The Rotunda

Post Mortem

2004-12-31T15:00:00.000-05:00

This blog records the creation of the 24-Hour Album Yoko Ono Good by the two man rock group THE ROTUNDA, whose members include Rob'n Bill Camp'n Randall.

Between 3:00 PM EST (GMT -5:00) on Wednesday, 29 December 2004, and 3:00 PM on Thursday, 30 December 2004, Rob'n Bill wrote and recorded a 10 song album. They also created this blog, an hourly record of their progress both as artists and as human beings.

To read this blog chronologcially, start at the bottom and work your way up, entry by entry. If this is your first time reading this blog, then sorry, you missed your chance to participate by posting or emailing. However, you can still relive that moment and imagine what could have been.

Well, I'll Be...

2004-12-30T14:49:00.000-05:00

i think we did it. how? 10 songs. not what you'd expect to hear, but good stuff. i think all are gems of rock and/or roll. noise. weird. strange. beautiful. scary. tubular. ditchin'.

as billiam said, we will mix these and put them on de website at www.greencouchstudios.com

not sure when, but i would expect them fairly soon, but not within a day or so. however, if you want to send me a check for $550.64, i will get a copy mailed out to you asap.

please mail to:

The Rotunda
c/o Raw-B
PO Box 6-5000
Birmingham, Kentucky
UK

thanks a bunches.

Funny ha ha, funny weird

2004-12-30T14:03:00.000-05:00

It's funny how these things take shape. We realized last night, at least I did, Rob still had it in mind to sabotage the whole thing because he's afraid of rock success and the heroin habit it always engenders, that doing the 24 hours LP (***NOT*** EP) is a lot like writing a term paper, because we were putting it off so much. Well, we're about to write 3 songs in an hour, and we're totally rocking and I'll even make it to work on time.

Get me to the work
Get me to the work
Get me to the work on time~!

And things are taking shape. Naturally, what we made is great. But not Jeff Beck great-- it's Yoko Ono great. The musical Yoko Ono, not the artist, regardless of claims to the contrary. We'll mix these tracks soon and put MP3s on the website. We're limited by time and space, of course, and moreso by ourselves-- but that's the beauty of it, ey? But no time to chat-- got to rock out three more songs!!!

almost the end

2004-12-30T13:25:00.000-05:00

there are six pieces of paper hanging from the ceiling...they must mean something. maybe they mean the tips of my fingers are raw and numb. maybe they mean it's almost time to sleep. maybe they mean that we've not quite made it to 10 songs. one is being finished, making it 7, which leaves three more. shouldn't be too hard in the little time we have. no mixing today...small price to pay. we want to sound good. we do sound good. but we want to sounds gewd!

Country Feedbag

2004-12-30T13:05:00.000-05:00

The one stupid freaking song I can't get right, and I get a take finally and still the end of it's all screwed up. So fade it out whenever you hear it, which won't be soon. I may keep it to myself, damn singing being what it is. We're working hard to finish three more awesome rock songs in the next 2 hours 55 minutes, but who knows? We haven't written any of them yet, and I need a shower. Sheesh, that last one just about killed me. Song, not shower. That's what I get for having emotional baggage that has to be unloaded before I can get to the real rock materials, like penguins and grandmaws. My damn hands were shaking, and the song's a closed door anyway.

And Rob's over here, acting like he's got his Steve Nash song finished, like he's not some slacker badmans who needs boot to head. Sheesh. I'd like to take this guy out (not on a date) and just punch him in the face with a giant piece of real poetry. He thinks he can bolg just because he's got this stupid [ENTER] key that lets him make his tepid ramblings look like potery. Pottery. Dangit!

Also, let the record show that he uses this ridiculous gigantic pick that a small child could use, were the small child placed in an afterschool heavy metal music program.

Interestingly enough, our torrents of profanity directed towards one another have degenerated to phrases like "ditch bit wick." Yet the dog barks on, like an autistic dog vying for an Oscar.

Got to write 5 more songs...

smooth like a smoothie

2004-12-30T10:53:00.000-05:00

what is this? mass
culture suicide
like a feather
in the engine
of a
turtles homemade car
how far
will u go 2 impress me?

why?
why must we face
the night
with fright
in our underwear
i swear
f-word

the humble shall
inherit the meek
the weak
you
you are
the weak
who seek
the meek

my baby is pretty
like a rose
who knows?
i knows!
f-word
s-word

Arm hurts inside

2004-12-30T09:54:00.000-05:00

Well, sun's up and it's easier to tell what's real, even though I still don't believe in the poetry published by the dude on the bolg after ours ("Next Bolg Button"). Dunno if you'll get the same one, but man. If you click and accidentally get Seamus Heaney ("I won the Nobel Prize but I loves to bolg"), then that's not him for sure.

My arm hurts from the rock drumming. My body, my enemy. But we finished another song twenty minutes ago-- "Open Up Yr Heart," an amazing work of chorale. We've got a ton of rocking rock songs to work through now, some of which don't exist yet, but I'm optimistic that the last 5 hours 6 minutes will yield great dividends.

Stock tip: get great dividends.

I do think, however, that this epic session of rock has been good for my antagonism towards Robbie, who now is pushing the "dog barks" button on the keyboard repeatedly, like an A-list actor slumming for an Oscar by playing an... autistic person. Now he's saying "ruff ruff ruff" using his word-hole. All I can do is stare.

"I'm writing poetry in my head," he says.
I stare.
He nears the drums.
"Don't touch that," I say.
Nietszshsce must have been right.

N.B. Since I put each sentence on its own line, it's poetry. We can even do this with AP wire reports:

Steve Nash, also
stifled in San Antonio,
got back in form with
22 points and nine
assists for the Suns.

It's a tanka! Sort of. Unlike Robbie's previous post, which dredges the cesspool of faux-lit in search of crap. "Nazgull?" What the Nietzchzcs is that? It's not real, that's for sure.

I Am The Nazgûl

2004-12-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Nazgûl...scary!

i've decided, anytime there's a dog barking in a song is just funny to me. anywho, i'm sleepy. i don't care about rock music anymore. screw it. we're failures.

NO! i must hang on til the end. i must see this through. this must be completed. we are awesome. we are amazing. we are...THE ROTUNDA

your pal,

rob

The Dummy on the Steps

2004-12-30T08:02:00.000-05:00

I crawled under the desk to rest my bleeding eyes, but the dummy on the steps wouldn't shut his word-hole, and cackling glee flew out on its crap nostril wings and landed to nest in my noise catchers. I HATE HIM WITH THE PASSION OF A BAAZZILLION HATES. The hatred of a lamb for the shears.

Now is the time when I can't freaking do anything musical because my body won't respond. My bullwings have fallen off, my yoghurt cultures have all gone decadent, and my fingers barely work to bolg, much less lay down 'riffs' and suchwhat. We should have got all tore up like the missus, at least then we'd arise in the vomit and regret, rather than you know, I have to work tonight. I'm an idiot.

So I guess I'm all about regretting now. Fly forth, public regrets! I regret the last eight years, except that one, and that one time. I regret not putting my foot down regarding crown molding. I regret not blowing bridges up with spite-awful gelignite, rather than just burning them with puny foolboy matches! I regret also other things I can't remember now!

Most of all, I regret having failed my friend Maria. Maria! She who, on hearing of the Epic 24 Hour Rock Odyssey, emailed me first before all others with the clarion call "you rock," to whom I've been such a badfriend, of whom I thought to-day when I espied an unsolved Cube on yon shelf only to solve it to the amazement of my social betters (how often does that happen, ey?), of whom I think every time I check myne email ("I should write her back") only to fall again to the furious assaults of Depression and Inertia, the dastard foes from Chemistry and Physics! Maria to whom I can't even send an email, but instead offer this grovel-treatise in the most public of spaces, the "bolg," undoubtedly read by all 50 million Chinese with Intonet Axis!

And most of all I ebert failing her on my soujourn to Paris, where instead of relying on her graciousness and proferring unto her dearfriend Daisy Ho If That Is Her Real Name Who Writes for Some Magazine I've Never Read Named for a Novel by Billy Peacemaker Hackerthay the right hand of fellowship, the meticulous savor of shared reminisce of Our Mutual Friend,well I screwed that up too! I'm lazy and ugly and my momma raised me wrong!

The wind cries Maria! And knocks down tree limbs! What does it all mean? I must stay awake and achieve some visceral insight!

i need wings!

2004-12-30T07:44:00.000-05:00

well, we've made it to 7:40 am without falling asleep. not that we didn't whine about it, but we didn't do it. it's like that movie, 40 days (or something like that). that's exactly what this is like. that movie.

waffle house was good, not yoko ono good, but good just the same. i got a lot of food and the coffee sucked. bill drank two coffee's. i think he needed it. we arranged the remaining songs and discussed how we were going to complete our 10 song venture. we're amazing.

i remember one time when i was a kid and i was sleepy at midnight mass and i closed my eyes for just a second, or at least i thought it was a second. when i reopened them, mass was over and it was time to go home.

ROCK!

Red Bull 2, Rob Bill 0

2004-12-30T06:15:00.000-05:00

Well, we're kind of disappointed. After all, we can only do half the art-- half the rock. No, we don't want you to drive down and be our rhythm section. But we do need your interpretive rockticipation to complete the awesome concept-world rendered full in our songs, to create anew our frickin' awsum mental states (Lee My Coworker {I} asked, "When do the hallucinations start?" Long ago, old friend) in your own headspaces, like little art galleries hung so fine with our Jim Dine-y canvasses, what with tools glued to them and all. Tryst me, it's pretty hoohah cool in there. Ooo!

But I look on my bolg and despair. What, no comments for the last seven entries? What are you doing-- sleeping? Grow up! Don't you have better things to do? And what about the Yips, Umemoris, and McStevedores of the other hemispheres? I guess you're all too busy "other hemisphering" to give us your time and rockticipation.

Well, the art-rock world of Rock-Art doesn't necessarily need your patronage. Feh! We'll write a grant! And now we've got four-- count 'em, FOUR-- new awsum rawk lyrics written. It's like Byron went on a tear and cranked out "Childe Harold's Sandinista!" in one day and night! It's like Noah divided by a 40! It's well used to the lonely path of rock prophecy!

Now for waffling at Konnichiwaffle. Fill the squares! Fill the squares!

she cried more, more, more

2004-12-30T05:08:00.000-05:00

in the five o'clock hour it gets harder to rock when the wife is asleep and will wake with a hangover (man, she got tore up) and you're starting to feel the weight of having to finish a grand project such as this and you crave waffles from the house of waffles. so, at this moment i feel that i should apologize for the songs we create at this late/early hour. the ideas are getting weird, but they intrigue me. so, i will not apologize but say that you will be in for a treat. a milkbone? no, those are for my precious dog who has been really good throughout this venture. she wants to rock with us, but lacks the skills necessary to hang with two fine creatures such as me and bill. maybe a piece of melba toast, or some apple crunch muselix.

i've been asked to write the greatest song ever, so i will attempt to do so. it will take a lot out of me (what the hell is that "music" coming from the keyboard), but i will write it for you, our loving and dearing friends.

write comments, it keeps us going. we're up, why aren't you????

GAH!

Beauty swarming like flies

2004-12-30T04:24:00.000-05:00

Rob, uncommitted to the rock and aw tuckered out, has just laid (lain? lied? lay? English sucks) down because he wants me to think he's listening to the awesome song I just orchestrated, a sweet, sweet post-rock exploration of the Antarctic reaches of feedback loops and lilting vocals. He played guitar. How Jeff Beck-- how pre-Yoko Beatles. Instruments. Like that's where talent lie. Lay. Dangit!

He's just pissed because I'm far more poroexpo than he is. And I understand where the "magick" come from. Because sometimes I need to write songs about a girl. Sometimes I need to write songs about another girl. And sometimes-- sometimes-- I need to write songs about whatever the Muses give me, whether green green tea or drink yoghurt or even contemporary politics! I'm that good. Wait til you hear my mixolydian waltz about the Orange Revolution!

So sleep away, Robert Cornelius Camp. Dream your little dreams. We'll see how history treats your ridiculous songs once some Japanese conceptual art vixen breaks up you!

The Talent That Amazes Us All

2004-12-30T03:04:00.000-05:00

ah, steve nash of the pheonix suns is so cool!

anywho, writing songs is so much fun. not many people can do it. not many people are blessed enough to have me, the robster, to come up with great songs and then they can just ride along with me while i create pure pop genius. not that i'm saying anything against, or about, anyone i'm currently playing with, i'm just saying.

we've got several songs half-written, but we need to record a song before 4:00. if not, we may fail yet again in our desire to create a 24-hour rock album. we may, yet again, only get an ep.

i bet yoko ono couldn't do that much in 24-hours.

steve nash could.

Hush dear child

2004-12-30T02:07:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, when one rocks with wild valkyrie abandon calling down all the florid rhetorical epiphanies of that particular idiom, it gets too loud. So we're gonna be a little quieter here in the wee hours of the night, focusing instead on writing-- crafting perfect pop gems around which to wrap our dulcet tones and lyrical tomes-- rather than attempting sonically to puncture the eardrums of all involved.

So far, our lyrics are the best part. Surprising, perhaps, since we've been practicing our instruments literally for hours, but really at heart we're potes. Poets. Whatever.

I want to share some of the lyrics, but no time. After all, bolgging takes full concentration, like meditation, or art. Besides, I've got to make sure Rob doesn't turn this into a concept album about the rise and fall of dwarven kingdoms.

Stock tip: stocks cost a crapload of money. So get a good job, like running a big company, or extreme snowboarding.

Homeowner's tips: crown molding. Fireplace. Brandy snifter.

Update--

2004-12-30T01:00:00.000-05:00

we bought my wife some liqour and she done got all tore up.

bill took forever to make his last post what with all the links. i won't do that too. i don't have time to do that. i gots some sweet licks to lay out.

later yo's!

i really ought to wash them towels...

Does medication help this?

2004-12-30T00:08:00.000-05:00

Rob has his weird thing going on. I think my earlier optimism was sushi side effects, now ebbed like the moon, or love. He's beatboxing/rapping/making squeaking noises using his belly (those of you who know him realize the verity of my claims) and saying things like, "I have a feeling that when the guy is doing the quotes, there should be some 'rock' going on there. Know what I mean?" How do you work with this? Does God hate me? Perhaps I could have been born next door neighbors to some rockers in Liverpool, or Blixa Bargeld, but no, my parents have to go and hoe the plot of land next to the Camps, with their strange religious beliefs and blightiness. O the acid hugs of Fate!

Wow, I had no idea "bolgs" could use hypotext. This is so cool. Let's see what Rob has to say to that. No doubt he'll just write some dumb song about it, with digikeys and reverb. Now that his "creative process" has kicked in fullbore, I feel like I'm in an elevator. No, this elevator contains no "lovin'."

Workin Hard

2004-12-29T23:09:00.000-05:00

Oh man, we gots it going now. We hit our stride. Coffee did us good...thanks Klint!

Two great songs coming out right now. I'm working on one and Bill has one that sounds really pretty good. I'm impressed, it doesn't suck like most of his stuff does. He's in the laundry room right now singing his song, which is weird. he should go ahead and wash the towels for me.

i like to use cheer cuz it rocks the mike
it's good for the colors and it's good for the lites

keep checking back and there should be more to report as long as norm mcdonald doesn't infiltrate our being and make us sleep and waste time.

rock is happening!

Brief Hiatus

2004-12-29T21:46:00.000-05:00

Sorry about that-- we missed a couple entries. Undoubtedly our battalions of fans (you) were worried, but we had to eat and get coffee. The sushi was good-- we wrote four (4) songs while I waited for some more toro to come out and enter my mouth, whereupon it melted into tiny particles of endorphins which made me feel, for that one transcendent moment, like the arms of love had wrapped around me, swaddling my days in tender nights. Seriously, Lexington has great sushi. No, really. Our ocean overfloweth, like life, or a sink.

A recent conversation:
"Dude, that rocks. Keep at it."
"I can't! It's 'Imagine' by John Lennon! Kinda."
"If you say 'kinda,' it's ours."

Can You Hear Me?

2004-12-29T18:57:00.000-05:00

We finally found our voice. Our voice is improv. Taken from the depths of the farthest reaches of the tiniest forest where little people make shoes. It's finally happening. The 24-hour rock will be something interesting. what will we do? improv and then write what we've improvised? does that make sense? hell no! but it does to us. us, THE ROTUNDA!

Bangjo

2004-12-29T18:37:00.000-05:00

Rob got out the banjo. Little late on this one, sorry, but it's one of those existential artist dilemmas: if a trees falls into a paper mill and a book comes out, does anybody distribute it? Things dipped a little into emotionally heavy territory here, and our first track sounded "amateur," but isn't amateur just another word for lover?

"Hi, honey. I'm an amateur."
"Oh, Chet, you sweep me off the floor."
"Have some macadamia nuts."
"You're so romatic!"

Gotta get a track done before dinner. Where's JP? He could dance, and then we'd be free.

Ah, drummers and their silly sounds

2004-12-29T17:05:00.000-05:00

well, we spent an hour just mixing the drums. Who cares what the bass drum sounds like? Did The Beatles? Well, maybe, but they were a bunch of grits. They had no twang.

the bass drum is a little muddy, but the gtr sounds GREAT! like a tiger. growl.

we're gonna take a short break. 22 hours to go. bill needs some tea. i need some aspirin. and my wife needs a break.

ROCK!

23 to go

2004-12-29T16:00:00.000-05:00

Well, after the first hour we've played one riff and recorded it on a dictaphone. The drums were tight like haggis. Hmmm. Rob's getting a drink, so let me be first to say that if we don't pull this off, it's his fault.

Stock tip: sell before your stock falls.

If Bill Doesn't Stop Whining...

2004-12-29T15:11:00.000-05:00

bill's changing my guitar strings because i can't do it. i tried last night and broke a string before i even started rocking. bad sign? no, but i got an extra set of strings.

we have two distortion pedals that probably sound the same, but there's two of them, so there'll be twice the rock.

currently listening to the Haiku D'etat cd Coup De Theatre. great cd. good rap. we're top qualified.

i hope bill knows what he's doing with the strings and not trying to sabotage the rock.

first song will probably be a love song with digital piano. digikeys!

THE ROTUNDA!

The Rocking Starts Now!

2004-12-29T15:02:00.000-05:00

We almost missed it-- after pad thai and getting guitar stings at the "Doo-Wop Shop," Rob was carrying on about his emotional problems and almost ruined the rock TOTALLY. Fortunately, I was driving and we made it in the house with no time to spare. The dog barked, so I gave it a stern glare.

First order of business: finish the preco by changing the stings and pushing buttons or something. Put the Red Bulls ("il donne des ailes") in the frigobox and channel Rock Powa. Things are looking up. First song: probably a rock aria, or concept song of some kind. Something in a loosely-veiled autobiography vein, with cello and acid house beats.

Warning Signs

2004-12-29T13:45:00.000-05:00

So Rob's diddling away on the phone when we should be pre-rocking ("procking"). I'm worried that this is a sign of lame trip-hop ballads and neo-soul to come from his palsied throat.

I'll just be on my guard. There's no way I'll let him ruin the rock again. You can count on it.

Rob Took A Shower

2004-12-29T12:01:00.000-05:00

oK, so, here it is. enjoy. the pre-recording session went very well, although we were worried about the ADAT machine, but it turned out we just had a bad tape. we got to bed, seperately, at around4:30 am. i was up at around10:30 and showered by 11:00 which was when the randallator got was supposed to get up. he got up much randallater than that. it's noon and he's in the shower. i hope he doesn't mind me talking all personal stuff and stuff. my dog heard a noise this morning and started barking at 8:00 am. i think bill hates my dog now.

my wife is getting off work early today and will be home soon. she's off the next two days and is letting us rock in the basement for 24 hours. God bless her! we must get her liquoured up so she won't remember anything.

we have to run out this morning and pick up a few items. batteries, strings, a second mixer for the drums. it'll all work out.

be sure to check out www.greencouchstudios.com for pix and i don't know what. the rock will happen and all will bow b4 us...THE ROTUNDA!

Yoko Ono Good

2004-12-29T06:14:00.000-05:00

Um. This "bolg" is the record of record for the recording of the record "Yoko Ono Good" by the rocking-roll combination "THE ROTUNDA." We hope to simultaneously pay our respects to our hometown of Birmingham, as well as forg new groun for cross-cultural understanding.

The best part is that we'll be writing and recording our album in a mere 24 hours. Tonight, the "pre-recording session," or "preco" for short, has gone swimmingly, what with us setting up microphones ("mikes") and boom stands ("bustans") around the guitar ampalangs ("amps") and drums ("drums"). We also have banjos, saxophones, mandolins, flutophones, harmonicaphones, castanets, thumb pianophone, and toy accordion to make things more "world" music-y ("basaxmafluharmcastathumbianoccordionophone-y").

So check in tomorrow at noon, or 1, or 2-ish Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5:00) for hourly updates of our progress, as well as stock tips.