John Hendow

Based on the last week of sporadic experimentation, I’ve concluded the issue with my home computer is related to the motherboard. It doesn’t consistently recognize the presence of the hard drives. Even from the BIOS this system is having trouble seeing the drives… sometimes they appear in the IDE device list, which allows me to attempt a boot. But then the system hangs while loading the OS, and upon reboot does not recognize the drives as being present.

My friend Wally offered sage advice this weekend: the motherboard probably has a bad capacitor. This does make sense given the intermittent behavior of the system. Transistors and diodes rarely fail; when they do, they don’t recover. Resistors usually plow ahead without issue. But capacitors can dry out and become problematic. It seems strange given the pedigree of the motherboard (Intel 845 series) and its age (less than 4 years).

At this point I am exploring my options. I could replace the motherboard and CPU, which will necessitate the acquisition of new RAM and a new video card. The other option would be to simply purchase a new system from Dell. Either way this project will have to wait for a month or two… it’s financially untenable at the moment. There are other computers available for my use at the moment, and there’s no pressing need to resurrect my system. I just want to retrieve my data off the hard drive, then revisit this project as time and money permits.

The Rendezvous is a small, hip bar in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood. It contains “The Jewel Box Theater”, which is where musicians perform. The room probably holds 50 people, and looks crowded with two dozen.

Our gig was a late addition to our schedule, with another band inviting us to join the bill just a few days before. It turned out we were one of five (!) bands playing that night. Fortunately we got to play first, which meant we could start as early as we were ready, and then we could be home and asleep at a relatively decent time. We decided to only use the PA for vocals, with the drums going acoustic, and all the instrument amps just filling the room as best they could. Josh has a Fender Blues Deluxe guitar amp and like all Fender amps it sounds better when it’s turned up a bit. I like the slight compression provided by tubes running loud and hot into an open back speaker cabinet. And Janie plays better when she’s allowed to hit the drums a little harder. Brad and I pretty much do our thing no matter what, but I noticed we both were playing with more energy and intensity than usual.

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The Preons will be playing Monday 7/16 at the Rendezvous in Seattle. We’ve been invited to join a multi-band bill with five bands performing(!) , so this should make for an interesting logistical evening. Brad wisely negotiated our position as the first band on the bill, so our downbeat is no later than 9:30 PM. Forty minutes of Preons, then we’ll vacate the stage to make room for band #2. My guess is that the evening will be considered a well-attended event, as the Rendezvous is a small bar. It’ll seem packed with just the band members present…

Last night we went to see Walking With Dinosaurs – The Live Experience which is a BBC-produced dinosaur show currently on tour. The performance took place in the Tacoma Dome, with the dinosaurs on the floor and the audience seated in the typical bleacher configuration. I was impressed with the fluid locomotion and very convincing body movements of the dinos. Naturally, the stars of the show are those which are biggest and most toothsome, with the T. Rex saved for the grand finale.

Easily 30% of the audience was children under the age of 12. As a dino geek, I was delighted to hear so many children correctly identifying the dinosaurs by name and pronouncing the names correctly. Also amusing was hearing the dialog behind me, in which a father said “…look, there’s a brontosaurus!” and his daughter said “…no dad, that’s a brachiosaur”. She even knew that the creature once known as a brontosaur was merely a misidentified brachiosaur fossil. Hooray for young dino geeks! 

I think most people have seen some of the modern CGI representations of dinosaurs, which provides good context and some sense of scale. But seeing them “live” with a human guide walking among them, it’s easier to understand how immensely large some of the dinosaurs were. When the T. Rex made its final circuit of the floor, it paused at each of the main seating areas to rear up to full height and roar menacingly. I have to admit it was thrilling. Overall I’d say it’s worth seeing.

It wasn’t sufficient for my computer to simply have an OS problem. Apparently it’s the motherboard, which no longer seems to recognize the hard drives. I would like to think it’s a decent motherboard since it’s an Intel 845, but it seems to have gone round the bend. The CPU is a 2.4 GHz Intel chip, but at this point I’m not strongly inclined to salvage either of them. My concern is whether I’ll be able to resurrect my data. I don’t have much hope, as the HD controller seems to have been increasingly erratic and may have corrupted my drive.

Craptastic.

I had intended to post some content to this site yesterday, but my computer decided not to boot into Windows. This is the second time I’ve had similar trouble with my computer and I’m not certain exactly what is going on. Either it’s flakey hardware or I’ve gotten some horrid computer malady that has recurred. My immediate solution will be to repair my existing WinXP Pro installation, back up anything important, wipe the drive, and reinstall afresh. I may take the extra step of punting the hard drive since it is possible it’s the culprit, although I find it a bit odd it’s chosen to fail twice in much the same fashion.

I’m glad that I took the time to build a slipstreamed installer for WinXP with SP2. It’ll save me a little time on the reinstall, but I’m guessing I’ll still be rebooting two dozen times tonight before it’s all done…

I sometimes lament the sorry state of rock. It seems to me that I grew up surrounded by great rock from bands like KISS, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, The Scorpions, Mötley Crüe, Rush, and so on. What I love about rock is the energy and the role of thunderous guitar and aggressive bass. At some point in the 1990s I realized rock had largely vanished from the landscape. What was left were bands where the guitar was a visual prop dragged around by a fashionably aloof lead singer. Nobody was rocking out! At that point I had been playing professionally for over a decade, and actively (and loudly) wondered what the heck was going on with rock. Dang. I had already become one of those fist-waving curmudgeons who scolded disaffected teens because back in MY DAY we had REAL rock and we were THANKFUL.

Bands like Tool and A Perfect Circle give me some hope that rock is not quite dead. Last week I picked up a copy of Tool’s new CD 10,000 Days. This month’s Bass Player magazine has a great interview with bassist Justin Chancellor, and it reminded me of how much I’ve enjoyed their earlier releases. For one thing, this CD easily has the coolest packaging of any musical product I own. It’s very inventive. And the music is everything rock should be… dark, complex, driving, and delivered just seriously enough that you can believe the people behind it are having fun. The band is well worth seeing live if the opportunity should present itself. Dig the crazy time signatures, admire the machine-gun kick drum, behold the majestic grind of a Mesa / Boogie Triple Rectifier. Tool delivers an industrial rock crossover with freshness and vitality.

It gives me hope that we’ll be able to reverse the trend toward global musical lukewarming, so our childrens’ children will still be able to enjoy a good moshpit.

Thus spake the great (and oft-eloquent) brethren of KISS:

I know life sometimes can get tough! and I know life sometimes can be a drag!
But people, we have been given a gift, we have been given a road
And that road’s name is… rock and roll!
God gave rock and roll to you, gave rock and roll to you
Gave rock and roll to everyone
God gave rock and roll to you, gave rock and roll to you
Put it in the soul…

Last week during a team lunch expedition I lobbied my co-workers to make a quick side trip to a CD store in West Seattle. They were kind enough to agree, and I picked up two discs that I had been wanting. One was the latest Tool release (review forthcoming), and the other was a double CD titled The Essential Jaco Pastorius. As a student of the instrument, I’m interested in analyzing Jaco’s approach to bass, and obviously his contribution to – and influence on – modern fretless bass cannot be overlooked. Most musicians hold him in reverence as the Jimi Hendrix of fretless bass.

I was aware of Jaco in the 1980s because my jazz musician buddies were always talking about him. My perception of his work was that he was brilliantly inventive, technically virtuosic, and determined to be up front in the band. Having the benefit of a few decades since those first listenings, my assessment of his playing is still very much the same. I think he was very interesting and complete as a stylist. But I’m not a fan of the music he played. The tracks with Weather Report seem a bit cheesy, both in the 80s new-wave-jazz-rock instrument tones, and in the actual compositions themselves. I enjoy his playing with Joni Mitchell, Pat Metheny and of course with Herbie Hancock. There is a strong sense of drive in his playing that adds a new dimension to the music around it. He definitely has a strong lead melodic sense, which was (and still is) a departure from the traditional role of the bassist.

Studying Jaco is good for my musical education, and for my increasing understanding of the modern bass repertoire. However, the net effect is that I have an even greater appreciation for Mick Karn. Jaco is technically a much more adept and well-known bassist, but Mick’s playing resonates with me in a much deeper way.

Maybe it’s because I’m a Libra. Or maybe I just never grew out of being a boy scout. Or maybe I’m just an idealist. Whatever it is, I place an enormously high value on truth and integrity. It seems like such a simple and obvious interaction style that I take it for granted in most cases, which means I am occasionally blindsided.

Today is one of those days. I find myself attempting to reconcile my rosy view of the world with the un-rosy reality that sometimes people don’t remember their agreements.

Did I miss something? Did I make an assumption? Was there a gap in communication?

I try not to speculate about intent, and not to ascribe malice to a situation where miscommunication might have occured. So I don’t know if I have learned something today or not.