Even though I haven't updated my music website or blogged here for a while, I have set up a page on Sound Click. It's kind of the same deal as My Space. This time I actually started a page for music. Anyway, two full length tracks from Music from a Frozen World are available at:

http://www.soundclick.com/michaelperez

Happy new year to everyone!

I decided to change my display name to include my last name and middle initial in order to identify myself more specifically. It has come to my attention that not only is the name Michael very common (duh), but it seems that there are a few with my last name also.
When I visit my family doctor I must identify myself by birthdate so as to not be confused with two others with the same first and last name just at that one family practice group. There is also someone who takes photos for the Philadelphia Inquirer who has the same combination. That person is not me. He, presumably, also used that name before me with Adobe forums so I had to identify myself as you see in my new display name. There maybe a few others out there who are musicians. Maybe even some that do music and photography. There may even be some with the same middle initial. I don't know. I'd really rather not use my entire middle name (Eugene). Even at my age, though, I don't respond very well to someone of any age calling me "Mr. Perez" either, come to think of it. The first person that does that here on My Space is off my friends list! Well, okay, maybe that's a bit harsh, but you'd better have a good explanation.
Hence my decision to be a bit more specific. When I first started this My Space account not only did I neglect to register it as a music site, but also just displayed my first name. That's not necessarily unusual, apparently, but it made me more anonymous than I had any need to be. I only hope it doesn't cause more confusion. It's worked out so far. I'm still new at this My Space stuff and I will continue to wander my way through its particulars. Please bear with me.

Purists of all types are, of course, entitled to their opinions and preferences. However, with the huge numbers of software programs to assist in composing, processing, recording, mastering and manufacturing music, not everyone is refusing to deal with "sequencer music." Like any kind of artistic endeavor, you can choose how much work you want to perform to achieve a desired result. This small rant is the result of a thankfully short exchange (one in which I decided not to become involved) on the Ozric Tentacles and PMS Yahoo groups about the direction of the Ozrics and the general subject of one-person-band type recording.
Of course, I have a bit of time and money invested in working this way myself and it occasionally receives some unfair criticism, so I sometimes feel duty bound to defend it as a viable method of music creation. I haven't played in a live situation since 1985. I had a good run from 1971 until 1985, but the whole band routine got old by then. Working in a small home studio can be very rewarding even if the output is small when you're working by yourself. It can be done carefully and well. I'd like to think I take the pains to program the dynamics in my pieces meticulously enough to be expressive. It is quite easy to do it poorly, though.
I am a huge fan of Frank Zappa's music, but some of the music he composed for Synclavier was done a bit carelessly, in my opinion. Jazz from Hell is one of these albums. It sounds as though all the "note on" velocities were set to 127. The programs used these days, like Cakewalk's Sonar 5 that I use, have the ability to produce very expressive music if you use at least some of the features the programs provide you. It takes a lot of time and effort to do things this way, of course. Not everyone has the patience to sculpt sound. 
Debates about what is "real" music or art or whatever solely because computers are an integral part of its production are pointless. If the result satisfies the listener, then the recording is a success, however relative.

Well, mostly because I'm a doofus and didn't know there was any difference when I signed up to see other My Space sites. Actually, it worked out fine and I'm not disappointed with the way the site came out in the end anyway. I learned how to fix the "Blurbs" section so that I have links to mp3 samples on my main music website. Plus now I have links to some of our photo pages, too. I might do some other customizing, too. Keep an eye out for more improvements.

Vheissu is a fictional location in Thomas Pynchon's novel V., which was published in 1963. Pynchon is one of my favorite authors and this book, his first novel, is still my favorite of his, even more so than Gravity's Rainbow. One of the storylines in the book concerns the explorations of Hugh Godolphin, the leader and sole survivor of a 1884 British survey team that possibly stumbled across Vheissu. It is probably pronounced "VEE-su" but ever since I first read it in 1975, I always pronounced it "VAY-su" the "i" before "e" exceptions "as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'"
Godolphin has been "fury-ridden" since his visit. He seems to have found evidence fifteen years later that Vheissu extended into Antarctica, possibly through a network of underground tunnels, one of which is also under Mt. VESUvius. His trip to the South Pole was attempted during mid-June, the middle of the winter there. His thought was that at the Pole "at one one of only two motionless places on the gyrating earth, I might have peace to solve Vheissu's riddle." [V., 205.25]
He forges on alone to the Pole, plants the flag and begins to dig a cache. "There could have been no more entirely lifeless and empty place anywhere on earth. Two or three feet down I struck clear ice. A strange light, which seemed to move inside it, caught my attention. I cleared a space away. Staring up at me through the ice, perfectly preserved, its fur still rainbow-colored, was one of their spider monkeys. It was quite real; not like the vague hints they had given me before. I say 'they had given.' I think they left it there for me. Why? Perhaps for some alien, not-quite-human reason that I can never comprehend. Perhaps only to see what I would do. A mockery, you see:  a mockery of life, planted where everything but Hugh Godolphin was inanimate." [205.33-206.6]
I heartily recommend the book, for all the uncertainty about everything in the universe that its characters and readers have to experience. I called the studio Vheissu because I wanted it to be a place far enough removed from everything around it that it was a universe unto itself while still connected in some secret ways to the world outside. Only those who were there would know the extent of how far removed or how connected it would be.