Aliens and Thermodonknamics

Helllllloooooooooo Manifestites! Bet you thought you’d never hear from me again, huh? Well, unfortunately for you, you aren’t that lucky. Truth is, I had no motivation at all to write up any entries. Sure, I’ve had a few things that would make for good fodder, but for the most part, I didn’t really feel like taking the time to write anything up. But never fear, for here I am, back on the prowl.

I still owe you guys the follow-ups to The List entry from a while back. That I’ll get to eventually. For now, we enter a different world not really discussed before on the Manifesto…the world of musicians.

For some quick background, I’ve been involved with music since I was about 3 years old. Violin, trumpet, French horn, piano, you name it, I tried to play it. In grade school I started focusing on cello, and actually made an attempt to get a degree in music on it in college. In middle school I started on drums, and shortly after, picked up bass guitar. Fast forward however many years, and I’m now a bassist, and really don’t play anything else. I’ve been in a number of rock bands throughout the years, but due to the various injuries I’ve sustained over time, really haven’t been able to play in the past two years until somewhat recently. Well, the time had come to put a band back together and work on getting some of these song ideas out of my head and into a form people can actually listen to.

There’s a local website called Milwaukeerocks.com with a classified ad section that is pretty much the only way for musicians to meet in this city. I’ve posted several ads throughout the years, and have responded to hundreds of people through the various bands I’ve been in. There’s a lot of crazy/stupid people out there, which is where I’m headed with this entry. I’m warning you, this is a long entry. It includes a dozen or so emails passed back and forth, and typically is something I’d break across a few blog entries (similar to something I have in the works about another wacko out there), but I thought I’d just leave it here. If you don’t want to read a long entry, stop now. I'm also warning you that the emails he sent are all messed up as far as the formatting goes. I'll leave them as is here so you can go through what I had to when I first read them.

That said, we’ll start off with my ad, listed below:

Bassist Available:

34 year old bassist looking for something new. Influences are many and range from rock to jazz/funk.

Ideally I'd like to form a new original modern rock/funk band. Think commercial, catchy hooks, great beats. Maroon 5, Jason Mraz, Chili Peppers, Dishwalla for starters, and damn near anything else thrown in that sounds good.

I've done rock, I've done metal, I've done jazz, I've done progressive. Now I'm looking for something different, yet being able to pull influences from everything else.

I have samples of previous recordings available if this interests you so far. Email me at xaqmorphy@gmail.com if interested.

Seems simple enough, right? Fortunately for me shortly after posting that ad my good friend Pogo (he’s a drummer) and I decided to pick up where we left off before my surgeries, and make another go at a band. Shortly after that I received another email and we found our guitarist. We’re going to start working on writing and working together as a band before we search out our vocalist, but in the meantime, I figured I would leave the ad online and see if anything came of it. The other day I received this from a guy we’ll call jrh, since that’s the only way he referred to himself in the emails:

I am checking out the ads in Milwaukee and saw yours.
I want to start a local band and have practice/living space and all band equipment.
The problem is I (and my place) am nowhere near Milwaukee.
If that is not a big problem, write back if you want to write and
experiment with new sounds. I also like Dishwalla and new wave
stuff but it's time for me to be original or be anonymous as I see it.
My place is isolated and I like to keep it that way for business reasons.
I also share commercial and business background and interests, which
is why I decided to write to you asking about your location preferences.
There are no other band people in my network at the present time.
This is a ground floor opportunity but I don't want it becoming a social page topic.

Ok, ummm, this sort of creeps me out a bit. It has that “I want to invite people over so I can hack them up and keep them in my freezer” vibe to it. I almost ignored it, but decided to see if I could figure out any more about what this guy was looking for, since all he said was that he lives nowhere near the city he’s searching for people in, and that he has equipment. I shot him a quick “Hi, please tell me more” type email. A short time later, I received this:

What questions do you have?
I am not by any means what you would say is a musician.
A rock star, maybe, but more by proxy. I consider myself
as getting back into it after being an old man for a lot
of years. But this time it has to be much more organized.
Things were totally helter skelter, but I did have the honor
of being around a lot of music and my musical aptitude
tested very high in my high school aptitude tests, so it
just really makes sense for me in a personal way.
It may not, however, be something an experienced musician
would relate immediately to. I understand that and you should
also consider that living in a city has infinitely more opportunity
to network and learn than where I am from, but on the other
hand, as I said, when I lived in the cities and gigged around I
found it disgustingly juvenile and naïve if one's goal is to make
a difference in the music world. I'm not polished and refined,
as an artist I am folksy and crude, but I recognize greatness by
throwing the paint on the wall and being a good, even great judge
of what sticks. For religion, I have a good web page that explains
my point of view totally, but not because I set out to do that, it
just
kept growing and after I had crunched all the computer code and
physics, all that is left to talk about was religion and how I look at
it.
Read [link]
Again, I don't really like my reputation being kicked around
especially
because I am in such an unpredictable state of affairs right now, just
getting started. So please let's keep this between us. The other page
likes are associates, but they are not involved directly in my music
efforts unless I decide I want to record something or set up a sound
stage for an event of some kind and I am years away from all that.


Ok so umm, what? He’s not a musician, but is a rock star by proxy? WTF does that even mean? Sure, when searching out musicians we frequently get replies from people who sing at a karaoke bar and want to give a band a try. That’s one thing. But then this guy goes off on religion, and crunching computer code. Huh? I removed the link from the email for a reason, because I wanted to comment on it and have the full message he is trying to convey out there before opening his link. Here it is, it’s work safe, nothing vile or anything like that. Take a look and I’ll be waiting here for you when you get back:

http://www.thermcoat.com/

So if you’re anything like me, you probably spent 5 minutes or so clicking around his page, and you still don’t know what the hell you’re looking at. Amidst the references to thermodynamics, aliens, and his run for presidency, there’s a very very strange vibe going on there. I’ve looked back at the web page and seriously don’t know what to make of it. He’s referred to it as religion, but it looks to me more like the insane ramblings of someone like John Nash (A Beautiful Mind - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/). Yet there’s something still really creepy about it, like he wants to try converting the world to his “religion” or whatever it is. Of course, now I’m really interested to see what else I can get out of this guy (see, readers, I’m doing this for you!), so I fire off an email:

Umm. Let's see, where to start. I clicked on the link, and honestly have no clue what I'm looking at. Let's assume that you're talking to a bassist from Milwaukee who is also a computer guy. What exactly are you trying to tell me with this email and with your site? How does my
milwaukeerocks.com ad fit in? Please advise. Thanks.


I figure that’s innocent enough. I mean, my ad was pretty straight forward, and so far he’s told me everything about himself except for anything related to music. His reply:


Well I'm not going to do any interviews over the computer if that's
what you mean.
As far as the web pages, if you want to read it, I put it up for the
public.
If you don't that's fine too.
Just so you know I sell equipment and I have opinions about religion
and tend to write songs that are non-traditional if I can do it.
I am a computer guy also - very much.
One thing I am definitely going to do is to use a computer to do the
drums
using only software.
My only question for you is about distance.
If you have affordable transportation (I have a diesel TDI Volkswagen)
Then we should get together and interview. This stuff over computers
does not work for me. I get impatient with it as I am not used to
writing letters on computers. I like them for math and functionality.
But communication over a screen is not so good for me.


Yah. Umm. Ok. In online poker chat terms, we say:

XaQ Morphy: …………

I can tell he’s getting a bit irritated, but now *I’m* getting irritated at this guy. He still hasn’t told me what the fuck he plays, if anything, what he’s looking for, or what the hell he even wants to try and accomplish. He also keeps throwing in these references to religion, and without me knowing anything about him except for the fact he’s one fucking strange guy, he wants to know if I have transportation and wants to meet. Yeah, sorry dude, ain’t gonna happen. But, that certainly won’t ruin our fun here, so I fire this back to him:

I have affordable transportation, yes. The thing is, I know nothing about what you're looking for, or why you contacted me. To tell you the truth, I'm sort of getting a Jeffrey Dahmer type vibe from all this. Look at it from my perspective. You answered a fairly specific ad I have, provided no information about yourself, what you play, what
your goals are, or what you hope to accomplish, but want to know if I can drive out to your house which is "far away from Milwaukee." What would you think if you were me?


For those that don’t know, Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer who stalked young men and killed/ate them. He was a local resident for a long time in the general Milwaukee area. Ok, so throwing that in might be a bit over the top, but I think it makes my point. Notice that I stated I had affordable transportation. A few hours later, he replies:

All I can tell from your correspondence is that
you do not answer my questions concerning
the distance problem and that you are asking
me a lot of questions. I did not write to you
so that I could answer your questions.
You posted the ad. You did not say anything
about distance, so I had to ask you about that.
Once we get that much cleared up, I suppose
would could carry on a conversation.
You are jumping ahead into all sorts of other
things. I can understand your position, but you
are not helping me with my position so it becomes
very hard to try to help you out with all that other
stuff. Now having said that, if you would have
answered my inquiry with - what instruments do you
play now or in the past - or similar questions that
do have a specific answer that is easy for me to
write without writing a book, then of course I would
answer your questions if you keep it simple.
You just said tell me more, and when I did then tell
you a lot more, you seem to be overwhelmed.
Make up your mind. Do you want me to give you
a lot of information or just specific and simple information or
answers?
I can't do both and then deal with your objections to whatever I do
you know.


Yeah, ok killer, let’s focus in on the distance and getting me to your house so you can cut me up into little pieces to feed your fish. Fuck that. He also now alludes to questions that I haven’t directly asked, but have been implied the entire time. He doesn’t answer them of course, but he does bring them up. Ok, I’ve already decided there’s no way in hell I’m ever going to meet this guy, so I go into full out troll mode:

Hi, sorry, I guess I'm new to this. I've only conversed with maybe 200 people from milwaukeerocks.com off and on over the last 10 years or so, so forgive me if I'm going about this the wrong way.

You're asking if I have a problem with the distance. I don't know what the distance is. It's far outside of Milwaukee. Do you mean Waukesha? Madison? Minnesota? California? Neptune? As I'm sure your background in thermal dynamics has made you aware, distance is all relative to the eye of the beholder.

The distance may or may not be a problem, depending on what you have going on and what you're looking for. I mean, if you're looking to do an all female punk cover band and you live across the street from me, I'd say the distance was too far for me to be interested. Does that make sense?

How about you reply to me with information such as what I had in my ad. I stated I was a 34 year old bassist looking to do a modern rock style with jazz and funk influences. I don't even know that much about you.

What do you play?
Are you in a band looking to replace a member, or on your own looking to form something?
What style of music do you want to do?
Do you want to do originals, covers, or a mix?

These types of questions are pretty much assumed when once gets into a conversation such as this. I'm sorry I wasn't more clear in my previous emails. Please advise. Thanks.


One might ask why I bother with this? Well, for material of course! I was hoping he would go off the deep end here, but he actually spent a bit of time replying to my questions. Still, this guy has “I want your liver for breakfast” written all over him. He sent 2 emails, both of which follow:


The distance thing is important to me because I am sure
I would end up visiting you in Milwaukee a lot if this were to happen.
But, you would probably not want to visit my place at all due to
the cost of getting there and just well because it's away from home.
I have a big investment in my place and want to start, and I stress
start,
to use it as a new lifestyle and change my old ways of doing things.
That is why it is just so important to me that I get someone who likes
being at my studio up north, even if they only come in summer or
whatever. For me it's all about being at my place and having a life.
Frankly, there just isn't a lot that I can do or buy with my money
that
makes me happy except that.

Now, I grew up in the 70's and first learned chording and 'popular
music'.
This mean what is called 'headbanger' music. Thump and vertical
movement. I played a LOT of bass, but the bass always follows the
chords and the chords always follow the melody if there is one (and
maybe there isn't like in disco, which I also was in college in the
thick of the disco craze).

so:

What do you play?
I've been not playing at all and don't really want
to get back to the dexterity I once had because I have got 'religion'.
Music is not the answer- art is.
To write music takes different skills than to play it.
But, I do play guitar - bass, 6 string. I have played
but do not know the scales on other instruments, but I am not even
going into that because to compose music
usually requires at least a rudimentary recognition of scales. I
avoided keyboards only because I can find my way around a guitar and
feel it offers a very efficient
layout- even too efficient if you read some songwriter comments - it
lets you do things in small spaces that are really big moves
musically.

Are you in a band looking to replace a member, or on your own looking

to form something? Oh I would hire musicians if I thought I was ready
to perform or had good material.
I would pay them by the hour. They are available.
What style of music do you want to do? Classical
songwriting. Composing for bass about 1/2 and composing
with chords and melody about 1/2 and some substitution
of lyrics onto other already done melody. Most of the
black ghetto music is really sampled from previous rap
music, they stay with successful styles. I am open to
some experiments but also a unabashed commercialist.

Do you want to do originals, covers, or a mix?

No covers. I don't even want to do anything that is
already done that is the way it WAS already done.
I would however be open to traveling to see other bands
that are doing something new to get inspiration.
I feel that is important

All this would cost my partner some money, and me too.
I'm a little on the cheap side so I would recommend
doing travel on a budget basis like putting in $350 every 3 months to
a fund to be used to travel to some kind of obscure events to find
materials and new styles.

Distance: I live about 100 miles north of Milwaukee but I live with my
parents and don't want to stay tied to them. My new place is exactly
100 miles north of here and is really two smaller buildings, each with
two floors. It is new and I am very well educated and have not had to
work due to my situation living with my parents who are really just
getting too old for me to tolerate. The place is sort of a getaway. I
want to change it into a commercial base for music in some form, but I
really can't say for absolute certainty what that might be. I am not
expert in music but more of an avid fan that has a lot of ambition.
The thing that scares me about writing to someone in Milwaukee is that
there are better more qualified people in any big population.
My approach is very grass roots, ground up and kind of
Arlo Guthry I suppose, more than it is The Beatles.
But that's who I am and why I am responding to what to me is a 1) Bass
player who 2) wants or at least reads the books about lyrical
songwriting in the popular music genre - you know chorus, hook, - I
buy some books on the stuff - very professional stuff, but I always
felt if I guy could lay down a really great bass line, well, I could
write some lyrics and who cares... Everybody is listing to the bass
and dancing. Just give me Michael jackson's rhythm and or Shariah
(law) we don't like it.. Rock the Casba and you've got yourself all
you need. Elegant lyrical poems are great, but anybody could be a big
artist if they really worked just on ART.
And I work on ART a lot. Not just music. Deco.
It's stuff like that that I'm all enthused about.
Lots of lyrics you read say 'the shareef he don't like it' But really
it was written as Shariah - we don't like it ... Because Shariah law
in Islam is what says
you can't have any music, must dress in drab clothes,
not women, no alcohol....
you get the idea. I like stuff like that . High impact.
High deco.
Also any alien modern, industrial type music.
Distortion and effects. Not too fancy on the guitar.





I re-read your ad and I think maybe
you were adding in a few comments about
writing music that I took to mean you were
already decided that you wanted to go with
all original music.

But it's true your ad does not actually say that.
It leaves open the possibility that you could
play the styles rock, jazz you mentioned.

Well, I don't know if you are black white, good
bad, I just don't know much about you either
and yes one of the assumptions is that people
with similar likes in type of music will usually
only talk with people who also like that kind
of music. But, to me, being interested in doing
your own thing would lead me to think that
all the likes and dislikes don't count, because who
really know what they will come up with when you
start working with completely original ideas.
So, I will just take a bit of a risk and say this:
I was thinking that I would go ahead and put together
a computer system that plays drums: (Steinberg rhythm agent 3
or something like it - depending on how interested you or someone
else like you is)
Then, using the drum programming as a basic rhythm, I would
have you add a bass thing.
After which I would add chords and melody and vocals.
The guitar lead parts and such are usually done last in my view,
unless a guitarist was involved in the idea.
Take for example "The Wall' by pink floyd.
My idea would be first just some chorus AHS and drums.
Maybe a few cowbells.
I send it to you for a crude bass sample. Maybe a few bars.
Could use computers until we really have something to work on.
This could all take some re-trials. You don't like the rhythm or
whatever - maybe I have a lyric I intend to blend into the drum beats.
So, you have to reject the lyrics as being debased and we start over.
Meanwhile, you will probably find other guys who play established
music you like and just work me in on the side.
I guess that's probably how this would have to work anyway.
It is not a short term thing - it is just that I am thinking working
on it exclusively and I don't think from what you said so far that
you really have any such intention, unless you find yourself suddenly
living in the basement or something.

Anyway, write back. This type of non-musical music is always tough
to sell to somebody with recent network contacts and options.



Yikes. That’s all I can really say. I mean, wow. Based on his information and his picture on his web site, he’s in his mid to late 40’s, lives with his parents, doesn’t work, but is getting sick of his parents. Took him long enough. I can’t even get into the answers he gave to my questions, or what he’s looking to do. The only thing that would make this better would be if he sent some samples of his work along, because I honestly can’t even begin to imagine what music written by this nutcase would sound like.

I shot him a fairly generic “hi, I’m not interested” type email, telling him that I found a drummer and guitarist and want to work locally with them. Although I’m sure I could have dragged this on until he totally snapped, I didn’t want to turn the news on one night to hear about a double murder of his parents and know that I might have been the one to push him over the edge. Just not something I need on my conscience right now. He did leave one parting email, and yeah, he’s way out there:

Reply.
Thanks for answering.
I decided to put some ads in for the
people who are looking for exactly what I want.
I've been putting it off for so many years, I guess
I just wanted to get a little bit of cold water on my
body first. So, anyway, I put it under vocals because
there is no place for songwriter only ads.
Then I started looking nationally on Google and found
some people with ads that at least confirm some of me
instincts - one said 'looking for art metal songwriting'.
And he would relocate anywhere.
I just don't get that on Milwaukee rocks. Nobody ever
wants to relocate or get out into the secluded areas.
I'll be fine, but if I really can't get someone without a heroic
effort, then I will fall back on paying for a bass line.
I just know from experience that doing it all myself when I'm
in a creative mode of thinking is too risky and superficial.
I'm good but nobody is that good in other words.
Thanks again


So that’s that. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. As I alluded to up there somewhere, I do have another somewhat similar situation that I ran into a few years ago, and that came back around a few weeks ago. I’ll work on putting them together and getting them posted in the somewhat near future. I also have at least 2 other parts from The List to post. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading, and keep on donking!

Yours donkily,

Morphy