Evan Valentine, Stay-at-Home Dad

I'm going to nerd out here for a second. Bear with me.

I built a new computer over an 18month period. That alone is a long story. It was meant to be a gift to my brother but I failed over and over to get this thing to boot. Anyhow, I instead bought my brother a camera and this is now my computer. I got it working maybe six months ago. It's a new computer. It's nice. I can actually use Lightroom as it was meant to be used. Blah blah. I've never been one for flashy new computers; I always just wish my old one would have kept working. Anyway, it took me way too long to realize that this new computer can't record audio worth a damn. Lots of noise.. it seems to add a frequency in all the recordings, like a low-to-mid hum. I believe everything that has been recorded onto this computer in the last six months is useless. It's all I can hear when I listen now.

As a workaround, I purchased a USB interface cable, which has audio hookups on one end (that go into my mixer) and a USB plug on the other end (which goes into my PC). Ain't USB grand? I can barely remember what we did without them.

So I had difficulty getting everything to work right, BUT... I think it's going to work. Not only that, I think it's going to work really well. While I was trying to get everything set up properly (pacing around, muttering curse words, running wires, reading related message boards--all in between feeding and changing the baby), I left my Dave Smith Evolver plugged into my computer. That way, if anything started to work while I was messing with settings, I would know instantly because I would be able to hear my synthesizer coming through.

Dave Smith is a pioneer. Among other things, he was the main engineer of the Prophet-5 (and its more recognizable brother, the Prophet-10... early Van Halen, anyone?) and the originator of the MIDI interface (maybe the most important music technology invention to date). He has worked for several companies, but eventually went on to form Dave Smith Instruments.

I have owned a desktop version of the Dave Smith Evolver (Serial 00694) for maybe six years and I am very happy with it. It certainly doesn't look like four hundred dollars (I paid that for a used one actually), but it sounds like it. It is an analog-digital hybrid, sort of the best of both worlds. You really can't make the analog filter on this thing sound bad even if you try. Of course it has its disadvantages: it is hard to program, it can only input monophonic MIDI signals, and only one setting can be altered at once. Basically it's not good for live performances. I think the layout of it is nice and I can cook up a sound/sequence pretty quickly on it. Here is about three minutes of what I recorded last night. It takes a little while to fade in, so don't turn up your speakers.

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It's time for Evan to pass the hat. Steve and I need money to get our album mastered. We get a surprisingly good response to this old album when we give it out, so we thought we'd set up a system for donations. If you click "download" on the link below, it will bring up a Paypal payment screen. If you have a Paypal account, it couldn't be easier to donate seven dollars. If you do not have a Paypal account, it is still easy to purchase/download the album with a secure credit card payment. We have it set up for a minimum of $7, in case our relatives wanted to give us more as a Christmas present or something. You can stream all the tracks for free below, or visit the actual site on which it is hosted. It is an easy, convenient system. Anyway, throw us a bone! $7 for the album means a) less than 34 cents per track and b) less than ten cents per minute of audio. Also, if you like it, you can click the "share" link below and post a link to it on your Facebook/Twitter/Livejournal/What have you. Thanks in advance.

This is a set of self-produced home recordings. All 21 songs run together seamlessly to create the feeling that the listener is hearing a jam session. This album will never be released as-is except through bandcamp.com. Proceeds from downloads of "innovation avenue" will go towards the mastering of our next album, for which we will be seeking representation from record labels.

CREDITS:
Released 19 July 2009
All songs composed, arranged, performed, recorded, and produced by Evan Valentine and Steve Bower
Cover art by J. Adam Morris
Hosted by bandcamp.com
©All rights reserved

I mentioned some time ago that a lot of my music is hosted on archive.org, and that I would get to the details later. Well, later is now. Or.. now is later. I'm confused.

Netlabels release material under Creative Commons licenses. This means that the author can determine how his music (or video, or book) is licensed. Typically it is released as "Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative" which means you are free to share the music--spread it far and wide as long as you give the author credit and do not use it for commercial purposes. This means that people can take my songs and burn 100 copies to CD if they like, as long as they do not sell the CDs for profit or use them for commercial gain (use them as the soundtrack to a film, for instance). In the unlikely event that someone 'stole' my songs for commercial use, I could sue and it would be upheld in court, even though I have not pursued an actual copyright. Not to mention, I have the source material for all my songs and could prove that I composed them.

I followed the custom of releasing material as albums, though they are not actual albums. I will list them here in chronological order, with a bit of explanation. All the following music is non-dance electronic music. The whole genre is really esoteric and not for everyone. Although I started making music in 1996, all of this "released" material is from 2001 and beyond (there's good reason for that).

Ekiv EP - several short, intense tracks from my first year living with Jaime in Athens. Most of the percussion sounds on here were sampled by me (smash two things together and call it a snare drum)

Fish Food EP - more laid back, more lush sounds

Safety Glass EP - back to rough, harsh sounds. I think this is my best release

Sinister Device LP - full-length (about 50minute) release that has over 15,000 downloads. "The public's" favorite release of mine. Lots of help from friends on this one.

Millions Never Tried EP (with e-sin) - cooperative album with a friend of mine. The latest (and most mature) of my releases. I love the first two tracks, along with "Seren." (The link below plays the songs out of order, so scratch that previous statement)

Plus there are several more songs (of different types) on my personal music page, and several "leaked" tracks on different file-sharing networks.

earsauce (no majuscules allowed) is a studio music project involving only Steve Bower and myself. We have focused solely on the recording of songs. We make something up, slowly record the parts in my basement (over a period of weeks or months), then forget how to play them. On to the next song. Don't look back. We have begun well over 50 songs using this method, and finished about 60% of them so far.

There are obvious drawbacks to making music this way. With two albums worth of finished songs, we have no way to play most of the music live. No way to reproduce the layers and parts with just two people on stage. So now we're going back and making stage versions of the songs (take the 'album version' and cut out the guitar/bass/vocals, and leave the rest as a fake backup band). Even still, we have to go back and re-learn most of our own parts.

My plan is to have a mastered album that we can promote sometime in the first half of 2010. That would still mean it took us five years to make one album.

I don't know how to describe the style of music--not because it is unique, but because it is so varied. Between the two of us, there are many musical influences, and we try to let them all shine through. Some stuff is electronic (my department), some stuff is folksy (both), and some of it has a tinge of rock (Steve). We also split the duties pretty evenly:

Songwriting - both
Lyrics - both
Guitar - both
Vocals - both
Bass - Steve
Hand Drums - Steve
Harmonica - Evan
Piano - both (but mostly Evan)
Banjo - both
Violin - Steve
Synthesizers - Evan
Recording Engineer - both
Production (beats, levels, etc) - Evan

At times we're really interested in recording new stuff, and at times we're not. That's the beauty of the arrangement. We're not 'on the clock' paying for studio time. No schedules. Nothing is forced. That's the way it should be. Hopefully the relaxed attitude comes through in the music, because that's what I like.

I installed a lot of WordPress plugins this weekend, and am sorting through several more. For starters, if I link to a Wikipedia Article or a YouTube Video, the information can be brought up simply by hovering over the icon next to the links. Sleek. Modern.

Jaime and I have both been sick all weekend, but we did at least sell her old Honda. Back down to two cars. Mine needs some work, but not nearly the $2000 we got for the Honda. It doesn't seem like Stephen is sick, although he has a runny nose twice a day.

Just playing around with links and stuff, I was trying to find a picture of my guitar, but I can't find one that looks exactly right. Maybe mine is just more beat up than most of the pictures I found. The sunburst is far more subtle on mine.

Also, let's see what happens when I link to a picture off of Jaime's Flickr.

Okay, I'll stop now.

ps--Started a new song yesterday morning. A clip:

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