When the Sky is Full of 0′s and 1′s
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bleepy bleepy fart music

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download the MP3 if you like. enjoy

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from that Disquiet Junto set last thurs.

download my section or play it in the player below

or go here and listen to the whole 2hrs of performances from a lot of my friends. it was a great night. pretend you were there.

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last night Marc Weidenbaum ( @disquiet on twitter and founder of disquiet.com) gathered together 7 musicians in chicago. what we had in common ? we had all participated in the weekly #junto assignments to some degree. (for more info on the weekly #junto see the soundcloud group ). this provided a wide range of particpants; abstract sound/noise artists, drone musicians, and electro-pop producers. but it worked. and everyone was super nice, friendly and just top notch performers (i knew some of the performers (josh @stringbot /jon @xyr_kx /aroon @naxuu ) but for example I had heard Jason Soliday’s name a lot (who is also part currator of the Enemy space) ..i was super nervous to actually meet him..and it turns out..he is a super nice dude( and was at my Saki gig back in december..i had no idea!) so was basically everyone i meet that i didnt know before. Michael Esposito has records on Touch and has done extensive research on EVP! and was a just the sweetest guy.

it goes w/o saying that it was really great to meet Marc. I had heard his voice a little while back though an interview he posted but actually seeing him and talking inperson was neat. i will not only continue to read his tweets with his voice but now add his face and body expressions.

so yes. i was super comfortable with the ppl and the space (enemy has a pretty nice PA and the room itself has a pretty solid sound.)

knowing i would play a pretty short set i setup 6 tracks in abelton each with different VST’s already set. i color coded them to remind me “oh yes this is the one w/ all the delays” or “this one has the beat repeat” or “auto filter”. i left 3 blank just to have some space to put only pedal effected sounds. surprisingly mic’ing the glass while sitting directly infront of the PA did not result in any feedback. actually the sound quality was pretty amazing. i was able to get some nice ringing sounds. i focused on looping w/ the line6 first and then recording into abelton. i think this helped the set sound more seamless and cut down on akward silences and glitches. i practiced this glass harp peice one time the night before the show (i had also practiced it a number of times the week it was the assignment.) and changed the set-up slightly from that practice. i changed to the DI inputs on my mbox instead of the MIC input. since the singing glass wasn’t very loud i just made sure to boost the signal at a few points in the signal chain. using the tape echo as a pre-amp and turning up the gain on the space echo pedal and t-rex replica i got a decent sound. adding melody using the whammy pedal and beats with the auto-filter in abelton worked well.

switching to guitar for the second piece I made sure to pad the inputs and set all the pedals back to neutral gain. the only time i started clipping was during some of the bass swells which happened in soundcheck too. still sounded good and i was able to correct it with very little disruption to the set.

i feel like i may say this everytime but i think this was the most relaxed I’ve felt playing a show ever. i want to atribute it to knowing a lot of the audience but then again i usally do and i was probably equaly excited/nervous to play Enemy and play with some ppl that I have really admired from a far for a while. I think I have to admit that i am finally comfortable with my setup. I also have really worked hard these past few months on live sets that a simple and focused. I’ve also now spent well over a year working in the same tuning (DGdgbe low-high) and the past month with the partial capo. its a tuning that seems to lend it self to drone really well. aslo i have spent a lot of time thinking about layers of frequency and focusing on that to really expand the guitar. pitch shifting with the whammy or in abelton to reach registers that the guitar normally doesnt hit. i see/hear a lot of guitar based drone/ambient and i really want to try and carve out a new sound or a fuller sound like mike shiflet or david daniell.

oh lastly i want to comment on the response. i had a number of ppl (friends that i knew and just ppl that were there) that said it sounded really great. even friends that are not typically into ambient/drone enjoyed it. but i think the most interesting comment of the night was “you sounded really professional”. i am not sure what he meant by that exactly. i dont know if it was because i looked calm/focused or that maybe i am really doing well at conveying my idea of a piece over the length of the set. sometimes i worry that my ideas and structure are getting stale but maybe its more that they are getting refined. either way it was really nice to hear. the whole night was just great all around. rarely do i play out and even rarer that its with so many other friends on the bill. A+ lets do it again sometime friends.

now with video of the glass harmonica piece (thanks @sadlypanda )

demo idea for next CDR. all acoustic guitar

download here

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alternate attempt at this weeks @disquiet #jutno

download here

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i saw crocodiles and bleeding rainbow tonight at schubas. they were great. it was as short set. we got home by 1:15ish. i poured kirstiecat and myself some beer. this beer ..its much more like a black IPA than a stout. she was not a fan. i had to drink the whoel 720ml bottle. i placed the ebow on my crappy squire strat and played ~40min of music. here it is. a “live” set as it were. since i dont get to play any real shows. like at venues and stuff. fuck the haters.

download that shit here

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#harsh #noise

download the mp3

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as in bonus. as in burst of creativity. as in bollocks

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acoustic. simple. enjoy

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Lunar Abyss is putting together a tape compilation called “HOME-LO-END” and asked me to contribute. this is what I sent them. I hope they like it. Oh the tape label is in russia. so thats pretty cool.

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so i am sitting here with a bit of cheap scotch and processing the video that kirstie took of my set tonight. its rare that i get time this close to a show to write about my feelings. usually its a few days before i can sit down and think back. although its also rare that I do something right after a show. with this set being done by 8pm me and a few friends got dinner/drinks afterward. it was really tough not to just pester them about every aspect of the set i just did. i refrained to the best of my abilities and only asked about 3 times.

i also said to Patrick that “feel really bad making people leave their house” which he thought was the most self deprecating thing a musician has said. but i meant it in the sense that i really want to make it worth people leaving their house for. i went into this show with a lot of trepidation. i was really grateful that Patrick and Erin and Adam at saki were will and enthusiastic about my proposal (which basically stemmed from a tweet i cant find now). i had just finished uploading this sun video and soundtrack and though how i would love to do a quasi surroundsound setup live to that video.

It made sense that there be another band playing and i was excited that not only did steve agree that solar fox could come out (i dont think they play shows often/ever ..i only know them from the coach house sounds session they did a bit after mine. coincidentally steve had always wanted solar fox to soundtrack the stars so i agreed to make them a collage of stars/plants/galaxy’s for their set to. (i hope to upload that with the audio from their set soon, with steve’s approval).

i was most nervous because the soundtrack is mostly the monotron and my laptop running the 16-multitap delays in plogue bidule. basically me poking at a small black box on my lap. kinda lame visually and not completely what i wanted to display in public. with solar fox prepping for a 20min set and my original edit of the video only 8 minutes i decided to expand a bit. I added another 12 minutes to the video (which will be uploaded w/ the audio track from tonight hopefully UPDATED: SEE FULL VIDEO BELOW) and decided to bring the guitar. to achieve the the pseudo surround sound i split the signal, one side going to the laptop (which was direct to the PA) and the other side going to the looping pedal and out to the rear guitar amps.

people stood around the outside of the space which was not really the point but i think it still worked. basically the whole space filled with sound. and a good range of sound. the laptop to pa had a good drone while the amps picked up my melody (if you can call it that). since I extended the video and i was basically using the plogue bidule scheme that I wrote for “requiem” I had the guitar plugged in and switched to it at about the half way point. it felt like i was on guitar longer. being that it was requiem for the second half i have to acknowledge a tribute. this time its “requiem for spooky boo” who was our first cat. he passed away in late august. (past requiem performances have been dedicated to lee hazelwood, and trish keenan of broadcast because they both meant a lot to me)

saki store is a great space. a very open and airy record store. all the people I interacted with were amazingly kind and helpful. everyone had nice things to say after the set which is always good to hear. i was assured that it wasnt too loud or unbalanced (i worried that the laptop/pa was not loud enough but I think it was just that were i was sitting the larger guitar amp was pointed more right at me). friends like the synthy analog part equally to the guitar half which was also nice. good to know that as long as there is some kind of visual ppl dont mind that you are a dude with a black box and a laptop.

i think ppl dug both the videos. i am working on more silly video collages using public domain stuff. i like it and it does help to have a different narrative. and maybe more shows.

more reflections. Tim Ferguson from red plastic budha came. i dont know how! i went to a show of theirs a few years back that that put together for the high dials. i think i also saw them one time before that show. they are a really neat psychedelic band from chicago. i was really happy to say “hi” to him. we chatted a bit about my setup but with all the chaos after the set (tearing stuff down, making sure i had everything) i ended a conversation with him before it was really done and then he was gone.

a few friends came that are not typical noise/drone fans that said afterward they really enjoyed the set. i think the visuals really helped.

i talked to a few friends tonight at a party and they concurred that the visuals helped.

here is the visual

here is the audio for you to download (mp3)
ogg (for those inclined)

Here is video that kirstie took. yes its sideways for a bit. oh well.

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i got a new toy. guess..

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testing.

disintegrate ogg
disintegrate mp3

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I randomly tweeted and was answered. Saki has agreed to let me project a longer edit of this . I will set up my amps and their PA in the 4 corners of their performance space and recreate the sound track live with monotron (small synth)/ guitar and laptop processing. expect about 12-15 minutes of DRONE.

Also Steve Krakow (YES PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE HIMSELF!) is going to bring his awesome new ambient project SOLAR FOX. This is a duo of him on guitar and Libby on keyboards. They did a session for Coachhouse Sounds a little bit after I did and i fell in love. listen here
They will also play to the visuals of stars and outer space (what ever I can find between now and 12/16).

We are going to try to start around 6/6:30pm. Should be a nice, fun and low key early evening. We have to finish up by the time the shop closes at 8pm. So plenty early if you have another show to get to.
Saki is located here

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It would be great to see you!

sketches for…

now go to sleep already

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[jwplayer file="http://cinchel.com/opentape/opentape/songs/20111116.mp3"]

goodnight

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the over saturated sound is a mix of redline the space echo and possible having one of the tubes in my fender twin completely blown.
enjoy

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