30-10-2015: caught up on sleep

it really was a treat to sit a few feet from jimmy chamberlain, and watch him play

i caught a jazz band in detroit last night that included jimmy chamberlain. i was expecting percy jones in the band, but he wasn't there.

my reviews tend to focus more around scenarios, and leave actual analyses to one-line statements. the band was kind of lackluster, really, but i enjoyed the show enough anyways (for other reasons) that i'm glad i went.

but, the narrative last night had mostly to do with the camera, and the truth is that i've already stated everything on camera that i would normally type in a review of this sort. rather than repeat myself, i'll post the vlog.

i doubt that this will be the new normal. in fact, i expect that i'll start writing reviews before i post vlogs to ensure that it isn't - i like writing these reviews. but, for tonight, because that's entirely where my head was, that's what i have - and i don't see the use in writing out what i have on film.

vlog:

concert footage:

 

this is a late review, but i'm adding it to ensure i continue with it. i have a large collection of reviews, now, and don't want to have this fall into disrepair.

i hadn't been to this venue previously, and had forgotten to write down the address; i knew it was on a sidestreet behind woodward, between the park and the fox, so i just turned left blindly - and luckily found it very quickly.

it was no more than fifteen minutes past doors; it seems as though they started immediately. this might be cultural. i mean, does the opera say "doors at 8", then wait until 9:00? or is it on at 8:00 sharp? i can't say; i've never been. i'm just so used to "doors at 8 and the opening act some time around 9" that it didn't even cross my mind that the time on the ticket may have been a start time.

so, i paid my entrance and walked up near the stage. this venue was a restaurant, and a fairly nice one, so it had servers moving food out to tables and no space at the front. there was a bar stool with a good view a little to the right of the stage.

i get a tap on my shoulder...

"what can i get you?"
"that depends. do you have cheap beer?"
"$3 pbr."
"yeah, that's good."

the first set laid down the tone, which was that we're mostly in for some jamming for the night. there were some standards, but most of what got played was based around solo parts and cycled around. the piano played a solo, then the bass played a solo, then the sax played a solo and then sometimes the drums did a solo. this basic formula was followed by almost every song that wasn't a standard.

i noticed something in the intermission. there's a guy standing right in front of me, with something in his ear. i had to say something...

"dude. is that a j in your ear?"

he laughs.

"no. it's just a cigarette with the top twisted."
"k. 'cause, i was thinking you probably forgot it there and should put it away."

he laughs again.

"hey, want to take a walk out front?"

so, the second set had a hazier, looser feel to it - this is jazz after all, and i was channeling satan after the excursion outside. jimmy seemed to relax a little in the second set, when he realized he was mostly playing for old pumpkins fans rather than stuffy bourgeois jazz people. the hooting and a hollering may have been frowned upon by the bar, but he definitely fed off of it in terms of dynamics. i explain this at the end of the vlog.

walking back to the bus stop was a little strange, as i remember this feeling of avoiding being run down. every car was in on it and needed to be avoided. a kind of game of paranoid gta, in real life.

i get on the bus, and hear it from the driver.

"you're baked."

i shrug.

no problems getting through customs. and, frankly, there shouldn't have been problems, either.

here is a full set:

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/10/29.html

vlogs about attended concerts

29-10-2015: jazz concert in detroit

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymmNNdpbh-M

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/10/29.html

28-10-2015: driver troubleshooting, pt 2

moving to 'werso smidits’ in the alter-reality

alter-reality update tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y90HOcLY6I

27-10-2015: driver troubleshooting, pt 1

26-10-2015: lost day

25-10-2015: headphone troubleshooting

a debate on the historical importance of microtonality in the western music tradition

microtonal music is actually just about everywhere, even if it's not always called that.

the blues are named after something called the "blue note", which was bending the string up a microtone. essentially all blues music makes use of this microtonal technique, which means large amounts of rock music make use of it as well.

it was also huge in prog & fusion music, through things like vibrato, harmonies from alternate tunings and playing with echo machines. miles davis, chick corea, yes, genesis - there's microtones all over all that stuff.

it became very much cemented in the more chaotic aspects of punk rock and hit a height of mainstream appeal in the 90s, when it became known using the term grunge. one of the better examples of microtonal music in pop is alice in chains.

and, it's been widely implemented across the "intelligent techno" sphere by artists like autechre and aphex twin, by using algorithms, frequency generators and other such fun things.

this idea of eastern v western music is a false dichotomy. microtones have always existed in the west, it's just that the church thought they were "evil" and tried to destroy them.

boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas The western music microtones you're talking about are much more articulations than independent notes (for the jazz blue notes), imho, and that's how they're played on instruments that don't bend like pianos. Plus they're not really used in harmony (it's much more a solo).

Same goes for vibratos and bends... even though they're physically not tuned on the target, lexically they're just normal notes with an articulation.

deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop i don't agree. and, i think you're missing the historical truth, that a lot of it comes from celtic music, which had a very defined concept of microtonality. that worked it's way down into british folk music and into the various modern western forms from there. traditional latin & byzantine music also had concepts of microtonality.

most texts will talk to you about equal temperament, and how western music theory discarded microtones as a kind of mathematical model of music theory. but, this is at best a half-truth. to understand how western christianity (and this is, at it's core, a religious thing) interpreted certain intervals, you need to go back to a strain of greek philosophy that began with pythagoras. a system of mysticism developed out of a crude understanding of number theory that gave special properties to certain ratios. they'll teach you in first year calculus that they thought the square root of two was some kind of evil omen, because it was "irrational" - in fact our very concept of logic stems from this archaic number mysticism. this developed over time into this idea that certain ratios (4ths and 5ths) were approved by god himself, and all these other ratios were tainted by the influence of satan. it sounds utterly ridiculous, but it's the actual truth of it.

there were microtones in western folk music the whole time, but the church cracked down on them as representing something evil. and, it's only out of this extreme form of religious censorship on artistic expression that we develop this concept of "western music". equal temperament was built as a mathematical model to cement this christian conception of "allowed intervals" - but that suggests the existence of "forbidden intervals". the whole thing is really an entirely contrived construction of western academia. but, of course, the church was powerful enough to write history for over a thousand years, and what we have is what they've allowed us to have.

so, when you talk about a blue note or an alternate folk tuning in a prog piece, or even the dissonance of grunge, it's not merely articulations. it's very much a continuation of the deep cultural legacy of microtonality in western music.

to put it another way: the hierarchy may have taken away our ability to write these ideas down, and explain them, but the ideas were there in antiquity, never disappeared in western folk music and are, in fact, still with us today.

i know that what they teach you in school is that western history is the history of christianity. it is from this enforced, entrenched narrative that the idea that church music is the same thing as western music comes from.

but, it's really a type of brainwashing. if you scratch the surface a little, it is easy to see that the history of western culture is a struggle against first rome and then christianity - from the perpetual celtic uprisings in france and spain, to the german and viking invasions, to the renaissance and the enlightenment right up to the hippies and the modern period. in era after era, and all over western europe, there is this single defining counter-narrative of struggle against everything rome has ever represented that truly defines us as the barbarians that we are.

the truth is that our folk music traditions, as they continue to exist, and as they have always defined us, have always been microtonal, as best as we're able to understand them from a distance. remember that the celts lived all over europe in antiquity. the germans were late invaders, and their culture has been so thoroughly destroyed by the romans that we have no concept at all of what their music was. but, we understand celtic music, and we know it utilized microtones.

this narrative even exists in upper class music, starting with beethoven and completing with webern. the foundations of western music theory were all but discarded by western musicians practically the moment they were created. in the terms we define western music theory in, the only true western composer is mozart.

boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas Byzantine music has REAL microtonality yes, and has had it since forever.

The real reason western music doesn't have microtones is that our harmony is ridiculously overdeveloped, and this literally FORCES everything into the circle of 5ths and makes microtones sound bad.

If we didn't write everything with chord progressions and independent bass and harmonized melodies and overlapping lines, we'd have microtones up the wazoo.

deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop but, that simply isn't true. and, of course, byzantine music did not develop in a vacuum - it is sourced from the same greek and latin sources that arabic music is, and those sources carried on in the western roman world for quite a long time.

if you look at even your standard celtic jig, on guitar (lute), you see all these grace notes, slides, bends, hammers, etc. where do you think those came from? they're not just random elaborations or disconnected stylistic flairs. they're artifacts of a microtonal music system.

so, when you hear the blue notes, and you put it in context, you have to realize where it's coming from. the notes were banned by the authorities as "satanic", yes. they were written out of the history books. but, they never stopped getting played.

boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas Grace notes, slides, bends, hammers and so forth are totally normal. They happen in pretty much every musical tradition, both in traditions that are intensely microtonal (ex: Arabic) and in traditions that aren't (ex: Chinese).

They can easily evolve out nothing - for instance, Chiptune's ridiculously fast arpeggios evolved around 1990 out of trying to cram chords in songs on computers with only 3 or 4 sound channels (C64, Amiga).

Church music is low on articulations simply because it has to be sung by a whole bunch of people inside a church hall. Grace notes aren't banned by the church, they're banned by the acoustics of the building!

deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop again: i think you need to read up on this a bit more. seek out specialist material, and ignore general texts. out.

point was to the op: microtones are everywhere. what we call "western music theory" is a failed christian model, like creationism, that simply doesn't describe the world around us very well.

boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas Western music theory isn't a model of anything, it's a harmonization technique. Writing a melody is intuitive, but turning that into multiple parts is much more technical.

So Western theory breaks down earlier songs into techniques that can be applied to a simple melody to turn it into a full blown song.

If microtones were useful towards this goal in typical Western musical styles, believe me, musicians would be getting sheets with half flats and comma alterations all over the place.

deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop again: you're clearly approaching this from a point of extreme ignorance, as though the voice leading created the theory, rather than was a result of it. you're just repeating church propaganda.

please research the history of this topic before you reply further. as mentioned, you want to begin with the pythagorean music theory, but you need to get beyond the introductory mathematical explanation and get into the philosophical underpinnings. our primary source for this is aristotle.

boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas Fine then. The Christian church lobotomized Western music and confined it to the simple diatonic scale.

From that low point, Western music built itself back mostly by layering on independent voices and complexifying harmony.

This is why Western music nowadays has built up so much theory about chords, basslines, harmonization, key changes, orchestration, counterpoint and voice leading.

It invests all its complexity points in making multiple happen at the same time, which leaves other areas underdeveloped:

- Only 2 scale families (where Arabic music has 10~ Maqam families)
- Only 4/4 3/4 6/8 as common time signatures (Arabic music easily uses 5/4, 7/4, 11/4 etc)
- Underdeveloped melodic ornamentation
- Underdeveloped intonation variations (a Turkish Kanun player has multiple mandals per string and can practically move it up or down in comma steps).
- Underdeveloped improvisation (though this is getting better)

Gene Ruffalo
+deathtokoalas "...the blue notes, ...banned by the authorities as satanic..."_

Not the Dimminished Fifth?!! Bastards banned it, did they? Black Sabbath wore the hell out of that interval.
So fill me in, how is a "blues" note microtonal? I've been a violinist and guitarist for well over 40 yrs, tuned pianos since the 1980's, basically a well seasoned hippie born in the early 60's. I am sure you know this, that the "blues notes", in lets say a major pentatonic scale, are a minor 3rd and a diminished 5th. Both are ½ steps away from the notes surrounding them in the scale. Granted you might "choke it" short of the ½ step if you are bending into it on a guitar, but theoretically they are within the divisions of the 12 note octave.  Does it truly make it a microtone if it is unintentional? Is there any structure, any set frequency divisions in these so called microtones? OR is it just the  "if it sounds good and feels right, go for it" approach? In a violin you would actually play the 7th note (known as a "leading tone") as close as possible to the 8th (octave) in a major or harmonic minor scale (etc...), no longer making the two notes ½ step apart, but depending on who is playing the instrument and how thick your fingers are would decide the frequency of said leading tone. I have slender fingers so it is tight w/ me. So, is that really considered a microtone? In other words, have I been playing these mother fuckers for decades and not intentionally knowing it? I mean, it sounds good and feels right! Can these microtones be created in the natural world through harmonic vibrations? I know, these are a lot of questions, but you seem to have answers! Please don't make fun of me for not knowing things like this.. what does Christianity and the church have to do with any of this? Does not ancient Japanese bamboo flute music and Native American war chants use 5 note pentatonic scales? ONE LAST QUESTION, what do you have against koalas?

Kinkzoz
+Gene Ruffalo I don't think it's microtonal if it's an accident. The violin (and other similar instruments) could all be considered microtonal, if you put your fingers inbetween where two notes are. Yes. The internet just hates religion for some reason idk. Maybe. I'm too lazy to google it. I have nothing against koalas.

Hope that helps.

deathtokoalas
+Gene Ruffalo a blue note is roughly a quartertone. when it's vocal, it's usually about that flat. blues guitarists will emulate this by bending flat.

the wolf interval is the only part of this discussion that finds it's way into modern music theory. as mentioned, you have to understand pythagorean number mysticism and how it was applied by christian platonists to understand how this process came about. it's really just about finding ratios that exist within the set of rational numbers. the textbooks don't get into the number mysticism, as it isn't viewed as relevant to understanding the theory. but, in this context it's necessary to understand what western music theory actually is.

the last response from boptillyouflop was acceptable, except to point out that the church was unsuccessful in entirely expunging "irrational tones" from western folk music.

but, you're going to have to track down the pythagorean number mysticism yourself - it's obscure and complex, and (correctly) widely viewed as a lot of nonsense. it's easy to follow from the source, but.....well, if you can find an easy to follow summary (or write one yourself), let me know. don't expect this. the traditional academic history of music theory begins after this discussion for the reason that it's not worth teaching this stuff in almost any other context besides understanding the role of microtones in the history of western music.

http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2010/blue-notes/

Gene Ruffalo
+deathtokoalas Thanks, I know all about blue notes, been playing blues for decades. Technically it is a 1/2 step. In a C Major Pentatonic  Scale it would be an Eb and in a C Minor Pentatonic Scale it would be Gb. Instruments like blues harps, saxes, and guitars that can bend notes you can cut it short to a quarter step, but on a piano you are limited to the half step adjustment, which sounds good too.  Of course they are always just quick passing tones, you would never ride one out. I was really more interested in the other questions I threw at you, which I see you just responded to.

deathtokoalas
+Gene Ruffalo it really isn't a half-step, and the link i posted did a good job of disarming that. as mentioned, it was historically a consequence of vocalists coming down about a quarter to an eighth step flat, which created a slight dissonance in harmony. that was ported to other instruments quite consciously, and there are plenty of examples of using the technique to create sustained notes on just about any instrument. fusion and prog players have used sustained blue notes to great effect; there's a hancock example there, but you can hear it across the spectrum from tony banks to miles davis. and, as i pointed out before, those sustained uses became very integral aspects of the noisier reaches of punk rock, through intermediaries like frank zappa and can. that eventually developed into grunge.

you really can't play blue notes on the piano and there's no use in even talking about it.

boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas Yeah, discussions about microtonal stuff in western music always seemed to be basically numerology for music to me. It's displayed in its full glory on the Xenharmonic Wiki.

Pythagorean theory is also numerological and mystic and crazy, it's just that the wide array of 5ths and low tolerance for mistuned 5ths in western music kinda leads towards it (or a close approximation like 12tet or well temperament, or an extension like Danielou tuning).

deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop or is it that the reason we put so much emphasis on fifths, and react so negatively to them when they're out of tune, is due to the socialization that has followed from the importance that our ancestors put on the mystical properties of the ratio?

Gene Ruffalo
+deathtokoalas where's this link at you say you posted? we are talking a lot of semantics here, for there seems to be a difference of terminology between your "blue note" and "the blues (plural) note" that is in a minor blues scale, normally fretted on a guitar and played by a quick hammer on or trill. I can think of a lot of old BB King licks that play the actual semitone "blues note", but I'd really like to hear this Zappa stuff and other examples you mentioned. Thanks

deathtokoalas
+Gene Ruffalo i was referring to the ethan hein link above.

boptillyouflop
+deathtokoalas The importance of the fifth is not just cultural. It's structural. Musical cultures with different structural requirements tune differently.

Indian music pitches are all intervals up from a drone bass, so they tune in just intonation (logically).

Arabic music tends to center around small melodic steps within a tetrachord. Neutral seconds make structural sense: they make an interesting contrast to major seconds and minor seconds.

Indonesian Gamelan and Thai music are somewhat polyphonic and use a lot of bells and gongs and metallophones, which have irregular frequencies as harmonics, so they don't tune in fifths - instead, they tend to split the octave in roughly equal parts with some gaps.

Chinese and Japanese music are similar in polyphonic structure to the Gamelan, but they have a lot more string and wind instruments (which have regular harmonics). They tune in fifths.

deathtokoalas
+boptillyouflop everything will always make perfect sense when you explain your observations in terms of the observations themselves. it's tautological.

it's only structural in terms of the mathematics. we built the instruments to use the math; we didn't write the math to explain the instruments. it's consequently actually more of a social construction. so, to understand why we built instruments that tune in fifths, we need to understand why we wanted music to sound that way - and the answer is because we thought these ratios had special properties.

we don't say we write in fifths because the instruments push us in this direction. that's mixing up cause and effect.

Scott Wallace
+deathtokoalas You say: so, to understand why we built instruments that tune in fifths, we need to understand why we wanted music to sound that way - and the answer is because we thought these ratios had special properties.

I would put it differently.  These ratios do have special properties: people perceive fifths as being consonant even if they have no idea of the mathematics.  Sure, part of what we consider consonant or pleasing is cultural, but people all over the world sing in unisons, octaves, and fifths, and it's not hard to hear why: the ratios of 1/1, 2/1, and 3/2 simply clash less than, say, the Pythagorean third, 81/64.  Simpler geometry makes for consonance because the waves fit together nicely.

In other words, we don't write in fifths because the instruments push us in this direction: our ears push us in this direction.

cheers from warm Vienna, Scott

deathtokoalas
+Scott Wallace this is the perspective that musicologists will go well out of their way to push aside, and that bop isn't arguing. if you talk to somebody that grew up in india or in an islamic culture, or in an indigenous culture, they really won't have the same perceptions about 4ths and 5ths.

there's a mathematical basis to it in the way the string vibrates - there's some method to the madness. but, we construct these conventions.

there's nothing physical about major keys being happy, minor keys being sad and other keys being "mysterious". it's just what we've been taught. this is a point that virtually everybody agrees upon.

my only point was that if you look closely you can actually determine why it's what we've been taught.

Scott Wallace
+deathtokoalas Oh, I agree with you about different perceptions of fourths and fifths.  But it's also a fact that fourths and fifths are part of almost every musical culture on Earth, including India's.  And there's a physical basis for that, which is based on mathematics.

And yes, the conventions of major/happy, minor/sad are not universal by any means.  You only have to hear all the European medieval love songs to realize that.

cheers from warm Vienna, Scott

post-modern cuisine for the independent-minded person

first vlog (24-10-2015: introductions)

i allowed youtube to "fix" the shake, and it made a mess, so i've reuploaded this.

i won't post these here daily. if you want to follow it, follow it on youtube.

well, i blew the day learning how to edit videos. it should be a faster process, moving forward. it turned out to be fairly intuitive. but, it was also a learning process regarding a few things. the camera jitter was more than i expected; it turns out there's an easy fix ("stabilize"), but i should be more aware of it. also, i recorded today at 320p because i wanted to conserve memory card space on the way to the store to get a bigger card, and i don't think it's quite good enough. exposure in the basement is bad, but it turns out i can fix it in editing. the audio on the device is fine. all in all, i think i can work quite well with this device. today's upload is going to look pretty amateur, but hopefully that will resolve itself in a few days.

this is really just an introduction, i'm just laying down the setting.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myu96jS68ZE

well, i blew the day learning how to edit videos. it should be a faster process, moving forward. it turned out to be fairly intuitive. but, it was also a learning process regarding a few things. the camera jitter was more than i expected; it turns out there's an easy fix ("stabilize"), but i should be more aware of it. also, i recorded today at 320p because i wanted to conserve memory card space on the way to the store to get a bigger card, and i don't think it's quite good enough. exposure in the basement is bad, but it turns out i can fix it in editing. the audio on the device is fine. all in all, i think i can work quite well with this device. today's upload is going to look pretty amateur, but hopefully that will resolve itself in a few days.

i'll post the first vlog here when it's done uploading, but i won't post them here daily. this site is for music updates. if you want to follow the vlog, follow the vlog. that is, on youtube.

so, no testing today. i think i should get some done tomorrow.

actually, i don't think the kids have terrible taste or make garbage music. in fact, i think we're long overdue for a cultural overhaul, and there's a lot of reason to be optimistic that the kids can put gen y through the fucking blender and shoot it out into space.

i just called panic at the disco fans "kids". some of the more pathetic ones are probably even older than me; they're likely mostly within five years. but, i grew up right on the generational cusp, and consistently identified with older gen x types. so, i call them kids - even if they're only two years younger than i am - because that's honestly what it's always felt like, and still feels like. i didn't understand gen y in the 90s, and i don't understand it now. they seem to choose to be dipshits on purpose and somehow revel in it.

but, the actual kids? the ones born in the 90s? they seem to be far more creative, and have far better taste.

i've mostly ignored and skipped gen y. it's not because i was old - i wasn't old. first impressions by most people will assume i'm even of gen y. the truth is that their (my? ick.) music really did just honestly suck. and, there's not really any direction to move in but improvement.

the actual kids will do better. they can't not.

camera came in today.

it works, at least. maybe not so well. lol. well, there's lots of settings to play with....

i'll take it out tomorrow, to start.

it seems to be the plug, but i'm not done testing yet.

it got better when i set the exposure, but it seems to require a lot of the light for the video part. it's going to require a few experiments, clearly.

it's giving me about an hour on the 2 gb card. i'm going to want five or six hours, at least, so one of the things i'll do tomorrow is get a new card....

it's breakfast time.

but what i determined this morning is that the signal out of the machine is currently both stable and correct. there is a small issue with the high mids - this is not the same as the fading. but, curiously, it seems to correct itself when i reseat the headphone plug in the connector. that reduces this remaining minor issue to either:

a) the cord (resistance, somehow).
b) the plug (bad connection).
c) the headphone jack in the amp.

after breakfast, what i'll need to do is test it directly out of the mixer. if i'm getting similar issues, it's either the cord or the plug and i'll have to test with further plugs and/or just buy a whole set of things - a new cord, a new plug and a new brace. if i'm not, it's the jack in the amp, and while i probably can't fix that i can at least finish mixing what i'm doing through direct connection to the mixer.

i suspect it's the plug, from previous testing.

there's still a chance it could break again when i open cubase, but at least i'll have a bit more of a control if that does happen, and know it's software.

cnusodef

i'm getting close. i really am.

i decided there was a headphone issue, and i should just go ahead and deal with the clock - started fading as soon as i opened cubase, as expected. so, i reinstalled the clock. and - bam - it's sounding perfect again.

i'll have to see what happens when i open cubase. i still need to do some more testing first.

in the meantime, i'm going to repost this instrumental remix of confused, with the added sequencer, because it's a new mix, and i'm really jonesing to move forward.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/cnusodef

uploading werso smidits for the alter-reality

time keeps moving.

i was hoping to be done this by now, but it will need to come up in the alter-reality in a few days so i'm posting it now.

obligatory influential post.

i did a few for this track last year when it was in demo stage and was going to skip it, but i think i missed a few things.

1997-1999 or so was my big puppy kick, so when i was converting noise punk demos into electronic tracks, they were really a guiding influence. but it's not always obvious, because i was still working in traditional rock song structures and still leaning heavily towards my upbringing in synth pop, new wave and college rock. this is one of the few tracks where it's a lot more obvious.

last rights, as a whole, along with too dark park, were just seismic shifts for me in terms of what music could be. and, i fell into it right at the time when i was shifting from being formative to defining my own identity. get to the kids, as they say. it's about 16-17 that you fall into this conflict between young idealism and crushing realism and are stuck trying to find some kind of balance. everything about them, from the apocalyptic sounds to the dystopian lyrics, just made sense when not a lot else did. and, keep in mind that this was the period when punk, as a whole, was at it's highest point of absolute commodity - across the spectrum. it was that feeling of being born ten years too late.

there's maybe 10 records like this that i can cite as legitimately changing how i interpret the world around me. as agit-prop, it's just a kick to the skull, there's not much else that compares to it. it still sounds every bit as jarring and extreme as it did then, too - because it's written from a point of musical and artistic literacy, rather than from a point of total shock value. it's that artistic centre that industrial music lost with dwayne goettel and has struggled to find since.

it's both the apex and the definitive end of the genre as an artistic force.

(relevant tracks: schizoid, confused, why, eat my fuck, hexonxonx remix, idiotic, most of the stuff from 1998-2002, especially, but continuing on as a substantial background influence)

potentially substantial breakthrough. needs testing. again.

i wasn't getting any grit on the bottom end - i've explained this before, that nice boom, the dynamics. sounded like it was through a limiter.

so, i swapped the other headphones in and, while they sounded noticeably worse, i was at least getting the dynamics. definitely headphones.

now, these headphones both say LCH on them. i guess it was a factory error. but, what i did was swap sides, and i seem to have got the boom back.

i'm hoping that's the last fix. just let me get through testing.

if that's it, it's probably a contact issue - the cord wasn't connecting right on one or both sides. that could have happened when i took them apart to clean them, and just put them back together without thinking about it.

i think my ears are ok.

but the cord out of the mixer on the left side seems to have been slightly loose. it seems ok, now.

testing...again...

i will fix this, one day.

ok.

i'm fed, awake and focused for at least a few hours. the camera should be here tomorrow or the next day. hopefully, i get somewhere close to an answer by then.

appointment

jessica
first, i should apologize for sending you faxes and emails; i don't have a phone.

my name is jessica parent. i saw you about a year ago regarding transgender hrt. you carried on a prescription i had been on for four years and have now been on for five years. at the time, we agreed that you would continue to prescribe the hormones from a distance, because i live in windsor and it's very difficult for me to commute to london. however, when i went to renew the prescription, the pharmacy received back a note that you need to see me.

i really can't afford to make the commute. i'm really not quite sure why it is that you need to see me, given that we agreed it was unnecessary. do you need a blood test? could you schedule one at a clinic here in windsor, and have the results faxed to you?

i'm exploring further options, here, but they're kind of bleak. i have an appointment with a family doctor on nov 17, and i'm hoping that works out. i'm also communicating with an endocrinologist, but he's put a condition down to attend a workshop in toronto with a year-long waiting list, and that's kind of a non-starter. i may be able to convince him to waive this, but it's up in the air right now.

if it's just a blood test, i can do that. but i would really like to avoid the bus fare; i could do it, if it's my only choice, but i live on odsp and it's going to be tight up against my budget.

if you require regular visits, i suppose i understand. i think i've been on hormones so long, that it's just a question of a check-up, and i do feel healthy enough that i think it's probably superfluous, but i realize there are due diligence issues, as well. but, i can't commit to that.

in the short run, i'm hoping maybe you could give me another 3-6 months to allow me to exhaust options here. again: if it's just a blood test, i'm more than willing to do that. if not, and you're ok with another few months, i'd ask you to let me know so i can ask the pharmacy to fax another request.

i know this is not ideal. *i'm* the one that's struggling to find a doctor, here, that's at a reasonable distance. i'm not quite sure why this is proving so difficult. but, it's obviously kind of frightening to come up against the idea of not being able to find hormones, after already transition fully for all functional purposes. i hope that the urgency is understood and the difficult situation is accounted for in your decision.

london clinic
Good morning Jessica,

Thanks so much for your email. We can absolutely empathize with the difficulty to get here for an appointment with the distance and financial constraints. I showed Dr. Martin your email and he came up with a bit of a compromise, I hope this can work. He has agreed to extend the prescriptions until June but in the meantime, if you could find a way to make it up here for an appointment that would be very important before we are able to give more beyond this date. The issue is just with the due diligence, for him to be able to be accountable and act in a medically responsible way while prescribing medications it is essential that we see you in our office for follow-ups. Hopefully the extension will make it a little easier to find a way to get here at some point between now and then. Let me know that you would be agreeable to this plan and where you would like me to send the refill for you medications.  If there is anything else I can do to help, don’t hesitate to let me know.

jessica
probably the easiest thing to do would be for me to fax the refill request from the pharmacy. does that work for you?

extending it to june will give me more than enough time to figure things out here, so that is ideal: thank you. i will know if i need to make another appointment within a few weeks, and if i do i will call you near the end of november to make it. if i don't, i'll let you know as well.

london clinic
Hi Jessica,

I'm so glad to hear this plan will work. You can for sure have the pharmacy fax over the refill requests and I will fill it out and fax it back to them :)

what if it's my ears?

i'm swapping cables around and....i haven't convinced myself yet...but it almost seems like the tweeter in my left ear is broken.

that tic. it's on my left side. and it's something to do with my ear. i kind of know already that a bone didn't heal properly. i've been waiting to be completely done smoking before i go to a doctor.

i need to make some calls this morning. i'm isolating this afternoon. if i can isolate it to my left ear, i'll have to go to the clinic.

i'm aware that this is most likely psycho-somatic. but, i'm running out of ideas.

the election is done. liberal majority, i'm looking forward to legal pot here, in canada. that will make life so much easier. but, the distraction is over, now, and i really want to get some kind of answer.

if it's my ear, it at least explains everything. kind of scary. but it adds up.

this is part of the reason why i wanted to get all my musical ideas worked out first, then focus on academics later. your ears are only artistically useful until you're about 40. that's my hypothesis as to why so many people get lame after 40: their ears stop working right.

so, why am i doing this? what are my motives? what are my goals?

the cynical assumption is no doubt that i'm looking to cash a check,  but in fact i live very happily on disability and have no real incentives to generate income. i mean, i'm not going to turn it down if it comes. and, sure, i'll pay a little bit back. but i'm simply not desperately trying to charm myself out of wage slavery, because i'm actually not in it. i made a decision several years ago that i would not live under the goal of profit maximization; i've held to it fairly well to this point and i don't plan on reversing myself on it.

that's maybe something to grasp about me, overall: i need real motives, not just monetary ones. it's the dour existentialist in me that sees the society around me as disparagingly absurd. i just don't find capitalism motivational; this is the real reason that i have not been able to survive without state aid - i become hopelessly depressed and unable to function when forced to work to exist. i mean, look at how much writing i do for free. i'm rambling with an aim. i need that. methods to madness and whatnot. i don't even mirror with an ad space; and while i do plan to mirror, i don't plan to put ads up. call me a fool if you'd like, but understand that the feeling is mutual.

that said, i do plan to monetize these videos and that is a definite difference. i have not and will not monetize any of my music videos. i'm comfortable with monetizing this, so why not? but it's not a motive, so much as it's just possible gravy. i'm happy as i am, but could think of plenty of activist things to do with a larger stream of income.

the primary reason i'm doing this is to act as a gateway to the music. when i first put up my other youtube channel, i had no real expectations for it. but, i learned quickly that the commenting system could act as an effective means of promotion so long as i was consistently being interesting or provocative - which are things that i'm naturally good at. i found my hits growing relatively quickly, and on a fairly steep curve, as a consequence of posting insightful, witty and/or challenging comments on other people's videos - or, from time to time, just being a good troll.

over the last few months, youtube has taken steps to hurt "spammers". was i spammer? well, it depends. i was certainly advertising, but it was through the stealth approach of posing interesting questions rather than the obvious approach of pushing links in your face. i might suggest we're all better off for that and it's a kind of fair game type of spamming. but, purposefully or collaterally, i was caught up in the anti-spam shifts and have seen hits come down dramatically. as i understand that this is systemic, i realize i need to take further steps.

now, a vlog can only act as a frontend for something else if it is actually interesting, and can actually hold an audience, and the fact that i think i can do this is a big part of the point. on the one hand: merely look at my comments. look at the arguments, debates, discussions. i'm obviously able to generate interest. it's more than that.

i think the primary reason i'm of interest is that i can offer a worldview into a "real life" transgendered person. by that, what i mean is a lower class transgendered person that neither lives a celebrity lifestyle nor has had any plastic surgery. the media is complicit in this perpetual, brutal stereotyping of transwomen as these passive little barbified bimbos that spend their whole lives fantasizing about becoming porn stars. i don't wear fishnets. i don't have a boob job. i don't talk like rupaul. i'm really rather shockingly normal. i think that this kind of realness is what is missing from the conversation, because so many of us are so shy and so unwilling to draw attention to it. i can walk into this space fairly freely; i openly identify as specifically trans and will actually correct you if you suggest or imply otherwise. i have no social aspirations in either gender for this kind of open discussion to interfere with. hopefully, by presenting the perspective of a "normal" trans person, i can help break down stereotypes of the shallow, materialistic porn star or model wannabe transfemale. did you know that transgendered people are actually statistically of greater likelihood to be of above average intelligence? it's a condition that is actually correlated very strongly with bookishness, aloof intellectualism and sometimes crippling levels of introversion. very few of us want to be porn stars. most of us would prefer to spend a saturday night in the library than at the club.

the second reason is that i often find myself walking over long distances and mentally putting aside thoughts to write down somewhere later. as i spend a lot of time walking, i spend a lot of time thinking. i think some of these thoughts are worth sharing. this goes back to the same political motives i have in ranting everywhere. i suppose this is more of the traditional vlog, right: the webcam in the bedroom. but, i won't do that. if i'm at home, i'd actually prefer to write it down - i think more fluidly when i'm typing. rather, a substantial part of this blog is going to be me talking into the camera as i'm walking around in the wee hours of the morning, ejecting scattered thoughts and various insights.

that brings up another point: i'm a single person. this is by choice, by desire and without any reservations. i couldn't imagine not being single. but, what that means is that this is an exercise in introversion, rather than a display of social behaviour. as an outlet, that might be healthy, for me.

i also think it will be good for me to need to have a greater incentive to focus on how i present myself. as i'm single, and live on disability, i can go through rather long periods of personal neglect. if i need to be on screen every day, or every other day, that is going to make a big difference in how i treat myself, which will have consequences in terms of self-esteem. i think this will be good for me.

so, these are the social and personal goals i have in running a vlog. they may not always be obvious, as you're following me to a concert or watching me make lunch. but, i hope that i'm able to use this vlog both to build awareness and to help myself deal with various issues - as well as to draw attention to myself as a working artist.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/108929126523080872678/108929126523080872678/posts/fHiPrp3Rwd8

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCinQSeEtF0vSN1XVhQGfwKA

so, i'm launching a vlog...

in fact, i wish i had launched this three or four years ago. it could have caught me hitch-hiking, or maybe caught a few things from occupy.

vlogs are largely trivial. it's what a vlog is. sometimes, you'll have to watch me make spaghetti or something. but, i go for long walks, too - routinely. not just in windsor, but also in detroit. concerts. recording. overall, i'm probably considerably more exciting than you or most people you know are, even if i'm essentially always by myself.

what i'm thinking is that it might act as a reasonable front-end for the music production. i was using the comment system to great effect for a while, but youtube then went and changed the way the system works in such a way that it almost seems designed to explicitly prevent me from doing what i was doing. they sell ads, right? if i'm using the comment system for free advertising, i'm breaking their model. so, they've done several things - i could list 5 or 6 - to make it harder for people like me to do what i was doing. i got a little touch of exposure, anyways - enough to make me think restrategizing is worthwhile. but, it's clear that they've broken what i was doing. they've crashed me from 200 hits/day to 10 hits/day.

this seems to be a better advertising strategy for right now. we'll see how it goes.

i bought a $50 camera from best buy. it should be here in five or six days. expect this to launch saturday; i'll be posting daily updates here, as well.

yeah.

i just ordered this cheap little guy:

i'd normally go and pick it up because shipping is half the price of the object, but this looks like it's last gen - that they're trying to get rid of it, really - and so it's free shipping.

the key point is it's cheap. but, it's also waterproof, which is....i'm not going to go swimming with it, but i don't want to worry about it in the rain, either.

the actual truth is that i'm really not well-versed in the language of megapixels and digital video. i'm going to guess that the differences in video quality past a certain point are largely trivial. and, you know, i don't know how long i'm going to do this for. i'm not expecting pristine quality, but i'm maybe not requiring it just quite yet, either. i'm sure it'll be fine - or better than fine, really.

i've got plenty of rechargeable batteries, although i'll have to experiment with how much power the device uses. i'll have to figure out how much storage i'm going to need for an average ten hour adventure and get the right sized sd card, as well. i suspect my old 2 gb card for pictures is too small.

the actual reality is that this device was probably ten times the price ten years ago. this is how i operate with technology - i wait, i get the last gen when it's falling into obsolescence and then i actually use it to it's potential. i'm lucky enough to be living through the period where technology is plateauing, allowing for what is truly high end technology to sell for basically nothing, in order to drive the market. i actually probably fluked out on that.

should be here by friday.

yeah. decided. if i can find a usable camera for under $100.

i'm thinking about starting a vlog.

all the popular vlogs are families. it's great and everything, from a certain perspective, i guess. i think i have something a bit more unique to offer - single transgender canadian that is a total loner and is right on the us border and that is often on foot, heads to concerts, etc.

i guess a lot of it is going to be kind of trivial, but it's what a vlog is, right? a lot of it it's going to be me walking around by myself and talking into the mic.

i think there's some other upsides to it. i would be comfortable monetizing a vlog channel, for example - i won't monetize the music channel. it could maybe create exposure for the music, and possibly even income.

i'm sort of wishing i'd vlogged some of the more erratic moments of the last three or four years. hitch-hiking from ottawa to windsor, through toronto, would be great to have on tape; i tried to document it through writing, but it only gets you so far. and i'm sure i'll have more than a few more crazy moments.

in fact, i suspect halloween could be a bit of a ride, with deafhaven early and probably hitting a rave later. it's going to depend on the weather, though - i'm not floating around detroit all night if it's snowing.

shifting to schizoid in the alter-reality

alter-reality update today.

this is the slot for the reinterpretation of this track from 1998. i had previously featured this in the demo space. so, i've already done my obligatory influentials and will not repost.

this will be up for at least a few weeks, probably a month. i'm still struggling with a lot of motivational problems in not being able to get my gear working. i haven't been doing much of anything for a month except sitting around totally depressed. i have motivational problems in the best of times; if i can't do what i want, i tend not to do anything at all. i'm not good at prioritizing or compromising. i tend to go in all the way or not at all. i've worked myself into a corner and don't really know what else to do besides wait it out and hope it's better. i have no serious further life goals, so i may consider suicide if i conclude the problem is irresolvable. and while i don't disagree that this would be foolish, i've never claimed to be anything other than a fool.

the point is that i think i'm expecting a mix to cut this feature period in half, but i have to finalize it first, and i can't do that until i'm certain that i'm getting a clean signal. but, i'm having a hard time motivating myself to do anything at all right now, so it's hard to see if that happens over the next month or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuYLWbu04vk

i've been over this before. they expect me to show up dressed like a prostitute. and i think a part of it may be trying to get them to understand that i'm 35 years old. i don't look it. i get that. but the truth is that i'm old, and i dress like i'm old, which is to be expected. i don't have any patience with this "35 is the new 25" stuff, and this refusal to grow up. i don't want to be 25. i'm happy to be out of that headspace. i don't want to walk into a doctor's office and be analyzed like a piece of meat.

it's dehumanizing.

these doctors - they're creepy old men. i'd mostly rather they didn't touch me at all, kind of thing. to have them evaluate your gender based on whether they find you attractive is - there's something wrong with this. it's like, "i'm wearing a sweater because i don't want your creepy ass ogling me, you sonofabitch.".

they honestly seem to expect me to walk in in fishnets and heels and laugh provocatively when they speak. it's really disgusting.

it's this base archetype of patriarchally enforced "femininity" that they want reflected back at them.

i had one ask "what are you, some kind of lesbian?".

like as though that might disqualify me, if it were true. (i'm asexual. just no interest in sex.)

i had another frown and clearly write me off when i claimed i was a feminist. as though transwomen being feminists is some kind of contradiction, and disqualifying.

it's 2015, guys. i know you're in your 60s. but, you could try to keep up just a little.

that week just zoomed by...

i've had some running around to do with doctors. again. they're such assholes. and often surprisingly averse to evidence-based reasoning, in favour of rigidity to strict protocol. you'd think you're dealing with the military half the time...

they've got me in this ridiculous loop. the same people that just rediagnosed me with gender dysphoria want me to go through a training program in toronto for people that have yet been diagnosed. this is ridiculous; i could be teaching the program. but, i'd do it if it's a day program and there's an easy end to it. but, it's a months long program with a year long waiting list. and, here's the bizarre part: there's an open letter on their web page requesting that doctors do not send people through this program and just assign hormones themselves.

so, they won't represcribe until they send me through a program that is telling them to go ahead and prescribe already. it's just rigidity to a set of protocols, oblivious of anything resembling independent thought or adherence to logic.

you can imagine a far side cartoon at a school for the gifted with a star on the floor beside a christmas tree and a child frowning - because there's no instruction manual.

so, i'm calling more doctors. and more doctors. until i can find one with some common fucking sense. surely, it's inevitable, right?

i mean, it's not an option to go off hormones. i can't detransition. i'm already done. i'd sooner kill myself than put myself in that kind of state. and, if i do, it will be in their front office.

i've got some things done, though, and am ready to sit down for a few days.

i'm going to take a shower this afternoon and should hopefully get some more troubleshooting in tonight.

there's my quarterly stomach ace.....

it's officially fall in windsor.

i need to crash, but at least the driver reinstall got it back to sounding right. like, pristinely right - as good as last night and this morning. that seems to indicate that fixing the phones at least got me to a situation where the driver breaks are reversible. and it really isolates it to the clock.

my guess is that launching cubase is telling it to count differently somehow. what happens is that a code 19 shows up in the device manager. i expect the drivers to break again when i launch cubase, and i'll have to try a few things, then probably reinstall the drivers again. i'm just not sure if i want the clock drivers or not. i mean, it sounds ideal without anything trying to launch them. but, i need to see what happens by installing the clock, first.

i've already been over this, but the changes i made had side effects so i'm kind of back at square one. again: knowing that getting back to a clean signal seems to be reversible is kind of key.

fuck...

opened up cubase, and it lost the highs. that's definitely driver, which takes me back to the headphone issues ultimately being secondary.

i'm very convinced that there was cause and effect on opening cubase. what i've done for the moment is reinstall the drivers. i'll have to see if that's enough to get me back to the sweet spot.

obviously, i need to be able to open cubase....

if it falls back in place, i'm going to try reinstalling the streaming proxy first and then disabling it second. if it doesn't, i'm going to skip to disabling it.

yup. i'm good to go. finally.

and, it's been so long that i've half lost track of what i was even doing.

i think i can probably get this remix project done in a few days; it's just a question of making sure the mixes actually sound good, and i think they will. i've decided the best thing to do is to swing right back and fine tooth everything from the start.

i do remember that i was in the process of finalizing several stages, so i'd might as well just fine tooth it all, as this is the last time i'm touching a wide swath of it, from 1996-2003. when i get through this, i'll have a number of archive discs ready.

i had a thought process, but it's gone now, so the best way to make sure i don't miss anything is to just do it methodically. but, i mean....everything is done. i just need to tie it all together.

hopefully, i should get back to finishing some actual recordings by the end of the month, but that's maybe a tad optimistic. it won't be too much longer than that, anyways.

i think it should mostly come back in terms of logic.

i was compiling end of period 2 compilations. which meant i had to go back and finalize the aleph-discs. but i wasn't sure of space issues, so i had to go back and actually build them. so i decided to start with period 1. which meant i had to finish the remixes of the inri material to finish period 1.

so, when i finish these mixes, i can finish the period 1 disc. then, i can finalize the remaining material. which will let me build the rest of the aleph discs. and let me build the compilations in the process.

and, then i'm back to starting on period 3, which runs from roughly 2003-2007.

so, i'm starting to get notifications on status updates, and it's pissing me off, so i'm just unfriending everybody.

the reality is that i don't read my news feed. if you want to follow me, go ahead.

this gentle dreamer v. hopeless cynic thing has always bothered me. you just need to throw a little realism in there to break the false dichotomy.

gentle dreamer + empirical analysis = hopeless cynic.

i'm a cynic *because* i'm a dreamer.

there's no contradiction in dreaming of things that never were and asking why not, and being realistic about what the answer actually is.

well, i can't state for certain what it is that happened this evening, but i am certain the signal is now correct. previous times, it was always a little ambiguous. it's not this time - it's completely clear. clear highs. clear lows.

it was actually great tonight to be able to hear these tunes as they're supposed to sound. it's been a while.

while i do think that some of the other fixes were a part of the problem, it turns out that the major problem was some kind of a gain issue. i spent the afternoon fiddling with cables, and it did sort of just magically click all of a sudden. i may have bent something back into shape, and if that's true then it suggests that i need to be a little careful when i'm taking the contacts in and out.

but, the more i listened the more i became convinced that it's a power issue. i lost all of july, august and september to this. is it a coincidence that the air conditioner upstairs turned off this weekend and it turned on when the problem started? it almost makes sense that the mixer and/or amp wasn't drawing enough power. that's a good way to explain what i was hearing, anyways. better than magnetic interference, anyways.

right now i'm just glad it's fixed. and i suppose i have something to be thankful for this weekend.

i should finally get back to where i was in the morning. seriously, this time. and i'm going to freak out if it doesn't sound right when i wake up.

obligatory influential post.

well, there's some backwards guitar work, and the accompanying forwards guitar work. i'd actually like to post to castles made of sand, but it's not available on youtube, apparently. nor is merman. ugh. but, it's not just that. i grew up listening to and learning how to play hendrix, so i very quickly fall back into the old pentatonics when left to my own devices...

as for the song. umm.

(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed)

obligatory influential on post.

i'm pushing it a little. this was released the same week as i did the track. but, yield got some pretty heavy play from me, and there's a kind of pearl jam flavour to the track, so it's fair. if i was going to pick a pearl jam track most similar to try and denote the flavour in it, it would be this one rather than something on vitalogy, even if the latter is technically more accurate.

these lyrics are awesome. as a lyricist, vedder is frustrating. but, the tunes he clicks on can be pretty inspiring. i've always dug that beatnik beach bum pothead ocean mysticism.

(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed)

obligatory influential on post.

there's really a wide variety of key/goettel productions [and no doubt lpd productions, although i'm less familiar with their work] that make creative use of time reversal, but i'm pulling this one out because i know i was listening to it a lot at the time, and it's kind of conceptually relevant.

(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is evil and must be destroyed)

deathtokoalas
obligatory influential post.

well, it was actually the ry30 that is the influence; this was right at about the same time as i was just getting into autechre, and the fact that i was already familiar with the ry30 is perhaps a part of the reason i was more easily able to delve into autechre than a lot of other techno. autechre would gradually become a larger influence after 1998, but i was only just getting into them when the track was being recorded. what i'm getting at is that i'm kind of trying to downplay the actual artistic influence; it's more like i had this machine, and i was looking for examples of people that wrote music with tools like it (i didn't realize at the time that autechre were literally using an ry30, themselves). i'd then take some of those ideas and try and port them to the punk songs i was re-recording.

the result is pretty weird. i suspect most people would find something unsettling, perhaps even frightening, at the idea of autechre remixing punk rock. but, it's kind of what i was aiming for. sort of. it's mildly revisionist, but it gets the idea across.

this disc would grow into one of my favourite techno discs, and deserves the acclaim it gets. years later, jim thirlwell would use the term "ethnic music for future cultures that do not yet exist" to describe some of his own music, but i think it's a pretty striking analysis of this. whether the stories of gear stolen as looting during riots are true or not, i think the claims of musical illiteracy are accurate and i think that's a part of the reason that so much of their work has this kind of dark, celtic tonality. i think that's an under explored slant in trying to get your ahead around the abstraction. it's as tied to the island's distant past as much as it is to it's present, or future. there's a digital tribalism to it that is very idiosyncratically british.

(relevant track: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed, thug culture, confused, wish, nope, ignorance is bliss, anything with a drum machine, really, which is most of the stuff after 1998)

Antonio Schacht
I am not sure who you are, this is an interesting comment

deathtokoalas
i'm running through years of old recordings in real time on my youtube channel. i started in late 1996 about a year and a half ago, and have worked my way up to 1998. that means i'll get around to 2015 some time around the year 2032. i wasn't sure how to approach uploading 17 years of music, and decided this was the most comprehensive way, even if it takes forever. and, it allows me to present myself in terms of how i developed.

i do these "obligatory influentials" whenever i completed a new track, 17 years ago.

i guess it made more sense when google+ was cross-linked to youtube.

Fuck /mu/ Brutallity ends
That's why i saw you on SDRE's Diary and Weezer's Pinkerton. I'm listening to all kinds of music since 2010, and I think the the six thousand albums I listened aren't enough.

deathtokoalas
that would have been lp2 for the obligatory influential post; didn't get as much into diary. and i think i've cited the blue album, but wouldn't really cite pinkerton. i would have been commenting on those records in my music critic's hat :)

i mean, i try to put a synopsis of the disc in, too, so i'm not just spamming.

Fuck /mu/ Brutallity ends
Have you listened to Amon Tobin's 1997 album?

deathtokoalas
no, he's a bit of a black hole for me. i've always found him a little too conventional, but it's not like i've spent a lot of time listening, either. you have to keep in mind that i'm coming at this from an industrial/noise perspective, so i'm interpreting autechre through the filter of acts like coil and skinny puppy. i mostly restricted my delves into 90s electronic music to the warp records spectrum, just because it was really the only stuff that i could find that was really only techno in an aesthetic sense.

i'd put amon tobin in a list of stuff that includes dj shadow, daft punk, chemical brothers - it's just too close to dancefloor techno, and not experimental enough to hold my interest. but i again need to temper that with the caveat that i've only really scratched the surface of it.

Fuck /mu/ Brutallity ends
Your comments are pretty interesting. It's like talking with a music critic who knows what he's talking about. I never saw Amon Tobin like that, and maybe I need to stop listening to mainstream hardcore punk and focus on more stuff that I missed and it's the wide electronic/experimental genre.

deathtokoalas
the warp stuff was really always head and shoulders above, and they all had their idiosyncratic slants that could separate them out: autechre with the experimental parts, aphex with a kind of chamber music approach, squarepusher with the insane jazz leanings, plaid with the lush ambience. i really haven't heard much since that isn't in some way just a rehashing of what was really an explosion of creativity in the mid-to-late 90s.

regarding north america, skinny puppy morphed into a band called download that released two remarkable records, but they're quite noisy. most of the 90s stuff on the subconscious communications label is worth exploring. there was some interesting stuff on invisible records, but it's a lower signal-to-noise. dead voices on air jumps out immediately.

when you get out of the warp sphere and these kind of remnant strains of industrial music, though, you start getting bigger influences from hip-hop, from house music, from pop music. it becomes more oriented for dance parties and less oriented for headphone listening. that's what made the warp stuff so refreshing: it was really absolute listening music. even the ninja tune stuff is mostly party-focused. that's fine, it has it's role and everything, but it sounds a lot more dated by nature of what it is and is, frankly, just a lot less serious by nature of what it is, too.

obligatory influential post.

i don't want to say it was conscious, but it's almost a remix. you can it hear in the song structure, the way the chords cycle around and then in the collapse in the middle (i'm trying to avoid using the term "breakdown"). you listen to something so often, it just sort of assimilates itself, and you don't realize you're doing it; that's the truth with this. the second half of nevermind was always really just one song, because i always listened to it in transit.

but, i've always like these kinds of longwinded chord progressions that take a nice trip around the world before they get back to the cadence. i'm in absolute solidarity with ludwig, here; fuck you, amadeus.

(relevant tracks: if god somehow does exist, it is sadistic and must be destroyed)

i'm throwing a challenge out there. i'd do it, but i've got other things to do.

somebody needs to notate this record (and the green record; it won't work for pinkerton, or the later material) with a scorewriter with the aim of using baroque instrumentation: organ, bass, lute, harpsichord, cello, trumpet, some horns in the background. you need to make sure you get the vocal melodies & harmonies down. maybe have a little fun with the bass, but i don't think it'll be necessary to modify it much to get the effect i'm thinking.

i think it might provide a little more appreciation for how well written this record is.

on second thought, it seems - seems - to have clicked into place.

that only makes sense if the problem was in the left ear, and my fiddling around with the short managed to fix the connection.

i'm running with it, anyways. let's see if i can get through both records without pulling out a glaring "muffle".

switching to hey, god in the alter-reality

yeah, i'm swapping out various plugs and, while they all sound a little different, there's a consistency: the working cord is muffled across the board. i'm going to continue testing for the night, but i'm pretty much convinced that i need a new cord.

i'll probably buy three of them. they're like $10 each. in the mean time, i *think* i can finish mixing.

there's an alter-reality update tonight, which means i'm very far behind where i wanted to be right now, but i just need to keep plugging away at it. at least i've got some daylight to an answer, now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBvkURqZ9F8

ok, i'm finally psyched back into it.

laptop lid now closed.

well, how's this for out there? but i think i got it.

the short in the phones was worse than i thought, so i started tying to figure out some other cause - dirt, maybe?

the cords are an 1/8th inch. all the outs in the room are 1/4 inch. so, i need an adapter. i started playing with the connection to see if i could isolate it to one side of the cord, maybe.

what i began to realize is that i could get a fuller sound if i pulled the tip out just a bit. but, i couldn't get it back again after. and then it clicked.

what i'm thinking is that it isn't the cord, but the tip - that is, that this particular tip seems to have a microscopic defect on it that is not connecting properly in the adapter, but the other one doesn't. it's something most people probably wouldn't notice, but apparent on the high and low end; i think i'm getting a reduced signal due to the contact not snapping into place properly.

i happen to have a dozen of those adapters, somehow; i don't know how. but, i've experimented with a few and i'm getting closer to the proper "boom".

you can hear what i mean if you check out the first few seconds of the attached track. a drum-bass-guitar crash comes in after the arpeggio. through a good set of phones, it should get that "crush" effect on the bottom end. i was getting that through the shorted phones, but not getting it through the working ones; when i swapped the adapter out, i started getting it through the working ones.

it's a little different through each of the adapters, which just upholds the idea that there's some kind of mild contact problem.



you can hear it here, too, with the rising bass parts. that bass should saturate the mix - "BOOM". but, i wasn't getting the volume spikes - as though it was through a limiter.

well...

i'm pretty much convinced that i'm getting different results out of the different headphone cords, with the functioning pair sounding like it's through a limiter and the shorted pair sound a lot more full and open, like it's meant to.

i suppose it could be an impedance issue. a factory defect. that's so remarkably obscure. but i've been saying forever that it sounds like the signal is being obstructed, somehow, and swapping the cables seems to have fixed it.

i'm normally one to pretty loudly poo-poo audiophile claims of impedance making a difference, and i'm not exactly going to say my ears don't lie (although i can't double blind this...), but it seems to be a difference.

with all the randomness, i don't know - maybe the signal is warming up the phones, and it's warping it? i think i'm in the realm of science fiction.

i'm trying to think back to when i switched cables and don't recall exactly. i actually wasn't even sure that i had switched cables at all until i went and looked. it could have been when i swapped braces, back around new year's. but, i'm pretty sure it was working fine until a few months ago. and, again - the randomness. how does impedance "break"?

i'm going to keep testing overnight. but it honestly seems to me like it sounds right through the shorted cable.

they're usable, for now. the short is intermittent. but, i'll need to swap them. so, if i can convince myself of as much, i'll just order another cable. maybe two...

for now, i'm just excited to get a breakthrough. although, this doesn't really add up to me. how is it that other measures seemed to make a difference, if it was the headphone cord?

for now, i'll just keep listening. and if it keeps sounding good, i'll have to accept it.

i'm still dreaming about you fairly regularly

it's weird.

because there's entire narratives that only exist in the dream reality, so that if i were to bump into you some time in the near future, i would have difficulty determining what real memories are and what dream memories are.

i wrote a sarcastic essay a few years ago that argues that all history eventually becomes poetry; that as we become further and further from events that happened in the past, they take on the nature of myth. two thousand years from now, we will probably have burned all our historical records many times over and the only memory of us will be in translated chinese documents, and local arabic documents that speak of barbarians. america will exist only in the terms of a myth.

it's interesting to see how it occurs over the course of a single lifetime, too. in the dream world, for example, you have an apartment on the 8th floor of a building on the carleton campus. it's consistent. i know the layout of the place well. even which drawer you keep candles in, and where you leave the soy in the fridge.

ok, my headphones aren't broken, at least. phew.

the noise-cancelling phones are designed to compensate for signals out of a low quality device, and provide somewhat of a bass boost in addition to blocking out surrounding noise. the old sennheisers are open-backed, so they sound a bit more airy; that's normally a net benefit, but it does lose a tad of bass compression out of this device. conversely, the noise-cancelling phones consistently distort the heavier bass tones when plugged into the recording pc.

overall, it sounds the way it's supposed to, with those caveats kept in mind.

i'm going to listen a little more, but i should be back on the pc by the end of the night.

well, this is rather comical.

if i can reduce at least part of the problem to the headphones, the first thing i want to check is the cord, right? i can replace the cord. i can't replace the phones [they're long out of production].

about two years ago now, i had the cord replaced, but it was unstable in the left side so i replaced it a second time. meaning, i have a backup. and, i checked the backup and sure enough it seemed to sound better. but, i have to be careful - this is in the realm of bias, and i can hardly double-blind it.

but, i had to really push the left side in to account for the short.

so, i put the working cord back in and made sure it was really pushed in as tight as i could push it. and that seems to have made the difference.

i need to test. i've been through this so many times. but it maybe explains the randomness, if the cord was just not quite in enough.

well, if that turns out to be it, it's worth a laugh from future readers, i guess. fuck.

i think the device is just about charged. i'll find out soon.

it's the kind of thing that snaps in really easily. but it's also ancient. so, it would be easy to not realize it's not pushed in far enough.

i'm starting to think i damaged my mixing phones. i need to recharge my mp3 player, but that's going to be the crux of testing today.

the playback from the computer seems to sound better through the other phones, which is a serious departure from previous testing.

if i can determine that this is true, i'm not sure where i go from there.

my mixing phones are very old sennheisers with very good specs. my walking phones are a newer sennheiser model with a noise-reduction filter. they're fine for sitting on the bus, but i can't use them to mix because of that filter. that just doesn't make any sense. yet, if it turns out that the old sennheisers sound poorly through the mp3 player then the reality is that i'm dealing with some serious degradation that is an absolute hard block.

i'll have to buy new phones before i can do any further mixes. which will mean that i'll have to put aside the next few months for reading, as i save up.

i'm not there yet, but it's pretty clear. and i suppose it's the obvious answer, in hindsight, as i tested everything else with little effect.

the only glimmer of hope is that there was so much variation in the output; that it did sound right from time to time.

i'll know in a few hours.

i can at least state with certainty that the mixes sound pristine through the new phones, out of the mp3 player, so the mixes are good and i'm not hearing things. if they don't sound pristine through the old phones, that's the obvious problem.

i've been trying to figure out now, for three months, why i can't get the mixes to sound right....

once i figure this out, i'll be back on track. but, if the phones are broken, it's going to be a while.

switching to confused in the alter-reality

alter-reality update:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNAYKj5qgO8

something i was able to determine yesterday is that both the jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj records sound outstanding through the mp3 player.

i'm going to be getting back to work today. i'm at least convinced that i haven't been hearing things, that there are really serious differences on playback.

this stranger in detroit very nearly ended up buried from an unplanned overnight in the cold

about a year ago, detroit's famous punk rock bowling alley bar unleashed a minor crisis in the city by converting itself into a split disco/folk bar (disco upstairs, indie/folk downstairs), supposedly under the impression that the punk rock era was over. generations of rock fans in the city have been going through the stages of loss ever since, stuck somewhere between anger and depression. the topic still comes up regularly in smoking sections, with the lone explorer that's set foot in the new world reporting their findings to shocked listeners who can't believe it's really that bad.

"the whole upstairs is a disco club?"
"yup. all of it."
"there's no other section? it's ALL disco? it's really that bad?"
"yup. the whole thing."
"no. like, i mean - not even a room..."
"all of it. it really is that bad."

whether due to popular outcry or increasing financial losses or some other reason, the downstairs folk section seems to be in the process of converting itself back into a punk bar. want my honest guess? punk rock fans are losers, sure. but we're not the massive dorks that an indie/folk bar will bring in. you don't sell a lot of beer to these people. they drink herbal tea, and complain that the smoker on the other side of the room walked by them on the way in, which will possibly affect their grandchildren by offsetting their genetic energy.

bars will always serve punks because we're the market. there's no deficit of coffee houses for the indie dorks to congregate in.

detroit is currently a mess, as woodward is still being torn up. to be frank, i completely forgot that was happening, and walked directly into the construction without any knowledge of detours; thankfully, very little was required. but, it was a cold and very dark walk through broken concrete. i had the first jjjjjjjjjjjjj record in the phones, which was rather effective over it's second, atmospheric half. and, i can report that it sounded correctly through the mp3 player, as well.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

sisters of your sunshine vapor are a local act that i've near-missed repeatedly, but finally caught last night. you can guess by their name that they want to exist in a specific period, but the result is somewhat stale; i was waiting for the stonehenge to fall rather than looking around for the ghost of syd. but, calling something stale does not suggest that it's terrible. the rhythm section is actually pretty solid. what they really need, i would argue, is a second guitarist to fill the sound out a little and take it over the top.

bands like this tend to float for long periods without accomplishing anything, but there's a long shot possibility that they might develop.

it'd been three or four years since i'd heard any grooms, and they've definitely expanded their sound quite a bit. they've also become a three piece, it seems. this is the only video i could find of them as a three piece...

they still sound a lot like sonic youth, but they seem to be trying to break away from it. you can tell because they're moving in multiple directions. i've seen this a thousand times and it works out one of two ways: if they settle on a specific sound, it will no doubt be because they get some kind of financial pull on it. then, the focus becomes on compressing the sound as much as possible, and it quickly becomes boring. but, if they keep flailing around and the experiments increase rather than decrease then they have the potential to take it to the next level.

it's hard to say what direction they're going in. for the moment, the set was hit and miss: when they wanted to rock, they could and did but a lot of it was passive and mediocre jangle-pop.

so, i'm learning that a part of the experience of living in detroit is developing a healthy level of cautious fear regarding the architecture, and then conquering it.

i didn't see a lot of shows upstairs before it transitioned, but the ones i saw were loud: cloud nothings, boris. the place shook. like, uncomfortably. as the opening sets were playing, it actually crossed my mind a few times that this was better because we're closer to the ground, so it shouldn't be so scary.

but, it only took a few seconds before the wobble asserted itself. i've been to enough shows to know that this was more than the bass from the speakers; the floor was shaking left-to-right. that is, perpendicular to the motion of the sound waves. very bad.

i took a look outside and saw the concrete torn up, right to the front door. what's under the building? three hundred years of caverns, sewers? hidden treasures? masonic lodges? hoffa? who knows; but i know i'm not on solid ground. and, what are the chances that detroit found it in it's budget to do a proper engineering assessment to put in the rail system? you think that's on illitch' mind? you think he cares at all? no; i'm thinking that chances are high that there was no assessment done at all...

i had to move back a little, which blunted the physical effect of the sound. i'm aware that this is a large part of the experience; i've been to plenty of shows where the sound is pummelling. but, i think my intuition of my surroundings was justified.

i did slowly move up, but the show was done by the time i was getting the courage to get to the front.

there was a benefit, though: i got to see a relatively interesting light show from a bit of distance. you can't see it in this video, presumably because the camera is too close. but it's a wall of white light surrounding the stage, making the band members appear as apparitions. simple but effective.

as for the band? they're a known entity in what they do; joy division goes grunge. swans performing nirvana covers. brutal and dark, but always melodic and never stupid. creative use of guitar effects. but, you're not getting half of it by watching this video. this is a band that you'll get the most out of by seeing live, and letting the sound physically affect you.

and, as for myself, i need to get over this fear of detroit's architecture, as healthy as it may be.

i hadn't bothered to check the time; it was moving a little slower than normal, due to a chance encounter in the smoking section before aptbs. but, i get out and check my clock and it's three minutes until the last bus. no chance. shit.

i make the decision to walk to the tunnel and wait for a cab, aware that i'm still feeling a little funny from the chance encounter and thinking i'm probably better off getting a coffee, anyways. after waiting at the bus station for a while, i finally approach the border guards to ask them to call me a cab.

"call you a cab?"
"yeah."
"where are you from?"
"i live in windsor."
"they call cabs in downtown windsor?"
"well, i'm from ottawa. i don't know. i never use taxis, i walk everywhere, it's just that you've got all these barricades here preventing me from getting home unless i'm inside an automobile of some sort."
"it's a security concern."
"can you call me a cab, please?"
"no. what you do is go to that road over there and wait for one to drive by."

i've really never done that before. like i say: i walk everywhere. but, sure enough, there's a sign on the road that i don't think i've ever seen before: taxi stand.

it's about ten minutes, which is not bad.

"how much to get just across the border?"
"across what border?"
"to canada."
"to canada? you have documents?"
"yup."
"$60."

i got him down to $50, but that was it.

see, here's the thing: even if i could afford that, and was willing to pay it, i'd still be stuck. my bank card only works in canada. i had $17 in cash on me, which i thought would be enough - it's literally two minutes to the other side. but, the cabbie is concerned about getting searched by customs ("i'm a muslim. they always search me.") and it's just a no go.

a few minutes later, cabbie #2 pulls up...

$60. still. he tells me it's a flat rate set by the company due to losses stemming from hold ups in customs.

so, basically, i have to pay $60 for a two minute drive across the border that i'm not allowed to walk because border security does routine racial profiling on cabbies doing their job. great system. very efficient.

in the end, i was at the bus stop for more than 6.5 hours: from 1:45 to 8:30. i took a few walks. i spent well over an hour on the couch in the fancy hotel lobby across the street when i was getting a little cold; strangely, nobody asked me to leave. i was dressed to be able to walk for a few hours, but not to sit outside for six hours so it was really necessary to get in and warm up. another novelty was getting back pennies on a coffee purchase, which no longer exist in canada.

i asked two different cops if they could just shuttle me over, and they both refused. as mentioned, it's a two-minute drive under the bridge, if that. i had documents. 10 degrees isn't enough to kill you after even a few hours, but after 6 hours? as mentioned: i went in repeatedly, because the shivering felt as though it was onsetting hypothermia, and i do believe that this is the right range of temperatures.

i'm considering looking into the responses the cops provided me and pushing the point. i do believe that they should have been required to shuttle me across.

but, i know now that catching a cab in the middle of the night isn't an option and that if i'm stuck downtown then i need to find an all-night coffee shop close to the venue.

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/10/03.html