From c0eb0e7dbcc7562580d71f6f8c03c004cca642fc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "(quasar) nebula" Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2024 18:42:23 -0300 Subject: michael guy bowmantary --- album/mobius-trip-and-hadron-kaleido.yaml | 40 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 40 insertions(+) (limited to 'album/mobius-trip-and-hadron-kaleido.yaml') diff --git a/album/mobius-trip-and-hadron-kaleido.yaml b/album/mobius-trip-and-hadron-kaleido.yaml index eaa1674d..24fad708 100644 --- a/album/mobius-trip-and-hadron-kaleido.yaml +++ b/album/mobius-trip-and-hadron-kaleido.yaml @@ -85,6 +85,22 @@ Commentary: |- That's all I can remember at the moment. Bowman might remember more. + Michael Guy Bowman: ([Michael Guy Bowman Talks About His Homestuck Music](https://youtu.be/85VXWZTg-vo?t=1359), adapted to text, 7/20/2024) + + Mobius Trip & Hadron Kaleido, now there's something! When the fake band idea was being proposed, I think partly because of all the guitar and drum stuff I had been writing out on some of these, [[artist:andrew-hussie|Andrew]] was really into the idea of, hey, you know, you should produce a rock album. And that's what he actually told me - it was just, produce a rock and roll album! That's what I'd always wanted to do, is produce original songs and do rock music. + + *(Continued in [[track:lies-with-the-sea]])* + + More broadly, what we ended up doing with that - I wanted to do, like, a prophetic work, where I wasn't tied to concrete storytelling episodes within Homestuck, because ultimately I didn't have authorship over the comic, Andrew did. And I wanted to create something that would be able to be interpreted freely, so that he could use it however he wanted to use it. So he never really... gave me characters, or anything, that he wanted there to be. I was just like, you know, let's come up with some loose characters, and we'll just see whether or not Andrew wants to use them. Because he never had a real, like, hard idea for that one. I think he was just too busy with other stuff. + + The characters were a collaboration of myself and [[artist:tavia-morra|Tavia Morra]], and we based their images on ourselves, and we came up with these citizens of Prospit and Derse who were generals, who were on opposite sides of a battle. And of course, knowing the comic, the battle is futile, and really the answer lies somewhere in the eternal, and they are prophets of peace who express that prophecy through cryptic art. (laughs) They are telling you something that's kind of, a psychedelic truth, which is that, you know, the universe is bigger than we know. + + And I always respected that about Andrew's ideas with the cosmology of Homestuck, even with Problem Sleuth, with the Godhead Pickle Inspector and stuff, and staring into the lotus, and like, the microscopic becoming the macroscopic. He was always playing with the idea of, what's our eternal purpose? in a universe where time may be cyclical and where individual lives may not amount to much, in the face of cosmic destiny. I think thematically, that's what I wanted to play with. + + *(Continued in [[track:dawn-of-man]] and [[track:chain-of-prospit]])* + + I was really encouraged by Mobius Trip & Hadron Kaleido, even if it wasn't ever incorporated in the comic, I was more motivated to say - you know, I care about my own songwriting and want to continue with it. That meant that I ended up pivoting that year to making more solo music - those of you who follow this channel and know my personal work, it's probably not the biggest history lesson for you, but, that was the beginning of me doing [[group:michael-guy-bowman|a series of solo albums]] that I'm continuing to work on [[album:your-majesty|to this day]]. Of course, I didn't stop making music for the rest of the comic. We worked on more volumes and compilations. + Homestuck: ([Bandcamp credits blurb](https://web.archive.org/web/20110603145529/https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/album/mobius-trip-and-hadron-kaleido)) Album art by [[artist:tavia-morra]] and [[artist:richard-gung]] @@ -180,6 +196,14 @@ Lyrics: |- They fly right by Who were they, and next to them Who the hell am I? +Commentary: |- + Michael Guy Bowman: ([Michael Guy Bowman Talks About His Homestuck Music](https://youtu.be/85VXWZTg-vo?t=1517), adapted to text, 7/20/2024) + + *(Continued from [[album:mobius-trip-and-hadron-kaleido|album commentary]])* + + I did that on Dawn of Man, which was this piece that wove, you know, near-death experience, atrocity, and the survival instinct, and it's kind of like... 2001-style, oh, you know, pre-history and history and the future are all connected. + + *(Continued in [[track:chain-of-prospit]])* --- Track: Beta Version Duration: '4:35' @@ -394,6 +418,10 @@ Commentary: |- The thing that most strongly made me feel comfortable using this track on Mobius Trip and Hadron Kaleido was its inspiration from dreams and the sense that it generally echoed the thought of being swept away in a wave as mentioned in "Dawn of Man" earlier on the album. Originally I even recorded an alternate lyric to the melody of "Sburban Jungle" to open the second verse which I ditched that went as follows: "Down, down far below, somewhere safe/ Lost in the wave once again." + + Michael Guy Bowman: ([Michael Guy Bowman Talks About His Homestuck Music](https://youtu.be/85VXWZTg-vo?t=1386), adapted to text, 7/20/2024) + + Originally, I think partly inspired by Plastic Beach, I was kind of interested in an underwater theme, characters like Eridan and Feferi and the sea kingdom thing... like, one of the first ideas I worked on that was Lies With The Sea. --- Track: Chain Of Prospit Duration: '4:37' @@ -482,6 +510,18 @@ Commentary: |- Michael Guy Bowman: (Bowmantown Discord, excerpt, 8/11/2017) the outpouring of people who told me that song got them through a rough patch was incredible. it definitely makes me think twice about what the effect of my work on an audience will be, esp. compared to the stuff i was working on when i was way younger + + Michael Guy Bowman: ([Michael Guy Bowman Talks About His Homestuck Music](https://youtu.be/85VXWZTg-vo?t=1537), adapted to text, 7/20/2024) + + *(Continued from [[track:dawn-of-man]])* + + And, taking that journey toward, you know, a culmination on Chain of Prospit, which says that our reasons for living are personal, and not refutable simply because the universe is giant and possibly indifferent. We have our own right to live for ourselves. + + To some extent, that album was a turning point for me, because, you know, when you compare it to how stupid it was to do these... silly songs, you know, I think *so* much of the stuff I did for Homestuck ended up being funny, and it was like, I managed to get my way back into the comic again and again by being, you know, a comedian, that - pivoting so hard, to this, y'know, big serious thing that was more about "what does life mean?" (laughs) And doing that while decorating it with the elements of this comic, which are... sometimes just stupid and shocking. + + I don't know, I think it hit right in the weirdest way, by reaching people that weren't expecting it. When people tell me that Chain of Prospit, for instance, really connected with them, and made them feel like they're not alone, or it made them feel like, that it... that it is personally true that they have a reason to live and that they shouldn't doubt their own struggle to keep going... I think it made me change, quite a bit. How cynical can I be about the world, when there's this other side of myself that... does honestly believe that, what you do with art, even if it's for some crazy thing like Homestuck, um, could actually touch somebody, in some real way? + + *(Continued back in [[album:mobius-trip-and-hadron-kaleido|album commentary]])* --- Track: Pumpkin Tide Duration: '3:31' -- cgit 1.3.0-6-gf8a5