Category Archives: music

Over the weekend I built this kit that I ordered from Bleep Labs, in Austin. It is the Nebulophone, a little synthesizer.

Having never soldered before, I did this skateboarder style — meaning that I bought a soldering iron, some solder, watched a youtube video on how to solder and then learned by doing it on this kit. That’s right. I didn’t even try the soldering thing out on some junk first. How dumb was that?  Turns out that while it may have been dumb, I still managed to do a pretty good job of soldering the fairly tiny connections.

I have always enjoyed doing stuff like this. I built a lot of models when I was a kid, and yes, I painted lots of miniatures for D&D. So I like doing detail work of this sort. My eyes are not so good anymore, which makes this a bit challenging. BUT, with a little squinting and a lot of light I had success. Turned it on and it made lots of cool noises.

The Nebulophone does not have its own speaker. I plugged it into my Kaoss Pad KP3, which goes to my headphones and/or amp. For a $55 kit, this thing has a lot of functionality. For one thing, you can record 32 notes into its sequencer than play it back a varying speeds. Cool. Really just scratched the surface on Day 1 with this synth. Really fun to team it up with the KP3 effects and loops though.

Think all those gnarly synth sounds in the early DEVO albums. That’s what this synth is good at producing.

For more info on the gadget and it’s powers, click here.

20131202-112802.jpg

Electronic Music Goal

1 Reply

I’ve been fiddling around with electronic music for a while now. I’m working to do some collaborative stuff with others who are into it, and also with a couple of real-life drummers.

My stuff so far is here.

While I enjoy listening to a variety of electronic stuff, I’ve decided my goal is to make electronic music that is impossible to dance to. Make it interesting, geeky, and/or ugly. I hate seeing rooms full of drunk people dancing. Makes me want to sick.

Not that I’d ever be in such a situation. Just a point of reference.

Red Hare and the Shock Doctrine

Leave a reply

My wife and I made a trip to Good Records, in Dallas, this last Sunday and I purchased this album from Red Hare, from the Dischord label.

If you like Fugazi, and all that sorta Dischordy stuff, I highly recommend.

REDHARE_dis180_5_COVER12in_300rgb_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, over the last week I read the Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein. Whew – what a read. Really good. Just fascinating, infuriating, and super well-documented and researched. Like reading Noam Chomsky, except that it is actually readable (I love Chomsky, but his books are pretty much not my favorite to read).  Rather than hack together an inadequate review of the book, I will simply refer you to this page on Goodreads.com, with lots of comments.

One Day’s Playlist

Leave a reply

This is what I listened to at work on day a couple of weeks ago. I can see myself needing the bigger, oldschool iPod soon.

David Bowie – Starman
Led Zeppelin – Presence – the whole album
Mercyful Fate – the Oath
Pavement – Greenlander
the Big Boys – Self Contortion
John Coltrane – Giant Steps
Deep Snapper – Anchor Babies
Mux Mool – Brothers
Thom Yorke – ILUVYA
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Change of Heart
the Doors – Strange Days
Dinosaur Jr – Seemed like the thing to do
the Prevaricators – Jesus H. Falwell
Slayer – Cult
Willie Nelson – Pancho & Lefty
Wilco – Art of Almost
the Jam – David Watts
Massive Attack – Inertia Creeps
Primus – American Life
Yes – Roundabout
TokiMONSTA – Little Pleasures
Faultline – Awake
Dio – Holy Diver
Trembling Blue Stars – Ripples
Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures – whole album
Gary Numan – Telekon
Gary Numan – Remind me to smile
Billy Bragg – There is Power in a Union
Devo – Gates of Steel
+/- – Ill Advised
the Stratford 4 – Hydroplane
Tycho – the Daydream
Tycho – the Disconnect
Black Sabbath – Neon Nights
AC/DC – Shoot to Thrill

The Whole Album…

Leave a reply

…or at least a complete side.

That’s how you listen to music when you are listening on a turntable.

I’ve always loved putting on an album, laying on the floor, and listening to the whole thing. When you are listening to a nice vinyl LP you tend to listen to the whole side, because changing songs is a pain in the ass.

You can do that with a CD too, but the remote makes it real tempting to skip songs.

And of course, iPods and other mp3 players make listening to an entire album more unlikely. Too easy to hit the skip button. Hell, you may not even listen to an entire song. You don’t have to worry about scratching the album, or even the CD. The mp3 file is the new patron saint of the short attention span.

The problem with this is that sometimes the better songs, the ones with staying power, take time to grow on you. I think the best songs challenge you a bit. They don’t want to be your immediate new best friend. They want to spend some time with you, before you use and degrade them.

This weekend I’ve been listening to a lot of my old albums on vinyl. I’ve finally listened to the Big Boys reissue I ordered a couple of months ago. Today I went to an actual record store, with actual real physical records (Good Records) and picked up two authentic physical LPs – Fugazi’s 1993 “In on the Kill Taker” and Dinosaur Jr’s “Bug”.

Both sound fantastic, but what’s even better is I’ve heard the entirety of both albums. The Fugazi album came with a code for a free download of the mp3 from Dischord’s website, so it’s nice and easy to get it on my iPod. I wish the Dinosaur Jr. LP did the same thing. But having it on the LP is fine. I can deal.

You owe it to yourself to listen to the whole album from time to time. And if the album is good, you’re morally obligated to do so.