notes from the kelp

…click to listen:

…about the music

On the edge.

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Well, to continue the theme of the previous post, here’s something else that was really fun, that I also did from the very same [occasionally aquarium-style] desk as I’ve been doing all those other really fun things: a video podcast that was streamed live on YouTube last weekend, and is now archived for all eternity, thus making me thankful that I didn’t say anything even more embarrassing than usual.

A handful of young and very articulate composers have been building a new corner of the ever-expanding infinity that is the new music world, and they began a podcast series a couple of years ago called SoundNotion. Each week they discuss the issues du jour for working composers and performers, often inviting a guest to join them. I was the lucky one who got to clog the bandwidth and fill up the screen last week for an episode titled Out There, and it’s definitely another clear example of all the live online interaction I’ve described earlier that has a profound effect on my work.

The hour and a quarter conversation covers two main categories that, like everything in the known universe, are interconnected: the powerful, career-building uses of interactive online media for artists, and, starting at the 42 minute mark, the powerful career-busting issues for artists of lack of self worth, and how outreach and education can make an enormous difference. Oh, and somewhere in there we talk about combing one’s hair right.

In this instance, you’ll understand when you see the visible in-focus screen presence of the others, and then my very, very fuzzy self as cave-cast webcast from San Juan Island, exactly why I’ve been active in the movement to bring high speed internet services to rural areas. Below, dear viewers, is the painful truth of what 1.5 Mbps (and much less) actually looks like. It’s much like a dog dancing on its hind legs: the fact that I can do this sort of thing at all, with both slow-speed hands tied behind my router, is amazing. That I happen to make a few good points here and there is almost ancillary to the fact that you can see and hear me at all. Then again, the older one gets, the more one benefits from smoothed-out edges.

I swear, I did not film the show through a roll of wax paper.

So, if you visit the SoundNotion webpage, you have your choice of watching me in all my supreme fuzziness, or of streaming the audio, or downloading one or both options for later consumption (I make a decent substitute for drive-time AM talk radio. Which is actually something I did during my activist years in Los Angeles in the 90’s, and yes, that’ll be another blog post sometime).

Or, you can watch in this convenient Tube of the You, below.

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