Thrash Metal Hardcore Project - 2023

I'm guessing you're here because you clicked the link on my YouTube video for song 10, or maybe you stumbled across my site. Either way.... welcome! Thank you for checking out my blog about my Thrash Metal Hardcore music project (I need to come up with a proper name for it!)

This project started this past winter when I showed song three to my friend and writing partner when I was in All Out War, Jim Antonelli. He liked the song, and we even thought about writing some music together. My talk with Jim got me motivated to record the song and some other ones I'd written. 

The other source was Rick Rubin's new book, The Creative Act. Reading his book really inspired me to go forth with this project. Great book.

The music is informed by a lot of bands I love.

Song 1

This was a recent one I wrote. It has a quick Quicksand style, fused with Black Sabbath!

 

Song 2

One of my favorites. I channeled a lot of Slayer into this one. I also love the band Forced Entry from Seattle. If you like old school Thrash, definitely check them out.

 

Song 3

This one seemed to have resonated the most with listeners, and the one I got the most response. I wrote it a couple of years ago during lock down. It's a straight up hardcore song, with a little bit of Helmet at the end.

Song 4

The first section and the fast riff were written about 10 or 12 years ago but never came together. I couldn't come up with a transition into the fast section. One day I was listening to Power Trip's "Soul Sacrifice" from Nightmare Logic. That's when I came up with the bridge for the second half of the song. I added a few new riffs and the song was complete.

Song 5

Just a straight up double bass, metal song. The last section was informed by Dissolve. They are incredible hardcore band from the Hudson Valley. 

 

Song 6

This is a recent one. It has a little bit of Nuclear Assault fused with Cro-Mags.

 

Song 7

The "slow one" as I call it. It just all came together with this tune. I wanted to write something in the style of Typo-O-Negative and Black Sabbath. I was very happy with it. I was glad to see this one had a good response.

Song 8

The first two riffs were written about three years ago. Again, I didn't have a bridge for the next section. Then I was listening to "Piece by Piece" by Slayer - that gave me the idea. This one got a nice response as well.

 

Song 9

I wrote this a long time ago. It's definitely old school hardcore in the vein of Sick of it All and Rest in Pieces. 

 

Song 10

The hardest one for me to play and to record. It has elements of Tool, Slayer, Alice in Chains, and Faith No More. This is probably one of my favorites as well. 

Recording and Video process

I recorded all the song using Garageband. I interfaced the bass and guitar through a Scarlet Focusrite.

The drums were recorded on AKAI. Then I had to play along with the drum track when I recorded the videos. Personally, if I had the ability to mic my drums, I would have played the drums a little different for each songs. But I am happy with what I could do with the AKAI. 

I plan to release the songs for streaming. But I have to come up with a band name - and also a name for each song. Thanks for checking out my blog and my music. 

 

Realist Film Theory and Bicycle Thieves

A central claim of Andre Bazin is that the power of cinema can render the mysteriousness of reality on film--to capture and embalm the structures of reality. 

 

Hilary Neroni's excellent new book builds upon Bazin’s theory, arguing that those structures (or mysteriousness of reality) is mediation—language, unwritten rules of communication, systems of signification. Her other point is that what is "new" about neorealism is the combination of realism and melodrama. The two work together to bring forth (mediation) to draw attention to the workings of the social order. In this case, it is early post WWII, Italy. Those two key points (mediation and melodrama) make this a very interesting and engaging analysis of De Sica’s landmark film, Bicycle Thieves.

 

Movies often try to avoid showing us mediation (the forms that create the story world). But neorealism wants to draw our attention to them. But it also wants us involved in the story, to feel the emotions of the characters, to experience the melodrama, to make us aware of the systems that are working against these characters. 

 

 

I am so happy this is book is available. I teach this movie and agree with Neroni that Bazin should not be left in the dustbin of film theory. 

 

 

Realist film theory has a lot to offer for current cinema. Just think how much digital effects have developed over the past thirty years, how they have gotten more and more realistic. This is just one example that demonstrates the importance of Bazin and realist film theory. This book is definitely worth checking out.

Zworsky's Children

My new novel, Zworsky's Children, will be available on July 11. 

It was an idea I had since 2017. It started with a 60 Minutes segment on antibiotic resistance. Then I watched a PBS Nova episode (I won't say what it's about because that would spoil the novel). But I didn't have a story, just some ideas. It wasn't until I read Stephen King's On Writing when I started writing the book. I had written two novels before this and a bunch of screenplays. But King's book gave me the courage to write without an outline.

In On Writing, King says to write 1000 words a day until the novel is finished. (I think he might have said at least 6 days a week). But I wrote everyday.

The first few days of writing were fun. But when I got to the third day, I started to panic because I didn't know if I could write 1000 words each day.  What do I say? What am I writing? Then I remembered what King said: Write with the door shut. Even if these 1000 words suck, no one will read it. I always think that when I write. It is okay to be messy and to experiment. Ernest Hemingway famously said the first draft of anything is shit. So I just plowed ahead until I finished the first draft, which I completed in the summer of 2019 and was over 100,000 words.

Writing without an outline might not be everyone's method. I read James Patterson outlines his novels, which is amazing given how many books he's written. But for me, once I have a spark of an idea, I dive into the unknown and see where I end up. I keep the door shut until I am ready to share it.

I have written the Zworsky's Children series (three books total). The second book will be available next year, and I just wrote the first draft of the third book. For those of you who decide to read it, I do hope you enjoy the story. I wrote it with a lot of heart. See the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Kill Park

My new short story will be available to purchase as an eBook on April 26. This is another story of mine that takes place in Burghville and is connected to my first novel THE POSTCARD.

Stacking and chopping firewood is nothing new for the Ferguson brothers. It’s a routine they have to endure every fall before winter comes barreling through the Hudson Valley. But on this day, after slicing a short log, they discover something mysterious inside it that will haunt them forever. . . .

Writing this story reminded me of stacking cords of wood for our wood-burning stove, growing up in upstate New York. Unsure why, but I thought . . . what would happen if a character chopped a log in half and found something weird inside it? 

I went with that thought and wrote KILL PARK. I hope you enjoy the story. There will be no paperback version since it is only 40 pages. 

Happy chopping....

For more information about my books and to sign up for my newsletter:

www.tomconnellyfiction.com

Flight Unknown

My novella Flight Unknown will be released on February 22 on Amazon. It is a story about a strange occurrence that happens on a red-eye flight to New York form London. Seven passengers and a flight attendant realize they're the only people on board who aren't in a coma-like sleep.

 

 

The idea of the story came about when I saw troubling news reports on airlines during the early part of the pandemic. On top of that, I had been watching a lot of George R. Romero films. I was also binge watching The Twilight Zone.

In particular, the Zone episode The Odyssey of Flight 33 had a big influence on my story. I am also a big fan of Lost.  All of those texts were inspiring for me.

One thing I was really excited about this project was the opportunity to write a group of characters who don't know each other, but have to work with each other in order to stay alive. I certainly looked to Stephen King who has written many of these types of situations, such as Desperation, Maximum Overdrive and "The Langoliers." 

Flight Unknown was a ton of fun to write, and I hope everyone enjoys it. Please check out www.tomconnellyfiction.com for updates and to sign up for my newsletter.

 

Be safe.

The Record Store Can Read My Desire

Damon Krukowksi's great book (and podcast) Ways of Hearing explores how digital media have transformed the way we hear. 

In the chapter on "power," he considers the difference between Spotify's "Discovery Weekly" and visiting a record store. Spotify's algorithm considers what you listen to, adapting to your tastes and likes. He notes, "At Spotify, the dream is to provide you with music without your participation-the algorithm will know what you want" (111).

 

 

But when we visit a record store, one has to navigate its space. As Krukowski states, "You adapt to it" (11). If you ever been to Amoeba in Los Angeles--clearly the case!

 

(Me at Amoeba Music)

By adapting to the store's layout, you might come across a surprise, maybe a record you hadn't thought about purchasing. This process involves your unconscious desire. As I explained in an earlier posting, the logic of desire operates on absence. The object cause of desire (what Jacques Lacan terms objet a) can never be satisfied.

 

 

At the same time, the object cause of desire sustains the psychical force of desire because it is unattainable. It is sometimes described as the real of one's desire. Real - meaning the impossible, or in this case, the stumbling block of desire. 

In a previous post on the gaze, I noted how cinematic forms can elicit our desire. Like the narrative and formal construction of a movie, the design and layout of a record store considers your desire. A record store is already designed for you to engage with it.

Not all stores will elicit your desire. But in my recent journey to Amoeba, the store reads my desire in how it displays its merchandise. It is not adapting to me (as Spotify does with Discovery Weekly), but is trying to elicit my unconscious desire in anticipating a surprise purchase.

 

 

But this raises a question: can algorithms such as Discover Weekly read your desire? In a podcast on the Lacanian Real with Todd McGowan, he argues they can't because they repeatedly tell you what you want.

I think McGowan's claim lines up with Slavoj Zizek's critique of technological singularity. For Zizek, singularity can't account for the unconscious. Likewise, algorithms don't know how to read our unconscious desire. 

Instead of a "surprise," (something unexpected which emerges from your encounter at a record store), you discover something new with Discover Weekly, which is based on your tastes. As Krukowski writes, "You find the answers you want to the questions you already know to ask. . . . This makes an ideal experience if all you want is what you want. But what if you're looking for something else?" (112). That "something else" is what Lacan call objet a which algorithms can not provide. 

Another way to think about algorithms is they operate on mastery. By contrast, a record store operates on both absence ("something else") and mastery ("all"). As you navigate the story, you try to master it. At the same time, what draws you into the store is absence (unconscious desire).

Immanuel Kant - The Schema

I found some papers I wrote in grad school and thought I would share. This one was from a class I took on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. It explains the concept of the schema. I remember this was a strange concept when I first learned it. I would later learn Slavoj Zizek would sometimes use the schema to explain how fantasy works. I hope you find this helpful. I am using the Cambridge edition, citing A/B version of the Critique.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Immanuel Kant’s critique of abstract concepts. For Kant, to unravel an abstract concept is to know the determinate rules for human cognition; that is, to uncover the forms of judgment that allows one to conceptualize an object of experience. Empiricist philosophers such as Hume and Locke have tried to solve the problem of abstract concepts but without the employment of a priori conditions. The starting point for both Hume’s theory of impressions and Locke’s theory of ideas is the realm of experience. However, for Kant, experience as a starting point cannot demonstrate what is universal and necessary for the possibility of a priori judgments. To solve the problem of abstract concepts, Kant introduces the notion of a schema which is a determinate rule that mediates the relationship between appearances and the categories. There are three problems of abstract concepts associated with the schema: empirical concepts (in relation to the universal and particular), pure sensible concepts, and pure concepts of the understanding. In this paper I will explain the problem of empirical concepts in regards to the particular and universal, which the empiricist philosophers could not solve, and show how the employment of the schema solves the problem of abstract concepts.

 

In the section on transcendental deduction, Kant demonstrated how the combination of the transcendental aesthetic (the conditions of time and space) and the pure concepts of the understanding present the possibility of experience. Per Dieter Henrich, Kant’s transcendental deduction is a two steps process in a single deduction, exemplifying the connection between the intellectual and sensible conditions of human knowledge. The importance of the transcendental deduction is that it demonstrates the objective validity of the categories for the possibility of experience. Objective validity is vital for Kant’s transcendental deduction because it establishes the necessary truth for the possibility of judgments. 

 

The transcendental deduction, however, only tells us the story on how forms and structures operate within the mind. Kant’s next endeavor must present the empirical side of the story in order to fully proclaim his Copernican Revolution; that is, objects conform to our knowledge. To fully solve the problem of abstract concepts, we must understand how content is employed within the forms of the mind, because, as Kant states, “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind” [ B75/A51]. Without the employment of content, the categories of understanding would remain idle. 

 

Kant posits that general logic cannot supply the rules or forms for the power of judgment, noting that “General logic contains no precepts at all for the power of judgment, and more over cannot contain them” [B171/A132]. For instance, everyone can learn how to interpret a type of triangle or square, such as a right angle or a rhombus; but the power of judgment through the lens of general logic cannot state that this particular triangle or square is universally correct. Paul Guyer explains in Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, “If rules were needed to apply concepts, which are themselves rules, then further rules might be needed to apply concepts, which are ad infinitum” (162). General logic cannot inform what the determinate rules or precepts are for the power of judgment. Applying one rule to another rule under general logic leads to an infinite regress and not what is necessary and universal. 

To avoid the problem of an infinite regress Kant argues that there must be determinate rules (forms and structures) for the power of judgment. The transcendental deduction alone cannot produce an object of experience. The combination of the manifold of intuition and the categories require an additional mechanism to direct the appearances in order to produce an object of experience. Kant notes, “[T]he function of the understanding in the category must also contain a priori form conditions of sensibility … that contain the general conditions under which alone the category can be applied to any object” [B179/A140]. For Kant, there must be something “homogeneously contained” in the representation of the object in order to arrive at the concept of an object such as a dog or a plate. Kant notes, “In all subsumption of an object under a concept the representations of the former must be homogeneous with the latter” [A137/B176]. The notion of subsumption posits something particular in the representation that is homogeneous with the object. In other words, properties of objects are represented by predicates, and what links the predicates to the categories is what Kant terms the schema.  

 

The schema is a determinate rule that mediates that relationship between appearances and the categories. The schema is pure a priori and is also sensible because its application to the category is transcendental time-determinate. Kant notes, “[An] application of the category to appearances become possible by means of transcendental time-determination which, as the schema of the concept of understanding, mediates the subsumption of the later under the former” [B178/A139]. The transcendental deduction cannot mediate the appearance to the categories because pure concepts have they no time determination. It is the schema as a transcendental time-determinate that links the appearance to the categories. Every sensory application must contain time; and because time is a prior, the schema is therefore a transcendental procedure.

 

Kant demonstrates the notion of the schema through the concept of a plate. Our arrival at a concept of plate (as an empirical image) is because we have a concept of circularity or roundness which subsumes under the concept of plate. That is to say, the concept of plate homogeneously contains a mark of roundness. The predicate “roundness” delineated by the schema links the categories to the concept of a plate. 

 

One can also think of the schema as a theatre usher. We have the patrons which represent the unperceived data of the manifold. The manifold (the patrons) are ordered and filtered through the doors to the theatre in regards to time and space; and, lastly, the aisles acts as the categories with each seat being a mode under the tables of categories. The schema is the third element that ushers or mediates each patron into their seat or mode under the categories. The usher would be the only one who knows where to seat the patrons. 

As noted earlier, one of the three problems of abstract concepts associated with the schema is empirical concepts (the relationship to the universal and particular). Particularities are concepts we come to know in the phenomenal world such as a dog or a plate. Universals are forms that are rule governed and are the workings behind the scene that allow the particular to emerge. Empirical philosophers have not been able to provide a theory on how we can formally know an object of experience because their starting point is the particular not the universal. Philosopher such as Hume and Locke have argued theories that relate to empirical concepts, but nothing that demonstrates universality on how we come know an object of experience. For instance, Hume’s theory of impressions posits the mind can know, for example, the concept of dog based on one’s past experience of various breeds of four-footed animals. For Hume, the mind constructs a judgment based on resemblance, contiguity and causation. And over time, the mind creates a building block of this past experience. For example, I can know the difference between a Poodle and a Bulldog because my mind compares and contrasts with those particular breeds based on past experiences. That is to say, Hume’s theory works with the relations of the particular based on past judgments of dogs. But particularity cannot arrive what is necessary and universal. Hume’s theory of impressions cannot solve the problem of abstract concept because it does not provide a general rule for human cognition on how one comes know the concept of dog. 

 

Moreover, empiricist philosophers could not solve the problem of abstract concepts because they were working from what Kant calls the reproductive image (the empirical image). For Kant, empirical images cannot produce a proper theory of knowledge because it represents particularity, not universality. As Kant notes, “The concept of dog signifies a rule for in accordance with which my imagination can specify the shape of a four-footed animal in general, without being restricted to any single particular shape that experience offers me or any possible image that I can exhibit in concreto” [B181]. The schema solves the problem of abstract concept because the predicate “a figure of four-footed animal,” as rule is subsumed in the empirical concept of dog. The schema constrains the categories because it is impossible for the mind to think of all types of dogs in one given thought. The problem the empirical philosophers wrestled with was they were working from the image itself. The empirical image cannot be a determinate rule because, as pointed out with general logic, it is always relative. Kant states, “The schema is in itself always only a product of the imagination; but since the synthesis of the later has as it aim on individual intuition but rather only the unity in the determination of sensibility, the schema is to be distinguished from an image” [B179/A140]. The schema is not the conclusion (the empirical image), but is the procedure (pure a priori) that allows the conclusion (the concept of dog) to emerge. As Norman Kemp Smith notes in Commentary to Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” second edition, “Images become possible only through and in accordance with the schemata, but can never themselves be identified with them… Images are always particular; schemata are always universal" (338). It is the schema that mediates between appearances and the categories that makes the image of a dog or any object of experience possible. 

 

The notion of the schema debunks the empiricist’s problem of abstract concepts because it demonstrates a universal and transcendental procedure for the power of judgment. And because the schema is transcendental, it aligns with Kant’s Copernican revolution that object must conform to our knowledge. Thus, the schema is a transcendental time-determinate mechanism that mediates between appearances and the categories and thus, employs the form of judgments.