's Mom is crazy.

The Cover Songs Database is a great reference for finding out (surprise!) who has covered songs by whom.

And now for some games:

Grow is really strange, yet kinda fun. I forget what my high score is.

Zuma is really fun. Man, PopCap makes some nice games. I've played this like five times and my high score is 85380.

Escape the Crimson Room. This is really tough; I couldn't beat it without cheating (the solution is out there on the web). My advice is to do a lot of clicking around.

---

Have you heard of DJ Dangermouse's Grey Album? This guy took the vocals from Jay-Z's "Black Album" and used only pieces of the Beatles' "White Album" to make the instrumentation. It's quite impressive what he has accomplished, but I think it's a shame he can't be paid for it. (Much like it's a shame that I won't be able to make any money sampling other songs without permission.) However, the Grey Album made him famous and he should have no trouble bringing home DJ bacon.

I will say that I am not a Jay-Z fan. I hadn't heard any of the songs on his Black Album. His music just doesn't do much for me. I find his voice a little monotonous. However, do check out some of the Grey Album. I really like the first track, "Public Service Announcement". Hmm, maybe I'd even like the original Jay-Z version...

I'm experiencing some slight DJ's block... nothing is flowing together for me quite as well as Sweet Jones did. I've got about 5 half-finished projects that just are not quite... great. I also tried recording myself on the drums, and was a little disappointed in the result. I'm not as good as I thought I was. I'm not giving up though. Anyway, I'm still really really enjoying my new software and my new hobby.

P.S. Does anyone know why Jay-Z refers to himself as HOVA?

---

New release from Lenlow. I call it "Sweet Jones". And I love it.

I made that using Sound Forge and Acid Music. Acid Music is a godsend. "Chocolate Cake" took me about 6 hours to make using only Sound Forge, which is basically a sound editing tool. Acid is more for music-making. It makes beat-matching and looping so easy. Some day I might revisit Chocolate Cake and make it better, now that I'm a lot more efficient.

By the way, Sweet Jones wasn't Matt's techno request... I put that on hold. One of my primary objectives now is to make "upbeat" songs to go on the frisbee highlight video my teammate Schaff is making. I hope people like drums. I know I do.

Oh, and I'm sure those of you who care have already heard the A-Rod news. That really really hurts.

---

I have another composition to share. I call it "Chocolate Cake". Special thanks to Matt for the Bill Cosby suggestion.

Samples: Bill Cosby - Chocolate Cake; The Chordettes - Mr. Sandman; The Roots - Rolling With Heat (ft. Talib Kweli); The Turtles - I'm Chief Kamanawanalea; Biz Markie - Pickin' Boogers.

My next project, also suggested by Matt, will be of the Techno variety. I know what you're thinking... piece of cake! NN-TSS NN-TSS NN-TSS NNTSS...

P.S. I'm still learning!

---

Hmm, this might be fun: the Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival in Indio, CA. May 1-2.

These are the artists that would interest me most (in approximate descending order): Radiohead, Belle and Sebastian, Basement Jaxx, Bright Eyes, Kinky, Muse, The Black Keys, The Flaming Lips, Wilco, Junior Senior, The Crystal Method, DJ Paul Van Dyk, Prefuse73, Dizzee Rascal.

Hmm, about 2 hours from LA... maybe that would be a good opportunity to take a little vaca and pay a visit to DJ Nathan Van Dyke.

---

So I finally decided to start playing around with music. I've got Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge on my laptop and decided to tinker. Now I'm just learning, but here is my first composition. I call it the Lenlow remix of Katie Enlow's "He Leadeth Me", take 1. I took part of Katie's recording of her singing in church last summer, and set it to the drums of the Honey Drippers' "Impeach the President". Hope I'm not offending anyone with my juxtaposition of drums and church... I just figured Impeach the President was to DJ-ing like "Hello World" is to computer programming. So this took me like two hours... changing Katie's tempo so it would work with the drums... and it's still not quite lined up right... oh well. I'm still learning.

Oh, and I would sell this and make millions, but the Honey Drippers sample hasn't been cleared. Neither has Katie's sample. And I can't figure out how to record my digital drums without recording the ambient sound.

P.S. the original (live!) version of Katie Enlow's "He Leadeth Me" is available here. It was a very moving performance, dedicate to Grandpa P for his birthday. NOTE: Katie did not approve this per se, because of the crappy recording quality, but as an incentive to her getting in a studio, I decided to take some initiative and post it. Katie, your fans want music.

---

All by car, too... isn't Iowa known as the gateway to the west? Oh wait that might be Missouri... who knows, maybe I've been in Missouri. (Props to Patch for the link.)


create your own visited states map

---

There are very few books that I was forced to read in high school that I remember really enjoying. One such book was "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole. It was actually pretty hilarious, and it was really weird to be reading something funny for school. Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that I was browsing around the Internet Movie Database and I accidentally stumbled across "A Confederacy of Dunces", which is due out this fall. I immediately wondered who would be playing Ignatius Reilly, the fat loser protagonist, and it turns out it's Will Ferrell. Now I can safely say that it will be awesome.

Oh man... a little peek at Will's upcoming filmography includes "Untitled Will Ferrell Soccer Comedy" due in 2005. Just imagining WF playing soccer is making me laugh. Then again WF doing anything makes me laugh.

---

Wow this is good. Some dude just totally blew off his chemistry exam. It made me Laugh Out Loud on several occasions.

Which species is the reductant (reducing agent) in this reaction? Justify your answer.
Species: Cat.
Explanation: meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow hiss.

---

I discovered a new song today that I like. I love it when that happens. It's "Lazy Sunday" by Small Faces. Thanks to the B3ta.com newsletter I was treated to this cute little flash animation set to that song.

---

Are there any words that you hesitate before saying, because you know there's more than one way to pronounce them, and you don't really know which you prefer? I have a few words I can think of: "aunt", "often", and "Caribbean". Interestingly enough, sometimes I have to think about how I want to pronounce "either", but I always pronounce "neither" like "neether". Weird huh.

---

Hey Millinerd, speaking of one-man-bands... C'est magnifique!

---

I heard a stat on the radio today that 15% of American women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day. Can that be true? Does anyone know someone who has done that? I guess you don't have to name names or anything, I'm just curious if that stat could be correct.

---

Holy moly, this thing is awesome: Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music. It's a lot like that MusicPlasma site I recommended a while back, but just for Electronica. Hence the name. I encourage you to give it a look and a listen... every tiny genre has several sound clips.

---

Have you heard? Have you heard? PATS WIN!!!! PATS WIN!!!! Janet's breast! PATS WIN!!! Sorry, I forgot I had a website for a while there. That game was pretty sweet, eh? But I discovered that when you're hosting a superbowl party you miss a lot of the game AND a lot of the ads. I even missed THE BOOB. But I was surprised and relieved to find pictures on the interweb the next day. I mean, y'know, just to see what the big deal was.

Hey remember when I raved about Super Troopers? The same guys who made that have a new movie coming out February 27 called "Club Dread". It will probably be very funny. Best of all, they got themselves a blog! Check it on out, yo. One, two, three, doooo it.

Speaking of movies, I recently watched Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I figured hey, I like war movies, and I like Penelope Cruz, so why not? Here is what I learned.
1) I don't like Penelope Cruz. I love Penelope Cruz.
2) Nazis are evil.
3) Christian Bale is a pretty good actor. He reminds me of Viggo Mortensen, because you can watch three of his movies without even realizing it's the same guy. (American Psycho, Shaft and CCM come to mind. For Viggo, consider GI Jane, Albino Alligator and LOTR.)
4) I don't dislike Nicolas Cage as much as I thought I did. I think this is the first time I've heard him try an accent, and he did not embarrass himself.
5) Captain Corelli's Mandolin is not a great movie.
6) I am in love with Penelope Cruz.

---