Jan
30
2010
rant
When I first started this blog I was posting music I created on Ableton. The reason that I haven’t done more of that is because the program began crashing on me on a regular basis. In fact it got worse and worse, and eventually trying to make the most basic adjustments caused crashes. So I’ve given up on Ableton. I’m going to look into how well Logic works out in a bit, it seems like a lot of producers I admire have good things to say about it, so that’s encouraging.
Probably the most weird and stupid thing about the world today is that we don’t have awesome music making programs on smart phones. What’s up with that?
I admire a lot of electronic music. The more technology you use, the more chances of failure are possible. So people that are able to overcome these types of obstacles deserve respect, but there’s also a virtue to folk & acoustic music, which has less opportunities for failure.
The financial crisis indicated that human society has not determined how to properly evaluate risk. Is it better to play it safe and do what works, or seek out ambitions that may result in catastrophe?
Similarly, with novels one could create short, concise works of arts, all polished & pristine, without a flaw in sight. But then there are also the authors that write big, sprawling novels, totally messy, chaotic, unable to be tamed into some kind of orderly thing.
Vacillations.
Jan
26
2010
living in the age of an aquarium
When DJ / Rupture and Matt Shadetek decided to go with an underwater concept for their album Solar Life Raft they were of course following a fairly rich history in electronic music of utilizing such thematics, for example, with Drexciya’s Bubble Metropolis. U.R. also did a bit of an acid house banger with a track called Submerge.
Jan
26
2010
you’re a jerk (en espanol)
Thanks to the Soundway’s Panama! comps we know about how much amazing music has come out of this tiny (but geographically fascinating) country. Chief Boima (SF heads can catch him spin, among other places, at Little Baobab) has posted an amazing remix of You’re A Jerk. There’s also a Nigerian remix, but I have to agree with Boima on this one, the Panama version kills it.
Also, of somewhat related interest, although I have a basic familiarity with Jerkin’ and the culture that it entails for over a year now thanks to the internet, it was only this month that I actually personally witnessed a black teenager in skinny jeans. I sometimes like to think about how science fiction was once the stuff people would write about concerning the future, but these days science fiction mostly consists of stuff going on in the present, but perhaps we will soon be entering a phase where science fiction is the stuff that we are writing about from the past that we are only now fully aware of.
Jan
26
2010
a brief ontology
Footage of Thurston Moore listening to music by the recently deceased Maryanne Amacher. I find the honesty of this video incredible. You have a performer and a listener, and that’s it. Music is the mystery of the cosmos that exists between those two entities.
Jan
18
2010
our love will destroy the world
Our Love Will Destroy the World is Campbell Kneale (who used to perform under the name Birchville Cat Motel). He played in a bus like two weeks ago. It was parked on San Bruno Avenue off of 15th St. underneath the highway. I like how at the beginning of this video all you can hear is the highway, but it could have conceivably been part of his set.
It was a good show. I listened to some old punk dudes talk about how all they listen to now is trance, and there was a guy that showed up with a bunch of beer for everyone.
Jan
12
2010
2010.
Well I’m back and readjusting to my normal life after extensive post-holiday travels. I have high hopes for the new year, and have lots of friends that are getting their lives back on track after the harsh reality that intruded into so many people’s lives in 2009. The most exciting thing for me is finally having a practice space to play loud music in again. Back in the 1990s it seemed like finding out about cool music was relatively difficult, but having a place to create music was relatively easy. Nearly two decades later the opposite is true. Music as a commodity is not so valuable anymore, but volume is an extremely valuable commodity these days.
Those of you who enjoyed the Deep Earth track I played on my Chicago podcast will be pleased to hear they have a second cassette release in the works, and are now digitally distributing the first one.
Lets all share even more awesome music in 2010.
Dec
23
2009
thank you
Ben Tausig on the problems with best music of the year/decade/etc. lists:
For another thing, and I apologize if this causes tsunamis and solar flares, but albums aren’t the only way people listen to music. This is not wild-eyed technological optimism, nor a denunciation of communities where the album format still obtains. There are just so many different outlets for hearing exciting things. I would personally be much more curious, for example, to read a smart writer’s “10 best YouTube musical compositions of 2009” or “10 best songs obviously written to be ringtones” or “10 best bands from the early 1980’s I heard for the first time this year” than his or her best albums of 2009 list, if only because there is no preexisting consensus for the former three. The further a list’s conceptual underpinnings are extended, the less we can anticipate its contents, and the more likely we are to receive it as useful information rather than an argument crafted, essentially, by rearranging a bunch of checkers.
I don’t have anything else to add to that really. Thinking about music as chronology, although somewhat necessary, has its limits. Music as evolution is interrupted by the recording device, where the past becomes the present and the future. The amen break is just a 5 second transition in 1969. In 1999 it has been an entire genre of music. I like albums, and I like people talking about music they like, but at the end of the decade canons seem more unimportant than ever before. Let the sound of a thousand sound systems boom.
Dec
16
2009
on the cause of mountains
Here is a track I recorded in January, 2008 with guitars and violins. I may attempt to do something similar again in January 2010.