Roman Edirisinghe

Winter is officially over, so it seems. Unofficially, the Wisconsin springtime can’t seem to make up its mind. The weather has been sporadically sunny and foggy, warm and cold, but I am very, very happy that the cold North winds have slowed their relentless brigade.

Spring has traditionally been a time of new beginnings, and of dusting out the old. Last night, while reading Stephen King’s Bag of Bones, I felt inspired… no, compelled, to write. I’ve had intentions of writing a book about my life for a long time, and I never took any concrete steps toward realizing that goal… until last night. I wrote about a paragraph until sleep’s weight conquered my eyes. I’ve got a long way to go.

My fear is this: I am a great one for starting projects, but I’m not the best at finishing them. I’ve been working on my CD for a couple of years now, and I don’t see an end in sight. Will this writing project be a similar story? I hope not. The best I can do is chip away at all of these projects, and hope that my efforts aren’t futile. When I was a kid, I once wanted to be an author. I don’t think that desire ever went away.

I’m now offering private guitar lessons, for those interested. I will either do home visits, or have the student come to my place.

All Ages
Beginning & Intermediate
Styles: Rock, blues, Reggae, Pop, R&B, Funk, Folk, Latin
Curriculum customized to the individual
20+ years of experience
$20 per half hour

Contact me via my online form.

If you’re looking for a big bottom to add to your car or home audio system, Tom over at Music Thing has a post on a pair of innovative subwoofers.

One of the subwoofers mentioned is a coneless, fan-driven rotary system that gets frequencies as low as 5 Hz! Instructions include mounting in a basement or attic. Pricing? Consider about $25,000. Ummm, yeah.
The second speaker, a 60 inch subwoofer, made the vehicle housing it balloon in & out a couple of times during testing. That puts those wannabe gangbangers in my neighborhood to shame!

Integrating screenshots of Google Maps and using Flickr notes, Memory Maps are visual representations of one’s memories, an annotated satellite view of places steeped in personal meaning.

I found out about Memory Maps on Lifehacker, and decided it was worth a try. After all, I’ve had an interesting childhood, moving around to different countries, and so forth.

Check out my Memory Maps photoset on Flickr. The Memory Maps group is worth perusing as well.

This was a fun night/morning. Dave Wake, Holly, Dena Aronson and Kathleen were present, among others. Naomi, Daav & I jammed some guitar. Enjoy the videos of the night/morning below:

Me arriving just before midnight…

Daav Wakay & Bootz read Monty Python excertps. Quite amusing.

Here’s a good one of Rachel & Bootz alternating words…

More to come…

I just did a Google search on my name and discovered that one of my Flickr images got used in a video presentation accompanying a perfomance of “Music in Similar Motion,” a Phillip Glass composition. I was rather surprised to find this out, as no one had informed me that this was going to take place. Oh well.

Music in Similar Motion

Search for “Roman Edirisinghe” on the photo credits page

View my original image on Flickr

I was reading Music Thing today when I stumbled across a great article on a Congolese group called Konono N°1. For the past 25 years, these musical innovators have been using low-tech ingenuity on traditional and found instruments to create a irresistable grooves. Using hand-carved wooden microphones and electrified likembé (thumb piano) plugged into amplifiers and custom-built mixers, Konono N°1 finds it’s roots in Bazombo trance music. The resulting sonic mélange has inadvertently linked them to experimental music and electronic music.

I’m really excited to pick up their CD, ‘Congotronics’, from Amazon.

via Music thing
via Inaudible Cities | more
via The Suburbs Are Killing Us

Check out this Konono N°1 page in French, featuring a great video clip of them in action.

I tried to find out more about the Bazombo and their music, and the only reference I could find is on zyama.com, an African art museum.

One of my greatest Lego creations ever…

I was playing with my housemate Kristin’s son Yoshua, and I came up with this bizarre lego thing.