an albuquerque not animate be armada.

Obtuse Strategies Deck

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:06:29 GMT

I’m sure most people know about Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies — a deck of cards with gnomic suggestions to consult at random during creative work.

I propose my own, new deck, informed by my jaundiced world view, and in no small part, my own failings as a human being.

Cultivate the disreputable
Lie gratuitously
Argue extravagantly over minutiae
Blame the innocent
Solve the wrong problem
Construct the trivial sturdy, the crucial shoddy
Give misleading directions
Damn with faint praise
Make a virtue of waste, a vice of thrift
Play dumb
Make incorrect change
Celebrate incompetence
Value syntax over meaning
Imagine things to complain about
Leave out the important part
Flatter the deluded
Argue with those who agree with you
Subvert while appearing to cooperate
Niggle, always
Curse the virtuous
Speak authoritatively when ignorant
Say the opposite
Laugh hardest at the unfunny
Meet sincerity with sarcasm
Hold grudges
Complain operatically
Suspect every kindness
Swamp any reasonable motive with ulterior ones
Purport falsely
Implacably oppose the reasonable
Deliver less than you promise
Ridicule caution
Value yourself negatively, others less
No such thing as excessively literal
Prevaricate, Obfuscate, Denigrate
Puncture the good moods of other
Purse empty ambitions relentlessly
Exasperated sighs, sour grimaces
Let others try to drag you with them
Disappoint others
Deny the problem
Smirk at the misfortunes of others
Boast without justification
Give up early
Assign others sinister motives
Squander the irreplaceable
Disturb the tranquil
Afflict the unfortunate
Cut in line
Waste the time of others
Take no stand
No pity, ever
Profit from misfortune

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

2011-06-25 KRUI DJ Set: The Accidental Curator

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:01:21 GMT

I spend a lot of time at thrift stores, garage sales, and second hand stores looking for records. When I’ve collected enough interesting records together to fill a radio show, I lug the vinyl to the IMU for a radio show.

Someone who spends time on EBay and Discogs searching for records, who spends hours combing through YouTube going from one obscure house track to another in order to assemble their ultimate vinyl wishlist, end up with a certain sort of record collection. They’ve spent time boning up on music, read books on the subject, made and lost friends on the internet over records. They’re the true students of the art.

I’m more of a magpie — selecting records based on the relatively short list of producers and artists I’m already familiar with, and winging it based on extra-musical cues — the record label it’s on, the cover art, the song titles. I’m also happiest picking up records for a dollar or two. This mix is an assemblage of that sort of records.

And there’s some true gems that are in amongst all the copies of the “Victory At Sea” soundtrack album. How else would I have ever found out about Joy Ryder, or Claudia T? By the way I played Claudia T’s “Fatal Destination” at 33 when it should have been 45, and I think I like it better at the wrong speed.

And the incomparable Cissy Houston? Now, if people know who she is at all it is as the mother of R&B trainwreck Whitney Houston. But Cissy’s career went from gospel to backup singer to flirting with being a disco Diva. Her singing on “Think It Over” combines impeccable phrasing with deep soul.

Sometimes you can judge a book by it’s cover, after all — I do it all the time, and I’m pleasantly surprised more than I’m disappointed.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-2011-06-25-KRUI-DJSet.mp3
Vangelis	Spiral
Roy Ayers Ubiquity	People And The World
Deodato	Whistle Bump
Taana Gardner	No Frills
Taana Gardner	Work That Body
First Choice	Doctor Love
Cissy Houston	Think It Over
One Way	Shine On Me
Bingo Boys Featuring Princessa	How To Dance
Evelyn Champagne King	Action
Magazine 60	Don Quixote
Madonna	Shining Star
Joy Rider	Tired Of Phony
Information Society	Think (Bluebox 2600 Mix)
Leage Unlimited Orchestra	Don’t You Want Me
Telex	Lakelele
Chaba Zahouania	Dini Maak
Arthur Russell	All Boy All Girl
Antena	Ingenious
Gil Scott Herron & Jamie XX	NY Is Killing Me
The Final Solution	Brotherman
Claudia T	Fatal Destination
Kazumi Watanabe	Yatokesa (Mobo #3)

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

KRUI DJ Set 6-18-2011

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 17:20:05 GMT

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http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-KRUIDJSet-2011-06-18.mp3

So this is a little different in that I wanted to focus on particular releases and artists. The stars of this show:

Kate Simko whose new album “Lights Out” raises her profile considerably in the dance music world.

Stewart Walker whose new digital label Son Of Cataclysm takes his techno experimentalism to new depths. The Sweetnighter track is an unreleased demo from his new guitar-based project collaboration with Reynold, aka Sam Rouanet, the label boss of Trenton Records

John Tejada whose new album comes out this week. John is a producer who has released a ton of music, always of the highest quality. I wonder when he sleeps.

Reggie Dokes is one of the 4th or 5th wave of Detroit dance music producers. Detroit is really a crucial center of house music’s renewal, with a long list of amazing musicians making crucial tracks. He’s not as well known as Omar S, or Moodyman, or Theo Parish, but he’s every bit their peer, and I expect him to become even more prominent.

Not a person, but a singular constellation of genre-bending music Hessle Audio just released 116 & Rising, a label retrospective that features 12 new exclusive tracks. It’s the only current label in the UK dance music world about which I’m an absolute completist.

Kate Simko	Beneath
Reggie Dokes	God Of House
Stewart Walker	Slipped Off Fogwet Girders
Kate Simko	Mind On You
Stewart Walker	Lord Housefly
Kate Simko	Mira Vos
Peter Kirn	Anaxagoras
Stewart Walker	Blässe
Chaircrusher	Transit Of Jupiter
Kate Simko	Bikini Atoll
Reggie Dokes	Haiti
Dennis De Santis	Five Minutes Today Forever(Stewart Walker RMX)
John Tejada	Unstable Condition
Sweetnighter	Sign Language Poetry
Sigha	HF029 A1
Szare	Action Five
SCB	Future Unknown
Peverelist	Sun Dance
Addison Groove	5 Minutes Of Funk
Bass Clef	Rollercoasters of the Heart
Pangaea	Runout
Chaircrusher	Sojourner
Ramadanman	Revenue(Untold RMX)
Addison Groove	It’s Got Me
Xi	The Ghost
Bass Cleff	So Cruel
Blawan	Potchla Ve
James Blake	Give A Man A Rod (2nd Version)
D1	Subzero
Throwing Snow	Un Vingt

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

Holy Crap Evans Pyramid

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:24:18 GMT

Anyone know where any of this music is available besides Youtube? Only thing I’ve found is > $50 vinyl.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

Bear edge of the Iowa River.

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 19:33:42 GMT

Bear edge of the Iowa River., a photo by chaircrusher on Flickr.

There’s a frisbee golf course at the edge of the Iowa River on the Iowa City side that wanders into the woods at the water’s edge. This is a little shallow backwater. It was full of tadpoles.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

KRUI DJ Set 2011-04-28

Mon, 02 May 2011 14:24:05 GMT

Once more into the breach: stitching together something from various styles of music…

Radiohead — for those who bought King Of Limbs they sent out e-mails about a free download of 2 songs “Supercollider” & “The Butcher.” If you pay attention to the whinging class King Of Limbs sucked, but to them I suggest they go listen to Weezer or something. For those of us who love electronic music, Radiohead has been trying nothing less than to make art songs with one of the best live bands in the world, using all the tools of electronic music producers. It’s some 4th or 5th category, and if your’e not enjoying it, you’re not really listening.

Burial — talk about 4th or 5th Category, Burial is his own genre. Massively influential over the past couple years, his morose, introverted, wistfully vague assemblage of house music and audio detritus never fail to kill me. I play all 3 tracks of his new record.

Kode 9 & Space Ape — dropping a new album of (again with the categories) uncategorizable illness. I have a hard time with hip hop any more — it’s either coke-dealing fake-hard, po-faced backpack, or artistically bankrupt commersh. These guys are what I wish hip hop was again — moody storytelling with evil, deep beats.

Atropolis — Atropolis is a guy from Queens, which is perhaps the most racially and culturally diverse urban community on the planet, and he seems to jam it all in the blender and come up with badass pan-human party music. The tracks I chose mash up Soca with Kwaito, with some distorted MBira a la Konono #9. Sweetness.

Addison Groove — the next ‘next big thing’ — especially if you’re Planet Mu’s label-head/IDM legend Mike Paradinas is the Footwork/Juke sound coming out of Chicago. I’ve not yet jumped on the bandwagon with Juke music, but guys like Addison Groove take some of that Chicago flavor to mess up their UK-based post-whatever grooves. Addison Groove put out a couple of tracks I feature here that have some of that frenetic Chicago ghetto energy.

Area/Lightness — my friend Max from Chicago who is one of the people re-mutating Dub Techno, without sounding like the 923rd remake of Phylps Track II.

David Powers + Max Jacobson — David sent me a 4 track demo that is going to come out on a Mexican techno label sometime soon. He’s definitely into his own brand of deepness, or deep weirdness. Going from sampling Sheila E and Hall & Oates, to dropping in little atonal jazz keyboard squiggles over jacking beats … he’s probably the most traditionally musical house producer I know, in addition to being scary smart and emotionally unstable. He’s everything you could ask for in a 21st Century dance music producer.

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http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/2011-04-28-DJSet.mp3

<td>Burial</td> <td>Street Halo</td>

Antena	Camino Del Sol
Radiohead	SuperCollider
Burial	NYC
Gatto Fritto	The Invisible College
Burial	Stolen Dog
BoxCutter	Zabriskie Disco
Radiohead	The Butcher
David Powers + Max Jacobson	Sheila Don’t Love Me
Rick The Godson Wilhite	Blame It On The Boogie
David Powers + Max Jacobsen	Feel It
Area	Bed Vertigo
Lightness	Burning Mercury(Metal)
Julio Bashmore	Father Father
Jace Syntax	Jackin Around
Soultek	AnalogueHeart
Owiny Signome Band	Wires(Theo Parrish Remix)
Kode9 & The Space Ape	Love Is The Drug
Graceful Exit	Revolve Disco
Atropolis	Mbira Funk
Addison Groove	Make Em Bounce
Chaircrusher	Baile Pedro Baile
Atroplis Feat. Anbule	Som Sista
Addison Groove	This Is It
Terror Danjah	Zumpi Hunter RIP
Alfie	Treatment
Spatial	70810
Kode 9 & The Space Ape	Am I
Kode 9 & The Space Ape	Black Smoke
Kode 9 & The Space Ape	Promise

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

KRUI DJ Set 2011-04-28

Mon, 02 May 2011 14:24:04 GMT

Once more into the breach: stitching together something from various styles of music…

Radiohead — for those who bought King Of Limbs they sent out e-mails about a free download of 2 songs “Supercollider” & “The Butcher.” If you pay attention to the whinging class King Of Limbs sucked, but to them I suggest they go listen to Weezer or something. For those of us who love electronic music, Radiohead has been trying nothing less than to make art songs with one of the best live bands in the world, using all the tools of electronic music producers. It’s some 4th or 5th category, and if your’e not enjoying it, you’re not really listening.

Burial — talk about 4th or 5th Category, Burial is his own genre. Massively influential over the past couple years, his morose, introverted, wistfully vague assemblage of house music and audio detritus never fail to kill me. I play all 3 tracks of his new record.

Kode 9 & Space Ape — dropping a new album of (again with the categories) uncategorizable illness. I have a hard time with hip hop any more — it’s either coke-dealing fake-hard, po-faced backpack, or artistically bankrupt commersh. These guys are what I wish hip hop was again — moody storytelling with evil, deep beats.

Atropolis — Atropolis is a guy from Queens, which is perhaps the most racially and culturally diverse urban community on the planet, and he seems to jam it all in the blender and come up with badass pan-human party music. The tracks I chose mash up Soca with Kwaito, with some distorted MBira a la Konono #9. Sweetness.

Addison Groove — the next ‘next big thing’ — especially if you’re Planet Mu’s label-head/IDM legend Mike Paradinas is the Footwork/Juke sound coming out of Chicago. I’ve not yet jumped on the bandwagon with Juke music, but guys like Addison Groove take some of that Chicago flavor to mess up their UK-based post-whatever grooves. Addison Groove put out a couple of tracks I feature here that have some of that frenetic Chicago ghetto energy.

Area/Lightness — my friend Max from Chicago who is one of the people re-mutating Dub Techno, without sounding like the 923rd remake of Phylps Track II.

David Powers + Max ? — David sent me a 4 track demo that is going to come out on a Mexican techno label sometime soon. He’s definitely into his own brand of deepness, or deep weirdness. Going from sampling Sheila E and Hall & Oates, to dropping in little atonal jazz keyboard squiggles over jacking beats … he’s probably the most traditionally musical house producer I know, in addition to being scary smart and emotionally unstable. He’s everything you could ask for in a 21st Century dance music producer.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/2011-04-28-DJSet.mp3

<td>Burial</td> <td>Street Halo</td>

Antena	Camino Del Sol
Radiohead	SuperCollider
Burial	NYC
Gatto Fritto	The Invisible College
Burial	Stolen Dog
BoxCutter	Zabriskie Disco
Radiohead	The Butcher
David Powers + Max ?	Sheila Don’t Love Me
Rick The Godson Wilhite	Blame It On The Boogie
David Powers + Max ?	Feel It
Area	Bed Vertigo
Lightness	Burning Mercury(Metal)
Julio Bashmore	Father Father
Jace Syntax	Jackin Around
Soultek	AnalogueHeart
Owiny Signome Band	Wires(Theo Parrish Remix)
Kode9 & The Space Ape	Love Is The Drug
Graceful Exit	Revolve Disco
Atropolis	Mbira Funk
Addison Groove	Make Em Bounce
Chaircrusher	Baile Pedro Baile
Atroplis Feat. Anbule	Som Sista
Addison Groove	This Is It
Terror Danjah	Zumpi Hunter RIP
Alfie	Treatment
Spatial	70810
Kode 9 & The Space Ape	Am I
Kode 9 & The Space Ape	Black Smoke
Kode 9 & The Space Ape	Promise

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

U of Iowa Socialists and their First World Problems

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:23:58 GMT

This headline definitely rubbed me the wrong way. I’m all for small-’s’ socialism where appropriate — health care, education, social security, appropriately modest defense — but I’m having a hard time imagining many people who would receive a University-wide e-mail who could credibly complain of being oppressed. Sure, there’s racism, sexism, and the erosions of personal freedoms in the US, but when I think of oppression, I think of having your home bulldozed, or being kept naked in a cell with a bag over your head and receiving daily beatings.

There’s hardly a more privileged group of people on the planet than the faculty, staff, and students of the University of Iowa. We worry more about cell phone reception & the price of Lattes than we do about actual oppression.

Will the U of I Socialists do anything useful to liberate the oppressed of the world? If they actually do something that in some small way comforts the afflicted or afflicts the comfortable, more power to ‘em. But somehow I don’t imagine they can do much beyond holding weekly meetings.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

You’re Welcome

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 19:46:53 GMT

You’re Welcome a photo by chaircrusher on Flickr.

You can’t bring guns into the Co Op any more.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

The Cost Of Truth Telling

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:24:20 GMT

Assistant secretary of State P.J. Crowley resigned yesterday because he said of Bradley Manning’s mistreatment in military custody “is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid”

Ron Schiller resigns in disgrace for saying “The Tea Party is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian* — I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird evangelical kind of move.” and that they aren’t “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”

In both cases, they were telling the truth. In both cases there was a scandal and they were forced to resign. Now I fully understand why that happened, but it vexes me that we live in world where lying, prevaricating, waffling and misdirecting are rewarded and telling the truth gets you punished.

It’s a world where James O’Keefe gets rewarded for being manifestly, comprehensive dishonest. I could fulminate about this all day but what’s the point? It’s not going to change anyone’s mind. Because the basic, fundamental principle of conservatism is this: Believe what we tell you, and never question our authority.

*I might quibble with Schiller about the ‘Christianity’ of Tea Party People. There might be some crossover between religious conservatives and the Tea Party, but there’s plenty of secular people involved. They’re united in their belief in a bunch of bullshit. Not just differences with Liberals over policy, but “slept through high school civics, never actually read the constitution” errors of fact. They get together and reinforce each other’s misguided bogosity.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

New Bandcamp Release: EMS Putney Improvisations

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 13:44:50 GMT

I’ve put a new album up on Bandcamp: For Delia Derbyshire 2011-03-10

This EMS Putney came into my hands when I purchased it from Iowa City South East Junior High School in 1997. It is one of the unique artifacts of electronic music. The Putney & it’s close relative, the attache-case-housed Synthi, were workhorse synths at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and was a favorite of musicians like Brian Eno, Pink Floyd, and other Space Rock bands of the 70s.

It’s sonic character derives in large part from the cheapness of the design and construction. Moog Synthesizers were laboratory grade audio equipment; the Putney is cheap and difficult to use in a traditional musical context. And yet it was seductive. It’s limitations and imperfections enlarged musican’s ideas of what sounds could be musical.

Delia Derbyshire was one of the pioneers of electronic music during and after her tenure at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. She was both a gifted composer and an audacious and precise engineer. Since seeing her in documentaries, and hearing her music I’m both awed by her and have a synth-geek’s crush on her. She was on my mind as I recorded these pieces, and I dedicate them to her memory.

The 5 parts of this piece were recorded in one evening, with no editing or overdubbing. The Putney was plugged into the Stereo Memory Man pedal, and the pedal was plugged into my computer.

The only post processing applied was normalization. These recordings are as close to the original, raw sound of the instrument as I could make them.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

The mystery of Greta Ann

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:17:18 GMT

I’ll let go of my obsession with Anika soon, really. But among the interesting covers on her debut record was of “Sadness Hides The Sun,” which was originally recorded by someone called Greta Ann.

As a child of the 60′s I’m always looking for the awesome stuff I missed out on when I was, y’know, eight years old. And listening to the song on Youtube you realize why Anika covered it, it’s a brilliant song. But who was Greta Ann, and where did she go?

There’s precious little to discover on the Internet. The song is featured on a couple of compilations, including Merseybeat -The Story Of The 60s Liverpool Sound, and the awfully named Dream Babes 5: Folk Rock & Faithfull. The song was written about in the June 1965 New Music Express. But aside from the Youtube video, there’s nothing of substance about her. It seems crazy to me that someone could pop up, make one record, especially one that memorable, and disappear.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

KRUI DJ Set 2010-03-05

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 04:39:50 GMT

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http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/2011-03-05-DJSet.mp3

A little different than the last few sets I’ve done, as I brought the computer; I just didn’t have enough fresh vinyl for a show. It’s a combination of things that have been on mind, some for months, some as recent as this week. The Darkstar album North has been haunting me since it came out last year. Incredibly moody, emotional music.

Of course, for some of us, Radiohead’s new album King Of Limbs has been a recent obsession. It’s without hit singles, per se, but it does have something of what the Darkstar album has — inventive sound design & production as a way to make emotional connections. The When Saints Go Machine song “Fail Forever” is a recommendation from my son Lucas, who is music director at the Earlham College Radio Station. I never was into Radiohead before Lucas fell hard for them when he was 11; I got him to listen to Arthur Russell, so he knew I’d like anything that had some of that AR magic to it. I’m not sure When Saints Go Machine are Arthur Russell heads, but “Fail Forever” is haunted by him.

And then there’s Anika, who I was turned onto by Peter Kirn’s interview with her. The eponymous Anika is produced by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, and has the sort of dark, noisy, rough production values that make the Jamaican work by Lee Perry and Clement Dodd so compelling. Two of the songs I played appealed to the hippy pacifist in me, Dylan’s “Masters of War” and Greta Ann’s “Sadness Hides The Sun.” Odd, but not that odd, that 60s era protest folks songs are so relevant still. Same assholes killing brown people then as now.

And there are 3 of my tracks, for better or worse. The Pete tracks are meant to get some additional instrumentation added when I can get Pete Balestrieri captured to put down some saxaphone, but I kind of like Music Minus One sounding stuff. Then there’s my shoutout to Muammar Gadaffi, “Hallucinogens in the Nescafe” which I wrote about earlier. He really is an epically evil motherfucker, and sometimes I think he says the hilarious things he does to soften the blow of his unrelenting, remorseless cruelty. He’s not Charlie Sheen, and of course, Charlie Sheen is another real-time tragedy whose humorous aspects can’t be denied.

But I couldn’t resist last night during my show when I tweeted “Thom Yorke doesn’t have tiger blood, innit? Tabby blood maybe.”

On a technical note, this mix is a cleaned up in a few places from the on-air performance — I was warping tracks in a mad rush yesterday and a couple of things were fucked up, resulting in dead air, tracks falling out of time, and one track getting played twice as fast as it ought to have been. There was one hilarious moment when somehow the tempo was following mouse movements when I wasn’t initially aware, so one track swung up and down between 120 and 200 bpm for a few seconds. But I photoshopped that out.

SYNKRO	Open Arms
DarkStar

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Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version <a href="http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&promoid=BIOW" title="Download Adobe Flash Player">here</a>. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. <a href="http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/2011-03-05-DJSet.mp3">http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/2011-03-05-DJSet.mp3</a> <a href="http://music.cornwarning.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/anika.jpg"><img src="http://music.cornwarning.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/anika-218x300.jpg" alt="" title="anika" width="218" height="300" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2051" /></a>A little different than the last few sets I’ve done, as I brought the computer; I just didn’t have enough fresh vinyl for a show. It’s a combination of things that have been on mind, some for months, some as recent as this week. The Darkstar album <a href="http://boomkat.com/vinyl/336665-darkstar-north">North</a> has been haunting me since it came out last year. Incredibly moody, emotional music. Of course, for some of us, Radiohead’s new album <a href="http://www.thekingoflimbs.com/">King Of Limbs</a> has been a recent obsession. It’s without hit singles, per se, but it does have something of what the Darkstar album has — inventive sound design & production as a way to make emotional connections. The When Saints Go Machine song “Fail Forever” is a recommendation from my son Lucas, who is music director at the <a href="http://www.weciradio.org/">Earlham College Radio Station</a>. I never was into Radiohead before Lucas fell hard for them when he was 11; I got him to listen to Arthur Russell, so he knew I’d like anything that had some of that AR magic to it. I’m not sure When Saints Go Machine are Arthur Russell heads, but “Fail Forever” is haunted by him. And then there’s Anika, who I was turned onto by <a href="http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/03/interview-anika-working-with-portisheads-geoff-barrow-makes-an-album-you-dont-have-to-like/">Peter Kirn’s interview</a> with her. The eponymous Anika is produced by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, and has the sort of dark, noisy, rough production values that make the Jamaican work by Lee Perry and Clement Dodd so compelling. Two of the songs I played appealed to the hippy pacifist in me, Dylan’s “Masters of War” and Greta Ann’s “Sadness Hides The Sun.” Odd, but not that odd, that 60s era protest folks songs are so relevant still. Same assholes killing brown people then as now. And there are 3 of my tracks, for better or worse. The Pete tracks are meant to get some additional instrumentation added when I can get Pete Balestrieri captured to put down some saxaphone, but I kind of like Music Minus One sounding stuff. Then there’s my shoutout to Muammar Gadaffi, “Hallucinogens in the Nescafe” which I <a href="http://music.cornwarning.com/2011/02/27/new-track-hallucinogens-in-the-nescafe/">wrote about earlier</a>. He really is an epically evil motherfucker, and sometimes I think he says the hilarious things he does to soften the blow of his unrelenting, remorseless cruelty. He’s not Charlie Sheen, and of course, Charlie Sheen is another real-time tragedy whose humorous aspects can’t be denied. But I couldn’t resist last night during my show when I tweeted “Thom Yorke doesn’t have tiger blood, innit? Tabby blood maybe.” On a technical note, this mix is a cleaned up in a few places from the on-air performance — I was warping tracks in a mad rush yesterday and a couple of things were fucked up, resulting in dead air, tracks falling out of time, and one track getting played twice as fast as it ought to have been. There was one hilarious moment when somehow the tempo was following mouse movements when I wasn’t initially aware, so one track swung up and down between 120 and 200 bpm for a few seconds. But I photoshopped that out. <table> <tr> <td>SYNKRO</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/downloads/367004-scuba-synkro-system-mosaic-vol-1-sampler-1">Open Arms</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>DarkStar</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/downloads/339641-darkstar-north>Gold</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Morgan Zarata</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/downloads/372676-morgan-zarate-hookid-ep">SP</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Anika</td> <td><a href=" http://boomkat.com/downloads/339472-anika-anika">Yang Yang</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Chaircrusher</td> <td><a href="http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/pete1.mp3">Pete 1</a></td> </tr> <tr> </tr> <td>DarkStar</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/downloads/339641-darkstar-north>Under One Roof</a></td> <tr> <td>Radiohead</td> <td><a href="http://www.thekingoflimbs.com/">Separator</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Just A Band</td> <td><a href="http://justaband.bandcamp.com/">Extra</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Dirtbombs</td> <td><a href="http://soundcloud.com/scionav/sets/scion-a-v-remix-the-dirtbombs">Shari Vari (Omar S Remxi)</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Chaircrusher</td> <td><a href="http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/pete2.mp3">Pete 2</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>West Norwood Cassette Library</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/vinyl/367078-west-norwood-cassette-library-pearson-sound-blonde-on-blonde-pearson-sound-mix">Blonde On Blonde (Pearson Sound Remix)</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>King slaFF</td> <td><a href="http://www.echodub.co.uk/">One</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Radiohead</td> <td>Lotus Flower</td> </tr> <tr> <td>T Williams</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/downloads/347520-t-williams-heartbeat-mosca-remix">Heartbeat</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>When Saints Go Machine</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/downloads/370314-when-saints-go-machine-fail-forever">Fail Forever</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Rooflight</td> <td><a href="http://www.archive.org/details/Edubf002-RoofLight">Birds Outside The Window</a> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Chaircrusher</td> <td><a href="http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/ChairCrusher-HallucinogensInTheNescafe.mp3">Hallucinogens In The Nescafe</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Darkstar</td> <td>Aidys Girl Is A Computer</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sepalcure</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/downloads/375714-sepalcure-fleur">Fleur</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>RoofLight</td> <td><a href="http://www.archive.org/details/Edubf002-RoofLight">All Day Breakfast</a> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>TMSV</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/downloads/342687-tmsv-signal-cold">Signal</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Freeze & LX One </td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/downloads/365206-freeze-lx-one-sp-mc-youngsta-foreseen-unidentified">Foreseen</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Orphan 101</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/downloads/370047-orphan101-propa-disemble">Propa</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Anika</td> <td>Sadness Hides The Sun</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Radiohead</td> <td>Morning Mr. Magpie</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Urban Tribe</td> <td><a href="http://www.rephlex.com/releases/view/93/Urban%20Tribe/Acceptable%20Side%20Effects/CAT%20184">Orbitals</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Morgan Zaret</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/vinyl/372276-morgan-zarate-hookid-ep">Hookid</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Anika</td> <td>Masters Of War</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Instra:Mental + DBridge</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/vinyl/375246-instra-mental-dbridge-from-the-start-detuned-heart">From The Start</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Instra:Mental + DBridge</td> <td><a href="http://boomkat.com/vinyl/375246-instra-mental-dbridge-from-the-start-detuned-heart">Detuned Heart</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Derek Piotr</td> <td><a href="http://chaircrusher.bandcamp.com/">Cleopatra (Chaircrusher Remix)</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>LHF</td> <td>Candy Rain</td> </tr> </table> Originally published at <a href="http://music.cornwarning.com/2011/03/06/krui-dj-set-2010-03-05/">Do My Eyes Look Scary?</a>. You can comment here or <a href="http://music.cornwarning.com/2011/03/06/krui-dj-set-2010-03-05/#comments">there</a>.

Album Covers From The Crowded Closets

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 03:58:31 GMT

	Can I just say this record cover raises more questions than it answers.
	Jesus & matching Polyester Suits. And don’t make this mistake — they’re the Proclamations, not the Proclaimers!
	The Shorbs! They sound gospel, they look like child molesters!

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

New Track: Hallucinogens In The Nescafé

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 17:13:50 GMT

In the Herzog film Strozek Bruno S shows a small sculpture of twisted wire and says “this is a schematic model of how it looks inside Bruno. They’re closing all the doors on him.”

So this track goes out to my boy Muammar Gaddafi; it’s a schematic diagram of how it looks inside Muammar. Thug Life 4Ever, Brotherly Leader and Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/ChairCrusher-HallucinogensInTheNescafe.mp3

For those who give a shit about such things:

Drums: Battery3 with tweaked percussion presets.
Funny noises: 2 instances of Reaktor.
High synth: Jupiter6
Bass: FM8
Effects: Audiodamage Dubstation delay, Audiodamage Eos reverb, UAD EMT140 Reverb (on filtered snares), a Reaktor BBD delay simulator, UAD LA2 Compressor on some tracks, Audiodamage RoughRider Compressor on others. UAD Pultec EQ on some percussion sounds.

Sequenced in Live, several passes of live recording of effects tweaks. This was actually a track that came together when I was actually focusing on something else — i.e. it was a scratch track to test something.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

Strange Sushi from Yen Ching

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:31:21 GMT

Something’s just not right about this photo.

UPDATE: I think they used Google Image Search to find the pictures for their menu:

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

2011-02-12 KRUI DJ Set

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:50:21 GMT

This set was driven by a trip to Dave’s Records in Chicago, where I crouched on the floor going through the used $1 Dance Records. I also did what I usually do, which is look through a section of floor to ceiling shelves of records in my office I haven’t visited lately.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/2011-02-12-Chaircrusher-KRUI-DJ-Set.mp3
ARTIST	TITLE – DISCOGS.COM LINK
Clandestine Featuring Ned Sublette	Radio Rhythm (S-I-G-N-A-L S-M-A-R-T) (Extra Cheese Mix)
Judy Cheeks	Mellow Love
Isley Brothers	I Wanna Be With You (Parts 1 & 2)
Skyy	Let Love Shine (Instrumental)
Dinosaur L	Go Bang (Walter Gibbons Mix)
McFadden & Whitehead	Ain’t No Stopping Us Now
Mavis Staples	Jaguar
Sax	Give Yourself To Me (deep house mix)
Royal House	Yeah Buddy
Dan Curtin	Journey’s In Motion
Mark Rogers	Us
2 In A Room	Take Me Away
Debby Harry	Feel The Spin
Ten City	That’s The Way Love Is
Perkowitz	Nectar
Roy Davis Jr.	About Love (Jon Marsh “All About” Vocal Mix)
Moodyman	People
Africanism	Call It Jungle Jazz
John Beltran	Your Colors (Yoruba Soul Mix)
Roy Ayers/Kerri Chandler	Good Vibrations (Kerri’s Mad Mix)
Michael Jackson	Do You Remember The Time (Silky Soul Mix)
Janet Jackson	Control
Omar S	Columns
Kraftwerk	Aéro Dynamik

VINYL. IT’S A SICKNESS, REALLY

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

PaulStretch 2.1 is Out! New build instructions + new x86 OS X build

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 05:19:44 GMT

Paul added a new library dependency, which I hacked into my build recipe here: http://www.cornwarning.com/xfer/PaulStretchBuild-2.1.tar.gz

Instructions for building

I have a completely UNTESTED binary for people to try here. It should work, but I can’t test it right now.

http://www.cornwarning.com/xfer/PaulStretch2.1-OSX-10.6.tar.gz

If you’re not a command line jockey, just downloading and clicking on it will create paulstretch.app where ever you dropped the downloaded file. If you know about command line stuff:

This is built on OS X 10.6, 32bit. No idea what OS X versions will run it.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

PaulStretch Build Instructions – Now with Linux!

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:06:37 GMT

The world of open source software development doesn’t sit still. A program that I rely on to build PaulStretch on OSX is CMake, which is an open source, cross-platform program that hides some of the complexity of building software on different platforms.

If you’ve built any software on OS X or Linux you’re probably familiar with the “./configure ; make ; make install” method of working with source packages. CMake does that but it goes out of its way to handle the low level crap that is a pain in the ass to set up program configuration with autoconf. On top of that, it will run on any Unix, OS X or Windows. And on top of THAT, it will generate Makefiles, or project files for any of the commonly used integrated development programs like Visual Studio (on PC) and XCode (on Mac).

CMake really is as close as you can get to ‘write once, run anywhere’ in the world of C and C++. Not that there won’t be platform-specific stuff you’ll have to do, but it’s a lot easier and more concise in CMake.

Anyway, as of CMake 2.8, there is a powerful new CMake Module called ExternalProject. It automates downloading, configuring and building open source packages. I’ve used ExternalProject heavily in my day job, so it seemed natural to use it to streamline building PaulStretch. The result is maybe just as complex as the original build setup, but it is a lot more robust. Reading through the CMakeLists.txt files I’ve set up will be a good introduction to how things work in CMake — I’ve done a bunch of things in there you’ll want to know how to do for your own projects — use ExternalProject_add to download and build libraries, do some platform-specific configuration, create an executable, etc.

You can download the new PaulStretch Build package here: http://www.cornwarning.com/xfer/PaulStretchBuild-2.1.tar.gz

The instructions are pretty straightforward:

0. Make sure you have the compilers and development libraries installed on your system.
1. Download the Tar file
2. unpack the tar file, somewhere you have write permission.
3. Run PaulStretch/BuildPaulStretch.sh

On OS X, this will create a paulstretch.app, that you can drag and drop wherever you want. On Linux, the executable will be in bin/paulstretch — it’s statically linked so it will run without needing anything besides the program file on your system. Or, for that matter, any other compatible Linux distribution.

The result is an executable program in whatever directory you’ve run this process in. The following commands would accomplish this whole process in a directory called ‘PaulStretch’ in your home directory.

mkdir -p ~/PaulStretch
cd ~/PaulStretch
curl http://www.cornwarning.com/xfer/PaulStretchBuild.tar.gz | tar xzf -
PaulStretch/BuildPaulStretch.sh

After running these commands, on OS X your PaulStretch program will be ~/PaulStretch/paulstretch.app. On Linux, it will be ~/PaulStretch/bin/paulstretch.
As an added bonus, I took the time to try building on a couple of different Linux systems, to verify it works there.

Once again, what will trip up the non-software-developer types in this whole process is step 0: making sure the dev tools are available on your system. That’s something I’m not going to explain here. Google it. You’ll need GCC installed, all the development libraries, and on Linux the development libraries for libasound — the ALSA sound library.

If you happen to be a Windows developer, you could take a crack at building using Visual Studio or MinGW. The CMake build files are theoretically portable, but you’ll have to download CMake for Windows (here: http://www.cmake.org/files/v2.8/cmake-2.8.3-win32-x86.exe)I haven’t done this, because I avoid doing development work on my Windows machines at home. If I’m at home, and farting around on the computer, I want to be able to just use music software, not build it. Plus you can download the Windows version of PaulStretch here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/hypermammut/.

Let me re-iterate again — I don’t want to be tech support for this — if you can’t figure out from this post how to use what I’ve put together, you probably shouldn’t even be trying to build it yourself. Ask your kid nephew who’s a big H4X0R to do it for you.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

Subway says Pepperoni Makes You Gay

Mon, 10 May 2010 15:12:34 GMT

The fuck? Watching this commercial makes my brain hurt:

If I understand the scenario, two guys are eating sandwiches at a Subway restaurant. They enthuse about the flavor-enhancing qualities of adding pepperoni to a sandwich. They are then launched into a shared hallucination where they’re being poled along a canal in Venice by a gondolier. Someone (not the gondolier, though by tradition, they sing for tips) sings a song about Pepperoni to the tune of “O Solo Mio.” Their eyes lock, the spell is broken, and they awkwardly make small talk about sports.

The point is that in their fantasy, the sandwiches and the gondola ride awakens homoerotic feelings in them. What I don’t get is how this in any way is supposed to sell sandwiches. It’s like that insane Quizno’s advert where it’s implied that the sandwich chef has burned his dick sticking it in a gay sandwich oven.

What’s especially disturbing about this is it enacts the specious narrative that it’s possible to Catch The Gay. If you’re not vigilant, deviant desires might catch you unawares and turn you into one of those butt-sex-loving nancy boys. The absurdity of this is premise is rivaled only by its durability in the American imagination. Even if it is possible (and every variation of human behavior is possible!), why would two men discovering they desire each other be such a horrible thing? And why are they using it to sell crappy sandwiches?

Up until a few years ago advertisements seemed to follow a recognizable narrative with an obvious subtext. You could deconstruct them, and even if they were dishonest or sexist or whatever, they made some sort of objective sense. They sought to awaken or create a desire in the viewer, that can only be satisfied by the product being advertised. The moral implications of that aside, at least you knew where you stood.

Now it seems like they’ve added a new rhetorical strategy to the field: arguing from the premise of what the fuck? In other words, come up with something implausible, maybe a little risque, that in no way makes any sense. Then you remember the product because you think “what the fuck was that about?” I guess it works, since I bothered to write about it.

So resist. Don’t buy Subway — their sandwiches taste like newspaper anyway. And if you can’t resist or have no choice, do not add pepperoni to your order. Pepperoni adds nothing but nitrites, salt, and saturated fat to the meal.

Of course, this ad fits perfectly with my theory that nothing advertised on television is good for you. The healthiest diet available to an American is the one where if it’s advertised on television, you don’t eat it. When was the last time you saw an advertisement for kale? Or brown rice?* The whole basis of the corporate food business is Added Value: You take foodstuffs, bought as cheaply as possible, adulterate it with salt, sugar, and fat, package it, and advertise it. Then you profit when people sicken themselves by eating it.

*and here’s another constantly reinforced trope of mass media — if it’s good for you it must taste like crap. How many times have you seen a sitcom where the joke is that people get stuck in a ‘healthy’ restaurant and the joke is ‘the food is good for you but it’s disgusting!” Haha very funny. Fact is, if you stop eating bad food and start eating healthy things, your palate changes and the healthy stuff tastes better.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

i beat the internet

Sat, 08 May 2010 14:28:45 GMT

Since going to my sister’s wedding (a week ago today) I have yet to ‘catch up’ on all the blog feeds & such I have in Google Reader. And this morning I just started marking ‘all read’ entire categories.

I feel like I no longer have the appetite to ‘keep up.’ Of course, the Internet is a giant time-sink, and makes newspapers (which were derided as ‘fish-wrap’ back in the day) look like engraved stone tablets by comparison.

It’s all so ephemeral. When I was going to sleep last night, I was thinking about this, and also about quantum physics (and no I’m by no means deep) and all the fizzing and nattering on the Internet made me think of virtual particles in a vacuum, that keep popping into existence in particle/anti-particle pairs. They only exist for the tiniest moment before annihilating each other.

Now unlike protons and anti-protons, all this gabbling on the net actually tries to mean something, and insofar as the Internet is the public commons for this age, and is where everyone carries on political discourse, it’s important.

But even as I have some desire that people pay attention to ME, out of vanity or whatever, do I have any particular obligation to pay attention to the Internet? Any more, I think I like listening to NPR better — no commercials (well …) and precisely one person at a time is talking to me.

Of course, you can’t beat Björk the bear shaking her cub out of a tree.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

Putney Bloody Putney

Fri, 07 May 2010 02:26:19 GMT

I just received 10 brand new patch pins for my EMS Putney VCS3. In honor of that I’ve recorded a 5 minute experiment. You’re hereby given permission to sample this under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License. Meaning you have to have written permission from me to sample it for commercial purposes, but it’s free to use for any non-commercial purpose.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-PutneyJam2.mp3
http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-PutneyJam2.flac

This was recorded straight into my Focusrite Saffire Pro40, and then compressed slightly with UAD-1 LA2A, and normalized/limited using the Izotope mastering limiter. Being able to patch with 20 pins makes for even better mayhem — feedback paths, meta-stable modulation, and multiple source ring modulation.

While I’m at it there’s this from a few weeks ago:

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http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-PutneyJam.mp3

And this from several years ago:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/putney.mp3

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

He watches Project Runway so I don’t have to

Thu, 06 May 2010 12:44:00 GMT

My Brother Ian, Preaching on the value of Niceness Among The Ambitious

“…you’re never going to sell a book entitled “The REAL Secret: The Universe Doesn’t CARE What You Want” but I’ve seen enough nice guys (and girls) finish first to wonder why everyone else is being such a dick about it.”

I’ve resolved to post something every day, both as a careerist blogger move, and because I’d like to impose at least that much discipline on this effort, no matter how pallid and wan an activity blogging on this level is. So this is day 1…

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

He sweat so much, he could keep fish alive in his armpits…

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:49:55 GMT

I had a not-enough-coffee moment this morning, where I wanted to look up something about Traktor and instead went to Traktor.com which is a company of film-makers who among other things make commercials. It’s worth going to the site for the demo reel that plays automatically. It’s structured as a movie trailer, but since it packs in “trailer moments” from something like 50 short films, it makes your head reel to construct a mental model of the non-existent movie it promotes.

And their individual films are pretty great too. This one tells a story that needs no words:

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.

Green Beans, Olive Oil, Salt, Sriracha = Amazing

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:00:56 GMT

We are now entering the season where really good green beans grown locally will be available. I don’t know where the ones in the stores now come from but they’re pretty great as well. But I’ve been experimenting with a way of cooking green beans that we like so much we do it every week at least once.

1. Rinse and cut the green beens to desired size — I usually remove tips and then break them in half. You want enough beans to fill the wok to where you can still comfortably stir or flip them.

2. Get a wok smoking hot. Add a tablespoon (more or less depending on amount of beans) and swirl it around the pan. Have a cup or so of water next to the pan.

3. Before the oil gets a chance to burn dump in the beans.

4. Stir them constantly until the oil is evenly spread/absorbed. If your Wok Fu is strong, flip the beans repeatedly.

5. As the beans cook, add a dash or two of salt every minute or so. Enough to draw moisture out, but not so much that they’ll be saltier than you like when they’re done.

6. You want the beans to brown slightly, as this is what gives them their desired flavor. So, alternate between stirring and leaving the beans sit for 30 seconds or so.

6. The real secret: beans can and will burn black if they get too hot. As they cook, watch (and smell) closely, and if they get so dry that they begin to smoke, add a tablespoon of water to the pan, and then stir/flip vigorously.

7. The beans are done when they are as tender as you like to eat them. I prefer them just past al dente. Remove from the heat and let stand a few minutes, covered if you like your beans softer.

8. Garnish to taste with Sriracha sauce. Just a little bit will cause an awesome flavor synergy, but if you like your food very hot, green beans cooked this way can stand up to quite a bit of heat before the fire obscures the taste. I like the Sriracha sauce but any hot sauce (or Mongolian Fire Oil) would work too.

This is a method of cooking that works well on pretty much any vegetable except delicate greens. I like to think that the high heat, low moisture method concentrates the flavor back into the vegetable, as opposed to boiling or steaming.

This is especially good with kale — the Good For You vegetable that is challenging to prepare in a palatable manner. I like to boil kale a few minutes before chopping it and cooking it in the walk, as it is too sturdy to get tender with normal sautee or braise cooking.

Originally published at Do My Eyes Look Scary?. You can comment here or there.