SqueakyAnimalStudio

New Song: Collapse

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 06:16:00 +0000

This is a first draft of a song marg and I are working on together. She wrote the words and sang. We may do some rearranging later, but here's what we have today!

It's about how, over the course of your life, the millions of potential avenues your existence could take start to whittle down to the thread you actually do follow. It doesn't treat with the other side of the equation, the opening of new doors when old ones close, but then sometimes simple and gloomy is fun.

Collapse
Words and music (c) 2008 Marg and Mark Frey

some other lover, job or cover, an appointment missed
right turn instead of left
a pill not taken, letter sent, the knife that slipped
companion never met

unheeded choices left along the way
like so much highway trash
flying so fast you can't see the dreams
mixed with the roadkill and cigarettes

(chorus)
the closer you are to what you'll be
the further from what could have been
you could regret that things turned out differently,
but some roads are better left for dead

stalking away through the storm
instead of turning back to explain
possibilities collapsing they can�t all come true
one devours the next

(chorus)

mettle tested, conflicts bested, open up the box
living an educated guess
how many moments wasted focused on the little things
for an illusion of control

(chorus)
(chorus)

Vacation delay

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:50:00 +0000

Just got back in town from a few days off. New song is recorded except for the vocal, which I foolishly thought could get finished tonight.

Ha. Exhausted. Voice shot.

Going to pull the vacation card on this one and delay two days; I'll post on Tuesday this week instead of tonight.

Special Edition Penalty Cover Tune Week!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:46:00 +0000

This week's song is, just for giggles, a cover version. And it's super lo-fi! I just set up one mic and played and sang until I had a take that I was happy with. Since I'm neither a great guitar player nor a highly accurate singer, that means you're getting a raw, 'warts and all' performance. I hear that's all the rage these days. It's supposed to be more energetic or something.

I played this one at Halloween two years ago to an amused reception. Since some of the fun is the dawning realization as you figure out what song it is, I'm just naming the file by today's date. I suppose you may not recognize it if you were not listening to music in 1985. If so, sorry about that.

Get the mp3 here!

Retread

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 03:48:00 +0000

marg pointed out that the bass in Tread was super-anemic in a few places, especially the bit where everything but the bass drops out. I've changed the file so it's a little more present. It's a small change, but I think it helps.

Obsessive completists are welcome to rename their original file before downloading the new version.

I did it!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:20:00 +0000

Okay, I survived the half marathon!

Actually, I did even more than survive. I accidentally stumbled (no pun intended) upon a very useful strategy: run in a little pack comprised of me and two younger guys who are more experienced runners. They, and a most excellent iPod playlist (starting song: "Turkish Song of the Damned" from the Pogues), dragged me through at a pace I've never run before.

My time for the half was 1:46:26.9, which was a pace of 8:07 and a very respectable finishing place of 183rd. The total race field was about 2500, though only somewhere between 1600 and 1700 actually finished the half marathon. The balance either were only in it for the 12K or dropped out. My goal was to hit 2 hours, and until we started I wasn't really sure I'd make that. Yay for pushy running partners Matt (center, a.k.a. my obnoxiously fit lab henchman, who runs full marathons) and Craig (left, who had the rockin' watch/gps device that calculated our distance and pace as we went along; it became an important ritual for Craig to intone our pace at each mile marker).

The Team Challenge fundraising was a great success. 509 runners and walkers in the field were CCFA runners, and all told we raised over $2 million for the charity. Whee!

Tread

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:25:00 +0000

Hey, here's the next new song, 4 days early! Yes, I really did have a Big Wheel as a kid.

Tread!
Words and music (c) 2008 Mark Frey
backing vocal by marg

New Song: "Where I come from"

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:37:00 +0000

First Sunday of the month, hey? Ok, this one is fairly unfinished in terms of the writing; I think both the lyrics and the arrangement need some tinkering. But hopefully it'll be a fun listen anyway.

Where I come from (5.6 MB .mp3 file)

Awesome lead guitar on this one was played by my Nashvillian friend Russell Johnston.

And another thing I learned recently

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:00:00 +0000

Butterflies are beautiful. Butterflies are inspiring.�

Butterflies are also still as much flies as they are butter.�

In particular, they like to sit on (and presumably eat or get water from) horse poop.

Think about that the next time you see a butterfly tattoo.

Things I Have Learned Recently

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:24:00 +0000

In no particular order:

1.�Fund-raising for a charity run is easier than you might expect; training for the run takes a lot more�time than you might expect.
2. If there is no deadline over your head, it is waaaay easier to start a recording than finish it.
3. It is easy to procrastinate from writing your blog.

Ok, let's take care of #2 and 3. I'm going back to regular song postings, two per month. Let's say the first and third Sundays. Not promising it won't mostly be crap or test recordings of just me and one instrument, but it will be progress.�

For months with an extra Sunday, my good friend and accordion festival guru Jack has graciously offered to fill in on week #5 with readings of his anti-beat poetry.

See how easy that was? Heh.

That 'ol folk gig thang

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 16:48:00 +0000

I did some gigs this fall as one-third of "Ricko Donovan and the Lost & Found." Ricko is a hammered dulcimer player who does mostly Irish trad and folk songs with a little newer material thrown in to keep people off-balance. Here we are at The Yard, which is a coffee shop in Nashville that has this huge backyard garden (huge for in a big city, anyway) and stage. The stage is complete with light-up palm trees, one of which is growing out of Ricko's head in this photo from the Nashville Tennessean. That's me playing ham-fisted DADGAD backup, and Dave from NoLa on bass. Ricko is currently touring the southern U.S. with a solo show.

Well, how 'bout that?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 02:11:00 +0000

I'm writing and posting this in the Charlotte, NC airport via their complimentary WiFi. Finally, an airport that gets it! Free WiFi=WAY less annoyed passengers.

Good thing too, since my flight is delayed all to heck. Boo!

Rockin' in the mountains

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 05:15:00 +0000

I went to a conference in Snowmass, CO two weeks ago for work. There's a bunch of musicians in the research community, and we put together a little band for the last-night party at the meeting. Seeing as we're all gut researchers, the name of the band was obvious. Ladies and germs, may I present: Andy, Chris, Jeff, Bugs, Cormac, Yours Truly, and the FASEB singers, a.k.a. GI DISTRESS!
Photography by Karen and Declan. Swanky banner by marg.

Gadzooks!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 06:02:00 +0000

A new Song!

Well, after a looong time of procrastination, focusing on work, and assiduous badgering by friends & relatives, I've managed to get some music going again. We're seeing good progress on Dan's album, and a new batch of Squeaky songs are underway.

Morning Pills (click for mp3) is a bit of musing on being ill in the modern West. Dave M., this one's for you, you sick pup.

Morning Pills
(c) 2007 M. Frey

Time for your morning pills
time for your morning pills
we've got to cure all of your ills
so it's time for your morning pills

Time for your daily dose
time for your daily dose
we heard you were feeling morose
so it's time for your daily dose

Time for your weekly bleed
yes time for your weekly bleed
it'll bring the relief that you need
so it's time for your weekly bleed

Time for your monthly purge
it's time for your monthly purge
you just couldn't resist that urge
so it's time for your monthly purge

Bring out that cute little leech
yes bring out that cute little leech
it'll suck all the poison in reach
so bring out that cute little leech

Time for your yearly scan
yes it's time for your yearly scan
we're going to find all that we can
all that we can

So it's time for your morning pills
time for your morning pills
we've got to cure all of your ills
so it's time for your morning pills

More San Antonio

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:46:00 +0000

From the same trip, here's marg and I at the Alamo (no idea who those other cats are w/their backs to the camera--sheesh, some people!). Note the recognizable bell-shaped cap on the entrance, which naturally wasn't there at the time of the famous battle. I loved the Alamo--it made the history dork in me tingle with delight and gave me an opportunity to babble about the difference between a musket and a rifle.

New Guitar

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:09:00 +0000

A couple of months ago, Marg and I went to San Antonio to visit some dear friends. One of them gave me this guitar, which she used to play in Rock & Roll bands back in the 60s and 70s. Check out its majesty.

Turns out this is a pretty unusual instrument; Kustom only sold guitars for a couple of years starting in 1968. I haven't been able to find out for sure, but I like to think this one was made the following year, maybe in late May.

This wild-looking guy has a beautiful, smooth jazzy tone, but Jody says it will explode if anything but R&R is played on it. So, as long as I have it this guitar will do nothing but rawk. There's a fairly comprehensive fan page online about the Kustom K200, which has a lot of interesting info.

Good Morning, Nashville politicians!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:16:00 +0000

I'm just calling to say that the easiest way to make sure your rival gets my vote is to call my home at 8 AM and play your recorded campaign message at me.

Thanks, and have a great day!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 15:51:00 +0000

Uh-oh. Who's going to tell Justin Roberts?
Gee howdy, that's a lot of rhymes for 'nine' in pop music that need to be rewritten.

Prisms before Dark Side of the Moon

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 04:54:00 +0000

Have some new tune ideas that I'm working on. One of them is a little ditty about this guy: Gustav Robert Kirchhoff

and his partner in spectroscopy, Bunsen. Yep, that Bunsen (well, sort of that Bunsen).

These fine fellows were the subject of my Bachelor's thesis. They made seminal discoveries demonstrating the in-retrospect-simple concept that objects in the sky (the sun, the moon, the stars and the planets...) can be analyzed by chemical techniques used on Earth. Even better, they showed that a popular celestial object--ye olde Sol--is made of materials also found on Earth. Seems pedestrian now, but it was a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster of a mind shift at the time.

So, I wrote my BA thesis on their work. 16 years later, it seems like I ought to do a song, too. Exciting, I know.

Woo! Clean chest.

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 04:39:00 +0000

Not to get all LiveJournal-like-personal-newsy, but:

I'm very pleased to say that my first X-Ray/blood marker followup after the end of radiation is clean. Officially in remission and all that. I get to have blood markers, chest X-rays, and abdominal CT scans every couple for months for a few years for monitoring, but this first one kind of feels like a big deal. Whee!

Tooba Wooba!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 03:50:00 +0000

Nothing makes you really feel alive in quite the same way as spending hours getting a Tuba part just right.

Except maybe seeing just how weird the tu-ba used to-be:

Some history
Some more history (an academic study, even)

And by the way,
See Tuba City!

Sucks to be the Squirrel

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 05:16:00 +0000

About the coolest thing I saw this week: I turn the corner around a building on campus to a long paved plaza. I see something moving to the right, and do a classic Python double-take at the ginormous hawk munching away on a squirrel. Or a freshly ex-squirrel as it were.

Man, this thing was impressive up close (about 8 feet away in this case). It was close to 2 feet tall. I'm guessing it was a very light morph of Red-Tailed Hawk--it was the right size (big big big) and shape, and had the red tail, but the head and belly were mostly all white. Very striking.

What was also interesting was its attitude. A lot of birds, suddenly confronted by a large mammal, would hop around nervously or fly off outright. Not this sucker. (S)he just kept on eating as I gawked, and the one or two times the bird looked my way I got the distinct impression I was being sized up for whether I might taste better than the squirrel.

Wow. Much cooler than the stray dogs that usually pass for wildlife hereabouts.

Before I kill you...

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 03:20:00 +0000

Whew. So, my delightful ordeal with radiation treatment is over, hopefully for good. The fun part is, the gadget freak and science fiction fan in me thought the whole thing was super-cool, even if it did make me sick and fatigued and all that other boring stuff.

When you go in for this stuff, they like to hit only the parts of you that need hitting (this is good, as it means that, among other things, I am not bald as I write this). So what they do is: on your first visit, they put you on a hard, uncomfortable table while they draw a bunch of gridlines on your torso with Sharpies. Then they turn on the LASERS. That's right, pal, the LASERS.

Lasers are shot into this room (which also contains a big, spinning, radiation machine) from multiple spots along the room's periphery to align with the grid on your bod. I tell you, it is just like the scene in the James Bond movie where the villain has Bond strapped to the hard, uncomfortable table, with a high-powered cutting laser slowly working its way down the table towards his crotch. Seriously, exactly like that. There were even henchmen and a really fast sports car. Okay, maybe that was in the part where I drifted off, but still!

This initial visit takes, like, half an hour of lying on the hard, uncomfortable table while they take films and get all the targeting computers locked in. By then all your limbs are asleep and/or cramped. Then they put clear plastic bandages over the Sharpie marks to protect them. "Try not to wash these off. See you in a week for your first treatment!"

The actual zapping is pretty perfunctory. You go to a big room that smells like ozone (a different room, with a different spinning radiation thing but still the LASERS, man). You recline on the hard, uncomfortable table for about four minutes. They tie your feet together and place lead shields around your naughty bits (see, just like Bond). There is a loud buzz and more ozone, and they send you home. If you are me, you throw up occasionally (later).

Yep, I've been the subject of a laser-guider targeting system. I feel *so* atomic age.

Public Service Announcement!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 14:27:00 +0000

Updates are going to slow down again for a bit as I deal with a little life here. Here's the story, which ends in an important PSA:

Periodically (by which I mean about ten times a day) I get what I usualy consider junk email from work. It's the kind of crap that employers send out about things like clinical trials for "Healthy Lean and Obese African American Volunteers," ads for the "MAX IT OUT 4th Annual Concert Event," and how you can "Get started now on Go For The Gold." These are the titles of the last three to grace my inbox.

Yeah, exactly...you can guess which folder most of them go into. Apparently though I have some unconscious scanning routine that causes me to at least notice a few before I hit "delete." One of these lodged in my brain a couple of weeks ago: an email reminding male members of the community that while breast cancer and the like sometimes get higher-profile press at the NIH, we boys have gender-specific diseases to watch out for as well. The message prompted us to do self-exams. I think to myself, "Huh? Never done one of those. Maybe I oughta."

Day 0: I do a self-exam and next I'm thinking, "What the hell is that lump? And since when is that one twice the size of the other?"

Day 1: I see my primary care physician. She says "What the hell is that lump? And have they always been that different in size? You're getting an ultrasound!" I get an ultrasound that afternoon.

Day 2: I get the call: there's a big mass lodged in my right testicle which is almost certainly testicular cancer. Whups.

Day 3: Marg and I have a lovely a visit with Sam the Urologist, and I get a CT scan (both contrast AND no contrast! high-falutin!). Essentially, I'm told, it needs to come out. No good way to biopsy it, and 80% of these things are malignant. And by the way we should do it Tuesday. Sooo...

Day 8: I went in for surgery to have a cancerous testicle removed. Woo! Big scar (~3 inches or so) on the lower abdomen, edge of groin area. No, they don't take the direct route.

I got the path report today, and it turns out it's a good one. The only way the prognosis could be better would be if I fell into the small group of people they have to call and tell, "Uh, sorry...that didn't really need to be removed. Carry on."

I've had a stage 1A seminoma, with no visible infiltration either in local tissue or in the retroperitoneal lymph nodes (where it usually goes first). this is the most curable form of a disease that's eminently treatable to begin with. Odds are high that I'm in the clear already. However, to really minimize the risk of recurrence (and thus of chemo) I'm going to take the recommended additional step of a course of low-dose radiation to the gut.

Alright, that's my story. Now for the Public Service Announcement: Men, if you are in the prime age range (19-40) for TC, you should screen. If you have never, uh, checked yourself out, please do so now. Like most cancers, early detection is way better.

Relive the Cheese!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 04:58:00 +0000

One of my time-waster activities lately has been going through old vinyl (the stuff I haven't replaced with CDs yet) and dumping some of it into iTunes. The records are an interesting time-warp for me. There's a lot of the usual stuff you'd expect from someone who was in college (and sometimes volunteered at the college radio station) in the late 80s: a bunch of Talking Heads, REM (all pre-Green and therefore not sucky, thank you very much), Art of Noise, Brian Eno, Elvis Costello, and the like. Plus a few guilty pleasures (*cough* Styx *cough*).

There's a few bizarre one-hit wonders as well. In particular I'm greatly enjoying relistening to an album from 1988 by Jon Astley, "Everybody Loves the Pilot...Except the Crew." This is a weird one. Astley is mostly known as a producer. His highest-profile fame was work he did for The Who; he's known as the guy who managed to edit "Who Are You" down from like nine million minutes to something approximating single length (at least for the time), and he remastered The Who's catalog for the digital era, apparently doing such a great job that even Pete "Really Picky Dude" Townshend thought it was pretty good.

Anyway, Jon Astley had an extremely brief pop singer career as well. "Everybody Loves the Pilot...Except the Crew" was the first of his two albums. I've listened to it a couple of times this week, for the first time in about fifteen years. It had one hit on it, "Jane's Getting Serious," which probably made Astley a bunch of money later on later when it got looped in a commercial for Ketchup or something. Pretty much all the songs on the album are good. Astley has a Bowie or Iggy Pop-esque baritone rumble voice, and he writes very clever lyrics about being afraid of modern life and commitment. What really makes his stuff entertaining, though, is the production. This guy is clearly aware of the inherent comedy in the overproduction rampant in pop music during that era, and he lampoons it by going completely over the edge. Like, seriously over the edge. Vast quantities of cheesy synths and sound effects, dive-bombing metal guitars, and in one tune approximately sixty-three key modulations.

It's delightful! I suppose it might not have been intentional, but sort of like the de Laurentiis Flash Gordon movie, it's very difficult to believe that the total excess wasn't done on purpose for fun. Highly entertaining, and recommended.

Brokenated!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:52:00 +0000

Ugh. I broke the blog template. This one will do for now. I think I lost a few posts, but nothing I miss.

Finally back (again) writing and recording (hopefully nobody else will go into the hospital and I can keep at it for a while this time). Here's a teeny-tiny sample clip of some in progress stuff (just backing tracks), and here's another.

Ok, maybe that second one is just me goofing arounnd with a banjo clip ben used in his RileyCon puzzle last year. Tee hee.