Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Archives for 2007

Why A Link Is Not Enough

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I know some of you are more interested in my recent Trio highlights than others, and that those others have been counting down the days until I do a proper blog post where I amusingly contemplate my navel and/or contemplate the amusing navels of other blogs through extensive linking.

The latter post topic has always seemed to me to be an interesting conundrum, which was highlighted succinctly by Ernie several weeks ago.

Ernie, AKA LittleYellowDifferent, was (is?) a major-league A-list blogger who celebrated his seventh-year anniversary of blogging a scant month before my own. As a birthday gift to his readers, he reinstated hundreds of old posts that had been long-since gone from his page.

Commenting on his great post reinstatement, he made the following observation:

…although a couple hundred of those posts are left unpublished since they’re links to dead websites. … Like all bloggers that started in the early 2000’s, content centered around link commentary, rather than having your blog be a personal soapbox.

I never really fit in with the bloggers Ernie mentions because I’ve always been more parts soapbox and/or megaphone than links, and his post crystallizes the reason why.

Links aren’t life. When you spend all your time blogging about the hottest video or the latest tech news your blog stops being about your life and starts being about everyone else’s. Seven years down the line those links are dead, and you’re left skimming off a seventh of your posts that are now meaningless.

That’s why you’ve spent three days listening to the ancient best of Trio. Trust me, I have plenty of interesting links – enough links in the past five days that I could dole them out one per day and almost make it to Thanksgiving. But, looking back there wouldn’t be any blog there – no life or music – just other peoples songs, lives, and blogs.

And, if you aren’t interested in my songs, life, and music, I’ll still share some of the links with you every week or so.

(Now if only Ernie would reinstate the archives from SurvivorBlog and PuppetMaster. a-hem)

My Favorite Trio Tracks: #13 – Colorblind (from Trio Season 2, #7)

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Sometimes it takes someone else to hear the good in my own songs, and if it wasn’t for Trio that good would never come out.

Such was the case with “Colorblind,” which was one of the many songs I quickly tossed off in my post- Queen of Darkness period. I had so many songs to pay attention to at the time that quite a few of them slipped away (infamously, “This Long” wasn’t recovered until last November).

Rabi saved my song and I from repeating that fate by requesting it – first in the middle of a field, and again for the first Blogathon.

I repaid the favor by playing “Colorblind” of my own accord in Season 2, Trio #7 to mark the first anniversary of us reading each other’s pages. Knowing that Rabi was on the other end of the speakers made me appreciate the song much more as I recorded it, and makes it one of my favorite Trio recordings.

“Colorblind” was brought back to life this summer in anticipation of hanging out with Rabi in NYC, and now it’s become something it’s never been before – a solidified ballad that’s finally a comfortable part of my primary rotation of songs.

I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to hear it turn up in Trio Season 6…

My Favorite Trio Tracks: #14 – Supposed To Be (from Trio Season 2, #1)

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As of the end of Season 5 I have debuted 75 of my original songs in Trio, which – to put things in perspective – is just about as many songs as Sheryl Crow has released since 1993.

Not every first appearance was a true debut – for many songs I had been playing them for months, or even years, before they finally made an appearance in Trio.

However, some of those 75 songs really made their debut in Trio – not just their public unveiling, but their first ever recording.

For me, the most infamous first demo will always be “Supposed To Be,” from the first Trio of Season 2, recorded September 30, 2001.

“Supposed To Be” is a narrative song, a peculiar blend of “Every Breath You Take” and “Old Apartment” that would seem alien in just about any set of mine.

It has a lot of chords, and a lot of words. I can’t tell you if I had even played the song once through before the Trio other than maybe for Erika in our living room – only to assure her that it wasn’t really about her, even though the character my narrator is… erm… attached to is clearly based on her.

The lack of rehearsal makes its placement as the final tune a brave one, but apparently I had nothing to worry about – “Supposed To Be” came out perfect in a single try – so much so that I’ve hardly ever played it since.

It may not be one of my favorite songs, but “Supposed To Be” is definitely one of my favorite Trio tracks of all time.

My Favorite Trio Tracks:
#15 – Crashing (from Trio Season 1, #2)

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I recorded and uploaded my first Trio seven years ago tonight.

After a week of blogging at all hours of the day I realized that I had something more to offer to the internet than just words – I had songs. Just over a hundred, at the time. And, it was time for them to be heard as a regular part of Crushing Krisis:

As of this instant i have added a new weekly feature affectionately dubbed trio. … i will sit down in front of my computer and play a continuous live take of three songs … i’ll always play a trio of songs – no more and no less.

In the seven intervening years I’ve violated each of those introductory terms. Trio certainly didn’t stay weekly … at one point it went on a two-year hiatus! On the other hand, last November I posted nine Trios in a single month – some on consecutive days.

Furthermore, starting with the latter half of Season 3 I stopped recording all three songs in a continuous live take, instead working on them one by one. The first trio of Season 4 Trios were dubbed and mixed just like album tracks, though I have since abandoned the process (it was too time-consuming).

Finally, a handful of Trios have featured more than four songs – quite intentionally in the first season, but since then just as spontaneous extra tracks.

I’m due to start the sixth season of Trio in a few weeks, now armed with twice as many songs as I had when Trio first began.

While I am rehearsing behind the scenes for the new season I’ll also be counting down my fifteen favorite live Trio recordings from seasons one through four (since nearly all of five was a favorite), offering a la cart versions of each song as excerpted from a newly remastered mp3 version of the original Trio.

My first selection, “Crashing,” is from my second-ever Trio, recorded on September 10, 2000.

At the time “Crashing” was hardly a year old, and still a regular staple of my live sets. Since then it has sped up, slowed down, included piano, and quoted Destiny’s Child. However, through all of those recordings, its Trio debut has remained one of the most definitive, and one of my favorites.

Made Me Forget Myself

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At 7:30 a.m. we were on our way to pick up car share, and it was that zen weather that only comes to Philadelphia in September: air cool on our bare arms, sky a perfect cloudless cerulean blue.

“This is a perfect day,” I said to Elise.