When the Sky is Full of 0′s and 1′s
• • • • •

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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download_mp3

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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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yup

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What the hell is this? well it was the score to my most recent release called organ.dump . I drew out the continual lines and added dots where each crossed over. I had no preconceived idea how I was going to interpret the score. I chose 5 lines because I was thinking about perfect fifths and chords (which dont need to have 5 notes but i kinda like chords with more than 3 notes in them). So I started to brainstorm and came up with the following 5 ideas:
1) each line represented a single note melody, if the line went up I would change the pitch up, down I would go down.
2) the rise and fall of the line would correspond to the high or low rocking of my wah pedal. I would pick 5 pitches at random
3) lines corresponded to the amount of feedback set on the tape delay. almost all the tracks were recorded through the tape delay
4) volume. lines would indicate the rise and fall of the volume of what ever note I was playing.
5) i dont remember now. oops
As you can see from the dates represented as the track titles, this took me almost a year to finally finish. No real reaason for the long delay other than I did kinda want to approach this with time to reflect inbetween.

Each track was recorded live and is 5 layers. I kinda wanted them all to be the same length but as there is no time signified on the score each time I sat down a new duration just happened.

I wanted to explore the sound of this chord organ . Gosh is it loud.

i have mentioned this a few times, but damit i love the internet, and more specifically twitter. through the links/tweets/RT etc I somehow meet Samuel (@le_berger on twitter ) and loved his work . a terrific sense of space and density. in the middle of last week he asked for the files of my practice.dump and a few days after he uploaded this

his remix really opens up the track. adds so much air to it and makes it even more fragile then it was originally. I feel that his ear really comes across on this mix, tweaking frequencies to shift the piece into new space.

its also a reminder to me that its worth putting something out there. this release is really just a bunch of practicing around in preparation for the show i did in February. so its nice to see/hear that other people enjoy it (i think its been downloaded a few times and I even sold a digital copy or 2. )

i welcome any and all other remixes, of this or anything on my bandcamp site. even the sketches I upload to this blog. its all free game. just send me a link and make sure its credited in some way.

thanks internet (and Sam!) you’re awesome

setup: the suitcase (mu-tron wah/val – digi whammy – all those delays/mxr phase 100/ modded boss DS-1/line 6 dl4) with one line out to the old fender silver face twin reverb.
SG tuned to CGDcbe (low to high, I have been playing with this tuning most of the year )

alan just had a microphone straight into the PA. we put each speaker at either end and did our best to angle them toward the audience so that they got a decent mix of both.

the problem (and I knew this going into it) is that the human voice and the guitar occupy much of the same frequency range. so at times both were lost in the mud i think. i heard from friends afterward that overall it was not that much of a problem, that it only happened a couple times. i did try to alleviate this problem using the octave up or octave down on the whammy pedal. the only problem there was that I couldn’t hear my amp very well and that the lower frequencies were hard to hear from where I was.

being with out the laptop meant that all looping was happening on the line 6. this meant no picking new starting stopping points without destroying all sound that was there. being that I had to hold up the ambient backing i couldn’t afford to just kill all the loops. so I had to start to plan way ahead. play licks or swells like a minute so ahead so that when the older loops finally faded out the piece could move a bit. not having an immediate auditory feedback on what I was doing with my hands kinda forced me into a trance state. i had to focus on what I think was going to happen. it helps that I really knew the tuning i was using well and I have a feel for how each pedal works in the line-up. it also forced me to go slow, which is a problem I have struggled with while performing live for a number of years.

i wanted to try and ebb and flow with Alan’s words but I think it worked as a slow build-up. I might have gotten to maximum volume to early in each monologue so hopefully it just didnt sound like and overloaded amp just blaring away.

There was video and audio taken. my friend took some and I did too. my project for this up coming week is to sync the audio i grabbed w/ the video I took (which also has audio but not as good). I haven’t done that before, hopefully its not hard. we’ll see.

had to set up the rhodes for a different project. recorded a short sample to test out thing and started to get lost playing around with it in Live. enjoy

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actually its the 18th now. oh well. time for bed but I had to get this recorded before i forgot about it. night night

download

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enjoy

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20110804.aif.mp3

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i am terrible at this whole real world networking thing. as such i have basically given up the idea of really playing out ever.

for one i just dont have the time. i get up at 5am. home sometimes around 7:30pm (and i still haven’t eaten dinner yet!). so while you all are meeting up for “after work drinks” at 5pm..i am still on a fucking train home. then the gym (because i want to attempt some semblance of being in shape).
then there are shows that kcat and i go to. usually “rock” or “folk” or something of that ilk because that is what we both like. we like to do things together. on nights we dont have shows its nice to spend time doing other fun things (watching movies, listenting to records).
so trying to hit some small house show, or some certain night of the month when a experimental show is happening is very difficult. places that have ambient/exp shows once a month almost always coincide with some other show we already have plans to see. and this loft/house shows are just way to stressful (4 sometimes 5 bands, no real hurry to get shit done because most of the attendants dont have to get up for work at 5am!)
but this job is what allows me to afford to buy the things I use to create the music i do.
oh well.
how can i expect benefit from a community if i cant take part in it. so i wont. going forward i will not be sad i play only one show a year. and i probably wont really try to play any more shows. there are musicians that are working much harder to build a community and they should get those benefits. they deserve them. i dont.

listened to too much modular synth this weekend at neon marshmallow fest and this is what happens.

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2 new things appropriate for this blog. one a quick doodle with this new bent keyboard that i bought at the electronic garage sale this weekend. it was bent by michael una

the other is just solo guitar noodling. peaceful for this warm sticky chicago night. i had picked up the guitar to add something to the keyboard piece but instead this came out.

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i had been holding onto this release for a few months. i sneaked out a few early mixes here and here but my original idea was to release the live recording of this show and have these 4 tracks as download only bonuses. I (stupidly) forgot to record this show. There are a few recordings floating around but I haven’t been able to get my hands on one yet. I didnt want to let any more time pass. If i ever get a hold of the live recording I will just post it on my bandcamp as a free (not even a pay what you want, but a free free) download.

yeah so each of these tracks comes from a practice I did in preparation for the show. in some way they explore the ideas i wanted to play with at the live show. from my foggy recollection the live set was not nearly this structured or smooth. but that is half the fun of playing live. you will notice (maybe?) a few melody lines or motifs that reoccur in a few of these mixes. that is mostly due to that fact that I was interested in using one tuning for this show, which happened to be CGDGbd. I found a few new patterns that I liked and used them a lot in practice in the hope I would remember them on the night of the show. (you and I both will have to wait for the recording to see if I did..i cant remember)

so again this release follows in line with the last. a limited palate (as dictated by my “practicing” and by the tuning I wanted to focus on) one of the main focuses of this show was that I wouldn’t try to play pieces where I did to much all at once and to quickly. after the coachhouse sounds set kirstie and discussed that i just tried to do too much. during these practices i tried to focus on one idea or sound per-practice. it kinda comes through in the mix of each track. I could go back and remix these all over again, maybe even focusing and honing down each piece more (i even think that the 2 mixes I posted earlier are slightly different than what I ended up using on the final release) but at some point I need to put out something you may or may not want to hear.

i tweeted 1 tweet about this and i will quote it again here

i like bits of it..maybe you will too