Winter Kept Us Warm

(T. S. Eliot reading "The Waste Land" here and here)

Last night I got a taste of what's to come, heavy snowfall. Having left my jacket at work, it was very cold indeed.

I recently met a grad student at McGill in Sound Engineering and have done two recordings in the past week with a great bass player and friend, James Meger, also from Vancouver. The first was recorded in McGill's Pollack Hall and was all improvised pieces of acoustic bass and tenor saxophone, except for one piece James brought in. The second, which took place from 12-7 am yesterday morning, features James on electric bass, laptop and sound manipulation and myself on tenor and electric guitar. We each brought in more compositions for this session and did more overdubbing. I also brought in an Aphex Twin tune called Alberto Balsalm which was particularly interesting. James did a really great job doing processed saxophone live while I played. Very cool. I hope to have some recordings up soon. We may even have enough stuff for a full record.

Music:

Sonny Rollins - Live at the Village Vanguard
Miles Davis - Filles de Kilimanjaro
Frank Zappa - Hot Rats, The Grand Wazoo, Waka/Jawaka, Absolutely Free, Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar, Joe's Garage, Apostrophe, Overnite Sensation
Jimmy Giuffre 3 - Fusion, Thesis, Free Fall
Paul Bley - Open, To Love
Charles Lloyd - Voices in the Night
Crosby, Stills and Nash - Crosby, Stills and Nash, Deja Vu
The Band - The Band
Joe Lovano - Live at the Village Vanguard
Gyorgy Ligeti - Lontano
Steve Reich - Eight Lines
Charlie Haden - Etudes
Jimi Hendrix - Axis Bold as Love
Tim Berne - Mind Over Friction
Steely Dan - Aja
Aphex Twin - ...I Care Because You Do
Ornette Coleman - Change of the Century
Lou Reed - Transformer
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers, Let it Bleed
Bela Bartok - Violin Concerto No. 1, String Quartet No. 1
Alban Berg - Violin Concerto, 3 Pieces for Orchestra
Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 5
Sun Ra - Jazz In Silhouette, The Magic City, Atlantis, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra Vol. 1 and 2, The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra
The Pixies - Doolittle

Books:

Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep
Albert Camus - La Chute

Movies:

Easy Rider