Sunday, December 27, 2020

Within City Limits One Of The Best Podcasts On Spotify

If you like to listen to podcasts and would like information about podcasts to listen to, check out the following information about a podcast called Within City Limits, created by Guillermo Delgado.

Guillermo Delgado hosts and produces a podcast promoting and discussing music in Austin Tx. It’s very new and very up and coming. 

The podcast is called Within City Limits, and can be found on Spotify and other popular platforms. Every episode features local Austin musicians for an interview and a general music discussion. Its aim is to strengthen the musical community and keep live music alive however we can this year!

It is certainly one of the best podcasts on Spotify and one of the best podcasts to listen to! Here are a couple of examples;

Episode 10 was with Emay Holmes. He is a veteran with a great voice who found success in the Navy culture after writing his original guitar ballad “Deployment Song.” He now lives in Austin, performing when he can, and advancing his musical journey.

Christine Rener, who was interviewed in episode 11, grew up in the Austin area watching her dad play in bands and going to see rock shows with him. She is now a gifted songwriter with a great team behind her, both on stage and in the studio.

Guillermo is a Public school teacher and Radio host in Austin Tx. He produces and records this podcast at home, independently. 

His motto is “Support music, support people!”

Certainly, in these times especially, we all need more people like Guillermo but especially musicians and other artists. This last year has hit the arts very hard, as I’m sure everyone knows and efforts such as this should be supported and it is one of the good podcasts to listen to. You can find it here on these platforms;

Spotify; https://open.spotify.com/show/4wftMRiX36oHMyrryz1LZL?si=F4LkdmuATs6f4vsU0XOQbQ

Other platforms;  https://withincitylimits.buzzsprout.com

Twitter; @wclpod

Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/withincitylimitspod

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

My Baby Wears Yellow Boots-Dark Ambient Music

 Dark Ambient Music in the Gypsy Tradition.

This traditional Gypsy tune was recorded live in studio with Dizzy O'Brian on violin and two others on guitar and mandolin. 

Friday, October 30, 2020

Dizzy's Culture Underground-My Life Online

 My Life Online; The Culture Underground

Culture Underground

We have a couple definitions of the word ‘underground.’ The first is;

“A group or movement organized secretly to work against an existing regime.”

"I got involved with the French underground"

The next one is;

A group or movement seeking to explore alternative forms of lifestyle or artistic expression. (Definitions from Oxford Languages)

The next one is a bit more detailed;

“A genre in music and other forms of media intended for an elite audience, that is often characterized by its high levels of originality and experimentation, and does not conform to typical standards, trends, or hypes as set by the popular mainstream media.

The mainstream media has a tendency to steal new ideas from the underground.”

by Essix April 16, 2005

(https://www.urbandictionary.com)

Obviously, referring to The Culture Underground, the last definition is the most applicable and also we’re not talking about ‘a group or movement organized secretly.’

However, resistance is part of it. We are resisting the dismantling of culture in general, especially in these United States. 

Naturally there have been other undergrounds, other movements before and I have sometimes referred to them as ‘counter-culture’ movements, such as the ‘beat/hippie’ movements of the fifties and sixties, but this is not protest.

These initially at inception had some good intentions and ideas. They were surrounded by trappings and identifiers that served, in the main, to separate the ‘true followers’ from the ‘establishment.’ The drugs were rites of passage that were intended to free people’s minds from ridgid, ritualized ways of thinking and make them more aware that there was more to life.

The new dress code served to identify conformers of the movement, however as is often the case, as time wore on, all that seemed to be left were the drugs and identifiers and boy did the suits jump on this to drill down their demographics. 

It would appear we are still in this phase and it is being pushed to the most extreme limits possible, assisted by the news media journalism with their fake profiles. All topics are open from satanic ritual abuse to white magic to junk art. 

Time we got back on track and started disseminating ideas that are helpful to the development of an individual. Join the Culture Underground on FaceBook. 

Saturday, September 19, 2020

Artistic Lives Matter



Music Online Serves No Master

Some time ago, I ran an internet radio station and I interviewed various musical artists for the show. One, in particular, had a very interesting story.
She, at one time, had a contract with Capitol Records and she said that one upon a time, they had a division for just about every musical genre; Pop, Jazz, Motown, Rock and so on. Well, they changed management and all of these divisions were shut down.
Why was this? Well this was the beginning of record companies deciding that it would be much easier to offer just one or two acts and build up the hype artificially, rather than try to give people too much of a freedom of choice over what they wanted to hear.
Like the Pied Piper, they would call the tune and decide what people should listen to. Freedom of choice came down to deciding between the cute black kitten with the white stripes and the cute white kitten with the black stripes.
But a society that allows itself to be dictated to about its musical tastes has no vision or self-determination. This sits right at the root of the downward spiral we are in at this present time.
Fortunately along came the internet and online music. The problem was solved, if inadvertently.
The irony is that good ideas do exist and there are people who do have the answers but they are being suppressed. Thus the great responsibility with online music for artists to be in control of their art and how it gets distributed.
The society has, for too long, glibly asserted it was a free society with freedom of choice and that its two party political system is democracy in action. Freedom of choice and being told what to pick from are not the same thing at all, especially when the handful of baubles one gets to choose from won’t solve a thing.


Wednesday, June 3, 2020

The Life And Times Of Dizzy O'Brian At The Peabody

The Life And Times Of Dizzy O'Brian At The Peabody

Well no, it's not Mr. Peabody and Sherman but it's still a trip in the Way Back Machine. The Peabody is a music school in Baltimore and it's about as Way Back as you can get. This is the story of how Dizzy O'Brian came to be a composer of classical fusion music that combines classical music with pop music, which is a new music.


Saturday, May 2, 2020

What Is Essential?

What Is Essential?

We have been given a new definition of essential
We hear a lot, these days, about what our future is going to be like and we’ve already been told what’s essential. Obviously what is essential is a bare-bones kind of survival and we accept this on account of the media’s unrelenting effort to keep us in fear.
Without debating whether or not this pandemic is real or staged or going in to ideas of what might be behind it all, I just want to point out how easily we came to accept that basic survival is essential and are now positioned to do whatever is demanded of us in the future. 
We have been on this same downward spiral for some time, only now it has been greatly accelerated. Think about it, we have been given one single definition of essential that we are expected to go along with. What sort of frame of mind does this put us in? What’s the next thing we will be willing to do without?
Let’s talk about quality of existence. What is essential about existence, just hanging on in quiet desperation?
The media has always manipulated the middle-class mindset and now that’s happening at a frighteningly high level. It’s still your choice what to think about things and how you want your life to be. 
You can still decide what’s essential to your existence. Aren’t basic human rights essential? Aren’t the better things in life essential? Isn’t love and human contact essential? Aren’t fresh air and sunshine essential and music and camping out under the stars?
This isn’t about taking foolish risks and ignoring facts but are we even getting the facts from our media? The only facts that are certain are that we are in the middle of a media created hysteria, we are retreating out of fear and preparing to continue in the same direction and we have allowed the situation to become so politically divisive that no intelligent discussion about it is any longer possible.

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Social Distancing And 1984

Social Distancing And 1984

Some have pointed out how ‘social distancing’ is a divide and conquer tactic and I have made mention to how odd the names given to these things are. AIDS, for example; just whom does it aid? Now I know it’s an acronym for Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome, but who acquired it?
Here we have ‘social distancing,’ not  ‘physical distancing.’ Why? Physical only has one more syllable in it. 
But what is wanted is more than physical distancing. The pictures of the Italians with their wine glasses on the ends of large poles, clinking their glasses together in a toast from their balconies show that they understand. Of course they lived through Stalin.
It’s wanted that people should be less friendly and less able to communicate. They should fear the other person; they have a disease they are trying to give you. You are in competition with them for toilet paper.  
Anyone who hasn’t read the book 1984 should do so, while they’re in lockdown. The book is about a man named Winston who is living in a totalitarian regime. The government is ‘Big Brother’ and he is watching you. History and the media are controlled. Virtues such as love are frowned upon.
Winston falls in love with a woman named Julia. They are found out and taken away. 
The government tortures Winston to break him, so that he only loves and trusts Big Brother. 
They force the ability of ‘double think’ on people, which is the ability to hold two contrary thoughts in their minds and believe both. (And have we not had an abundance of contrary thoughts from the media now?) 
In the end, Winston breaks and tells them to torture Julia instead of him. Satisfied that he has finally lost all shred of humanity he is released.
We are even ‘social distancing’ on social media; everyone is polarizing into virulent and opposing factions. 
If there was ever a time to come together, however, it is now. 

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Returning To 'Normal'

Returning To 'Normal'


We are starting to see more talk about returning to ‘normal.’ I would like to point out the definition of ‘normal,’ which is; “conforming to a standard, usual, typical or expected,” which means that, if we were in a ‘normal’ condition before, a pandemic could not have crept up on us, therefore we were never in a state of ‘normal’ to begin with.
Well, these things happen, you might say. It’s bats or rats, as in the case of the bubonic plague. 
Well, here is an interesting article; https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/9/01-0536_article  
It talks about how the bubonic plague was used as a biological weapon during the siege of Caffa by catapulting corpses that were infected with the plague at the enemy. I doubt this was the first time it used in this way. My opinion is that it probably goes on back to the ancient Egyptians who were likely among the first to stockpile this virus. 
This article also mentions this practice of stockpiling viruses in passing;
“Despite its historical unimportance, the siege of Caffa is a powerful reminder of the horrific consequences when disease is successfully used as a weapon. The Japanese use of plague as a weapon in World War II and the huge Soviet stockpiles of Y. pestis prepared for use in an all-out war further remind us that plague remains a very real problem for modern arms control, six and a half centuries later.”
Y.pestis is the bubonic plague and a group of doctors worked tirelessly for around a decade to completely eradicate this plague (they were working mainly in India) only to have the major governments of the world turn around and stockpile the plague by the metric ton. 
Don’t think our government is not doing this as well.
There has been a lot written on how the Communist Part in China covered up the true facts about the Corona Virus. One expert pointed out how the Communist Party cannot help but lie about everything, which makes it look somewhat more innocuous. 
But let’s play Devil’s Advocate and suppose a virus was intentionally released. Who would profit from such an act and how? 
Well, it could be a biological weapon used by one country against another as we have talked about. Here we are following Chin’s lead in the tactics of virus control, which is, at the same time, putting a stranglehold on the world economy. Meanwhile, at this same time, China is returning to ‘normal,’ and getting its economy on the road again. 
Others have cited that there are certain factions that want the world population thinned out and they would be cheering this situation on if not responsible directly for it. Not only is the population getting thinned out but the rest have been put in either a ‘waiting mode’ or a purely survival mode. Think about the names given to these things; ‘social distancing,’ (yes, we are not just physically more distant but socially more distant from each other) AIDS, (just who does it ‘aid?’) 
As long as we expect that large central governments are needed to take care of us, they will ‘take care of us,’ and this will continue to be the normal we return to each time. 

Sunday, April 5, 2020

Do What You Want To Do

Do What You Want To Do

‘The lunatic is in the hall. 

The lunatics are in my hall. 

The paper holds their folded faces to the floor 

And every day the paper boy brings more.”
Words from Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, the song ‘Brain Damage.’  And it does seem the media is holding our folded faces to the floor. It’s a field day, for the media being able to peddle so much fear and death and they have our rapt attention, in fact there’s no escape, not even on social media. 
They are the Piper, calling the tune and we follow like the mice to the river. 

“The lunatic is in my head. 

The lunatic is in my head 

You raise the blade, you make the change 

You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane. 

You lock the door 
And throw away the key 

There's someone in my head but it's not me.” 

Well, you know what I say;

“Do what you want to do,
And go where you’re going to.
Think for yourself
‘Cause I won’t be there with you.”
George Harrison

If there ever was a time, the time is now to think for yourself. To get a little bit New Agey on you, you have that ability, that power to make up your own mind. Going further and further down the tubes is to no avail. What if we embarked on a grand experiment to see what would happen if we all changed our minds about the current situation as well as the future. What if we decided what that would be, instead of letting a bunch of talking heads determine our outlook for us.
I personally doubt we are ever going to get the truth out of the media. They are truly the Merchants of Chaos and death and despair is their daily special.

Saturday, February 29, 2020

Avoid Music When Studying

Avoid Music When Studying

I recently came across an article in the High School Insider, which I gather is a section of the LA Times Online, about how students should avoid listening to music while studying.
This is rather interesting as you see quite a few articles about what music to exercise by and such and music will make you smarter, so you should listen to music when you study.
The article sites a study done by the Guardian saying that music, especially music with lyrics takes up space in the brain that can be used for processing information and memory.
I concur, only I tend to look at it this way; studying while trying to listen to music takes up space that could be used for processing the emotional content of the music. I don’t believe you should listen to music while doing other things, buying groceries, riding elevators, meditating, exercising, etc.
The one exception to this rule is making love. This is because of the well-known scientific datum that the female Praying Mantis rips the head off of the male Praying Mantis during intercourse.
And his performance improves.
Don’t ask me how anyone ever got this datum, but I read it on the Internet, so it must be true.
So, hopefully you are not using up a lot of space in your brain during sex so there will still be plenty left for processing music.
In general, as you can see however, I’m not a big fan of multitasking. The concept of multitasking and people who claim they can multitask are some of my pet peeves in this modern age we live.
Give me one thing and total immersion in and surrender to it, especially music. I don’t listen to music and read a book; I just read or just listen to music, one or the other. I don’t, strictly speaking, believe multitasking is possible; it sort of defies the definition of concentration, so one is not multitasking, one is just being dispersed.
So, definitely, study in quiet so you can concentrate.   

Saturday, January 25, 2020

AI Generated Music

AI Generated Music

You hear a lot about music being created by Artificial Intelligence these days. I recently posted an article about how they were going to have an AI finish Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony. For those who don’t know, he published nine symphonies and there are apparently notes for a tenth.
You have to wonder if people are really serious. I mean it’s not like we don’t have enough artificial intelligence as it is.
I suppose artificially generated pop music is the music business’ big dream. They can finally eliminate the middleman, the artist who is just always getting between them and their product. Let’s face it; the artist is just such a liability to the music business what with all the neurosis, drugs and demanding to be paid all the time.
They’ve gone from signing new bands to creating acts, so they may as well go the next step and eliminate the artist.
But let’s take a closer look here. What’s the difference between artificial intelligence and the real organic stuff? The only difference is that artificial intelligence needs programing to function.
But wait, isn’t that the problem with most intelligence on the planet? It requires programing and has gotten programed, in fact. So the intelligence that programs artificial intelligence has itself been programed.
Most of our art, news and culture is indeed the product of artificial intelligence. It needs programing to function and has, indeed, been programmed.
There is apparently not much of the good old organic self-programming intelligence around on this planet, which may explain a great deal about it.
No wonder this idea of AI generated music has appeared and no one questions it.
The question is; who are the original programmers? This artificial intelligence has obviously been around for a long time, otherwise people would be questioning it and, like they say, ‘garbage in, garbage out.’

Saturday, January 18, 2020

The Ivory Tower Syndrome

The Ivory Tower Syndrome

I once attended a lecture by the late, great Ray Bradbury, who knew
he was addressing an audience of young writers. What he had to say
was essentially that, if you wanted to be a writer, you just read and
read and eventually it would start to come back out.
I somehow understood what he meant at that time, which was this;
many people have the idea that if you want to write music, for
example, you would go and shut yourself off in some ‘ivory tower,’
hoping that you could come up with a bolt out of the blue. By shutting
yourself up in an ivory tower and not listening to other music you
would be able to create something absolutely new and would not be in danger of copying someone else’s work either directly or by accident.
Now shutting their selves in an ivory tower is not what the great
composers of the past did. Even Beethoven had his influences and they are quite obviously traceable and evident throughout the different periods of his composing. Beethoven revered Handle, for example and called him the ‘Master of the Masters.’
Now Beethoven was famous for ‘breaking the rules’ of musical
composition and this has led many people to ask; just what rule or
method did Beethoven follow to produce his masterpieces?
Well it would seem to be music the way that Beethoven liked to hear
it.
So, after duplication of many different styles and works, the next and
very important step is deciding what you like and don’t like. After all, in music and art, as in all things, it’s your opinion that matters.
One cannot go on, relying on the opinions of ‘authorities,’ and hope to
produce anything of real value. The great contributions in history were based on an individual point of view and not the result of a group agreement or following the latest trend or fashion.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Life As Art

Life As Art


You often hear the phrase ‘life imitating art,’ although it could just as easily be ‘art imitating life.’ If you Google the definition of ‘art,’ you get;
“the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.”
You get the ideas, concepts of creation and of aesthetics; creating something of beauty.
But why would art exist at all? It seems to presuppose a better aesthetic to be had, a more ideal scene than what we might be involved in. It might point the way out of what we have generally been brought to accept as ‘reality.’
This is supposing a particular purpose to art that is beyond escapism and temporal entertainment and what a concept this is!
But what might art be pointing a way to? What could be better than the best of all possible worlds we find ourselves in now?
Surely others have made attempts at how we should live and set down rules to abide by that would get us there-to a better world, and has this not proven to be just part of the problem?
Can anyone say how we should be, act and think?
What if art is not so much pointing the way but actually an end in itself? What if there is an art to living?
What if existence was meant to be an ongoing creation, each person creating who they are and how they will live? If the universe hands you lemons, why not create Picasso in his ‘Yellow Period?’
Could this be why ‘The Artist Formerly Known As Prince’ did away with his previous names? By naming you, society exerts its power over you by saying you are so and so and we know that you are this and you are that and you must stay within the limits of this identity we give you.
You are an artist and you need an agent and a record deal. 

Sunday, January 5, 2020

Who Is Fritz Kundler?

Who Is Fritz Kundler?

Some while back, I had the idea of starting an Internet radio station and I did just that. My idea was somewhat different, since there were a lot of streaming sites around at the time and also Internet radio stations.
Many of the radio stations were, and still are, what is called ‘pay for play.’ In other words, getting airplay was not that special, you simply had to purchase credits for a certain number of plays.
Even sites that were supposedly free would give priority plays to artists that got the most ‘likes,’ and, of course, a paid upgrade would ensure more airplay.
One problem is ‘ballot stuffing’ by bands that get their band mates, fans and friends to vote for them. Outside of being total bullshit, there’s nothing much wrong with these models.

Interviews With Fritz

Anyway, my idea was that submissions would be reviewed and accepted on basis of quality content. To this end, I invented a DJ persona that I called Fritz Kundler. The idea was that Fritz would be a curmudgeon, an outspoken critic and musical authority.
Having established this, I set about going around to various forums and posting that I knew a guy who was running an Internet radio station who was looking for submissions.
It seemed that, in no time, I was getting submissions from all parts of the world. One of the first things I learned was that there were a lot of really good bands and artists out there who were unsigned.
So I had the idea of starting to interview some of these bands and artists as one needs ever expanding content to run a radio station. What I learned then was that many had the same or similar stories.
For example, one singer songwriter I interviewed had a contract with Capitol Records previously. She said that, at one point, Capitol Records had many different divisions for all sorts of different musical genres.
Then something bad happened and Capitol shut down all these divisions. They informed her that they owned her material but they were shelving it. She had to get a lawyer and fight them to get her material back, which she did, and then she went independent, setting up a studio in her basement and recording her music.
It was a very interesting learning experience but running a radio station began to take up too much of my time, so I let it go.
I decided to dispense with Fritz as well, since I’m as outspoken a curmudgeon as he ever was.