Category Archives: Music

Styx with You

By lytspeed Posted in Family, Music Leave a reply

Recently, I had to take a business trip to Phoenix. Unfortunately, I had to be gone the night my son graduated from middle school into high school. I promised him we would either celebrate before or after I got back, and he was very understanding.

While I was trying to figure out how to help him celebrate this milestone, I was listening to a local classic rock station, 103.5 The Fox. They were hyping an in-store appearance by the band Styx, one of my favorite bands from my junior high and high school days. “Crystal Ball,” from their album by the same name, is one of my favorite songs, and one I always wanted to learn to play. I finally learned it a couple of years ago. I think Tommy Shaw is an excellent songwriter, and was always the heart of the band as far as I was concerned. I’m glad he’s still involved.

Keith has picked up a love for Styx’s music from his mother and me, so I thought it would be good to take him to meet the band as his graduation present. I took off work early that afternoon, and picked Keith up at home. I didn’t tell him where we were going, but I did play The Fox all the way down to the Tower Records where the band was appearing. The station hyped the appearance several times, but he never completely caught on to what was happening until we arrived. We were fourth in line to meet the band, and picked up four free tickets to the Styx, REO Speedwagon, and Journey concert at Fiddler’s Green the next night (the night before I was scheduled to leave on my trip.)

As I’ve mentioned in these pages before, Keith is quite talented musically. He happened to be wearing his school jazz ensemble shirt, which has a flaming bass clef on the back, and several of the band members commented on it and encouraged him to keep playing. (Thanks guys!) Keith was thrilled to meet the band and get their autographs, and I had Tommy Shaw and James Young sign a piece of sheet music from 1978 (“Sing for the Day.”) Below are the best pictures from the meet and greet.

The band, from L to R:
James (JY) Young, Glen Burtnik, Tommy Shaw, Todd Sucherman, & Lawrence Gowan

Keith watches while Glen jokes and Tommy signs
the cover of their new CD, Cyclorama.

Keith and I pose with Styx.  Yes, my 14 year old son is taller than me.

Deal with it.

Going Public

By lytspeed Posted in Music, Writing Leave a reply

First, the big news. June 18th, Stories for All Seasons will be presenting Melanie Tem and her new novel, The Deceiver. In addition to reading, Melanie will introduce members of her writing group, who will answer questions and discuss the group dynamic in general. Some of the students will also read works inspired by assignments. I’m proud to announce that I will debut my short story, “Sphere of Falling.”

“Sphere” is the result of a class assignment to write something with a strong sense of place. As I thought about the topic, two different works came to mind: Spider Robinson’s Callahan Chronicles and the story “Shottle Bop” by Theodore Sturgeon. Though “Sphere” is only superficially like either of these works, if similar at all, I do feel that I owe Robinson and Sturgeon a note of thanks, along with Melanie, of course, for the inspiration. It’s a cute story, and could be the germ of a whole collection of stories, assuming I get my butt in gear and write them.

Of course, that’s always the trick, isn’t it?

Lately, I have felt much more like an editor than a writer, though. I participate in two writing groups actively, and I am on extended sabbatical from two other groups. In at least a couple of these groups, I have earned a reputation as a grammarian and editor. Deserved or not, people seem to think of me when it comes time to submit a story, and they often ask if they can run something by me before it hits the group. This reputation seems to extend beyond just writing groups, too. I’ve received editing requests from several people I know who aren’t in writing groups. I’m open to that; I’m happy to help people out, and it helps me improve my own writing.

However, I might be a little too open to it. In the last several months, I have found that I am proofreading manuscripts much more than reading for pleasure, and certainly more than writing my own material. One of my favorite annual short story anthologies has been collecting dust by my bedside for months. And one look at this website will tell you that I have done little to update it in the last half year.

I have started no new creative writing since October 2002, and the guilt is starting to wear me down. I think I’m going to have to finish my current queue of non-group manuscripts and then stop accepting outside manuscripts for critique. Unless I want to become a freelance editor, that is. I don’t think I want to do that, though. I have a hard enough time editing my own work; I think I would go insane if I only edited work by other people and didn’t start producing some of my own again.

In other news, Eight Inch Weeds, my band project, seems to have gone on indefinite hiatus. There are no hard feelings between any of us, but we are not currently a functioning unit. It is possible that I will get back together with a couple of the guys in another band, or perhaps a revamping of this band, but for now I am pursuing other musical projects. Currently, I am working with a couple of members of Dante on some acoustic trio material. Hopefully I will have some news to report in that department before too long.

Update (6/9/2004): I do have news to report about that project. I have been playing with Steel River Three for several months now, making the rounds of coffeehouse jams and playing occasional gigs. Check out the website to see where we are playing next!

Back?

By lytspeed Posted in Computers, Gaming, Music 1 Reply

It’s been a long time. My last Creativity Journal entry was October 24, 2002. I have written little since then, but I have not been entirely devoid of creativity.

The band formerly known as Flat Rabbit has started getting serious; we added a couple of members, and our first gig is a benefit for the victims of the December 21st Summit Apartment fire in Thornton, Colorado. See the band’s website for further information.

I spent my lunch hour throwing that site together; I expect it to change much in the coming days and weeks.

One of my vices in the last three months has been a game called Motor City Online. It’s an online racing game, and I’ve become hopelessly addicted to it. Even this has not been uncreative, however. I have experimented with building my own skins for the game, and the results are below.

I chose to use my character’s ’65 Mustang for the experiment, since that is the vehicle referred to in Agamemnon’s Skinning Tutorial. Also, I knew I wanted to build a Denver Bronco themed car, and what better car to use than a pony car? The picture below is an in-game screen shot of my first attempt on the Mustang.

Not bad, but it has some problems. Most notably, the orange mane of the Bronco logo washes out next to the orange car. Bad design idea. Here’s attempt #2:

Much better. The blue really sets off the logos and is consistent with the Broncos theme. It was a lot of fun to build the skin, even though I’m the only one who can see it in the game. To everyone else online, this is simply a standard, red ’65 Mustang.

Technically, I did attempt another skin before these. It was a modification of an already modified ’73 Firebird skin, the closest thing to a second-generation Camaro that exists in the game. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well because the model that the skin wraps around is much more true to the body of the Firebird than the Camaro. I may post a shot of that car if I can get a good angle on it. Originally, it was an attempt to replicate my old 1970 Camaro Z/28, a car that I miss dearly and should have never sold. I may give it another try, now that I’ve learned a little about skinning.

Thanks to all of the people who sent me e-mail about the site recently. Two of the e-mails were guitar-related, one from a person wanting my final opinion of the Carvin Bolt kit (which gives me some incentive to finish documenting that project) and another from one of the primary guitar playing influences in the early days of my playing, Peter Neds. You can read why Peter is one of my favorite guitar players in “The Zone,” one of the first pieces I wrote for this site, five years ago.

Sick Again

By lytspeed Posted in Music, Reading Leave a reply

I stayed home from work today with a sore throat and stuffy nose. One of the lessons I learned earlier in this year was to take care of myself when I get those early symptoms so they don’t carry forward for weeks. So, I stayed home today, drank yucky TheraFlu, and slept. I also did about an hour and a half of work, via the Internet, but it won’t count since I stayed home.

When I wasn’t sleeping or working, I read. I got through most of The Two Towers today, a pretty big reading achievement for me. I’ve mentioned before that I am a slow reader; I think this is partly because I am a very sensory reader. I like to hear the dialogue in my head and see the scenery as I’m reading, smell whatever the book is describing. I think that slows me down, but it also gives a very rich reading experience.

Tomorrow night, we plan to go watch Dot Com at Brewski’s. I should be well enough to go.

Avoidance, but Sydney Warner too

By lytspeed Posted in Music, Writing Leave a reply

I’ve been avoiding you. Nothing personal, I just have been avoiding writing in general, which means my Creativity Journal has been neglected. I’m pretty embarrassed about that, and I feel guilty. I’m sorry.

I don’t need or want to go into details about why I haven’t written in so long, so I’ll just leave it at a blanket statement: I haven’t felt like it. I’ve been feeling like it’s a losing battle to write anything, like I should just concentrate on doing my job and spending time with my family. I haven’t wanted to write, despite desperately wanting to finish my “Chesterfield Gray” story. I have been been doing everything except writing, in fact.

“Get used to it.” I can hear you now, and you’re right. If I’m going to make it, I need to write every day, whether I want to or not. Writing must be a habit that burns so fiercely that I need to release it every day or face the danger of being consumed by it. If I don’t do that, I don’t deserve to be called a writer, and I don’t deserve to be published.

The whiner in me says, “It’s a lot easier when you don’t have to work 40+ hours per week and still save time for your family.” True, but that’s just an excuse. The key question is whether I would still be avoiding writing if I had all the money I needed. I really don’t know, and I don’t expect to find out any time soon.

Enough grousing. Onward.

The most significant creative event that happened since I last made a journal entry is that I sat in with Sydney Warner’s band at a club called Balls Sports Bar on Colfax and Simms. I know one of the sidemen through a mutual friend, and he invited me to come down and play with them. I thought I would only be playing a couple of tunes, but I wound up sitting in two full sets with them. Thanks to Sydney, Franco and the rest of the band for letting me play the blues with them!

Last weekend, I purchased a Behringer FCB1010 MIDI foot controller for my Cyber-Twin. I spent part of the day learning how to program, and part of the next couple of days tweaking it to make it work correctly with the amp. Thanks to Harrier and RVWinkle at the Fender Discussion Page for the help in getting it straightened out. Now all I have to do is personalize the patch setups for my own gigging style. (I have a gigging style? Wow!)