Vanilla Bean

I stayed up quite literally all of Friday night recording a new song. The deadline for that competition I mentioned a while back reared its ugly head, and I had to put my entry in the mail Saturday morning. Well, I'm back in the saddle, if I may wax stupid for a moment. That is to say I'm definitely ready to start recording again. I used Garageband this go-around, but I'm ready to start with Logic and maybe even finish an album by the end of the month. I wanted to start today (which is really Saturday, not Sunday) but maybe it's a little late.

The song I made is an instrumental, with a lot of contrasting sections. It sort of became a tribute to Joy Electric, my favorite band since I was eleven.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/pp2mlp

You can download it there if you get to the link in time. I think it stops working after only a few days.

I'm so excited! I don't know why I waited so long. The album is going to be a lot of instrumentals like this one, only simpler and more rhythmic. I want to stop writing so I can get started! Ah, it's good to be motivated!

I wonder if there's any pizza left downstairs.

Me and Khai officially switched the name of our band to Twilight March. I like that name a whole hell of a lot more than Napenthi.

I went to see Rachel's play today (Saturday). She was the props coordinator. There weren't too many props in it, but hey, I'll take any excuse to see her. I drove down with her father, mother, and sister. It was a series of one-act plays, four of them, and it was... interesting. I don't know, unless there's a good story, characters I care about, or some kind of clear message, I just don't have much appreciation for straight drama. Two of them I liked (the one about two people falling in love and the one about two old people talking about ducks), one of them I didn't like (the one about a dysfunctional family -GROAN), and one of them was just confusing (I won't bother describing it).

The love one and the dysfunctional one were illustrations of universal themes anyone could connect with, first love and infidelity. That I got. But the problem was, both scenes were as generic and banal as you can get. Think of any scene where two people unexpectedly fall in love, or where a woman is trying to get her husband to confess to cheating, and you'll have these scenes. They had nothing new to say. The ducks one was extremely well acted (but way too long), and relied completely on snappy, clever dialogue and subtle humor. I enjoyed it the most, but... let's just say I'm not going to remember it fifty years from now when I'm old and gray.

Anyway, it was nice seeing Rachel and it got me thinking about plays I myself would like to write some time. Maybe I still will.

AH! Goodnight.

_Dr. M