grooveoftheday

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New Album Available Now!

Hey! I know I never finished tracking them on my blog on here, but I finished my RPM album, and you can listen to it now! I might do a remastered version at some point (the mixes are a bit all over the place due to speed), but for now, check it out below or on Bandcamp by clicking HERE!

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Groove 4: The Hero's Return to Pudding Town (Mimpo's Theme)

HERE’S THE BANDCAMP LINK!!!

“Numbah 4- already having trouble. This one was based off a little loop I had lying around in an old FL Studio file from... who knows when. I liked it more than anything I was working on yesterday, so I added drums, a melody/bouncy fake pizzicato part, and an intro and it was basically there! Then just a little bit of effects and dynamics to keep it interesting- the painting was fun, because it's watercolor, acrylic gouache, pen, and makeup that Rachel was throwing out. There WILL be another Groove tonight- believe it!....?....?!”

Taken from Bandcamp!!! Justice McWrittenByMeAwhileAgo

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Groove 3: SLUMP... (ambient mess I made a week ago)

Hey! Sorry I haven’t been updating on here- here’s groove three, and here’s the description I wrote for it like a week ago?: ”Ooooh boy- I fell asleep making this one... that's some real GotD shit there. I tried to make something more exciting earier, and then I made dinner and just felt kinda tired, so what you get is this ambient piece inspired by all the different loose fans and motors at work at buzz up against stuff. Very few notes and instruments in this- essentially a lot of organs playing B. I'm gonna go to bed now because I have an early therapist call- night night.”

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Groove of the Day RPM 2: Wishi Washi the Running Guy in Distraction Town

(Sorry, this is a few days late and copied from Bandcamp- we’ll see how it reposts to Tumblr?) Yoooooo- let's see how Bandcamp do? Here's Groove 2 of this crazy ass month (going up on the 6th...?!). I started this one on the second and this one- very opposite of the first- is pure computer, baby! There's samples, sure, but it's all sequenced and automated, no performance necessary. I watched a recent video by Adam Neely talking about 9 times (9/8, 9/4, etc.) and it got excited to try to write in 9 again- I wanted to leave the divisions a bit ambiguous, which is why the central figure of the song is just 8th notes with no real accents, but the main drums sorta suggest a 9/8 thing while the marching snares are kinda a 4/4, 4/4, 1/4 thing, so who knows....?  Thematically, this one is kinda how I've felt about GotD this season so far- I like it, but I am very distracted by other stuff (like my Kickstarter:kck.st/2WvFXfq) or the finding time to paint, like how I went into the woods for a few hours yesterday just to paint and think about my grandma- anyways, this song is kinda long, so hopefully you like it....?  I Do Not Care If You Don't-  Justice McDon'tAtMe

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THE RETURN OF GROOVE OF THE DAY (with a song named Ming Mong)

SURPRISE, BUTTHOLES!!! It’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!! Groove of the Day makes its not-very-triumphant return, as my RPM album for 2019. WHAT IS GROOVE OF THE DAY?! Great question, fictional person! It’s a a thing I did a long time ago where I made a song every day and put it on Tumblr and then told everyone to listen (they did not). It started a little over 5 years ago, and now it’s back in a seasonal form- this season is for the RPM Challenge!

WAIT, WHAT IS THAT, AND HOW DOES ANY OF THIS WORK? You’re very nosy, fake person, but I’ll explain: the RPM Challenge is a month long challenge to make an album in the month of February, and this year I’m gonna try to do Groove of the Day, wherein I make a song every day, for that!

AREN’T YOU… PRETTY BEHIND??? YES! But, I’ll catch up- I intend to have 28 songs by the end of the month, so get ready for some days with multiple grooves.

TELL ME ABOUT THIS FIRST ONE! FINALLY- this, like the very first groove, is a bit of an unassuming song that sneaks up on you, but this time I did all with acoustic instruments, whereas before it was all electronic. This has 4 tracks of baby guitar (2 tapping, one chordal, and one melody), some melodica, and that’s it! I added some effects to make it sound a bit more dreamy and weird, but I wanted to keep it simple at first. This song follows your classic ABABCtilldeath structure, and is all based around a tapping riff I came up with when I wanted to tune my guitar weird. The melody feels a little… simple to me, but truth be told I sorta forget how to write songs…? It’s been awhile, gang. I had Rachel name it, and continued the streak of “not knowing how we used to do this” by just yelling “MING MONG!” at me- I’m calling it a prelude because I intend to use a lot of these elements in a bigger song this month… maybe for the next groove?! Oh, and Phone It In (the series where I make the groove entirely on my phone) is back because FL Mobile friggin’ RIPS, dude! OK, I’m Tired- Goodbye??? Justice McHowDoIEndThese?

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It's A Date!

Hey! So, not a ton to report artistically, but something BIG events wise! I HAVE A DATE FOR MY GALLERY OPENING! The details are still up in the AiR, but my artist in residence program is near its close and I wanted to get the date out there for the show as soon as I can. So, the night of September 14th, come to Industry Lab and see what I've been working on all summer, hear some music, and I don't know- there will probably be food and stuff! OK, y'allz been warned- get your asses there!

SOME UPDATES 1. Prints are HERE! Remember when I made that painting last week and ordered prints? I got them today! So, this is no longer preorder, and now just "Order"! Get 'em while the gettin's good though, because I didn't order a lot!

2. Mini Paintings I am very nearly done with these! In case you forgot, I painted the relatively large painting Catpartment, and decided that I wanted to make a mini-painting for each of the 29 windows (which is coincidentally, the age I am!)- I've been doing some different ones, and I think I only have 6ish left, but I've attached a video of one that I'm particularly proud of, because it has an interactive element!  

3. Decordova and Making My Own Paints Last Friday, Rachel and I wanted another beach day in honor of me being an unemployed bum, so we decided to try Walden Pond! Something in my heart told that we would be near the Decordova, which is a museum I really like, is 40 minutes from my house, and I haven't been to in.... 6 years? So, we went there, and saw some really terrific works in the sculpture gardens and on the inside part; if you are in the New England area, seriously consider coming soon because the Sculpting with Air exhibit is wicked impressive and being surrounded by the work of Jong Oh was a uniquely upsetting and arresting experience for both Rachel and I. Something about the delicateness and most minimal form of structure possible made the normal "white gallery room that has clearly been repainted 1000 times" into a fractured and horrifically sad and fragile world. Ian McMahon's work is beautiful and daunting too, so the whole exhibit gets 12 thumbs up from me. The sculpture park was still amazing, and seeing the development of "Big, with rift" has been really cool over the last nearly decade of my existence, but all this made me really want to do more with sculpture, so hopefully that'll become more of my work once I finish this residency. Anyway, while we were there, we visited the gift shop and I found Natural Earth Paints, which seemed like a pretty safe, cost effective, and eco-friendly way to get into something I've been wanting to do forever now, which is make my own paints from medium and raw pigments. So far, I've mostly just done oils, but I'm looking forward to doing egg tempera, fresco, gouache and all sorts of wacky stuff as time goes on! More Soon!!! Justice McLaterDudes

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AiR Gallery Opening Show (ADD A REALLY COOL NAME FOR THIS LATER!)

HEY! My gallery opening for my Artist in Residence has a date: September 14th. Right now, we know that it will be at Industry Lab in the Event Space, there will be live music by my family, and there will be some weird art! Come, look at stuff, feel weird, and listen to things! I'll update this as I have more info, but it is open to the public, so get your ass on over here!

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Whoopsilence

Heeeeeeeeeeey gang- I neglected my blog (and kinda the internet) for 2 weeks. Sowwy! Let's try this again. So, getting it out of the way- I don't have a job anymore. I was laid off just over a week ago. It's strange, but I'm doing alright with it. Second, after taking the better part of a week off, I've been spending a lot of time at Industry Lab recently, and I have some updates to share!

1. Catpartment and Windows So, I finished the Catpartment painting shortly after the last post, and then hit another lull: what to do next? Is Catpartment really related to my project about connectivity and complication and containment and all that, or is it just a nice painting of a kitty that's a building? To solve that problem (in my own head- no one else felt this way, or said anything about it), I decided that I would make a small painting/drawing/mixed media piece for each window.... aka, 29 mini-works! Yay! Idiotic! So, I started these while I had food poisoning, hence the first ones being gross and insane. Since then, I've slowly been whittling away at it, and as of today, I have 16 done! Take a look through the slideshow to see... most of them. 

2. To-Do List This is a mechanical idea I've had for a long time, but a relatively new conceptual realization. Mechanically, I knew I wanted some corrugated cardboard, with some ground absorbent/fiber paste to make fake paper with a watercolor image, and then some stuff around it. I finally figured out that I wanted it to resemble a cluttered desk or vanity mirror with notes and scraps and drawings all around it, and then a broken up guy who is being spread too thin, as I definitely was before. So, I painted the main image, but now I'm wondering if I should do a painted border before the scraps in the style of an Illuminated Manuscripts- what do you think? Write in!

3. Where Does the Deer Go? So, I made a deer out of clay and painted him, and then didn't know where he would go. I decided to have him live on a shelf on a painting on wood. But, I didn't know what to paint on the wood, so I left it alone for.... a month?! Today, feeling sick of waiting and cramped for time, I decide to just go for it and start. I might redo it, but here's some sketches and beginning ideas- basically, I want a dark, alien world with a big plant where the deer can live on a pedal. 

4. SHAMELESS PLUG! Real quick- I made one of the mini paintings based on a bit about Riddles.com in the latest MBMBaM episode. It got a lot of likes in the MBMBaM Facebook group, so I'm hoping to make prints for it, and if you preorder one HERE it would really help me out!  

I'm Very Sleepy! Justice McSoI'mGonnaGoToBed

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WIP City, Population: This Guy

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeey Guys- So, it's been a little over a week, and you're probably expecting the announcement of "I finished this big thing!"... or that might just be me wanting that from myself. Regardless of who wants or who is asking, that is not what this post is about. So, let's talk about what's where and why.

First, the Portrait Tree: I've finished all twelve portraits, which can be seen HERE. Now, onto the part with the tree- this requires making a 3D tree to glue the portraits onto. This is challenging for a number of reasons, but for me the hardest part is my chosen medium- I COULD just sculpt it with papier-mâché (I had to copy that because I STILL don't know how to type accents), and it would probably look good, BUT I want to 3D print it. I want to do this for a few reasons, one of the most notable being.... I GOT A NEW PRINTER! I finally made a decision and got a CR-10S; it is not perfect, but when things go well I'm really happy with the quality and the huge build volume. So, yeah- I want to put that to use for this, along with this idea I have about this project wherein (without giving too much away) a reproducible form of the scaffolding would be essential. However, I'm not the best at 3D modeling, so tree sculpting is going slow- after several failed attempts, I've made a base I'm pretty happy with and a trunk I'm.... ok with. So, I'll have to fix that, but then it's onto branches. The plan is to print in parts so that things can be fitted together later and have a flat print surface and hopefully minimize support material. Here's a half-size version of the current design with gross green PLA:

So, those are still very much "in the works, which sucks because I was really hoping that would be done by now. 

I'm still trying for Rochelle Salt stuff (more on that later), but I'm having trouble forming big, usable crystals, so.... not great there. If anyone knows anything about forming large crystals relatively quickly that is relevant to home chemistry, please let me know!

I've also been trying to figure out what to do next. I have a bunch of scraps of things started, but I don't know where to go with most of them. Last Thursday, I finally painted this deer on the right that I sculpted a few weeks ago. I decided to go without eyes because 1. I've been very self-conscious about how EVERYTHING I paint has eyes (my therapist brought it up and now I feel weird about it) and 2. it felt very Annihilation this way (I won't spoil anything, but GO RENT OR BUY ANNIHILATION IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT!!!! Also, read the whole trilogy and Borne because all Jeff Vandermeer has done for the last few years is describe the most beautifully horrific and destroyed biology). Once I had the deer done, I needed a world for it, and that's where I got stuck for this project. My idea right now is to use a tiny piece of wood as a platform/shelf for the creature, jutting out of a big painting that is a world that maybe the little buddy is too evolved for, or very different from....? I took a 24x21"ish (it is not a perfect rectangle) piece of wood from the shop at Industry Lab and gesso'd the crap out of it, but now I'm afraid to to do anything because I don't know what to do and I've never done anything that big. I'd love some suggestions of where this deer should be if you have any. 

 While hemming and hawing over that piece on Sunday, I had a panic attack and decided to do/start two other things that may bear fruit. First, I made my own scratchboard for that cool scratch art look (I might post a guide on how to do this if people want), and then made a little slogan drawing with it: 

Lastly, I did a sketch last week of a cat that was a building, and decided I was in love with it enough to try and paint it on a 16x20" canvas. It' going slow, but I'm trying to do it far more "painterly" than I might have in the past, and doing some weird play with color where most things have sort of a shimmery quality where you can't really tell what color or type of color it should be. I'm hoping that I can finish him tonight, but in the means.... here's where I'm at and the sketch:

Talk To Me- I Like It! Justice McSometimes

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Starting to Blog My Residency.... Halfway Through

Hey guys! So, I had this idea about 3 weeks back that I was going to use my site to make a blog of my time as an Artist in Residence at Industry Lab, and low and behold.... I'M FINALLY DOING IT! It couldn't be a better time to start too, because I am exactly halfway through my 3 months today. YIKES!

I've been really enjoying my time there, but also very much feeling the "only 6 weeks left" thing at this point. In the beginning, it was pretty tricky to log time with Rachel's birthday, shows, Jacob visiting, the 4th of July, and earlier this week it was my birthday (29.... more yikes!), but I'm trying to stay positive and use my remaining time as best as I can (I say this on a day that I mostly sat around the house and futzed with my new 3D printer). 

I wanted to keep this first post shortish, so I'll use the rest of it to show what I am currently working on there: The Portrait Tree (a working title)!  Allow me to explain: after finishing the Triptych with the organ guys, I felt very good about myself for about a day, and then terrified because I wasn't sure what to do next. I spent a couple days just nervously painting nonsense, and then- whilst anxiously staring at my 48-color box of Liquitex Basics- realized that I hadn't used but maybe half the colors in it. I decided that this was a crime, so I grabbed a sheet of plastic ("It's 2018, we paint on plastic now, dad!") and a RNG app, picked 4 colors at random, and started painting. The first one looked like this: I've now done this 10 times, with one of them being scrapped and the colors being reshuffled into the mix because it looked like Christmas-y garbage, leaving me with 9 "good" ones (I might also redo another), and thus 3/4 of the way done with the portraits part (48 colors, 4 colors each, 12 combinations to exhaust all the colors uniquely once). THEN- using the new printer, I'm going to print some sort of branched, tree/anemone-esque structure and glue all the portraits to that, thus yielding a predominantly 2D work that must be explored in 3D! I'm very excited for it, but still have a good amount of work left, so if you have any ideas or words of encouragement on this or future pieces, leave them in the comments! BLOG'D! Justice McThereWillBeAnotherSoonIPromise P.S.- Here are a few others to give you a taste:  

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I Was On A Podcast!

Hi everyone, great news! In September I was interviewed for my very favorite music podcast, Composer Quest! I had been emailing Charlie (the creator) for awhile, and he happened to be passing through New England on his tour, which is an area I live in. It was a ton of fun and a huge honor, and I even got to make a song for it!  You can listen to the episode HERE! (it is very long, but my section starts about 37 minutes in): http://www.charliemccarron.com/2016/11/tour-4-songwriting-new-england/ ...and you can hear the song based on Kryptos HERE!: https://soundcloud.com/justiceeatstrees/kryptos-the-hunger-that-does-not-cease Also, if you’d like to get the songs we talk about and that get played in the episode, check out my Bandcamp and the Zanois Bandcamp: https://justiceeatstrees.bandcamp.com/album/parts https://zanois.bandcamp.com/ YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!! Justice McHaveAGreatNight/CoolJobWorld

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I started a new blog for a less creative project that I can actually handle right now! GotD will hopefully return for some time at some point, but right now it is just not something I can do, because my brain is very bad. So, Watch My Dumb Friends And I Play Final Fantasy In A Bad Way Instead! Justice McTightTightTight

Well, maybe… but only about the dumb worms that chew on Glovey, my favorite Final Fantasy character.

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My Computer Lives!

My computer has a shiny new hard drive and is slowly getting back all my important programs, plugins, and samples, which means………….. GROOVE OF THE DAY WILL BE BACK SOON! I still need some time to get old stuff up on Youtube, make a new banner, figure out my living situation for the next year, and also probably clean my room, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut…………. we close, y’allzzzz! In The Mean Time, Send Me A Bunch Of Random Nonsense To Animate- Justice McIInventedANewGame

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UPDATEZZZZ-

New Year, New Stuff!

Hey guys! I just wanted to give a quick update- it is a new year after all! Last year was a neat one- I did a lot of different things (tour, more art, etc.), and I had some depression and things to deal with that changed my workflow and interests for the projects I was expecting to do. However, I still feel like it was a pretty good year full of learning and such. Also, I know Groove of the Day has been down for quite some time now, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut- IT WILL RETURN IN EARLY 2016!!!! …not right now though. The month of January will be spent working on my chops on some new instruments (I have a trumpet now!), making ocarinas for money, and otherwise preparing things. February will be spent doing one of my favorite annual traditions: the RPM Challenge! Not sure exactly what I’ll be doing this year, but I’m excited to make something in album form again.  So yeah, come March, I believe Groove of the Day will return. I want to do it differently this time around, but I’m not totally sure what that means yet… I might meaning doing 30-100 at a time, it might mean doing more collabz, it might mean daily progress towards bigger songs, it might mean all these things……… but, it will return for at least a little while! Stay Tuned!!! Justice McForTheFutureIsBright P.S.- In the meanzzzzzzzzzzz, watch this blog for ocarina posts and maybe more drawings and animation!

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Look out world- I can crappily animate things now! Also, happy post-Christmas, happy almost new years, I will be on tour for the rest of this week, Groove of the Day will be returning for a spell in early 2016 (not exactly sure when), life is weird and precious, come see Zanois if you’re in NYC, Delaware, Jersey, or Somerville- End Of Thoughts For Now. Justice McOK

Those ears is FUCK’T UP!

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Christmas?

Hey guys- so, most of you may have noticed that I have not been doing this for some time now. I’ve been thinking of when to start again and how GotD will work in the future, but it is nearly December which means nearly Christmas! Would you guys be interested in a series of Christmas grooves? As in hearing them and/or helping to make them/make art for them? #ThinkAboutIt Justice McItIsSomethingI’mConsidering