This is the first time I’ve had contact on a race track. Someone up front missed a shift and we all bunched up. I tried to get the car stopped but didn’t really have anywhere to go. Neck is sore, car has a bent frame (in front of the front suspension). After spending some time removing some bent brackets and broken plastic bits, it does look like it will live to see another race day.

Recorded this one a few months back. Set up four cheapo digital cameras and recorded a rehearsal of the song “Time to Go”. All sounds created live, nothing prerecorded.

Holy shit I am tired. That was one totally packed weekend of racing in the Willow Springs heat! I ran in two classes (Spec Miata and ITA) which means there was virtually no downtime—I was either in the car on the track or preparing the car for the track. I did manage to get to the track early enough to realize that the desert is quite beautiful in the morning. Though after it hits 100° I start to forget about how beautiful I thought it was.

Surprisingly I managed to earn myself four podium finishes! Saturday: Finished 3rd in the Spec Miata race. Finished 3rd in the ITA race. Sunday: Again finished 3rd in the Spec Miata race. Again finished 3rd in the ITA race. So the 3rd place Spec Miata finishes weren’t much of an accomplishment… in addition to finishing 3rd I was also 2nd to last. That’s what I get in a 4 car field. But the ITA races were a battle between 8 cars, so I’m pretty happy with my 3rd place finishes there.

With so few cars at this event the in-car videos aren’t exactly that interesting… I had one or two lap battles with a few cars and then was pretty much on my own for the rest of the races. So I won’t post any full races but here are some highlights. Luckily no spins but no record lap times either.

I love derivative works! And here are some derivative works that have been created recently that are very good. All of these remixes of State Shirt songs are courtesy of the remixers on ccMixter.

Solid from first note to last. “This is on the Stairs” by Neurowaxx is chosen as ccMixter Editor’s Pick. A mashup of my song “This is Old” and “Passing on the Stairs” by The Starry Tides.
Neurowaxx – This is on the Stairs

DoKashiteru delivers yet another great remix with this lush version of Computer:
DoKashiteru – Computer

Here’s a very cool progressive house remix of This is Old by nero.
nero – This is Old (Nero mix)

Minimal and simple electronica, yet very nice remix of my song “Life Isn’t Everything”.
metallius – One of These Days

Ok, one more! Artemis Strong kicks your ears in the ass with this unconventional and challenging mix. Very cool.
Artemis Strong – Conway Station Road (North Conway Mix)

Any other new remixes that should be posted up here? Comment below and let me know!

I just finished recording a cover of Electronic’s “Disappointed”. I had never even heard the original song until about a month ago. Hell I had never even heard of the band. But there was something really good at the core of this song and I wanted to try a version of my own.

In case you also didn’t know, Electronic were an “alternative dance group formed by New Order singer and guitarist Bernard Sumner and ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr.” Thanks Wikipedia. I’m a fan of both New Order and Johnny Marr. Not sure how I missed this band? The track “Disappointed” is from 1992 and made a dent on US charts, and even features Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys on vocals. Though I guess I can see how I missed this song–terrible early 90′s bands like UB40, Snow and Color Me Badd really soured me on pop music at the time. But this Electronic song was fun to dig into.

Here’s my version of Electronic’s “Disappointed”. Click below to play. Hope you like it:

Disappointed – Lyrics

If you could cover a song, what would it be? What other songs should I cover?

And just for fun, here’s the original (and strange) video from 1992. Primitive computer graphics, Neil Tennant looking bored, some dude holding a giant gold sphere. Enjoy

So I’m pretty lucky to be able to go racing (in my spec miata) every once in a while. I’m not that great at it but it’s one of the most fun things I’ve ever done.

This particular video is a couple months old… it’s of my race at Buttonwillow Raceway back in April. My first race on a real racing license, not just a rookie permit. I spun out during the qualifying race so I got the pleasure of starting 2nd from last. My motor was on it’s last legs so I don’t have a ton of power, but was able to move up a several spots throughout the race.

Biggest bummer was my last lap spin, nearly got slammed into by the orange car (missed me by a few inches) and I ended up losing 3 positions in about 5 seconds. Overall an incredible amount of fun, but sucks to make a big mistake on the last lap.

Note to self: stick to songwriting

Here are the last two quite eventful laps of the Sunday race at California Speedway. Started 19th out of 25 cars, finished 15th!

So I’m out here at California Speedway in lovely Fontana, CA this weekend. We’re running the 2.8 mile, 21 turn course which utilizes about 1/2 of the speedway oval. Top speed for me was about 121mph with a draft, could probably almost hit 130mph with a better driver and a better prepared car.

Today I qualified 23rd out of 27 cars (whoo hoo, not last!) and I think I managed to finish 19th. Had fun bump drafting and battling with Brandon Johnson, who managed to stay in front of me for most of the race even with a bad clutch, but I was able to finally get around him on the last lap. Today was the first day I’ve ever bump drafted, here are a couple highlights below. I guess I’m no longer a bump drafting virgin.

I was the first to arrive in the garage on Thursday night, so I got a few nice shots of my car:

So it’s been a while (6 months) since I’ve been on a race track. And I’m still on my rookie license. So I was quite surprised when I didn’t qualify dead last for my recent race at Willow Springs Raceway. I started 15th out of 22 cars and managed to finish 15th. I lost 5th gear the day before but I still managed to do okay with only 4 gears. Here are a few laps from the race.

And here are a few photos:

I’ve been playing around with a new live setup that includes a couple drums and keyboards, as well as guitar and my usual effects and looper pedals. I just wrote this song yesterday, still not 100% sure on the song title yet. I set up all of my crap in the kitchen and recorded a little live performance. Hope you like it.

We just finished up the music video for the song Fell Out Of The Sky.

Shot over the course of 6 days in the Los Angeles area. Directed and edited by Angela Heine, camera by Ben Clemons, FX and some more editing by me.

Many thanks to all the actors: Darlene Weege, Priscilla Amador, Sean Vega, Janet Consolver, Terry Burton, Bonnie Buckner, Jack Heine, Jinna Kim, Ho Yip Lui, David Patrikios, Samantha Sakabu, Ed Sakabu, Mary O’Reilly and Joshua Chisolm. And thanks to the partygoers: Chris Fudurich, Rachel Cruz, Chad Baker, Erik Tarkiainen, Ashley Tarkiainen, Jaspr, Kyle Tarkiainen, Alexis Sakabu, Lisa Sakabu, Fred Sakabu, Alexis Bright, Katherine Chisolm, Margie Chisolm, Cicely Chisolm, Mark Tapio Kines, Miki Tapio Walsh, Holly Regino, Kevin Becker, Denise Stanlow, Amanda Stanlow, Kim Pendergest, Peter Pendergest, Christopher Avalos, Madeline Wright, Heather Luyando and Cassidy Luyando.

Music inspired by last words on the black box data recorder from Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 airplane crash, September 25, 1978. link at planecrashinfo.com

Here’s some photos from the video shoot. More photos are here, here, here and here.

Ok. I’ll admit, I was a little bit bored this evening. Steven’s interview with creative commons czar Lawrence Lessig inspired me to do a bit of remixing on my own. Although this particular remix may not technically be legal depending on how you look at it. Originals are here and here.

Over the last five years or so, I have been doing a lot of improvised live looping, sometimes noisy, sometimes melodic, usually with a microphone, guitar and some crappy keyboard. Though I’ve never really bothered to record any of these performances from start to finish, other than to cull loops for other songs. So last night at 1am I decided to break out the cheap camcorder. All sounds were improvised, created with a microphone, a bunch of pedals and a guitar, nothing prerecorded or planned, all one take. I put together a video collage around the live stuff with found footage.

So my first spec miata race was this past Sunday at Buttonwillow Raceway. I’m happy to say that I finished the race without any major incidents! Started 15th, I think I finished 13th. Not bad since my main goals were to 1. not crash, 2. finish the race, and 3. not finish last! I think the best lap time I could manage was a 2:11, which was about 4 seconds off the leaders pace. Looking forward to the next race and picking up my lap times a bit.

Here are the first couple laps:

And a few photos:

I’ve been rehearsing a bunch lately and figured I’d set up a couple cameras. Here is a video of me playing my new song ‘Computer’. It’s all live looping, no prerecorded audio.

When I’m not writing music, and sometimes when I should be writing music, I’m driving too fast on Southern California race tracks. I just got started with racing, and am not very good. But it is fun and I enjoy learning how to drive faster, it’s a much different brain activity than writing/recording/performing music which is cool. Here’s a video of me attempting to tear it up at California Speedway. My little Mazda doesn’t have a ton of power but it was still fun to get up to 120mph on the oval.

A couple weeks back I went to the SCCA (sports car club of america) racing school at Willow Springs Raceway in Rosamond, CA. Spent 2 days driving in circles (well not exactly circles but at the end of the 2nd day it felt like that). I guess I didn’t drive too poorly because I did in fact get my racing license. I think my first race will be at Buttonwillow Raceway in May. I’ll post here and let y’all know how great I did. Until then, here’s a video of me chasing a Corvette in my little tiny 110 horsepower Mazda.