Digging through my old college journals, I found a series of drawings that I did where I claimed to have invented
new types of musical instruments.
Later in the day, I ended up completely taking apart an old trumpet and reforging it into a messed up looking bugle-thing.
I’m writing on behalf of Hollow Earth Radio (www.hollowearthradio.org) – a nonprofit online radio station my partner Amber & I started 3 years ago in our humble basement. Since that time, we’ve amassed a huge group of amazing volunteers, continued to create excellent weird radio, and recently scored the opportunity to move out of our house and into a new PUBLIC SPACE in Seattle’s Central District! That’s why we need your help!
We put together a website to solicit funds here: http://kck.st/crsTUU There are some excellent ‘rewards’ for donating at different levels and it’s even TAX DEDUCTIBLE. Whoa.
Already we’ve made enough to pay for our simple construction costs, but we are really hoping to reach our goal of $5,500 to help us pay for things like … oh I don’t know …. “rent”. We’d also love to upgrade our existing infrastructure.
Can you help us out? Here is a link directly to the site to donate: http://kck.st/crsTUU
We only have 48 hours left! Can you pledge?
$3500 = New space
WE DID IT!! THANKS SO MUCH!!
TWO DAYS LEFT @ http://kck.st/crsTUU
YOU CAN STILL PLEDGE!!!
More $$$ = MUCH NEEDED NEW COMPUTER SETUP
New teenage subculture – Teen Wolves!
I want a wolf tail like… pronto.
This is seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen –
I’m wondering if any of these feelings are expressed in a musical context?
There’s gotta be bands out there sporting this aesthetic and howling into a microphone on all fours!
Anima
“The anima and animus are described by Jung as elements of his theory of the collective unconscious, a domain of the unconscious that transcends the personal psyche. In the unconscious of the male, it finds expression as a feminine inner personality: anima. Because sensitivity is often repressed, the anima is one of the most significant autonomous complexes of all. It manifests itself by appearing as figures in dreams as well as by influencing a man’s interactions with women and his attitudes toward them, and vice versa for females and the animus. Jung said that confronting one’s shadow self is an “apprentice-piece,” while confronting one’s fears is the masterpiece. Jung viewed the anima process as being one of the sources of creative ability.” – Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus
Anita
Sanskrit name means without guile; leader.
March 31st, 2005 – Dream
Anita and the Orb
Recently I had a somewhat ufo-ish dream which probably has a lot to do with all the John Keel I’ve been reading. In the dream I was outside, laying on a dingy couch in a yellowing field by a farmhouse. I was with this girl named Anita, who I don’t know – although she reminded me of a friend named She-ra.
In no time, this strange orb appeared in the sky, it was shaped kind of like a soap bubble. Translucent and green and pink – and hovering above us. I instantly wanted to bolt for the house but since Anita didn’t move I stayed hypnotized by the object. It came up close to us and I could see inside the orb that it was full of gears that were also translucent, but were turning and working inside.
Then a light shone out of the object and started scanning us, starting with Anita’s body and then coming to my face. When the light hit my eyes, the stars around me turned into lines like I was warping forward into space.
You all know what I’m talking about here – like when Rick Moranis chases Lonestar in Spaceballs?
And they get up all the way to Ludacrious speed and make a plaid trail? Anyways, I was shot forward into space, then traveled backwards the same way, returned to my seat on the couch. No time had gone by and the light continued to scan right past me. It hit my eyes again, and the same warping process happened. But the next time I returned to my seat, the object was gone and Anita was asleep next to me and I shook her trying to wake her up. I don’t know who this Anita is, but my mom knows a woman who lives up here in Seattle by that name and she had recently told me to contact her.
May 8, 2010 – Dream
I am just getting done playing a concert in a lively bar in Seattle. An older woman walks up to me and says “That was a fantastic performance, I’m surprised I haven’t caught you before. I’m Anita Wang”. She reaches out and shakes my hand. Some folks around me, music community people that I know in Seattle are surprised we have not be introduced before and indicate to me that we should talk more. I have the feeling this Anita person is someone who could help my music career in some way. However, the bar starts to get noisy and we pantomime that we’ll talk later when it’s not so loud.
Just learning about this piece of music that will be performed in Seattle in May. It’s not a particular long piece of written music, however, it’s apparently supposed to be played 840 times in succession; to actually perform it could take anywhere from 18-24 hours. In an article about the piece I found this quote which I thought was interesting to think about in relation to current ‘noise’ music:
The repetitive nature of the piece raises fundamental aesthetic questions, in particular about the function of boredom in art. “Boredom was mysterious and profound” for Satie. But it was also an effective way of mystifying and irritating the bourgeoisie, as Satie suggests in Sports et Divertissements [1914], which opens with a Chorale into which “I have put all I know about Boredom. I dedicate it to those who don’t like me.”
Also, this bit about how the piece was written was particularly interesting as well:
Satie’s carefully crafted ‘illogicality’ removes all association, expressive or otherwise, from harmonies which, taken individually, are mostly commonplace: familiar chords seem strangely unfamiliar. Stripped of conventional meaning by the context, a series of simple triads becomes a vehicle for spiritual revelation. Important to the concept of Vexations is the relationship between the repetitive form of the piece and the forgettable nature of its material. Vexations lingers in the memory as a vague impression, the details effaced as soon as heard: it is difficult to imagine anyone walking home whistling the ‘tune’ after a performance. Perhaps it is only because the music is almost literally self-effacing that extended repetition becomes tolerable. Above all, it must not be ‘interesting’; it must not draw attention to itself as music, otherwise the listener – or performer – might attempt to discover meaning, expression, thematic development or any of the other qualities which the intellect is accustomed to seek in music.
-From: Serious Immobilities:
On the centenary of Erik Satie’s Vexations
You’ll note in the video how John Cale says he hasn’t memorized the piece although he has played it hundreds of times. The one participant who sat through the entire performance could not even hum a piece of the tune back.
Also, here is a a note exchange between two players of the piece who communicated via a piece of paper while the other played: Vexations and its Performers
I’m in a new noise band called “My Printer Broke,” and I have a bunch of free music you can download here: myprinterbroke.com
Last night we had a performance at New Crompton which was our first experiment to improvise music using chatroulette.com as a springboard. The whole night had chatroulette going for all the other bands but once we took the stage the internet cut out. Ah well, we’re doing it again on April 1st.The whole point is to be sort of a noisy version of this:
This kid thought we sucked.
Half-naked dude.I was flying a helicopter over the border into Iraq. These were the rules I knew: You fly directly over the border, turn right, and land in the American patrolled quadrant. Declare that you want to visit Iraq. I think because you had already crossed the border they had to allow you to go to the VISA office or something. Now that I think about it, there was a vague resemblance to the episode of LOST I watched the night before – where Sawyer has to row a boat to another island to do ‘Recon’.
So I am sent to the VISA office to stand in line. The room has tall cielings, checkered patterns and lots of brown. Outside I can see tan & heat. A lot of the people working behind the counters are women fully covered in hijab, but it’s more ornate than I have ever seen – exotic to its extreme, actually almost ‘alien’. I believe there is even a black woman who is wearing three sets of sunglasses and loose scarves.
Two german teenage travelers are standing behind me and I sort of cling to them because I start getting a little scared. I hadn’t really planned on what I was going to say or knew if I was following the proper procedure. The two german guys at least speak some english and tell me they are in Iraq to watch some American bands for the weekend. That idea calms me down a little bit thinking maybe the place is not as scary as I first imagined. When I get up to the counter I see that my uncle is working behind the counter. He quickly snatches me away from the woman who was going to help me, but he does not exchange any words with me about the fact that he is my uncle. I can tell he wants to pretend we don’t know eachother. He asks me a few questions and fills out my paperwork. He hands it to me and I notice two female guards watching the door leading back to the US base. He tells me that this is my formal paperwork. I squint and try to read the writing but it’s very poorly written – I can’t tell if that is partly on purpose. I remember that at least one of the declarations on the paperwork said that if needed I could ‘bake bread for troops’. My feeling is that the list of things on the paper include skills I have that could be eventually used by the Iraqi military in case I was ever arrested or needed in a time of war while on a stay in Iraq. My impression was that it was just a formality of the Iraqi bureaucracy but would never be enforced. Although, I also felt like my my uncle was hiding the fact that I had other skills that the Iraqi military might immediately want. This would ensure me safe travel.
Still haven’t seen the movie, but ran prieur has some interesting observations:
“Did we conquer the Indians? When lefties say that Avatar purges white guilt, they are making several questionable assumptions: that we are white, that we feel guilty, and that white guilt is a good thing. This is an obsolete view of race. A more helpful view was pioneered in the zine and book Race Traitor: that “white” is a social class only loosely connected to pale skin, that thinking of ourselves as “white” makes us obedient to an unjust system, that the best thing “white” people can do is not to sit around feeling guilty for the crimes done in the name of whiteness, but to disown whiteness and take the other side. Every one of us has ancestors who lived more or less like the Na’vi, and who were violently conquered by disconnected, resource-extracting cultures. If we all stop identifying with those cultures, the whole game is over.
We did not conquer the Indians. The Babylonians, the Romans, the English, the Spaniards, the Americans conquered us… but not completely. The reason Avatar is so popular, and so important, is that it is helping us to remember who we are.”
Also check out these cases of strange Avatar specific depression: http://bit.ly/5v6kmg
Makes me think of something like stendhal syndrome.
Here are a bunch of poems I wrote using the iPhone Dragon App (iTunes Link), a voice-to-text dictation application.
When I say ‘I wrote all of these poems’, I need to clarify on my methods. I was actually just speaking complete and absolute jibberish into the microphone – no words, just fake sounds.
Here is a sample of the crazy mouth noises I was making:
“Sound File Of Garrett Making Weird Noises And Annoying His Roommates”
After saying a bunch of crazy stuff, I let the app do it’s normal translation and emailed the results to myself. After some very minor editing (mostly for style), here are the results:
1.
Shannon home today
and I can’t know God
bless us to kick some Zune cool
as you can see mom went to ask him
she moaned hello
Micah’s status on that check
on the class
is yet
2.
Is another cool as you can just talk
into the address to each blocking
issues one to lose at why haven’t
you can automatically Shikara
tools for parking pass up an update
on the team behind
King and Queen King Kong keep hi
Sue see if I should hand them on a minute
to catch up with the
VCRs
3.
Zekes motion they had the benefit of a mall
and one tool in Stanton step at home man with dad
to just book the half Google Yahoo tie
to contact Louis dog eat at aqua Terra food shop
Keanan multi-touch
is shot
4.
In Tucson, that’s so what do we go man
to beat him
zone shall to eat will knock me soup time
and I’ll call you, get skin
5.
Seven opportunities that I can do with
the separate of an amended the gift
I cannot image
me speak there is a classic cup of 10 o’clock
but that is the tequila
to pick up at the two topic happened to www.that’s good
to be picked up at the Pentagon
I keep hoping that the fact that you come to the beginning of the cavity
do that but exactly
to get the E.E. boat babe
6.
Bubba,
can a convicted digit
minute?
that that that that that
7.
I think that dude is acting up
that dude that
that’s the second
got back to the doctor, said that
goatee death but
the Buddah dude that got booted
8.
Come home
and not know of his Louisville need
to remember googling movies
just need
9.
Candle lobby T. mom
to leave all that key morning
to the woo hoo SeaBlue Zach DiVita
howdy do do the body doddy do
E.E. dog food out of
10.
Can the content that fax a document
and if it’s a PE
but Sandra,
there is no show today, same time.
That’s what difficulties can escape onto a bunch of that to come in
and I to to to to to
to see photo attack
that had seen another B.
Hope that is a good day back out
to take that that that that
the old goat
11.
Tina Boka
text devil
hey I cheated
but to buy tickets at the CNN
will be able to add daddy
about the boutique David
I’m on the Internet today
and no
ha ha
whole movie Kathy did I see but I can imagine who he
ha ha… the 13th
out
############
This final poem was done slightly different. Instead of using my mouth I plugged in a bass guitar and experimented
with trying to create poems by interpreting human speech. I didn’t really have that great of results, but this one
really seem to describe the ‘poem’ of the bass:
12.
Dude dude dude
I found this tape while digging around in the Seattle Goodwill ‘bins’ – and outlet of thrift store items where large containers are filled with items you can scavenge through. You basically pay by the pound and can fill giant bags – it’s heavenly.
A lot of this tape is just someone recording songs off the radio, but it starts out with a poem or some sort of essay being read. Then after there is a short band practice where some teenagers talk about where their ‘bitchin’ solo’ should go and rehearse ‘House of the Rising Sun’. That kid sures got a good set of pipes! Check it out!
