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Seej 500



Last Updated: 11/22/2009

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Status: Single
Country: UK
Signup Date: 1/23/2007

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Sunday, August 09, 2009 
I have full-scale blogination to perform, and will, soon.  Perhaps tomorrow.  But to tide you over, because I am lazy and can't be bothered typing right now, here is an old but good clip of David Lynch from the special woozy-doozy features of Inland Empire talking, briefly and emphatically about watching movies on your phone:



Currently listening: Flo Rida featuring Nelly Furtado - Jump
9:11 PM 
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Sunday, August 02, 2009 
Just watch this until the end. The payoff is about 4 minutes in and is all kids of amazing:


10:59 AM 
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Thursday, July 30, 2009 
Y'know what's best about Teh Internets?  Information lives FOREVER online.  And, eventually, IT WILL cross my screen.  Here is a perfect example from Sean Connery in a time when YouTube hadn't even been thought of:



GIVE 'EM THE LAST WORD SEAN!!!! GIVE 'EM THE LAST FUCKING WORD!!!!!!!!!!!
1:10 AM 
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009 
Writing a song is not all that easy.  As some of you may know, in 2002 I started making bootleg remixes (or "mashups" as I suppose we'd call them now).  And it was fun.  I met some cool people, got involved with some fun projects (I Created A Monster, for one, and Bastard Pop Idol for another), and generally enjoyed people saying nice things about mixes I'd done.

I've never really been much of a one for just doing the bare minimum and settling for it if it's something interesting.  I suppose everyone's the same.  Which is why I started to tire of the old A + B mixes, the ones where a single acapella and a single instrumental were thrown together.  I started playing with effects, glitching songs, and getting more adventurous, mixing three and four and more tracks together.  I look back now, and I was trying to work beyond my skill-level.  I probably still am.  But ambition left me oddly frustrated. 

Y'see, I found myself wanting to make my own instrumentals; to record my own vocals.

At this point a sensible person would have bought a book or signed up for a course or something.  Me?  Total jackass.  I tried to work it out for myself.  I tried to work it all out, all by myself.  Dropped out of the bootleg scene and got massively frustrated making shit track after shit track from scratch. Still have dozens of them on my drive, many of which have the nucleus of something worthwhile (which I might go back and plunder in the future), but which all sucked.

I went away from music for a bit, leaving the old mixes online, but not bothering to do anything else for a long time.  I suppose this was partly because I was frustrated at not knowing what to do, and partly because I was really really scared that every damn thing I ever made would sound awful and I was wasting my time.  Then I got asked to do a new bootleg mix by a vocalist who'd stumbled across my site, and thought "Well, why not?" 

As it turned out, the mix wasn't very good if I'm perfectly honest.  But I'd got bitten by the bug again. 

Something else happened too, around the same time.  I was thinking about women, and how and why it is that fuckhead musicians with one half-decent song and a huge asshole-complex are still able to get laid with relative ease.  What's more, I was thinking how I'm never going to even get a chance with whatever woman is in her undies in GQ this month if I'm not in the places where they are.  I came to the conclusion that this music-thing might actually be good for solving both of those problems. 

Yes, I appreciate that thinking with my dick like this is hardly the most worthy motivation ever, but I'm trying to be honest here. 

And so I went back to the computer and started trying to make music again.  About this time I finally started picking up Computer Music, Music Tech and FutureMusic, and trawling through their cover discs, listening to the samples on there.  I then started picking out the samples I liked, and tried putting them into a sequencer.  I even started reading the articles, and reading up online too.  I think this was the time it changed for me; I was unknowingly training myself to pick apart songs much more carefully and in much greater detail than I ever had before.  Asking myself "What is that noise?" "What have they done to go from a verse to a chorus?" "How does this beat work with this synth?"

Still wasn't especially confident about the process though.  Then I read The Manual.  I've mentioned it before, but this book by The KLF is one of the greatest things an aspiring musician could ever read.  Because it kicks open the back door and sneaks you inside the club.  It holds your hand.  It isn't a complete story, but it's more instructive than anything else I've ever read.  It's entire subtext is this: "You can be a popstar too (with a bit of work)." 

Doesn't hurt that I was always a big KLF fan anyway, but reading this was intensely enlightening.  So I threw myself into things with even greater vigour.  Listening to, analysing and dissecting music.  Long walks across the moors, just me and the music and my brain working overtime.  I started writing lyrics (many of which were awful to start with), got a keyboard, got a cheapo microphone, and I ditched my old MySpace profile for this new one where I could start putting my music online.

Throughout it all I've been beset with self-doubt.  Still am.  I listen to other people's music and think "Well, that's just shit; I can definitely do better than that," and then three hours later I've made something awful and I've lost all objectivity and I feel like my brain is about to split in two.  But I'm getting better. 

This, I think, is the key to all art; keep doing it.  It doesn't matter if you make a hundred crap efforts; it's worth it all for the times when it all comes together and your whole body feels alive with it, and every failure gets you a step closer to that.  Swallow your fear, push yourself out of your comfort zone, make mistakes and learn from them.  And when you've done it, be sure to let me know so I can come have a look at what you've done.

Seej 500

Yorkshire, UK, 22/7/2009
1:44 PM 
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Monday, July 20, 2009 
I am a big Warren Ellis fan, and he once posted a very very true thing about creativity which I'm going to just reproduce here in full and hope that he doesn't hate me for it:

I still get asked with appalling regularity "where my ideas come from."

Here's the deal. I flood my poor ageing head with information. Any information. Lots of it. And I let it all slosh around in the back of my brain, in the part normal people use for remembering bills, thinking about sex and making appointments to wash the dishes.

Eventually, you get a critical mass of information. Datum 1 plugs into Datum 3 which connects to Datum 3 and Data 4 and 5 stick to it and you've got a chain reaction. A bunch of stuff knits together and lights up and you've got what's called "an idea".

And for that brief moment where it's all flaring and welding together, you are Holy. You can't be touched. Something impossible and brilliant has happened and suddenly you understand what it would be like if Einstein's brain was placed into the body of a young tyrannosaur, stuffed full of amphetamines and suffused with Sex Radiation.

That is what has happened to me tonight. I am beaming Sex Rays across the world and my brain is all lit up with Holy Fire. If I felt like it, I could shag a million nuns and destroy their faith in Christ.

From my chair.

See, this is the good bit about writing. It's what keeps you going. It's the wild rush of "shit, did I think of that?" with all kinds of weird chemicals shunting around your brain and ideas and images and moments and storyforms all opening up snapsnapsnap in your mind, a mass of new and unrealised possibilities.

It's ten past two in the morning, and I'm completely wired, caught up in the new thing, shivering and laughing and glowing in the dark. Just as well it's the middle of the night. No-one would be safe from me right now. I could read their minds and take over their heartbeats with a glare.

Faster than the speed of anyone.

That's how it works.




































And, yes, that is how it works. For Warren. Me? I get eveything he said, and I'm pretty sure I've done horrible things with just my mind. Except. Except that I must invest in whatever it is first. Which is why I'm now sat here, dressed as a Space-Ninja-Superhero-Magician because, well, that is what I want to create and a very clever and evil bastard once told me indirectly that you should fake it until you make it. I'm typing faster that I can really think, so you'll have to forgive any typos. And I'm writing melodies. It creeps the the fuck out to work like this, but it works.

Fuck, I've drawn symbols all over my hands in black permanent marker and listened to Cruel Intentions by Simian Mobile Disco and Beth Ditto because Art Is Theft (that's my bloody lyric BTW, and, yes, I can prove it) and I'm feeling the universe just gently starting to leak through me. It is red, glowing and I can both see it and not see it with these crude human eyes.

Producing art, any art, is the greatest human experience. Sex is pretty good, but nothing compared to great art. Remember this, and enrich your own life.

Currently listening: Simian Mobile Disco feat Beth Ditto - Cruel Intentions (which I have listened to a stupid amount of times today)
9:39 PM 
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009 
This video is massively dull for the first 105 seconds, but then it becomes all kinds of amazing.  This is taken from a camera attached to the solid rocket booster of the Shuttle Atlantis.  Separation is at the time above, and you then get to watch what the rocket sees as it falls back into the atmosphere.

HAVE YOU EVER FALLEN INTO THE ATMOSPHERE?  NO, YOU HAVE NOT.  SO WATCH THIS!



Rockets are a fucking terrible way to get off-planet, but bloody hell if I don't still get a thrill from this stuff.

Oh, and blame Warren Ellis for this post.  He got me youtubing for this stuff by declaring it Rocket Porn Week.

Currently Listening: A crap copy of Cruel Intentions by Simian Mobile Disco feat. Beth Ditto.
9:26 PM 
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Wednesday, July 08, 2009 
For some bloody reason the banner ads on MySpace keep trying to sell me hosepipe from Wickes.  Why?  It makes me feel like some sort of hosepipe sex pervert or something.

Anyway, I had an Important Thing to sort at work, but it seemed to go OK.  Am now seven pages into a sort of thesis-thing I've decided to write.  I figure, if you spot something at work where things could be done substantially better, then write the damn thing down.  And if you can reference Rousseau or someone (Locke is also good, and yes, I know they're both characters from Lost, but, because I was not entirely educated by fucking slashfiction I also know they're philosophers who considered government of groups and populations, which is kinda relevant to what I'm writing about) then I'm pretty sure everyone shits on their biscuits and proclaims you an intellectual genius bastard.  We'll see.

Also been knocking melodies around for those lyrics I've written.  Some ideas, but nothing good enough yet, though in honesty I've not really spent enough time on it.  Yes, I procrastinate by writing academic papers.  Yes, I realise this makes me an asshole.

And that's about all there is to tell right now.  I think I'll leave you with video of some kid freaking out over teh internets.  This isn't quite as funny as the MySpace Kid Freakout, but it's still pretty damn awesome.  Especially the bit where he tries to shove the remote control up his ass for some reason, then hits himself on the head with a shoe. LOL WUT‽



Currently listening: Florence And The Machine - Rabbit Heart (Leo Zero remix)
9:35 PM 
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Friday, July 03, 2009 
Dear MySpace,

I'd just like to start off by saying I like you.  You were my first social networking site, way back in February 2006 (with a different profile) and I look back on those days with fond memories.  Sure, I didn't know many people on here, but I'm an early adopter of stuff like this so that was to be expected.

However, you've lost your way a little, huh?  It all started with a little site called Facebook.  I looked at it shortly after it launched and decided that despite MySpace being unstable quite frequently, I still quite liked it here.  Customising your profile, and letting total strangers see you and add you as a friend were still novel and fun.

Hell, they still are cool.  This is one of your big advantages over Facebook.  Facebook is a staid, somber network where you're not allowed to fiddle with your page to reflect your profile; everyone's wearing the same damn uniform.  I only, grudgingly, signed up in the end because so many other friends of mine were on there.  And then I had a go at their apps.

The apps are kinda fun.  I can see why you blatantly copied the idea.  But almost everyone I know got very bored with them very quickly.  I can also see why you ripped off the status updates idea; I think that's one of the better aspects of Facebook and you could even stand to make it more central.  But don't, please, seek to emulate them.

MySpace does some very important things which Facebook doesn't (and let's just disregard Bebo; it's just a pale imitation of Facebook and MySpace, awkwardly trying to find a middle way and not actually being that popular or relevant to most people).  You're in a transient period in the development of your business and I hope it will be helpful to get the point of view of someone who has nothing to do with the way you run things.

Firstly, and most importantly, MySpace IS Music.  Please note, if you copy that catchphrase I expect a kickback.  But seriously, a modern musician isn't a proper musician unless they're on MySpace, posting their tracks.  Hell, you're still the best option for hearing unsigned bands and unreleased tracks.  The Facebook version of this is utterly shit (I know this for a fact, because I'm on there too, sort of...).  Bebo is like a crappier version of yours.  Twitter doesn't have the option.  If people want to friend their favourite band then MySpace is still far and away the best place to do it.  Surely, SURELY, this gives you a huge amount of leverage.  If I were you I'd be trumpeting this from the rooftops.

Secondly, you have integrated blogging (Facebook = none, Bebo = shit, Twitter = n/a).  An opportunity for artists to express themselves in a frank and unfiltered way, and for everyone else to do the same too.  Sure, artists could set up blogs on dedicated sites, but it's largely pointless generating a new account to duplicate the functionality of an existing one.  Not only that, but you've now also integrated your photo albums into the blogging experience so people don't need to upload photos to one place then link/embed them in another place; you can do it all here.  It's syndicated via RSS too, so you can have it automatically cross-posted if you want it.

Thirdly, Twitter doesn't provide as much threat to you as Facebook.  Tweets are basically a better version of status updates, and IMHO that's Facebook's best feature.  Celebrate your functionality.

Fourthly, anyone can find you.  This can be a problem, sure, but it can also be great.  I suggest that instead of simply public OR private profiles you make it possible for people to have a public profile with additional private information that appears if that person is your friend.

These are, to my mind, the advantages of your site.  With your recent staffing restructure I hope that you can rediscover your focus and get back on top of the pile, while Facebook desperately and foolishly tries to morph into Twitter.  Good Luck, and rest assured I'm sticking with your for the forseeable future.

Seej 500
Yorkshire, UK, 3/7/2009

Currently listening: Pixies - Debaser (live)
4:34 PM 
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009 
I love the Dolly Rockers. Click below for the goodness:


5:47 PM 
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Thursday, June 25, 2009 
It is almost 1AM here in Yorkshire and I have to be up at 6AM but who the fuck cares? Today a musical legend died.  Yes, he was nuts; yes, in the latter years he was a frail, damaged freak, but Jesus could he ever write a song when he wanted to.  Just sad he didn't seem to really want it lately.  It is precisely zero exaggeration to say that he is my generation's Elvis, and as I type this I still haven't really even begun to get my head round it.  Hell, that's part of why I'm typing this.  I was at a party when I heard, and the DJ had just played a couple of MJ songs (Billie Jean, and Beat It), then in a shocked sort of way announced that he'd died.  I know it's a sad thing, but I just can't process it yet.  Either way though, the world has lost a great musician.  Whatever you may think of his behaviour and reputation, you're in utter denial if you can't admit that he was something truly special.  Rest In Peace Michael; the thing I'll miss most is the dormant potential you've had the last few years to really, really blow everyone away with a comeback album.  The world is a duller place without you.

Finally, here's one of my favourite memories of the guy.  I remember going to see this utterly batshit-insane movie at the cinema when I was about 9.  Brilliant.  The thing we should all focus on is that despite all the crap surrounding him, his music was truly brilliant.  Enjoy:


11:44 PM 
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