shoshara

Photos

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:13:56 GMT

Dark Dissolve is doing band photos tommorrow. I'm rather sad that I'm still overweight :(. I had hoped to actually be a good weight by the time photos came around for the bands, but alas it didn't happen.

You all know I'm picture-phobic. At least these pictures I'll actually be able to see! I obessively search the internet for pictures from shows. I see so many people taking them, and I never see them. It bothers me on such a bizarre deep level to know pictures exist that have me in them, that I have no control over and have never seen. Especially if I'm unhappy with my weight.

I also have no idea what to wear. I want to blend in with the guys, hopefully it will work out.

Anyways. Dark Dissolve's EP is going to come out soon! Exciting! Voodoo's CDs are coming out really soon too. Also, Voodoo has a website now : http://www.voodoopharmacology.com/, yay cthulhu and the free flash editor they've been using to make it.

Salome Dance of the 7 Veils (by Strauss)

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:33:39 GMT

I swear, this is the most difficult harp part I have ever seen in my life. Maybe I just haven't spent enough time looking for enharmonics to make the pedal changes easier. Okay, I spent like 30 minutes looking at it. But seriously. I'm wondering if its worth learning just for a reading session. On the other hand, I hear rumors that another harpist is going to come to the readings and I'll probably get kicked out and replaced if I don't learn the stupid part. Seriously though. Wow. I think its more difficult than Symphony Fantastique. I mean, if its just learning to play some chords or something quickly thats one thing, but 2-3 pedal changes every note, at a fast pace, thats insane! Or maybe I just haven't been playing enough pedal harp lately.

TWO Shows on Sunday... and the best veggie burgers in town.

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:04:11 GMT

If you're a fan of classical music, I'm playing with the Montgomery Philharmonic on Sunday at 7pm. I think its free, but I'm not sure. They sound great. Here's the program :
Sunday, June 7 2009 at 7:00 pm
Verdi - La Forza del Destino: Overture
Beethoven - Overture to Coriolanus, Op. 62
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 5, Op. 64

The Forza has two harps! Exciting! Its in Gaithersburg. The address is on the orchestra's website.

Then, after that, Voodoo is playing at Artomatic at 8pm. Obviously I won't be playing, but that just means they'll rock even more and play some of the heavier stuff I'm not up to speed on :-p. Its at Artomatic, so its free! I'm hoping I'll be able to make it to hear part of their set! Artomatic is an AWESOME event. I had a great time when Dark Dissolve played and wish we could've stayed longer but I was still sick and was hoping to be able to make it to Ren Fair the next day (which I failed at).

Now, for the random crap I always put in my blog posts, The Silver Diner has *THE BEST VEGGIE BURGER EVER*. Its a black-bean/cumin base. So great. Its so hard to find good veggie burgers in the States. They always try to make them "like hamburgers". The best veggie burgers are just a delicious blend of vegetarian things. This one, and the one at the Brickskeller, are the only two I've ever had in the United States that were even tolerable, let alone absolutely delicious. I've been eating primarily vegetarian again (really just out of habit, I'll eat meat if Larry cooks it but I don't usually order it). I figured, I weighed 110 lbs (just 18 more to loose!) and was very fit when I was a vegetarian, so I should go back :).

Artomatic

Sun, 31 May 2009 05:18:09 GMT

Dark Dissolve played Artomatic's Cabaret Stage on Friday. We were intending to do an acoustic set.... acoustic guitars, acoustic harp, acoustic violin, awesome portable acoustic percussion (no drumset). Its our "small setting" instrumentation. Anyways. We got there (after much drama with some of the worst traffic I've seen), and the stage was HUGE with a drumset setup, and they wanted to mic us!
We did our first song acoustic. Larry said you could hear the harp that way.
The sound guy wanted to mic us. So they tried. Of course, everything got miced well except the harp, which could no longer be heard :(. The crappy thing is I had the pic up for it, but they decided after we started our set to mic us so there was no time for me to get it out and do a real sound check. I should've just brought the electric harp! Oh well.
I've been sick for the past several weeks. A cold/sore throat that just won't go away! I was feeling so great for so long, I guess I started doing too many things and not sleeping enough :(.

Dark Dissolve Unplugged!

Sun, 24 May 2009 14:17:16 GMT

Dark Dissolve is playing a free acoustic show on the opening day of Artomatic. Here's the flyer!

We have new music for this show as well. So if you saw our last acoustic show and enjoyed it, come to this one and hear our new stuff!

Competition

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:49:48 GMT

So I competed Saturday for the first time since high school (at the Southern Maryland Celtic Festival). I won the amateur category (and they didn't seem to do overall competition awards). Anyways. I played horribly! The frustrating thing about competing is you always end up with the same comments, ie : player slower and more accurately and work on accurate ornaments. Which of course you know, but you always fail to do when you're extremely nervous! I'm fine with regular ol' gigs and shows, pretty much anything that isn't me being judged by another harpist. Competitions though, my hands get clammy and sweaty and nothing works out! No matter how well I know the piece I can't guarantee I'll be able to play fast and clean when I'm nervous. I don't know how to fix it! Anyways. I'm glad I went because I got a chance to meet the judge that plays Welsh triple harp and studied in Wales. We seem to have similar interest in music (baroque and Welsh!). She let me play her triple harp later. Its awesome! Tricky though. And not as versatile as I thought since the outside courses don't have levers you still really have to retune to change keys, its just great for accidentals, which is great for baroque music. Anyways. I need to get some of her books and CDs of Welsh music.

In other news. Voodoo has a FREE show this Sunday in Baltimore. We're going on in the evening but the festival starts at 12:30pm.

Here's the poster :

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:42:25 GMT

Pirates
Sword Fights

When did reality start larping?

More pics.... this time of Voodoo Pharmacology!

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 05:46:04 GMT

We did a taping for a theoretical local access TV Show on Saturday. If nothing else comes from it, at least there's some nice pictures of all of us dressed up playing our instruments!

Here's the one of me :

Here's the rest on Voodoo's myspace : Link

Dark Dissolve youtubes!

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:06:21 GMT

Here's some video from our show at Jaxx!! Taken by Jana's husband and I put the audio from the recordings Jaxx gave us from the soundboard on them.

Noise in the basement!

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:17:43 GMT

Check it out! 98 rock's noise in the basement! Voodoo is playing.

Also, in other news, Larry made roasted pork on Sunday. From it we got 3 bags of pulled pork for future use in the freezer, about 30 tamales to freeze, Monday night dinner of carnitas (yum!), and tonight's dinner of papusas. It was the most delicious roasted pork ever. And made so many delicious meals.

Stuff froom Jaxx show

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:49:55 GMT

We have new songs on our myspace! Live recordings from the Jaxx show. Thanksfully, they sounded good!

Anyways. Check them out : http://www.myspace.com/darkdissolve

Also, I found some pics someone took of the show on t3h int4rw3bz. I look like a drugged, obese, slightly goth, extremely unhappy hooker. Maybe I should smile more.... :)

And, in unrelated news, the end to Battlestar Galactica was a horrifying travesty.

Monitor woes

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:34:48 GMT

Okay, normally I can never hear myself in the monitors, but I hear everything else. Last night's show at Jaxx was the complete opposite-- and I think its worse! Much worse! I would rather hear nothing and just play it from feel and at least know I'm with the rest of the band than hear noone else in the band! I could hear Alex and Paul which was great for keeping rhythm and being together when they were playing, but I fucked up the intros to all our songs when I come in with Patrick or Arthur (who I could not hear when I was playing).

I know the sections me and Patrick play together alone were not together (even Larry noticed it). I have the feeling this might be because what I heard was the reverb from the audience and not Patrick's cabinet (so there was phasing). I really feel like this is the worst I've ever played at any show.

I think I was trying too hard to listen for the beat and not trusting myself. I wasn't clean at all in my playing and kept getting confused about the beat (again phasing I think). Thats something thats very important to me, and if its not clean, then, crap! Also, I had a huge brain freeze during Solstice Song and could've sworn when I came in it was the wrong key, but when the rest of the band came in it sounded fine so I think it was just another problem with the lack of monitors.

I love our music and the moving complicated sound and variety of parts and clear tones we use, but it makes it really noticable if I'm not clean and right on beat! We can't hide in distortion and effects!

On the bright side (or possible down side) we had a huge crowd. HUGE. We got bumped to 3rd (of 5 total bands, headliner last) over politics (which I feel bad about, which is one of the best crowds. People from the outside bar area came into hear us and the place was packed when we played. I thought it was a lot of people coming in early to Hanzel und Gretyl but the place cleared out when we were done (and then obviously cleared back in when Hanzel und Gretyl came up). So I hope it wasn't as bad as it sounded to me. Larry and some of the people I talked to seem to think it was great, but Larry isn't a musician.

Shopping List

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:46:30 GMT

For my edification, here's what I still desire for music (in order of priority, which is really in order of price) :

1) DI splitter to go to my amp so I can use it as a monitor. I still can't reliably hear myself.

2) Good amp for keyboard and harp, maybe a multi-input amp. Nothing fancing, just something that doesn't introduce a lot of noise like my amp seems to. I think mine might be broken. Everyone else seems to love my amp, but mine is noisy.

3) Multi-effects board that is mine and not Voodoo's and has a built-in tuner.

4) Irish harp (with light strings) for competitions. They are so much easier to play! And have such great sound!

5) Electro-acoustic pedal harp. In ebony. Preferably a Salzedo model if I can get lyon & healy to electro-acoustify it (piezo pickups on each string and onboard preamp). And when I'm rich. Because that will probably be like 50k total.

Anyways. Bridgett's coming and we're going to do some recording together. So I bought a good vocal mic. Hopefully it will work with Dark Dissolve too. Its coming tommorrow!

Peter Wingfield & Sandman

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:52:37 GMT

So I've been subjecting Larry to the Adrian Paul Highlander series on DVD. We're at the end of the Methos arc in season 3. And it occurs to me, Peter Wingfield would make the best Dream ever (Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman). Why haven't they made this mini-series yet?!!?

Dark Dissolve

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 04:16:53 GMT

We're playing a show at Jaxx opening for gothic/industrial band Hanzel und Gretyl. We need to sell our own tickets so if anyone is free and can come out, it would be greatly appreciated. The show should be great. Hanzel und Gretyl is a very amusing and awesome band. And you know you want to see harp and violin in a goth band!

Voodoo Pharmacology show in Baltimore

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:32:13 GMT

Come! It will be fun!

"lazy americans"

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 06:36:50 GMT

I'm so sick of hearing this phrase! I like America. Well, I had my doubts, but it seems to be getting better... and really is there anywhere thats better? Everywhere has its problems. America has its problems. Europe has its problems. America seems to have the least annoying. But thats from my rather libertarian perspective which makes Europe out of the question. :)

Now, speaking of Europe, I'm so sick of hearing Europeans say Americans are ignorant and lazy. According to so many of them on the internet, well, duh Americans overweight because we're indulgent, don't exercise, eat too much, and are lazy.

Well, we also work signifigantly more than you! If we could get by on 30 hour weeks and months of leave we'd be thinner too! America has a horrible work ethic (ie :too much work!). Work culture in the US says its not okay to just put in your 40 hours, you should work unpaid overtime. And don't take lunch breaks!

I agree, we should be more like Europe. I would love that. I would love to be able to work part time (and make less... thats fine) and spend more time on working out and music. But today's urban American culture leads to an inability to find a reasonable hourly rate part time job with healthcare, so thats not really an option unless you have someone willing to support you or have noone to support.

So in order to not be fat, Americans pretty much either need to a) not eat, or b) decide that the one hobby they have time for is going to be being a fitness buff. Me, I won't give up music, so its got to be option a) or option c) be fat :).

So, basically, STFU Europe. I'm sick of your pretentious superior attitude toward Americans.

Digi003!

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 04:29:35 GMT

Finally, after like a week of having the thing, I got my Digi 003 Rack+ setup, with the ProTools 8 LE upgrade and all the little plugins. I can't believe what a complicated time consuming process this was! I'm going to start playing with it tommorrow. I need some good headphones and monitor speakers now :'(

Obama Inauguration!!!

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:45:55 GMT

Yay!
In 3 days the most (or second most... but for less good reasons!) democratically corruptive presidency will officially end. I'm quite ecstatic about Obama. I am, however, a bit peeved about the whole "our president" thing from some communities, as though he isn't ALL of our president. He's my president too! Even though I'm a genetic WASP (and would be the P if I was all christian and stuff), and would-be-WINO (if only I took my Italian-American husbands last name...). White people love obama too!!!! I do wish I could go to the Inauguration, but its just not worth it to drive to DC for a worse view than I could get at home.
Anyways. Yay Obama. I'm excited for a hopetastic changeabration.

Recent picture

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:03:38 GMT

For those that asked, here's a recent picture of me with my new hair. It doesn't look all that different when its in pigtails.... :). Its from Dark Dissolve's show at Wohlfarth on Friday.

the ultimate sacrilege

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:03:42 GMT

I committed the ultimate sacrilege today while I was home with a horrible cold/sinus infection. I installed Windows Vista on my mac book pro. Its working quite well. And out of the box Vista is signifigantly less annoying than comes-on-a-computer Vista. I'm quite happy with it. Now I have a 200GB laptop with MAC OSX and Windows for gaming and music. And I can stop taking Larry's laptop when I want to play Oblivion. Oh yeah, and Vista runs better on the Mac than the PC. I love this little macbook.

Dark Dissolve Upcoming shows

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:16:18 GMT

I think I already posted about this, but, here it is again with more details.

We're playing an acoustic session with Land of Malls.
Cost : $3 (including free wine and cheese if you come!)
Time : 8:00pm
Location : Wohlfarth Gallery 3418 9th Street, NE Washington, DC.

So all you people who complain that shows are too loud or too late or too expensive, whats your excuse this time?! :) Come! Enjoy! I hear the drummer from the other band played with one of the Jeffersons (airplane or starship... I don't remember which, presumably starship.)

On another note, whatever happened to all the good clubs in DC? When Alchemy was at Nation I remember dancing for ages ... on an actually relatively packed dance floor... with large crowds? Don't get me wrong, Spellbound can be a good time, but its really more like sitting at a bar with a bunch of goths several years older than me listening to goth music reminiscing about the days of yore. Larry hates going now. Its difficult to drag him out. I'm thinking of trying Midnight. Maybe its more lively. I miss club dancing and making a fool of myself because I'm bad at it. :). Or maybe I'm just hitting a mid-20's life crisis and trying to relive high school. That might explain the motorcycle too.... and the future tattoo.... but maybe its now I have the money to spend on these frivolous things I've always wanted. :) Either way, DC needs a better not-hip-hop, not r&b, not top-40s club scene. Or I need to know where these other clubs are. I miss Nation. Stupid stadium and waterfront revival.

Happy 2009!

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:01:34 GMT

Happy 2009!

Thanks to everyone who came to the party yesterday. I thought it was a fun and great success. I hope everyone else did too.

I can't believe its 2009 already. I feel like the world should've changed more since I was a kid. Its still similar music, similar technology. The only really big change is the widespread emergence of the internet and wireless technologies. I want cool technology like flying cars and food pills!

the unthinkable

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:51:11 GMT

I cut my hair. Its rather short now. I had about a foot taken off and I'm mailing the pony tail to Pantene Beautiful Lengths when it dries. I'm quite happy with it. I loved my long hair, but it was just too ratty. And now for the first time in my life my "bangs" are completely gone and all my hair is the same length and healthy. Its just short :(. And I can't tie it in a knot anymore. But it will grow back and be much prettier and healthier when it does. But right now its seriously short. As Carla said, I'm no longer defined by my hair :).

Show last night

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 17:27:50 GMT

Dark Dissolve's show last night was awesome. The bands that played before us ("The Elusive" and "Ros Wilting") were both very good, entertaining, and very clean. Also both were female fronted, so there was an actual night of three local bands with female vocalists that were all actually good. I think it must be a first. I'm honored they let us play with them and glad the crowd stayed through our late set.

I feel bad for not being able to bring anyone in. I'm just not very social. I have my core group of friends and none of them are really interested. I don't know who else to ask. Inviting people out to see a show isn't like inviting them to a house party. A house party is "hey, if you're bored, we're going to have some booze and food come and enjoy", whereas a show is like "if you're bored why don't you leave your home town and drive 30 miles and pay some money and buy expensive drinks to see music and a scene I know you aren't into anymore".

Anyways. I see me as somewhat of a liability because of this. I wish I could sell tickets, but the only people I know well enough to spend any money or time to see me in a show are my parents and husband. People in bands are expected to be able to bring people and I'm sure if either band wanted to they could find a more social, and better skilled harpist/keyboardist to work with them. Then again, I did say I like goth music in my craigslist ad so they couldn't possibly have been expecting a social butterfly!

In awesome news, this is the last show I will ever have to bring my awful 1 ton Korg to. I bought a 61 key korg (used and rather cheap) with unweighted keys. Thats all I need. Now with the electric harp all my instruments are small and light and easy/quick to move.

I can now put my 81 key korg back and get back to composition and technical piano excercises because I seriously need to work on even fast notes on the piano. I'm great with chords because most church accompaniment parts are block chords (kind of the opposite of the harp). I spent a lot of time on the harp getting arrpegios and moving parts even, and thought it would just transfer to the piano but apparently its a muscle memory problem not a mental rhythmic accuracy problem so I need to rinse and repeat on the piano this time.

In more awesome news, I've lost like 40 lbs. Just 40 more to go to get back to high school! I've reached an understanding with Larry that pretty much lets me keep to my pre-living-with-Larry-and-gaining-ridiculous-amounts-of-weight habits that kept me not fat. Now he doesn't cook so much and I don't feel obligated to eat dinner every night (which frees up time for kickboxing, dancing, and practicing and cuts out tons of calories).

Anyways. I'm pretty psyched about Dark Dissolve. I'm amazed at how far we've gotten and how good we sound after only being together for like 6 months. We'll just keep getting better and cleaner! And I love our sound and instrumentation. I can't really think of any other band like that sounds like us or has our musical style. Its awesome.