Before moving my blog to Drupal, this site, I was using a platform called Blot. I loved Blot because I would write a post in a text editor, tag it, Hazel would move it to a folder in Dropbox, and it would publish itself. It was magical. Before that, I was using something else (probably Blogger). Anyways, I have a lot of random blog posts in backups and text files lying around.

It is a minor annoyance mostly because there is a ton of music I listened to that I want to remember. Yet I don't want to read a bunch of my history because I am more of an in-the-moment or looking forward type. So I keep kicking the task of getting the music into this site down the road.

Yesterday i read a quote from Joan Didion Slouching Towards Bethlehem that made me want to tackle the task of getting things into here.

"I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not."

The whole passage that came from is even better. You should go check it out.

That made me think that I need to just get all the old posts into here little by little. Each day, go through the past years and add that day to the blog. Get the past albums I listened to into here. Look for old things I wanted to do and see if they can be done easily now. See if there are any patterns like "I seem to always think the same thing on 05/14" or anything else. Mainly, try to make looking back enjoyable while I get things all in one spot.

Weird that was such a hard decision but I already feel a little lighter which rules.

When iPods and iTunes were first released, playing music on shuffle was my default. I can't remember the last time I have done that. I seem to remember there was a point around 8-10 years ago where I would push shuffle and eventually I would hear a song I heard the day before. I got frustrated so I switched to listening to full albums and haven't looked back.

Then by not pushing shuffle, albums I wanted to hear started piling up and I haven't been able to catch up since. Not bashing on shuffle. Just noticing a change. 

This last week's music that stuck out. I seem to keep going back to Eric Dolphy a lot lately. I don't know how that Dave Brock album got on my list but that one stood out for sure.

• Raskovich Varie Atmosfere Da Interni #soundtrack   
• Eric Dolphy Far Cry #jazz
• Dave Brock Earthed To The Ground #electronic
• The Bar-Kays Soul Finger #Soul
• Eric Dolphy At the Five Spot, Vol. 1 #jazz

I am starting to become devout about using lead-ins for the morning writing brainstorm mind-clear I do daily. Things come out slow when I sit down to a keyboard and try to get all the things out of my brain.

But if I use a lead-in to start a phrase and use it over and over, words pour out of my head. They probably let my mind get up to speed before making the jump to the thought. The repetition is soothing as well.

Examples

• "My day looks like I need to..."
• "I don't know but..."
• "Today I need to..."

If the thing I need to do or remember is a cymbal crash, then the lead-in would be the drum fill leading up to it.

Starting off on a new pencil today.

It is a Mono100 3B made by Tombow. It has a softer lead than the F pencil I just finished. There is still a faint bit of hardness to it, though. Like soft with a little grain to it. The B side of the HB Scale is darker, so it is easier to read all the random notes I scribble down.

I think for a lefty like me, 3B is kind of perfect. As you get further into the B scale, you start to see the lead on your hand more. 3B isn't so bad for that.

Listened to a lot of top notch albums last week but these four stood out. I think the common thread between the four is the production. All four just sound really good. The music is great of course. When you listen to one of these albums, you can tell they cared more than just recording the songs.

• Augustus Pablo Original Rockers #reggae
• Yura Yura Teikoku Kudo Desu #indie
• Happy End Kazemachi Roman #rock
• Immersion & SUSS Nanocluster, Vol. 3 #indie