Inevitable Album Support Unplugged Set

Hello, everyone.

In lieu of going on a proper tour, the Gedankenband decided to put out a quick acoustic set of songs from the new album This Is My Circus, These Are My Monkeys, and then they left me to actually record it.  Thanks, gang.  It's live and ambient (so to speak), and includes the songs Say You Don't Mind, Replacement Song, and Knight In Faded Denim.  It's about as polished as you'd expect. The album is available for $4 on the Gedankenband Bandcamp site, though I have free download codes available for the needy.  Other work by the Gedankenband remains available to download from the same site at a "name your own price".  And all of our music is available for streaming on Spotify, etc.

Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving!









Link to Three-Song Set

Leonard Cohen takes Manhattan

It's a tumultuous time. I've mostly been off of social media since the election, but obviously heard of the passing of Leonard Cohen. I only know his work through the cover versions of others, and I'll add my name to that list. Rather than his most iconic song I'll post a version of (maybe) a lesser-known one, using REM's arrangement and done solo and live.  I recorded it in 2012 but this is the first time I've released it anywhere (for good reason, perhaps).

First We Take Manhattan

New Release: This Is My Circus, These Are My Monkeys

On behalf of The Gedankenband, I'm happy to announce the release of our fifth full-length LP: This Is My Circus, These Are My Monkeys. It's available for download at our Bandcamp site, along with the rest of our music including our previous albums, EPs, and "singles".

We've decided to charge a little bit for this music, but hopefully that's not a deterrent.  Each song is individually downloadable for a small cost, and two songs are available for free download: Wrong Place, Wrong Time (Munroe Arrangement) and Middle Of May (album version).  But we'd like to make sure that anyone who wants the music can get it--if you can't pay but still want to listen, I have some free download codes if you get in touch with me.

I don't know when the album will appear on Spotify et al., but it should be within a week.

Thank you for your support and Go Rock Yourselves. 

Circus/Monkeys Preview!

I've been finalizing songs for the upcoming near-classic This Is My Circus, These Are My Monkeys, and thought I'd post something here. I've always had trouble singing this one, and was considering solving that problem by making it an instrumental. In the end, I recorded vocals that I think will do the trick (or are good enough), so here's a relic and early preview of the upcoming album!

Straightforward (Instrumental)

Hopeful Romantics

I haven't posted here in a little while, and This Is My Circus isn't really any closer than last time.  But I have been able to pick up my guitar just a little bit and I figured I should do some "advance publicity" for myself and my Gedankenbandmates.

So, here's "Hopeful Romantics" solo to one track. A version of this song will appear on the album, but I don't think any versions have appeared anywhere thus far. I'm afraid the title may have been originally inspired by a Barry Manilow quote, but inspiration is what it is.

Hopeful Romantics (solo)

Upcoming Album!

The next Gedankenband album is just about ready to go. I've settled on the name This Is My Circus, These Are My Monkeys, as suggested on Twitter, and I just banged out the (admittedly garish) cover "art" (thanks to some public domain line art). I'm not sure when I'll actually release it, though I suspect it'll be sometime in the next month or so.  Right now it's 50 minutes long, with the following songs:

1. You Say A Whole Lot Of Things
2. I've Got Six Strings (And A Whole Lot Of Loving)
3. Let Her Go
4. No Hard Feelings
5. Say You Don't Mind
6. Hopeful Romantics
7. Straightforward
8. Puerto Peñasco
9. Wrong Place Wrong Time (Munroe Arrangement)
10. Middle Of May (album version)
11. Knight In Faded Denim
12. Moon Grrl
13. Autochirophobia
14. Toast
15. Bisbee Blue
16. Ceres Ferdinandea (parts 1-7)

Some of these songs have appeared here on the blog in early versions, and Wrong Place was a B-side.  Middle of May is a new recording and not the Local Technique version, however. I plan to make it available in the usual places: the Gedankenband Bandcamp site and streaming on Spotify etc.

A belated but still not very good tribute to David Bowie

I put something up shortly after David Bowie's death in January, noting that he deserved a real post. This, unfortunately, isn't really such a post. It is however, something that I recorded a few days after the first post and figured I'd just go ahead and finally put up:

Sound and Vision solo live straight to one track mono.

Next posts should start giving more details about my intended next music release, such as it is.  But there's no doubt in my mind that nothing on that album will match anything on any of Bowie's.

The Gedankenband on Spotify

It's two posts in two days!

Hard upon yesterday's celebration of the Middle of May, I figured I might as well remind all the Gedankenfans that I've got all (I think) of my music up on Spotify for your streaming but not downloading needs.

The link to the Gedankenband page is here, though inexplicably one of the albums has snuck in under a slightly different band name here where apparently "Andy Rivkin and his Gedankenband" was treated as two artists together. 

Anyway.

I've also made a Gedankenband "Greatest Hits" playlist on Spotify, which should be open to all.

It's the Middle of May

Time to get back to a bit of music here. I've been working on a new music release for some time this year (working title: Unreliable Narrator). The last few things I've put out have been EP length, with 4-5 songs, but I'm currently thinking of something longer--I haven't put out something album length in over 5 years. So, I've been slowly recording songs and collecting older efforts to see if they can be improved.

One of the songs almost certain to make this album is "Middle of May".  A version of this song was on the Local Technique EP, built on a very early take that lacked a verse written a little bit later. Since this is the middle of May (well, tomorrow is formally but we're close enough), I thought I'd post an instrumental version of the "album version" of the song.

Happy spring!
Middle of May (2016 instrumental version)
Middle of May (Local Technique version on Bandcamp)
Middle of May (2014 "lo-fi mini-concert" version) 

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #30: A Last Sighting Before This Apparition Ends

A last sighting
before this apparition ends.
Upon return
perhaps a different side will show
for an
irregular wanderer
that none will ever
call a star
but perhaps some
may think
more than a dim lump.


---

And with that, my participation in the 2016 National Poetry Writing Month is completed. :)  I'm pleased to have met the challenge of writing a poem a day in April for the 7th consecutive year, all of them can be found on this blog.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #29: I Do Not Believe

I do not believe in science.
It is not a deity
to which obeisance is owed
or in which faith is demanded,
nor a mystical force
working miracles
beyond ever understanding.

Rather,
I trust in science
the way I trust a friend
(or coworker
to be more accurate)
whose behavior makes sense
usually
and who I think has good reason
for acting as they do
even if I wonder
if sometimes
they maybe drink
a bit too much.

2016 NaPoWriMo Post #28: Proposal Season

Two dozen smart folks
studying a new mission
for when they're retired

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #27: Going Under

Cryo isn't so bad.
That's what I hear
from the vets.
"Only way to fly"
they say.
It's literally true
when going
to Alpha Cen
or even Iapetus.

But still I wonder
what will I miss
and what world
will I wake up to?

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #26: The Next Expedition

Some of the men
watched the sun
sink into the
long-awaited ocean,
but she preferred
to look at the sky,
as befitting her name.

York joined her
and motioned
at the stars,
fixed and wandering.

“How long,
do you reckon,
it’ll be before they
send an expedition
there?”

She shrugged.
“However long it may be,
they won’t get there
without us, either.”

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #25: Rec Room

There is no glamor
in this aspect of the job.
We spend our days
checking and rechecking
seals and gauges,
buried deep enough
to keep all the letters
of the Greek alphabet at bay.

We don’t play golf,
we don’t plant potatoes.
We use a high-tech xbox
to drive a rover where
we could never go
to prove that
humans are indispensible.

But I’ll let you in
on a secret.

We have a room
the size of the galley
filled knee-deep
in regolith.
Sometimes
on break
we strip down,
put on heat lamps,
and pretend we’re on
the world’s tiniest beach
(or another world’s, anyhow)
and run our fingers and toes
through the sand.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #24: Re-entry

Begun with a
single step perhaps,
it will end with reports
and paperwork,
reimbursement requests
and digging out.
This re-entry
will have no
fiery dramatics
nor parades to follow,
nor medals to bestow—
only a sense of
increased gravity
and coming back to Earth.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #23: To Be With You Again

When can I next be with you?
We were always
connected.
You, the brightest star
in the skies,
and I the only one
to really get through to you.

I cannot deny
I’m still reeling from
the break up.
I’ve made moves
toward others,
but they’ve
utterly failed.
And I’m not blind
to others edging
closer to you,
with a
string of proposals,
one of which
will someday win.

But I can’t help but
feel we are
meant to share
a future.
I want to be with you again.

NaPoWriMo Poem #22: Never Return

I did not see Comet West.
It dominated predawn skies
while I rested up
for second grade.
Somehow schoolmates
were awakened to see it
I heard their accounts
and listened with envy.

I did not see Comet McNaught.
A half-hearted attempt
in poor conditions
failed.
It put on a spectacular show
too far away for me to reach
(I told myself).

I have seen
some spectacular comets.
But it’s hard not to regret
opportunities missed
that will never return.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #21: Unforced Perspective

Your beauty is

not skin deep

nor shallow.

I could explore

for the length of my life

and every other life and

not come to the end

of your wonders.

And yet.

Perhaps it is having

the distance

that helps me

appreciate 

just how beautiful

you are.

NaPoWriMo Poem #20: Saturation

When younger
it's easier to tell
what happened.
Each impact
hits a new place,
previously whole
and untouched,
the effects separated,
localized and contained.

But damage accumulates
as time
wears
on.

Eventually there is
no place untouched,
and each new event
churns and buries
the evidence of the past,
and creates a thicker mask
putting the original
surface
deeper and further
from sight.

We are left to wonder
if we're missing
something really important.

2016 NaPoWriMo Post #19: Opening the Dome

"I'm afraid of heights"
she said from within
a nitrogen mist
with a shrug,
as machinery hummed
in the background.

"The views
on the way here
are really lovely"
I offered.

She nodded
and opened the dome.
"I've heard that.
But I'm too scared to look down
so I just look up."

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #18: Insistent Moon

The telescope points
watching rocks in the glare of
an insistent Moon

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #17: Sacred and Profane

Will we find
sacred places
on other planets?
Masses to celebrate?
Will we set aside
shrines to
latter-day
Scotts and Pengs?
Will we make
pilgrimages
to dead orbiters,
buried rovers,
ancient wreckage?

And will we understand
if
another culture
decides
to erase famous footprints
to erect a telescope
that really needs to go
in just
that
spot?

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #16: Some Clocks

Unstable atoms
unable to remain parents
decompose
leaving noble children
trapped
in crystalline prisons,
and hoping to be counted
in our laboratories
and set free
to demonstrate
there are some clocks
that can
never be stopped.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #15: She Dreams of Slurry

she dreams of slurry
thick and frigid,
toxic and alien.
she can picture
the scene
through tubes and screens:
a land where
the sun
never shines.
no pleasure domes,
no time
to explore.
she wishes
she could run 

her hands
through the muck
and dance barefoot
in the oily rain.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #14: Zealots, Dabblers, Tyros, and Emeriti

Science isn’t the
photons we receive
from distant worlds
nor the
grains we collect
from powdery surfaces.
It isn’t the curves
that trace data points
nor the pdfs
and
stacks of paper
found on our drives
and in our cabinets.

Science is the
framework
of understanding
made by the
network
of zealots
and dabblers
and tyros
and emeriti.

Science depends on people,
which is beautiful
and terrible.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #13: Leading a Horse

Each has its own personality.
One a gracefully aging,
well tended giant—
a Kentucky Derby winner
now gently taking students
for a ride through pleasant spaces.
Another a cantankerous beast,
entering its dotage
with loving but poor caretakers.
Some thoroughbreds are so skittish
you can’t even approach
without the jockey facilitating any contact.

Tomorrow we take the reins,
and our mount seems sturdy.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #12: Waste

It seems oddly unfair
for light to travel
hundreds of
millions of
kilometers
from the Sun
to a tiny
black
object
and then return
hundreds of
millions of
kilometers
toward our telescope
only to be thwarted
by ten meters of cloud.

On the other hand
that light only spent
eighty minutes
making the trip
and the
one-hundred forty minutes
of “Attack of the Clones”
was a much
much
bigger waste of time.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #11: I Know and I Need

i know the sun
loves me no less
when it shines on the other
side of the world
and i know the stars
love me no less
when they spend months
close to the sun,
hidden from me
in its glow
i know this
yet i find
i need
to be reminded
periodically.



----

Maybe a bit off theme, but it came to me more or less as is as I was waking up. 

2016 NaPoWriMo Post #10: Amnesty Bay Meteoritical Society Press Conference

“You’re all missing the
importance of this study”
the scientist said, furrowing her brow.
“We have shown
via a combination of
isotopic study,
mineralogy, and
textural analysis that
the Smallville parent body
was Earth-sized,
orbited an M-type star,
and disrupted via an internal process
not a giant impact.

The speculation as to
whether this planet
was inhabited,
let alone how
exposure to its debris
might affect life forms is
one sentence
in a much larger, compelling body of work.

We look forward
to finding more pieces
similar to Smallville,
and thank an anonymous
benefactor
who is financing a
citizen science project
to scour the Earth for more.”

A reporter shifted
uneasily
in his seat.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #9: Unfilled Manifest

We generate
more ideas
than we can use.
History is littered
with best-laid plans
passed by.

Apollo 19 and CRAF
Champollion and JIMO
Pioneer H and Mariner Mark II
and others without
Wikipedia pages to
tell their story.

Maybe the funding
was used for something useful,
though I haven’t the
heart to ask nor
the clearance to
find out.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #8: We Never See The Same Sky Twice

We never see the same sky twice.
No fixed mark, this maddening gyre.
And though it seems to swirl entire,
note: wanderers will blunder through
on retrograde and showy loops
before rejoining a forward track.
The Earth itself has shifted tack
since pyramid or henge aligned.
While looking up now we may find
a little bear has its tail pinned
but it will anon escape.
Even stars jostle on the charts
and inch along on ancient courses
a priceless herd of luminous horses
in an infinite pasture.

We never see the same sky twice
even with members of the same crowd.
And that’s not to mention clouds.



---

Picture from http://www.mreclipse.com/Meteors/Leo01/Leo01gallery.html

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #7: Waiting Impatiently

Cinnamon surface, rarer than saffron
though its taste of old pool water
bars a good mix with blueberries.

In my parents’ time some still
wished you likened
with green flashes and seasonal drought
before an ancient Mariner
found nary a drop to drink.

Project humans to Mars
many might say, waiting impatiently
for a negative to be proven
before we journey
and spread our crap around.

NaPoWriMo Poem #6: Poem Six

maybe
eventually i’ll write about
the elephant in the room
or that’s not in the room
you’ll know if I have
probably
maybe
you’ll know it
by studying the topics
of poems
others have written
(and may write in the future)
and comparing to poems
i haven’t written
and notice a pattern
maybe
others will write poems
about what I’m not
writing a poem about
and you’ll infer
my poem exists
maybe
i wrote the poem
maybe
i’m waiting for a book deal
to let you see it
or not

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #5: What Not To Expect

we expected swales and ridges,
signatures of an atlas
too relaxed to hold up the world,
content to let things slide.

we expected a world
of pencil lead and chalk,
laxative and kitty litter,
permafrost foam on frozen brine.

after a year
we don’t know
what we have
and we still don’t know
what to expect.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #4: With and Without

Our finest schools
are holding pens for teenagers
if nobody tries to teach or learn.
Our most skilled surgeons
are mere butchers
if they operate with no purpose.
Our finest museums
are storage sheds
if we do not
appreciate art

Without science
our greatest voyagers
are shiny curiosities
abandoned
on distant playgrounds.
Without science
the most intrepid odysseys
are taken by
high-end adventure tourists
vicariously checking boxes.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #3: On the Dome

The sun has set on the Karoo,
leaving an orange smudge as a
brief reminder.
Jupiter reigns
as the sky’s brightest beacon
while Sirius and Canopus lag behind.
The deeper delights await
darker skies
but we won’t be up here then.

We shouldn’t be up here now,
not this late,
not at all.
We wave furtively to
earthbound colleagues,
scurrying to open their domes
and get to work
while we sit on ours,
finishing our Windhoeks,
considering a second
(or third?)
and talking about everything
and nothing.

Were I asleep
this would be the makings
of a
stress dream.
I am awake enough now
to have a better grasp
of what’s important
and where
stress resides.


----

A little poetic license, for what it's worth. :)

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #2: Light Is A Bully

light is a bully
if you’re the wrong size
in the wrong place.

it will claw at your surface,
cracking and peeling
your very essence.
it will flip you around
and leave you spinning
until you break.
it will drag you
from a path you’ve followed
for millions upon millions of years
and beyond your control
send you to the heart of the sun
before blasting your ashes away
to the void of interstellar space.

light is a bully
but darkness a thief
that slowly takes and takes
until you equilibrate
with nothing left to give.



----

Video of YORP Spinup from Derek Richardson's multimedia page: https://www.astro.umd.edu/~dcr/gallery.html.
Related paper: Walsh, K.J., Richardson, D.C., Michel, P. 2008. Rotational breakup as the origin of small binary asteroids. Nature 454, 188-191
Also see: Walsh, K.J., Richardson, D.C., Michel, P. 2012. Spin-up of rubble-pile asteroids: Disruption, satellite formation, and equilibrium shapes. Icarus 220, 514-529

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #1: To An Empty Place

there was enough sparkle
for the landing,
which was not
a small affair.
one flash of light
but no smoking pistol.


there's no sign of life,
just the power to charm.
but do you remember
the bills we have to pay?
after five years
of humble pie or bitter fruit
it seems there’s nothing i can do.




i heard a rumor from ground control
i won’t be king
but no, love, we’re not alone.
if there's life on mars
really never was the point.


---

I'm telling myself that I'm warming up. I'm not even convinced I can call this "my" poem.

National Poetry Writing Month 2016 Incoming!

April is National Poetry Writing Month, aka NaPoWriMo. As part of it, people are encouraged to write a poem every day. If you do that, you "win". While there's no requirement to do anything with these poems, every April since 2010 I've turned this site, nominally my music blog, into a poetry blog where I post that day's poem. And every year I've written a version of this post explaining what I'm doing...

For a variety of reasons that I won't get into here (but might leak into this year's poems) I've had a difficult March and may have a difficult April. I'd considered not writing at all this year, but it is something I always look forward to and get a lot of enjoyment from, so I think I'll give it a shot. :)

In 2010 I wrote about a different baseball team every day.  In 2011 I switched to chemical elements. Since 2012 I've been writing space poetry, beginning with writing about specific objects but of late wandering off into more expansive concepts. I expect to write more space poems this year, though I'm going to give myself slack to write about whatever I feel like.

I do hope you'll join us in writing something every day, or even a few days, this April. If you'd like to post something but don't have a space, I'd be happy to post it here under your name or anonymously.

A few of my favorites from previous years:
The Eighth Wonder, In Repose (2010)
Fourteen Atoms, Twenty Seconds (2011)
Am I Not A Planet? (2012)
science is a sometimes friend (2013)
The Summer Cottage (2014)
The Sea Haunts The Camp (2015)

Song for Sandra, Sort of

I have been feeling physically terrible for a few weeks. Today is the first day I felt like picking up my guitar, and I thought I'd make the best of it.  While I've been thinking about REM and the 25th anniversary of the release of Out of Time, I decided in the end to do an original of very recent vintage.

I started working on "Song for Sandra, Sort of" while driving across Arizona and California in January. I was thinking about some colleagues and the crazy things we put ourselves through to stay afloat and try to make things better in the field of research science. Most of the words came to me on that drive, though some of them were written along with the music in mid-February. The bridge isn't quite settled in my mind, though perhaps the act of recording will make this the final version. I'm not sure if this song has a future beyond this blog post, but I guess we'll see.  The name "Sandra" was picked to go along with the consonance of the other title words, and because I don't know anyone named Sandra (at least not well)--not unlike the decision to name the love interest in OBAFGKM "Suzanne".

In case it wasn't obvious, it was recorded live in glorious mono all at once. I tend to use Audacity when I record like that.

Voila:
Song for Sandra, Sort of

Test Me, Schaller

So, as has happened before, a meme for my local Twitter gang has turned into a song. This one took a few years to ripen and is slightly different from the actual phrase we use, but such is art.

Chris Schaller is a great guy and the ground system software guy for the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. He also can be kind of snarky (which is part of his charm). After he teased the nearly-equally-snarky Sarah Hörst, she responded "don't test me schaller".  Simple enough. For whatever reason, the term took off (well, for small values of taking off) among several planetary science tweeters, even leading to a T-shirt with the phrase.

I'd thought it would be a good song title. Turns out that "Test Me, Schaller" is even better than "Don't Test Me, Schaller" (at least for me). I'd had the first line/melody for a little while, but finally wrote the rest of it yesterday.  And in the interest of striking while hot etc., here it is:

"Test Me, Schaller" (live to mono)

Don't expect to see this on any albums or anything. It seems a bit too esoteric. :)

Also, Happy Mardi Gras!!

A too-quick, too-short post commemorating David Bowie

I woke this morning to find with shock that David Bowie had died. As many have said, it almost seemed like he couldn't die, but as with all the other people we felt similarly about, he could.

Bowie deserves a much longer, much more detailed post than I can give him, at least right now.  What I can do right now is post a snippet of a cover song. Back in college, we did a few songs by Bowie--"Suffragette City" foremost among them. But I'm going to post something I had much more recent involvement with.

At the most recent Division of Planetary Sciences meeting in November, we had an open mic night. I referred to it earlier as I was trying to decide what original to play.  I was lucky enough to have a few times on stage that night, but the one that had the most response from the audience was with Maria Banks and Joe Spitale as part of a trio we kind of called "Hot Ham, Jarlsberg, and the Deli Slicer" (it's a bit of a long but maybe not that interesting story). When Maria said she wanted us to play something together and she'd bring her travel harp, it was obvious to me that "Space Oddity" was the song to play. Some video may have been captured, though I haven't seen it.

What I can offer is a little bit of our rehearsal, which I recorded. It's rough, and the microphone is too close to me (so the mix is terrible and you can't tell that Joe is doing the lead singing), but it's something I can do right now.

Space Oddity (rehearsal)-- Hot Ham, Jarlsberg, and the Deli Slicer

RIP, David.

2015 In Review

It's a bit later than other years in review, but I figure it's still early enough in 2016 to recap 2015 on this blog.  It wasn't as busy a year as some, due to some big work projects and a lot of travel, but I still made 40 posts.

Despite this being my "music blog" the majority of those posts were poems, as usual. I took part in National Poetry Writing Month, and successfully wrote and posted a poem every day. It's hard to pick a single favorite poem from this year, I'll just point to two that I like:  The more whimsical "Very Different" and the less whimsical "When Collins Wakes".  I also posted, along with many friends, a poem for the Pluto Flyby by New Horizons.

There were a few musical anniversaries marked here. Personally-beloved original "Down From The Skies" turned 25, and I indulged in a re-recording that I posted here. "Passerby" turned nearly as old,  and I did a first-ever recording of it, which I also posted.  Two other originals also saw their first posting here: "The MANTIS Song" commemorating our Cat-1 mission proposal, and "Surf Titan", which is something I threw together in the mid-90s and then threw together as a recording shortly before posting. I also provided two versions of "The Astronomers Song"--an additional set of verses honoring women astronomers (with terrible-looking video of the performance), and a go at the original words. That latter version also came with a run-through of "The Girl Next Door", which was written nearly the same time and is connected in my head.  Finally, I recorded a John Lennon/Beatles song.

The other post of note is one commemorating the 15th anniversary of The Red Album.

Looking ahead to the rest of 2016, I've been doing some recording with The Gedankenband and I hope to get an album of music out to the usual places.  I have several songs already in decent shape. I'm going to try not to stick songs already on EPs onto the album, though I reserve the right. :)

I hope you've had a great year and have another great one ahead!