this was
my grade 12 final project in electronic music design. the assignment was
something along the lines of creating a piece of music with a social
message.
the message is part dystopian, but focuses more on the idea of
identifying certain threats that would become a problem in the upcoming
century. remember that this was the middle of 1999. how close was i?
1) intro
2) war
3) noise pollution, or pollution in general
4) conformity (or the collapse of individualism)*
5) chemical warfare
6) global warming
7) outro
* i was thinking in terms of personality/uniqueness, rather than
something political. and i think the extreme conformity underlying gen y
social attitudes have played this out frighteningly well, actually.
it's a reaction to the radical mindset of anti-conformity that dominated
gen x, but it's still a very real thing that will have very real
ramifications in the upcoming decades. if you thought the 50s were creepy, wait until you see what these kids grow up into!
i should have included something about inequality. i also removed a
vegan track, partly due to time restraints. besides that, i think i got
all of the broad ideas right.
the piece is made to be played in an indefinitely repeated loop.
most of the tracks are slightly remixed/resequenced versions of tracks
from inri or inriched. track 5 is brand new, and recorded on the
school's synthesizer (part of the project requirements).
recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999.
published on november 30, 2013. re-released (with new hidden track) and
finalized as symph003 on sept 13, 2017. first liner note release added
on dec 26, 2019. this is my third symphony; as always, please use
headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also
eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all
phases of production (1999, 2013-2019). as of dec 26, 2019, the release
includes a 15 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio
frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process
over nov, 2013.
credits
released June 20, 1999
j - synthesizers, sequencers, effects, guitar, bass,
piano, drum programming, noise generators, metronome, a broken tape
deck, sampling, loops, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder,
sound design, digital wave editing, production
i can't
date this exactly. i know it was the first half of the second semester
of grade 12, which was spring of 1999. further, i'm taking it forward to
about midway because the first part of the course was about
voice-leading and i spent it orchestrating the beatles' something. i
don't have any files.
i was lucky: i went to a high school with a big music department. not an
arts school, mind you. just a school that had enough funding to run a
wide array of course options that are outside the basic core topics.
there were three main assignments in the course, and while i don't
remember the exact assignment questions, i do have two pieces to show
for it.
this, here, is a conceptual piece about pop music. all of the sounds are
created from pop cans. yes, puns are fun. the samples run from pouring
water out of pop cans into the sink, to crushing and smashing pop cans,
to opening them, to exploding them, etc.
i used the tab of a pop can as a pick as i played the ambient guitar
parts. it's all thrown together, processed, warped and perfected in a
wave editor.
constructed over a few days in april, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track
single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. first liner
note release added on dec 26, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also
eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all
phases of production (1999, 2013-2019). as of dec 26, 2019, the release
includes a 5 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio
frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process
over nov, 2013.
credits
released April 15, 1999
j - guitars, effects, samples, loops, digital wave editing
somebody
asked me to do this for them for a school project in the second half of
grade 12, which was early 1999. we're both italian. silly joke, no
offense intended.
i never saw the final version, but the guy described it to me. it was an
anti drinking and driving ad (think madd) for a marketing class. they
sequenced it up with shots of one of them stumbling towards a car,
getting in and driving off. very clownish, apparently.
i didn't spend a lot of time on this, so i didn't charge them for it or
anything. i think i was more hoping that it would float around a little,
but if it did i'm not aware of it.
streamed to disk in one take on the afternoon of march 9, 1999. ripped
back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track
single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. first liner
note released added on dec 25, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal
entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013-2019). as of dec 25,
2019, the release includes a 4 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with
an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the
remastering process over nov, 2013.
credits
released March 9, 1999
j - hammerhead (909 emulator), digital wave editing
this is something i did between inri demos. i needed a break from structured writing. just wanted to make some noise...
i suppose this is the biggest sample collage of them all, but it's best
not to take it too seriously. the idea here eventually morphed into a
project called "fuel true anarchy in the americas" (inri068), a play on
the ftaa trade agreement, which itself got toned down in scope.
there's everything from science docs to hitler in here. it's meant to be
a passive trip through real and imaginary time that is experienced with
the aid of psychedelic drugs, rather than any kind of political
statement. it's quite consciously absurd, often juxtaposing ironic
statements with their contradictions.
the core of the ambience was produced by a program called sound raider. i
then took the sound it created and shaped it by adding in vocal
samples, looping certain parts, running things through effects,
sequencing the noise into a more melodic shape, etc. it's consequently a
sort of a collaboration between myself and the machine, rather than the
work of the machine itself.
no sane person could really listen to this passively. you basically *need* drugs to get anything out of this at all.
...and i think i'm probably the only person that ever experienced it properly. hey, it's never too late...
created in the summer of 1998. released as a standalone ep on nov 16,
2013. audio permanently closed on oct 12, 2016. release finalized on oct
27, 2016. first liner not release added on dec 25, 2019. as always,
please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also
eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all
phases of production (1998, 2013, 2016). as of dec 25, 2019, the release
includes a 5 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio
frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process
over nov, 2013.
credits
released July 1, 1998
j - sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
gauntk9 - anti-social quip
i spent
the summer and fall of 1997 programming drum tracks into an ry30,
notating them into a tablature program and sequencing them using
noteworthy composer. i did not know how i was going to record these
tracks. i think i was expecting to use the computer, but that was
probably naive; instead, i was gifted a 4-track recording machine. i
then spent the next year and a half rearranging and rerecording the
songs i programmed over that period. as these tracks were recorded into
my pc, they are time stamped...so i have a much clearer understanding of
when they were finished.
the jump to incorporating computers into the recording process is
something i always wanted to do, it's just that it wasn't really
previously feasible. first, there was a learning curve. i was a smart
kid, though; the learning curve was just a time concern. the larger
problem was simply access to a pc. i did have a pc at my disposal, but
it did not have a modem and it was only equipped to run windows 3.1,
which basically meant i could run civ 2 and wolfenstein and little else.
the windows 95 computer had dial up but it was in a central location
for family use.
when we moved across the city, my dad bought a new computer and i happily inherited his old one. this gave me internet access, which allowed me to download some freeware. it also gave me the time i needed to learn how to do certain things.
i'm separating out a handful of my first electronic sound experiments
and collecting them together into an ep. what these blasts of noise have
in common is that they were constructed on a windows 95 computer out of
samples or generated sound and with very primitive software while i was
waiting to get some kind of recording equipment. most of it was pasted
together meticulously using the windows 95 sound recorder; the rest of
it was constructed in cool edit, which i used as a sort of a
synthesizer.
for the most part, these weren't really ever meant to be songs. i ended
up using them as connectors, introductions, background. "continuity".
yet, i find the idea of throwing them together here to be interesting
from an autobiographical perspective.
created in mid 1997. sequenced and converted to stereo in november,
2013. released on nov 9, 2013. corrected in september, 2014. finalized
on july 5, 2016. first liner note released added on dec 23, 2019. as
always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also
eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all
phases of production (1997, 2013, 2016). as of dec 23, 2019, the release
includes an 8 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio
frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process
over nov, 2013.
credits
released December 1, 1997
j - cool edit (wave synthesis, digital wave
editing), windows 95 sound recorder (sampling, digital wave editing),
yamaha ry30 drum machine (programming)
my second
demo, recorded over the second half of the tenth grade, is a
considerably more polished recording. by this time, i had learned a lot
about how to record things and had improved my drumming and keyboard
playing. while the vocals remain highly erratic, ranging from
precociously insightful to devastatingly stupid, the music here is
actually not far from a professional recording.
recorded in spring 1997, remastered in fall 2013. finalized on july 3,
2016. first liner note release added on dec 23, 2019. as always, please
use headphones.
i consider this an archival release with little direct listening value.
i've pointed out repeatedly that i was 16. however, various segments
have been isolated and pulled out for a higher listenability value over
here:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled-a
this release also includes a printable j-card insert and will also
eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all
phases of production (1997, 2013-2019). as of dec 23, 2019, the release
includes a 35 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio
frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process
over nov, 2013.
credits
released June 1, 1997
j - guitars, effects, bass, drums, keyboards, tapes, vocals, found sounds, metronomes, production
i'm running into some chronological contradictions.
one
of the last things i did before i stopped for legal stuff was add the
inri000 liner notes to the october music journal download. i've now
added some posts from nov, 2013 to that liner note package, which also
has notes from sept, 2013 and will eventually have notes from various
periods between 1996-2026. so, what do i do now?
i was
initially considering leaving half finished versions strewn across the
downloads, but that doesn't make sense and will end up messy - that's a
bad idea. the other approach would be to update everything as it comes
up, so that this liner note package would appear everywhere it
intersects with, but that strikes me as overkill and difficult to
maintain.
rather. i think i've demonstrated to myself
that these are different ideas. the music journal is just that; the
liner notes are a subset of the broader journal, and need to exist in
their proper context.
therefore,
1) i am going to remove the inri000 liner notes from the october, 2013 music journal download, and i will not be uploading the liner notes to further journal entries.
2)
i will need to update the liner notes for each relevant release at the
end of each subsequent month, which could be messy, but is necessary.
so,
i'll need to update the language for october first, and then for
november, and then reupload the new notes for inri000, before i get to
inri001.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
i finally have the template for the html5 frontend done, and have uploaded it to the bandcamp site. this is not a formal rerelease, but an addition to the previous rerelease. the formal rereleases moving forward will include the html5 frontends by default.
there is an instructions file, but you basically just unzip and load the index into your browser.
this is overdue, but there should be some more releases up over the next few days.
when i woke up on sunday night around 22:00-ish, i immediately realized that there was something wrong, but i'd been reacting negatively to the salami at that point for a while and had decided to switch brands when i ran out - i realized i was a little hungover, maybe partly from the pot, but i actually thought it was mostly food poisoning. so, yes, i was sweaty and clammy from the time i woke up on sunday night, but i didn't think much of it at first and assumed i'd be fine by tuesday.
sunday night was spent burning electronic copies of the court material and generally getting everything in order. i was planning on printing on monday morning at the library, with the hopes of taking advantage of the cheaper rates there, and i was in the end able to print my 300 pages for $0.07/each, cutting printing costs down rather dramatically. it was when i was walking into the library in a dirty sweat that i first started to realize i was actually sick.
it was actually relatively warm on monday night, though, so it was a pleasant walk back and forth from the library, which i'd never been in before. i just haven't really had any reason to go to this campus. but, now that i know that the printing costs are so much less...
i forced myself to sleep for a few hours in the evening when i got back, so that i'd be ready to go in the morning. it didn't really "take", but i nonetheless ended up at the bus stop for a little before 8:00 with my mass of papers, a laptop and some more appropriate winter clothing. i napped for a bit from guelph to mississaugua, but was otherwise alert for the whole way, and i'm starting to get a better concept of the distance, and the landmarks that occur in between, along with their ordering. i'm used to coming into toronto from the other direction, remember, having grown up in ottawa. the bus was a little bit late, but it wasn't bad; i was there around 1:30, which gave me plenty of time to get to the courthouse to file.
were there some problems? well, i seem to have missed s. 4 of the rules of civil procedure, altogether. s. 4 has rules for presentation - things like book binding, regulations on font size, etc. i just didn't even see it, or see it mentioned anywhere by anybody. so, they wouldn't initially take it - i had to argue with them to accept it via a deficiency, and if the court decides to reject it on the basis that the font is too small, given that i gave them a digital copy, i'm willing to appeal that to the next court up, on principle. i saved hundreds of pieces of paper by filing it the way that i did. i'll defend that decision to whatever court i need to; bring it on.
besides these trivialities regarding the presentation of the documents, it was otherwise fine, and they did otherwise accept the perfection of the case. i will now need to wait for the oiprd to file their own documents in the same court, and send me the links. they've given me a time frame of before the 20th. i'm expecting them to miss this, but i won't start getting pissy until after christmas...
and, then it was something like 15:30 and i had some time to blow before the bus came to take me home at 1:00 in the morning. i was hungry, and it was bmt day at subway, so i had to stop to eat. i then went directly across the street to get some pot, and came out with two grams of 10% thc for under $20.
the bottom line is that i don't smoke a lot of drugs. so, if i found the brand that i bought last month, which was closer to 20% concentration, to be a little heavy, then the next step is to try something a little lighter. i found that the 10% was more along the lines of what i wanted, even if it was itself a tad light. so, we're getting closer. you don't have these discussions with friends or acquaintances, you just use adjectives like "good" and "potent", so quantifying it is going to take some experimenting, and that's alright. like, i didn't walk into the beer store at 18 and know what i could and couldn't handle, it took me some time to figure it out. likewise, i could be at this for a few tries before i get it right.
but, the 10% was about right for the night, even if it faded on me a little too fast when i got home. so, next time, i might try something closer to 15%. i'll have this down to a regular order, eventually.
i got out of the store and basically walked into the first bar to roll, when i inquired about the price of beer on the way out. $5 for a tall can? well, that's not too bad, and it seemed like there was cheap food there, too. i've never spent much time in toronto, and it will take me some time to get to know it. i had a few hours to blow, as it was, so i sat and had a few tall cans, before moving on to the show.
the initial thought process behind going down on this night was that the tickets were cheapest and i'd get to see the joy formidable. but, the joy formidable turned out to be a pricey show. i know they're coming in from wales and everything, but they just priced themselves out of my range. you were looking at $40 after services fees; i'll rarely pay more than $20, and decided against it on this night.
instead, i hit a local experimental jazz show at a kind of community centre on burnswick nearly all the way to bloor. i actually hope i don't end up spending too much time in toronto, but this is maybe the kind of thing i'd be more likely to sneak into, on a random night. these were local musicians, playing their own work in an old bar, for what seemed like a mostly local if largely bourgeois crowd. it was pay what you can, and the beer was reasonably priced. let's hope i can get to more spots like this...
the main act called itself tyrannick love this week but was mostly improv and played two sets. it was anchored by the juxtaposition of a busier sax player with a more ambient, experimental guitarist that had a lot of floor pedals and wasn't afraid to use them. maybe it's because i was in toronto, but it had a distinct dmst feel at points that was pretty real; overall, though, the major aesthetic was a swirling, effects driven ambience that sidelined both the sax and drum players for long periods, as the bassist went motorik over some feedback and loops. it was an enjoyable cave for the space i was in, absolutely.
i can't find a video of this exact lineup, but the guitarist & sax
player appear to have a lot of material online under a lot of different
names, one of them being patrick reilly's wire circus, which is not entirely dissimilar to what i saw:
the third set was purposefully experimental to the point of being kind of a spectacle, and i consequently found myself more trying to figure out the physics behind what he was doing than actually listening to it. he seems to have essentially created a number of homemade speakers and more or less broken them in real time, although he surprised me in some of his answers when i questioned him - claiming, for example, that his chattering magnets were being driven by instructions on an sd card, like a chiptune piece, rather than being driven by the radio, which i thought was obvious. i actually initially thought he was setting up a theremin.
it was a sound installation, a demonstration, an experiment, rather than the presentation of any kind of actual composition. i'd consequently rather direct you directly to his page, which is here: https://www.youtube.com/user/CMigone/videos
but, here is a video of something to separate the section:
there was a fourth set by what i believe to have been a local interpretive dance artist named "alicia grant", but details are scant, and the name appears to be in use by several (diverse) artists in the general area. i was actually rolling a joint through much of her set. so, she spent some time writhing on the ground, and repeating distressed statements into the microphone. listen: i grasp that specific subsets of arts students get off on the expression and rawness of something like this, but i largely found it sort of pointless. my tendency is to interpret something like this from a pretty far intellectual distance, and kind of shudder at the situation, but otherwise kind of emotionally avoid it. i just don't see the point in it, other than to point at the spectacle, and i'm actually too polite to even do that.
so, there's no link.
in all, i was there around 19:00 and gone around 00:00, with the necessity to catch the bus at 1:00, and that worked out just fine, in the end. if i get the opportunity to see something specific in toronto that i can't catch here the next time i go down, i'm sure i'll jump at the opportunity to see it. if not, i think i'd be just as happy or happier to check out the local scene, actually. so, that's the broader takeaway - i should be happy to catch a local jazz or psych show, and actually spend some time being in toronto rather than get obsessed with finding something from out of town; the local talent there is worth checking out, too.
i fell asleep almost as soon as i got on the bus and slept pretty much all the way back to windsor, but also first noticed myself seriously wheezing on the ride back in and thinking i was reacting to the exhaust - and maybe i was, or maybe it was as much about the dry air from the heaters on the bus as it was anything else. i was hacking though, and it's more or less still going.
the walk back home was cold in a really legitimate sense, too, requiring a serious bundle up. it's frustrating when you happen to have no choice but to go out in the one or two cold days of the year, but that's how it's unfortunately worked itself out, so far, hopefully, i should be able to avoid the cold for most of the rest of the year by just staying inside. we'll see....
i got some nachos on the way back, was done eating them by around 7:00, and in the end slept most of the day.
Sunday, December 15, 2019
i spent a little time on friday morning wondering about attending the no rest fest, concluding before i slept that it seemed like a worthwhile spectacle, and was even toying with the idea of hanging out somewhere all morning and dropping by the trumbullplex in the afternoon. i decided in the morning that i'd end up spending $10 on food and whatever else by staying in detroit anyways, so i'd might as well go home and get some rest, then make the choice in the afternoon. and, i initially had decided against it. but, i really felt the urge to experience this, for the hell of it.
i was also hoping that i might stumble into a drummer, as the band is known for high-end guest drummer spots.
this time, i went right to the station to get tickets, and i caught the bus relatively easily. i stayed on the bus to rosa parks, a rare detour, and got off to find a liquor store on the way to the trumbullplex. the other attraction of this night is it's low price tag - $5 cover, in a byob space. so, that's a $10 night. yeah.
i was there around 10:00-10:30-ish and the place was really in mayhem from the getgo. i had to get in immediate line for the washroom, which took me the length of somebody's set to get into, and then spent a little time stumbling around outside, and i'm not entirely sure what i missed. i think it was initially a female singer, but that would probably mean that solemn judgement played earlier than is listed.
regardless, this is the list that was posted. i was simply not paying attention, initially. i think i saw reverend leave in a distressed huff when i came in, so that would be consistent with coming in between 10:00 and 10:30.
i think the band i caught on the way out of the washroom was shock narcotic, which is actually kind of a
local supergroup, with members of child bite, dillinger escape plan and
black dahlia murders. i didn't get much out of this...
i then went out for a smoke and, after having a brief talk about genghis tron (are they still going?)
and ministry (al's lost it.)
in reference to the previous act, was handed a multiple gram pre-roll that may at part be to blame for the sickness i experienced over the next few days. this was a philly, by any other name, but it was rolled more like a cocoon, and you may have been forgiven for thinking that's what it was. but, we're talking something that's a good inch in diameter, and three or four long. call it a stubby, even. but, it was a big joint, and i smoked through about three quarters of it before i handed it off.
the person that gave it to me was impressed, even, by how much of it that i managed to smoke. and, i think i felt it a few days later...
how did i get this joint? i don't know, exactly. well, i know how - it was handed to me. the why isn't totally clear. according to the person that gave it to me, he rolled up a total of seven of these huge joints and gave them to people he recognized and thought were cool. i got the seventh and final seal:
1 And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.
2 And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.
3 And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a
golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he
should offer [it] with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar
which was before the throne.
4 And the smoke of the incense, [which came] with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.
5 And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire
of the altar, and cast [it] into the earth: and there were voices, and
thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
6 And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
Revelation 16:1
hey, if jesus wants a toke he's welcome to get in on this....
sarah would tell them not to encourage me in my jesus freak delusions. but, hey. i got the seventh seal. incense, pot, whatever. you don't think that's a coincidence, do you? so, check your potato chips for signs of the return. maybe it's been set in motion.
all absurdities aside, i didn't entirely prod about the reasons for the seven joints, i just accepted my good fortune and sparked it up. we had previously had a discussion about colin marston, which is the root determination of his decision that i was cool - i had just pulled that colin marston reference out of my ass, randomly, in mid-conversation, and it was impressive enough to land me a free philly months later. score.
behold...
anyways, was there some jesus freak symbolism going on? i don't know. i doubt he knew the can of worms he was opening, if there was.
i do know that the gift got me pretty stoned, though, and that i went in to catch something that was playing midset, after having a chat around the fire on the side. the drumming kind of pulled me in. i think this was snafu, which is not the 90s skate punk band of the same name but a more recent act from detroit. they were better from a distance. this is a from a few years ago:
i was then out for another smoke and back in to use the washroom, thinking it was close to midnight.
when i got out of the washroom, one of the first things i remember hearing was "we're strange magic, and if you didn't know it then now you fucking know". so, there's my reference point, and this is where the night starts to take a bit of a turn.
first, watch this video of the strange magic set:
do you see where he says to pass that vcr around? i must have been in the bathroom at that point. when i came out, the vcr was still going around, and eventually ended up passed towards me from behind; as i was oblivious to the circumstances, and didn't see it coming from behind me, it landed directly on my head.
i had no idea what happened at this point, other than that i'd been attacked by or with some kind of electronic equipment. my first reaction was to try to determine if somebody was trying to hurt me, and i was pretty quickly able to determine that it didn't appear to be malicious - people were just being silly (perhaps irresponsible, but just silly.) and i ended up in the middle of it by accident. so, i kind of had little choice but to play along with it.
"wait. what was that?"
"i think it was like a computer or something"
"like, a pc tower?"
"yeah."
"what? so, i just got attacked by somebody's computer?"
"apparently."
"wait. no. i want to determine the identity of the technology that just assaulted me. somebody tell me what that was."
"it was a vcr."
"a vcr?"
"yeah."
"in 2019?"
"yeah."
"a vcr?"
"YEAH!"
"so, i was just randomly assaulted by 80s technology, then"
"it was early 90s, tops."
"fuck."
so, what else do you do? i went for a smoke. and, i asked around - is there a bruise on my head?
(i discovered in the morning that there was actually a bruise on my head)
and, then it appeared, outside - the vcr, on the ramp into the trumbullplex. well, you know it was payback time, after that. it got a good stomping on, and it deserved it. fucker. until...
"hey! that's my vcr!"
i caught most of tart's set. this is a subset of a recent style of female-fronted punk that is written for a male audience, and intends to make that male audience feel uncomfortable. that's the intended experience: to writhe uncomfortably at what's occurring in front of you. and, my general reaction to this is that it doesn't really serve much of a purpose. i'm going to tend to want to look past it and try and see what else they're doing; this particular act was a little on the poppy side. there's a sample here:
the last thing up was the armed, and remember that these are fifteen minute sets, so it wasn't much of a show. unfortunately, i stood in the wrong part of the audience.
i'll state this flat out: i don't understand why people think i want to mosh. i'm an openly transgendered person that introduces myself as jessica and wears women's clothing when i'm out. i modulate between 120-140 pounds, none of it muscle. i'm 5 ' 8". it should be obvious what's going to happen if you take a run at me: i'm going to get knocked over like the petite, effeminate woman that i am.
so, that's what happened - somebody took a run at me, and i almost fell over and had the drink knocked out of my hand in the process, as should have been the obvious outcome to anybody that wasn't stupid. no, i'm not going to be able to withstand a body check by a grown man, and you're a moron if that's what you thought would happen. the person that slammed me may want to know that he also bruised my thigh; he should really be very proud of himself for leaving a mark on a girl. idiot.....
so, that was what i experienced - a sudden mosh pit that i spent the next ten minutes trying to get out of. and, while that isn't the first time that i found myself trying to get out of a pit that materialized out of nowhere, the crowded nature of the space made it a little harder to get out than normal, and the short nature of the set meant that there wasn't much time to readjust. it really wasn't very much fun, and i really didn't get a chance to listen to much of anything, as i was just trying to get out of the pit. and, then it was done, and the only substantive thing that had happened was that i'd lost my drink.
i actually was hoping to hang out there for a while, but it didn't make sense to stay there anymore, once i'd lost my drink. i checked the time - 12:45. if that was right, i could conceivably catch the bus; i'd made that walk in a shorter amount of time. so, i was out...
if i still had my drink, i would have stayed. but, i think i was actually a little miffed at getting slammed and didn't really want to sit around to talk to the person that hit me. i think i wanted to avoid a confrontation; i think i wanted to cut my losses and get out. while i'm going to ask that person to think twice about it the next time they decide it's a good idea to hit a girl, i'm going to put the issue aside and forget about it.
i did legitimately intend to get to the bus station on time, and walked at quite the pace to get there, but when i stopped in at the leland club to check the time, i realized it was too late - 1:15. i'm sure i've done that walk in 10 minutes. i was not planning on ending up there that night; i had $7, meaning if i paid cover, i'd lose the ability to buy a drink. so, if i couldn't talk my way past the door girl, i'd have to go somewhere else.
but, the door girl was not working that night, which may have worked out in my favour. i was indeed able to walk right past the door guy, and buy a few more drinks before last call.
the goth club is dying, and has been dying for a long time. they actually had the ballroom closed off, because there aren't enough people there to justify opening it. that cut the space down into kind of a more normal bar, with people actually sitting in the seated area in between.
but, that's where i ended up for the night. do i regret it? i regret losing my drink. i was planning on staying at the trumbullplex for most of the night, and i guess i don't know how that turned out or how it would have turned out. and, i might have found my way back there by the end of the night if they had stonewalled me at the goth club. but, i guess i was both cool enough to get the seventh seal and cool enough (or uncool enough) to avoid cover at leland, on this night. the bottom line is that i can't be hanging out somewhere without anything to drink...
i ended up hanging out at the actual hotel until around 6:00, then moved over to rosa parks until around 8:00, before i went back to the tunnel. i got some nachos on the way home, took a shower and slept until sunday night, when i woke up feeling something awful.
Saturday, December 14, 2019
plaid was a show that i was looking forward to, and had planned around, so the weather was a necessary peril, and i had to just deal with it. i was hoping to get in a little early and maybe find some legal marijuana, as well as set up a bank account with a driver's license that i don't have yet, but that wasn't available, yet. so, instead, i ended up dragging myself through the cold for a still pretty early entry, around 22:30. that meant that i missed most of dave shettler's set.
i actually like ambient music, and i've enjoyed his sets before; i think maybe what i missed was very similar to something i had caught while on edibles during plug, based on the similarities at the end. i intended to catch the set, i was just late through a cold walk.
i would have caught the 8:30 bus if i would have just gone to the bus station to get tickets, but i was apprehensive about my payment method and the only store i was sure took the prepaid mastercard and sold tickets was shoppers. so, i took a mild detour to the shopper's around the corner, only to find out that they don't sell tunnel bus tickets - surprisingly. so, i went down to the shopper's at ouellette, another detour around the greyhound station, only to find out that they closed at 20:00! it was around 20:40. so, i checked the convenience stores and asked around and was left with the only remaining option being the station itself, which was thankfully open. so, i started off by touring around in the cold for an extra half hour, and was already pretty cold by the time i got over the border.
and, then i walked to marble, which was a colder and lengthier walk than i remembered it being. see, i've been on my bicycle through detroit for months, and it's not far on a bike up to trumbull & grand. it's a hefty walk, though. it was just too cold to bike and end up anywhere, presentable. but, i still haven't fixed my tube, yet.
it took roughly an hour, an hour spent consuming a lemonish liquid while juggling cigarettes, and with neither hat nor gloves, through -15 C windchills, although the ambient temperature itself was merely hovering around zero. it was like a blizzard without any actual snow. i knew i was getting in somewhere, but that could have been a dangerous night to get stuck out in.
i was happy to find a heater to warm up beside when i got in, found some pot, and found the set ending right when i was about to start listening. as mentioned, it sounded familiar to me, so it was no doubt part of the set he played there behind plug.
the next thing up was daedalus, who i knew nothing about other than that they were on ninja tune, and that that's a label that i have some healthy respect for - they tend to release interesting music. there was a discussion about how to classify it, but i didn't find it that daunting - it was a kind of dubstep/idm. i found it moderately interesting, and might check out some more of it if the opportunity arises.
this is a few years old, but it's not dissimilar:
plaid was kind of really plaid, it's almost like they were more plaid than plaid. if i could imagine what a plaid show would be like, it would be pretty much that. an interesting quirk to the show was that they had a live violin player playing segments of sound that were then cut up and manipulated into loops, in real time. so, what you were actually experiencing was often this group of like sound engineers messing with live sound. sonically, it was kind of very plaid - a mix of lush atmospheric ambience with jittery and sometimes plodding beats, along with some strategic melodic programming. if you always wanted to experience plaid, that was exactly what the show was.
a plaid fan youtube site seems to have a recent set from istanbul that appears to be very similar to the detroit set:
however, this is the only footage that i could find of the live violin player:
there was a dj afterwards that allowed for some dancing.
this bar is hit and miss in terms of closing times. they're sometimes open until the afternoon, and sometimes closed at 3:00. i was hoping to stretch this night out a little so that i could just go straight to the tunnel, but they were shutting the place down by 3:01. so, i had to find somewhere to eat.
first, i had to get to my jacket, which i left outside the bar and required a small journey outside to retrieve. this time spent outside in a tshirt should not have been particularly damaging to me, given that the temperature was still hovering around freezing, but with the windchill the cold was flat out dangerous, so i actually had to stop there for a few minutes and warm-up before i carried on. i ended up with a small amount of frostbite on my left thumb, but i can't tie it directly to that moment.
it was still only 3:30 at that point, roughly two hours earlier than i wanted it to be, so i had to make a choice to go to the diner, with the hopes that they'd allow me to eat there. it's a funny thing, actually - the diner was an entirely different experience, all of a sudden. rather than handing everything out via takeout, they actually had two servers that were taking orders, like an actual restaurant. i ordered some bacon & eggs, got a refill on the coffee, and paid the bill without experiencing any negativity at all. i hope that this is indicative of future experiences at the diner.
hey, i don't recall ever starting any trouble at this place, and all i ever wanted out of it was some breakfast, and maybe a place to sip coffee and/or doze off at while i'm waiting for a bus or a show. the premise of my reaction was that i was taken aback by the hostility and ultimately didn't understand it; the preferred outcome is to annihilate the hostility as counter-productive to everybody's interests, but first to understand the causes of it, and try to determine if they're rooted in factual perceptions or not. for example, if somebody thought i was a prostitute, that would be false. we haven't got there yet, and maybe we never will, but if the issue just evaporates, that's fine, too.
by the time i'd finished the refill on the coffee, i'd actually missed the early bus. but, i caught the second bus back in, and had to stop for timmy's on the way back - i just needed some warmth for my hands. and, i had no choice but to shower almost immediately, to counteract the onset of hypothermia - a shower that it took me some time to warm up in, despite the scalding temperatures.
after warming up, i actually slept nicely until late in the afternoon.
