WFMU's Beware of the Blog April 25, 2008
Bits & Pieces remixes the Web One of the first sites I ever found that did interesting audio collage work was bits & pieces, a project put together way back in 1999 (and still going strong) by one peter m traub as part of his studies at Dartmouth. The bits & pieces site consists of programs that automatically trawl the Web for audio files and throw together randomized mixes of those sounds based on a few general remixing templates. You're not gonna get a Jason Forrest album*, but if you have a listen long enough you will hear some fascinating remixes, somewhat reminiscent of number shortwave radio stations. I fondly recall hearing one mix long ago that juxtaposed the Scooby Doo theme song with Charlton Heston's line from Planet of the Apes: "Get your filthy paws off me, you damn dirty apes!" * Well, not unless someone wants to make bits & pieces v2.0. Posted by Listener Jim on April 25, 2008 at 11:50 AM in Art | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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April 24, 2008
Roland Olbeter's Electro-Pneumatic Instruments Play Elena Kats-Chernin Set designer and robot artist Roland Olbeter has created a series of electro-pneumatic sound machines capable of performing entire string quartets. The first commissioned composition for the robotic instruments was Elena Kats-Chernin's Fast Blue Air, which takes advantage of the range of noises created by the pneumatics.
A Youtube version of the video can be found here...another composition can be found here. Elena Kats-Chernin's work is fantastic in itself. Her ear for odd sound and animated composition are a perfect match for the film and theater pieces she scores for. Her Wergo CD Unceremonious Processions- 15 short studio pieces is a surreal and moody soundtrack for an imaginary film. Listen to Left-over...a wheezing little dance piece that conjures up images of broken industrial equipment attempting ballet. You can hear more of KatsChernin's work on her official MySpace page. Posted by Fatty Jubbo on April 24, 2008 at 03:55 PM in Art, Fatty Jubbo's Posts, MP3s | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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April 21, 2008
Crocheting for Crustaceans
I took the ferry across the Hudson river last week, and left from under the watchful smirk of the newly restored clock tower at Hoboken's Erie Lackawanna train terminal. It's a truly gorgeous old school terminal, with a beautiful waiting room, often full of sunshine and aimless people sitting on one-hundred year old benches. I carefully mention my use of mass transit since we are mere hours away from Earth Day, and every advertiser ('dude, they use horses to pull their beer trucks') including the US government ('we...ummm...think we should...ummm...perhaps think about reducing greenhouse gases') is working hard to milk the moment for personal gain. I actually adore taking the ferry, except I don't usually need to go where it stops. But this day I was en route to the World Financial Center to see a truly heroic task of many hands working to restore years of ecological damage with quickly repeated swoops of a crochet needle. Coral reefs across the world are dying off at rates faster than rain forests. You can put an end to this madness by crocheting your own. Or that is what twin sisters Christine and Margaret Wertheim are promoting...sort of. Simultaneously scientists and crafters, these two women have encouraged people in various communities to contribute crocheted pieces of an ever growing coral reef simulacrum, to dramatize the beauty and oddness that we would irrevocably lose if coral reefs continue to die out due to overfishing, pollution and maritime mucking about. The grouphug quality of humans, from knitting and crochet circles around the globe, contributing their personalized efforts to this ecological alert is a wonderful reminder that we CAN actually find something to do with all that crazy leftover yarn we keep stuffing back into our closets (or for all the non-knitters of the world that the individual can affect change for the good). I am just a tad overloaded with the "oh, look at me, I am so green" commercialism of Earth Day this year. If a major chain retailer really wants to stop contributing plastic bags to landfill, why don't they give away a canvas bag with their name on it, instead of selling it? Helle Jorgensen, one of the contributors to the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project gives a great tutorial on how to make your own yarn from plastic grocery bags and then suggests making your own tote bags, or underwater sea creatures, or hats, or you name it. While at the World Financial Center please take advantage of sitting under a palm tree. A Californian friend tells me LA is no longer planting these akward beasts, as they are not native and are difficult to maintain. On a more tragic aside, the under the stairs "nook" which WFC assigns as a gallery space is quite abject. It spells out rather clearly where these financial titans see art in their commercial haze. I don't know how to change this view of "non-commercial" activity, but I do know that if we continue, as a society, to let profit be our guiding light there will be no change that will ever contribute to, restore, or enhance civilizations to come, be they underwater or on dry land. Unfortunately that sentence seems a little long to put on a tote bag. But here's a few things you can do, that won't make a multi-national any money: 1. Grow raspberries in your yard. This will be year 3 for our berry fence. We started out with just a few runners from a friends patch, and it has grown into a hardy spring and fall fruiting blast of deliciousness that happily grows along, and obscures, a rusty chain link fence. I sunk a soaker hose and put it on a timer, so it gets the water directly to the roots, instead of wasting it on the leaves. Raspberries worked out better for us than strawberries, because the nasty urban squirrel nibbles all our strawberries but can't seem to get at the dangling raspberries. 2. Keep a herd of worms in a plastic tub and do your own composting of food scraps. Our yard is only 12 feet wide, and partly shady, so we couldn't exactly make a compost pile without it being the centerpiece of the yard. A delivery of worms later, and we are on our way to creating rich soil from worm castings, and reducing our weekly garbage. Even the city of San Francisco composts. They charge residents to haul away non-organic trash but pick up food waste for free, composting it, then selling the black gold results to golf courses and garden shops. This has also significantly reduced their contribution to local landfills. Posted by DJ Trouble on April 21, 2008 at 11:50 AM in Art, Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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April 20, 2008
Tenori-on: The New Instrument Marketing At the risk of sounding like a salesman, I want to tell you about a promotional event that happened Wednesday night at Southpaw in Brooklyn, not because I'm particularly enchanted by what was being sold - I'm more in awe of the way the event was put together. Yamaha hired a bunch of excellent experimental electronic musicians to sell its blinky handheld version of the future, the Tenori-on. Robert Lippok of To Rococo Rot, Pole, I Am Robot and Proud, Sutekh, Safety Scissors and Nathan Michel were given one of the instruments a few weeks before the mini tour (NYC and San Francisco) began, and each created a set that was based on Tenori-on to some degree. Here's what it looks like:
Robert Lippok, Sutekh, and Nathan Michel used the small but functionally expansive unit to create almost every aspect of their performances; the lights glow on both sides of the instrument, so while they programmed beats, melodies, and soundscapes on the fly the audience was able to see from the other side exactly which buttons were being pressed.
I Am Robot and Proud and Safety Scissors used the device sporadically throughout their performances, and Pole, who put on the most entrancing performance of the night, only seemed to be using Tenori-on a little bit, mostly to trigger the internal synthesizer sounds - they sounded kind of limp on top of the rest of his throbbing basslines and expansive reverb. The middle of the set, though, was the real-deal pitch of the night: the creator, Toshio Iwai, took the stage for about an hour to describe in vivid detail how the Tenori-on evolved from concept to completion. And it was a pitch straight from the heart, unlike anything I've ever witnessed. Continue reading "Tenori-on: The New Instrument Marketing" » Posted by Trent on April 20, 2008 at 10:55 AM in Art, Music, New York City, Photography, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack (1) Tweet This! |
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April 18, 2008
The Drive-In Lives Now that the Spring is finally springing, I've got a hankerin for two things. One, is celebrating the final season of classic Coney Island. It should be noted that Coney has always been a place for change, it's just too bad we know live in an era where change becomes corporate homogenization. However, there is good news: though the parks themselves are being replaced, the Coney Island Freakshow and Coney Island Museum are getting bigger and better now that they own the building. Hooray! The other outdoor activity that I can't live without is the Drive-In. Yes, it too is a dying beast, but a few hearty places live on. The best may well be the Starlight Drive-In in Atlanta. Not only do they host an annual Monster Bash and two day B-Movie marathon that makes a special road trip worth while, but they may possibly have the coolest concession stand on the planet.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. Check out more Starlight concession stand photos via Flickr user Zombophoto. (While you're there, take the time to look over his 8 Track Tape collection, and a house so jam-packed with cool collectible stuff that it might even make the Cramps jealous. Okay, maybe not - because they have a LOT of stuff.) Posted by Clinton McClung on April 18, 2008 at 04:06 PM in Art, Film, New York City, Travel | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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WFMU's Kelly Jones and Bronwyn C. on film All of you Tribeca Film Fest fans should be pleased to know that WFMU's own hilarious girlie talk duo, Kelly Jones and Bronwyn C., are featured in one of this year's flicks: Guest of Cindy Sherman. Back in 2004, listener Paul H-O called into The Kelly Jones Show Starring Bronwyn Carlton, seeking advice on how to deal with dating someone famous (listen to the archive). Said famous person happened to be artiste magnifique, Cindy Sherman. Less than a year later, Paul decided to document his experiences, and asked Bronwyn and Kelly to participate in the film. Fast forward to 2008, and Guest of Cindy Sherman is slated for Tribeca AND Sundance. Congrats to Paul! More info and showtimes for Tribeca screenings available here. Ok ok, now the exciting part... check out this clip, starring Kelly Jones and Bronwyn Carlton.
Posted by Liz Berg on April 18, 2008 at 04:04 PM in Art, Current Affairs, Film, Liz B's Posts, Radio, WFMU in General | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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Is "Cathy" Still in the Market For a Man? Whitehouse's William Bennett, now comic strip star (Ultraskull via Billy Kiely):
Posted by Brian Turner on April 18, 2008 at 02:27 PM in Art, Brian Turner's Posts, Cartoon Sexuality, Music | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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April 17, 2008
Fumetti Terror Blu on Groovy Age of Horror (NSFW) The Groovy Age of Horror is a blog devoted to bizarre horror paperbacks, comics and movies. For the past year the curators have been posting scans of Italian Fumetti (comics), starting with the wild and weird series Terror Blu. The stories are a sick and hilarious mix of gynecological and genital terror told within ludicrous sci-fi storylines The stuff is not for the faint of heart but I'm sure your ghoulish curiosity will get the better of you as you scratch your head wondering how anyone concocted such a carnival of carnage.
Posted by Fatty Jubbo on April 17, 2008 at 02:42 PM in Art, Cartoon Sexuality, Comics, Fatty Jubbo's Posts | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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Boring Postcards One of my favorite art books is a collection of ephemera gathered by Magnum photographer Martin Parr. In is own work, Parr is well known for being able to pull the sublime out of the mundane with playful sense of humor, so it makes sense that as a hobby he has collected the worst of postcards. To date he has compiled three books out of them: Boring Postcards, Boring Postcards USA and Langweilige Postkarten. This trilogy of self-explanatory titles are a delight to peruse (read an in-depth review of the books here), and it is especially refreshing that Parr doesn't bother to try and overanalyze their artistic merit (however, you can listen to a marvelous discussion on the past and history of amateur photography with Parr here). In fact, he doesn't write anything at all about the postcards. You are just to look upon them and feel, erm, bored. Flickr also has a pool of Boring Postcards, though the term seems rather loosely defined by its users. While this pool features some fine examples of postcards with the utter dullness of Parr's examples, it also has too many postcards of historical buildings (often quite pretty if not interestingly photographed) and postcards that are merely "old". In other words, not nearly unexceptional enough. Besides, how could anyone possibly define a maggot salesman postcard as "boring"? This slight disconnect got me to thinking: what is it that makes a postcard boring? Certainly there is the composition: bland, flat shots of rather uninteresting subjects. However, it isn't a lack of "art" that truly yanks an image into dullsville. It's that sad feeling that it gives you inside. Not only does someone think you need to celebrate this moment/place/advertisement/emptiness, but that you will want to relive it for a lifetime, keep a picture of it, and share it with friends. To illustrate, here are some from my collection:
Del-Ray Motel, w miles west of City on Rt. 40. Indianapolis, Indiana. Follow the jump for more boring images. Continue reading "Boring Postcards" » Posted by Clinton McClung on April 17, 2008 at 03:12 AM in Art, Travel | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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April 16, 2008
"An Airplane Can Throw Flowers on You, But A Kamikaze Fun Machine Can Save Your Life" The WFMU / Exchange Place PATH guerrilla strikes again. Prior community outreach here and here. Left coast got struck here. Listen to Diane's Kamikaze Fun Machine here. Read Diane on The Blog here.
Zooooom:
Posted by Scott W on April 16, 2008 at 03:28 PM in Art, Propaganda, Scott W's Posts | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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Douche of the Century Listeners to my Killing Time show on WFMU know that I have a regular-ish feature called “Douche of the Week,” which is just what it sounds like. But I may have to retire that feature now that I’ve learned about Guillermo Vargas (“Habacuc”), King Uberdouche, the Douche of the Century. Last year Vargas paid some poor kids to capture a stray dog in Managua. Then he took the dog, chained it to the wall of an art gallery, and let it starve to death—this was his art installation. (There’s video on YouTube!) Now Vargas has been chosen to represent Costa Rica, his home country, at the Bienal Centroamericana Honduras 2008, and he’s threatening to recreate his installation there and in other art galleries. Information about this douche is readily available online, including a translation of his “artist’s statement” as to why it’s really arty to torture another living creature to death. You can find it yourself, if you want. So I’m just going to give you the link to the international petition to the BCH, asking them to deny Vargas participation in their show. Of course, if this guy was really committed to his art, he’d chain himself to a wall and starve himself to death. But I bet he won’t. Thanks for reading my blog post this time, and may God bless helpless creatures. Posted by The Iowa Firecracker on April 16, 2008 at 09:27 AM in Art, Bronwyn C's Posts, Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (35) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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April 14, 2008
People Like Us Retrospective Exhibition WFMU's own sound/image/video collage mistress People Like Us (aka Vicki Bennett) is being featured in a gallery exhibition next month. In case you weren't already aware, People Like Us is an amazing artist, DJ, and podcaster, sampling and reappropriating audio, music, film, television, found footage, and anything else she can get her hands on, resulting in surreal and sublime juxtapositions that bend one's perception of culture. We Edit Life: a retrospective exhibition alt.gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Opening Night: 15 May 2008, 6 - 8pm Exhibition: 16 May - 12 July 2008 The exhibition will focus on the concept of collage, showing an edited selection of Vicki's work, including twenty album releases, numerous singles and remixes, live sets, seven films and over a hundred and fifty radio shows. Dr. Drew Daniel of Matmos even composed an essay for the the exhibition! On top of that, We Edit Life also marks the launch of a new compilation CD, "Smiling Through My Teeth," curated by People Like Us for the Sonic Arts Network. People Like Us has previously shown work at Tate Modern, Sydney Opera House, Pompidou Centre and Sonar, and performed radio sessions for John Peel and Mixing It, as well as WFMU. In 2006, she was the first artist to be given unrestricted access to the entire BBC Archive, no small feat. Links: Do or DIY radio archives on WFMU Do or DIY Podcast Codpaste (with Ergo Phizmiz) archives People Like Us back catalogue People Like Us homepage Posted by Liz Berg on April 14, 2008 at 07:00 AM in Art, Audio Mysteries, Copyleft, Current Affairs, Liz B's Posts, Music, WFMU in General | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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April 10, 2008
Marc Bell - Piles of Buncakes! Comic book creator Marc Bell condenses his page-turners on large panels. The result is a dizzying torrent of blobby shapes stacked on geometric heads, big feet and wrinkled junk food.
Posted by Fatty Jubbo on April 10, 2008 at 03:27 PM in Art, Fatty Jubbo's Posts | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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Black Flag Hair: A Timeline Link via Her Jazz and Photobucket. Listen to Black Flag's "Annihilate This Week" [Real Audio]
Posted by Mike L on April 10, 2008 at 12:30 PM in Art, Fashion | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBack (1) Tweet This! |
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April 08, 2008
Tapes Since my MacBook went and died on me the other day, leaving this week's blog post quarantined within its wretched soul, I present you with an oldie-but-goodie. Courtesy of Polar Alert, a stunning exhibition of blank cassette j-cards, a design world all its own. This should take you right back to the days of pause-play on your Radio Shack deck, snippets of DJ Red Alert rocking on KISS-FM.
Posted by Scott McDowell on April 08, 2008 at 04:24 PM in Art | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1) Tweet This! |
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Jowe Head, Renaissance Man I still occasionally (well, very occasionally) step out of my role as cubicle drone and Suburban Dad to make an artistic contribution to the world, and I'm pleased and proud to say that I'll be playing guitar for a series of performances this week with the great Jowe Head. I first met Jowe by way of a live interview on my WFMU show in 1993, where I gave lame, super-casual interview (as was my "style" in the day) and Jowe proceeded to capsize the station's little wheezing chord organ, then rendering an impromptu performance of the song "Shiny Black Shirt," later immortalized on the Upsalapalooza compilation CD. Jowe's mid-90s tours with the Television Personalities provided sweet entertainment and some post- and pre-gig opportunities for further socialization. When the call came out in early 1996 to play a series of NYC shows with Jowe, I was more than ready. I am eternally indebted to Hamish Kilgour and Lisa Siegel for this opportunity; a chance meeting with Hamish at WFMU's last record fair led to the current arrangement. My long-time association with the station strikes again! Jowe, as many of you know, was a founding member of the legendary Swell Maps (along with the brothers Epic Soundtracks and Nikki Sudden, sadly both no longer with us, and Richard Earl aka Bgls), blazing icons of the UK post-punk era, a "cross between Can and T.Rex" put simply, who created 2 brilliant studio LPS, a double LP of live sessions and jams, and several dynamite singles, all originally for the Rough Trade label (reissues and compilations available on Secretly Canadian, Alive, Munster and Overground.) Jowe has gone on to front or contribute to a great many projects (The Palookas, Televison Personalities and The Househunters, to name only a few; Jowe currently fronts Angel Racing Food), as well as squeeze out a few unforgettable solo LPs, in particular 1986's Strawberry Deutsche Mark (tracks available on the Unhinged CD on Overground.) Jowe's band this time consists of myself, Hamish Kilgour, Lisa Siegel and Danny Tunick, though the lineup will vary a bit from show to show. Here are the dates: a studio session for WFMU (interview with Jowe to air this Saturday, 4/12, recorded set to air in about 2 weeks, both on Terre T.'s Cherry Blossom Clinic), two nights at Cake Shop NYC (this Friday and Saturday, 4/11 and 4/12, 8 p.m. shows), Sunday 4/13 at Eat Records, 124 Meserole Ave., Brooklyn NY (5 p.m. show), and Friday 4/18 at Claude's Bar in Phoenicia, NY. Also at Cake Shop, and The Arts Upstairs in Phoenicia, an exhibit of Jowe's artwork will be on display and available for purchase. To further dangle the carrot, here are a few tracks on mp3 that should provide enhanced enticement to savor this very rare musical experience in the flesh: Baby Bounce |
Merman Blues |
Swiss Air |
The Palookas - Virginia's Wolf
Posted by WmMBerger on April 08, 2008 at 09:32 AM in Art, History, MP3s, Music, New York City, WFMU in General, William Berger's Posts | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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April 07, 2008
Beamz U jam out on the beamz ;)
Play with your cat and stoned aunt ;) a little symphony.....a zymphony Thanks Jake. Posted by Trent on April 07, 2008 at 01:10 PM in Art, The Internet, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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April 03, 2008
Christian Rex van Minnen's Tumorous Aggregations Christian Rex van Minnen shapes a world bursting with oozing tumors piled upon each other as if in classical repose. His velvety oils add a luminescent beauty to the abject horror show.
Posted by Fatty Jubbo on April 03, 2008 at 02:44 PM in Art, Fatty Jubbo's Posts | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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Freezepop of the Current Gaming Music Future Future Future Perfect Freezepop are not just a band. They're the first band in the world to become popular almost entirely because of their appearances not in newspapers, radio, magazines, or the blogosphere, but in video games. As a result, they're a convincing picture of the near future of music, gaming, and the worlds of art and commerce that surround both. Just a few years ago, Freezepop's songs were sharing the stage with karaoke-style covers of "Smoke on the Water," "Ziggy Stardust," and "Spanish Castle Magic." Now, through a combination of good timing and great songwriting, they're sitting right up there with Bowie, Radiohead, and Blue Öyster Cult. Not karaoke-style Blue Öyster Cult, but the REAL Blue Öyster Cult...in a way. * The Boston 3-piece has at its core The Duke of Pannekoeken, a programmer of infectious synth-pop and also of music for highly infectious video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Liz Enthusiasm is Freezepop's bouncing, purple-haired frontwoman whose deadpan delivery is every bit as plasticky and cutting as their synth lines. The two were kind enough to answer a bunch of my stupidly detailed questions about music, licensing, the Cardigans, and the concepts of "fun" and "songwriting" in rhythm gaming. If you haven't experienced rhythm gaming or Freezepop, you might want to watch these videos to get an idea of what you're dealing with. The first is Freezepop's official video for "Less Talk More Rokk," and the second is the same song being played to perfection in Guitar Hero II.
Trent Wolbe: How have your audiences and concerts changed and/or grown over the years? Liz Enthusiasm: Well, when we were in the smaller games (Frequency and Amplitude) it was more hardcore gamers who came to our shows, but Guitar Hero has really opened it up to a lot of people. One thing I really like is that there are all kinds of people there, all ages groups and different scenes. It's pretty cool. TW: Duke - you work at Harmonix, the company that makes the best Rhythm games in the world. What is Freezepop's relationship to Harmonix, exactly? The Duke of Pannekeoken: why thank you kindly for the praise... i hope to think that harmonix has worked really hard to try and bring fun, interactive music experiences to people! the relationship is pretty straightforward... just after freezepop was started back in '99, i joined harmonix as a sound designer and composer and was tasked with writing music for our first game FreQuency, as well as authoring a number of other tracks in the game. after a couple of years doing that, i moved up and became the audio director for the Karaoke Revolution series of games, AntiGrav, and Guitar Hero 1 & 2. Since then, i've transitioned over to being a producer and lead the team that made Phase for the iPod which was released last fall. All of this has opened up a great opportunity for freezepop to include tracks in almost all of those games and reach whole new groups of fans. it's been amazing the reaction we've gotten to our songs in the games and has brought out lots of gamers to our shows. TW: Do you write Freezepop songs and hope they'll end up in Rock Band, or see a hole in Rock Band, for example, and write to fill it? LE: We generally use pre-existing songs of ours. There are certain ones that are just more obvious choices as to what would work well in the video game context. DoP: For the most part, it's just a song we've written, and have gotten an opportunity to include it in a game, and then we've made some changes to the track that will make it play more fun. the only exception to this really was Less Talk More Rokk which was pretty much explicitly written knowing it was going to go into Guitar Hero 2. But it sounds pretty much like our other songs so it wasnt much of a stretch. We have added guitars and beefed up some of the instrumental parts in Brainpower to make sure it's super fun to play in Rock Band. Continue reading "Freezepop of the Current Gaming Music Future Future Future Perfect" » Posted by Trent on April 03, 2008 at 09:52 AM in Art, Current Affairs, Music, Video Games, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0) Tweet This! |
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March 31, 2008
Boredoms vs Cai Guo-Chiang Explosion Japanese noise / punk / kraut / space / future rockers Boredoms played last night at Terminal 5, and it was absolutely amazing. I wrote about their (also absolutely amazing) 77BOADRUM event in these pages this summer, but I think it's worthy to write about last night's concert because, well, every time they play is an...absolutely amazing and inspiring event. Terminal 5 is a well-designed space, and the non-ground floors offer plenty of front-row rail access good for leaning over and catching the action below from. But the spectacle last night pushed Terminal 5's (considerable) capacity to its limits. Every floor was packed, and I stretched nudge muscles I didn't know I had trying to get a direct line of sight to see the band below. Every Boredoms concert is an explosive exploration of ideas in music, with lead Bore EYE literally turning everything we know about song structure inside out and puking it up in a perfectly-orchestrated space of time. The sound itself is an exercise of controlled and beautiful explosions: at the beginning of each performance, Eye summons some sort of powerful otherworldy being into existence on the stage via two glowing orbs that he swings around in the midst of ecstatic shouts and song, creating miraculously glitchy lightning crashes. Three drummers pound away cyclic and ever-changing rhythms that build and collapse on themselves, only to reveal more complex rhythms that you're surprised you didn't heard before. The centerpiece of Boredoms' round stage is a disembowelment and re-construction of 7 purple guitars called the Sevena, built by Boredoms "sub-member" and DMBQ guy Masuko. Eye treats it as a percussion instrument, hitting it with a broomstick, using such force that it must be anchored in place by a steel crossbeam and two assistants to make sure the fucking thing doesn't topple over in the course of the performance. Eye makes it his business to play the perfectly-tuned (and re-tuned, and re-tuned) strings off of the instrument, and when they finally walked off the stage, only a few strings remained - all but destroying the Sevena in the process. A few minutes into the set as I watched Eye spazz out across the stage, I noticed - this guy is in a motherfucking CAST. After seeing that, in a move I'll probably regret later, I took my earplugs OUT towards the end of the show to experience what was going on in a more direct manner. I didn't need my eardrums anyway.
I was reminded more and more as the night went on of the Cai Guo-Chiang exhibit currently on display at the Guggenheim.
Photo: pocketmonsterd Continue reading "Boredoms vs Cai Guo-Chiang Explosion" » Posted by Trent on March 31, 2008 at 03:31 PM in Art, Audio Mysteries, Current Affairs, Music, New York City | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (1) Tweet This! |
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