In this track I’m using what essentially is the drums track from “Fight!”, an instrumental off the soundtrack of the new movie Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. The score was produced by Nigel Godrich, the mastermind behind a lot of Radiohead’s sounds. This is not exactly a remix; more like a whole new song written on a bed of drums. Had to stay awake until morning to submit this in time before my flight to Mexico that same night.

VOTE for me so I win. You know you want to.

The making of this next track involves 5 different artists. The original beat, called ‘In Heat’, is a remix produced by Javelin of a track by HEALTH, off the remix album ‘Health: Disco 2′. This new version, ‘City In Heat’ includes me singing the chorus and playing a synth solo, and my friends Truezt and Special from the eTEAM spitting the verses.

Double check it –

Here’s a free download link by the way, to get your summer hotter while it’s still here –
http://www.mediafire.com/?gob3tabak1ci310

Huge thanks to the guys at Crooked Seas. Without their filming and production skills this wouldn’t have come together. (Or apart, in the piano’s case). The video was directed by Craig Leblanc. The graffiti for the piano was done by the artist KJ Summers after we found this old piano that needed to be taken out of an old community center. It needed a new home, but instead it was painted, and then smashed with a sledgehammer and dropped off a cliff. I figure – guitarists get to smash guitars all the time. Piano players need to have fun too.
After we dropped the piano – it actually landed upright, which gave us the opportunity to take some pictures for the album cover. Check it out –

Punching Keys Album Cover

A bit about the tracks on the album:

1. Punching Keys – This piece never gets played the same way, and so this version is quite different than the original one that appeared on my debut LP ‘You Are Only Here Once’ and the previous music video made for the song. This new one is a hybrid of the original recording and parts from the unreleased ‘Punching Monkeys’ version. Don’t ask.
2. Lifelong – The newest composition on the album, written just a few months ago. Check out the video for it in the videos section. The video was made by me and Evan (Everyone’s Talking) and got published on coldplay.com in their exhibition room.
3. Drink Tea Outside (Main Theme) – A piano version of the main theme from the Canadian indie film ‘Drink Tea Outside’. The film was written and directed by my friend Yan Krupnik, while I wrote most of the soundtrack music for it.
4. My Thought Exactly – This composition also appears on my previous album. The new version stays mostly true to the original piano part, but still has a few new parts and tricks to make it fresh. The original was done in an electronic-ambient new age style.
5. War Pt. 2 – This is a shorter version of the progressive-rock instrumental from ‘Dragonflies’, released by my band, ‘Everyone’s Talking’. The original track was produced by David Bottrill and can be found here with the rest of the album.
6. I Felt Eyes – Previously known as ‘Walking In Snow’ which was never released. The original had a symphonic electronic orchestra behind it, but I think it work better as a solo-piano track.
7. Touching Keys – This is just a short theme, that I hope will one day grow into something more. I’d love to develop it into a movie theme or a longer piece, but for now I just wanted to introduce it here, in its simplest form.

Punching Keys Back Cover

Behind the scenes video coming soon!

Tomorrow I’ll be releasing my new album Punching Keys E.P. along with the promo ‘piano-smash’ video!
Cya

I try to get my hands on every new electronic, rock or hip hop album that seems interesting. And so it is rare for me to find something that is 100% refreshing or unique in its sound. Eric Berglund’s new project ‘CEO’ is just that.
Not being familiar with his original band The Tough Alliance, the only thing that I knew about this album is that it has a very cool front cover. After hearing the single ‘Come With Me’, I was hooked.
The thing is, every track on the album could be a single. Its a perfect blend of sonically crisp slick production and great songwriting.

Ceo - White Magic

With a serious lack of good albums coming out this year, this is is a breath of fresh air. The songs are very positive and upbeat. It reminds me of some other bands but not any one in particular, more like a blend, and that’s what makes it so strong. The tracks are quite different from one another too. My favorite is the 4th piece, sharing the same name with the album, ‘White Magic’. It’s mostly instrumental, with some vocals thrown in for good measure, and a killer guitar line. Illuminata is another catchy tune, that could easily be a hit if people listened to music that is slightly more artistic than just plain pop.
I’m not too crazy about the video for ‘Come With Me’, and so here’s a high quality YouTube audio track for the song.

The album sat me down and made me drop what I was doing and listen through the whole thing. I found it hard to stop nodding my head to the beat with a satisfied grin on my face, for no concrete reason. I tried to contact Eric and he turned out be such a nice dude. He mentioned that him and his friend Kendal Johansson did all the work, which is very impressive, keeping in mind that the album sounds better than many recent major label efforts.
I hope one day I’ll get to collaborate with him. That would be sick.

CEO
White Magic, 2010
Rating: 5/5
www.ceoceoceoceoceo.com

Also check out the new videos page for more viewing pleasure.

Lost: Answers

LOST: Answers

Somewhere in an alternate universe, Lost actually makes sense. I think most of you will agree that while the process of watching through all the seasons was fascinating, in the end the writers copped out! Most mysteries and mythology elements were left unresolved, unexplained, or worse – not even mentioned. So I don’t know if I can truly recommend the show to anyone, now that I know how it ends. Yes, I did have fun watching it, and I’ll say at least that the characters were well developed and most of them did have satisfying story arcs, but it’s the huge 6-seasons buildup that amounted to nothing in the end. Let’s just say that when you have sex with a girl, the experience is terrific, but if you don’t get to the orgasm in the end… You get my drift.

So I’m writing this as a devoted fan of the show, but also as a disappointed viewer. I’m a musician and so I love all the little details, & I don’t forget any plot points. The show to me was like an epic symphony or a progressive metal track. I’m thinking: should I be blaming the writers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof for fucking up? Surely, it’s not easy to solve all the questions, and even harder to write a whole TV show. Surely you hit a few wrong notes if you play a 40-minute symphony, right? Wrong. You can play it perfectly, and I’ll support this argument by saying – the writers could have EASILY resolved most of the mysteries on the show and completed it properly. Why they screwed up so much is beyond me. This seemed like it was supposed to be a science fiction show. Did you see The Fringe? Sure, it’s not as exciting, and the actors are not as good but at least they explain what happens based on actual science studies, philosophy theories and quantum physics. OK, so maybe Lost isn’t a science fiction show. Maybe it’s just a thriller or a mystery show. Well it failed in that department too. I think around season 4 I started realizing that the writers were full of shit, while my friends still believed until the end that stuff will be explained. You could also argue that maybe some things are better left unresolved. Well, open endings are not the same as THE PLOT NOT MAKING SENSE. My friend had a good point about this – ‘did you ever read Sherlock Holmes?’ he asked me. Those books are successful because Sherlock solves the case! And by the way, if you haven’t figured it out from the title, there could be spoilers.

To all the people that still can’t sleep at night wondering what the numbers were and why were dead people talking to Hurley off the island – here are some answers. These are ones that I came up with myself of course, and they are NOT answers that require only the content introduced on the show to work. These are answers that I think the writers could have come up with. Some could be as simple as one line of dialogue. But since the writers never had an answer for like 90% of the mysteries they introduced (what a great way to make money), they didn’t bother.

1. What is the Island?

The Four-toed Island Statue

Here’s my shot at this. The world as we know it exists thanks to a powerful life-force. You can choose to involve God in this theory, or not. Regardless, the force is the light in the center of the island. It’s like the core of the planet and is the main source of all the energy that keeps the world running. It was there from the beginning of time and eventually a small number of people learned of its existence. In fact, the first people to arrive on the island were the advanced Egyptian civilization. Let’s say this happened in the year 2000 BC. Hey, they found a way to make pyramids, so maybe they found a way to travel overseas before everyone else. They found the island and the Egyptians became more powerful after being affected by its unique properties. Some possessed healing qualities and were looked upon as gods, hence the whole idea of Egyptians gods, and their corresponding statues on the island. Only they weren’t gods, they were just humans who got affected by the island’s powers. Here is an opportunity to use examples from ancient Egyptian culture in the show, and using the island’s powers to explain famous Egyptian gods.

One man among the first arrivals to the island, Jacob’s predecessor, became the most powerful figure, managed to acquire immortality, and could see into the future. Why do some people get more powers while others get nothing? Well, each human is unique and has a different amount of energy that is affected by the island. This could sound cheesy but we can hypothesize that people with good intentions, a kind heart or strong faith get affected more than the bad guys (Which is why Rose and Locke have healing qualities, while Ben’s cancer doesn’t get cured). But there is a catch – if something invades the energy source (the Man in Black entering the light), the power is thrown out of balance and so an Armageddon becomes possible. There’s a way to stop it of course, which is the entire sequence of events that is the whole show. (More on that later).

So the island has electromagnetic properties because of the insane amounts of energy that it holds. This energy makes time travel possible (which happens only on the island), teleportation (which is how people end up in the middle of the desert), and visions of the future. This whole question is the hardest to answer, because the answer is – the island is magical. OK, but that is the whole idea of the show, right? Lord of the Rings is a fairytale, where a magical land exists. It’s not realistic, but everything in the story makes sense and has continuity thanks to a complete mythology without any holes. So think how nice it would have been to see an episode that happens during ancient Egypt times, when the island is first discovered. All the other questions could then be answered with logical and even scientific explanations.

2. The Numbers – 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42?

The Numbers

Possible solution: Ever heard of the Valenzetti Equation? This was introduced in ‘The Lost Experience’, an alternate reality game that was around after season 2. It’s a mathematical equation developed by the mathematician Enzo Valenzetti. Its creation was the result of efforts made following the Cuban Missile Crisis by the United States and the Soviet Union to find a solution to the hostility and danger of imminent global disaster created by the Cold War. The equation was secretly commissioned through the UN Security Council and is used to predict the time of human extinction. This and so much more was introduced in the Sri Lanka video made for the game. This video is very detailed, and addresses many issues like what kind of research Dharma folks were doing, the different island stations, and even the food drops. So why couldn’t they include that in the show? I generally think Lost viewers are quite intelligent and the show was very challenging. Apparently this video wasn’t scripted by Carlton and Damon. If all this was on the show, it would probably be like the Architect speech from The Matrix Reloaded, but that is better than nothing. Anyway, so the numbers represent the core factors of human and environmental elements. This idea mirrors an actual existing theory called ‘The Doomsday Argument’, which you can read about here.

OK, so here’s my proposition – Jacob, a man with the most powerful abilities acquired from the island’s energy is able to construct a mathematical equation that would help him save the world from destruction that he knows is coming. By using the proper human characters, the proper sequence of events and choices he could prevent Armageddon. (Or in the case of the season 6 plot – stop the Man in Black from turning everything into shit). This introduces the idea of fate. Jacob knows what’s going to happen, and he knows the one possible specific way to prevent this: an algorithm of events that must be done correctly. Whenever the numbers are used directly, it amplifies the conditions that would lead to the final important event. This is why the numbers are being input to the computer – so that the electromagnetic energy doesn’t escape, and so that when someone fails to press the button, and it does escape, it would be at the exact right time (yes, like fate) which would cause the plane to crash, and the events would happen that would bring everyone who needs to be around, to the final event. This would also explain Hurley’s lottery adventures: whenever somebody uses the numbers directly, it creates an even stronger flow that forces things to happen to get the final point. In Hurley’s case, after winning the lottery all the bad luck starts happening and it ultimately drives him to the island, and eventually to become a key role in saving the world. The numbers should have represented 6 key figures that were important, not 6 random numbers that represent the remaining candidates. I thought it was really dumb to kill off some candidates, cancel out others (Kate, because she became Aaron’s babysitter?) and say that there were many other numbers. If it was all about Fate (a bit cheesy, but makes sense), then the plot would work. This would also explain how certain people cannot die, before their role is played in the equation (Richard, Michael).

And the hatch? Every time they input the numbers, electromagnetic energy is being released in small amounts. After the incident, this is how they contain the energy from being released with deadly levels. A scene from the 70s, when they try to contain the massive ‘black hole’ type explosion after they drilled into the massive pocket of energy, would have been crucial. In it, the scientists would have had a computer that would be able to save them. They had it installed before they drilled, to control the energy from being released. They fucked up, too much energy started escaping, and the only way to stop it would be to insert the proper algorithm to contain the energy. Imagine a thrilling scene where they have seconds left to figure out how to not die, and one of the scientists figures out that the key to prevent it all is to input the numbers to get the right combination. He studied these numbers all his life and now he knows why.

3. Jacob?

Jacob

A lot would make sense, if Jacob was introduced as a very powerful figure, not a whiny kid with mommy issues. Remember when the cabin first appeared, how Jacob seemed almost like a God-like figure controlling the island? OK, so maybe Jacob’s predecessor was able to pass down his powers to the next candidate. In the show this was done by drinking water from a puddle, for fuck’s sakes. I don’t even need to figure out a theory on how this could be done, because I’m sure even the most retarded person could come up with a better idea than the one used on the show.

At one point I was thinking that passing down these superhuman abilities was done only via a family connection, and I was thinking that maybe Christian Sheppard is actually Jacob, and since Jack is his son – Jack would be the main candidate, and would be the one who saves the world. This was further developed because Christian was appearing on the island and guiding people with what they should do. Was it that hard to take that route? This way even Aaron could have been the candidate. Just needed to grow up. Imagine the finale episode. Jacob, after unleashing powerful electromagnetic white light powers on Aaron: “He was meant to be born on this island. Now all bow before the NEW JACOB”. Signature Lost loud drum hit is played.

4. The Dead People and the Humans that Could See Them

Ana Lucia

This is a messy one. Ready? Hurley doesn’t get healing powers (like Locke) or visions (like Desmond) but he gets a powerful island ability that lets him see the souls of the dead on the island. This was partially explained in a pathetic short dialogue in season 6 where dead Michael mentions to Hurley that the whispers on the island are those of the trapped souls that can’t move on because they’ve done something evil. That scene ruined any chance of a logical outcome. If the souls are trapped on the island, then how is Hurley talking to Charlie in the mental institution and to Ana-Lucia in the city?

If you start this whole dead people storyline, then you’re introducing the idea of the existence of ghosts in the world. I wouldn’t have, but what’s done is done, so just go with it. There are ghosts in the world, and Hurley has the ability to see them. Simple. Ghosts exist because they have a task left to accomplish in this world, and maybe some of those tasks include helping out Hurley in his quest to save the world. This makes me think of how many years the poor ghost of Richard Alpert’s wife had to wait until she could pass the message to Richard through Hurley. Surely, she wasn’t an evil soul condemned to roam the island forever, right?

For an example of how to handle a storyline in which the world and all its parallel realities have people dying and their ghosts being trapped in one place, read His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman.
Oh and I guess Miles has a similar ability to Hurley because he was conceived on the island.
I just wish they made it more like Hurley’s ability, and not Miles “hearing the dead people’s last thoughts”. It could have been the ghosts were talking to him, but unlike Hugo, he could just hear them and not see them.

5. Walt

Walt

The previous theory definitely doesn’t solve the fact that Walt randomly appeared on the island like a ghost to Shannon and Locke, affecting their actions. He never died on the show, so it couldn’t have been the Man in Black disguised either. But then in addition to that, Walt’s special powers introduced in season 1 were never even remotely expanded on. He knew something about the hatch and warned Locke not to open it, he was able to speak to animals, and had other psychic abilities. One solution to this problem would be never to introduce the powers in the first place. But this is the first season, and the whole show is based on its beginning, so I’m going to try. Walt appeared to Shannon after he was kidnapped by the others. We know that the others were basically taking orders from Jacob. We know the others experimented on Walt and so it’s possible that Jacob was able to use Walt’s special powers to control a manifestation of him that appears on the island. In other words, it was Jacob appearing to Locke as Walt and telling him that ‘he has work to do’. He needed an innocent child figure, and someone who was still alive. This complicates things a lot because then you could ask why Jacob (appearing as Walt) let Shannon die like she did. The answer to that could be – Shannon needed to die for the rest of the ‘world-saving’ events to take place. She was probably too hot for Sayid anyway, and was just distracting him. Sure, all this is very far-fetched, but still, it wouldn’t take THAT long to fix the continuity that the writers fucked up. But wait, why did Walt have special powers in the first place? He wasn’t born on the island. Well, here you can introduce a scenario similar to the Miles story. Maybe Walt’s mom had a connection to the island?

6. Time Travel and the Bomb

Daniel Faraday

I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a time travel story that made complete sense without at least one small continuity error. My goal in life is to find one. When I finally understood that in Back to the Future 2, when old Biff returns to 2015, he returns to the wrong timeline in which nothing changed, that really hurt. He should have changed the future with his actions, but only Marty and Doc seem to be able to do that, just so that the film can run smoother. The closest thing to a perfect example of a successful time-travel story for me is a Spanish film called Time Crimes, that actually makes a lot of sense, save for one little problem: the whole sequence of the time-travel events wouldn’t have started, if something related to the travel itself didn’t trigger the first event. Anyway, just watch that one, it’s awesome. Lost actually gave me some faith when Daniel Faraday introduced the idea that – you can’t change what happened. Wow, an actual intelligent time travel theory, based on quantum physics? That was ruined when he met up with Desmond in the past and told him that “he’s special and the rules don’t apply to him”. Sigh. Why not just use Jacob again to explain all this? This is where things get very confusing, and I apologize if I’ll cause a headache, but I’ve got a good one.

A. Jacob needs to complete his algorithm of events.

B. At the end of season 4, he needs to ‘move’ the island.

C. Moving the island means that Jacob is able to conceal it from the outside world via an optical illusion, an invisible shield, not actually moving it. The island doesn’t travel through time either, just certain people that Jacob chooses.

D. Now, here’s the hard part. All the events that happened after the incident in the 70s, already happened with the time-travel events existing. That means, the incident itself is a time-loop that Jacob started very early on. So how can that be possible? That would mean that the first thing that happens is the oceanic six arrive in the past without them ever even existing first. It’s just like Terminator. So here’s my explanation: Jacob sent them to an alternate reality, not to the past of the reality they were in. He needed them there in the first place, to make sure the bomb explodes, that the hatch gets created and so on. In fact, for the world to be saved that means all the other universes in the world have to be saved too, or maybe just one of them is in danger and so Jacob decides to involve another world to save this one.

E. OK, it’s not super complicated, right? So all the people that Jacob needs get sent to the 70s. Sun isn’t needed so she stays in the old dimension. Jacob achieves a few things by doing this – Kills off Charlotte (who might be in the way of something), and Daniel Faraday who is killed by his mother, Eloise Hawking, whose whole storyline could be solved very simply, by the way. Jacob gave her the ability to see the future, and to be aware of the other universes, just like him, so she could help him guide the characters to where they need to be. She knows that for this to work, she would have to sacrifice her own son and so she kills him in the other universe. That devotion is why Jacob chose to give her those powers. What a beautiful dramatic story that could have been. And watch what happens next, which SAVES Daniel’s life, and justifies these actions.

F. In the alternate dimension, the bomb explodes while in the old one everything stays the same. The hatch itself has nothing to do with the bomb – Dharma folks would have been drilling through the electromagnetic pocket and fucking things up in both realities. When the bomb explodes, 2 things happen – our heroes get sent (by Jacob) right back to the old reality without knowing about it. In the alternate one, everything changed: the plane never crashes on the island, and Daniel never dies. So there you have it – the old universe in which the smoke monster is about to destroy everything, and a new universe in which the oceanic candidates have no clue of what’s going on. So did I just solve all the time travel issues, explain why there are certain people who didn’t get to the 70s, AND set up the storyline for season 6? Well, I probably missed some things. However, as the storylines become messier, the hole that the writers dig becomes deeper. My point is – even this late in the show, things could have made sense.

7. The Parallel Universe

Desmond

I wouldn’t mind the story of a show like Lost involving time travel AND parallel universes. Why not? If it makes sense, then let’s go crazy. So in season 6, how many of you thought that the sideways-flashes are that of a parallel universe which Desmond travels to for a reason? (Or more correctly, his mind travels there and occupies the alternate Desmond’s body). It seemed like it was going somewhere. I was thinking that Jacob needed Desmond’s special ability, which was caused by his exposure to the electromagnetism to travel to the other universe, make the people there aware of what’s going on by having them connect their memories to the events that were supposed to happen, and then recruit them all to somehow fight the smoke monster. This is the big picture of course. Maybe it could have been something like this – The smoke monster manages to kill the main candidate but then the day gets saved by the candidate from the other reality. Would be nice to see Jack the candidate get killed, and a new one show up to take his place. They spend a lot of episodes setting up something that never happened. In fact, I’m absolutely convinced that the writers copped out in the very last episode. They just didn’t know how to do it, so they went with the purgatory ending instead. The whole Desmond storyline is useless. Side note – in earlier interviews they were asked about the possibility of a purgatory plot explaining things in Lost, and they denied it. Just a thought. Desmond should have been the key to the whole thing. The rules ‘didn’t apply’ to him because he was unique. He could connect to himself in another universe – which is why he could really change things. The part where Widmore straps him to the machine which sends him to the alternate reality is a key scene in which Widmore’s character suddenly changes towards him being on the good side, and actually caring about saving everyone’s life. Maybe Eloise finally reaches out to Charles and makes him understand (Via a dramatic tear-filled scene) that his daughter’s life is in danger and it’s the most important thing, and so Widmore becomes a good guy. Desmond’s story arch would also end with an explanation to why he’s been through so much button-pressing – because it was very important to keep him there until he gets his special power. This is why he has to sacrifice part of his life for it. Recurring theme over here.

8. The Frozen Wheel

The Frozen Donkey Wheel

The explanation we get is – back in the day, during the reign of Jacob’s crazy-fake-mom, they decided to attach a wheel to a wall where apparently there was electromagnetism. Not a word about how the hell you could possibly know what would happen if you attach a wheel to that thing. A few lines in the script would be able to fix a plot problem like this. Jacob’s mom knows what happens if you fuck around with the energy source. Maybe it reacts to a material inside of the wheel, and when the 2 are mixed together, the energy is harnessed. Since I started this article with the theory that Jacob or his predecessor is a person with powerful abilities and knowledge – there could have been a short scene where the Man in Black interrogates his mother about the source and what it could do. I’d love to see that scene.

9. The Cabin

John Locke in the Cabin

Such a messy issue. According to the script it can re-appear in different places. Ben always pretended to talk to Jacob and Jacob wasn’t really there, but objects flew around the room. When Locke got there, a voice asked him for help. So what’s going on? Well this could be explained simply as a haunted cabin. The cabin itself is like a ghost, an old place where some insane murder happened. There’s a circle of ash to protect it from the Man in Black which basically means that the Man in Black cannot interfere with ghosts, only take the shape of people whose bodies he comes in contact with. The cabin has nothing to do with Jacob either.

10. Smaller Mysteries

Dharma Food

- Food Drops – Food is being dropped to the Island because the outside world still has people that know about the island. Remember when Ethan and Richard were chilling together off the island and recruiting Juliet? Jacob’s orders were to continue the food drops to the island, monitored from the outside world, to help the candidates survive.

- Swan Lockdown – The swan gets locked down during food drops so that button-pressing people won’t be tempted to get out and start looking for the helicopter that drops it.

- Babies Can’t Be Born on the Island – After the incident the unstable electromagnetic energy doesn’t permit for new life to be created on the island. Jacob wants this to happen so his algorithm work is not threatened by the birth of new souls that would get island powers and potentially alter important events. (This answer is very possible even with the current plot of the show, but was never mentioned). Of course, Aaron is allowed to be born because he’s needed and so Jacob makes sure this happens. This is why he gets Ethan to kidnap Claire, and those adventures lead to Claire getting a shot from a Ethan that helps her baby get born. Ethan is then killed.

- Evil Sayid/Claire – There’s a negative force on the island that works against the positive one. It has been unleashed when the smoke monster was created, and things got thrown out of balance. When Sayid and Claire get infected, it’s like a small dose of being a smoke monster. The Man in Black then controls them, because they both easily fall for it. It was a nice touch when he lures Sayid to be infected by promising him to be reunited with his wife. So the Monster is able to infect people and they turn into zombies. This is what happened to Danielle’s team. She always described them as being infected. The Man in Black tried to make them kill each other and tried to do something similar to Sayid and Claire.

I’m surprised the writers never tried using the fans to solve their problems. I’ve read some fascinating theories over the years, before the show ended and everyone was trying to guess what would happen. With great power comes great responsibility. Lost is a greatly missed opportunity. I would love to hear your thoughts on this article. Namaste.

Lost - The Complete Collection Promo

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