Liner Note 28, Part 2

ANCIENT HISTORY
I posted this photo in comments to a recent chapter, but thought I'd share it again here for those who missed it. When Daron describes Jonathan's laptop computer, this is the model he's talking about:

I bought one for myself as a graduation present when I finished university and got a job in Boston, meaning a one hour commuter train trip each way, each day. Many early drafts of Daron's story were composed on the Toshiba T-1000. I had a Mac II at home and I would take what I had written each day out of the Toshiba and dump it to the Mac somehow. I don't even remember now how I moved the text, if it was by emailing it to myself, or if I could network the machines or if the T-1000 accepted 3.5-inch disks.

I did that commute every day for about a year. Then I moved to the Boston area and had to find some other way to get that two hours of writing time per day back again!

PANDORA'S BOX (of cool musical stuff...)
This is already like two years old, but if you have somehow missed this video by "the 2 Cellos" (aka Luka Sulic and Stepan Hauser) it's basically sex on strings. Oh except the plot of the video is ostensibly they're fighting over a girl. But is it just me who interprets her reaction at the end as "Get a room!" eh?

https://youtu.be/uT3SBzmDxGk

As it turns out, folks playing classical instruments making witty and intricate arrangements of pop songs is an entire genre of its own now, at least according to what Pandora.com has played me ever since it (sort of randomly) played me the 2 Cellos (a different song) and I hit "thumbs up." This in fact opened a Pandora's box of stuff, not just by venerable rule-breakers like the Kronos Quartet, but track after track after track from groups, artists, trios, ensembles, etc... I had not heard of.

Of course, the mother of ALL these "classical goes rock" groups is Apocalyptica, whose INQUISITION SYMPHONY is still one of my favorite albums of all time. Apocalyptica are four cellists and the Inquisition Symphony is mostly covers of Metallica songs, with some Faith No More and Sepultura thrown in.

"Covers" is the wrong word, really. "Arrangement" is a better fit. Listen to this one of "Nothing Else Matters."

https://youtu.be/jPaGE24vpio

Fantastic, isn't it? Came out in 1998. (The Metallica song came in 1992.)

Wait, you haven't heard the original? Or you haven't heard it in a while? Okay here:

https://youtu.be/Tj75Arhq5ho

(the video has a nice "making of/recording of a song" theme to it, too)

Hang on, hang on, you haven't heard Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" either? Here, it's worth a listen, especially when you remember it came out in 1987.

https://youtu.be/sFvENQBc-F8

I started my first Pandora station recently with only two inputs: David Bowie and David Sylvian. It's been absolutely fascinating how using just those two data points, Pandora uncannily populates the station with a ton of things I own on CD. The Cure, Dead Can Dance, Patrick O'Hearn, Peter Gabriel... even Mark Isham, who I consider pretty obscure! It's pretty amazing actually. I arrange my CDs by what I think sounds good together, a system only I can understand, and Pandora managed to somehow divine a bunch of stuff I shelved together but which no record store ever would have.

SOUND-ALIKES
One thing Pandora served me is a song "All Eternal Things" by Trembling Blue Stars. I'd never heard of this band, but the song sounds so much like The Cure I swore it was a cover. It basically copies the drum part from "All Cats Are Grey" as well as Robert Smith's general guitar sound and style of playing.

Still, if you like the Cure, you'll probably like this:

https://youtu.be/rt6BU4WlNAM

  Compare that to The Cure, "All Cats are Grey": 

https://youtu.be/Ycxc8Xitweo

For those of you who love the sound of The Cure, this is a recommendation. For those of you who think like Daron does though, it's a bit perplexing how a band can sound SO MUCH like another band, especially one as idiosyncratic and unique as The Cure? (As far as Daron is concerned, bands should have a kind of moral imperative to NOT sound like each other.)

Another pairing I have in my head, I swear I did this one before, but now I can't find it in the previous liner notes! Which might mean I drafted a liner note at some point and lost it before I ever posted it..

Cayucas "High School Lover"

https://youtu.be/Io8PqddrRIs

https://youtu.be/C3csacDjV_M

  Bananarama (with Fun Boy Three) "Really Saying Something" 

 LAST AND DEFINITELY LEAST... 

I made this teensy video after spending an evening building my birthday present. corwin got me the , which I mentioned years ago (back in in 2010!) but didn't have the money to buy it for myself at the time. Now I'm finally in a position where I could buy myself a $75 present as a splurge, but I realized it would be better to ask for it for my birthday. So I did.

It's a "build it yourself" kit from Gakken, who are known for that sort of thing.

I expect at some point Daron will try to build himself a guitar, now that I've done it. He probably won't hand-wind the pickup from copper wire, though. He'll probably buy pickups ready-made.

Anyway, I can't really play for beans at this point, having had zero practice for the past two years and also the teensy guitar (with only four strings) takes some getting used to! But here we go. Thanks, corwin!

https://youtu.be/-tRvHvjYyS4

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Liner Notes are added occasionally to the end of the published Volumes of all the Daron's Guiter Chronicles books. Check back and check out the others as well!

(We are up to Volume 7 here on Wattpad)

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