Musings from the basement...

Planting Onions for the End Times (and other veggies you can store)

March 23, 2020 0 Comments

When the nearby strip malls and shopping plazas are in flames, rioters tearing one another’s hair out and stomping one another to death in the blood-and-covid19-soaked parking lot, my onions will be just about ready to harvest. Onions are easy to plant and grow, and depending on your growing zone, now is the time to plant. You want to aim for early spring, when the soil is no longer frozen and can be easily worked. We’re talking a solid six weeks or so before you’re plant your tomatoes and peppers, give or take. Onions require a pretty long growing season, though one nice thing is that you can harvest them pretty much any time you want, either for green onions and/or as scallions, as smaller…
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Gardening, Random Musings

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Gardening at the End of the World

March 21, 2020 0 Comments

Since fully immersing myself into the gardening hobby — some would say obsession — my primary focus has always been on growing food. Growing lots of stuff to eat. Producing. Not from any kind of necessity, but because good production is a nice, tangible result of your efforts. All that food, those jars of pickles, those hot sauces you share, the jars of salsa that are 17x better than store bought, all of that stuff is something you can see and touch and enjoy. To me, it’s not much different than recording music at home or writing or painting. When you’re done, there is something to show for your efforts. As the world is lit on fire, this is the first time it actually feels…
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Gardening, Random Musings

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My new ambient record is here. It’s very mellow. Get ready to zone out and meditate

January 26, 2020 0 Comments

In the spring of last year, I started experimenting with getting far more minimal in my music than usual, trading layers of drones for sparse sounds. Also had some ideas I wanted to play with involving using math to structure long, ever-shifting pieces. Taking those goals and a heaping helping of Brian Eno influence, i started messing with stuff. The result is the following album. Here’s the opening track. Yes, it’s very, very mellow. If you liked that, the whole thing is available for download and streaming. See below for links. The Experiment 4 – The Ambient Orchestra (2020) Time Slipping Slow in B (AO07) (25:38) The Untitled Shift (AO08) (11:17) Movement in G (AO05) (9:03) Shifting Keys (AO03) (10:18) OUTTAKES: First Composition (AO02) (15:44)…
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Music, Works by Eric

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NEW MUSIC by ERIC: Second Slumber, Beyond the Pale Blue Dot, an experiment in blending drones and drums

October 18, 2019 0 Comments

Sometimes I record drones. Sometimes I record songs. Sometimes I experiment with simple electronic compositions. So what if I blended it all together? That’s what I had in mind here. I wanted to capture the full band jam aspect of Slumbersigh and the drifting, moving, evolving drones of m2 with traditional backing instruments, enhanced with minor electronic stuff. Basically, I jammed with myself. (Dirty!) After a bunch of messing with the idea, some of which I’ll upload later this year, an unofficial journey with Carl Sagan developed. It is Beyond the Pale Blue Dot. This is the first track: The whole thing is four pieces of semi-structured drone, finishing with a piece unofficially co-created with Vangelis, along with Carl Sagan. There is a BONUS TRACK…
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Music, Works by Eric

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There are 97 Oscar nominations and 17 wins for acting among the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) cast

May 13, 2019 0 Comments

Avengers: Endgame is getting all the money, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as a whole has turned into a pop culture juggernaut so huge that if you told my 12-year-old self how big it would eventually be, I’d probably have thought you were drunk and delusional. I have no idea how Norse gods and red, white & blue heroes slinging shields ended up being bigger than Star Wars, but I sure as hell ain’t complaining. We can zero in on one way the MCU has come to dominate the box office, though: with excellent casting. It all began back in 2008, when the then fledgling studio took a chance on Robert Downey Jr., a guy who is now a global superstar but who at…
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