WORK IN PROGRESS: ROOTY TOOT

A new composition I’ve been working on. I woke up one morning with this melody in my head and liked it a lot. Sang it into my phone, which is kind of a sonic sketch pad that I use in place of a memory. I wondered if it was one of those things where you realize how dumb it is once you wake up a little more, or if I’d still like it once I was more awake. I did like it as much once I was more awake, though it is still definitely dumb. For some reason it made sense to have some wacky analog synth noise way in the background, maybe as a mirror for the wacky bass line. I love that I have no idea how to describe what genre of music it is. Anyway… enjoy!

More music by Mike Hallenbeck

EARL CASSORLA, 1956 - 2019

I wanted to take a moment to honor the passing of Earl Cassorla, co-proprietor (with his brother Steven) of Battle Mountain, NV’s Roller Coaster Fireworks and subject of the short documentary “Boomtown”, which I had the pleasure of working on a while back.

I got to meet Earl when the film screened at the Minneapolis-St Paul International Film Festival in 2017. It’s always great to meet people in person after staring at them on my computer screen during weeks of postproduction work— especially documentary subjects— and Earl turned out to be the same softspoken, endearing presence I’d expected.

I’m happy that the film is here to commemorate Earl and Steven’s obsession and dedication. Below I’m posting the completed short, for which I provided sound edit, mix, and a couple of original musical compositions. Rest in peace, Earl.

WORK IN PROGRESS: CHUG-A-CHUG

Excerpt of a recent music composition I'm developing for Birds of the Future, an experimental performance piece by Skewed Visions. It’ll possibly appear in various iterations throughout the show. A version or two might feature live accordion performance, and/ or the original audio flipped around backwards. Hey-o.

Though it might seem a slam dunk, the final title of this piece may not in fact eventually be “Chug-A-Chug”. There’s an argument to be made that somewhere in the vast recesses of the English language, there may lurk a better title.

More music by Mike Hallenbeck