After 30 years, the reason I’m still making music

I guess this is a normal part of having a creative personality, but once in a while I kind of drift into a phase where I start to question whether this is what I really want to keep doing. Should I continue to produce new tunes or just call it quits and try something else. Maybe I could get back to developing games and apps again. I dunno.

I suspect there are people around me that probably, secretly thinks I’m too old for this shit. I mean, I’m 47 now. Three years left to 50 and I still haven’t really “made it” and probably never will. The dream I had in my mid 20s, to be able to support myself with my music looks pretty dated and naive today.

But… I have tried to go down that road before. The idea of quitting music for a while and that didn’t work out, at all. It felt like a big part of me was missing. I really need the kick I get when everything works out and a track turns out great. I guess that’s what keeps me going. Not the thought of “making it” but the fact that the whole music making process is now a deep part of who I am. I can’t cut something like that away without serious consequences.

Anyway, enough rambling for today and back to tweaking the Eurorack modular.

August 5th, 2016|Blog|
Read More

Listen to my unreleased track Red in a Sea of Green

Red in a sea of green

When I’m not posting stuff about DIY music electronics or re-painting a huge kitchen cabinet, I’m also producing some new music. I got roughly enough for a new full length album now, but still need to finish up a couple more tracks, which I hope to do within the next couple of weeks.

However, this track called Red in a sea of green is done and I’ve decided to make it available on Soundcloud. It’s an atmospheric progressive(!?) dance tune with some sort of summer night vibe. Oh and it has a melody.

The album is still unsigned and truth be told I haven’t really put that much energy into fining a label for it. Worst case I’ll just release it myself. Should you know anyone at a (big-ish) label that could potentially be interested, please let me know and I can send send them a secret link to the whole album.

July 24th, 2016|Blog, Music|
Read More

Stranger Things on Netflix is like the 80s all over again

Stranger Things

I just finished watching all the eight episodes of the new Netflix series Stranger Things. I won’t write a lengthy review but I will say this. I loved it!
Not only is the story set in 1983 but the whole production, with just a few exceptions felt very 80s. And I say that in a good way. They somehow managed to stay clear of almost all of the usual 80s clichés. It’s like Steven Spielberg made a six and a half hour feature film based on a book by Stephen King and released it in the mid 80s.

Think movies like The Goonies, Stand by me and a bit of E.T.
Casting was good for the most part, with some surprisingly good acting here and there. I expect we will see more great things from Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) in the future. Oh and i just loooove the music in the opening credits – with those warm, fat analog Moog sounds, going straight into my soul. Just wonderful.

July 19th, 2016|Blog, Film|
Read More

Breathing some life into an old white Apple Macbook

I had an old Intel Macbook from 2006 stashed away in my closet. Apple had more or less dropped all support for it a long time ago, so now it was pretty much useless. I couldn’t even run the latest version of Chrome on it anymore.

A couple of months ago I stumbled upon a video on Youtube with a step by step guide on how to install Windows 10 on these old laptops. I decided to refurbish my old Macbook. It looked pretty easy but I didn’t have the original disks for Snow Leopard and had to buy new ones from Apple. I also got a new 500 GB hard drive as the original was only 60 GB, too small to hold both Windows and OS X. The whole process was fairly straight forward and took about an afternoon and an evening, including installing all the updates for Windows.

Basically it went like this:

  1. Download the 32 bit version of Windows 7 or 8 and put the installation files on a USB stick or DVD-R.
  2. Run the Bootcamp app from the the Snow Leopard system disk
  3. Insert the USB or DVD-R with Windows and run through the installation.
  4. After completion boot in Windows mode and update to Windows 10.
  5. Finish off by running the Bootcamp app in Windows. This will install all the necessary drivers.

Now I had a fully working Windows 10 laptop for surfing the web and playing non-graphics intense games like Braid and FEZ.

Of course I couldn’t stop there. I decided to do something about that ugly top case. Since the laptop was first generation white Macbook, aka the smelly version the sides of the plastic had eroded into in thin long stripes. On top of that, the plastic smelled like old sweat, a heavy BO that got more intense the warmer the computer got. Apple quality my ass.

The inside of a Macbook

Removing all the screws and opening it up.

I surfed the web and found a $30 Hong Kong replacement on AliExpress.com. The description said it was original and 97% new, which I now understand means refurbished. I suspect they took the underside from an old laptop and added newly produced plastic top, keys and pad.

The quality of the top case was surprisingly good, although there is a barely noticeable bump in the plastic to the left of the pad. As if something like a spanner was dropped on it. Never mind.. I’m happy it doesn’t smell at all like the original, it’s in one piece and everything is working. And I now have a Windows 10 computer that looks like a Macbook.

Old top vs new top

New vs old. Notice how the keys are a bit more yellow on the old top case.

July 15th, 2016|Blog, DIY|
Read More

One post a day, starting today

Recently I was attending Web Visions in Barcelona – for some inspiration and a heads up with what is happening in web design, UX, tech etc. One of the speakers was Matt Haughey (Slack) who gave some good advice on how to keep up with your side projects. His tip was to keep a regimen and do something once a day. It doesn’t have to take that long and it doesn’t have to be great. So here is my version of that. I will try to breathe some life into my blog again by posting stuff at least once a day, starting today. I will write about my music process, design, tech and other things I think is fun and important. Just short posts and not too advanced. If somebody is interested I might even fire up the comments field again. Had to close it down a while ago since it was only accumulating spam.

The pic was made using Prisma, a fun new app that uses Google DeepDream technology. It’s free (for now) and super easy to use. Check it out!

July 14th, 2016|Blog|
Read More

Preview of a techno tune created on my modular

Check out this little techno track I just recorded from my modular synthesizer. It’s a work in progress obviously.

May 27th, 2016|Blog, modular, Music, Music production|
Read More

Ending my accounts at Twitter and Ello

Time is a precious commodity. When you spend too much of it procrastinating on social media, instead of creating music and other stuff, you just have to do something about it. I’ve already ended my place at Ello and will end my Twitter account in a day or two. If I could I would end Facebook as well, but you know how it is.. They got us all by the balls..

April 24th, 2016|Blog|
Read More

I have a Bandcamp page

Yes I have a page on Bandcamp. There’s not much there yet except my latest official EP releases Rework 1 and 2. Check it out and buy my music if like like to support me. I will hopefully add some more releases there in the future.

January 10th, 2016|Blog, Music|
Read More
© 1996 - 2024 Björn Fogelberg, All rights reserved
Go to Top