fnordication…

Shopping can be so goddamn frustrating sometimes.

I decided over President’s Day weekend that I wanted to take advantage of a sale at Guitar Center and pick up a new midi controller. Specifically I wanted to grab the M-Audio Trigger Finger, while I’ve been eyeing the Korg PadKontrol  for a while the price and lack of faders and knobs pushed me towards the Trigger Finger.

Anyway, so I picked up the Trigger Finger and brought it home. Went straight to the computer to try it out and was annoyed to find that the USB cable was really short and wouldn’t allow the controller to sit on the table I keep my gear on. Ok, no biggie I will just use a MIDI cable.  Even though I wasn’t using the USB I decided to install the driver just in case. Of course, the driver supplied with the controller wouldn’t install on Vista, so I had to hunt that down on the M-Audio website.  I installed the Ableton Live Lite edition that also came with the unit, but that wasn’t working. Figuring that it must also be a Vista incompatability I went to find out if there was an upgrade. Once logged into the Ableton site I find out that someone else is using the registration number that was supplied with the software. WTF? I just bought this brand new.

I fire off an email to Ableton to try and resolve this, but in the meantime I fire up a couple of my other progams like Reason (demo) and Reaper. The Trigger Finger has a factory default Reason map so that should work perfectly fine… nope. Nothing.  Ok.  So I try to get something working in Reaper. Again nothing. So finally I manually map a bunch of the midi notes into the controller that correspond with the VST I am trying out (i believe it was erraticCM) and nothing. While this is going on I am realizing that none of the factory presets are actually in the unit. And it doesn’t seem to be sending anything to my computer. So now I use the updated USB driver and nothing still. By this point I am fucking livid. Obviously Guitar Center sold me a returned unit since the registration number was used and the POS controller isn’t working at all.

Ableton was awesome and got right back to me the next day (they are in Germany) with a new registration number. When I went back to GC to return the controller they surprisingly gave me no real hassle, and also hooked me up with a nice discount on a guitar tuner I wanted.  As much as I would love to complain they did the right thing.  Of course, the new controller worked perfectly fine and came with a USB cable with just the right length I needed it to have.

fnordboy Music ableton, gear, midi, Music, trigger finger

Since I updated my wordpress software I figured I should post again.

The only really interesting thing going on as of late is that I recently decided to start making music again. I’ve recorded a few rough tracks that I still need to work on and tons of unfinished bits and pieces that will either go nowhere or will be cannibalized for something else down the road. At this point it is nothing more than a hobby, but it’s nice to have a creative outlet again. I was hoping to focus on my photography, but my plans and desires are too grandiose to execute. With the music I have the luxury of moving at my own pace and relying on no one other than myself, which is nice.

I don’t know what I would call what I am doing. It’s definitely got some noise elements, a bit of drone, there is some ritual. It’s experimental (yes, that was for you AR). When I originally started to think about working with synths and stuff I was thinking I would be going either straight Noise or Dark Ambient, but I found myself leaning naturally towards a hypnotic, ritualized sound. It’s still being formed, and I am sure I will end up somewhere different eventually.

So I guess I will share one of my in progress tracks:

fnordboy Art, Music

Stealing an idea from Frank. I decided to start adding some of the reviews I write up to this blog, one - it’s a way to keep this blog moving along, and two - this will give me that ability to review older releases that we don’t cover on Soundsect as well as other releases like DVDs and books.

So here is the first one I am adding to the blog, Nurse With Wound’s new release Huffin’ Rag Blues.

Buy From Amazon

As a longtime fan of Nurse With Wound, I was both eager and afraid to hear the latest effort by Steven Stapleton and crew, Huffin’ Rag Blues. Up until it’s release it was touted as a very lounge-inspired release with vocals that harkened back to Peggy Lee. Not really knowing what to expect I put the disc in the player and was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

The short opening track, “Willy the Weeper,” begins with a whimsical tune that fades into a terrifying growl, letting you know that this is still clearly a NWW release. Between the droning, free-form jazz of “Thrill of Romance..?”, the lounge organ of “Groove Grease (Hot Catz)”, and the piano of “Wash the Dust From My Heart” the setting of this album is created. A dingy, smoky subterranean club, pulled out of David Lynch film.

Where the album strays from the lounge concept is on the tracks “The Funktion of the Hairy Egg” and “Juice Head Crazy Lady”. The nearly 14 minute long “Hairy Egg” is mostly a traditional Nurse With Wound track for the majority of it’s length. Vocals kick in around the 9 minute mark and the underlying noises morph into the tribal drumming and animal sounds of a rainforest cacophony.

One of the more interesting choices on Huffin’ Rag Blues is definitely “Black Teeth”. The vocals by Matt Waldron make this track sound like a Tom Waits inspired Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds outtake… not something you would expect to be said about a Nurse With Wound song, especially one that apes Sheena Easton lyrics.

The highlight of the album is the track “Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’”, which has an equally great remix found on The Bacteria Magnet mini LP. Utilizing car horns, car radios and other auto related samples, it seems easily to be the track on Huffin’ Rag Blues that the most fun was had making.

Huffin’ Rag Blues could be difficult for a lot of Nurse With Wound fans to get into as it is somewhat of a departure and is, on the surface, one of Stapleton’s more accessible outings. After 30 years in the making music business, it is clear to me that Steven Stapleton is still being as experimental and innovative as he was when he first began Nurse With Wound.

This review and others can be found on Soundsect.com.

fnordboy Music, Music Review

I was trying to find a name of a band that did a song that I barely remember at this point. It was on a skateboard video put out by the company Gullwing called Full Power Trip. I have the VHS sitting in a box somewhere, I will probably have to dig it out. In my search I came across a great site that catalogs and has info and reviews on old skateboard videos: SkimTheFat.com. They have a good list of over 700 videos and one of the highlights is that they feature the soundtrack list for the videos. Unfortunately they don’t have a listing for that particular Gullwing video.

Of course this made me nostalgic so I had to throw some Naked Raygun in Winamp. I also found out that most of the older videos I loved are on DVD now. H-Street’s Hokus Pokus, Powell Peralta’s Ban This and Propaganda, Santa Cruz’s Reason For Living (which had a great soundtrack), Speed Freaks, etc. I think you can even get Rubbish Heap on DVD now. I’m going to have to keep my eyes open for some good deals on these.

fnordboy DVDs, Music, Nostalgia, Websites

In the mail today I received the review copy of the latest Psychic TV (PTV3) cd, Hell is Invisible…Heaven is Her/e. This album is really, really good. I wasn’t expecting it to be this good. I had high hopes, but I figured with all these new studio albums from some of my old favorite bands that have come out and been really good (Throbbing Gristle’s Part Two, Dinosaur Jr.’s Beyond) that eventually one of them would have to suck. So far so good. The review will be up on soundsect.com in a week or so. Until then I will be playing the shit out of this disc.

Completely unrelated, I decided I need to start getting some money together. I am starting to mentally go through what I can eBay, and have come up with a number of things. I have a couple of pairs of sneakers that I have bought in the last year that I never even used because I wasn’t 100% happy with the fit or the look. One of the downsides of ordering online and being a procrastinator about sending things back. I also have a number of DVDs that I really don’t need/want anymore. Those will take me longer to go through and get together ready for sale, but it’s time. All this shit is just taking up space here and it’s money that could be sitting in my bank account. I also have a website to finish for a client, I need to get cracking on that. It would be nice to have a few more hours in the day to get all this done.

fnordboy General, Music

Shortly on soundsect.com you will see the site’s picks for Best Albums of 2006. I compiled my own list which I will show here.

Overall it was a pretty good year for music. There were some great new releases from up and coming bands, some stellar reissues, and some great releases from some well known musicians who have been giving us great music for several decades.

The Top Ten Albums of 2006

10. The Thermals - The Body, the Blood, the Machine This follow up to 2004’s absolutely amazing Fuckin’ A took a little while to grow on me, but it definitely took it’s hold after a few listens. I find myself listening to it more and more.
9. Tokyo Police Club - Lessons in Crime Their debut CD comes in at a whopping 16:19, the 7 tracks average about 2:20 in length. Goddamn what a good 16 minutes this is though. “Nature of the Experiment” is definitely one of the catchiest songs of the year. Can not wait to hear more from them.
8. Raison D’être - Metamorphyses Raison D’être returned in 2006 with a new album. Peter Andersson took a slightly different route with this album and to be honest I really like this new direction for Raison D’être.
7. Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass IANAoYaIWBYA is a great album that is an amalgamation of all the styles they have touched upon throughout their career as well as something new thrown into the mix. A post of mine on the soundsect.com forums after my intial listen says it all: “‘The Story of Yo La Tango’ is one of the best songs ever written. “
6. Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll In reality this album came out in 2005, but since I am basing this on US release dates Bang Bang Rock & Roll makes it onto the list. Can not wait to hear what they bring us next. Read my full review here.
5. Wilt - Dark Meadows This album caught me by surprise. A beautiful mix of field recordings, acoustic guitar and electronics. Wrylab turned me onto this one, and I am glad he did.
4. Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast Matmos gave us another brilliant album this past year with some guest appearances from the likes of Bjork and Blevin Blectum. As always, Matmos introduce a new way of making music: A cow’s reproductive tract as a wind instrument. Enough said.
3. Xiu Xiu - The Air Force I will admit, the latest Xiu Xiu didn’t grab me at first. It took afew listens for me to really get into this album, but once I did it has quickly become one of my favorite Xiu Xiu albums. Read my full review here.
2. Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards Everything about this release is great. The packaging, the music, everything. There are a few “ok” tracks, but for the most part this is a damn brilliant set.
1. Scott Walker - The Drift Honestly this was my first real introduction to Scott Walker’s music and it blew me away. Grim, dark cabaret full of theatrics and dark lyrics. Hard to believe that he was once a 60’s pop icon. I can not recommend this CD enough.

Hopefully 2007 will be a good year for music as well.

fnordboy Music

It’s been awhile since my last update, when I of course said I would be updating more. I just checked and it is a month to the day actually.

Flock. Well, I used flock for a few days after I had made my initial blog post about it. I ended up not using it anymore once I realized how much of a pig it was. That browser sure sucked up some memory. I was talking with Alien Redrum about Flock and I don’t remember who, but one of us thought to look at the processes running on Windows and noticed that this thing was using like 10x the amount of memory that Firefox used. I closed the browser and haven’t looked back. Maybe I will relook at it down the road, but for now it is back to Firefox.

Speaking of Firefox, I noticed something interesting in the stats of a new website that I started with a friend of mine called Soundsect. I was looking through the stats of the visitors to the site and noticed something I had never seen before, Internet Explorer was not the top browser used by the visitors to my site. It was in second, but a distant second. I haven’t really kept on any of my other sites’ stats in the last few years, so maybe that has been a fairly common trend, but I was surprised. The stats as of sometime yesterday afternoon are:

• Firefox: 59.8 %
• MS Internet Explorer: 28.8 %
• Safari: 6.5 %
• Opera: 4.3 %
• Mozilla: 0.3 %
• UP.Browser (PDA/Phone browser): 0.1 %

Pretty damn surprising, IMO. Also, to be fair the site is geared towards a younger crowd, who would be more inclined to adopt Firefox as their browser of choice. It was also interesting to see that I was not the only one checking out the site on my phone and Palm.

So, what’s the “Runway” in the title? Just to piss off a certain someone I just needed to mention that the new season of Project Runway started this past Wednesday and it looks to be one hell of a season. Lots of potential drama in the works it seems. Not sure who I am rooting for yet, hell, it took a number of episodes for even Santino and Jay to grow on me. Can’t really tell who has any real talent yet, but some of the designers definitely surpised me in the first round. I expected some crap by a few individuals and they seemed to turn out some decent pieces. We’ll see.

Expect another post in the next day or so, I want to talk about OBEs a bit since it was a topic on Opie and Anthony this morning and made me remember some of the weird things that happened to me in my youth.

fnordboy Films/TV, General, Music

Yay! A new post.

I haven’t felt like posting much lately… most of you know why. Today FreakMagnet left me a comment complaining how I don’t update this blog, so in honor of her today I will revisit the old standby of “what weird searches bring people to my blog”. Of course it has to have a FreakMagnet slant. LOL!

I got one search hit via MSN for the term: Is Billy Squier gay

Yes!

Of course that made me think of you Freak.

I promise to update more often from now on since things have sort of settled down.

fnordboy General, Music

Last night Freak Magnet was in town to see Billy Squier, or like she calls him, her future husband. I know… like me I am sure you are all just shocked that: A) He is still alive and B) Anyone remembers who the hell he is. I only remember him because I have VH1 Classic and every now and then they run out of shit to play and throw one of his videos on.

Anyway, after the show she gave me a call so we could get together for some coffee and food before she makes the trek back to MD. AK and I met up with Freak and her friend in Hoboken and took her to a diner I enjoy a couple towns over. First we stopped over by the river so she could take in the beautiful view of NYC we get on this side of the Hudson. We talked a little about her experience in NYC and at the show. By about 12:30 they decided that they needed to start on their way back to MD. I don’t think there is any band that I would drive 3 - 4 hours away for, so I give her credit for that.

Too bad it was for Billy Squier though.

Had a good time, sucks that it wasn’t earlier in the night, but as least we got together for an hour or so and had some laughs. And it was a nice way to end a crappy day. I have been swamped lately with a project that finally got out the door basically done yesterday. It was a multimedia CD-Rom for a large corporation, and it was just massive as far as the amount of information that needed to be on the CD. Just waiting for some edits and hopefully the rest of the process will be painless… doubtful though. I wanted the project done on Monday, so by Wednesday I was going nuts trying to get it done and at the same time beating myself up for not finishing it when I planned to. Thankfully by the time Freak was around I was in a good mood.

She also brought me some Ayn Rand books, so that was nice. Thanks, Freak!

fnordboy General, Music

I was sitting here at work a little bored, so I decided wth. I should write something on the blog.

April 1st has always been a weird day to me. I usually enjoy playing pranks on people, and I actually had a good one planned for a coworker. I still might do it so I don’t want to say it here yet. Anyway, 4/1 has been a sad day for a few years now. 7 years ago today one of the greatest musicians of (atleast) my lifetime hung himself, Rozz Williams. I have never been big into the gothic culture, but I have for as long as I can remember listened to a lot of gothic music. And Rozz Williams was in some of my favorite gothic bands: Christian Death, Shadow Project, his spoken word stuff. And of course in the experimental band Premature Ejaculation.

I always find it hard to explain to people unfamiliar with his work. They hear the word gothic and automatically assume it is cheesy. I agree, a lot of things in the gothic culture are cheesy and nowadays it seems even worse than ever. Rozz was amazing though. He had a beautiful voice, and had brilliant lyrics.

There is a great little video up at Forever Hollywood Cemetary’s site, you can view it here.

fnordboy General, Music