Pioneer on the Internet – Sean Gursky

I had a special moment last week. It was one of those musical awakenings where you instantly loved something and were completely blown away by it. You were suddenly pushed into a world of sound that you loved but did not know existed.

Over the last year I have noticed my musical preferences change. I still enjoy my top artists but instrumental music was becoming more popular. I became more dependant on soundtrack scores from Zimmer, McCreary or Giacchino. I went deeper into Philip Glass’ discography finding great enjoyment in Mishima.

When I wanted a change of pace and listened to something with lyrics I went folk with The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Wooden Sky, The Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons but I was becoming more dependant on music without words.

After taking up Wendy’s advice on Fabrizio Paterlini I would spend days at work listening to music and not listen to a single song with words in it. Paterlini was a logical step to where I ended up last week, but I got there for an unrelated reason.

I haven’t been in a musical funk, I enjoy what I have but I didn’t know what was missing until Taylor sent me a link to Ludovico Einaudi. He came across Einaudi while listening to the last.fm radio and thought I would like the song. The song was “Fly” and it had a “Metamorphosis One” (Philip Glass) and “Everyday” (Carly Comando) feel to it and I was in love.

I got Einaudi’s two most recent albums, but when I heard the first seventy seconds of “Lady Labryinth” everything stopped. This song spoke to me on some other dimension and I knew I loved it. There was no hesitation in rating the song five and submitting a “Love” to last.fm before the song even ended, I just knew.

The next few days I jumped between Einaudi’s Divenire and Nightbook, slowly expanding out to his earlier work. There were some beautiful solo piano pieces, earlier work may be a little more unpolished and less engaging but still amazing all the same. Taylor continued exploring on last.fm and exposed me to Roberto Cacciapaglia by way of “Oceano“.

In a few short days I had narrowed in on minimalist piano and string quartet Italian composers that made some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard and I’m sure this will carry me further on my piano listening adventures.

There are two movies I am looking forward to most in 2010. The first is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, but my excitement for Inception is miles ahead of the first half of the final Potter movie.

Since Christopher Nolan finished work on The Dark Knight I have been patiently waiting to see what he would do next and while the details for this movie were slow to emerge last summer I was excited at the prospect of something. Now that trailers and plot summaries are released I’m full throttle looking forward to this.

As if I needed more convincing, the soundtrack is being scored by Hans Zimmer, who is one half of the dynamic duo that has done Nolan’s two previous Batman films.

If I don’t put this link somewhere I’ll forget it. This is the from Zack Hemsey who composed, recorded, and mixed the song used in the third Inception trailer. It’s amazing and if it’s an indication as to what the full soundtrack will sound like then this movie will be even more incredible.

On Thursday April 14 I said goodbye to an old friend. My Heritage H-550 Custom had been with me since December 2004. I still look back at the email thread with Jay Wolfe from Wolfe Guitars and smile because I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The instruments craftsmanship was superior, the attention to detail was amazing and the sound was fantastic.

Still, I was using an instrument way out of my league and only reinforced the adage that the musician makes the guitar, not the other way around. This is something I have had to remind myself when I look at cameras with a several thousand dollar price tag.

I had been contemplating selling the guitar since the middle of 2008, and when I was unable to find anyone I knew to buy it the guitar was posted on Kijiji. Perhaps as a way of saying I shouldn’t sell it, it took some time to find a serious buyer.

I had several offers for a trade but only had two people show actual interest in buying it for money. The ad was on Kijiji for thirteen, maybe fourteen months, maybe more. Every three months I would get an ad expiration notice and I would repost it, bumping the ad to the top of the pages, receive the random email of interest here or there but that was it. Selling a $2,000 instrument in Edmonton was quite a challenge, but it’s a high end instrument that has a niche market so I understand that it took a while for the right buyer to come along.

I didn’t need to sell the guitar, but I wasn’t playing it and I could put the money towards other areas. I originally wanted to sell the guitar to buy a DSLR and a Playstation 3. Both of those items sorted themselves out before the end of 2008 so the sale of the guitar would go towards paying their purchase off or other bills.

The gentleman who bought the guitar gave the H-550 a workout, something it has been deprived of for too long, and it sounded amazing. Hearing a guitar you love perform a swan song was incredibly bittersweet. I thought that I had made the wrong decision, but in the last year and a half the Heritage never sounded as good as it did then. It is going to a better place and to an owner who knew the level of craftsmanship the instrument had and treat the guitar right.

When I closed the Kijiji ad I noticed that I had 1337 views, which felt like a nice way to end the sale.

In early December I received a White Stripes newsletter announcing the Under Great White Northern Lights boxset containing a documentary detailing their performance in Canada, the complete concert from their 10th anniversary performance, a CD and LP of live music, a photo book and other exclusive goodies. In short it was going to be awesome and I had to own it.

I have seen the Under Great White Northern Lights documentary several times now and there is something powerful and haunting about how the movie concludes. Ben Blackwell tells Jack and Meg that after a decade together they can still pick up their original instruments and be as if nothing has changed. Then Jack looks over to Meg who returns the look, they share a glance and then Meg looks away and fade to white, the interview is over.

The piano performance of White Moon to close the documentary is amazing. The story goes that after their 10th anniversary show in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, after the celebrations and after parties Jack found a piano and started playing it. I was amazed at the passion that came across and how the song ends. It was a surprise to me and I certainly don’t want to spoil anything, but after a powerful, loud and intense 90 minute movie this quiet and intimate end was stunning.

On my re-watch of the documentary I continued watching through the credits and when they got to the ‘thank you’ all but four cities from the 2007 tour were thanked, including Edmonton.

I was a big fan of the Under Nova Scotia Lights concert. I had listened to the audio rip of the DVD prior to watching the video so I knew what to expect, but this just goes to show that seeing is believing. What I thought were average performances of songs on the audio were elevated to another level when I saw the video. The several minute tease of Death Letter made more sense when you saw Jack tuning the Kay guitar. I will never tire of seeing Jack and Meg interact on stage, the glances and nods signalling when one song changes into another.

A nice moment happened between the person doing bagpipes on Prickly Thorn was after his solo he looked at Jack as if to say “I’m good, your turn” and Jack gave him an approving look back. The subtleties, the things that an audio recording can never show made this concert really special. If a show has Astro, Death Letter, Black Math and Boll Weevil it is guaranteed to be good, but when you include Aluminum, Brick House Wood House and Lafayette Blues then it goes into a different category of awesome.

Enough of that, let’s talk packaging! The way this boxset is put together deserves a Grammy in the Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package category. Everything about this is top notch and puts my Battlestar Galactica boxset to incredible shame. The 208 page hardcover photography book is amazing and captured the on-stage and off-stage moments so well.

One thing is obvious: the amount of vinyl I have I need to add a record player to the stereo system as soon as we relocate into a house so I can experience all of this in a new way again.

As a 2010 gift to myself I purchased a one month subscription at last.fm. My original intent was to see the historical information presented in their “Playground” and get a sense of my listening habit over the last seven years I have been with last.fm.

I paid my $3USD one-time fee for a months access and immediately downloaded my “Tag Tube”.

It looked neat on the surface, but I was a little disappointed to see what it only went back as far as April 2008. Still, there are ebbs and flows with my listening habits and this map does a good job of representing that. See the last twenty months of my last.fm tags in Underground Tube format here.

There is not much to glean from this, but it looks like the tagging system is a little off because Matthew Good appears under “Alternative Rock” and “Canadian”. Both are accurate tags but I feel that if they had went with one over the other then MG would have had a more consistent presence in my Tubes.

Otherwise the information is pretty accurate. The White Stripes usually dominated my listening in any given month, but there were occasional binges with soundtrack scores (as “My Aught Nine Numerical Review” showed). I will investigate the other features of being a Last.fm subscriber, and since listening to their radio does not interest me, I will see if this was a worth while purchase. If not, then I may consider buying again in another 12 months to see how my Tube Tags look.

I feel like I missed a great opportunity to recap 2009, or even the decade that was. The final weeks of December flew by at an accelerated rate I didn’t think about a blog entry to commemorate the occasion. Therefore I am going to take a recent page from Jeff’s blog and do a statistical year in review.

Top 10 Google Queries
1. google analytics
2. wct
3. weather Edmonton
4. wcf
5. canada post tracking
6. ack attack
7. sean gursky
8. whois seagurs.com
9. virgin festival 2009 calgary
10. petro points

I have two Gmail accounts, one for work and one for personal but my work account does not have Web History enabled so everything that did go through my query appeared above. My busiest month for searching was in January with 489 queries recorded, and my least active month was in July with 117.

Top 10 sites
1. en.wikipedia.org
2. www.imdb.com
3. www.seagurs.com
4. www.worldcurlingtour.com
5. www.php.net
6. www.amazon.com
7. www.google.com
8. answers.yahoo.com
9. www.youtube.com
10. www.tv.com

I guess these results tell me I was obsessed with the status of seagurs.com (when it was in Redemption Period with 1&1 and waiting to take ownership back) and could never be bothered with bookmarking the Analytics site, or even learning how to spell it correctly. No idea how Virgin Festival made it into my top ten, especially since I did not even consider attending, but it stands as a testament to the year that was.

Top 10 Artists
1. Bear McCreary (2,587 plays)
2. The White Stripes (1,434 plays)
3. U2 (1,387 plays)
4. Matthew Good (877 plays)
5. Philip Glass (777 plays)
6. Bad Religion (726 plays)
7. The Beatles (684 plays)
8. Coldplay (680 plays)
9. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard (668 plays)
10. Michael Giacchino (520 plays)

No surprise by this, but maybe the sheer volume that Bear McCreary beat everyone else in the last twelve months is worth mentioning. Not counting the occasional song on Battlestar Galactica that contains lyrics, four of my top ten artists were instrumental and three of those were purely from soundtracks.

Top 10 Tracks
1. Philip Glass – Metamorphosis One (124 plays)
2. Philip Glass – Metamorphosis Five (123 plays)
3. Philip Glass – Metamorphosis Two (111 plays)
4. Philip Glass – Metamorphosis Three (104 plays)
5. Regina Spektor – Man of a Thousand Faces (97 plays)
5. Philip Glass – Metamorphosis Four (97 plays)
7. Bear McCreary – All Along The Watchtower (77 plays)
8. Bear McCreary – Heeding the Call (74 plays)
9. Bear McCreary – Sonatica (72 plays)
10. Bear McCreary – Passacaglia (65 plays)

Pianos and Bear charge the way. I really enjoy Man of a Thousand Faces, it’s a beautiful song but I didn’t realize that I had listened to it over 3.5 times a week (“Far” was released in June, halfway through the year).

I boarded eight different flights in 2009, flying to London, Marseille, Calgary and Las Vegas. Those eights flights spanned the same number of weeks. Roughly thirty hours of flight time equated to covering a distance of 22,242 kilometres. I drove my VW Jetta TDI 11,000 kilometers and filled up the vehicles 16 times and filed a single police report.

In 2009 I wrote 81 blog posts and I sent roughly 350 emails from my @gmail.com and @seangursky.com email accounts and 110 from my @hotmail.com address. I made fifteen orders with amazon.ca, two with amazon.com, one from amazon.co.uk and three with monoprice.com.

My rough estimates lead me to believe that I took nearly 7,500 photos with six different cameras. 17% of my photos taken this year were done in the two weeks in England/France. The majority of my total photo count came from my Canon EOS T1i/500D which had over 5,300 actuations.

We shall see what 2010 holds, and if my past numbers will continue into the New Year or not. 364 days remain…

If you had to define my musical taste The White Stripes and U2 would be mentioned and probably be debated about which as more influential to me. For most of 2009 I have been teased about the documentary “It Might Get Loud” featuring none other than Jack White, The Edge and Jimmy Page.

This movie was made for me. I could watch a separate movie on either of these guitarists, but having both share the movie, their stories and space in “The Summit” was amazing.

When I wasn’t grinning from ear to ear I tried to soak up the movie. I wanted to know more about what songs influenced them, or hear for the umpteenth time how they got start in music. Even something I was familiar with (ie: band posting by Larry Mullen which lead to the forming of U2) felt fresh and intriguing as The Edge walked down the same halls that the band started in.

What I really appreciated was the reason for why The White Stripes are what they are. From the color scheme, caricature appearance and simplicity was a way to distract from what was really going on. I also respected that Jack White would intentionally go out of his way to make to things more difficult. To paraphrase, it takes him three steps to get to the keyboard so he will put it four steps away so he has to run to make it in time. He pushes himself, constantly doing challenges to never be stagnant.

There was a moment where nine year old Jack was being instructed by current age Jack to stomp on the Airline, to get angry with it. I yelled at the TV in horror! I feared for the Res-O-Glass, for the safety of the sound that iconic guitar had provided. However, if something else broke off it, or would go out of tune easier then it would just be that much more of a challenge for Jack to perform with it.

When Page and The Edge were revisiting old recording/rehearsal areas Jack White was with his “nine year old self” talking about kicking the chair away from the piano for dramatic effect and how to become a performer. I found it a little strange to have a younger version of yourself in the film, but this movie highlighted the unconventional nature of Jack White, and it worked for him.

The Washington City Paper interviewed director Davis Guggenheim and asked about mini-Jack.

WCP: Speaking of Jack, who was that little kid in the movie who helped tell his story?

DG: That’s Jack White as a 9-year-old boy. Did it throw you off?

WCP: A little bit.

DG: Yeah. Jack said to me, “I want to teach myself how to play guitar.” And I was like, cool. And the next day he shows up in a hat and a bowtie and a suit, and in the back, seriously, was a 9-year-old kid dressed exactly like him. And he said, “Davis, this is Jack. Jack, this is Davis.”

WCP: Any idea how he found the kid?

DG: Not a clue. I let them tell their own stories, and how he told his was quintessential Jack.

WCP: The kid was good.

DG: The kid was good. [Pause.] How do you know it’s not him as a 9-year-old?

There was a level of respect that felt genuine in “The Summit” too. The Edge was instructing the others how to perform “I Will Follow”, and when Page began playing “Ramble On” White had the biggest and happiest grin on his face. They may come from different disciplines but they all understood what it took to get where they are.

Obviously if you are a U2, The White Stripes or Led Zeppelin fan you need to see this, but the movie was made in such a way that anyone who has created music or picked up a guitar would be engaged for the full length of the movie.

Friday afternoon I received an email about a pre-order for the Under Great White Northern Lights box set. My heart skipped a beat and I immediately began panic mode. The “Under Great White Northern Lights” was a documentary that The White Stripes put together during their 2007 Canada tour.

What made this boxset special was everything else that was included in this:

• DVD of the “Under Great White Northern Lights” documentary
• DVD of the 10th anniversary show from Nova Scotia
• Double LP containing 17 live tracks
• Exclusive 7″ vinyl
• Silkscreened print from Rob Jones
• 208 pages of photography

All of this was put together in a beautiful box and presented in classic White Stripes stylings.

I spent a few minutes debating the cost, had some words of encouragement from Taylor and Scott, and then proceeded to submit my pre-order. Unfortunately this package won’t arrive until March, but it’s good to know that in a few short months I will have this amazing gift arrive, and expect a full unboxing.

Leading up to the November 14, 2009 Matthew Good concert at Shaw Conference Center I listened to recordings of Good’s performances in Edmonton from over the years. The improvement in recording quality aside, there was something special about those older shows that encourage me to replay them frequently. It was like a certain chemistry on stage, a feeling or chaos as the band knew a large back catalog and it was very possible to hear “Suburbia” or “Carmelina”; or even that older material from the former Matthew Good Band sounded fresh and interesting.

A few more albums have been released in the last few years and the studio (and live) band have been replaced with new faces. I do not know what the catalyst was, but there seems to be a difference in enjoyment of shows over these last few years. Saturday was my 23rd time seeing Matthew Good perform over the last since 1998; and it was almost to the week that he performed there a decade ago with Moist and Gob.

Saturday night was a good show but I don’t know if it was a great show. Perhaps for the casual Matthew Good fan it gave them everything they wanted to hear, or maybe it converted people to become more interested in his work; and if that happened then the show was a success. I feel I am the minority in the audience when it comes to set lists and what I would like to hear and playing to my tastes could alienate the other several thousand in attendance.

I consider the March 23, 2006 acoustic set at Horowitz Theatre one of the best he’s done, and the October 2005 three night stand at the Starlite Room spectacular. The Pepsi Taste Tour from the summer of 1999 at The Rev was a part of an amazing day and the performance was the first time I had heard material from Beautiful Midnight (the show was prior to the albums release) and that will always be a show held in high regard. Those performances only had a few “never hear that again” moments, and everything else was fairly standard; so what does it take for a Matthew Good performance to stand out amongst them all?

Saturday night had a mix of new material and fan favorites. The new songs from Vancouver sounded great. The crowd responded well to them and they really evolved to something else on stage. Underplayed favorites like “Giant” and “Everything Is Automatic” made for a high energy encore. I think longer songs like “Avalanche” or “Empty’s Theme Park” may be a little too cumbersome to play for a large audience (especially in a bigger venue like the Shaw Conference). Perhaps the attention of those in attendance wanders during an eight minute song, but that is their loss because long Matthew Good songs is a specialty and they sound great live.

By the standard of past shows there was very little banter or political commentary. We were treated to the “pirate and ninja story” as well as some other musings that Matthew had with his band mates. When I look toward the stage I may not see Christian, Pat or Rich, but Matthew is having a good time with their replacements and it shows.

The one thing that hadn’t changed was that the regulars at Good concerts were in full force too. A ‘triple sky kick’ may have been a little more difficult to pull off and we were all kind of sore for standing for a few hours but part of the appeal about going back to any of Good’s shows is the chance to see familiar faces and talk the set over and discuss our favorite moments. We no longer wait outside the venue for hours day after day but it is almost a standing date we have when a tour is announced.

I may never hear “Symbolistic White Walls” or “My Out of Style is Coming Back” again but when Matthew Good comes to town it’s a guaranteed enjoyable night and I hope the next stop is a little sooner than the 17 months I had between the last shows.

A highlight worth mentioning from the night was Mother Mother. I was familiar with their discography going into a show (a rare occurrence with openers for Matthew Good) and their thirty minute set was fast paced, very tight and extremely entertaining. They will only continue to get better and more popular as time goes on and I’m glad to say that “I saw them when” they played a venue that only held a few thousand compared to what they could be playing to in the future.

As to be expected, I recorded the show and here is my favorite song from the new album performed on Saturday night: “Great Whales of the Sea”. As an added bonus is my favorite song from Mother Mother: “Hayloft”.

From Me To U2
It’s old news now, but U2 is coming to Edmonton in June 2010!

The Monday after we returned from Las Vegas I saw rumors about an upcoming announcement and was thrilled to see a planned stop at Commonwealth Stadium. The U2.com pre-sale started less than 36 hours after the concert was announced and I was back in the same uncomfortable and stressed situation of vying for tickets. Would I play the odds and expect a second show to be added? Or should I play it safe and get seats?

The second tour date never happened, but from my understanding Live Nation stopped the roll out of a second show due to slow ticket sales. Hours after the public sale tickets were still available, and even the following day seats were available in the upper balconies. AC/DC sold out Commonwealth in the summer within minutes, and since this show did not get that same treatment Edmonton will only be enjoying one show. It’s easy to get hung up on the show that got away, but the important item here is that U2 is coming and I can stay within my area code to see them perform.

I ended up buying two seated tickets (closer to the center of the stadium to fully appreciate the stage from the front) and two general admission tickets. I often say that the April 10, 2001 performance I saw of U2 in Calgary was a life changing experience, and I think being on the floor for that was a strong reason why the night was so memorable. To get an optimum spot on the floor you have to wait in line. In 2001 I was in line for eight hours, and that is the norm for most lineups, especially if you would like a chance at the ‘inner circle’. I am still not sure which way I am leaning, we have already seen the show from the seats and a floor performance would give us more appreciation for the frenzy; but at the cost of sitting and waiting all day.

I came across this time lapse video of the “Claw” as it was constructed, performed on and torn down the other day and it immediately brought my excitement level back up for the show. Now to just get through the next eight months.

Nose Bleed Count
The count is now up to nine. There have been a few close calls but were just drips compared to the river of blood that is needed to count for this. The humidifier has been brought out of hibernation as I try and battle the dry climate.