A Moral Conundrum

Oh man. Is it really down to either LOST or the Simpsons?

Come on!

Holy Week and Stuff

I don't really know how many people read this blog (I don't know how many views I get on a regular basis--probably not many, but some comments sure would be nice, just to know people are reading. Hint hint), so I'm not really sure how religious you folks are.

I'm taking a week off of facebook to disconnect myself a little, to try to clear my head and think and pray a little bit. It's Holy Week, the most sacred time of the year on the Christian calendar, which remembers the last week Jesus was alive in Jerusalem before the Romans executed him as a revolutionary. So I'm taking some time to myself to meditate on what it means to follow the heart of Christ. I think that the crux (no pun intended) of Jesus's message is that if you believe in something strongly enough, and you're willing to fight for it--nonviolently--you have to be prepared for the consequences. That's a lot of theology packed into a tight paragraph, but it's all I'm really willing to go for tonight. Please don't think I'm a crazy religious fanatic. By the way, on a obliquely similar but completely different subject: if you're interested in reading a paper I just wrote on Luke's beatitudes ("Blessed are you who..."), you can check it out at my more politically/religiously charged blog here. Let me know what you think.

Anyway. Here's my new obsession, which I mentioned a few weeks ago.

t's really similar to a monome, but a couple hundred dollars cheaper. In this video, the program being run is very similar to an iPhone app I saw Matt use once, but I'm hoping (once I acquire one) to move on to some more difficult programming. I feel like I'm on the verge of having everything I need (want) to make the kind of music I'm looking for. It just might take me a while to get there, what with me getting married and all. :) It looks like I won't be playing much music for a while pretty soon.

My posts here might increase slightly in the next week, since I won't be on facebook. Be sure to check in on me periodically.

Peace,

Joshua

Jam Session

So...

I had an awesome jam session with my new friend Daniel Atwood and his friend Nathan last night. We played well into the wee hours o' the morning, but it was totally worth it. Here's a snippet of the almost two hours of recording time I caught with the mics (the acoustics in the room aren't so great, but not bad, considering we were using my little CAD condenser mic and a little pencil mic):


Also, Alyssa got me a neat little tea pot yesterday from a local thrift/antique/hipster shop while I was at work. I'll post pictures sometime soon.

Also, I'm reading this book now:



It's incredibly awesome, and I would love to find someone else who's read it and have a conversation with them about it. I'm not entirely sure why it kicked up as much controversy as it did, unless--like most controversies--the people who protested the release of both the book and the movie had neither seen nor read either of them.









Also, I just received word today that one of my poems is being published by this literary journal.


I also get a chance to record myself reading the poem (It's called "My Family Names Their Clocks and I Don't Know Why") for the literary journal's Illinois public radio program for NPR. So that's cool.





Also, I recently won the Sigma Tau Delta writing competition, and will receive some a little money and publication in our school's student lit mag. That's cool, too.

Hope this finds you all well. In the meantime, don't let things like this get you down.

I'm doing my best to not let it affect me.

Peace,

Joshua

New Guitar

Well, I did it.

I bought my first guitar.

Well, technically it's my second. I got my first guitar, a Takamine G-Series Dreadnought, for my 18th birthday from my family, and it sat unused for the better part of a year and a half before I picked it up to start learning.
I've been playing for about three years or so now, and finally thought it was time to move on.

I love my Takamine, and it will forever be my first guitar--the one I learned to play on, the one I used to lead music at camp and at worship services. But it's not quite adequate for the type of music I want to play now.

I ended up paying $260 for an Alvarez FF60WR on ebay. It comes with a hard case. It looks like a fantastic guitar, and--the most important part--it's an electric acoustic. For years I've struggled with not being able to plug my little dreadnought in, and the FF60WR comes with a System 600 MKII preamp and EQ. I don't think the FF60WR is made anymore, but the list price used to be around $700 or $800, if I remember right. Plus, the guy I bought it from threw in a hard case, as well. I think I got a pretty sweet deal, but we shall see.

Here's a weird, sideways Bob Dylan-ish demonstration.

British comedy night with Alyssa

Yep. That's it.

Earlier, we settled down to watch the incredibly funny "In the Loop," a political satire about the incompetence of government intelligence. I think my favorite part was the effortlessly foul-mouthed angry Scottish character played by Peter Capaldi. It's brilliant satire, but also kind of sad--you'll see why when you see the movie.

Okay, the second film isn't really a British comedy, but it does start English actor/comedian Ricky Gervais (as well as a bazillion other really big stars--Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tina Fey, Edward Norton, Christopher Guest, and several others all make excellent cameo appearances). It's "The Invention of Lying." The title is pretty self-explanatory.

In short--watch them both. Although the first is by far more intellectual than the second, "The Invention of Lying" is definitely worth watching, if for no other reason than to turn your brain off and laugh for a little while.

"Love Is Not Against the Law"

Another video from our concert at Mississippi Mud House. This is "Love Is Not Against the Law," by Derek Webb.
Sorry for the cutting off on the right side of the video--this site does weird things to Youtube formatting. When I get the actual video files, I'll post them to Vimeo.

I've been thinking about new instruments lately. I was tweeting with Derek Webb the other day, and he suggested the Livid Block to me as a viable substitute for a monome (they're a little more than a hundred bucks cheaper, so yay!)



I've also been thinking a lot about getting a new guitar--not in the immediate future, but just pondering the implications, you know. I'm currently playing a Takamine G-series that's a pretty great guitar: I learned to play on it, and I've spent years leading worship in churches and at camp with it. But I'm not crazy about the sound. Also, it's not electric, so I have to use a pickup any time I want to play through speakers or amps.

So I've been looking for something fairly cheap, but of good quality and sound, with one of the main stipulations being that it has to be electric. And I just happened to stumble upon the Alvarez FFT243CWR. It's a very pretty guitar, and I've seen some videos of it in action. I really like the sound. It's apparently designed specifically as a "folk" instrument.



So let me know what you guys think. I've been thinking about Danger Mouse, Derek Webb, and other electronic/folk/indie musicians lately, and I'd really like to do some bleep and bloop work. If you happen to know anything about this kind of music production, send me an email at operationvittles@gmail.com.

Peace,

Joshua

Concert Video #3

This is "White Man," by the Michael Gungor Band.

Another Video

Here's "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore," by John Prine. The audience really liked this one.

"Flag Decal"--John Prine Cover by Berlin Airlift from Joshua Smith on Vimeo.

New Podcast

Now that we're not as busy working on songs for live performances, I'm able to take a little time to start figuring out how to use all this recording equipment I purchased. I did a little music podcast with the equipment today. The mic is much better than the one in my computer, but it still sounds a little like I'm talking into a cracker box. I'm hoping this'll change with a little studio engineering on my part. We'll see. I'm still learning.

You can check out the latest podcast here. This edition features Broken Bells, Waterdeep, Gorillaz, and more. Might want to be ready to crank up the bass/volume and jam for this one.

Peace,

Joshua

Messes of Men

Here's a video of our show opener, "Messes of Men," by mewithoutYou.

We started it off with an iPhone rain app, lead in with me on guitar (and later introduced the Electro-Harmonix Voice Box vocoder), and Alyssa played the omnichord. Matt, obviously, played drums.

A-one, a-two, a-one, two, three, fo'!

"Messes of Men," mewithoutYou cover by Berlin Airlift from Joshua Smith on Vimeo.

Our first (big?) show!

Our first show last night was awesome! A big thank you to everyone who showed up, both in person and in spirit. We are so lucky to have people willing to listen to us play. That's all for now, but here are some pictures. Expect a few videos up this week.









PS--Check out the awesome "Son of Man" vinyl sticker on my macbook (bottom right) that Alyssa got me for my birthday!

Peace,

Joshua

So, I figured out how to hook up my camera to my mac via USB...

It only took me six or seven months.
And here are a couple pictures of the new workspace. Nothing too fancy, but we're excited about it.









I also finally got a decent mix for my vocal condenser mic! It's taken forever to find a good setup, but I think it's working best in Garageband with the Noise gate set at -50dB, and the Visual EQ set at "Reduce 'S'." There's still a bit of a hiss and an echo, but I think that once we soundproof the room it should mostly go away.

In other news, our first "electrified" show is coming up on Saturday--that is, if you consider an acoustic pickup and a trap set "electrified." We've hit a few snags in attempting to find a decent place to practice. We don't actually have a trap set of our own, and so we've been borrowing a set that's been left in our building by another group, but borrowing can be unreliable--sometimes there are pieces missing that make it impossible to practice.

We're still practicing when we can, though, and we should be able to post some decent youtube or vimeo footage by Monday, I hope.

Thanks for believing in us!

Peace,

Joshua