Category: Blog

Since 2015 or so, I’d been trying to get synths working, mostly for live performances, and found myself frustrated with Kontakt, Ableton, and the like. I’m not knocking either of these programs. I know they’re tried, tested, and true. I know a ton of pros live and breath by them. For me, I just couldn’t get them to click. I found the learning curve steep and the cost high. I never made it past the trial stage.

I turned to Apple’s MainStage which made everything easy. Thanks to this app and my trusty 12-Step, I was able to not only record synth parts for Opium Winter, but also play them live.

However, as anyone who happens to read this blog knows, my MacBook Air is on its last legs and I’ve mostly moved away from Apple. I had to start looking at alternatives.

Continue reading “Another Step Away”

Lyrics and Music by Nicholas Toone. ©2022.

You wave the barkeep down, order a stronger drink;
Two parts aversion, three parts apathy
The colours are dialed low and the communal lip sync
Is written on the social marquee

Where you talk of cowering at supposed beastliness with fleeting hope
As you torch your broken bridge
And hang the crown with its own rope
Then endlessly commiserate about how you can’t cope
The anger comes and goes in waves,
Our choice between gods, prophets, or slaves

The world was promised once, yet no one led the way
Out of childish infinity
It’s the empty space that you refused to fill
Far removed from sensibility

And your avoidance of the harsh realities on which you choke
Stare at your blackened bridge
An watch the crown swing on its rope
Live constantly indifferent, vagabond misanthrope
Vexation comes and goes in waves
Our choice between gods, prophets, or slaves

You think that no one can see
The petty crimes you believe will never amount to anything
You cry out “servile!” but what’s not controversial
Is the saboteur on its knees

Arms raised and begging absolution like the past was but a joke
You can’t just fix the ruined bridge or cut the crown down from its rope
You never seemed to comprehend how slippery was your slope
Cold reason finally crests the wave
We choose to live as gods and prophets…

… but not slaves

The other day I shared Benn Jordan’s latest video regarding Spotify and mentioned that I’d post some thoughts. When I started to write this, I went back and re-read two pieces that I keep on hand:

• • • The Problem With Music by Steve Albini, December 1993.
    • Courtney Love Does The Math, June 2000.

Both of those articles opened a can of worms, especially when you think of them as older companion pieces to the video.

While a lot of people thought (and still think) the music industry was/is evil, no one was really prepared for Big Tech.

Continue reading “Music, Labels, The Internet, And Streaming Services”

I’ll add some thoughts in the coming days. For now, this is an important watch/listen.

To start 2023, I decided to move everything back to where it began. I registered nicholastoone.com well over a decade ago, so that’s where everything is going to be. The Low Budget Lifer domain will not be renewed and will fall by they wayside sometime in late April. No more clever URL’s. No more content creating on whatever the big platform of the day is. No more playing with SEO or whatnot. Just me in my little corner of the Internet.

I was going to post a big, blathering piece about 2022 but I couldn’t find the right tone. Everything I wrote sounded overly bitchy, or overly elitist, or overly preachy. In the end, I’ve settled on a short list of what could be called resolutions.

Continue reading “2023 – Here We Go”

I read more in 2022 than I have in recent years. I was a voracious reader in my teens and early twenties but tech got its hooks into me over the years and reading books just fell by the wayside. I’ve been working on changing this and for 2023, I plan to read even more.

I’m not what you’d call a fast reader. My rate is a little more than a book a month; a “book” being +/- 400 pages. I have a habit where I will re-read sentences or paragraphs that I find particularly excellent. I also spent too much time on my damn phone and not enough time with my nose buried in books.

So without further ado…

Continue reading “2022: Books”

Lyrics and Music by Nicholas Toone. ©2022.

So here they are again
They’re scratching at your door again
I gotta say that they’re surprised you went and showed your face again
They all came and paid the fee
And crowded close reluctantly aware …
( …of the expected beats that never, ever came to be… )

Now they’re not sure this is the place
And they’re not sure yours is the face
It seems to them the entertainment promised somehow was erased
So here they are again
They’re scratching at your door again
‘Cos they’re upset that you’d neglect
To genuflect only to them

— CHORUS —
That’s what was said, yes
That’s exactly what they said
Screaming under the pandemonium of your adulating rank and file

That’s what was said, yes
That’s exactly what was said
“Why did you change your style and leave us exiled in favour of everything we revile?”

(you must … they want you to … you must)

Twist and dance and spin
Exactly like your first time in
The pale light of the barfly stages, part time jobs, minimum wages
Starve so you can feed your muse
Allow the world to turn its screws
Don’t think about what’s captivating; hit repeat they’re right here waiting

From the start they advocated
So long as you were compensated
Less than they would ever see which would serve to guarantee that
They’ll be here again
They’re knocking on your door again
‘Cos they’re surprised that you’d decide to not capitulate to them

— CHORUS —

They’ll commiserate and flagellate
But there’s no chance they’ll abdicate
The righteousness and piousness that they employ to deviate themselves
… from what they view as tainted
Squeaky clean, contaminated with the pleasures of the masses
Just ignore rose coloured glasses

Chop your roots and plant new seeds
Nostalgia’s where they group to feed and
Castigate you if you haven’t spent enough time on your knees
Look, here they are again
They’re kicking in your door again
‘Cos they’re confused that you’d refuse their retrospective schemes again

— CHORUS —