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In this episode, Carl King shares TWO filmmaking lessons (John Carpenter’s The Ward & Werewolf By Night), unearths Advice From Mark Borchardt, explores What The Heck Is Success?, visits StrangeCat Toys, and names Conlon Nancarrow as Musical Artist of the Week.
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SHOW NOTES / LINKS
Full-Length Mark Borchardt Interview (2014)
https://youtu.be/jI5Uis4D-58
Get John Carpenter’s THE WARD
https://geni.us/47Kke
Get WEREWOLF BY NIGHT Comics
https://geni.us/DSjAvGq
StrangeCat Toys
https://www.strangecattoys.com
Deercat and Friends
https://www.strangecattoys.com/collections/custom-figures/products/deercat-cafe-desperation-coffee
WeVeganCafe
https://www.wevegancafe.com
Conlon Nancarrow / Study #37 For Player Piano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0gNoELvpPo
OPENING CREDITS
I’m Carl King, and this is The Carl King Podcast, where we learn about music, filmmaking, and the other creative arts. To support this podcast, head over to Patreon.com/carlking, and join for just $1 or $5 per month. Or send a tip through PayPal or Venmo to username CarlKingdom. Special thank you to my Illusionist $51 level patrons, both Hank Howard III and Chewbode.
Quick shout-out to my music endorsements: Vienna Symphonic Library, Fractal Audio, Ernie Ball Strings, Toontrack, and Millennia Media.
Now let’s start to prepare to start getting started! To get this episode Beginned.
COMING UP
In this episode, I’ve got a recently unearthed Mark Borchardt Interview clip. Then we’ve got TWO filmmaking lessons. And then a FEATURE segment called WHAT THE HECK IS SUCCESS? Then Carl King visits a DESIGNER Toy Store in Tampa, and we wrap it all up with a Musical Artist of the Week. But let’s start with a Carl King The Human Update.
CARL KING THE HUMAN UPDATE
Okay I’m Carl King the Human Update.
I went to an allergist this week. If you’ve never done a basic allergy test, it goes like this. They poke the inside of your forearms with about 40 little thingies containing common allergens. It’s honestly pretty painless. Well, in just a few minutes, both my arms swelled up, covered in giant red bumps. Like huge swollen mosquito bites. It was pretty gruesome. It turns out I have environmental allergies to JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING. Trees, grass, weeds, dust, cats and dogs, and even cockroaches. Well, I’ll have to keep my cockroach collection in another room.
The allergist said: “This is a severe case. That’s not a word I use randomly. It’s definitely severe and we need to do something about it.” So, she gave me some prescriptions, and we’ll see what happens.
I also discovered that in the past three months of working at Plosive Central, I’ve gained 11 pounds of un-strategically placed fat. Because when I work from home, I have access to a lot more healthy food. But if I’m working late at Plosive Central, I’ll end up ordering thousands of dollars of Del Taco, which is terrible for Carl King to be eating.
I decided to relocate a bunch of my gear… and work from my home studio as much as I can, which is where this episode is being recorded. But don’t worry, we’ll still have plenty of plosives.
Working from home also makes it convenient for me to take a heathy walk around the neighborhood or go on a bike ride in the middle of the day. I like to take a 1 mile walk in the early afternoon and another 1 mile walk near sunset. I’m hoping that this lifestyle change, especially cutting out Del Taco, will help me lose those 11 pounds of un-strategically placed fat.
OK. In other news, I want to share this motivational, inspirational clip from a recently unearthed Mark Borchardt interview.
BORCHARDT INTERVIEW EXCERPT
On June 26, 2014, I had Mark Borchardt over to my studio. I pummeled him with questions based on the concepts from my book “So, You’re A Creative Genius… Now What?” It was filmed the day AFTER I did my podcast episode with him, which is episode number 6. Anyway, this weekend, 8 YEARS LATER, I finally popped open the footage and was blown away by how powerful his answers were. If you’re a creative person, or want to be one, I hope it inspires and motivates you.
So now, I’m going to play just one segment from the interview.
There you go. Go watch the whole interview which is an hour long, on my YouTube channel. YouTube.com/carlkingdom
And now, let’s do some filmmaking lessons.
FILM REVIEW #1 – JOHN CARPENTER’S THE WARD (2010)
First up, we have The Ward from 2010. This is possibly the FINAL film John Carpenter will ever make. But you never know. It’s been 12 years now, but he also took a ten year hiatus BEFORE making The Ward. Will he make another film? We do not know for sure. I hope he does.
The Ward was Screenwritted by:
Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen
If you’re curious, they recently wrote a movie about some people stuck in a crawl space under a house. Huh. Okay Than.
The Ward stars Amber Heard, a female actress from Austin, Texas. Everyone’s talking about her lately, and I wanted to see what the big deal is.
Also stars Jared Harris. Never knew that guy’s name, but I’ve seen him in SO many things. Looks like he was in Fringe, Mad Men. But he was in something else I’ve watched and just can’t figure out what it was. Even going through his filmography, I have no clue. Isn’t that something, how you can see an actor in so many movies and never know his name?
I hit play and the movie starts off with 300 production company logos. Which usually means you’re in for a low budget movie.
The teaser is visually-driven. Communicates exactly the information you need. We’ve got some creepy medical tools.
And lots of lightning. But that lightning doesn’t look real to me. There’s too much of it and it looks literally like light switches turning on and off. It doesn’t fade at the end of the strike. And man, the place sure does have a lot of lightning storms. But it did take place in the lightning capital of the world. Oregon.
I read that this story took place in the 60s, but I’m not sure it even mattered. It never occurred to me while watching it. So it could have been any time before the internet.
So Amber Heard burns down a house. Okay than. I’ll let everyone know.
I notice they skip the entire legal process between arresting her and admitting her to a mental hospital.
At this point we have no idea what’s up. Are we just supposed to think she’s “crazy?” Is this just a stock generalization? Or are we gonna get more detail than that?
I think too often we use these blanket terms like insane and crazy and mentally ill. It’s kind of like the modern day version of a Communist or a Witch.
The nurse hands her pills. “Here take these.” “What are they?” “Something to help you get better.” Come on now. I can’t remember who said it, but screenwriters tend to write characters based on how people behave in movies, rather than writing characters as people. Because they’ve seen so many movies. It’s like, this is what characters in movies say. Someone said that whatever your first instinct is for dialogue in a particular scene, don’t do it, because thousands of other people have already used those lines in similar scenes. This exchange was an example of that.
By the way, ever visited a psychiatric hospital? I have. And it wasn’t stocked full of well-dressed young female patients who look like cheerleaders. What are the odds?
It reminds me bit of Sucker Punch. Although I remember that movie being a lot more… creative?
So, Amber Heard sits down with Jared Harris, who is her doctor. And he says: “Let’s discuss what happened yesterday.” What!? In 24 hours from her arrest for burning down a house, she was already admitted to a fancy mental hospital? That’s fast. Doctor doesn’t even know why she’s there. Well, poop.
And I keep wondering. Does Amber Heard have fake hair? Is that called hair extensions? Why does her hair look kind of fake? It’s too poofy somehow.
Thoughout this movie, a number of implausible things happen. For instance, the doctor leaves a LETTER OPENER, basically a knife, right there on his desk in front of her. So she swipes it, and later uses it to pop open the lock on her cell door. She just turns it like a key. Click! Tada.
This is what people do in movies, I guess. Everything is easy.
An orderly comes in, and says: “I got some clothes for you.” Now how the heck does he know about clothes for her? I’ve been married 12 years and I wouldn’t know the first thing about getting clothes for my wife. I wouldn’t dare.
The other confusing thing… the girls in this ward with Amber Heard seem to have barely any issues. For instance, one of them is… annoying? Another tries to feed food to a stuffed animal? And that’s basically it. And they’re all perfectly made up somehow. Like they have access to a professional hair and makeup artist in there. Again, if you’ve ever visited one of those places…
Another implausible scene: The Nurse leaves her office WIDE OPEN. With all the medication cabinets also WIDE OPEN.
And then we get a shower scene. And in this psychiatric hospital, they make all the girls shower together in one big room. For the movie I guess.
The doctor decides Amber Heard is just too crazy, or mentally ill. So they decide it’s time for electro-shock therapy. The doctor puts a rolled up bandage in her mouth and she acts like she can’t spit it out. Mumbling and yelling through it.
And get this: when they zap her, they’re holding her down on the table. With their hands. Someone cranks the knob up to 2000 mili-amps. Is that a lot? I don’t know. If YOU know, let me know.
Later, the doctor sets up a metronome to hypnotize a patient. Sets it at like 120. “Listen to the rhythm. It will help you relax.” No, I don’t think so. Because 120 is like a fast walking tempo. Makes me nervous even hearing that clickity clack.
Alright. Pretty much all of the dialogue in this movie is literal statements and questions about facts. Everything is on the surface. Amber Heard spends most of her time asking the doctor questions and he never answers. For a movie about psychology, or psychiatry, we get very little character depth.
Also, that psychiatric hospital has very poor security procedures. For instance, there’s a MASSIVE air conditioning duct in one of the girl’s bathroom stalls. It’s maybe 3.5 wide? Who the heck would design and install an air conditioning duct THAT BIG, right behind a TOILET?
And here’s another thing. Amber Heard borrows a PENNY from one of the girls, in an earlier scene. Turns out she needed the penny to unscrew it the mesh and and get into the vent. So the girls crawl around, and there’s one of those stock moments where they’re in the ceiling of a room. And someone walks under a vent it and looks up. All we needed to complete the cliche would be the knives stabbing through it, but they didn’t bother with that.
The girls get to the other end of the ventilation shaft, and the mesh on the other end just happens to be not fastened. Easily pops it out. Because if it was fastened, they wouldn’t be able to unscrew it with the penny from the inside. They’d have to go all the way back and the scene would be a waste of time.
Ever been to an IKEA? Ever try to find your way out of one? This psychiatric hospital was designed like that. Because how big can this building really be? They’re running up and down stairs. Up and down elevators. Running running running.
And it all ends in a kind of nonsensical way. It’s revealed that the whole story was a delusion. Okay THAN.
In my totally subjective opinion, this movie was a stinker.
But we need to be VERY CAREFUL, because it’s too easy to mistake subjective for objective. Because SOMEONE out there would probably say this is their favorite movie of all time. And by the way, I’d love to meet and interview that person. Whoever you are.
So here’s MY diagnosis, this movie had two serious problems. The scenes are Implausible and the Dialogue is superficial.
I can’t understand why people write movies like this, but here are two possibilities:
1 – Audiences actually enjoy them.
2 – Maybe this was the best script available at the time. “We’re making a movie, what have we got? Okay, we don’t have anything better, let’s do it.”
But here’s what confuses me. I can’t understand how John Carpenter made something like this. It makes me wonder, were all his movies like this? How did he go from making such an entertaining film like Big Trouble In Little China… to THIS?
Is this kind of like his St. Anger, after which he finally got tired of making movies?
In my opinion, the CONCEPT behind this movie seems promising: What if a girl is in a mental hospital with a bunch of other girls, and in the end we find out all the other girls are her multiple personalities? INCLUDING her. SHE is one of the multiple personalities of someone ELSE. And the “GHOST” killing each one of them is the original personality trying to rid herself of the others. Okay, THAT is interesting. It’s kind of a Fight Club thing.
So the script and execution are the problem here.
Lesson: You can have a fantastic concept but it can go totally wrong in the execution.
FILM REVIEW #2 – DISNEY’S WEREWOLF BY NIGHT TV SPECIAL
Up next, we have Disney’s Werewolf by Night – TV Special.
Screenwrited and Storywrited by Heather Quinn, who was a writer on the Marvel show Hawkeye. And Peter Cameron who wrote on Moon Knight, Wanda Vision, Carnival Row, and exactly ZERO episodes of Knight Rider.
This TV special was directed by Michael Giacchino. Oh, come on. Does the world really need ANOTHER film directed by this guy?
Werewolf by Night stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Laura Donnelly. I thought to myself, I don’t recognize any of the actors. That’s something different, isn’t it? It seems like huge name actors are the first thing considered. So this was a strong choice.
The show starts out with a retro Radio drama vibe. I had to think… Now: Is this a crutch? Is this all so they could get away with narration?
Here’s an observation. Wait, why do I need to tell you I am about to share an observation? Well, here it is anyway.
Isn’t it interesting… that with all this technology we still can’t make a movie look authentically OLD? To me, this looks like a digital movie with filters. And according to IMDB this was indeed shot on digital, with an Arri Alexa LF. So there you go.
First part of Act one, about the first 13 minutes, I’m thinking there’s no way this is going to be enjoyable for me. It’s loaded with exposition and facts.
And it’s looking like the plot is a straight up COMPETITION between some mercenaries. It’s literally a sport, which to me is the same thing as watching a video game. Oh goody. Kill me. We’re locked onto the rails going down the train track like a Disney ride.
I’m thinking, we know where it’s going. It’s plot driven.
So, they’ve paid tribute to old black and white horror movies and TV. But did they leave out the most important thing? Is this going to be lacking the heavy psychological morality twist that Twilight Zone or Outer Limits would have? Like, is the GUY the monster? Is the GIRL actually the monster? What do we learn about the world and about humanity? I’m thinking at this point, probably nothing. This is going to be: The hero kills the monster. The End.
But the cinematography by Zoe White is solid. This special looks like it was shot on actual PHYSICAL sets like you’d see in Citizen Kane. Instead of that flat look of The Volume or The Cube or whatever Disney calls it. Lots of extreme foreground, lots of depth. Thank you, Zoe White.
There’s also a guy with a flaming sousaphone. That was a creative, surrealistic touch.
Folks. Fooolks. I’m also not a big reader of comic books, so I had no idea until the end credits that this was based on comic book from the 1970s. Would that have made me like it more? I doubt it. And the percentage of people who would care about a Werewolf from an old Marvel comic book, must be very small. So whether its based on a previous property means nothing here. And as I said, those first 12-13 minutes, I was sure I had no interest.
BUT: two moments turn it around. One, when Gael Garcia Bernal speaks to his friend, and two: the moment in the crypt where he talks about family. Okay! Now we’re getting something. I’ll let everyone know.
And that first shot of the monster in action? Wow. Spoiler alert: Turns out the monster is the marvel character called Man-Thing. I knew it looked familiar, but as I said, I’m not enough of a reader of comic books to know all these specifics.
These are some wonderful twists and surprises.
When we get into act two, I thinking, well, now what? This is not AT ALL the movie I thought I was going to see. I’m pleasantly surprised. I’m ready to go. This is COOL.
Of course, the music was great, as you’d expect from a Michael Giacchino score. Except for one tiny thing, and maybe this is just me. I’d say the high-register Bernard Herman Psycho strings, the EEE EEE EEE EEE are a no-no. It’s too direct and iconic. It can’t be used again. It took me immediately out of the story every time I heard it.
We like some things and don’t like others. And that got me thinking.Maybe we like the things we are brainwashed into liking, and then we come up with rationalizations about why we like them. Not the other way around.
Maybe that’s all I’m doing here, with these film deconstructions. Maybe our enjoyment of things is purely genetic, aesthetic programming and causation. It probably is.
So what is the filmmaking lesson that can be extracted from Werewolf by Night? I think it’s this: The first 12 or 13 minutes were too STRAIGHTFORWARD ACTION ADVENTURE. I was ready to give up on it. And if I hadn’t committed to feature it on my podcast, I would have shut it off. Especially in these days of streaming, you wanna make sure your intended audience will stay with it. That abrupt, and well-done story shift was too late in the show. I needed something to happen earlier that hooks me, tells me that this is MY kind of story.
But overall, I have to say, Werewolf By Night was dang good. It had just a little bit of James Gunn going on. So I gave it 5/5 stars on Letterboxd.
And now, onto our Feature Segment.
FEATURE – WHAT THE HECK IS SUCCESS?
This segment is called What The Heck Is Success? And is taken from a blog I wrote in January 2021. It goes like this.
I had a chat with a filmmaker friend recently. At some point he blurted out the phrase “We’re not successful.”
It was a funny, blunt thing to say, and it caught me off-guard. And it’s definitely not a statement I agree with. You could also say it’s the opposite of an empowering, NLP, daily affirmation. But I think I knew what he meant. And it got me thinking: this is actually a tricky concept, and it’s worth looking deeper.
Here’s the problem with the statement “We’re not successful.” I THINK the “success” he was talking about is largely a myth — and I say myth in the Joseph Campbell / Yuval Noah Harari sense. Success is a collective story… an agreed-upon idea shared within our culture. And that also means it may or may not be objectively true.
So, here are the facts about my filmmaker friend and I. Which are objectively true.
1 – We’ve had no lasting commercial success with our original, self-owned projects. We don’t LIVE off our creations.
2 – We have no major Film / TV or Music credits.
(I also think it’s crazy how much those things make such a difference in how people treat you.)
But I don’t see how that makes me or my filmmaker friend UN-successful. Not the right word to use.
Still, having one or both of those visible signs of success is like a membership card. Being able to say look at me, I’m special: “I’m in a band on such-and-such record label with a famous person” or “I am the director of that movie you heard of starring a famous actress” can open some doors, for sure. I wouldn’t turn down having one of these membership cards, and I would also do everything in my power to avoid the typical delusions of grandeur.
The Problem is this. Those VISIBLE signs of success can be mixed up in a PACKAGE DEAL FALLACY. We assume “that guy” who does “the thing” must also have “all this other stuff” happening, too. We assume it just all goes together. He has a mansion and never has to work again, right? I mean, what else is that dang membership card good for?
Some people take advantage of this thinking error to puff up their status, to fool people. I knew a guy who brought along a fake guitar tech to carry his guitar at NAMM, just to seem like he was a rock star. This sort of scheming is endless out here. I engaged in such trickery myself in the mid-2000s.
It’s hard not to fill in the blanks with our imaginations, and I think it’s a good practice to define what we think the word “successful” means. It’s a generalization, and I’m skeptical of it.
So let’s examine the fine print on the membership card, which happens to be imaginary fine print. We’ll use a hypothetical TV Show creator / writer / director named Brittany Tyler.
Our fake famous person, Brittany Tyler, has a bunch of major credits. Let’s assume she’s made TV shows that ANYONE in the general public would know the names of.
So here we go.
The first is 1 – NET WORTH. We can’t know Ms. Tyler’s net worth. Net worth is total assets minus liabilities. How much does she make — and more importantly, how much does she SPEND? That house and car she has might just be large amounts of debt. Is her mortgage paid off? What are the property taxes on that place? Alright, well, maybe she made good financial decisions, saved her money, lived below her means, invested. Or… is she anxiously trying to sell a new TV show project so she can maintain that lifestyle? Hard to tell.
In contrast, your own next door neighbor might be a multi-millionaire that doesn’t put it on display. And might have even more money than famous film director Brittany Tyler.
My point is, it’s impossible to know unless we can see all of her accounts. We only assume she has “made it” — whatever that means.
Now, wouldn’t it be an interesting world… if we all had our net worth on display floating above our heads. My guess is a lot of illusions would go POOF.
And number 2 – SUSTAINABILITY. Brittany Tyler had a project that is a commercial success — a hit TV show on a mainstream network, some years ago. That’s great! But it does not necessarily lead to another. Most often, it won’t.
Maybe she’s been trying to sell / make another TV show, but she’s competing against the people who have had TWO or FIVE hit TV shows. And on and on.
Maybe so far, she’s spent ten years pitching show ideas and not a single one has actually been made. It can be a complicated process. Lots of stops and starts. The people who decide which shows get made don’t necessarily know what they’re doing, what will work or what will flop. This week they have the money to spend, next week they don’t. Although it can be done, the odds of sustaining a long career in the entertainment industry are not good.
Add to that: through the magic of Confirmation Bias, we tend to notice those who somehow pull it off. Those who don’t, simply fall off our radar. They disappear. And so, we ASSUME that Brittany Tyler has an infinite career of endless TV show deals waiting for her. And that is UNLIKELY.
And number 3 – THE “IN.” Stay with me on this one. How did Brittany Tyler get her start? How did she break into the business? Was it because she was the most prepared and qualified? Did she read every book, take every class, and consult every experienced person she could? Or was she another “successful person’s” roommate in college? Or was she a rich kid who didn’t know anything about making a TV show?
These things happen because there’s no direct career path, no form you fill out, no door you walk into. If there is a door, it’s blocked because so many people try to go in through it.
Most likely, Brittany Tyler befriended the right person that gave her a chance at just the right time. I would bet she is extremely likable and good in meetings — and no, not because she is female, but because getting a TV show made is largely based on your ability to charm people and act like you know what you’re talking about.
The “breaking-in stories” out there are often absurd and amount to nothing more than plain old luck. It’s not a direct 1:1 reflection on her (or anyone else’s) abilities, and you can’t overestimate the role of chance in making and breaking everyone’s careers.
This is all to say: sometimes people who are seemingly “successful” aren’t any more qualified than the rest of us — so consider that before you listen to their creative advice. ESPECIALLY in entertainment, where skills are so difficult to quantify, and personal tastes are mistaken for techniques.
And hey, let me repeat that, because I think it’s important. Personal Tastes are Mistaken for Techniques. I think it’s best to keep those two things separate.
I’ll wrap this up with a quote from Daniel J. Boorstin, author of The Image:
“A sign of celebrity is that his name is often worth more than his services.”
Bottom line: don’t evaluate your own life in comparison to Brittany Tyler’s imaginary success.
Now let’s move on to a new edition of Carl King Visits.
CARL KING VISITS: STRANGECAT TOYS
Last week when in Tampa, Florida, I made a stop to see my friends at StrangeCat Toys.
Now listen to this, and listen closely. I grew up with mass-produced toys in the 80s, like Star Wars and He-Man and Transformers. So I had the same exact toys all the other kids had. You know, the sort of thing they still sell these days at any Walmart or Target. But when we refer to TOYS at StrangeCat Toys, we don’t really mean that kind of big mainstream commercial thing.
StrangeCat is a DESIGNER Toy Store. Which means they stock artistic and unique, even one-of-a-kind collectible items. Often made out of vinyl. So they’re more made for COLLECTING and admiring, rather than taking out in a ditch and blowing up with firecrackers.
Here’s something I had never heard of. StrangeCat Toys will take the same vinyl toy and send it to maybe 20 different artists. And those artists will CUSTOMIZE the toy in their own way — by painting them, adding textures, sculpting around them. They put on a big show and sell them.
While I was there, I picked up some art by Amber Aki Huang, who has a collection called Deercat and Friends.
Deercat and Friends
https://www.strangecattoys.com/collections/custom-figures/products/deercat-cafe-desperation-coffee
And a few other fun pieces by artists named Zintears, GrapeBrain, and IBREAKTOYS.
Bobbi The Baphoment by Zintears.
https://www.strangecattoys.com/products/bobbi-the-baphomet-by-zintears?_pos=2&_sid=7a37645a1&_ss=r
Onigiri by GrapeBrain
https://www.strangecattoys.com/products/onigiri-black-by-grape-brain
Chewbode got a Thrashbacca by IBreakToys which is also pretty great. A sort of heavy metal Chewbacca that looks like Gene Simmons of KISS.
Thrashbacca by IBreakToys
https://www.strangecattoys.com/collections/pop-culture/products/8-thrashbacca-original-brown-by-ibreaktoys
Check out StrangeCat Toys to experience this designer toy subculture phenomenon. Because this is all NEW to me.
Strangecat Toys
https://www.strangecattoys.com
By the way, don’t forget to stop at WeVegan Cafe on the way out. Get a gluten free vegan chocolate chunk cookie for me.
WeVeganCafe
https://www.wevegancafe.com
And now, for the Musical Artist of the Week.
MUSICAL ARTIST OF THE WEEK: CONLON NANCARROW
Last episode I published an interview with Swedish Piano Virtuoso Lalle Larsson. When Eric Alexander Moore, my transcriptionist was going through it, there was a name we couldn’t figure out. I went back to Lalle and asked, what is this name? It sounded like Kolo-MAN-Care-Oh.
Well, the answer was Conlon Nancarrow. I Googled it. And oh my GOD.
You have to check out a YouTube Video for Study #37. You can see all the colorful patterns, it zooms WAY out, and you can hear the resulting sounds. It sounds like total chaos, but it’s perfectly mathematical. It’s got these huge logarithmic curves of frequencies correlated with tuplets. This is the most exciting music I’ve been turned onto in years. Go listen to it, and imagine what it would sound like with DRUMS and metal guitars.
I’ll post a link to Study #37 For Player Piano which Nancarrow composed from 1965 through 1969. He was in his FIFTIES when he was doing this stuff.
Now, how did Nancarrow make this music? I think that he figured out that he could HACK a player piano. If you’ve never seen a player piano, it was a way to make pianos play by themselves in the old days. You would load rolls of paper with holes punched in them, which would cause the hammers to strike the strings. So Nancarrow went to an extreme. I think he punched holes into the paper in complex mathematical patterns. It would cause the piano to play so fast and so many notes at once, it sounds like a hail storm of sonic chaos. Pretty wild to see a player piano doing that.
As I told Lalle, I love it, because that’s how my brain sounds inside. And it got me kind of excited about making some complicated metal music again.
END CREDITS
OK, that’s the end of this Episode of the Carl King Podcast. Remember to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Music, or anywhere else you listen to these dang podcasts. And support the creation of more episodes by joining my Patreon for $1 or $5 a month. That’s Patreon Dot Com Slash Carl King. Or send a tip through PayPal or Venmo to username CarlKingdom.
And as always, special thanks to my $51 a month Patrons, at the special Illusionist level, Chewbode and Hank Howard III. And thank you to ALL of the Very Good Friends of Carl King for listening, and as I always say: Hello! I’m Carl King.