A few days before this, a friend emailed to point out that there was a little contest going on over at Thrilljockey. While I've been intensely busy, it made sense to throw something together, so rather late the night before the due date, I pulled a bunch of the Thrilljockey stuff in the collection (Tortoise, Brokeback, and Tom Verlaine's Warm and Cool, which has been reissued on this fine label. I grabbed a few loops I liked (notably the drum beat from "Seneca" on Tortoise's Standards, some classic TV moments from "Saucer Crash" and "Sor Juanna," and some other nice stuff), dropped them into Ableton Live and an hour or two later, had something worth checking out.
Then I went back and read the rules again--they didn't want .mp3s necessarily, but were mainly looking for lists of pieces to play simultaneously (or instructions as to who to offset them). OK, so I overachieved. I wrote out a recipe, more or less:
I included a link to the mp3. After a week or so, I saw that someone from Thrilljockey had checked it out, and the next day I learned I'd gotten one of the second place slots. (I got the OOIOO canvas 12" record tote bag, and they threw in a "from the desk of Helen Bach" notepad.) More notably, they linked to the .mp3, so it's cool for me to link to it here.
Seneca from Tortoise - Standards
Saucer Crash from Tom Verlaine - Warm and Cool
Glass Museum from Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Lives of the Rhythm Experts from Brokeback - Morse Code in the Modern Age
Flat Handed and on the Wing from Brokeback - Morse Code in the Modern Age
Dear Grandma and Grandpa from Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Sor Juanna from Tom Verlaine - Warm and Cool
The drum beat a minute into "Seneca" goes with the organ drone of "Lives of the Rhythm Experts," embellished by bits of "Saucer Crash" and snippets of "Glass Museum." Bring "Sor Juanna" in at 20 seconds, and scroll around through the solo of "Saucer Crash." Then layer the drones of "Lives of the Rhythm Experts" and "Dear Grandma and Grandpa." End everything but "Dear Grandma and Grandpa," and layer over it the end of "Flat Handed and on the Wing."
In retrospect, the second quote from "Saucer Crash" toward the end was a mistake, but overall it hangs together rather well, and I really like the ending combination of the Brokeback and Tortoise drones. Thanks to Thrilljockey for digging it, too. And, hey, free tote bag.
