Tag: music

More Christmas, More Carols

We’re hosting our annual Christmas party today, so posting will be light. But please enjoy the latest releases from Vibe Patrol, being a spin on Good King Wenceslas as well as a new celebration of the Christmas season called The Word Descended. I like cheerful odes to the season as much as the next man, but the divine descent into darkness is the aspect of Christmas that strikes me as the most meaningful, and which I find the most compelling.

The dark carol was inspired by the verse inscribed in stone in a small Italian church where I used to live.

Il Verbo si fece carne e venne ad abitare in mezzo a noi.

The Word descended,
God made real.
A child is born
For His ordeal.
The Word descended,
Of flesh and bone,
The King will come
To claim His throne.
The Son of God,
The Sacrifice,
To free Mankind
He paid the price.

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This Very Night

Today marks the release of THIS VERY NIGHT by Cradle to Calvary, which is a new Christmas carol written in the traditional sense. Which is to say that it is a religious carol about the Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ rather than a cheerful song about Santa Claus, the local weather patterns, or urban shopping experiences. The version you can listen to here is an alternative and previously unreleased one, an acoustic take on the more traditional carol that was released today on iTunes and Spotify. Unauthorized subscribers can also listen to it and download it from UATV.

You can hear a preview of the released single, the Holy Call mix, by clicking on the image below. You can also listen to it on YouTube.

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The Word Descended

This is a very different sort of Christmas carol. It’s probably not at all to your taste, and certainly isn’t one you’ll hear any carolers ever sing, but it’s reflective of a Christmas sermon I heard many years ago by Greg Boyd, one which I’ve never forgotten, about the more somber aspects of Christmas. You can listen to it on UATV.

The Word Descended
God made real
A child is born
For his ordeal
A cleansing flame
The sacrifice
To free Mankind
He paid the price

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Good King Metal

Last night I introduced two new Christmas carols on the Darkstream, one original and one a very different take on a very traditional classic. Both are very much in line with what Owen and I discussed three years ago about the decades-long secular subversion of Christmas music and our desire to do something about that. They’ll be released to the public later this month, but UATV subscribers can download high-quality MP3s now.

Now roads are clear of snow
The world has changed completely
Yet there is one thing we know
A son was born uniquely
It’s Jesus Christ we celebrate
His coming is the reason
Everyone around the world
Welcomes Christmas season!

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This Very Night

About three years ago, Big Bear and I were talking about Christmas carols and lamenting the fact that so many of them, including several that were our favorites, were inspired by a spirit of anti-Christian subversion. Many secular carols, including a number of genuinely great songs such as Winter Wonderland and White Christmas, were written and pushed by Hollywood with the specific intention of replacing the traditional Christmas carols that are focused on the Christian purpose of the holy day, or “holiday” as we know it now.

I mean, Silver Bells has always been a particular favorite of mine since childhood, and yet, it’s essentially a song about an urban shopping experience. It’s not exactly The Messiah or Adeste Fideles.

I made a few desultory efforts at penning something, but never really got around to doing anything with it until recently. But now that AI music has added turbo warp speed to one’s compositional capabilities, I was able to finish a Christmas carol entitled This Very Night, and since Vibe Patrol follows the Psykosonik tradition of producing at least five very different mixes of every single, two of them are already up on UATV for subscribers to hear and download. I’ll be making the other mixes and additional new carols available over the next three weeks. The Christmas Bear mix is, of course, for the Bears, toe express my appreciation for Big Bear and his tremendous community, hence the one line that would tend to strike anyone else as a bit, shall we say, prosaic.

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Whiskey Dream (Wary Eyes)

A new song for UATV subscribers, one that’s well outside my preferred genres. This one is particularly interesting, I think, because I used AI to start the lyrics, then rewrote them from the basic structure and rhymes provided. There is one audio infelicity toward the end that I can’t fix at the moment, but I will address it when the relevant bug is sorted out. And yes, the last line of the chorus was indeed inspired by Yohami.

Give me a sign, give me just one glance
Tell me there might be a chance
Before you leave this place alone
Let’s make this whiskey dream our own

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In Which I Agree with Larry Correia

Fandom Pulse quotes The International Lord of Hate’s thoughts on the use of AI in writing fiction. Or rather, the lack of utility thereof.

AI can produce a TON of vapid soulless shit, but hey, so can modern Disney! In fact, when the creator doesn’t give a shit about his art, not only does the audience feel it, the audience gets pissed off. So if you want to produce tons of unenthusiastic shit product and roll the dice hoping it somehow sticks and makes a buck, great. But if you actually give a shit about what you’re saying, then just fucking SAY IT.

The Baen Books author isn’t the only superstar to comment on the topic.

Vox Day is an epic fantasy author and AI music advocate despite writing and recording three Billboard Top 40 Club hits with his techno band in the 1990s. He told Fandom Pulse when we asked his thoughts, “The reason AI text is not a threat to authors the way AI music is a threat to musicians and AI art is a threat to artists is that the amount of vision required for a novel, or even a short story, is orders of magnitude beyond that required for a three-minute pop song or a single 1024 x 1024 image. That’s why a few words are a sufficient prompt for the song or the image, but not for even an obviously inferior short story. Unlike the other AI applications, I haven’t found the various text systems to be a useful tool for producing text of an acceptable quality.”

On tonight’s Darkstream – exclusive to UATV – I’m going to provide a sensory demonstration of what I mean by the way that AI is already a potential replacement for musicians and artists, but cannot even begin to replace authors.

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Cheerleader Candy

My old friend and bandmate graciously gave me permission to release COSMIC TRIGGER in all of its manifold varieties as I see fit, so I’ll be putting some of the mixes up on Spotify soon. But UATV subscribers don’t have to wait, as they can listen to all three of the modern mixes already.

And yes, Cheerleader Candy is exactly what you suspect and fear it might be. It might be worth recalling that I’m from an award-winning 90’s techno band that never hesitated to release – never mind record – six or seven very different mixes per single. So if you haven’t subscribed to UATV yet, what more could you possibly be waiting for?

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In Which I Solve the Communication Problem

About this time of year, we start seeing the usual “how to handle family conflict” articles appearing everywhere. The good news is that all of them have been rendered completely unnecessary by the election of President Donald Trump. Here is one simple trick that will completely eliminate the desire of anyone, friend or family, to discuss any politics or current events at the dinner table.

All you have to do is to respond to any politically-charged question or even complaint about current events with the following:

“I’m not at all concerned about that. The God-Emperor Trump will solve all our problems and his Second Coming is going to create a new Golden Age thanks to his team of crack innovators and our friends in Russia and China.”

I guarantee no one will even try to discuss politics within earshot of you no matter which side of the political aisle they happen to be. And even in the unlikely event that they actually want to broach the subject of the 47th President of the United States of America with you after that, they’ll soon retreat as soon as you start singing Four More Years.

Hey hey hey nana nay
The Man is back in town!
Hey hey hey nana nay
The second time around!

For bonus points, you can show them the page on Unauthorized where you can play them their choice of SEVEN DIFFERENT MIXES of Four More Years. Better yet, offer to play them all seven!

And yes, as it happens, I am cranking up The Man is Back edition right now. Along with a cup of coffee, it’s a great way to start any day. Let’s enjoy the hopium while we can.

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