Monday, December 20, 2021

i've re-ordered this substantively.

we'll get there with this, in the end.

the essential asimov

book I: the substantive robot. 
 (story is about the slow humanization of robots. includes some multivac stories. set before robot novels.)
- it's such a beautiful day
- the fun they had
- jokester
- all the troubles of the world
- franchise
- key item
- someday
- robot al-76 goes astray  
- the feeling of power
- light verse
- robbie
- runaround
- reason
- catch that rabbit
- liar!
- satisfaction guaranteed
- lenny
- galley slave
- little lost robot
- risk
- escape!
- evidence
- the evitable conflict
- feminine intuition
- ...that thou art mindful of him
- the bicentennial man

(the positronic man may enter here, but i'm apprehensive about the silverberg texts)

book II: baley sequence (robot novels written before 1980)
- caves of steel
- the naked sun
- mirror image  

book III: giskard sequence (robot novels written after 1980)
- the robots of dawn
- robots and empire

book IV: empire series
- the stars, like dust
- currents of space
- pebble in the sky

book V: gap texts. short stories relevant to asimov's broader universe. should be read here. loosely organized.
a: appendix to the robot novels & empire series
- trends
- heredity
- not final! + victory unintentional 
- mother earth
- green patches
- hostess
- in a good cause
- shah guido g  
- sucker bait
- living space
- each an explorer 
- strikebreaker
- profession
- founding father
b: appendix to foundation series
- black friar of the flame
- homo sol
- the imaginary
- the hazing
- death sentence
- blind alley
- breeds there a man
- c-chute

book VI: foundation novels
- ...

book VII: unrelated short stories of value
- the weapon too dreadful to use
- half-breed 
- the secret sense
- nightfall
- super-neutron
- no connection
- red queen's race
- youth
- the martian way
- the deep
- sally
- kid stuff
- the immortal bard
- dreaming is a private thing
- the dead past
- the dying night
- the watery place
- let's get together
- the gentle vultures
- the ugly little boy
- eyes do more than see
- segregationist
- 2430 ad / the greatest asset
- the winnowing
- old fashioned
- marching in
- too bad

====================

throwaway:
- callistan menace
- ring around the sun
- the magnificent possession
- half-breeds on venus
- history
- christmas on ganymede
- time pussy
- the endochronic properties of resublimated thiotimiline
- the little man on the subway
- legal rites
- darwinian poolroom
- day of the hunters
- what if
- button, button 
- monkey's finger
- nobody here but-
- flies
- everest
- the micropsychiatric applications of thiotimoline
- the pause
- foundations of sf success
- lets not 
- the last trump
- the message
- hell-fire
- first law
- gimmick's three
- the last question
- the author's ordeal
- blank
- does a bee care?
- i'm in marsport without hilda
- insert knob a in hole b
- spell my name with an s
- i just make them up, see
- silly asses
- buy jupiter
- the uptodate sorcerer
- a statue for father 
- unto the fourth generation
- rain, rain go away
- rejection slips
- thiotimoline and the space age
- what is this thing called love
- the machine that won the war
- my son, the physicist
- author! author!
- prime of life
- exile to hell
- the proper study
- waterclap
- take a match
- thiotimoline to the stars 
- stranger in paradise
- the life and times of multivac
- a boy's best friend
- point of view
- birth of a notion
- tercentenary incident
- think!
- true love
- christmas without rodney
- robot dreams
- robot visions

uncatalogued until last:
- marooned off vesta  - asimov's mysteries
- the weapon
- belief  - winds of change
- the singing bell - asimov's mysteries
- the talking stone asimov's mysteries
- what's in a name - asimv's mysteries
- pate de foie grras - asimov's mysteries
- dust of death - asimov's mysteries
- a loint of paw - asimov's mysteries
- ideas die hard - winds of change
- anniversary - asimov's mysteries
- obituary - asimov's mysteries
- star light - asimov's mysteries
- the key - asimov's mysteries
- the billiard ball - asimov's mysteries
- the dream - ?
- benjamin's dream - ?
- party by satellite - ?
- benjamin's bicentennial blast - ?
- half-baked publisher's delight - ?
- heavenly host - ?
- big game- ?
- about nothing-  winds of change
- good taste - winds of change
- to tell at a glance - winds of change
- sure thing - winds of change
- found - winds of change
- fair exchange - winds of change
- nothing for nothing - winds of change
- how it happened - winds of change
- it is coming - winds of change
- the last answer - winds of change
- for the birds - winds of change
- death of a foy - winds of change
- the last shuttle - winds of change
- a perfect fit - winds of change
- ignition point - winds of change
- lest we remember -winds of change
- winds of change - winds of change
- one night of song - winds of change
- hallucination
- feghoot & the courts
- left to right
- the fable of the three princes
- the smile of the chipper
- the instability 
- good-bye to earth 
- fault intolerant
- in the canyon
- kid brother
- gold
- cal
- prince delightful and the flameless dragon
- frustration
at
fwiw, i consider the term "marxian" to be bourgeois and reject it outright.

"marxian" is what upper class university profs say. marxist is what workers say. so, i'll stick with marxist, thanks.
at

Sunday, December 19, 2021

i'm not a robot - despite frequent accusations to the contrary.

but, what does the zeroth law say about assassinating joe manchin?
at
how do you think asimov would have reacted to this, anyways?
what would happen if an actual robot came across this? they couldn't do it. well, unless they had to to uphold the first law.

i fear that robots would have great difficulty using the internet, then, wouldn't they?

one could even argue that the recaptcha system is discriminatory against robots, and that such a system needs to be changed to allow for greater robot participation in society.

well?
at
so, i wanted to finish eating and then do some cleaning, but i crashed pretty hard, instead. i didn't wake up until after 9:00.  the cleaning's mostly done now, but i need to wait for my towel to dry before i can take a shower.

my d came up slightly to 71, which is still low. i'm actually more concerned about my pth than my d; the mild boost might be a reaction to half a pill every second day, or could be random, but understand that i didn't realize my d had been cut from my soy milk until after the test. i couldn't get the pth done at that lab because i scratched it off the rec (oops). it will come up in early january. i'm still waiting on the rest. for right now, i don't have a valid baseline, so i'm going to stick to the half a pill per day and focus on getting my dietary d back up by replacing the crappy soy milk variety with the better soy milk variety. what the change in fortification does is break the control, and without temporal bounds, so it means i sort of have to start all over again. i can sort of guess that my dietary d crashed at the same time as the sunlight decreased, although i don't know by how much. we'll see what happens in a few weeks.

it makes it harder to interpret the previous results, because i don't know when the control shifted. i still think that i decreased d absorption in the fall due to too much calcium intake (the mechanism for this is in the kidneys), so i don't want to overdo it with the pills. my understanding is that, broadly speaking, the science is that vitamin d pills act as worse than useless placebos for most people - it's actually harmful, unnecessary strain on the kidneys, and the kind of reaction i'm describing (where your body actually ends up pingponging d release) is probably pretty normal, in scenarios where dietary vitamin d intake is actually sufficient. i've made sure to get d pills that are just d, magnesium & fibre. that said, in contrast to the studies. up here in the northern latitudes, it becomes harder to get enough d in the winter. vitamin d deficiency is common in not just canada but also scandinavia and russia. the endocrinologist i spoke to suggested that the baseline used by these labs - 75 - is higher than should be expected by most canadians, due to the lack of sunlight for most of the year. his view was that vitamin d deficiency is widespread in canada and that i should be happy if the number is over 50. my gp, on the other hand, wants to see the number over 100, which i suspect might create a calcium overdose for me if i actually sustained it, due to the very high amounts of calcium in my diet. i've seen studies that suggest that almost a third of canadians have serum d levels less than 25, which is what the canadian government actually defines as critical. that number is clearly far too low. the numbers i've tested for are in the 60-110 range, which the endocrinologist would consider sufficient, and the gp would consider too low. so, the data i have available to me is sort of all over the place - i can put it into a broad framework (i want to get it over 75, if i can. at least.), but i have to experiment on myself to see what's going on. and, that means the pth is of more utility to me than the d.

so, remember: what i wanted to test with the d was whether i think i'm getting enough via fortification in the winter or whether i needed the extra bit to compensate for the decrease in sunlight. it initially seemed like my d probably went down due the decrease in sunlight, but then i realized that my dietary d also went down at the same time, so now i don't know. so, i can't do that experiment this year, because the control broke. i'll have to do it next year, instead. and, i should stick with the half d, for now, to be safe.

i'm still planning on getting through the empire series in one go tonight, but not until i get out of the shower. 
at

Saturday, December 18, 2021

so, i'm finishing up robots and empire and this is a much better written text than robots of dawn, as well as being much more identifiable as asimov. gone are the gratuitous sex and awful attempts at stimulating an identity response in the reader, although there is obviously a large inverted influence from return of the jedi. it's like asimov said "ok. i don't actually mind if you steal all my ideas. but, like, can i write my own screenplay?".

it's probably best interpreted as asimov reclaiming his own franchise.

but, it's obviously written to close down the robot universe and transition into the empire universe - intentionally. conscientiously. - so i'm actually going to hold off a little on the write-up. i mean, it's sort of the last robot novel, and sort of the first empire novel. that means i need to frame it properly, which means i should probably do the review last.

that said, i want to reframe my project goals on this. how many books can i read on fridays? i decided on two, but that's too vague - i can read two 200 page novels (as the first two robot novels were), but i can probably only get through one 500 page novel, which is closer to the length of the last two robot novels. i'm not altering the idea of one book per week, in the journal phase. but, i'm setting myself up with 500 pages max per week on the catchup run, until i'm caught up.

that means the robots of dawn can be dated for the 3rd, robots and empire can be dated for the tenth and i still have at least two empire novels to get through this weekend, although i'll probably do all three.

when i'm done with that, i'm going to focus on doing one journal write-up a day for the next week.

so, that's what i'm doing this week - and i should hopefully be caught up in a few days.

what is this text about, though? it's actually the only one of the four with legitimate depth. if the first one was a heavy-handed allegory about a conflict between utopian socialists and an elitist vanguard that ended in a dialectic of cooperation, and the second two were looser allegories about alienation and hedonism, the fourth finally pulls it together and takes it to the next step: historical materialism enters in the technologically determinist mechanism (and marx was a teleological technological determinist, despite his empty pleas to the contrary) of a mind-controlling robot that is opening the way for proletariat settlement across the galaxy. it turns out that the spacers are actually under the control of the technology. asimov develops this in multiple directions that i'm going to wait to discuss much more because i think he makes some confusing allusions (carthago delenda est is difficult to put into broader context), but i'm going to answer the question in a way that i think is not what many people want to assume - i think he's converting the vanguard spacer worlds into a historical coalition of greek city states, and contrasting it against the proletariat settlers, who he's casting as early romans, before they become too imperialist. so, this isn't just a story about technological determinism guiding robots into playing the role of historical materialism in guiding the vanguard out of the way to make space for the proletariat; it's also a discourse on why the greeks failed and the romans succeeded. there's layers here, and a lot to deconstruct, but asimov can be inconsistent at the best of times, and i want to work out the contradictions and inconsistencies before i do this in too much detail.

it doesn't really make sense to think of the spacers as romans and the earthlings as carthaginians, for example. the carthaginians were the older power, to begin with - the more civilized state. it was the romans that were the upstart. nor did the romans and carthaginians have common origins - they were distinctly different races of people, in just about every way. but, the romans and greeks had common origins in the proto-germanic powers to their north. the spacer confederation seems more like something like the delian league, trying to react to the rise of the barbarian romans.

i'll note, though, that asimov is pretty vicious on the settlers, who he is constantly disparaging...

anyways, that's just a stop-gap update, for now. i need to eat, and do a little cleaning, and i'll get to the next batch after that.
at

Friday, December 17, 2021

in robots and empire, giskard emerges as an allegory of historical materialism, who guides the vanguard spacers into clearing a path for the proletariat humans to take over the galaxy.

it's pretty neat, and pretty heavy-handed.
at
unfortunately, i slept all day, again.

let's get some reading done, first.
at
i'm not rich - i'm dirt poor.

i can't just throw out a built-to-fuck machine that's run like a tank for years without at least understanding what's wrong with it, first.

if i can prove to myself that there's a short in the board, i can justify tossing it. but, every test i've done tells me there's not a short in the board.
at
remember: while i was archiving my scattered internet writing over 2017, and focusing on a journal-writing phase over 2018-2020, and i spent the end of 2020 building a diet, i have been trying to get back to recording since early 2021 and have been unable to because the recording computer is broken in a way that i do not understand.

i thought it was ram, but it's not.

i can't convince myself that there's a short in the board.

the machine exhibits unusual network behaviour (despite being air-gapped), and there are symptoms of a "bios virus" that seems like a government attack. it has frequently randomly installed netbios, using a process i don't understand. i've wondered if somebody is utilizing a hidden wifi chip, or hacking me using microwave technology.

until recently, ps/2 functionality repeatedly disappeared. i seem to have solved that with repeated bios flashes.

i think it's hardware. 

but, the bottom line is that i can't figure it out, and i need very careful testing, as a result of it. i have to organize my data in a specific way before i can get back to what i was doing, but i'm going overboard on organizing it and calling it "filing" in an attempt to test the machine by using it. 

i've stripped everything down and/or turned everything in the bios off, except 

- video card (nvidia card manufactured in the mid 00s. there is no card on this board, otherwise i'd just use it. i'm not very concerned about video quality.)
- external pc sound card (maudio delta 1414 that i bought at a discontinuation sale for the rca dacs)
- one dvd reader/writer
- floppy drive
- four sata hard drives
- usb functionality is the only thing running via the bios

it's running as a single core, for example. no firewire. nothing.

i can only hope that's stable.

i didn't change anything in my install scripts, so i don't know why it would be software....
at
just to clarify a point: historically, i've tended to purchase and smoke a small amount of marijuana (away from the house) on and after the solstice. i have often purchased a quarter around the 20th and smoked it every day until around the 5th, saving a small amount for my birthday on the 13th. i refer to this as a end-of-the-year "head cave".

i have taken a very different viewpoint on marijuana since diagnosed with near-osteoporosis. i can try to slow down the loss of bone mass, but i can't rebuild it. smoking anything at all in any sustained manner would be stupid.

that being said, i'm also not in the right mental space to do that. in past years, i've had productive recording periods. the ends of 2014, 2015 and 2016 were very productive, in terms of recording. the end of 2017 was sort of unique, as i moved. i did not "head cave" at the end of 2018 as i did not feel like it (i smoked no marijuana over the holidays that year at all), i found myself sick with a weird pneumonia at the end of 2019 (picked up in detroit) and avoided head caving for that reason and i bought an 1/8th last year on my birthday, after experimenting with edibles around saturnalia, and being disappointed by it.

i have been trying for months to get back on track and the length of the day changing isn't an exciting thing to me this year.

i will probably spend most of the next month reading, but i want to get done the filing, too, and take the next troubleshooting step in rebuilding the recording machine in a stable way.

the machine has been stable with the sound card, so i've re-allowed for usb. i have searched the large drives without it crashing. will it crash while searching usb drives?

if it's stable after a while, the next step will to be to turn the firewire back on. i'm going to avoid those video card drivers for a while, still.
at

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

i know i look like a hardcore kid in that fuck the dead video. i always did.

it's not that i wasn't a hardcore kid. i was a hardcore kid. i was just a bit of an anachronism - i was a hardcore kid c. 1985, when being a hardcore kid was about being politically active, existing c. 2000, when being a hardcore kid was about almost the opposite of that. so, i sounded and mostly acted like one of the hardcore adults.

i really had no idea what emo even was. really.

but, i listened to a lot of socal punk, and a lot of politically aware industrial, which was just an outgrowth of punk. and i hope it's pretty obvious, actually.
at
scooped guitars suck.
at
ok.

where was i?

1) double checking today, inri002 sounds good, published. these are the added tags for inri002, fwiw: alternative, blues, grunge, hardcore, industrial, jazz, no wave, noise, punk, shoegaze.

2) double checking today, inri003 sounds good, published. these are the added tags for inri003, fwiw: aleatoric, collage, cut-up technique, electronic, glitch, industrial, minimalist, musique concrete, noise, plunderphonics.

3) i've re-uploaded inri004 a few times, and it doesn't want to hold. right now, it sounds good, published. but, i haven't stepped away and come back and found it undisturbed, yet. that's a necessity before i step away from it, entirely. these are the added tags for inri004, fwiw: alternative, blues, goth, grunge, hip hop, industrial, melodic hardcore, noise, punk, shoegaze.

i actually spent some time listening to is survived by yesterday and yelling at the wall - these aren't metal guitars, they're hardcore guitars. highs, not lows, get it. stop fucking with it. fuck.

the actual influences on the guitar part back in 1998 were more along the lines of smash and siamese dream. but, the key, central part of the song is that twangy flanged  guitar part that sounds like a pedal steel (but is just an electric run through a digital effects pedal). even the drums are mixed to crank the treble, not the bass. you should hear a subtle sweep on the noise sample, which is acing like a snare. i keep reuploading it to bring back the definition, but it just keeps defaulting to this crappy "scooped" mess.

:(.

i'm jumping to inri005, but  i'm not confident that these tracks are stable, quite yet.

i found some extra material to file, so i had to go back. i'm at inri010.

i wanted to make more music videos when i was out and about, and i think i should refocus on that:


at

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

where am i on the filing?

i have done an extra thorough run through the first 10 releases, inri000-inri009, which is also the first blu-ray disc. that leaves inri010-inri074, and the tracks i'm currently working on.

i was hoping that i could sync as i was working, but it hasn't worked out. on second thought, inri004 does not sound right and i've left it unpublished. given that it took a few tries before i could set inri002 right, and something seemed to click, i decided to re-upload inri000, inri001 & inri003. i have also reuploaded inri004 yet again and am hoping it stays in place, this time.

inri004 is a lot of things - it's industrial hip-hop, it's melodic hardcare, it's shoegaze, it's blues and it's even a bit of country. it's an experimental electronic noise piece and a grunge/alternative/punk rock song at the same time. so, it's all over the place. but, if there's somebody messing with it, they're misreading it - it's not supposed to be a dancehall thumper, and it's not supposed to sound like somebody put it through a meat  grinder. it's really pretty wysiwyg - it's a punk song with a drum machine. and it has sparkly, pretty guitars - not angry, mean ones.

i don't know why anybody would imagine they could actualize my art better than i could, but the mentality underlying it is turning it into a factory process. it is effectively co-opting my art, and destroying it by turning it into a commodity. in place of unique, individual expression is substituted a set of algorithms designed to maximize market appeal. and, i neither have any interest in it nor any time for it.

i don't want to play stupid games regarding my expression.

i expect that the files i upload will not be further altered. 

and, that is all.
at
i also re-uploaded inri004 to be sure, and i think it sounds ok.

again: i actually don't want the exaggerated boom, here. if you want to crank the bass on your system, it's there - go for it. but, for me, this is melodic hardcore first, and experimental hip-hop second. the interesting part of the track is the harmonic interplay between the guitars and the white noise. so, you want to just crank it to get that fuzzy guitar blaring at you. and, you'll notice that the bass actually comes up with the volume, when you do.
at
no, really.

at
i reuploaded inri003 the other day, just to make sure the files weren't corrupted.

these are the unedited mixes from 1997. well, almost unedited - i had to convert them all to stereo. i still have the mono mp3s from 1997.

they're mono because the samples i used were mono. in fact, they're like 56 kbps, because the samples were like 56 kbps.

so, this should sound kind of flat and dead, and it does. with the the first three recordings (the two demos and the inricycled), the sound should be trebly and sparkly and bright, partly intentionally and partly due to the fact that i was a 15-16 year old kid that was learning how to use the gear. it's important that the packages maintain that naivete, so we can't have fancy bass transforms running over it. it broadly doesn't sound that bad. this recording, inri003, is my first experiment with digital anything, and has to maintain the telephone speaker or am radio quality, even though i've long upsampled it.

it sounds ok to me. but, if you notice a dramatic increase in sound quality, please contact me. that would not be right - this is a document of a collection of primitive experiments, was isolated and released that way for that reason and needs to maintain a glitchy, low sound quality aesthetic.

the remasters for inri015 and inri021, where most of these end up, are a little thicker sounding. 
at
alright.

i've listened to inri002 streaming from the server, and i can hear that it is good. for now. whatever was fucking with the mix has lifted.

i can't sit here and police the files 24/7, but if it was the conscious result of some external actor, they have withdrawn, for now. i can only hope it was via the persuasiveness of my oratorical prowess. as i yell at the microphone in the walls...

please leave these files alone.

and, please don't mess with anything else, either.

moving on...
at
it always makes me laugh when people try to associate being a rock star with heterosexual male prowess.

you realize that 80% of the actually interesting rock singers since 1965 have been exclusively or primarily gay, right? 

the other 20% were mostly skinny, nerdy losers that probably didn't have much difficulty finding sex because they were rich, but are hardly sex symbols.

the sexually attractive heterosexual male rock star is actually somewhat of a unicorn, in truth.
at
listen - i'm struggling to make sense of my experiences.

i'm grasping at absurdities. but, i seem to be being presented with them, fairly consistently.
at
i mean, if i am dealing with a fucker at the mixing desk - however ridiculous that idea is - i should have made my disdain beyond clear, by now. any misguided attempts to "help" should have been realized as absurd quite some time ago.
at
ok, i don't want to jinx it, but i did just get through the inri000 section of inri002 without it defaulting to the bass boost, while published.

i can only hope it stays stable...
at
nope.

it reverted to the incorrect, corrupted, high-bass version. again.

i'll have to keep it unpublished for a while still, it seems.

i hope i don't have to unpublish other albums, as well.
at
nope.

it reverted to the incorrect, corrupted, high-bass version. again.

i'll have to keep it unpublished for a while still, it seems.

i hope i don't have to unpublish other albums, as well.
at
maybe, i psyched the fucker at the mixing desk out, because i just republished it, and it sounds correct in the sweet spot, now.
at
yeah, right now it's consistent - it sounds correctly when i unpublish it, and sound incorrectly when i republish it.

so, we'll keep it unpublished for now, and move on.
at
...and, it went back to normal as soon as i unpublished it.

ugh.
at
see, it went back to the incorrect bassy version after i posted that.

i've unpublished it in protest.
at
so, this is inri002, updated (again) to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way:

i've tested this one, and in fact re-uploaded it repeatedly, and the results are sort of confusing. it sounded wrong, until i downloaded it, and then it sounded correct. but, then it sounded wrong, again. and then it sounded right again after i started typing up this complaint, and then wrong again when i started focusing on filing. it's almost as though they were waiting for me to actually download it for the a/b, and then reverted once i called them on their bluff, and then reverted again once they thought i'd stopped watching, then back again, and then back again. and, that means what, exactly? that they're playing stupid games?

fuck.

i'm not disturbing this by measuring it - it shouldn't change under observation. that's not quantum theory, it's just silly woo.

so, it keeps modulating between a higher volume, "higher gain" version that boosts the mids (the correct version) and a more compressed sounding, incorrect version that wants to boost the bottom, instead. i seem to be able to get the correct version by refreshing, sometimes, but it seems to default to the incorrect version, over and over. 

but these are imprecise human observations. the math is that it nulls.

what else can i say?

i've hypothesized before that i'm actually hearing an echo from a background listener that is cutting in and out on the line. the sum of it is that the bass gets boosted, but it could be the effect of a reverb feedback loop - and that's what you'd expect. so, for example, try putting a guitar through a delay effect and then feeding it back through an amp - it builds up very fast on the low end. so, i'm complaining that the bass is too loud and i can't hear the highs on the guitars, but maybe i'm actually hearing the feedback from the cops.

i dunno. i know it comes and goes, and i know i don't get it.

but, these files null, so what else can i say? it is possible to hear them correctly. i've made my displeasure clear, on the case that they're being altered. if i'm dealing with a malicious actor that insists on altering the files despite repeated instructions not to, what can i do besides point it out and demand otherwise? and, if i'm dealing with the technical consequences of internet streaming, what can i do?

i'm necessarily streaming this on the chromebook, so i can't disconnect. that's the point.

*sigh*

it nulls.

i wish i could upload some kind of signature file somewhere and get people to download it.

so, i've been spending the last several days trying to win a stupid argument about artistic freedom by overpowering whatever's going on via sheer will power, and i really don't know how long it'll hold for. but, it sounds ok right this minute.

there's four possibilities:

1) somebody is messing with the bass response at the server level, and my control over it is minimal. it comes back and forth with no real pattern.
2) i'm hearing interference from the cops.
3) it's compression introduced by the server, and i'm unusually sensitive to it, given that it's my own mixes.
4) subtle differences in the volume on playback are messing with my head.

re: (4), i'm used to listening to this with the volume cranked - while mastering, on my mp3 player, on my home system, etc. but, it actually sounds much better from bandcamp when it's run at a slightly lower level. it could be that some kind of normalization algorithm at the site (they may insist on boosting the volume before they convert to low quality mp3s for streaming) is essentially distorting the output at high volume, and i just need to turn it down to compensate (and maybe run it through an external amplifier if i need more volume). the quality of the dac in this chromebook is no doubt not helping much, although it does sound fine at a lower level. 

as it is, i've found a sort of "sweet spot" and i hope to exploit it. if it keeps breaking in the same way, though...
at

Monday, December 13, 2021

these recordings use the ry30 primarily, but may also use hammerhead (a 909 emulator) and just random loops of random noises and bloops and blips:

these recordings utilize random blips and bloops for drums exclusively or almost exclusively:

these recordings utilize loops produced in various standalone software drum machines (all 808 or 909 like):

these tracks use drum parts that were composed in scorewriters, primarily:

these recordings do not have drums at all:
at
i actually program a lot of my drums in a scorewriter, not in a machine. 

this is one  of the more complicated examples of drums written in a scorewriter:
at
these demos, recorded when i was 15-16, feature live acoustic drums that i played on my dad's kit in the old basement studio:

these recordings have live drums that i played on a different kit my dad bought a few years later:

these tracks feature greg playing the drums, but note that they were spliced and looped and also feature drum machines:

these tracks feature drums that i played on sarah's drum kit:

and, these are the three (not two. three.) tracks with the electronic drums:

everything else is programmed and/or sampled and looped and/or spliced.
at

Sunday, December 12, 2021

i'm supposed to be working on period 3.1.

this piece will have some live drum kits, and i'll need to do it on the electric kit:

...just as soon as i get done filing and can get cubase to run without freezing.
at
and, no i don't see anything wrong with telling you that much of the orchestral parts are written in a scorewriter and sequenced by a soundcard.

it's in the liner notes.

i'm not hiding anything, and i'm not ashamed of it - yes, i'm an electronic music composer. that's what i do: i write and record guitar-driven techno music.  

it's baffling to me that people don't want to listen...
at
this, for example, is an ry30 drum machine:

i can't play like that.

i'm a guitarist. sorry.
at
i got a very stupid response to my kijiji add and i want to clarify a few points.

1) i don't play violin. there's a number of string parts in my various recordings. it states very clearly in the liner notes that those parts are played by a computer.
2) i have had access to various live drum kits for parts of my life. my father sometimes had a kit, sarah had a kit available to her from time to time (although i only ever had partial access to it.... i think her father technically owned it....) and my old friend greg had a kit in his basement, which gets sampled in a handful of tracks. however, i am not and never have been a drummer, and most of the drums in my recordings are constructed using various electronic tactics. i generally take a kitchen sink approach to drums - i'll use live parts, samples, machines, sequences, whatever i can get my hands on. the very minimal, bottom of the line kit i have in my possession was purchased in 2007 with microsoft severance money (it's worth maybe $300) and has appeared on a handful of tracks, but it's purpose is primarily for recording. you couldn't do much with it besides basic kick-snare punk or new wave, and i wouldn't see any use in getting a live drummer to perform something in that style. i need an exceedingly talented, intricate jazz drummer to do the kinds of parts i'm thinking of, which is a part of the reason i've held off on recording some of them - the drums i need are simply too complicated to be able to do on a five piece electronic kit.

that said, these are some examples of pieces i've recorded with the electronic kit:

1) this was done in my old apartment in ottawa:

2) this was done in the previous basement in windsor:

everything else - i think without exception - has percussion done in a different manner. most of it is done with drum machines.

while my use of the electronic kit has been relatively minimal, it is a necessary part of the studio. remember: i'm a recording artist, i'm not a performing artist. the performing part is a necessary evil, and something i'd actually rather mostly avoid. but, you kind of have to at least try to play things live, if you can. even if i think it's mostly going through the motions and sort of pointless...

so, i need to have the kit, even if i only use it every couple of years. and, no, the costs of it are not important, and i don't have an interest in making money from it, just because i don't use it every day. there's gear in some studios that hasn't been touched in 20 years. i can't say that.

i can continue to try to explain that i'm a recording artist, and a composer, and therefore need access to a fully built studio, but i need people to try to make some attempt to understand it. if you continue to try to judge me via the perceptions of a performing artist, you're going to continue to get confused.

i mean, i keep telling you that i'm a composer and i don't want to be a rock star, and you keep criticizing me for not being a rock star. that's right, you fucking dipshits - i'm not a rock star. i'm a classical guitarist and a written composer. i don't even like rock music...
at

Friday, December 10, 2021

so, what's going on with me?

i was finally making progress on the filing, and then i got distracted by that book. it was one of the lengthier asimov texts. worse, i tried to plow through it in one sitting and had to nap repeatedly, instead. i don't want to say i lost days, because that was supposed to be for last week...

so, what do i need done this weekend?

1) the fourth robot novel, robot and empire
2) at least two of the three empire novels
3) i am behind on the actual journal writing
4) i have to get the legal writing done by monday morning
5) filing
6) re-uploading, and checking: are the files stable or corrupt?

that's a lot.

let's focus on 5 & 6, first.
at
somebody's going to tell me i slandered the book :/.
at
ok, i got through the third volume (the robots of dawn), and i don't have much to add, nor do i think that the text was very worthwhile. i might even label broad swaths of it to be worthless pornography with no redeemable qualities that probably shouldn't have been published. so, do i even want to review this at all? i'm being comprehensive...

but, i'm not really excited about it, or have much of an urge to type about it. and, i don't want this to turn into a chore.

i think the key point is really realizing the 25 year difference. whereas the asimov that i knew and i respected was writing for a contemporary audience in the 40s and 50s, there were dramatic social changes that occurred in the 60s and 70s, and asimov would seem to be required to adjust to them for this book published in the 80s, if not voluntarily than no doubt by his publisher. so, that 25 year time lag is a sort of a clean break, conceptually. they're the same characters to start, but this novel is really twice as long as it needs to be because it needs to house certain types of additional characters, which people are expected to be more able to relate to, as per the norms of mass marketed fiction that developed at that time. so, the aloof and likeable solarian (gladia) is transformed into a somewhat disgusting, contemptible slut that has nothing worthwhile to say, including about her orgasm (why put that in your robot novel? who wants to read that kind of smut? who cares?). further, they had to include some kind of 70s hipster kid with ironic facial hair that's unable to get laid, to try to appeal to a certain segment of reader. none of this adds anything to the specific story or to the broader arch of the narrative and probably should have been cut - if the truth no doubt wasn't that it was included on the urging of the publisher, in the first place. so, asimov becomes a sad reflection of the empty society that he's writing from, at the dawn of reaganism. hey, could you prove reagan wasn't a robot? he survived a bullet, didn't he?

so, i'm not reacting well to the more contemporary style, i'm finding myself missing the classic asimov that's above gratuitous sex and not interested in empty plot development. in the 40s and 50s, science fiction was just a mechanism for dystopian literature, so it was not fundamentally different than other types of literature, really, it just had a different setting. and, that would have been true through the 60s (you can really see that in the initial run of star trek, which frequently played on everything in the traditional canon of literature, from shakespeare to classical mythology), up until star wars, which sort of broke everything and left the genre in a juvenile state of focusing on special effects, like any other adventure film. this third robot novel was written and published in the early 80s, in the midst of the major shift in the genre that was happening. the reality is that it appears that asimov was actually coerced (perhaps by large dollar figures) to return to writing fiction within the context of the blockbuster scifi films of the late 70s and early 80s, given that he was responsible for so many of the ideas underlying them. for that reason, the text seems to lack the more allegorical writing of his earlier years - it's just a run-on story about the adventures of an earthling and two robots, designed for the all-of-a-sudden very large market for vacuous adventurist science fiction.

this text also goes over a lot of previous ideas for the apparent reason of acting as a subtle means of advertising for his previous stories. the calvin references work their way into the story, but they don't add anything to it. 

that said, asimov isn't entirely embracing this new reality, either.  the critique of the sex life of aurorans seems to be a reflection of asimov's views on sexuality within the bourgeois elite in new york city, specifically, in the 70s. asimov seems to be suggesting that bourgeois american culture has overdone it on the sex, and reduced it to something meaningless and boring - so much so that the promise of unhindered sex with robots offers an escape from the ubiquitous mundanity of sex with people. i have to admit some sympathy with this perspective. this marxist critique of bourgeois sexuality (in an auroran society that is otherwise broadly communist - the same confusing juxtaposition that is in the second novel) is the closest thing to a purpose in the text, although he drops the narrative about a third of the way in, and instead detours off into pointless character development, to expand the length of the text for no real apparent reason, other than to try to create these characters that are supposed to generate feelings of identity in the reader. i might actually suggest that asimov may have been trying to write a third robot novel in the same framework as the first two (they all represent a potential failure point leading to a communist dystopia: the overcrowded kibbutz of earth, the marxist alienation of solaria and the empty bourgeois hedonism of vanguardist aurora), but got cut-off halfway by a publisher trying to create something that would appeal to star wars fans, who co-opted the novel into just aimlessly going on for  hundreds of pages of empty action/adventure nonsense. sadly...

so, if the point of the story is that it's supposed to be about the emptiness of capitalist excess and unchecked bourgeois hedonism, it is even less cohesive and less developed than the second volume. but, the idea is there - if just barely. i can identify no further discernible purpose in the 430 page paperback, besides to waste the reader's time. the middle section really wasn't necessary - he could have gone from gladia to amadiro and maybe should have.

i think it's important to point out that asimov is repeatedly pretty rough on baley, and sort of passive aggressive with daneel, indicating that he might not be so excited about these characters any longer. i'd strongly suspect he was toying with killing them off. in fact, daneel has a very minor part in this story; the more important robot is giskard. baley is repeatedly treated as a fool that is unable to fend for himself, as a consequence of living in the kibbutz; there are frequent allusions to his child-like state, to the robots as his caretakers and even to gladia, at one point, as his mother. baley is not killed in the end, but he doesn't appear in the fourth installment, which i'm now dreading reading.

in terms of his broader narrative, asimov introduces a conflict between the pro-auroran globalists and the pan-humanity humanists that the humanists win, in this installment. you'd have to imagine that asimov (acting director of the humanist society) would be most sympathetic to humanists. it's a bit of a hint as to who represents his own views, in truth - something that might be different in 1980 than it was in 1955. asimov's subtle slights on baley may be another indication that he's changing hosts in the story, so to speak, and that he now looks down on baley, whereas he previously saw him as his own voice. asimov's globalists - a vanguard elite that puts itself first and looks down on the broader swath of humanity - is not all that different than the contemporary concept of "globalist", which comes from a strange merging of far-left and far-tight anti-elitism. asimov seems to want to present humanism as a truer from of egalitarianism, a less corrupt concept of liberalism and a more authentic left. fastolfe's "decency" is presented in this context of representing humanism. asimov and i may quibble over details as to what the anti-vanguard left ought to look like (he was a liberal, and i'm an anarchist), but we seem to agree on the need to present a counter-left as a movement against vanguardism. but, once again, this is about leftist infighting - it's not some broad ideological discourse. only the primitivist utopians on earth seem to offer any opposition to the spread of communism throughout the galaxy.

so, i'd have to broadly describe this as "disappointing", but i really do get where it's coming from, and in some ways it might have been impossible to avoid. i suppose that if you want to read the whole thing then you can't skip it, but i'll tell you: you're not missing much if you did.
at

Thursday, December 9, 2021

i had to nap.

here's some rough notes about half-way through.

- hyperwave bit autobiographical [star wars/trek]

- playing with modern existence in terms of humans not going outside. if the first two robot novels were allegories about marxist theory, this one might be more of a commentary on modern existence.

- check laws of humanics in subtexts [in expanded robot]

- baley frequently presented as child-like, juvenilized by earth society, seeking to escape the womb

- asimov may have been coerced to return to writing fiction within the context of the blockbuster scifi films of the late 70s and early 80s, given that he was responsible for so many of the ideas underlying them. this text goes over a lot of previous ideas for that apparent reason.

- freudian undertones in the sex life. not really interested.

- the reflection on the sex life of aurorans seems to be a reflection of asimov's views on sexuality within the bourgeois elite in new york city, specifically, in the 70s. asimov seems to be suggesting that bourgeois american culture has overdone it on the sex, and reduced it to something meaningless and boring - so much so that the promise of unhindered sex with robots offers an escape from the ubiquitous mundanity of sex with people. i have to admit some sympathy with this perspective. it is the closest thing to a purpose in the text. again: the underlying society is broadly communist, but this is a pretty marxist critique of bourgeois sexuality.

- of the three planets - earth, solaria, aurora - i'd have to admit a strongest affinity with solaria. but, they all represent a potentially communist dystopia: the overcrowded kibbutz of earth, the alienation of solaria and the empty hedonism of aurora.

- asimov introduces a conflict between the pro-auroran globalists and the pan-humanity humanists, and you'd have to imagine that asimov (acting director of the humanist society) would be most sympathetic to humanists. it's a bit of a hint as to who represents his own views, in truth - something that might be different in 1980 than it was in 1955. asimov's subtle slights on baley may be another indication that he's changing hosts in the story, so to speak, and that he now looks down on baley, whereas he previously saw him as his own voice. asimov's globalists - a vanguard elite that puts itself first and looks down on the broader swath of humanity - is not all that different than the contemporary concept of "globalist", which comes from a strange merging of far-left and far-tight anti-elitism. asimov seems to want to present humanism as a truer from of egalitarianism, a less corrupt concept of liberalism and a more authentic left. fastolfe's "decency" is presented in this context of representing humanism. asimov and i may quibble over details as to what the anti-vanguard left ought to look like (he was a liberal, and i'm an anarchist), but we seem to agree on the need to present a counter-left as a movement against vanguardism. but, once again, this is about leftist infighting - it's not some broad ideological discourse. only the primitivist utopians on earth seem to offer any opposition to the spread of communism throughout the galaxy.
at

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

so, this is inri001, updated (again) to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.:
at
actually, i seem to have my timeline wrong for cronenberg - he was earlier than i thought.

but, you get the point.
at
i should have waited to comment on the second robot novel, so i'm going to hold off on this one, but my initial take is that the 25 year time lag is a sort of a clean break, conceptually. they're the same characters, and i'm sure the story will develop similarly, but it's also a very different type of novel, that is reflective of changes in the genre over the period. in the 40s and 50s, science fiction was just a mechanism for dystopian literature, so it was not fundamentally different than other types of literature, really, it just had a different setting. and, that would have been true through the 60s (you can really see that in the initial run of star trek, which frequently played on everything in the traditional canon of literature, from shakespeare to classical mythology), up until star wars, which sort of broke everything and left the genre in a juvenile state of focusing on special effects, like any other adventure film. this third robot novel was written and published in the early 80s, in the midst of the major shift in the genre that was happening.

asimov is adjusting by focusing more on how he sees the technology of the future, making it more of an exercise in futurism, which is what the standard was at the time in the literature, if not in the films. you see that kind of thing come out later in, like, cronenberg films, but not in the early 80s. and, i should point out that while daneel predated spock by a good distance, this text was written right in the middle of the star wars and star trek boom of the early 80s - and you can tell.

i don't remember the text and don't think i actually read it as a child, so i don't know the plot. but, i'm not expecting the same kind of allegorical treatment - i'm expecting a sort of empty exercise in futurism that will leave me sort of bored, as an adult.

i said that last time, though, and realized in the end that it was clearly about marxist alienation, even if it was sort of blurry. so, we'll see what happens.
at
i'm more willing to sit up, now, but now i'm into the story.

so, this is inri000, updated (again) to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.:
at
my stomach has shrunk a little, meaning my big meals feel like big meals again, and i'm a little bloated after "lunch". that's ok. it means i'm reading a little in bed.

i've pointed out that baley/daneel are obviously sherlock holmes & watson. it's elementary.

but, are baley/daneel likewise the models for kirk and spock? 

i can see a lot of spock in daneel, certainly.
at
i will listen to a few things randomly, just to be sure, so don't fuck with it.
at
ok.

so, i can't listen to everything to be sure i didn't miss anything - i'm just going to go back to the start and reupload everything again.

please just leave it be.

if i wanted somebody's help, i'd ask for it. i don't. really.
at
so, i got the files to null, and now it sounds "normal" again. i'm going to carry through with what i was doing, regardless, because i want to make sure the tracks are truly normalized.

if somebody changed something, thank you for listening. pun intended. please do not revert to the previous corrupt mixes and please do not alter any more of my files.

and, if i was just imagining it, all i can do is keep going.
at

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

another point of ambiguity is the question of compression and limiting. the music is presented with a wide dynamic range, which is a conscious compositional decision. that keeps getting flattened out, and squished down, removing the changes in volume in the mix. it would seem that whomever is doing this doesn't understand the concept of mezzo-piano and mezzo-forte, and rather thinks everything should be presented at the same volume, and the same level of aggression. i know what they're doing - they're putting it through a limiter, and they're doing it because they think they're "cleaning it up". but, they're just ruining the detail and subtlety. the changes in volume are intentional parts of the composition, not relics to be removed in mastering.

i suppose it is possible that i'm getting upset about the playback process, and the answer is to realize that the playback algorithm is necessarily flawed. i might be getting upset about the downsampling done by the server, and deducing something is being altered. ok. so, i'm going to try to download the files after i reupload them and see if i can mathematically compare them to the correct versions on my hard drive.

and, if i have to accept that, so be it.

but, i actually expect to download altered files, and i'm going to be very upset if i do.
at
this is a synth pop record created in the 90s that should sound vaguely like a tears for fears or genesis record, but with a much more digital sounding recording footprint. it's not contemporary music, and should not sound like it. it's not intended for use in car stereos or nightclubs, it's intended for basement or bedroom listening through headphones. it may be music for reading, for doing homework, for doing employment, for exercising, for cleaning, for travelling, for shopping or just for active listening. but, it's meant for an alienated individual to listen to alone through headphones, and not to be experienced in a group setting with other people, through loudspeakers.
at
at specific point is a question as to the bass response on the mixes. i desire a minimal bass response, because most of the detail and interesting parts of the music are actually in the high end. i also dislike guitar parts with exaggerated low ends, and prefer my guitars to have a tinny, mono sort of sound. i like brittle, trebly, fuzzy sorts of digital distortion, and not deeper, crunchier sorts of amp distortion. i spent a lot of time getting that to sound correctly.

if the end user wants to play the music through a subwoofer, i suppose they have that choice, but i would not recommend it. rather, i would recommend that the music be listened to on as flat a system as is possible and through an entirely flat pair of headphones, and further that little attempt be made to exaggerate the low end, as the actual music is mostly in the upper mids.

i do not desire to be an artist that produces music intended for a deep bass response. i do not listen to or have an interest in bass music. and, i don't want it to sound chunky or analog or heavy - i want it to sound airy and digital and sharp and light.
at
the corruption is, unfortunately, returning to re-uploaded sound at the bandcamp site, and i'm remembering back to the fucker at the mixing desk, recognizing all of the apparent attempts to control my machine and putting 2+2 together.

the bottom line is this: if i can't present my mixes as i want to present them, they will not be presented at all. i don't want to resort to it, but i may have to unpublish everything as a means of protest.

i've unfortunately had to unpublish my first lp. i will be replacing the files with the corrected masters until the site stops corrupting them. if it will not relent, i will have to start unpublishing further documents, sequentially.

i'm not blaming bandcamp, exactly - i think this is exceedingly unusual for them, and i think it's deeper than them. i don't fully understand what's happening, but it's consistent with a broader narrative of outside control. somebody wants control over my body, over my thoughts and over my art, too. in the end, it's just a lot of resources wasted over what's truly a set of trivialities - especially considering that my tendency is to fight against the current, rather than go along with it. i will fight something like this out of spite.

i thought merely replacing the files would be enough to get the point across, but, again, they don't seem to have any kind of respect for individual autonomy, or artistic expression, whoever it is that they are.

if i have to, i'll put the files up at a google drive share, instead, with a direction to wire me money. it's not like i'm selling a ton of things over bandcamp, anyways.
at
this is inri016, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
at
this is inri015, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.

i was supposed to do legal stuff today, and clearly i'm not. i'm in the groove on this filing, taking advantage of the working machine and trying to catch up to the process i described early this morning.

the second run is going through the source material for inri000-inri074 and

1) making sure it's complete
2) making sure any files related to period 3 are pulled out and categorized correctly
3) making sure all files are mirrored, for redundancy

the third run will be going through the years 2003-2021 and making sure everything for period 3 is pulled out.

the fourth run will be pure redundancy.

at that point, i should be able to click back into the three phases in a smooth manner, as i'll be able to pull data out of the "file", put it back into the "file" and then store it when i'm done with it with greater clarity and ease.
at
this is inri014, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
at
this is inri013, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
at
this is inri012, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
at
this is inri011, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
at
this is inri010, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.

this process might actually be helpful. if it takes an hour to get through each re-upload, i can spend ten-fifteen minutes going through the appropriate folder. so, i could conceivably be finished with the major part of the filing by the time i get the uploads done.

10 down, about 65 to go.
at
i have training as a blues guitarist and as a classical guitarist, and i grew up playing grunge. those are the components of my guitar style, not anything else.

i write classical guitar songs ported to electric noise guitar.
at
the way to save what we call "emo" as an artform is to write really elaborate lyrics, which is what la dispute was able to do, at least at first. stupid songs about getting dumped by your girlfriend aren't the same thing as hour long shakespearean epics with detailed character development, even if the end point of the hour long shakespearean epic is, in fact, getting dumped by your girlfriend. it's the same basic criteria: if you're going to create music as art, it has to actually qualify as art. there wasn't a lot of this that came out in the late 00s/early 10s, and it hasn't sustained itself because it's a difficult task, but there was a little bit of it. in hindsight, these are really exceptions in a genre that is almost impossible to work with.
at
i tend to separate music into two purposes.

on the one hand, music can be purely abstract art, in which case it requires no thematic direction. the best "classical" music, jazz, electronic music and other mostly instrumental forms are simply to be experienced as sound, and there's nothing wrong with experiencing music strictly as a form of escapism, on that level.

on the other hand, music can be a type of propaganda. it can be agit-prop, it can be commentary, it can be satire, etc, but this type of music doesn't need to have characteristics of music to be interesting, as the function of it is strictly as propaganda. this is the value of folk, and derived forms of folk such as punk rock.

i tend to do both, and i tend to listen to both, but i expect either to function properly in their purpose. so, i'll criticize led zeppelin for being shitty artists, because they were - while listening to the much simpler dead kennedys, because their function as propaganda is exceedingly effective. what was labelled "emo" often failed for the same reason that led zeppelin failed, in the sense that it existed in a category error - it had no propagandistic value, and it had no redeeming musical characteristics. 

if you're going to exist in a folk genre (which would also include hip-hop, although i don't listen to hip-hop), you should be exceedingly focused on the propagandistic value of your music. conversely, if you want to produce art for the sake of art - for pure listening value - you should realize that you need to transcend the limitations of folk culture, which are just going to make your music boring, if it's intended to be listened to as music. i'm not as ideological as your strictest punks or your most literal socialists on this point - the end point, after the revolution, when we have freedom and anarchy, when we abolish the proletariat, is to engage in art and science. that's why we want communism, in the end - so we can spend less time working and more time existing. but, that means that if your music is intended to be art - and not to be propaganda - then it had better be actually good.

and, as art, emo sucked - it co-opted a form meant as propaganda, and watered it down to the lowest form of artistic expression imaginable.
at

Monday, December 6, 2021

i actually remember thinking  a lot of it was just rebranded hair metal. it was just this parade of bad cliches and awful lyrics that made me cringe over and over again....

and, it was escapist, which is very un-punk. we were in the middle of a serious political moment, after 9/11 and with the onset of a corporatist global trade regime. and, all these pampered children of the bourgeoisie wanted to talk about was their failed romances. what an aimless distraction.

i probably could have tolerated some of the worst genre characteristics (such as the pointless yelling) if it had some kind of artistic purpose, but essentially all of it was just this exercise in nihilism, in escapism, in the worst kinds of hedonistic excess.

and, that's why it struck me as hair metal, and not as punk.

you won't get that from me, so you're wasting your time, if you're looking for it. i haven't talked to sean in many years, but he was always very interested in my music collection, and became a fan of seminal and more artistically valid bands like swans under my influence, although i couldn't get him into a lot of it, either - he never liked sonic youth, for example. but, he was the hipster  - he was the one into alexisonfire and silverstein and at the drive-in and glassjaw and animal collective and whatever else pitchfork liked this month.

i do believe he produced some post-rabit demos. what i remember hearing indicated a big post-thief thom yorke fetish (something i don't share. i think radiohead lost it after ok computer), and a strong animal collective influence. it also had a vague early no-wave sound, in the sense that he was completely tone deaf. he had picked up a cheap guitar along with a few boss effects and was frequently using his mom's old organ, which was in his basement. as would be expected, he seemed to be getting into the delay effects thing, as was popular at the time. i would broadly expect anything he's created since to follow existing trends, rather than attempt to evade or transcend them.

but, he might have a deep body of work now, for all i know - and i don't know. i really don't.

what i know is that if you're looking for an emo kid here, you're not going to find it. sean was much more that than i ever was; there may be some confusion about identity, despite a very clear attempt to carefully label everything, by myself. i've tried to make it very clear who did what, but people don't read anything, anymore, including liner notes, it would seem.

i'll be continuing the asimov readings this week.
at
listen, i don't write emo. i posted the vocal compilation, and it's a collection of shock rock postmodernism and (at times, intuitive) anarchist rants. there's maybe two poems that could be classified as 'beatnik'. the main focus of my vocals is and also has been political. very early vocal influences included roger waters, john lennon, michael stipe and bono. in high school, i listened to a lot of punk, in a wide range of sub-styles, but it was always vaguely political - from my first offspring cassettes when i was 13 to the major movement acts (dead kennedys, bad religion, skinny puppy) to my exit point in the late 90s, which was mostly centered around a silver mt zion. since then, 95% of the music composed has been instrumental. i really haven't listened to much of anything labeled "rock music" since about the year 2000.

i never listened to pavement or fugazi or anything like that - i largely found it amelodic and boring.

so, i skipped the entire emo thing and i frankly don't really understand what it really was. in fact, i was not really cognizant of it happening around me, at the time. i was more cognizant of what you might call "nu-metal", but i didn't like it, either. you could run me off a list of 00s emo bands, and i would barely even recognize most of them. the few i would recognize, i'd mostly argue were trash. what i was actually listening to during that period was idm, post-rock and jazz - and almost all of it was instrumental. at the time, i would have told you that "emo", which i would have just called "punk", was largely childish and stupid - and pretty boring. or, i would have written off what you're calling "emo" as "nu-metal", and not bothered further with it, by proxy. i was not open to exploring the genre and looking for hidden gems, at that time - i had made up mind that it was all corporate drivel and not worth my time.

there was a batch of post-hardcore bands that showed up about the year 2010 (a little before) that i found a little more interesting, because they were a lot more developed, both musically and thematically. they were mostly writing concept-records, which is something you more readily associate with progressive rock. but, i still wouldn't call any of it "emo". in fact, i'd label the bulk of it "grunge" or "alternative rock".  and, it's had no development on the music i've produced, because it was released years after i wrote all of it.

the singer that i worked with for a few months at the end of 2001 and the start of 2002 dabbled in what could be called emo or screamo, although he would have no doubt preferred the term post-hardcore and would have broadly labeled himself an aimless, trendy bitch. he was a fan of all those bands that were running in the fake underground media - at the drive-in, neutral milk hotel, etc. i had no interest in any of that; i was following the brainwashed feed and listening to tortoise and autechre.

when i finalize lyrics for the remaining pieces, insofar as they will have lyrics, they will follow the outlines i've constructed, and none of them will be about relationships or, really, social relations of much of any sort. the isolated beatnik tracks are really discarded outtakes, strictly, and will appear in finalized forms as instrumentals, if they appear at all. a couple of the remaining pieces  are broadly philosophical (there's a song about how they should have killed aristotle and spared socrates), but most of them are commentaries on (then) contemporary political events.

the bottom line is that i have spent my entire life single, by choice. i don't write about love or relationships because i haven't experienced any, and i don't really have a lot of interest in walking down that path. and, a part of the reason that i don't listen to lyrical music is that i can't relate to much of it.

so, yes - there's what could be called an emo singer on a handful of the recordings, but it was not me. i've stated in the past that i'll let sean identify himself, if he'd like to. if that's your interest, he ought to be your focus, and not me. my lyrics are generally focused on political commentary in a more traditionally "punk" framework, although i might rarely dabble in beatnik poetry, as well. the remaining tracks are focused mostly on political commentary and abstract philosophy, as i age into my mid-20s, in the reconstruction.
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this is inri009, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri008, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri007, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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i actually spent more time sleeping this weekend than cleaning, but the cleaning is finally done. i told myself i'd get the cleaning done, take a shower, get some rest and then do the legal stuff. that was thursday.

i've eaten a lot since then and am feeling a lot better.

the filing is about 50% done, i think. and, this is so key for everything, because everything else will click in immediately.

so, it was a sleepy weekend, but so be it.
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this is inri006, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri005, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri004, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri003, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri002, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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this is inri001, updated to remove any sound corruption, and let's hope it stays that way.
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so, this is inri000, updated to remove any sound corruption:
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Sunday, December 5, 2021

unfortunately, i'm noticing some corruption in the files at bandcamp that needs to be corrected for.

so, i'm re-uploading every single file.

that's going to take a while.

i am making progress on filing, but this is necessarily time consuming, and i have to finish the cleaning, now.
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vocal works box set

so, this is new, and something i should have done before:
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so, this is new, and something i should have done before:

those are my own vocals, only. 

there will be a third volume with:
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