Saturday, December 22, 2012

The Influence of the Subconscious

I am fascinated with the subconscious, especially its influence on the creative process and how it manifests in dreams.

At age 14, I read a bunch of 'dream interpretation' books (spoiler alert: don't waste your money) and in high school / college I did additional reading on them and became interested in what you could call the unlocking of the power of dreams and / or the subconscious.  One theory involving this 'unlocked power' is that your subconscious can answer larger-issue questions you might have.  Trying to figure out what to say to that special someone?  Think about it before you go to sleep and you may just dream of a solution. In a creative rut?  Think of some ideas that need a 'push' as you drift into slumber and your subconscious may give them the kick they need.  Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comic touches on this in one of the earlier issues when the Lord of Dreams is in a library.  What library? Why, the library of all the great books that were written in dreams but not in reality - millions of unwritten tomes left to the realm of the subconscious. This is the core premise of the movie Inception as well (and many others) - inspiration via a dream can change the direction of your life.

A little further along my reading I found a comic called 'Rare Bit Fiends'.  In the 21-issue run of the comic, artist Rick Veitch conducts a bit of a dream experiment - he's going to not only keep a dream journal (a consensus must to harness the power of your dreams), he's going to illustrate his dreams as much as he can once he wakes up.  The first few issues are sometimes funny, sometimes bizarre and always interesting (the way all of our dreams are, with the caveat that other people find *your* dreams about 20% as interesting as you do). After a while though, a few funky things happen: his dreams start to get longer and more epic and he retains a lot more of what he dreamt.  Which is pretty crazy right? It definitely adds some credence to training yourself how to dream (and also, I suppose reaping the benefits).

I've done this myself as well and tried some of these methods. A few years back I had what I thought could be a good hip-hop track that needed the right beat/drums to to really put it over the top. I dreamt. In the dream, I was approached by "myself", and "I" went over the my record collection, pulled out a specific record and said "Track 3, Side 2".  Bam, I wake up.  I run over to my record collection, pull the record out of the jacket, put it on the turntable and put the needle on Track 3, Side 2. And you know what?

The beat sucked.

Well, I shouldn't say sucked. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either.  For a while there I actually thought the beat would work - I mean it came to me in a dream!  But after about a week I realized it really wasn't a good beat idea at all - and the track sat (and still sits) unfinished. What's up with that subconscious?

It wasn't the last time something would come to me in a dream. I've had story ideas and music ideas come to me (there's even one in progress that seems like it could work).  Yet the totality of my creative 'output' from dreams has ranged from the unproductive to the flat-out bizarre. There are at essence two ways to perceive dream content: (1) they provide meaningful clues to a better existence (Inception et al), or (2) they're a brain dump where the subconscious gets rid of a lot of stuff that was kicking around and it doesn't have a use for.  I'm leaning more toward the second option at this point.

Luckily stuff that pops into your head (as a creative person) is much better when you're conscious.... right?

Why just recently a really catchy riff came to me that I liked a lot, to the point where I couldn't get it out of my head.  I hummed it over and over, ready for that moment when I could sit at the mixing board and record the riff for posterity (and build it into a song at a another time).

One day I'm walking around the living room and I blurt out the riff. My girlfriend's kids - totally in rhythm with my riff - finish it by singing lyrics to it!

Except the lyrics they sang weren't mine, or even original.  They were lyrics to a REALLY well-known pop song, and on top of it a pop song I didn't like.  See, without knowing it I took a hook from that song, changed a note or two, changed the timing of it and thought it was something original.  It wasn't.  My brain had succesfully executed a funky cover version of a pop song I don't like and passed it off as originality. Whoops!

Suffice to say, the next time I wake up from a seemingly inspiring idea from a dream I might just keep the pen and paper right where they're at and go right back to sleep.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Pacific Rim Trailer - if you don't know what 'Kaiju' means....

The first Pacific Rim trailers are up, and while this blog isn't meant to be a news site or anything you need to see it!



Something I really like as we move forward: in my travels talking about the comic book / soundtrack I'm a part of (Kodoja), a suprisingly large amount of people are unfamiliar with the word 'kaiju'.  I've been stopped frequently for people to ask what that means - and these are people that know their stuff! I didn't realize it but it's quite a niche word.

I think that's about to change - 'Pacific Rim' is going to great lengths to introduce this word to a much larger audience. My hunch is by the end of 2013 the word will be thrown around by all kinds of people, casual fans and diehards alike.

Er, unless this is real footage and the apocalypse is coming. And kaiju are the reason.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Godzilla vs Megalon: Megalon's got beats!

Decibel Magazine has a feature on their website called 'justify your sh*tty taste' where they get someone to write about a record they hold near and dear (but the public generally pans) - if it's any indication their first one ever was about the record 'St. Anger' by Metallica.

I don't think my taste sucks (um... right?), but f**k it, I'm about to justify the music from the movie Godzilla fans love to hate, Godzilla vs Megalon!  (To be honest I even kinda like the movie, but that's another story for another day.) What I hear most when people talk about the music in 'Megalon' is it's (1) a departure from the classically themed soundtracks, (2) it has the 'new' Godzilla theme that was short-lived in the 70s that's also heard in Godzilla vs Smog Monster / Hedorah.

I can see where people are coming from in terms of the 'new-sounding theme' there, but my defense of that is it was the early 70s - everyone was experimenting with funky/jazzy sounds. Plus, at the time the franchise was almost 20 years old and was in serious trouble of continuing due to the decline of the movie industry in Japan. They were trying something new! Which of course explains why it's a departure from the classically-themed soundtracks as well, but to me that departure is what gives it its staying power.

Now, full disclosure: if you're not aware of this I am in a funk band and know my way around hip-hop and the concept of diggin' for records, breaks and beats, so my angle at why I love this soundtrack is it's got beats! There are tracks you could legitimately sample, chop up and turn into bangin' hip-hop tracks like 'Kidnap 1', the intro to 'Underwater Kingdom', 'Crisis in the Container', and the ultra-rugged 'Defense Team Takes Action'.  I'm trying to say that Megalon has some samples for dat azz, basically.

Also worth mentioning is the delightfully cheesy, kinda funky, totally-ripping-off Ultraman jawn 'Jet Jaguar Punch-punch-punch', complete with male vocals prevalent in a  lot of the Tokusatu stuff of the era (Ultraman, Combattler, Inazuman).  Whatever, act like it's not stuck in your head after you listen to it!

There is a 16-volume series of great instrumentals called 'Dusty Fingers' that features a lot of funky, jazzy tracks you'd hear sampled in hip-hop (with a heavy leaning towards library records). Godzilla vs Megalon sounds like it easily could have contributed to a volume of Dusty Fingers, given the sparse, funky soundscapes that weave through the record. If I didn't tell you what this record was before playing it for you I think you'd totally dig it... it's just that it seems out of place to some since it's from a Godzilla film. Godzilla purists may not dig it, but damn. Ain't nothing wrong with Godzilla being into the funk.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

San Diego Comic Con 2012 in retrospect

A few weeks back, I went to San Diego Comic Con 2012 - not as a creator but as an attendee!  I've worked (and will work) my share of Comic Cons from the small press side of the table and Comic Con remains as the one time where I can be more of a fan than anything else. I love it not only for the experience and sheer insanity but also for study - what tables do I stop at? What grabs my attention? What do I care about? If I can figure out my own head and what works for me as a comic fan it should help me as a creator / bidnessman.

That doesn't stop me from geeking out over everything I possibly can, though; this year I had passes to only two days (Thursday and Saturday), so the goal was to make them count.

Highlights:

First order of business was to hit the floor the second it opened and speed-walk (run?) my way to the Bluefin booth to grab the SH Monster arts 'Comic Con Explosion' Godzilla (now happily sitting on my toy shelves).  Oh, and if you haven't seen the King Ghidorah figure coming out soon from SH MonsterArts IT IS DOPE! There was a groovy moment at the Bluefin booth where I was showing my girlfriend's kids the Godzilla figures, with them rattling off all the characters seamlessly.  A woman standing next to me taking a photo of the Godzilla toys took a pause, removed the camera from her face, turned to me and said "You're bringing them up right."

After that everything was a blur of panels on the business / small press side of comics and walking the floor in-between (along with meeting some people I've only corresponded with, which was great).  Here's the super-condensed version of the panels for fellow creators: work hard, make something good and don't be a dick (all panels), if you're thinking of making a vinyl toy...don't (Vinyl toy panel), Comic podcasters are funny people (Podcasting all-stars panel).

As for the floor, this being my second year at SDCC I wasn't as overwhelmed. The floor was much easier to navigate, with many vendors in the exact same physical location year to year. In terms of buying from the Comic Con vendors, if you know your prices you can get as good (if not a better) deal through ebay or the like. I did get a few prints from Artist Alley, one of which was a pleasant surprise; I had seen a print at Comic Con 2011 only to find out it wasn't for sale as it was a special commission. I mentioned to the artist she should make prints and what do you know a year later she did! Advantage: me (disadvantage: my wallet).

One evening I did what turned out to be the highlight of the weekend: the Walking Dead Escape at Petco Park.  If you don't know, it was a simulation of the zombie apocalypse, with you having to navigate your way through the undead without getting contaminated (my favorite part was the repeated warnings to NOT BRING WEAPONS along with you on the run, apparently they didn't want any baseball bat rampages at Petco that didn't involve Padres pitching). If you ever want to know your top run speed as a human being, participate in this.  While you know it's all fake in your head, the second a zombie starts rushing at you instincts kick in and you run the course at a speed between "really f**king fast" and "sheer panic". Plus I now know how to handle things when the actual zombie apocalypse happens! Dry run, suckers.

On the cultural absorption tip, the highlight for me was grabbing a DVD collecting all the episodes of the Japanese Spider-man TV series - I had seen a few, so to have them all in one place was a sweet bonus.  If you're not aware of what it is, let me give you an idea: take Spider-man, except instead of having him be Peter Parker make him a dude who spends the day riding a motorcycle around. Oh, and he pilots a huge transforming robot. Which he tends to use at the end of episodes, after the monster of the week blows up to Giant Monster size. Did I mention the backing music is ridiculously funky?  I'm not sure what watching these episodes is going to result in, but the process sure is fun. Change Leopardon!

Friday, July 20, 2012

Cultural Absorption

In an old issue of the Comic Buyer's Guide, writer Peter David laid out (I think it was) 100 tips on how to be a writer, about 40 of which were simply - "Read." The point being, the best way to develop as a writer is to absorb the product of other writers.

Creators all start out as kind of a demented type of fan you know?  Someone who at once loves a certain type of culture yet also feels he or she can add something of their own flavor to the overall cultural lexicon.  And over time, through years of trial and error (and practice of the craft) and presumably huge amounts of cultural absorption, someday we may get our wishes and add our piece to the huge puzzle.

I aim to take in as much culture as possible, letting it bounce around the empty space in my head for a while, then hopefully synthesizing it with everything else in there to have something (hopefully) new and groovy come out of it. After that, you bring other people into the mix (in my case, both the other guys in Big Pimp Jones and the Kodoja artists) that's when shit can take off exponentially.  You really never know how you're going to end up processing and synthesizing everything, you just appreciate the journey and see where it takes you.

Here's just one example - on a whim in spring 2008 I took an Akira Kurosawa film class to get an appreciation for his deeper body of work (I had only seen one of his films at the time), plus I had a lot of spare time on my hands. When I heard the opening music of the film 'Yojimbo' - that part about one minute in where the tempo slows down, I thought to myself 'damn, this shit is HIP-HOP right here!'As excited as I was about the films, I was really excited about the music. A couple days, a couple dollars and a couple visits from the postman later the band was versed in Kurosawa film music, which triggered songwriting - specifically we created a sort of concept-album-Samurai-epic-meets-hip-hop record.  After working on a few tracks things kind of stalled a little bit on that front and we agreed we'd revisit it whenever. 

Flash forward to November 2010 and I'm practicing my guitar lines for a Big Pimp Jones studio session the next day. I had re-watched some Godzilla films a few weeks prior I was like 'wait a minute... if we keep the orchestration we've been working on, take away the hip-hop lyrics AND add live drums AND add funky guitar, we've got a funked-out Kaiju soundtrack!' By thinking of it as a hip-hop record we had obscured the type of record it truly intended to be. I called up the other guys in the band and we were all hype, so hype that the thought of making THIS record almost overshadowed the session we were working on the next day!

After that, the record (Terror Mountain Showdown) came together quickly.  Once it was complete (and we realized we didn't want to associate it with any existing kaiju characters, especially kaiju characters owned by companies that file tons of lawsuits), we were like damn, why stop here? Let's make our own monster and just tell a new story! The road toward Kodoja the comic was laid out. What started with a dope-ass orchestral break in a Kurosawa movie turned into music then morphed into even more than that. Everything has a possible role, and you're never sure what that role is going to be.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Introduction: Yes, another g*ddamn blog

... So I was sitting around today, and it hit me - you know what the world needs? Another blog! It's not like there are any of them around or anyth... oh snap. It turns out there actually are some blogs out there already huh? Well, whatever. I guess I can't let that deter me.

What do I do? I'm the writer for the comic book Kodoja: Terror Mountain Showdown as well as the guitarist in the funk band Big Pimp Jones (we have some releases on Freestyle Records and RecordBreakin Music, the most recent of which is the Kodoja: Terror Mountain Showdown CD+45, a blend of funk and giant monster soundtracks).

What will this blog be about? It'll loosely tie into the creative process, funk music, kaiju, Tokusatsu, comics, all kinds of other stuff, inspiration and the things that drive it. For example, right now I'm inspired to throw things because the Bill Withers record I'm listening to is skipping on my favorite track, so hopefully the 'inspiration' will pass and I don't have to chuck something across the room at 72 mph (my last measured pitch speed).

Why is this blog called "inside the jaws of kaiju"? Because it's not just about the creative process, it's specifcally about mine, playboy! Kaiju will figure prominently, not just what I'm writing (both music and comics) but what culture is being absorbed that will likely go into it in the future.  By no means is this a news site, it's just the thoughts of someone creating something of their own. Hopefully you'll enjoy the ride.