Tag: music

A Short History of Light

The Inflatable Hippies just released their newest album, A Short History of Light. Mellow electronica. I’ve belonged to the Inflatable Hippies for years. Can’t remember exactly how long.

I recommend belonging to a band if you don’t already. It’s kind of the musical equivalent of carrying snow chains in your car. Better to have them than not. You never know when it is going to snow.

Please encourage your friends, your Aunt Marge, other relatives, family-members, neighbors, bridge club, former associates in the mafia you once worked for, the local chapter of the Audubon Society, etc., to have a listen. Available on Amazon, Apple, Spotify, Pandora, etc.

The Inflatable Hippies are already hard at work on their next album, which is tentatively titled A Short History of Shadow. Point, counter-point, of course.

The album after that one will be largely inspired by Tolkien in order to counteract the pernicious effects of Amazon’s bizarrely deficient Rings of Power series. A whole lot of deprogramming will need to happen because of that series. Feel free to start that brave effort by handing out copies of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles, Patricia McKillip’s Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy, Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series, Ursula K. LeGuin’s Wizard of Earthsea stories, Robin McKinley’s Blue Sword, Jim Butcher’s Aeronaut’s Windlass, George MacDonald’s Princess and the Goblin stories, and, of course, three humble little books: The Hawk and His Boy, The Shadow at the Gate, and The Wicked Day.

All of these stories fit into the history of light. In different configurations, angles, points of view, sub-categories, spectra. Just as do certain music, sculptures, paintings, architecture, the oak tree, giraffes, lemurs, Neptune, dahlias, gophers (sadly so), sunrises and sunsets. And a whole lot of other stuff, plus all the grains of sand on the every seashore on every landmass on planet Earth.

Of Music, Mice and Men…

But I’m not a biologist, so I’m not qualified to determine what are mice and what are men. Enough said.

Of music, however… I’ve been recording random songs for fun under the moniker Inflatable Hippies for the past few years. Rewrites of Christmas carols, electronica, etc. Purely enjoyable. Great way to exercise the creative synapses without needing to paint the Sistine Chapel.

Lately, though, I’ve been writing slightly more serious music in terms of subject matter. Also, with a more traditional rock approach. I’ve cobbled together ten songs, which are in the process of release under the band name Udk (upside down kingdom). This first album is called Love in the Time of Pandemica. Mild apologies to Gabriel Marquez, but not really.

I have to say, it’s immensely fun to create like this. Music is fast. Books are slow. Anyway, this will be live on Spotify, Apple, Pandora etc in a few weeks. I’ll post links when it spawns through.

Wake Up Dead by Inflatable Hippies

One of the songs from the new Inflatable Hippies album “Love in the Time of Lunacy.” I was invited to join the IH several years ago. Quite an honor, I must say. I don’t fully agree with their 20-year plan of subjugating the galaxy with their weird dadaist-music-as-life propaganda approach to devising a grand unified theory, but I’m along for the rest of the ride. I can’t argue with their foundational philosophy that all matter equals music. I doubt even James Maxwell would disagree; heck, he would’ve probably asked to join the band. Matter can be articulated by mathematics, which means that matter can be transposed into music. When we look at matter–the slag from an asteroid strike zone in Siberia, for example–we’re merely experiencing it in a non-musical key. But, any non-musical key can be transposed into any musical key of choice. I would guess that slag might end up as a minor key, though that might just be my narrow human perspective talking.

Anyway, here’s Wake Up Dead.

Project Update

The new Christmas album is done, of course.

12th draft just finished of the super secret script project. Not my idea, but my execution. Based on an idea thought up by an old friend. Fairly mind-blowing.

2/3 of a new epic fantasy done. 160,000 words and counting. It’s turning into a doorstop.

First song finished and recorded for next Inflatable Hippies album (just think of all those hippies floating through the sky–what a pastorally atmospheric sight, particularly during a beautiful sunset). Not a Christmas album at all. This one is more of a protest album. There’s plenty of things to protest on this, the third day of the new year. And the list will grow.

Every dream has got an end,

wake up in your bed.

But the light’s gone gray,

is this day

or are we dreaming instead?

Every story’s got an end

you know it in your head.

But the pages turn,

is there time to learn

before we wake up dead?

I’m kind of going in a Linkin Park meets Green Day, but in a more sensible fashion.

Inflatable Hippies Music

Writing music is one of my all-time loves. Probably even more so than writing prose. Both mediums answer the creative question, but there’s something almost magical about the existence of music; it contains both meaning and an elusive quality of being. Anyway, my current musical project is a non-existent group called the Inflatable Hippies. I’ve been doing mostly electronica in that guise. The latest tune is called Once Upon A Time. I cut together a series of clips to articulate the fascination of creation and our minute place in the overall narrative of all that is. No singing, only some spoken voice, courtesy of my youngest and me.

I often wonder if we’ll ever reach the stars. Definitely not in my lifetime, but perhaps in generations to come? The history of our own planet has been one of exploration and expansion, and I don’t think that quality has been lost in the human race. Once the technology is there, I’m sure exploration and expansion will continue. It’ll be at great cost to life, just like it was during the ages of the sea explorers, the colonial period, and the westward expansion of the United States, but mankind tends to be up for that sort of thing, despite the prevalence of couch potatoes.