One Heart

I like to think of myself having a bit of a tech savy ability. Today, I was finally called by the repair people who were working on my studio computer. Two friggin weeks to get it back only to be unfortunately disappointed. I had a nice dual 1.8 G5. Now I have a single processor 1.8 G5. Bummer. Initially I was informed that the logic board had died and that it was the reason why my computer was no longer seeing the second processor. Then they got a new logic board, put it in and found that it had the exact same problem. Hmmm, now they suspected that it was the processor that was bad and that it fried the new logic board. Luckily they didn’t charge me for that. So rather than pump over $1,000 into it for a new logic board and a new processor I asked them to put it back together. I’d just use it as a single processor and wait for the new Dual Quad Cores that should be out any day now.

So I get the machine home, hook it all up and fire it up. Whoa, the fans started blowing like a wind tunnel. I looked at the system specs and it was telling me it saw two processors. I tried restarting to see if there was just a glitch in the fans. It restarted to the same thing. So I tried launching a program to test it out, but the program wouldn’t launch. None of them would. So I called the repair guys to let them know what was happening. I ended up back in their shop minutes later. This time they plugged it in, and no fan noise and could only see one processor. That’s fucked up weird.

There’s two guys there, the one who didn’t do the work initially was working on something else so the second guy took it apart this time. Dah duh dah… Seems that there was a part on the case of the computer itself that was broken and missing. A bolt that is used to hold the processor down. I mentioned that I bought refurbished from Apple. You’d think that’s ok. Turns out, I got a lecture to never do that. The repair guy told me about how things have gotten in terms of the repair world and that it’s no longer advantageous to purchase refurbished machines. Ugh. Essentially I was sold a defective computer and it took about a year and a half for it to show up.

At this point, I’ve put in a call to my Apple contact to see what can be done about it. It’s rather depressing. My buddy George got me worked up to make use of the lemon law that is in California. I don’t know all the specifics, but apparently if you can prove that something was inherently wrong with the purchase, by California law, the retailer has to fix or replace it. We’ll see how that goes. It would be nice if I can get it back to the way it was. As of now, my computer has one heart or CPU (some would call it the brain).

The good thing is, I’m at least capable of getting back to working on music and that’s just what I did this evening once I got it all up and running. The song I was working on is a co-written effort for childrens music about Peanut Butter. Far cry from the intricate workings that I’m showcasing by Gavri today.

I came across them as I’ve been doing as of late by sifting through music at CD Baby. There’s an awful lot of music available there. I like to cherry pick and contact ones I like. What I enjoyed about Gavri is the modern approach they have, I should say he has. Like Nine Inch Nails, Gavri is masterminded by a single person creating sonic soundscapes. I might be projecting here, but I’m connecting with the Indian influence going on because of my attachment to recent movie and TV shows such as Bend It Like Beckham and now NBC’s Heroes. My view is slanted to the more commercial sprinklings of India overtones, but hey, I’m still branching out.

Robert, Gavri’s creative soul hails from Australia. Hmmm. I gotta wonder if he knows Jeff Van Dyck. That’s about as silly as someone asking if I know John Smith cause I’ve been to Utah. Oh well. Interestingly Jeff Van Dyck is also residing in Australia and is a phenomenal sound designer for video games. Gavri has lots of elements in this material that sounds like it has some influence from video game soundtracks. It reminds me of some stuff that I was hired by Jeff Van Dyck to play guitar on, namely Tiger Woods 2004.

I think there’s going to be an opening market for music that does have some video game style to it. As I sit here writing this, I can remember about a year ago, maybe two, Jeff Scott Soto (all these damn Jeff’s) was playing me some songs he’d written with some cats out of New York. The first thing I noticed was that the music sounded like it came from a video game. It was cool, very modern. Unfortunately Jeff’s style didn’t blend well with it to me. As great a singer as Soto is, this style didn’t work for him. But it works great for the stuff Gavri has put together. It would be even more interesting to hear a song done with this female singer, but lyrics instead the chanting type stuff. Could an actual pop style of lyric work here? C’mon Gavri prove to me it can!

The album has a lot of fun sounds to explore. Get it and make your heart grow.