putting the j in jjosh

I knew I was going to save this one for Friday. So last semester of my senior year of college I had electives open and I took an Audio Production class. The teacher wasn’t that good, but I got a lot out of it and it was a blast. The projects the prof gave us were good, he just wasn’t very good at explaining things…i.e. performing the role of the teacher. Ask Dan R., he took the class with me. The good thing the prof did though, was make us learn all the analog ways of doing things before bringing us into the digital world. So we were splicing tape with razor blades, making tape loops that were held in place with pencils and so on. It was great. I have this experimental tape loop piece but it’s only on reel-to-reel 1/4 inch tape, so I’ll have to transfer that later.

Even once we made the move to digital, the system was so crash prone that you couldn’t do a very long piece, you’d have to stitch several short ones together. We used the system to "master" the first Raygun Theatre album (also on cassette) and I can remember it was a glitch-plagued nightmare, increasing Jack’s every distrust of the digital world.

But what I have for you is my final project for that Audio Production class. I can’t remember what other people did for their final projects, but here’s mine. It’s an 8-minute acoustic guitar rock opera of the story of Samson and Delilah.

Jjosh – Samson and Delilah

My favorite part is the bit in their duet where they start singing at the same time. She’s going "Samson" and he’s going "Delilah, aww I love ya" — I’m still proud of that bit. Delilah was sung by Molly, the girlfriend (now wife) of my pal Pat H. She knocked it out of the park, the piece really comes alive when she enters. She even nails the absurdist ending that I tacked onto the story, she was great.

For some reason I think my sister is going to love this track.

It’s been so fun posting these, maybe I’ll continue a little into next week…