Digital Similarities

So those of you who know me know that I used to produce digital music ... techno ... or attempt to :-) It was basically a four-year process/ordeal where I tried way too hard to create music with the goal of DJing it out, getting a song signed to a label, or something along those lines. I gave it up in late 2007 right before I moved to China for various reasons, one of them being I was finding I was having to force myself to sit down at the computer and do it. I gave it up and haven't stressed out about it since.

Now I find myself getting more and more into digital photography. I downloaded a thirty-day trial of this program called Adobe Lightroom, which is essentially a digital darkroom (hence the product name) for raw image data from your camera. e.g. it gives you lots of control over how the image turns out. It also features an extensive "asset management" system, which is a fancy way of saying it helps you organize and categorize your photos to find them easier later or to share w/others (via a slideshow, web album, etc). It's such an intuitive and easy-to-use program. I opened it for the first time last week and began touching up some of my existing photos; I was able to see the results immediately, which was great positive feedback and led to me using it more and more over the weekend. I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy it when my trial period is up. Unlike a lens, it is useful in a variety of situations :-)

Then this weekend I was working in the program when I realized how similar the light histogram was to a parametric EQ. They literally are the same thing -- a graphic representation of how your photo/sound is composed of different frequencies (of light or of sound, it doesn't matter which), and which you use to adjust the particular frequency content of your material. From there a tumble of realizations came out. The whole process is the same! You generate some input data (either a picture from a camera or a sound from a synthesizer or sampler), fire up a software program or two to tweak and arrange it, combine it with others, get it just how you like it, and then you have the output data which you share with other people.

So I started thinking, why do I feel so good about photography whereas music was a struggle? Probably several reasons:

• I've been practicing the process for generating pictures (photography) for the past few years, whereas I had to learn how to generate sound all from scratch, and all at once.
• I'm a visual person, and viewing photographs comes more intuitively to me than listening to music.
• I get more immediate positive feedback from photography, because I see the faces and places that I shoot and that triggers memories.
• Pictures are more easily accessible to your average person than a techno track :-) Which means I can share photos with everyone, the whole world, whereas w/music the only people who really cared were other friends of mine who were techno DJs.
  
• I am coming to this on my own terms (more naturally/holistically) instead of the rush & stress I put myself through w/digital music (e.g. get rich & famous as a techno DJ). In fact the whole reason I bought this laptop was to make music! How quickly that went away, haha.
  
• I tried to do way too much too quickly w/digital music. I tried to not only learn how to generate and shape sounds, but also how to arrange them into a cohesive track. That is a REALLY complicated task; you're talking music theory and sound engineering at the same time, both of which are pretty advanced topics for your average lazy bastard (me :-)
• Photography is a very social activity; you're out in the world, taking pictures of people and places and things. W/digital music you're stuck sitting at a computer for hours a day -- it's only when you have a finished product that you get to share it in a social environment (at a gig).
  
• It takes a good 5 minutes to listen to a song and decide if you like it. Whereas w/a photo I pretty much know instantly -- I have a strong gut reaction to photos & other pieces of visual art that I like.
  

It's been a pretty interesting realization. I discussed it with some friends and they see what I'm talking about. So who knows. Maybe I will pick up digital music again someday. But for right now I'm having too much fun with photography :-) But I can occasionally combine the two, as in this photo I took at a rave last Saturday (and subsequently edited in Lightroom):



I really like the way that one turned out.

Post'd

Yay, Shanghaiist published my mini-article about Friday night! I had a really good time. Before the show I downloaded my camera's user manual and did a small bit of research about shutter speed, aperture size, and how those apply to pictures. (Who'd have thought reading a manual would be so useful??) I think this research helped because my pictures turned out pretty good. I now better understand the tradeoffs between long and slow shutter speeds and how those affect my camera.

I did some quick 'net-research on shooting in nightclubs, and everyone seems to agree it's super-difficult to do it well with just basic gear. I mean, it's easy to get cool pictures I guess, but what I'm interested in also is super-clear shots of specific people, such as the DJ. That can be tough depending on if/how the DJ booth is lit and how far away from the DJ I am. And it was tough to get so close to Sven because the dancefloor was packed, but I think my pictures came out decently. Like many things in life, taking pictures is all about trade-offs. Haha. I will probably upload larger images to flickr, so watch out for those.

After the show, Tim and I went to this place called City Diner, a 24-hour cafe that serves American food. I had a triple-decker French Toast sandwich. I kid you not. As soon as I saw that menu item I was like "That's genius! Why haven't I seen this in America before??" Very awesome. I'm totally going to lobby Kerbey Lane for that menu item.

Oh, and it SNOWED yesterday. Pretty hard and all day long. Only a little bit of it stuck to the ground. But it was beautiful. And I got a haircut, which didn't seem to result in the disaster I'd expected. I didn't even tell the guy what to do or attempt to explain myself - he just went to work and it ended up looking halfway decent, I think.

I figured now that I have flickr, I might upload pictures that I've taken over the past couple years. For example, I have hundreds of pictures from my trips to Miami and the Bay Area that I really should upload. I also have tons of pictures just from parties in general. Maybe I'll do that now before my tutor comes over :-)

This upcoming week is interesting because I have to work Monday - Sunday, haha. It's because the Shanghai office gets Monday - Friday off next week for the Chinese New Year. People have explained it to me a couple times but I'm still not 100% sure why it's that way. I think because Monday and Tuesday aren't official holidays but the office is closed anyway, so we have to work two days to make up the hours? Oh well. I have a party to go to on Saturday night, so we'll see how effective I am on Sunday morning :-)

The cool thing also is that I can go see the Super Bowl, which is showing here at 7 AM on Monday February 4th. Because I don't have work that day I can wake up ass-early and go watch the game somewhere. Still haven't figured out where yet, but I've seen many places with ads for their Super Bowl TVs or whatever, so that'll be cool. I'm also scouting the best locations for watching fireworks - so far I've been told the Bund, Century Park, and People's Square are good places to go.

It looks like a surprisingly clear day today, which means it might be time for some sightseeing!

Phew

First, if you haven't seen the flickr set from the MoCA, I highly encourage you to do so. To convince you, here are some of the better images from the set:









More here.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of "art" or even museums, but something about this collection really sparked my interest and caught my eye. I wonder if it's because the art is from Japanese artists. Or maybe it's just because this is the first museum I've been to in, oh, forever :-)

Well Sherman, it's raining and cold out, so it's the perfect time to update this blog. Let's set the Wayback Machine for Thursday and go from there:

Thursday:

On Wednesday night, Kenneth from Shanghaiist invited me to a contributors' dinner in Puxi. Funny; I haven't even contributed anything yet :-) So Thursday after work I caught the train to the Hengshan Lu station. I wandered up and down the street for like 30 minutes looking for the restaurant, Le Garcon Chinoise. It took me that long to find it, even though I knew the general area (Hengshan near Dongping). The reason was that the restaurant is set way back from the street down this really long driveway/alleyway and there's no sign on Hengshan. I get the feeling that's typical in Shanghai :-) But I found it by myself, which I was proud of.

Of course I was the first one there; I'd left work early because I still don't know how long it takes to get from work to that area in Puxi. Turns out it's about 45 minutes, which is not that bad given the distance. The cool thing about Shanghaiist (and, I gather, most web-based writing projects) is that many of the contributors have never met each other in person. Why should there? There's no real "office" for the site. Dan Washburn runs it out of his home, and people send in stories when they have something to say. I mean, that's how I wrote for JIVE since forever, even though they do have an office. I've never been to Atlanta, let alone met with my editor there. I'm not even sure I know her real name :-)

Anyway, people start trickling in, and every one of them has a different accent :-) It's great. There's a Singaporean girl, a French girl, three guys from England, one from Australia, etc. You know, I just have been assuming that, since someone here might be white, they might speak English or even be from the US. Oh how nationalistic that seems now, haha. I did meet a guy from DC though who has been in Shanghai almost a year to study the language. So we swapped stories since we grew up pretty close to one another.

There wasn't really any agenda for the meetup - just see who everyone is and meet and talk and drink free wine. Nice. I ended up staying for about three hours and meeting a wide variety of people. Near the end, when I was about to leave, people started handing out business cards. Jazz schools, tourism companies -- everyone had a card except for me! Since I have nothing to sell. Actually that's not true - I have my DJ self to "sell," and several people there seemed interested. I had brought along some CDs because I was going to Logo after the dinner, so I passed out a couple of those. But I think from now on I might bring along my stack of business cards. At least a couple. Since I still don't even remember my damn phone number ;-)

One interesting aspect was that, while these people are expats, they live and work for Chinese companies (or go to Chinese schools). So in that regard I felt like kind of an outcast, like, I am making American dollars and have many subsidized expenses. So one girl was talking about the cost of the taxi ride from Pudong to Puxi (just like at work in Austin, everyone I meet is flabbergasted by how far away I live) and I was thinking well, it doesn't cost me a dime, at least not directly. It's been budgeted for by my job, so personally it costs me time and that's about it. I mean yeah in a larger sense it comes out of the budget for the company that affects my salary and bonuses (along with everyone else's), but it's hard to feel that personally. It's a fantastic benefit that I don't even fully appreciate yet.

And before all of my co-workers get up in arms like "Stop taking taxis across town and decreasing my bonus!" it's not even that much money in American dollars ;-) It's like a $8 - $9 cab ride, and even less expensive for the subway, where it's less than $2 a trip. An $8 cab ride in Austin gets you squat, but here it gets you pretty damn far, haha.

So I felt a little weird. But, you know, that's how it is and I'm definitely not advocating for that to change ;-)

So the dinner was fun. I met a bunch of people and exchanged contact info with some of them. I'm sure I'll see many of them out and about also, since they mentioned places that I've heard of and had considered checking out. For example, one guy is a jazz trumpeter and plays at Club JZ regularly. I'm sure I'll end up there for a show sometime soon.

Anyhoo, after the dinner I took another cab down to Xingfu and Fahuazhen, which is where the Logo bar is. I'd been in contact with the Void techno DJs, and the contact Cameron (Cammy) had been really nice, and I'd been looking forward to checking out the "underground" music scene.



Logo reminded me of Plush in Austin. Small bar, kinda dingy, with poor lighting. Whereas Plush is the size of a walk-in closet, Logo is the size of maybe 2 - 3 bedrooms put together, haha. I walked in the door and through the lounge area into the bar/dancefloor space. The bar itself is a square in the middle of the room, which is an odd design choice because it leaves very little contiguous space for dancing or even standing around and talking. But the DJ on the decks, Nat Alexander, was rockin' it. I felt immediately at home. They were even using Pioneer CDJ-800s, which are the same kind I have :-) And while the techno was more on the minimal side, it was fast and enjoyable.



I stood around for a little bit and just watched the DJ, like I like to do at these kinds of things. A guy came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said "Ryan?" It was Cameron. He must have assumed that the tall white guy, standing there staring at the decks, was me. And he was right :-) So we shook hands and talked for a little bit. Cammy's from Scotland, so he has a great accent. Yes, I must admit that I was reminded of Groundskeeper Willie. So sue me -- I don't meet many Scottish people :-) We chatted for a bit about his crew, techno in Shanghai, what Void's all about, and stuff like that. So that was cool. I gave him a demo CD and also gave one to another DJ in his crew, Fish, to whom Cammy introduced me.

I started dancing and then taking pictures, then I sat down just to people-watch. The lounge area had mostly Chinese people, but the bar/dance area had mostly expats. Interesting. I sat around watching people (my favorite activity) and taking pictures. The place wasn't too crowded, but there was a decent crowd. It improved throughout the night, too. I think I got there around 11, so to many people that is not even "nighttime" :-)

After awhile, Cammy got on the decks. I really dug his set. He played some pretty hard bangin' stuff -- not D.A.V.E. the Drummer style, but some jackin' Detroit techno. There weren't a lot of bass rhythms, which contrasts with the style of music I like to play. But again, it was good times. I felt really comfortable, like I had to remind myself I was in freaking China of all places. I guess it's true what they say, music is universal.

After that I only interacted with really two people. One was this drunk French girl who seemed intent on making sure everybody was having a good time. Nothing wrong with that at all. It's very kind when bar patrons take responsibility for other peoples' well-being :-) And I'm like look, for me, right now, sitting here eating bar popcorn with a sore neck because I've been nodding my head so much to the music -- that counts as good times, at least as worked up as I'm willing to get on a Thursday night :-) She went on some spiel about the importance of luck -- at least that's what I thought she said, given the loudness and her accent. She might have been saying "love," but I don't think she was. And she was speaking so close to me (it was rather loud in there) that her nose was kinda in my ear, hahahaha. After so many years of talking to people in loud bars and clubs, I've developed strategies for speaking to people in those environments -- and that is not it, hahaha. But she was nice. The other encounter was a guy who noticed I had the same camera as him. I think he was French, too. Or Italian. I think my accent recognition capabilities need work :-) They are definitely put to the test in Shanghai, that's for sure.

I left at about 1 AM and cabbed it home. I had no trouble finding a cab because three of them were parked outside the bar. The drivers were snoozing and waiting for people like me. I got home by saying "Da mu zhi" and confirming I meant Pudong, and away we went.

I could definitely see my music working in with the Void crew's stuff. So hopefully I'll get a chance to prove that :-)

Bonbon at 11 AM

One of the best parts of being at Bonbon tonight was knowing that everyone in Austin was at work while I was watching DJ Marky pick up a turntable and scratch a record upside-down.

There's a coat check on the first floor of the club, and when you hand in your coat you have to write down your phone number on the ticket. I don't have mine memorized, so I just wrote down some random numbers. I assumed they only used that information if you didn't pick up your coat, so they could call you. Well apparently you have to recite the phone number back to them in order to get your coat back. Again, I just wrote down some random numbers and forgot about them. Kind of troubling :-) After attempting to explain, and having Justin tell the guy that I don't know my phone number, and handing him my credit card with "Ryan" on it (I'd also written my name on the ticket), I got my jacket back. Lucky thing too because it's barely above freezing outside. On the way out Justin informed me that the only reason I got my jacket back is because I'm white. I was like shit, I'll take that :-) But what he really meant is that I should memorize my phone number ;-)

When I got home I was investigating the built-in hangers on my balcony that you use for drying clothes. (Laundry day is tomorrow.) I noticed that the main sliding glass door was open. It's been open for over a week. No wonder my living room is so effing cold! I know nobody else opened it because I remember on move-in day that all the windows were open. I guess to get any sorts of smell or whatever out of the apartment. I must have missed closing that one, because I didn't go out on the balcony. And it wasn't a theft danger because, well, I'm on the 18th floor, and Spider-Man uses his powers for good, not evil.

So I shut the door and quickly checked all the other windows, which were closed already. Hopefully this new development will result in a warmer apartment, which is a good thing, because people have been telling me a cold front is moving in -- even though Accuweather says the high tomorrow is 52 degrees F, which seems comparable to what it's been like this week.

My quest to order a bottle of water in a restaurant continues in vain. (Yes, it's become a quest now.) Last night I ordered one, and was rewarded with three bottles of fruit juice. Well, I said to everyone, that's almost like water. And at least I got something this time. And that something was some form of liquid in a bottle. That's progress, right?

The First Time

Here's a fun little story about the first time I can remember hearing about Shanghai (in a real-world context, not in a history-lecture context).

Those of you know me know that I am a big fan of electronic music: techno, house, drum 'n bass, et al. Well the nexus for electronic music is in England, where Pete Tong hosts a weekly radio show on BBC Radio 1 called "The Essential Mix." Every week he plays a mix from a different famous DJ - some are recorded specifically for the show and some are culled from that DJ's live sets.

Back in those halcyon days (the year 2000) when broadband + Napster = unlimited music, I was introduced to this Essential Mix phenomenon by a friend at school. He played me an Essential Mix from Paul Oakenfold (who I was into at the time, but not so much anymore). During the opening 30 seconds or so, Tong briefly introduces the DJ. His introduction for this particular Essential Mix included the following phrase:

Oakey plays the Rojam, a Chinese club in the province of Shanghai. I'll bet you've never been there. Well, he has!

My friends and I thought it was hilarious that Pete Tong was demeaning his audience by reminding them that they'd probably never traveled to an exotic location such as the Rojam, while the great and wonderful Paul Oakenfold obviously had been there at least once.

O you unwashed masses! You have never experienced The Rojam! You are not worthy to listen to Sir Paul's melodic trance music. But I'll play it for you anyway, because I'm just that nice.

From that point on, whenever we heard Pete Tong speak, we'd all facetiously shake our fists in the air and curse under our breaths: "Damn you Pete Tong! You're so arrogant!"

And just think - after all these years, I'll finally get to prove you wrong. Ha!