Southwards And Back

Well, whaddya know- Something post-appropriate happened. I went to Sao Paulo with JH to play at SESC there (apparently there are SESC venues all around the country but they're not all as nice as the one we played at), which we did. Twice. What follows is the photographic evidence. Longtime readers of this "blog" may notice a familiar face; That of my dear friend Hu (whom I'd never actually met in person until now.) She graciously showed us around town a bit and was generally awesome. Conclusion: I had a great time and Brazil is fascinating. And they know food and drink.

 

This is a quick pan around the city from the patio at the SESC cafe. It gives some sense of how big SP actually is- It's sprawling.

 

Note the statues on the tops of the buildings- They look alarmingly like someone getting ready to jump, but when you realize they're on all the surrounding buildings it's pretty interesting.

They have book dispensers in the subway, apparently.

Breaded meat. Loveliness.

Indescribably wonderful, yet non-alcoholic.

We've all been pronouncing it wrong- It's "gua-ra-NA."

Guava-paste pie and ice cream. One of the single best taste experiences I've ever had, hands-down.

Hu's "salad bar" choices at Rascal. Fantastic.

 

Jamie photographs the stage. We document everything, always.

The beginning of lunch at Bar da Dona Onça.

Hu's choices for me at Rascal. I went through this plate so fast even I was shocked.

Hu laughs at my novelty-sized pout.

From my Ramada Inn 10th floor balcony

Subway art (of which there is a lot in SP.)

More SP subway

Even more SP subway

Still more SP subway

We'd just got in and I was predictably tired but happy to be there.

Yes, I'm ending the photos, appropriately enough, with dessert. Trite? Yes, but just look at it.

Has it really been this long?

Yup, it sure has been ages. This was an unusual year in the context of the last 10 - I won't get deeply into why, since that's not important and besides, who cares. What IS important is, I have a new place and a studio room with a view for a change! Though the photo doesn't really show it, I have a nice city view and this makes me happy.

What's going on currently: Still cranking on the Seekret iPad Projekt™ with the guys, though it's recently kicked into higher gear with the additional of another talented contributor, which is very exciting. I'm also finishing music with Sussan Deyhim and starting music with Anton Sanko. Sussan and I have a great working relationship, and I did some parts on her cover of Dylan's "All I Really Want To Do" for an Amnesty International album of Dylan covers by some famous people a few months ago. Got some new software tools, but sad to report that yet again, nothing's as exciting as The 'Clav. Seeing as my hatred for bad interface design (as personified mainly by The Monome) has abated not at all, I figured I may do one last rant on the subject before I vow to give it a rest. Must exorcise those demons in an appropriately articulate way, so if you're a fan of that sort of thing, stay tuned.

Other than all that, I am getting over being sick for nearly a month-
The combined stress of moving house and building my new studio, plus a particularly virulent strain of whatever it is that's going around at the moment, pretty much laid me out for weeks on end.
It's nearly gone, but wow. This was the longest I can recall being sick pretty much ever. Not recommended.

Son Of "On The Radar Currently"

Way back a few years ago when I started this...whatever this is, I posted a collection of things that were on my radar at that moment. I suppose this is pure indulgence, but so be it. I think I may resurrect this practice, starting now.

...Pretty much the same pop culture profile as always, and some new instrumental obsession in there as well.

News scraps, endorsements and secret goings-on

Current/recent:

I played on the score to a film called The Lincoln Lawyer- It comes out 3/18/11 in North America. The composer was Cliff Martinez, who's great to work with and makes really evocative music- I was a fan of his work on the Solaris remake and Traffic before we met. We worked together briefly once before, on a small documentary called Severe Clear, though on that project I provided textures via the internet rather than in-person sessions. I contributed processed guitar to the score.

I also played on one of the last episodes of the TV series "Big Love", which I've worked on in the past (as followers of this blog may know) and is just about to reach the end of its run. It was one of the first times I've used my new electric upright bass on a session, and we got some very good stuff.
 
I'd like to do something I pretty much never do here: Mention (endorse?) a specific product. I'm a big user of Alessandro Petrolati's Density 2; It's a gem. There, I said it.

Vague references to exciting things:

There is a very interesting new musical collaboration in the offing at the moment, but I don't want to get more specific than that just now...Suffice it to say that something great is very likely to result if this situation materializes the way it seems to be. More later.

On another front, I'm designing an iPad app that is being coded and implemented by a small group of very accomplished, talented friends. It's a recording tool which I hope will help facilitate the creative process for a lot of musicians. Details as we get closer to the release date.

Last thing I'll mention for now,

Jon Hassell's "Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street" (ECM 2077) was recently released in Europe as a double album on 180-gram audiophile vinyl. I think it may be destined for wider worldwide release as well. As I mentioned when the original CD was released awhile back, I'm proud of this record and the added bonus of seeing it in my favorite format is a nice development.

The new guy

Sufficiently awesome. Must live up to challenge presented by pricey wooden/carbon fiber object.

Meaning-Object

From deep in my past, this radiates significance in a way that I can't touch directly...Sadly, this is not a photo of something I own, but rather something I very much want to own, and it seems that is no longer possible. At this late date it would be more an exercise in nostalgia-pursuit than anything more practical, but I don't care.

Capture-riffic

Better living through technology.

I see...

The Horror, The Horror

After this many of these, it really _is_ like Groundhog Day, except with a lot more blood. Surprisingly, still creatively fun.

Goings-on

...somewhere between what was, what is and what will be soon enough.

"...Since this is an exceptionally bad case of 'old'..."

My Mirage better appreciate the effort it took to get this SE/30's RAM upgraded to a whopping 32mb, PRAM battery changed, HD replaced, System 7.5.3 and Sound Designer Universal installed, just so I can send tiny samples down to it. That's all I have to say.

Mmmmmm, functional

Normally I'd put this in the "who the hell cares?" column, but after searching for an accurately-tracking bass octave divider pedal recently, I came to the rather shocking realization that there appears to be only one on the market currently, despite the fact that this tech has been around for decades at this point. Worth the dosh, this MXR is. Keith Barr originally founded MXR and went on to develop some great things for Alesis in their early days (namely the Midiverb and Midifex)...Even though Dunlop apparently owns the MXR name and products now, this thing lives up to the quality of their classic stuff.

Fail

I suppose if you're gonna have 3 important pieces of gear all fail at
once, it might as well be when you're in between projects, right?

Thank fucking god

It's a pretty barren landscape in the world of high-end hardware reverbs at the moment. Lexicon is now essentially Digitech, it's hard to get parts for a 480, the 960 and TC M6000 are out of production and almost nobody is stepping up to fill the vacuum, except these guys. This is the real, built and priced for professionals and it sounds fantastic.

Let me say this about that

I've always tried to look out for the possibility of new creative/collaborative situations where I saw the opportunity, the underlying idea being that if one can manage to produce some genuinely good work once in awhile, it will somehow balance out the uninspiring bullshit one has to put up with the other 98% of the time. It's a sad moment when your first thought of a potentially exciting collaborative circumstance is immediately quashed by the realization that the person you have in mind has, after many years, finally managed to piss you off to the degree that even your relentlessly idealistic desire to make something good can't overpower the weight of history any longer. It's a threshold I never thought anyone could really make me cross.

I know this isn't exactly a news flash, but it's true-
Humans are poorly designed.

Digital Flotsam

...I just finished a significant amount of work. Now to send it where it's going and start the next chapter of things. In the meantime, it's time for (you guessed it) another narrowly-targeted technology mini-ramble.

It's interesting when random technological detritus from the "obsolete" pile of history can be repurposed in a modern context. Case in point:

Please find enclosed one Oberheim Systemizer. An obscure MIDI box from the late 80s, it allowed an entire studio full of MIDI instruments to be marshaled conveniently and powerfully under the control of one MIDI controller, no matter how unsophisticated that controller was. For up to 16 MIDI instruments you could layer, create keyboard splits, positional and velocity and aftertouch crossfades, as well as a host of other musically powerful functions such as having each successive note you played be sent to a different instrument, just to name one example.

These devices never really caught on at the time- While undeniably powerful, their cryptic programming method (via a cheap two-digit LED display that was common at the time for low-end MIDI devices) and dubious plastic hardware neither won friends nor influenced people. However, this quirky little box has proven interestingly useful lately when brought into the modern world of software instruments- It allows for some fascinating and unpredictable sonic possibilities, and cost precisely $40 on Craigslist. And interestingly, there is no readily available way to achieve the Systemizer's functionality these days without a significant amount of custom programming, which results in a certain potential for interest and uniqueness. Everything old is new again (again.)

Soon the beast will live...

The saga continues.

More is more.

...innit?

Good exists

You just have to wonder what Nikolais would do with today's tech.
Whatever the case, this is fantastic.

..oh.

In the center of this photo is my friend Huanita, surrounded by a few of her friends.They live in Rio- This was taken on the beach at 7am or thereabouts. What does this have to do with anything? Strictly speaking, nothing...but as I've been living the vampire nocturnal ivory tower existence lately, the sheer "otherness" compared to my current day-to-day almost shocked me somehow. Her smile speaks volumes. Apparently they had me in mind (I'm told) when this was taken. Hu, if you're reading this, thanks for the window into an alternate reality.

The future of the past is getting scary

Depending on how long you've been reading this...whatever-this-is, you may or may not know that I tend to collect vintage gear which gets used heavily in my work. Unfortunately, it is becoming harder and more expensive to keep some of this stuff running these days due to a combination of parts becoming scarce and/or obsolete, lack of skilled techs around who are versed in the care and feeding of these devices and a number of other factors. It's on the verge of becoming a crisis now though, and there are a lot of people using a handful of industry-standard "staple" pieces for which this situation is the case. Strange as it may seem, as advanced as modern software has become lately, the sound of these older hardware machines (from the 80s and beyond) simply hasn't been replicated by plug-ins, at least not yet. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, but for the moment it looks a bit grim.

Shameless, outdated self-promotion

I really, _really_ hate it when people use things like Facebook status updates to promote themselves. Wake up, idiots! It's not your website, and people aren't going there specifically to hear about your little career moments, so why annoy everyone? This blog, however, _is_ mine, it's about me and particularly since I never use it to "promote" anything, I figure an occasional me-related link falls firmly within the realm of the appropriate for a forum such at this.

This is old - from earlier this year - but I figured what the hell. The print edition was scarce (ironic, since I wrote for this mag for years and never had trouble finding it on newsstands until I'm finally in the damn thing), so for anyone that missed it and is interested, here you go.

Hit it

Laurie

Electronic music is a bit like sci-fi; The good seems modern forever, while the bad becomes laughable in a cruelly short time. So in keeping with the general intent of this "blog" (ick), here's a reminder of someone doing some great things over 30 years ago on a then-experimental instrument that still sounds fantastic. Watch the performance clip, then the interview- Laurie Spiegel is a thoughtful, articulate speaker and she crystallizes some important aspects of computer music that are still relevant today, 25 years on.

Performance

Interview

Yes, another obso-elite post

This was 16Mb of RAM. Actually, it still is- It's just that this sort of thing has gotten rather considerably smaller in the past 25 years, not to mention cheaper. Still, a fine example of brute-force, macho problem-solving of yesteryear.

How The Mighty Have Fallen

This is a 16-track digital recorder. It weighs hundreds of pounds, is over 5 feet tall and requires its own dedicated power and cooling. It cost over $100,000 in the early 90s. Nowadays, its functions can be eclipsed by your average PC from Best Buy (though admittedly not with the same stellar sound quality), rendering it worthless to pretty much anyone except obsessive eccentrics. Like me. I nearly herniated my entire body moving it.

Speaking of Awesomeness That's Back...

Wal basses are back as well. Fuck yeah. It's rare that anyone bothers or even knows how to make The Real Shit these days, and even rarer that it comes back after going away. Super turbo.

Awesome.

Looks like reports of the SX-70's demise were greatly exaggerated.
These guys seem to have succeeded, at least for now. Click...

Tinkering

Ahhh, surplus electronics. I found an Ensoniq Mirage - an ancient low-fi sampler from about 1985- at a local electronics graveyard for $15, dead. An easy fix and some internet-ordered OS disks later, and I soon had a charmingly grainy, wonderfully limited machine sitting atop my considerably more expensive but equally-ancient Synclavier (see previous post.) The Mirage worked as it should, but I decided to do a mod which would allow it to have multiple outputs, since it was originally a mono-out machine. Several hours, a trip to an electronics shop and a lot of solder connections later, it works; I now have fake stereo! This basically means that the machine's 8 voices will randomly appear on either of between two and eight outputs, depending on what kind of multi-pin connectors I feel like wiring up, which adds A LOT to its usefulness. So while I'm only using the two-output ("stereo") version at the moment, it's a vast improvement. An added bonus of this mod is that it bypasses the Mirage's noisy output summing and taps directly off its eight CEM filter chips, which dramatically reduces the hiss level.

Encouraging.
I'll probably do this mod next.

Photos: Mirage atop Synclavier, Mirage multi-output mod detail.

Profoundly Quaint or Quaintly Profound?

Behold. Astronomically expensive in days of old, this instrument is a gloriously anachronistic testament to an era when men were men and 8-bit FM/Additive Synthesizers were 8-bit FM/Additive Synthesizers. It doesn't get more "base model", primitive or tragically beautiful than a 16-voice Synclav with no sampling or hard disk recording. Totally uncompromising design, great interface, the Big Dog of its time. They don't, wouldn't and simply couldn't afford to make 'em like this anymore.