July 25, 2008

I'll never use Adobe Photoshop Express again...

I was really excited about Adobe's free online version of Photoshop/photo sharing site. I knew it was in beta, but I immediately gave it a try. I found the tools pretty easy to use and very responsive. My band is promoting a show at Knitting Factory, so I used the site to adjust the flyer so that it would be appropriate for posting in MySpace comments. I used the image url provided for sharing the photo in all of the comments that I posted.

Then, a few days ago, I noticed that a comment I posted had a broken image. I checked out the site and saw the cutesy service down message, "Hi, we're making a few adjustments. Check back in a few." I checked the next day; same thing...and the next. It's still down and now I find that cutesy message down right enfuriating. There's no way I can edit all of the comments I've posted, so now 1. my show isn't being promoted and 2. lots of people think I'm an idiot for posting a broken image on their profiles.

I realize that this service was labelled "beta", but for better or worse that term has changed in the post-Google era. No longer can people release web based services as betas without providing at least some level of support and reliability. Even a message indicating the reason for the outage and an expected ETA for returning would be helpful.

At this point, it seems like Adobe just isn't ready to run a service business.

Posted by gerrard at 8:47 AM | Comments (0) | Link

July 7, 2008

Pickabar 31st Anniversary

Oh, the passage of time!
How briefly each song is sung,
The days are so much shorter now
than they were when I was young.

I dimly remember burning embers
on dark clouds smokily hung,
The beautiful sunsets I used to ponder
are now three quick blushes of the sun.

The days are so much shorter now
than they were when I was young.
at least the passages are wider
and I've found new paths on which to run.

Posted by gerrard at 6:16 PM | Comments (0) | Link

April 22, 2008

Ableton Live is just plain awesome!

I don't' (ok, can't) make decent dance beats or anything so I never really took the time to learn how to use Ableton Live. Looping, schmooping, who cares? I'm all about live performance. The high price also didn't help things. That said, I do make a lot of tracks as a part of my songwriting technique and even just practicing things like new scales and chords.

Big props to Marshall Law for giving me a tutorial and getting me hooked on Live. My usual DAW (Cakewalk Home Studio) and beat making software (FL Studio, also a great tool) can do everything that Live does...Live just does a lot of things in a more intuitive way that seems to work better with my work flow. It's hard to describe exactly why, but I just seem to spend more time making music and less time thinking about the software.

Yesterday it finally occurred to me that it's also a great transcribing tool. I've never gotten into dedicated slow down tools, so I've mainly used Audacity. That involves a lot of manually changing tempos and manually cutting and pasting loops into new files. Somehow I got used to it. Live has all of the looping and time warping tools built in and they are never more than three clicks away. On top of that,  it's super easy to record new takes, compare takes, etc with a single click.

Highly recommended.

Posted by gerrard at 8:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Link

February 7, 2008

Mark Cuban - "The one thing we control is effort"

Mark Cuban is the owner of the Mavericks and an entreprenuer. I could care less. That said, I think his blog is a must read. This might sound slightly self-helpish, but the simplicity and honesty of the message is striking.

In sports, the only thing a player or coach can truly control is effort. The same applies to business. The only thing any entrepreneur, salesperson or anyone in any position can control is their effort.

The One Thing In Life You Can Control

I keep repeating this to myself whenever I start to get unmotivated or angry or lose my confidence. The one thing I control is effort.

I have almost no innate musical talent. A lot of hard work and determination has allowed me to will myself into being able to express myself a little with music. It's also made me feel a whole lot better about who I am as a person.

It turns out that a great deal of the drama, jealousy, controversy, rumors, martyrdom, whining, self-pity and other b.s. that plagues modern life comes down to simple laziness. Instead of seeing ourselves as victims or creating narratives to justify our lack of hustle, we should focus on the thing we control...effort.

I think I'm going to learn how to draw next.

Posted by gerrard at 9:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Link

January 17, 2008

Adventures In Facial Hair

Inspired by my friend Boltsy, I decided to make my first attempt at growing facial hair. I grew it before and during my annual winter vacation. About a month and a half later, it was time to get rid of it.

One of my goals for the year is to get into video, so here's my first little project.

(click the full entry if you're reading the feed)

Continue reading "Adventures In Facial Hair"

Posted by gerrard at 5:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Link

January 9, 2008

Live blogging from MSG

Sarah was lucky enough to snag free tickets to tonight's Rockets vs. Knicks game. The Knicks are doing rather poorly this year and I'm not much of a basketball fan, but any event with a large crowd is exciting. the highlight of the game so far has been the halftime peewee game...I could watch preteens run around a basketball court all day.

On to the second half!

Posted by gerrard at 8:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Link

December 22, 2007

Feliz Navidad!

Sing a happy christmas song with your happy atheist hosts at Pickabar:

Feliz Navidad

Posted by gerrard at 5:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Link

December 21, 2007

Sunday, Boxes, Etc.

There's something odd about sitting in a new apartment with all of your worldy possessions still in boxes. On one hand it's liberating to free yourself of the psychic weight that comes with having lots of "things" staring at you. On the other hand, it can be overwhelming thinking about the formidable task of finding places to actually put all of the stuff away. Especially if you're a packrat, like Miss Hoadley and me.

The boxes are mostly gone now, but here's a little bit of new age silliness from a Sunday when it was just me and the boxes.

Sunday, Boxes, Etc.

Posted by gerrard at 12:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Link

December 10, 2007

You Are My Sunshine!

Elizabeth visited a few weeks back. She asked if I knew "You Are My Sunshine". I didn't, because honestly I don't know any songs. Now I do know it...kind of ;).

Pickabar - You Are My Sunshine

I'm on vacation, so expect a lot of silliness.

Posted by gerrard at 12:29 PM | Comments (0) | Link

November 23, 2007

Skipping Black Friday

I woke up extremely early this morning when a basketball somehow forced my closet door open. I sat straight up the moment I heard the loud bang and then a moment later I rolled over and stuck my arm under my bed to grab my trusty baseball bat. I took a moment to feel proud of my instinctual reaction and then I jumped to my feat empty handed. The bat wasn't in it's normal place.

I walked into the living room distinctly less brave than I would have been with the bat. After a few moments, perhaps quite a few moments due to my being only partially awake, I sighed heavily and turned back to bed. On my way to the bedroom, I kicked the basketball...hey, we have a basketball?...and identified the ruthless burgular.

I went back to bed, flipped on the TV and proceeded to watch some French movie called Backstage. Entertaining, but not nearly as restful as a couple of hours of more sleep would have been.

Then, as if in some marketer's wet dream, the image of a Guitar Center ad filled my mind. "Black Friday Sale at Guitar Center!", I thought. "Today's the day for me to grab a better amp, maybe some extra strings, I may need a new cable...wait."

At that point I thought back to Tuesday after band practice. For the thousandth time, I had heard someone with a natural gift for communicating use the very same musical tools I'm always looking to improve to make beautiful music. I need to remember that message. I don't need to spend any more money on musical stuff.

Ok, maybe I'll still grab somethng silly once in a while for fun. I don't need to though. I need to learn how to do that E to B chord change neatly so I can impress Elizabeth.

I wound up not buying anything and that felt pretty good.

Posted by gerrard at 6:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Link