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My friend wrote music for this:

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Rap-Master

I bought a Rap-Master (featuring Voice Effector) at a garage sale recently. Simply put, I had to have it. It’s basically a 1985 Casio keyboard with some added “rap” style rhythms, and a few other little gems. Here is a brief list of features:

• 30 rhythms, 12 new “beats” that allow fills
• 25 instruments, including sitar, church bells, gamelan, car horn, and many other rap related sounds
• A microphone
• “Voice Effector” which is 4 settings, that mutate your voice, 2 lower, 2 heighten
• Extra percussion buttons on the side, for doing fills
• A “turntable” that makes a couple of different sounds, but is basically a button you turn
• Monophony, yes, monophony

It’s got a bunch of other “standard” features, for 1985 at least. For three dollars it’s already amused me sufficiently. Probably the best feature (which I did not employ in the audio below) is that you can feedback the microphone with the effects and the instruments and rhythms sound like The Pod. I was hoping that Mike might want to use this for something, but I’ll probably just record some more Ween style stuff later on.

Also here’s a song. I did all of it except the banjo in one take, and I mixed the banjo pretty low anyway. It’s real hi-fi. Dave liked it, too, I’m glad.

Boris!

After exchanging largesses, Alicia and I went to go see Boris play. We wound up missing the first band Nachtmystium, I guess, due to our work schedules. I didn’t like them from hearing their cd, so I doubt I would’ve liked it so much live.
Torche was enjoyable enough, and definitely gave me a higher opinion of them from seeing them perform. I wouldn’t go out of my way to see them, but if they came around, I wouldn’t be surprised if I went to see them again.
Boris themselves were epic, we were front row, just slightly to the right. I had been listening to Smile for the past few days almost uninterruptedly, and that was definitely the right idea. They played all of Smile, Floor Shaker (!), and I believe Pink was the only other song they did. Smile was pretty much in order, with Pink and Floor Shaker in the middle. They played no encore, which I enjoyed as well, because I’d rather just hear them play a longer main set, then feel like we got something special. I’m not trying to say bands should stop when the crowd is rioting for them, but barring pretty intense crowds, a regular set with an extra song in the main body is preferable to me.
Alicia and I each got shirts. Hers was red on black, it said Boris and had a pentagram or something of the sort on there. Mine was:

Doodily Ding Dong Tick Tock

The only two things I know about Brendon Small is that one, he created Home Movies, and two, he created Metalocalypse. Both of these things are high quality. Oh, I guess he also appeared in an issue of Playgirl (one picture here). When I heard that Dethklok was coming to town, I immediately called up Joe, and we got some tickets. We showed up the show about four hours early. We grabbed a beer real quick, and then went back to the people we befriended to safe guard our spot at the front. It was still over 3 hours early, and I was surprised at how few people had shown up. Joe knows some people in security, and we managed to get in quick, and ahead of some others, winding us up dead center front row.
Soilent Green was pretty good, but there was no spectacle to it, as if the house lights were still on. Also, the vocals were ridiculously low, even for standing in the front row. Chimaira was more visually pleasing, and a lot of people seemed to be into it, but I wasn’t wowed.
Dethklok came on, and it was intense, I had to keep a death-grip on the railing to not get shoved out of the way. Joe (mostly) and I had to smash some people who were trying to thieve our spots. One guy actually got both of his hands on the railing, and he wouldn’t budge. One of the guards Joe knows came over and basically threw him back 10 feet through a sardine packed crowed, after smashing his knuckles and going “LET. GO.”
Photo credits go to Joe
Everybody had been clamoring on the internet that Murmaider was the pinnacle of the show, but I felt it was on the mild side. Hatredcopter by far was the best, and I’m pretty sure that song alone gave me a bangover. There were severals bits during their set, before and during, where the characters appeared and spoke and Brendon Small did some voices live as well. Everybody in the audience decided this was the time to yell out obnoxiously about nothing. I still have no idea what jokes I missed.

For the occasion I was going to make a Duncan Hills shirt. There really wasn’t any great logo that was available at the time. I was debating taking the old Starbucks logo and replacing the words with “Duncan Hills Coffee” much like a Suicide Machines shirt I have, but I wound up not even making one. I was also considering making one with the logo that first appeared in the episode that aired that night:

I don’t really like this logo, and I was hoping for something less ridiculous. This is pretty much why I passed it up. There was no way to get anything authentic enough, but aesthetically pleasing. (Pardon the low quality, I used the image I got from before the episode aired in decent quality)

I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know…

Alicia got me the Chemtrails 7″ which is available only at select indie record stores and with a purchase of Modern Guilt. The b-side to Chemtrails is a song called Vampire Voltage No. 6, which has a Modern Guilt feel to it, and then completely rocks out at the end. It’s well above par for a b/w track. The sleeve to Chemtrails isn’t the most thrilling, but it could’ve been in a blank sleeve easily.

Incidentally, since I can’t really post a picture of a mix I made, I decided I would just mash this other post right into this one:

In anticipation for Beck’s new album, I pulled out all of the best recent Beck tracks and made myself a mix called “Beck: Revisited.” It’s all studio tracks, all released recently, and doesn’t feature any album tracks from The Information or Mellow Gold Deluxe. I did start with Timebomb, which predates The Information, but is an odd little fellow by itself. The remainder of the tracks are covers of Daniel Johnston, Lee Hazelwood, and Nick Drake. It’s a little odd with Timebomb at the beginning being so different from the rest of the album, but I did pull off the instrumental version and the unused remix of Nausea that XXXChange did for Information Delux and it seemed to work.
Personally, and to the amazement of Robert, I love Beck’s quieter folksy side more than his electro-funk hip-hop; some of his best tracks in my mind are Puttin’ It Down, One Foot In The Grave, and Atmospheric Conditions. Sadly, I’ve never seen Beck, and I’m not sure when and if I’ll get the chance. He’s not coming around my neck of the woods according the tour dates he has up right now at least.
Track list:

• Timebomb
• True Love Will Find You In The End
• Forget Marie
• Which Will
• Parasite
• Pink Moon

The last three tracks were ordered based on the track number that was on the file I got, which flowed nicely enough. True Love… was from a Daniel Johnston tribute album back in 2004. Forget Marie appeared on his site in summer 2007 pretty soon after Hazlewood passed away, which I believe he had recorded, along with some other covers, not too long before. The three Nick Drake covers popped up on Beck’s discobox sometime half-way between Guero and The Information, late 2005, leading me not to know what to expect from The Information.
Yes, most of these tracks came out before The Information was released, but I hadn’t heard anything that I liked as much as these since then, and this mix proved to set the right mood for Modern Guilt.

Cd Project

My friend Liz asked me to make her some cds to expose her to new things. I think I focused a little more on the visual element than I probably should’ve, when I could’ve been trying to come up with things I think she’d be more particularly interested in musically. The first design I did for her was for Mike Patton’s Pranzo Oltranzista, a great cd to play for your friends in the dark. Here’s a couple pictures of the design.

It’s hard to make out, even in real life, but the cover reads “Pranzo,” and the second pictures is of the tracklist which has this nice staggered layer thing going on. Since I gave them to her, I don’t have better pictures, or pictures of some of the other parts. The inside cover said Musica Da Tavola Per Cinque, and the slip to hold the cd had bat wings and some spooky yellow windows. I was really happy with the final look of it, but it did have a few flaws, namely the slot for the cd was a little too tight, and the look of the cd itself was unimpressive. I wanted to go for a look with eyes peering through the aforementioned fenestrae, but it didn’t work out quite as planned. I have some diagrams I might post in the future.

I just made a somewhat similar design for Alicia to celebrate seeing Boris, she has it right now, but I’ll borrow it back to take some pictures of it.

Joker Tattoo

Joe asked me what I thought about him using a certain image of the Joker for a tattoo. The original is the following, from a Dark Knight poster. The original part he was interested in was this:

I’m never sure how serious any tattoo discussion I have with people go, because it is something you need to think about a little bit. I think we both had a few issues with the design, and both considered some more cartoonish representation. Now, I’m on the clock, but I figured I could quickly do some mock ups, and see how it came out.

The first one was a real fast, really blockish, black and white scribble, just to see what I would be working with. I drew a second one a little slower, with some rounder lines, and it looked a little better. I added some color with pastels to flesh it out, though more in the vein of the original and probably not what it’d look like as an actual cartoon type image.
It still has the problem of the weird borders, like the disappearing hand and the hair and all. The original too, has black all around it, which makes the fades look nice, but I don’t know how well that’d look on somebody’s arm. I don’t think it came out all that bad though for something that only took 2 minutes.

Astrobase, go

Within seconds of the episode starting, there is great creepy airy music, and then penis jokes. The Venture Bros. is definitely an upscale affair. There’s been a promotion they’ve been running where they are selling shirts each week with special logos that are based on the episodes.
Excluding last episode I’ve guessed all of the logos accurately, and last episode was probably one of the weaker episodes of the season, particularly with no great back story, no Monarch, no Phantom Limb, etc.
I probably won’t be able to make any guesses in time to impress anybody, but I think I can get it before the shirt is revealed.

Guess number 1:

This is a Rusty Venture shirt. It actually appears as a shirt (and loincloth) in the episode. It’s probably the most likely, but sometimes they try and throw a curve ball.

Guess number 2:

This one is pretty logo-esque. I was thinking maybe a combo with the devil face. It has the potential to be a pretty amazing looking shirt, and could have that old style computer font spelling M.U.T.H.E.R.

Guess number 3:

The least likely of the logos I’d say, the Triad logo only makes a quick appearance in the episode, and isn’t particularly relevant. It’d be a great logo for a shirt though, but they’ve done it before where they don’t use this type of logo.

Incidentally, the episode wasn’t my favorite, but it wasn’t the worst. It did also enough bits for guessing the shirts too, which is always fun. And while I am just guessing for fun of course, me, Alicia, and Robert, are all investing in the 14 shirts deal. Why not? Oh, by the way, I’m going with No. 1

After the fact update: It was number 3, and I wanted it to be 3, but they’ve been tricky before. Overall I’m just really glad that this is something I can have a little fun with during the wait, and that it’s interesting and, well challenging might be an overstatement, but it’s a stumper at the very least.

Smile!

I am seeing Boris in just a couple of days with Alicia and I’m quite excited. According to the internet, they are only playing with Torche, but my ticket says there is some special guest. Part one of this post is general reviews of the various bands opening for Boris this tour:

1. Nachtmystium is playing shows on either side of this show, and their myspace page says they are playing in Buffalo. I’m just going to go ahead and kind of assume they are the opening band. This band is pretty solid, epic death metal. Supposedly there is a psychadelia component to their music, but I fail to hear it from the sampling I took. I probably wouldn’t dislike this, but it might go on too long for my tastes.

2. The band that has been playing with Boris so far on tour is Clouds, and I must say I’m disappointed that they live in Massachusetts, because that is where they got off of the Boris-train. They are definitely one of the better operations and I hope to get chance to see them sometime. “Year Zero” is a great, great track.

3. The tail end of the our has Lair Of The Minotaur opening, and they aren’t striking me as anything too exciting. More or less melodic death metal, but the riffage doesn’t impress me, nor does the drums, or really anything. In fact, the vocals are rather unpleasant, and overall the songs seem lackluster.

Before Boris goes on, Torche will be playing, and they’re a pretty together outfit. Musically, I really enjoy them, tracks like “Piranha” have this great sound to them. I do find the singer’s voice a bit annoying for more than a bit, but at times, I don’t seem to mind the vocals that much. I’m expecting the combination of quieter vocals at live shows, plus the lack of production and all to make it more than palatable.

Boris’s most recent release, Smile, is a curious item. There is a Japanese release, and an American release, which is perfectly normal, but the thing is the US album was remixed to make the Japanese release (in all likelihood, and based on what the single releases suggest) and they have significantly different sounds between them. The Southern Lord version of “Statement” is on their myspace page, and is a pretty rocking song, whereas the Diwphalanx version, called Message (or Messeeji, or メッセージ, or whatever) is slower, more brooding, and definitely still an awesome song, but if I wasn’t paying attention, I might not’ve immediately put the two together as being two sides of the same coin.

Overall, the Southern Lord version of Smile is a killer rock effort, and it sounds like it would definitely resonate with the US fans and market. I wouldn’t jump as far as they did to call it their “sell out album” albeit jokingly, but it’s quite listenable. The Diwphalanx sounds to me like it’s their treat to their true fans, the people who are going to want to hear some stuff more like the old, and I’d bet the fans in Japan are much more demanding of sludge metal freak outs than anything seemingly mainstream. It’s a really nice idea I think as well, having the multiple versions.

Incidentally, I’m also going to see The Melvins in August, the band that inspired the name of Boris, and one of their main influences. In summation, here’s a recap and review of some relevant songs:

• Boris – Floor Shaker, the b-side to Statement, this is one rocking song, and it’s actually got almost a dancey beat to it for the bulk of it. If you can get your hands on it, it’ll be worth it.

• The Melvins – Boris, the track where Boris got their name from, on Bullhead. The droning guitar for the first minute is all you need to hear to why Boris took this song for their name. A solid Melvins track on top of that.

• Isis and Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Boris, from “We Reach,” an awesome tribute album to The Melvins. Similar to the original in composition, but the vocals and guitar tone aren’t up to snuff. I prefer the original, but this can be a treat for any Melvins fan.

Burn Notice

Burn Notice started back up, and they definitely tired to start with a bang, but it was a bit of a House-type maneuver as things went almost immediately back to the usual storyboard. The ongoing story of “looking for who burned me” can only go so much longer, so I’m hoping for maybe a 3 episode wrap-up to that, maybe an interlude of an episode or two, and then some new arc material. I’m not one to speculate as to what they should be doing. I do like that his helping people has delved into a pretty solid grey area, where he’s now helping someone save their family, but ultimately working for the bad guys.

It’s a nice program, especially as lighter fare. It’s reminiscent of Dexter (Season 3: September 28th! Mark your calendars!) with the voice over monologues and ingenuity employed to keep their efforts covert. They are both in Miami, and have latin music well employed. I think I probably like the music in Dexter a bit more, especially the theme, but I think the music in Burn Notice is a nice change from the usual wares. I don’t get how he wears those suits all of the time, but I suppose it’s supposed to add to his air of cool.

Burn Notice does have Bruce Campbell, a personal favorite, who brings the best humor and sort of balances out the fact that the rest of the supporting cast tends to function best by annoying me as much as they annoy Michael. Speaking of whom, he’s not the most amazing character because he would have been an unstoppable juggernaut pre-burning. Now he’s pretty much an unstoppable juggernaut who has to work within a budget, which doesn’t seem to hold him back too much either.

Speaking of bang, they did pull out some heavy hitters for the show, lots of explosions and guns. The preview, though, has me a little worried that there’s going to be some further “I’m sorry but your princess is in another castle” business going on, like in Stargate, where after every top-level bad guy, somebody higher up is revealed. They did manage to stretch it out to 10 seasons though. If we hit the roof relatively soon, I wouldn’t complain, there’s bureaucracy and all in this world I bet.
Incidentally, I am glad that Robert caught on months after I told him that Burn Notice was worth watching, and this was also back when there was nothing to watch on tv.

12 Days, still