[ brimijoin ]

current news, incoherent ramblings, and works in progress:

8/1/06 - Show tonight, at the Bug Jar. Playing with Skeletonbreath and O'death, neither are bands to be missed even on this, the hottest day of the year. Doors at 8 pm, 18+ show.

4/25/06 - Back in business. Guitar came home. She's better than ever. So. Tonight I am playing a show at the A\V Space. Things should get rolling around 9 pm. I am playing with some great local acts - autumn in halifax and a wonderful. Promises to be a nice evening (even though it's unseasonably cold today). Debuting a new piece that even I have yet to hear. So come check it out.

2/02/06 - my god where does the time go? And my god where is Owen's guitar? The answer to both of these questions is as yet unclear to me. And I am chomping at the bit to get back to work on some new and somewhat different material. Now if my day job would just kindly step out of the way for a moment, everything would be fine. That's not something that seems to be happening any time soon, but I have high hopes for this coming summer. I plan on taking some time to record a new album, my first full length. So if all goes well, I will have some new things to put up here soon. In the meantime, for those of you who are newcomers, check out the collection of mp3's on the music page. Some sketches of newer songs and some selected older work - feel free to browse, download, give away to your friends, make cd's, DRM is bad for you and bad for me.

11/17/05 - long period of silence, I know. I have been missing my guitar something fierce and she's almost due to come home. New songs are on their way, busy with other things for now. I promise to post a new song here very soon.

10/03/05 - went to Syracuse this past Saturday to drop off my aging Martin for some work. Neck reset and partial refret... new pickup... it's work long overdue and it's going to make the guitar so much nicer to play and nicer to listen to, but I am sad because I know I will miss her very much. I don't know why I am explaining this on the site, but I guess it feels like it's going to last forever. That very evening, tho, I had the chance to record a great guitarist and singer named Frank Hoier who is spending his days these days in Brooklyn. Some good beer, old friends, new friends; it was a pleasure and an honor to do this with him. Hopefully he will put some more recordings up on his site because he's the real thing. I am going to take the liberty of posting one of the songs I recorded for him right here: neath the shade of the trees. This was done after many beers and just before we got busted by the new downstairs neighbors for "stomping". As you will hear, this is not exactly a "stomping" sort of song.

9/14/05 - my friend Pete is in the process of finishing up a dvd of video/music collaborations, he sent me this link today to a piece he did with one of the songs on the Alice EP: after hours. I think it's really quite nice.

9/14/05 - I keep listening to all possible melodies and keep hearing new things in there. It switches back and forth for me between a single melodic line, and pulses of two melodies. It's just like the pitch streaming hypothesis - we're hearing a single melody when the pitches of the tones are very close to one another in frequency and two melodies when they get further apart. It's hypnotic to me now to listen to it switch back and forth at random between the two. I swear I am going to get back to real music here soon. In the meantime, here's ghost litter with the brush work of Dennis Mariano and my reed organ in the middle.

9/1/05 - I am in the lab today and it's gorgeous outside.. one of the machines went down for a while, so I was tinkering around. That's the point, right? Anyway, here's a curiosity for those interested. When people talk about random noise, random sequences of numbers, they are almost always talking about pseudo-randomness. Any physical random number generator has a set of rules, complicated tho they may be, that govern how it creates a string of numbers. So in truth there is no such thing as a truly random number generator. I was always fascinated with the idea of randomness in music, and you could go both ways here - you could try and record 'random' background radation left over from the big bang to try to get more true randomness, or you could give up and go in the other direction, imposing an additional set of rules. I have here an example of a melody consisting of a 'random' sequence of tones of nine possible frequencies. But there is structure in here; each possible tone occurs exactly 9^3 times, each possible pair of these tones occurs 9^2 times, each possible triplet occurs 9 times, and each possible sequence of four tones occurs exactly once. In other words, given a nine-note scale in the key of C, this song contains within it all possible two, three, and four note melodies (that is, if you can forget for a minute that pauses and differing note durations change Everything... I trust that you can).

All possible songs, it's a large file, ~10MB, and it's over 16 minutes long. Hope it soothes rather than annoys.

8/23/05 - alright already... yes, I am still here. I have been busy the last couple weeks and that put me in the wrong sort of mood to work on recording music - but I assure all you out there that there is more on the way. In the Meantime, however, this will have to entertain you: Since over time I am sure that you faithful listeners have come to expect a certain level of quality from the songs, I have decided that I can go ahead and cut out the middle man here - namely the actual song - and simply present to you what I intend on doing and you can just imagine it:

Track One - I use a polished metal lighter to make a hammered dulcimer-type sound from the baby taylor... the descending progression becomes mingled with a rising bass line and then faint words that are hard to make out, but they gain shape and then you realize that oh yes, that's Owen singing. Ahh, Owen [swoon]. (This is my imagination too, remember).

Track Two - this one's a gentle little waltz.. plunk pluckpluck, plunk pluckpluck, then the swell of the reed organ, then a crackling hiss maybe it's lovingly modulated radio static, maybe it's bits and pieces from the run-out groove on side two of my ancient copy of revolver (pick one, or it might be both)... two intermingled voices at times consonant, at times dissonant... it's a wash of older things and that's about all I have right now.

Like I said, this is just going to have to tide you over. -O.

8/2/05 - oh dear me. I guess I don't know what to say about the show at the California Brew Haus. There were some hurt feelings, apparently. But I was very pleased with how it went in spite of the small (but so attentive) audience. Thanks to all who attended - I was so pleased to play for you, you were treated to a sound guy who really knew what he was doing, and you got to see an uncharacteristically relaxed me playing well. I wish I had gotten a recording of the show. But I didn't. Anyway, in keeping with my therapy of releasing things before they are done, here's a rough cut of fireflies as done with a band (the truly excellent guys from Lights and Keys: Dennis on drums, Adam on bass, and Nick at the helm). I am holding back on the new version of ghost litter despite the gorgeous brush work by Dennis that I already have recorded, because I am waiting for an upright bass sound to float my way. Anyway, thanks again to all.

7/20/05 - The California Brew Haus show is on - This Saturday at 10 pm, 402 W Ridge Rd. I am opening for Soundbox. I will be playing for about an hour, some new material, lots of older things... should prove to be an interesting evening.

7/8/05 - upcoming show, playing at the California Brew Haus on the 23rd of July. More details to follow.

6/21/05 - thanks to everyone who came out to the Monty's Krown show on Friday - it's good to see friendly faces in the audience when you are locked in agonizing combat with a disgruntled PA system. Thanks also to those who came to the A|V Space on Saturday, you were the luckier ones. Anyway, meant alot to me, see everyone soon.

6/15/05 - the sets are set for the Friday Monty's Krown show. Things kick off around 10 with the Missing Planes, then it's me at around 11 or 11:30, then Hinkley round out the evening. I never managed to finish the instruction manual for how to kiss a girl. So that's just going to have to wait. Hopefully people will be able to soldier on without explicit instructions. I trust that they will.

6/14/05 - I changed that annoying drum machine high hat sound on fireflies. Made me more pleased with it. I also recorded something new. This one's an older poem that I found in a box and realized was the same song as some new guitar work that I was doing. It's called ghost litter for now - I am going to add a pump organ part in the empty space after the second verse where it's just guitar.

6/13/05 - upcoming show, that makes two for the upcoming weekend. Saturday June 18th, 9 pm, at the A|V Space, I am going on first and am followed by Ben Fino-Radin, Marc Charles McNulty, Tinnitusstimulus, Breechloaders, Crush the Junta, and Nuuj - promises to be a great evening - it's a benefit for the A|V Space, so there's a $5 cover. 8 Public Market, 2nd Floor.

6/1/05 - upcoming show: Monty's Krown again, Friday June 17th. This time the set is lovingly sandwiched between Hinkley and the Missing Planes who are from Buffalo. For those who have been listening, I am planning on playing all the new material that I have been posting here. I may also debut a song that I have been working on for what seems like forever now, called 'instruction manual for how to kiss a girl', that is if I can figure out all the particulars in time. When more show details come my way I will list the times for the sets.

5/25/05 - before I go to bed tonight, I am putting something new up for anyone to listen to. Guitar, drum machine again. It's called Rube Goldberg. I am going to sleep soundly knowing this is at least sketched out. I plan on adding some bass and then wouldn't it be nice if I found a drummer?

5/10/05 - I woke up before my alarm this morning, something that rarely happens. I started messing around on my new baby taylor (birthday present to myself)- then I recorded this. I thought I would post it before I head to work:.seven holidays ....It's not like me at all to do this and I have to admit I still feel strange about not fiddling with lyrics and chords for months on end. I recorded the guitar part and then just started singing. I suppose this is how you are supposed to write a song - instead of worrying it to death. Anyway, it's just a simple little song that I think I am becoming very fond of.

4/26/05 - back at work on new material. I tried out a couple new things at the most recent show, they both seemed to go over pretty well, so I have recorded one of them and posted it here. Just using a drum machine for now and there's no other instrumentation other than the guitar, but you get the picture. Suggestions about where to go with this would certainly be welcome. As long as they aren't unhelpful suggestions of the 'sticking it somewhere' variety, that is.

3/27/05 - upcoming show. I am playing a short set before Lights and Keys and Tiger Cried Beef on Thursday April 7th. Show is at Monty's Krown and it starts at 8:30 pm. No really. Well, I say 8:30 for all the slackers I know, in fact I am going on at 9. But since we are trying hard to have this one be not too late, you will miss me if you are later than 9:30. Lights and Keys I know little about, but I am looking forward to hearing them because I like their name. TCB is a project of wildly incestuous (musically speaking anyway) local star Keith Parkins, it's great smart stuff. Come enjoy something good - and you are excused if you come only because the Krown has the best beer in town.

1/8/05 - work on the Alice EP is complete - it was a large undertaking and I was glad to be done, but I am very happy with the results. I wonder if anyone else will be. As a direct result of the endless agonizing over that set of recordings I have started in on a set of catchy simple pop songs as a nice break. What I did was to give in to all the impulses I typically have when writing a song.

brimijoin is:

owen brimijoin - lyrics, music, vocals, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, pump organ, sounds and mistakes

zander brimijoin - image manipulation, design, lyrics (sometimes), video

guests include:

ning yu - played the gorgeous steinway at the eastman school on Alice 3.

kate colby - poems and short stories

contact information:

owen@brimijoin.com