Forgery League

Ahh, I needed that. New song-a-day track.

Bassline first: Fury thru POD, then software auto-filter; various loops processed to death; drums (Roland); FM pad; guitar thru POD; Alesis lead; rattling metal, treated, in place of a fill.

2007_0531_theology_cobra.mp3 (1′29)

I’ve been thinking: next time I get paid, it’s really time I got that Evolver I’ve had my eye on. But then I thought: wouldn’t it be more interesting to get a kit to build my own Paia 9700 system, for about the same amount of money?

Evolver: cute, tiny, patch editor allows “evolutionary” programming, can be used as a processor for external sound sources, doesn’t have to be assembled by hand

9700: insanely customizable, immediate and hands-on, has MIDI-to-CV outputs, can be used as a processor, external devices could be used to generate or modify control voltages

Something to think about.

I’ve been messing about with Flash and Actionscript lately, and one of my big motivations was was wanting to finish the Presonance site.

Some months ago, I started trading files with Rezo Largul, and we decided to use the name “Presonance” for our collaboration, and “Mycestene” as a name for an eventual CD. So far we’ve completed four tracks and have a couple of others in the works. The finished ones are now up, along with some pretty little visualizations (yup, there’s the Flash programming coming into play). Spacy analogue waltzes, mysterious orchestral arrangements colliding with mad electronic rhythms, a dose of Casseiopean free jazz…

Have a listen! You can download the tracks there too.

And in the acoustic world, another Toronto lamppost has been graced with its own built-in bass. Now that I’ve got a new digital audio recorder I’ll have to pay the new “Garrison Creek” bass a visit. All hail RGB for bringing more music to our parks and sidewalks!

Tonight, Sean’s out of town and M. is performing in a musical uptown, so the house will be free for Flickershow recording, hooray!

Only yesterday I was reading Muffy’s reports from the Open Ears festival and wishing I’d made it back to KW to catch it. I don’t generally get to see many shows, and the reason mostly boils down to Too Damn Busy. Either I’m working late (Sean and I seem to be home at 10pm as often as not), recording or playing with Flickershow, or recovering from the above.

I’m determined to change things around now. Coming home at a more reasonable time, for one thing; for another, working Saturday and staying home to work on music in the middle of the week, when the house is empty.

And I think I’ll have to check out some of the events at Deep Wireless: A Festival Of Radio Art. (Thanks, Torontoist.)

Here’s the latest version of the particle sim - the particles attract this time around, and have random values for mass.

I’ve cleaned up the source and commented the hell out of it, and collected most of the major parameters so they’re easy to adjust before compiling.

Source plus the containing FLA file:
Particles1_8.zip

New feature on the Flickershow site: a new unreleased track every two weeks!

I’ve coaxed ExpressionEngine into making it a podcast too, so visitors can subscribe to it in their favorite player software.

After a long winter spent way too busy with work and other things, we’re finally getting back to recording, and it sure feels good. Hopefully this will be a bit of encouragement to keep our momentum up.

The other day carlos_G at the Immersion Composition Society announced the Lime Gecko Virtual Lodge - an all-day music composing marathon. The goal is to record as many pieces of music as humanly possible in one day. I started a bit late in the day, but managed seven:

2007_0331_01_habanerique.mp3 (1’57”)

11:30 am. Oh crap. I’ve started doing a pseudo-Cuban piano number. What am I doing? I don’t play piano. I do my best to fumble my way through a drum part as well.  conga (only one conga today; the head on the other one suffered water damage thanks to a leaky roof up here) - piano - J-bass - drums - guitar (added later).

2007_0331_02_ShootForTheMoon.mp3 (3’07”)

Better start this one in more familiar territory, namely on the guitar. Then clumsy Roland drums - J-bass - lyrics - experimental 1+3+4 harmonies on chorus - keyboard. Me and the celestial imagery again.

2007_0331_03_Lander_beeswax.mp3 (2’10”)

Kept the keyboard on that same patch and did a lazy, introspective instrumental. Then I decided to change it up with a big stompy beat. Rolannd thru FilterQueen - Apple Loop processed heavily - re-recorded keyboard part - 2x electric through POD’s volume-swell.

2007_0331_04_Processional.mp3 (1’22)

My eyes settled on a recorder lying on the shelf. And the tin whistle. Which to play? Why not both? Doofy pseudo-folk. For the record, it is a pain in the ass playing a bag of marbles in 5 without a click. Both the conga and the warped head off its twin make an appearance.

2007_0331_05_Uh_oh.mp3 (0’53”)

Uh, there really isn’t any excuse for this one.

Perhaps I was subliminally affected by the message board, where lodge dude Nick Dobson had suggested, “why not squeeze off a speed-filler song when you’re done with this one?” and carlos_G had added something about “glad to hear that things are moving…” Oh dear.

2007_0331_06_Beyondah.mp3 (2’19”)

Spy show theme. Needs a breakdown. Fury bass through POD.

2007_0331_07_Sunday.mp3 (0’57”)

Starting to wrap up. Wasn’t sure what to do with this so I wrote some stream-of-consciousness “lyrics” and said them.

Edit: here’s the ICS forum thread where today’s Lodge was organized - you can find commentary and other people’s music there.

This winter I seem to have been in a sort of musical hibernation. No gigs, no writing, hardly any jamming, no listening to any new music.

My main musical effort was playing bass in the band in show-tune revue some friends were putting together. Good experience, and while I still can’t sight-read well, it certainly gave me the chance to improve at it. (My favorite tunes to play: “Nobody’s Side” from Chess, “Life Of The Party” from The Wild Party, both full of syncopations and time changes; “Take Me Or Leave Me” from Rent, where I got to rock out a bit; and “I Could Be Happy With You” from The Boy Friend, just because it was so damned cute in that faux-‘20s, so-very-English sort of way.)

But other than that - perhaps in part because of it - I’ve just been burned out. Frankly, I was getting worried how little interest I had.

I managed to rouse myself enough to familiarize myself with Yes and Peter Gabriel, having borrowed some of their albums… and suddenly, much was explained to me about ‘70s rock.

A while ago J and I laid down some scratch versions of a whole pile of songs, both new and old, to use as the basis for a new CD. They sat untouched until a few days ago, when I stuck bass parts on some of the newest ones to send to our drummer. Here’s one:

Hold_Up_Donny.mp3 (3’43”)

I was afraid I was getting into a rut with my parts, so on these new songs there’s all kinds of pushed rhythms and other oddness. For the first time I’m making use of the Jazz bass, and taking advantage of its punch and sustain with a much more legato line. I’m attempting to play chords on the “choruses”, also for the first time, and the whole thing has a sort of Fender Rhodes feel to it. Starting to sound pretty trip-hoppy. Fleshing this one out is going to be a lot of fun!

New music discoveries this week too. Currently on the playlist:

Flook (borrowed from my Go-playing friend downstairs, also a Celtic music aficionado) an Anglo-Irish band who specialize in wonderful hyperactive flute-and-bohdrán grooves.

The Golden Dogs. Ran across two of their videos while browsing idly, and immediately went and got their album Big Eye Little Eye. Chock full of my kind of hooks (my favorite is “Runouttaluck” - if you cranked Stereolab up to double speed and mashed it up with the B-52’s it might sound like this) plus the same sort of dueling boy/girl vocals that make the New Pornographers and other bands so addictive. And they exude such joy in the video for “Construction Worker” that I think I have a crush on the whole band.

I realized the other day why I don’t listen to web-radio, at least for music. I miss the personalities.

Wall-to-wall music with no interruptions is all very good if you want texture, some colour for your mental environment, but if I want texture I usually resort to music that’s already familiar to me. If I’m listening to something new, I want to be able to give it the attention it’s due. I want to know about the music and who created it. (Now, some channels do give you ways of checking what it is you’re listening to, but they involve flipping between listening and reading.) As well, most specialty stations stick to a particular genre or era, and I like to be surprised.

You know who I miss? John Peel. And David Wisdom’s Nightlines. Both of them played a crazy range of music - in an hour of Peel’s show you might hear punk, happy hardcore, indie rock, grime, ‘60s psychedelia… all intermingled with tracks from his trademark Peel Sessions, recorded by some up-and-coming (or established) band. Nightlines had a gentler flow to it: Canadian indie early on, ranging into electronica, jazz, comedy, and more far-out stuff after midnight. In either case, you never knew quite what you were in for.

But what held it all together was the personalities of the hosts. Peel, who usually hosted the broadcasts from his home, was hilariously witty, self-deprecating, often slightly befuddled by technology - especially when he had to work out of the BBC studios. He was legendary for accidentally playing vinyl at the wrong speed and correcting the matter a minute or two into a song. Bemused by a record label’s championing of “intelligent drum and bass”, he remarked, “Personally I think I should prefer stupid drum and bass.”

David Wisdom was warm, knowledgeable, a keen supporter of Canadian music, prone to giving out CBC Vancouver’s mailing address using a different spelling alphabet every time (“V as in vehement - six - B as in barnacle…”) Over the course of Nightlines’ run he worked his way through his collection of 45s playing one single by each artist, ten per weekend, in alphabetical order (it took nearly a decade).

And he involved the audience: he regularly played theme tunes for the show recorded and sent in by fans. He took requests via an answering machine, but always asked an offbeat “skill-testing question”. Over time, he built up a contingent of regular listeners, until it felt like you were part of a community just by listening. Some even made the leap to programming an “Hour of Power”, an hour of music and words selected by a listener - and sometimes co-hosted by that listener, if they were in the area. “Co-creation”? “User-generated content”? David was there twenty years ago.

Interesting to compare Brave New Waves, the other late-night Radio 2 music show - which has now been cancelled as well, sadly. Patti Schmidt, and Brent Bambury before her, were cool… maybe a little too cool. They wouldn’t go two songs without coming on and telling you all about the band and the label - which I loved, especially in the pre-Internet era. But BNW always felt like such a serious show, a newsmagazine more than a comfy night in someone’s living room listening to tunes.

Peel died in 2004, leaving behind a great musical legacy. David Wisdom is very much alive and currently hosts something called Pearls of Wisdom, which is fun but far too short, with much more of a light Radio Two format…

Every once in a while I stumble across a radio show with a DJ who shows the same sort of love for the music, who gets into it and tells you all about this artist or that album… but usually they’re genre shows: the best blues, the best jazz, world music, classic rock. I want something that will expose me to crazy new music, unclassifiable music, music that time has forgotten. And I want the warmth of real human voices, connecting me to a community of listeners, reminding me that I’m not just listening to a playlist cooked up by a machine… that these songs matter.

In this crazy cross-connected Internet age, I’m sure there’s something out there. Know any good ones?

There’s nothing like looking down at the last bite of your lunch and noticing that part of it is blue.

This morning.

Sean: [rummaging through our room] Where’s my Blackberry?

Me: [spying the empty belt clip for it, and unaccountably reminded of Flanders and Swann] “There was the case, but the horn itself was missing.” [belatedly realizing the play on the word horn] Ha! Now I’ll think of that song every time you lose that thing.

Sean: Great. Are you sitting on it? Yes you are, you bastard.

Me: Oh. Oops.

My extended Shakespearean mondegreen:

OSWALD:
The leopards have wunched the poor boy
For every dollar he’s got. Feast your eyes upon him
[Mumble bumble] O! Unto her death!

Dies

EDGAR:
A serviceable villain;
As like to the right forth of the [mumble, radio static].

GLOUCESTER AND/OR EDGAR:
Is he dead? Sit you down, father; rescue him!

This here video rocks on so many levels. (There’s a better quality version on The Fame Game site, but I’ve embedded the YouTube version here because it politely waits for you to click on it before starting to download the whole damn thing.)

Without further ado, star beatboxer Beardyman shows you how to prepare the Electro Funk Daddy Superstar break:

(Thanks to my SO at Craphammer for pointing this one out to me.)

Why is this kind of thing so damn satisfying? My guess is that it takes electronic music - virtual and abstracted, but the product of a long process of stylistic and technological evolution in its own right - and adds another layer of depth by grounding it back in the physical world again, using honest-to-goodness real-time physical virtuosity. And to top it off, it’s funny and spontaneous. In a word, it’s masterful.

Really, it’s the human equivalent of the song of the Australian lyrebird (as introduced here by Sir David Attenborough):

15 minutes to a ribbon controller. Oh, rock on. I’d all but given up looking for an anti-static plastic bag with the right resistance (as suggested by the article from PAiA). Sadly I don’t have an SVHS tape to sacrifice at the moment, but I’m wondering if the tape in a DAT cassette will work.

[Edit: I tried the DAT. No dice. But graphite works! I scribbled a big black line on a piece of paper using a soft pencil, put a clip on either end, and used a bare wire as a wiper. Down side: it does get on your fingers. Go for the SVHS tape.]

Found the link on the companion blog to Make, O’Reilly’s wondrous gonzo DIY-tech magazine. Recent links include knitted fruit, the latest add-ons for your favorite microcontrollers, a gorgeous “steampunk” keyboard and a photo-gallery of some of the freakiest basses ever.

I did have a subscription to ReadyMade, the other big magazine on the DIY scene, but I won’t be renewing. Make gets a bit technical, but I like its philosophy better. It’s much more about hacking - finding out how everything works, and adapting it to your own purposes. ReadyMade is much more about household stuff, and so much of it is about cute-looking furniture that you can buy, er, ready-made. There are quite a few neat articles, and I certainly don’t mind the household angle, but I wish they’d go deeper: what sort of materials to use, designing for longevity, the philosophy behind everyday objects, that sort of thing.