gee-tar

The Department of Useless Endeavors

Author: February 19, 2022 0 Comments

Lord knows I’ve never let failure or obscurity stop me from pushing Somers Thought onto the world. In fact, the more the world obnoxiously ignores Somers Thought, the harder I push it out there in whatever form it takes.

As some of you may know, I occasionally release music under the name The Levon Sobieski Domination, a band with exactly one member (one and a half if you count the program I use to sequence the drums). No one really cares, which is hurtful, but I do it anyway because I firmly believe that if you create something, you should put it out there. Otherwise, what’s the point?

So, The Levon Sobieski Domination keeps on truckin’. I’m about to release their ninth album — it’ll show up on Spotify and elsewhere soon — and to celebrate I went ahead and worked on another futile project no one ever pays attention to: A video constructed entirely from stock clips. Here’s “Blackout Eve” from The Levon Sobieski Domination:

The Levon Sobieski Domination: Blackout Eve

“Blackout Eve” by The Levon Sobieski Domination from the album “The Levon Sobieski Domination IX”

The name Levon Sobieski goes back a long way. If you are actually named Levon Sobieski, I apologize in advance. Back when I was publishing my zine, The Inner Swine, I created a persona for myself which was sort of an alcoholic, shambolic Bond Villain with a dash of Hugh Hefner: Jeff Somers was a tyrannical zine publisher who ran a shadowy global empire. I imagined a cast of bizarre characters who populated the Inner Swine compound, and one of those characters was a guy named Levon Sobieski, an Eastern European man I had kidnapped and forced to work as a custodian. Levon would pop up with commentary from time to time, usually expressing deep unease and befuddlement at my drunken antics.

Yes, this is how a grown man spent his time. What’s your point?

Anyways, a decade or so ago when I started to take guitar playing seriously and formed the totally imaginary band I chose Levon Sobieski in part as a link to that past era of my life, and in part because the idea of a middle-aged custodian fronting a rock band was humorous to me.

I hop y’all enjoy the song and the video, and keep an eye out for The Levon Sobieski Domination IX, coming soon.

BAM!, gee-tar, The Levon Sobieski Domination, Videos

The Stock Video Challenge

Author: May 8, 2021 0 Comments

LIVING IN THE FUTURE is fantastic. When I was a wee child growing up in the wilds of The Heights neighborhood in Jersey City, my brother Yan and I had outsize ambitions when it came to creativity and self-entertainment. I’ve written about some of our weird childhood projects on this blog before, and what’s amazing about them to Adult Jeff is how much effort they required just for the raw materials. When we constructed elaborate Star Wars-themed photosets complete with captions and blaster shots added via markers, we had to first assemble a world-class collection of Star Wars action figures, then we had to take a few dozen posed photos with them, get those photos developed, add in our ‘special effects’, write the story to go along with the photos, then mount them to paper, then force our poor, beleaguered parents to pretend to care about it, since they were our only audience.

Yan and I had a very slight interest in film-making; we lacked any real drive for it, and the tools were beyond the reach of our allowances. We never had a camera of any kind, or any training, but we always liked the idea of making films or animations. Back then, it was impossible. Today, my friends, we have stock video.

Building a Mystery

I’ve been obsessed with the idea of creating a visual narrative using stock video for years. In fact, I used to make some money off the concept by making book trailers for myself and my fellow authors. I like the challenge of the concept, the constraint. I don’t have direct control over the clips — the lighting, the actors, the style, or even how many there are featuring the same people and places. Trying to create something coherent and interesting with whatever you can find in the stock bins is, frankly, kind of fun.

I’m also an amateur musician, and I’ve invented a fake rock band called The Levon Sobieski Domination to release my music through. A few years ago, I tried my hand at creating a music video using a mix of stock and shots I created using my phone at home:

tHE bLIZZARD

A half-assed music video from Jeff Somers. Because no one asked me to.

Not exactly a cinematic masterpiece, but you get the idea. I came to realize that the mix of slick stock video and my own shaky-cam clips didn’t work, so when I returned to the concept last year, I stuck to stock video:

The Levon Sobieski Domination: Elephant in the Room

No Description

That turned out better. Recently, I’ve returned to the concept with a vengeance simply because it’s fun for me. I love finding a few dozen stock clips and trying to set a mood or tell a story of some sort with them. Here are three video I made in the last few weeks for songs I’m releasing:

“Rearview”

No Title

“Rearview” from the album “Seven” by the Levon Sobieski Domination (2020).

This one’s a mood, not a story and was basically inspired when I realized the surprising amount of cinematic stock video there is of ballerinas.

“Day Drank”

A song from the upcoming release, this video tells a pretty loose story that’s entirely on brand, I think. It started with a clip of business folks dancing in their office, and I took it in the most ridiculous direction possible.

Day Drank by The Levon Sobieski Domination

“Day Drank” by the Levon Sobieski Domination, from the album “Eight”

“Riding My Own Melt”

This one was a bit more of a challenge; once you go beyond ‘mood’ or incredibly broad narrative like “unhappy workers get day drunk and start dancing” it gets more difficult to tell a story of any kind. But in the end I think this pulled together nicely.

No Title

“Riding My Own Melt” by The Levon Sobieski Domination, from the album “Eight”

It’s fun to work on a creative project that has nothing tied to it. Whether anyone watches these videos or listens to these songs doesn’t matter: What matters is I had fun making them. And maybe you had fun watching them! Since science has yet to discover the discouragement that can deter me from unleashing such things on the world, I’ll very likely keep making these. You’ve been warned.

gee-tar, More Shit I Gotta Do, The Levon Sobieski Domination, Videos

Artistic Growth is Never Sexy

Author: September 30, 2020 0 Comments

Growing as a writer — or any kind of artist — is often a slow process that you notice all at once.

As many of you are aware (unfortunately, for you), I am an amateur musician. If you’re curious, you can check out my music alter-ego here. Because I am a Basic White Guy of a Certain Age (BWGCA), I’d always wanted to learn how to play guitar, but because I am a Lazy White Guy Who Coasts on Privilege (LWGWCP) it always seemed like a lot of work. Then, in 2008, my wife The Duchess purchased a guitar for my birthday, along with some lessons, and kind of forced me to finally do something about this.

I have zero interest in playing other people’s songs, except as a way to steal their musical ideas. I don’t give a fuck about being able to play songs around a campfire for people, I want to write my own music, even if no one gives a shit about it (and y’all are pretty aggressive about not giving a shit about my music). And I am certainly no musical genius, I just do this for my own satisfaction.

But it’s interesting to look at where I was musically in 2008 and where I am today. I started writing when I was ten years old or so, and long ago lost the thread of my artistic development. I hope I’m still learning and growing as a writer, but it’s hard to see that progress clearly, because I hit a baseline of competence a very long time ago.

But with music, that baseline of competence happened relatively recently. So, for example, here is the first ‘song’ I ever recorded, way back in October of 2008. Herewith the awesomeness that is ‘Ditty in G.’

Ditty in G

Wow … that’s something, right? At the time, though, I was incredibly proud. It’s recognizably a song, after all, and I was very stoked to have created it. I mean, it’s … not good, but it’s also something I literally couldn’t have done a few months earlier.

Here’s the most recent song I’ve composed, the creatively titled ‘Song 1200.’

Song 1200

(Yeah, that means it’s the 1,200th song I’ve composed. Be amazed.)

Here is where I pause to assert that I know I am no musical genius, and I’m not presenting Song 1200 as something amazing. The point is, whether or not you think it’s any good it’s certainly more complex and sophisticated. And that’s the point here: Years of practice and experimentation have definitely made me a better musician. Years of practice and experimentation will definitely make you a better writer, even if you can’t always easily see it.

If you’re interested, I occasionally inflict my musical stylings under the name The Levon Sobieski Domination. If you’re not interested, that is, apparently, perfectly normal.

gee-tar, Writing

The Levon Sobieski Domination Returns

Author: February 7, 2019 0 Comments

While I do spend just about every waking moment tapping a keyboard or scratching a page with a pen, man cannot write 100% of his waking hours. When I’m feeling sassy, I compose songs. When I’m drunk and sassy, I make music videos for those songs posing as the world’s most unknown band, The Levon Sobieski Domination.

The name of the band actually stems from my zine days, when Levon Sobieski was a character who would occasionally show up in The Inner Swine as one of my fictional employees, complaining about my general insanity. It was a lot of fun. Anyways, let me know what y’all think of my music skilz. I am available to come press play on a laptop at your next corporate event.

Bullshit, gee-tar

Creative Outlets: Sometimes More is Better

Author: October 3, 2018 0 Comments

As writers, we have a tendency to get very, very obsessed with writing. Heck, you’re reading this, which leads me to believe that you’re the sort of person who spends their free time reading about writing, when you’re not, you know, writing. Nothing wrong with that, and there’s something to be said about perfecting your craft through the simple application of time and effort—in other words, writing constantly.

But I’ve come to value alternative modes of creativity for one simple reason: It’s nice to get back to that 100% selfish, totally low-stakes kind of creative fun I used to have with writing before I started to make my living with my words.

Three Chords and a Nap

As you might know, I play guitar. I am a painfully typical middle-aged white man; I always wanted to be one of the cool kids and play guitar and start a band and overdose on heroin, but I never got around to learning, and then when I was in my 30s my wife forced me to take lessons (annoyed, no doubt, by my complaining) and since then I’ve been composing and recording actual songs.

No, seriously. I give you The Levon Sobieski Domination. No, this isn’t an up-and-coming rock band. It’s just me.

Now, I don’t think for one moment that my songs are all that great (though I am proud of them in the way only a creator can understand) and I don’t expect anyone to ever care all that much about my music. Unlike my writing, I am pretty certain I know just how mediocre my musical abilities are. But I’m having fun, and I believe that anything worth creating is worth distributing somehow, and so I put these albums together.

So where does writing come into it? The whole point is that the stakes for my music are low, kid. No one cares whether I record these songs or not. And I don’t expect to ever make a dime from them. So I get to just … well, relax and have fun and create just for creation’s sake. I don’t have to worry about sales or revision notes or sales figures. I just have fun, make something cool, and then dump it on the unsuspecting 5-10 people who will accidentally click on these links and then back slowly away from their computers, disturbed.

It’s important to have that, I think. You work so hard to make your writing a professional, money-making operation you can get in your own head a bit about whether an idea is worth it. With music, I just do all the ideas, because why not? No one’s ever gonna hear it anyway, despite my shambolic efforts.

As a bonus and possibly a bit of super secret marketing genius, half my song titles are direct references to my books.

gee-tar, Writing

I Got the Music in Me

Author: September 20, 2017 0 Comments

Yanno, I play a bit of guitar, and while I’m not deluded enough to think anyone really cares, I do believe fervently that there’s no point in creating something unless you at least put it out there for people to experience in some way. So, here are four songs I’ve recently composed in my little home studio, otherwise known as the tiny, cat-filled office I work in. Enjoy?

Song882

Song883

Song898

Song902

Enjoy!

gee-tar

Monday is Guitar Day

Author: August 3, 2015 0 Comments

Epiphone Les Paul CustomI know that after a long weekend of partying and relaxing, what you want is some amateurish songwriting and geetar playing to get you psyched up for the work week to come. Your wish is my command.

Here, songs:

Song695
Song697
Song699
Song701
Song709
Song717
Song721
Song725
Song726

You’re welcome.

The usual disclaimer: 1. I admit these are not great music; 2. I claim copyright anyway, so there; 3. No, I cannot do anything about the general quality of the mix, as I am incompetent.

gee-tar

Monday is Guitar Day

Author: February 9, 2015 2 Comments

Epiphone Les Paul CustomFACT: The fact that no one cares much about my musical compositions just drives me to post them more frequently, because you are not my supervisor.

FACT: All this negative energy just makes me stronger.

FACT: I stopped evolving as a musical artist somewhere in 2009.

Here are more songs from yours truly, which is what I do when I’m writer’s-blocked. Actually, switching to a different mode of creative expression is kind of helpful for writing, b/c it lets me clear my head and shunt all the plot worries to the subconscious while I bang this. sick. beat. (Really hoping Taylor Swift sues me over that – fingers crossed for free publicity.)

Here, songs:

Song679
Song681
Song683
Song686
Song688
Song689
Song690

You’re welcome.

The usual disclaimer: 1. I admit these are not great music; 2. I claim copyright anyway, so there; 3. No, I cannot do anything about the general quality of the mix, as I am incompetent.

gee-tar