While I was writing descriptions for the different albums, I found myself referring to "era's" of writing: early CZ, middle ESQ, TLC. I used the songs that were being played as a guide as to when the album was recorded. That got me thinking about the chronology of songs I've written. So I figured I'd try and list them all as chronologically as possible.

• Victory
• The Attack
• APAP (long forgotten)
• The New Song
• The Other Song
• Rational Hallushunashun
• Imagizm
• VMAX
• The Tinkle Song (aka Song for Nicole)
• Song for Amy
• Song for Carrie
• The Stang Song
• Marching Out
• Big Blast
• Grand Finale
• 75 MPH
• Vengence
• Dirge
• Leve Du Soliel
• DD&SD
• Travesty
• At least three unnamed pieces
• Dish With A View
• Out On A Limb
• Carcass
• Theme le Creme
• Theme To Your Misery
• And Lastly
• Interstate
• The Queen
• Sunny Cathedral
• Broken Legs
• Facets
• Major D

That's funny, it seems like there would be a lot more than that. I guess when you add in all the sequences, it is a lot more. I'm stretching my memory to remember what songs got played on the CZ with its tiny little keys.

I am actually very surprised to see Travesty was recorded in Future Archives, because I was certain it was first played in the TLC era, putting it in the 1992 timeframe, where the rest of Future Archives is in the 1989 timeframe.

So the CZ era would have been from 1987 to 1988. Breaking that down further, early CZ would be the point where nothing original was written. Middle CZ would be Victory and The Attack, and late CZ would be The New Song through VMAX. The late CZ being the longest segment of the CZ era. Middle and late CZ would also have benefitted from better recording practices.

The ESQ era would be from 1988 to 1991. Early ESQ would be everything from The Tinkle Song to Travesty and would also include sequence album v1. Late ESQ would be Sequence v2 and v3. There wasn't much live playing going on. Although Travesty was written and recorded during this time, it wasn't played live. Any live recording that might have happened during the late ESQ era would not have included original songs, so that is kind of hard to judge.

The TLC era would be 1992-1993. These are the songs Dish through Theme le Creme. Apparently, the success couldn't be sustained since external pressures like jobs, education, and relationships were developing. However, the break between the ESQ and TLC eras did allow for technical development, which should be noticable between recordings from the two eras.

The post-TLC era, having no name, is everything since that time, but maybe more accurately 1993-1999. The songs being Theme To Your Misery through Major D. These all ended up on the CDD release as solo recordings. I think this was some of the best writing and playing I did. I'm also not completely surprised that Major D was the last song of that era as that point in time was a turning point relationship-wise. After 1999, not much was done at all. The music equipment was either stored or brought out for nostalgic sessions.

The current era probably started around 2004, when the keyboard equipment was given a permanent home and a concerted effort was made to rebuild the sequencing setup. This era brings Sequence v4 and the release of the 700cb.com website. Because of the usual constraints on adult life, the quantity of output is greatly decreased. I did make good on an oft-spoken desire to release another sequence album and now I'd like to do a follow-up to the CDD release. We'll see how that turns out.

The more recent of my musical experiences has been an extended tour of "dueling piano" bars. Well, I'm going to say "extended" because it's been more than one, and anyone that knows me would give pause at the thought of me in a bar. That's part of the story, me being in a bar with a bunch of revelers (originally, I typed "idiots", but that's... well, I typed it anyway, didn't I).

And I've mentioned before, I view performances from a technical perspective. I give support at the end of each song for the demonstrated skill (or the effort of trying). I don't follow along with the ridiculous antics throughout the performance: sing-along, call-and-response, big-O, or even clap-along. In fact, these diversions annoy me to no end because they interrupt the flow of the song and encourage "revelling" behavior.

My expectation when I heard "dueling pianos" was far from what I've experienced. My thought was two pianists playing extremely complex songs and switching back and forth at a breakneck pace trying to outdo the other. That is something that would appeal to my style of audience. Instead I get to hear ah.. Mustang Sally. Every. Single. Night. And Brown-Eyed Girl (with requisite "now just the blue-eyed girls!" sing-along). And a host of other songs that grate on my nerves.

At these places, the players perform requests given by the customers. That doesn't do me a lot of good considering my musical tastes don't line up with ...Mustang Sally - "I'd like to hear ELP's Karn Evil 9, or maybe some rendition of a Steve Morse song. How about Iron Maiden?" I did ask for Karn Evil 9 once and was given a firm shake of the head. So I dumbed it down a bit and asked for something from Genesis. Nope, don't know Genesis. How about Kansas? That resulted in Dust in the Wind. Natch. The least common denominator wins out again.

I've been to Pat O'Briens, which from my research seems to be the original. Despite the very involved crowds later in the evening, their format seems to be best. Not fluff-free, but much more content than the alternatives. I was impressed by some of their players, but even a highly technical song gets old when you hear it every night.

Jelly Rolls would be next tolerable. Same level of fluff, but they have an occasional transitional period where the two sets of players are all on stage. That's good for songs that need vocal power. The audience was more tolerable, but that could be because the bar was on Disney property.

The most recent experience, Howl at the Moon, was what prompted this rant blog entry, so I shouldn't need to elaborate. But I will. The transitional periods like in Jelly Rolls mean the other members form a full band with drums, bass, and sometimes synth. That doesn't sound like a piano bar to me anymore. The response time for requests is outrageous. It seemed a lot of people left before their song got played (including us). And the worst part is the fluff level is through the roof. Bring the audience on stage; participate or we'll shine the spotlight on you; let's explain how to do the sing-along parts; let's try that again, and again, and again. And I know this part is regional, but the performance talent was pretty poor. You'd think the bar that touts itself as the "world's greatest" would be able to find some players that could sing and play. They also call themselves the "world's most dangerous," which has some credence because my senses were assaulted while I was there.

There is an upside to this, though. It kind of renewed my interest in playing, if only to say "Yeah, well I can do that." There are some things I can't do, mostly because of stamina, but that is being worked on right now. if I can get back the endurance I had back when I wrote Interstate and Broken Legs (on the firmest of my keyboards, the RD-600), I'll be pleased.

Sometimes I wonder how bands come up with names. There's a lot of creative names out there. Sometimes it would interesting to know how the name came to be. I'm guessing in most cases it just sort of happened.

Boston:

"What should we call ourselves?"

"Well, we're all from the Boston area, and we play in the Boston area, and people will recognize us as being from this area if we name ourselves the same as the area, like Kansas. Let's call ourselves Mass!"

"Why not just Boston?"

"I like Mass better, but whatever."

Green Day:

"Dude that was a killer party last night!"

"Yeah I know, when Joe fell in the pool and his bleached hair turned green..."

"Yeah, and he was so mad, but so drunk that he started puking all over the place."

"Yeah, it was really sick. Like pea soup. Man, he was having a green day."

"Hmmm. Green day. That's cool."

Tortoise Corpse (yeah, really):

"Dude, my turtle just died last night."

"Awesome! That's our name: Tortoise Corpse!"

700 Chilled Brains:

"... well the bass drum says CB700"

"The B is for brains. Like in Return of the Living Dead."

"That was so mean. What's the C, then? Cool?"

"I think chilled sounds better."

"And we have 700, so 700 Chilled Brains?"

"Yeah."

"That's mean."

My recording has come to a temporary stop due to computing improvements. An upgrade of the computer this weekend has left me without any MIDI capability. Apparently, the soundcard drivers for the Yamaha SW1000 really do not cooperate with multi-processor computers. Not surprising, since they stopped releasing the drivers back in 2002/2003. So, I will have to plan on a new sound card for recording. There's no timeframe for that. Other than that little problem, the computer is nice. It's near slient, which is a luxury I haven't had in a long time, running my old case wide open with extra fans installed. I sprung for a 22" widescreen for better views in Nuendo. Of course, with no ASIO soundcard, there's not much sense in installing it right now.

So what have I been doing lately? I do have a new song that's being refined in my usual process, which involves playing it ad infinitum until it makes sense to me. The parts that usually get tweaked are the transitions between sections. Anyone that has analyzed my writing should know I write in a very linear fashion, where one section just moves to the next and never comes back. Well, this song is like that, too. This one is also what I would call "old school." It has a lot of elements from the Casio CZ days. Possibly influenced because it was composed on the CZ-1.

I have another, older, song that I want to finally record. It's from the TLC era. The first section makes a brief appearance in the middle section of one of the Victory recordings that's here on-site. There is more to it, though, and after all this time, I still remember it and am surprised it never got recorded in full on an archive tape.

Lastly, I am starting a new song I would like to be worthy of the title "Saphira's Theme". After finishing the current books of the Eragon trilogy, I found a bit of inspiration in the whole middle-earth/magic/fantasy theme. It has a bit of celtic in it, so it might actually be relevant.

So I haven't dropped off planet 700cb yet. I just don't think it's productive to have twenty blog posts that I'm working on the same song. And I've cut way back on caffeine - no more tea - which should enhance my productivity one way or another..

Last weekend at Universal Studios, I stayed late to watch the Mardi Gras concert and that night was Donna Summer. It was a very old school concert. In the days of synthesizers and backing tracks, it's pretty retro to take a large band around. And it was large - an 8-piece string section with conductor, 3 piece brass section, drummer, percussionist, keyboardist, bassist, guitarist, 3 background vocalists, and Donna. The quality of the music was very good and Donna's voice was in good shape. Her shape was a bit bigger, but I can forgive that. It's the music that matters.

During the concert I was surprised and yet not so surprised at the number of people taping the performance on phones and cameras. The volume of amateur visual and audio archiving is amazing nowadays. I haven't looked to see if anything was posted online but it wouldn't surprise me.

This observation is coming from the archivist of 700cb and all other musical collaborations I've been involved in. It's like looking in a funhouse mirror.

And the winner is... soft rock.  I thought I would go for the electronic album, but no.  The other two albums are:

• Wendy MaHarry - Wendy MaHarry:   I thought this was soft rock, and I was correct.  This album reminded me of Christine McVie, although not as upbeat.  This album had what was missing from every other album I bought.  It opened with a solo vocal line and built to a chorus.  My first thought was "That was ballsy for a first impression."  The second "woah" was going through seven tracks with slow, mild songs, then getting smacked in the face on track 8 with an uptempo, heavily orchestrated song. That keep me on my toes for the rest of the album.  Well done.
• Robert Schroder - Paradise: Is that link his site?  I have no idea; it's in German and graphical so it can't be translated.  No matter.  Not much to it (the music).  Most of the tracks run into each other like chapters of one long song.  One long, droning song.  When a sequenced riff ran the whole way through the first song into the next (about 10 minutes worth), I knew it was going to be rough.   The most ironic song was "Time Machine", which is just like a real time machine, except that at the end, you discover that you've only lost 8 minutes and 49 seconds of your life.

I DO NOT KNOW WHY THIS RICH TEXT EDITOR SUCKS SO BADLY!