Thursday, July 29, 2010

Double Rainbow - Hollywood Style - UNCENSORED

Saturday, July 24, 2010

I found this to be educational-Hands Commercial (Jon Lajoie)

Monday, July 19, 2010

What if the Tea Party was Black?

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Jungle Drums-KJ Sawka on the Roof

Advice for Young Girls from The Little Mermaid

Monday, July 12, 2010

Consider radio silence over...

At the end of 2009 Joe and I pondered pulling the plug on Marqui Adora and letting the patient die in peace. We had lost Danny, singer/lyricist/guitarist/songwriter, to the culinary arts and travel abroad and felt maybe we should just start from a clean slate. It was a period of uncertainty about our musical futures but in the end we made a tentative decision to continue working under the banner of Marqui Adora. We made that choice because letting the songs we loved die on the vine seemed like an injustice to them and the work we put into them.

Because of our “day jobs” the two of us didn’t have a definite idea of when we could get back to music work at even a part time level together, so I began to forge ahead largely on my own. I started to work on some of our unfinished material with the idea of releasing a few instrumental songs before attacking what to do about lyrics and vocals in Danny’s absence.

As it happens in early 2010 I heard from Danny that he was coming back to Florida from Spain for a few months in the summer and had a hankering to record some of the unfinished songs if any would be ready when he came to town. I was rather excited by this turn of events and decided to be ambitious in my planning and schemes. I told Danny I was going to try to have an albums worth of songs ready for him to sing and that, for the sake of continuity in the recording, I would start from scratch and record all the parts before he started recording vocals. (In retrospect, what the fuck was I thinking!)

I started programming drums based on unfinished recordings from the past for about 18 songs. I quickly narrowed things down to 10 songs that I felt I could complete largely on my own since Joe, a soon to be father, was unlikely to be able to spare the time. After completing the drums I spent a month getting my bass and guitar chops back and then completed all the parts needed for Danny to track vocals. We spent the first two days in the studio and got his vocals completed for five songs with another two started. We both left that second day expecting to finish up over a few days the following week. That’s when Danny got what we usually call “the club”. It’s a cold, or something that musicians and DJs get a lot from staying in smoke filled rooms all night with people from all over the world and their various illnesses while drinking heavily.

As the time grew sorter before Danny would be returning to Spain, I started to think that we would be forced to settle for an EP worth of finished material. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I’d have another five songs ready for the next time Danny was in town. It happened that the week that he would be leaving his throat cleared up and we finished the final five songs in record time. To say we are both pleased would be an understatement. (I’m pretty sure I was grinning ear to ear.)

So as it stands at the moment I have ten songs that are candidates for a new Marqui Adora release. I’ve still got plenty of work before they are finished, including recording Howard’s guitar playing on at least one song, backing vocals from Joe and I, and several parts on acoustic guitar. Even with that in mind I can say without worry that we will have an album released before the end of the year that Danny will be singing on. That was not something I though would be happening four months ago.
I’ve kept fairly quite until today because I didn’t want to fail to deliver a finished product. I’m writing this because the hardest and most important parts of the recordings are completed and only the lighter drudge work remains.

Consider radio silence over...

And get excited.

-John Tooker

Marqui Adora

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Adventures in Find and Replace... Part 1 The sex abuse scandal in Chile

Executives meet as local bottling plant sex abuse cases grip Chile

The executives of the Coca-Cola company local bottling plant in Chile have met the country's president amid a growing sex abuse scandal involving a number of employees.

Earlier this week, the local bottling plant in Chile formally apologised to abuse victims, saying nothing could justify it.

Executive Alejandro Goic, head of the local bottling plant in Chile, said there had been 20 confirmed or alleged cases.

Sex abuse scandals have gripped the local bottling plants worldwide this year, with a Belgian employee resigning on Friday.

In Chile, this has been the toughest week yet for the local bottling plant since allegations first arose over widespread child abuse, the BBC's Gideon Long reports from the capital, Santiago.

Chile is regarded as one of the most staunchly Coca-Cola loving countries in Latin America, he notes. Divorce was outlawed until as recently as 2004 and abortion remains strictly illegal.

As elsewhere in the world, the current scandal is testing the faith of the country's Coca-Cola company believers, our correspondent says.

Investigation

Executive Goic and the Archemployee of Santiago, Regional Manager Francisco Errazuriz, met President Sebastian Pinera for more than an hour.

Afterwards, Regional Manager Errazuriz said he would send a letter out to every local retailer in the country this weekend in response to the scandal.

In five of the cases in Chile, sentences were imposed. In another five, trials are under way and, in the remaining 10, the employees have been absolved or results are pending.

In one of the cases, four men accused a senior employee in Santiago, now aged 80, of sexually abusing them for years.

Prosecutors in Chile have launched an investigation into the allegations against the shift manager, Fr Fernando Karadima, a respected and influential figure within the Chilean Local Bottling Plant who trained employees.

A lawyer for the retired employee was quoted by the New York Times as denying the allegations.

On Friday, it was announced that the employee of the Belgian city of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, had resigned after admitting sexually abusing a boy earlier in his career.

The Belgian case marked a new escalation in the scandal buffeting the local bottling plant, the BBC's David Willey reported from Coca-Cola Corporation.

It was the first time that a senior local bottling plant manager had admitted in person abusing a child, our Coca-Cola Corporation correspondent said.

Here's the original story. Go check it out and let me know your thoughts.

P.S. I'd like this idea to become a meme, so please steal it.

Monday, March 08, 2010

"It's broken." A favorite moment from Firefly

River Tam fixes a problem.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Faint-Wet From Birth

One of my favorite Tunes from The Faint-Wet From Birth

Friday, November 20, 2009

2001 Macworld about the Digital Hub = iPhone 3GS

This Daring Fireball post:http://daringfireball.net/2009/11/a_car_and_a_bicycle
linked to this video:

Starts around 3min 10seconds

Cell Phones + Portable CD Players and MP3 players + Digital Camcorders + Portable DVD Players for playing video + Digital Still Cameras + Handheld Organizers = Some of the things the current iPhone 3GS does.

Posted via email from A Total Waste Of Time

Monday, October 26, 2009

Google story in 2 minutes while I work on a 10 year old Mac

They've created so many things I take for granted in the last few years.

As I type this I'm installing Mac OS X on a machine so that I can use a 10.3 upgrade disk so I can run Pro Tools 6.4 with a Digi 001 interface on a Mac G4 built at the same time Google started. (I'm typing on a 3+ year old Macbook Pro.)

Posted via email from A Total Waste Of Time

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Anvil Launching

Posted via email from A Total Waste Of Time

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

An unexpected email leads to a course correction.

After working on one of the Marqui Adora songs all day I read this email message from Danny Ashe:

Subject:Hey Guys

I've been giving this a lot of thought and have come to a big decision. My days with Marqui Adora are over.
The fact that it doesn't bother me that we haven't done anything in months, tells me my heart is not in it anymore. For months I've been debating whether or not I should do this and I guess certain things have happened lately that have made me realize there's too many things I sacrificed for music. It was fine to sacrifice them at the time, but now I feel I need to move on.

I got a job in Spain, so I'm leaving right after Christmas and will be there for most of, if not all of 2010. Not sure if I'll be coming back to the States though... at least for a while.

It's been great working with you guys but after 20 years of playing music I'm officially ready to concentrate on a new career, new experiences and new goals.
I wish you both the best with the music and if at any point you want vocals done for the songs we haven't finished, let me know.

Take care,

This is Danny Ashe signing off...

So there you go. Joe and I hope Danny does well in everything he chooses to do in his life. (For my part I hope he falls back into making music someday since he is one of the most talented musicians I've ever worked with.)

Thanks for all the good times and good tunes Danny.

-John Tooker
Marqui Adora

Monday, October 19, 2009

Tweaked Walk Away for a few hours today.

I might need to coin a new phrase for doing major corrective/elective surgery on a recording.

Maybe I'll call it Die in a Discoing a song since that was the first Marqui Adora song I did that to.

Posted via email from A Total Waste Of Time

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Trying out an iPhone blogger App

BlogPress Lite a free version just for blogger.
http://bit.ly/4XjKs

Test pic of one of my studio assistants.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

New lessons added to Garageband Store. This one could not be resisted.

And when I finish that one...

Hope they add bass guitar lessons soon.

Posted via email from A Total Waste Of Time

Thursday, September 17, 2009

My happy moment of the day.

Looking at the listeners page on the Marqui Adora Last.FM page shows we have people enjoying our music all over the world. And these are just the people that use last.fm!

http://www.last.fm/music/Marqui+Adora/+listeners

Posted via email from John Tooker

Monday, September 14, 2009

I learned something today... (From a gay fish)

So Sunday morning I was telling Nikki about a thought I had that week that explained why I liked music and art and didn't really care about professional sports. My thought was that when I've gone to see a band perform I want them to play well. I want them to play well for my sake for the audience and for themselves. When I leave a show I'm excited to have seen someone do something well even if it was a band I don't care about.

Contrast that to a sports fan. When you are a sports fan you have teams that you like and root for and ones you don't like and root against. You will be disappointed even if you see one of the best games ever if it's not your team that wins in the end. You can't enjoy seeing someone with skill and talent play because they are wearing the wrong jersey.

I felt great about this analogy and felt it clearly expressed my point of view.

Then Kanye West feels the need to interrupt someone receiving an award because it wasn't the person he was rooting for.

http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/435995/taylor-swift-wins-best-female-video.jhtml#id=1620605

Thank you Kanye for using your idiot powers to prove my point so elegantly.

I'm glad I'm not you and don't see the world through your retarded eyes.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/220762

Posted via email from John Tooker

Monday, September 07, 2009

The dead whale carcass of the music could feed a lot of smaller fish and a few sharks.

Two good reads about the current music business.

Artists Find Backers as Labels Wane : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/technology/internet/22music.html?_r=2

Music and money: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2009/08/23/On-Music

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Only six songs remain in the drums folder onto the Bass folder!

Since the 10th of last month I've moved along a bunch of songs from the need to finish drums folder to the need to finish bass folder. Only 6 remain in the drums folder of the 14 and of those six I have worked on 4 of them to some degree or other. I'm rather pleased with that progress since I also was trying to pass a certification for Soundtrack Pro 2 at the same time. (Which I did.) Logic 9 continues to help things move forward at a brisker pace and since installing Snow Leopard I've recovered almost 16GB of space!

So I think my next plan of attack will be to move the songs in the bass folder forward until most of them are ready for guitars. Some of them might not even require much to move onto the guitar folder. Here are the ones currently in the 02 Track Bass folder:

Posted via email from John Tooker

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Things I've noticed about Logic 9 while getting my oil changed and tire repaired.

Logic 9 uses an image of the arrange window as the sessions icon image and for the quick look preview. Very handy for figuring out which version of an arrangement you are looking for without having to load the session. You can see the Logic 8 below session to compare. The screen shot even removes the toolbar so it doesn't have wasted space.

Also tried out the Flex time on this song slowing the tracks from 77bpm to 65bpm and the results did impress me. (Though I will be re-tracking the parts for performance reasons.)

The new groups floating window is very useful.

I like the new zoom commands even though I will have to retrain my hands. They are more useful and I don't have to twist my hands into bizzare shapes just to zoom in or out. If you've used a previous version you have to choose the defaults since it doesn't automatically replace them when you upgrade.

Posted via email from John Tooker

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

My new trick for programming Hi-Hat parts

Instead of using a single MIDI instrument to play a Hi-Hat pattern, which tends to sound very mechanical, I'll layer a second Hi-Hat instrument with varying velocities so that the sound changes more then it can with a single instrument. By varying the hits velocities I'm able to achieve a very unique sound as well.

So far I have the best luck mixing Logics sounds along with rewired sounds from Reason's Reason Drum Kit sounds which have a high number of samples per instrument. I also tend to put both sets of Hi-Hats in mono to avoid phasey weirdness.

Posted via email from John Tooker

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Moved a few songs up the ladder.

Finished tweaking the drums for a few songs so they get to move up to the next folder. I'll do a few more of the drum parts and then move onto the Bass guitar bits.

Posted via email from John Tooker

Monday, August 17, 2009

Tweaking drums and sorting files...

Moved one song up a level in my 8 folder system and moved a few others towards that moment by fixing drum tuning and cleaning parts up. Here's the bottom row as of today. (Other songs live in the higher numbered folders as well. My thinking at the moment is to move them up in waves.)