Blindfish Industries

Cold Weather, Métis Dancing and Problem Solving

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Jesse Conlang

For the past couple years in February my family and I have had the pleasure of providing music and dance instruction for the Flying Canoe / Canoë Volant Festival. You can see us briefly in this video at the 50 second mark.

That’s my dad Dave on mandolin, my sister Tahnis on violin, and myself on the guitar.You may notice that we’re playing in a tent, and you might guess from all the visible breath that it’s pretty darn cold out. If you look really close, you’ll see that I’m actually wearing a pair of those fingerless glove/mitten convertible dealies. Continue reading →

Activity: Fake Christmas Songs

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Jesse Conlang

I’ve been working retail during the most christmassy time of the christmas. Constant Christmas music has rotted my brain. Without using google, guess which of these songs are real and which ones are fake.

Takin’ Care of Christmas – Bachman Turner Overdrive
Everybody Wants a Little Piece of my Christmas – David Wilcox
Gifts are for Giving but Family is for Keeps (the Christmas Cookies Song) – Ludracris feat. Dr. Dre and Ludacris’ mom
Honky Tonk Christmas – Alan Jackson
Reggae Christmas – Bryan Adams
Salsa Christmas – Tito Puente and his Orchestra
Heavy Metal Christmas – Twisted Sister
It’s a Polka Christmas – Frankie Yankovic
Funky Funky Xmas – The New Kids on the Block
Rock ‘n’ Roll Santa – Little Joey Farr
Punk Rock Santa – NOFX
Dubstep Santa – Katy B
The Be-Bop Santa – Babs Gonzales
Soul Santa – Brook Benton
Trap Santa – Fetty Wap
Funky Santa (is Comin’ to Town) – Jean Knight
Back Door Santa – Bon Jovi
Jingle Hell – Christopher Lee
Mrs. Claus Ain’t Alone Tonight – Mötley Cruë
Christmas in Hollis – Run DMC
Christmas in Prison – John Prine
Christmas in the Swamp – Clifton Chenier
Christmas in Connecticut – Barry Manilow
California Christmas – the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Christmas All Over the World – Walk Off The Earth
Jing-a-Jing-Jingle, Jing-ga-lee Jingle – Nat King Cole
Santa Won’t Bring Me A Girlfriend – Simple Plan
Santa Dabo Dabo Bah! – the Minons feat. Gru.

Special thanks to Snoozy P for helping me out with these.

Posted in Music, Uncategorized | Tagged bands, christmas, christmas music, fake songs, hell, holiday songs, retail, santa | Leave a comment

This is also a music blog now, I guess

Posted on November 30, 2015 by Jesse Conlang

Let’s talk about a funny thing that I hate.

That video by the Axis of Awesome is legitimately hilarious deconstruction of I-V-vi-IV, probably the most common chord change in popular music. It’s well done, and I really like the goofy tangent on Five for Fighting’s Superman. My problem with it is just that it approaches the music from the wrong angle. Axis of Awesome looked at I-V-vi-IV and concluded that everyone was just being lazy and derivative. Granted, I-V-vi-IV is just a safer version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D with simpler chords and a more regular resolve, but that’s still not the point. How amazing is it that millions of songs from hundreds of countries from thousands of bands and hundreds of years share identical or nearly identical structures while remaining distinctive? How did that happen? I-V-vi-IV shows up in every genre, but even if it originated in classical music, pop-punk has held indisputable squatter’s rights for years. Why is that, and how come the change still regularly escapes into new genres? And how does it work semiotically to use the same form for so many different meanings? How can a chord progression be considered “reliable”? what could that possibly mean?

Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Uncategorized | Tagged chord changes, music, music criticism, music theory, pachelbel, pop, the axis of awesome | Leave a comment

Protest Songs of the 2015 Election, Reviewed

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Jesse Conlang

Now that the votes have been counted, the victory champagne and consolation whiskey sipped, and the school gymnasiums returned to their regular functions, it’s time to get some serious analysis on one of the most important issues of the 2015 election: Which protest song was the best?

Continue reading →

Posted in Music | Tagged activism, canada, cancon, criticism, music, Politics, protest songs, review | Leave a comment

Refinishing my ukulele

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Jesse Conlang

Back in 2009, before I rode my bike from Edmonton to Thunder Bay, I went to the now-defunct Gordon Price Music and purchased a $20 ukulele. The idea being that I’d have something to practice on, loosen up my hands after a day of riding, and if it got crushed in transit I would just buy a new one.

It was the chosen one of $20 ukuleles. The variance in the factory tolerances, so lenient that the usually only generate crap, had aligned: The tuning pegs held tune, the bridge was at just such an unsquare angle that the shoddy intonation was compensated for, the pine plywood just dense enough to generate a loud, bright tone.

This uke travelled with me far and wide, and although I did eventually buy a more professional uke with a properly made neck and a pickup and everything, I’ve made sure that the blue uke stayed in rotation. It’s so tiny and light, it fits in most bags and it’s almost good enough to be a real instrument. Canadian standard tuning, too, which gives it a different range than my concert uke. Continue reading →

Posted in Bikes, Music, Stuff I made | Tagged bike parts, bike tour, instrument, music, refinishing, restoration, uke, ukulele, woodworking | Leave a comment

Homemade Wire Brushes

Posted on May 2, 2015 by Jesse Conlang

I made these prototype wire brushes!

They’re made from derailleur housing with the plastic casing stripped off, and the handles are a cut-down aluminium tent pole. The hockey tape is just for grip. They look pretty good, but I think they might sound better with longer wires. I’m not a percussionist at all, though, so really who knows.

Posted in Music, Stuff I made | Tagged bike parts, drums, drumsticks, music, percussion, recycling, repurposed, wire brushes | Leave a comment

I built a cajon!

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Jesse Conlang

With the indispensable help of wood shop mastermind Derek, I constructed and stained this excellent cajon, which, if you don’t know, is a percussion instrument based on a shipping crate that probably came from Peru, although it depends who you ask. It sounds great, and a neat thing about cajons (cajones?) is that because they’re based on actual repurposed boxes, any mistakes, scratches, or poor joins can be written off as authenticity. Apparently it sounds better if you leave it full of sawdust.

the sides are 1/4″ plywood, and the face is, uh, something thinner than that. I’ll post a tips and tricks guide to its construction soon.

Posted in Stuff I made | Tagged cajon, craft, homemade, instrument, latin music, music, percussion, peru, plywood, woodworking | Leave a comment

Reinterpretations!

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Jesse Conlang

I’m so famous, small children in China* dress up as me.

http://pupumom.pixnet.net/blog/post/182772009

it turns out that my wolf mask is popular with more than just furries. This appears to be a performance of the three little pigs, and the wolf design based right off mine. It’s pretty darn adorable.

I can’t read a word of this site, I’m afraid, but I am seriously excited about this. it’s completely hilarious to me, and I don’t think I’ve been directly credited on something like this before. hooray! plus, googly eyes!

*I don’t know if this is actually in China, but the writing’s in Chinese, although again I have no idea what kind of Chinese

Posted in Stuff I made | Tagged papercraft, three little pigs, wolf mask | Leave a comment

Portrait of the Artist as Homestar Runner

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Jesse Conlang

I bought pencil crayons! Here’s a very, very hasty self portrait.

Relevant: I did not add the hearts to this drawing

I feel like a portrait of me as strongbad would be fundamentally unsatisfying.

I’ve got a fairly big thing in the works, and pencil crayons are involved. Stay tuned, all you fans of adventure.

Posted in Index Card Series, stalling for time | Tagged autorretrato, homestar, homestar runner, pencil crayons, self portrait, selfie, strongbad | Leave a comment

Heroes of Evolution: the Trilobite

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Jesse Conlang

R.I.P TRILOBITES, 521 MILLION YEARS AGO TO 250 MILLION YEARS AGO. NEVER FORGET

R.I.P TRILOBITES, DEC 19, 521 MILLION YEARS AGO TO AUG 4, 250 MILLION YEARS AGO. NEVER FORGET

I broke a spoon; I carved a trilobite with my pocket knife and a nail. It’s a teaser because now I should find some sandpaper and stain.

I love these little guys. They’re like a rough draft of a horseshoe crab, but they lived through five or six extinction events (If you’re keeping score, Humans haven’t even fought a single match like that yet). Only the Permian extinction managed to take them down, and it made chumps out of 96% of everyone in the ocean and 57% of all species. Actual scientists call it “the great dying” So, you know, no shame in that.

I picked the title as a joke, but now I think I actually might do a Heroes of Evolution series.