Wordle “cloud” versions of It’s Too Damn Early playlists

Via one of Ralph Lichtensteiger’s posts on the Silence list yesterday, I was introduced to a fun online tool for generating word clouds– Wordle. I’ve generally found tag clouds fairly useless, and an unnecessarily obtuse method for page navigation, but Wordle has a simple interface that lets users enter their own text for the cloud generation… I ended up entering three months worth of playlists, one at a time! My results are below, along with a meta-cloud featuring the entire three months combined, and a final cloud with multiple years worth of my early playlists.

These get a little squished with the blog’s formatting, so click the cloud for the full-size version, okay?

This first cloud is from April 26, 2008. As you can see, I was playing a lot of George Korein’s “Another Corpse” album!

I like the vaguely Greek lettering style for this cloud, from the April 4, 2008 broadcast. It’s fitting, given the conversation I was having with a Greek sound engineer that week about Brekekekexkoaxkoax, so I was amused when this font was randomly selected.

Here is the cloud for the April 12, 2008 broadcast. I’m having fun reading it as a poem: “Everything long, young girl eyesore.” Sounds like my spam filter!

From the April 19, 2008 broadcast… Karthik Kakarala ends up making the cloud without being played on the show– one of the perks of visiting the Hi-Life Room and nearly giving me a heart attack!

This is a good-looking cloud! Very “Times,” don’t you think? I also like the juxtaposition of “station, studio, beehive” in the upper right. How appropriate! Taken from the May 3, 2008 playlist.

I didn’t do much actual liveblogging for the May 17, 2008 broadcast; I’ll let this cloud speak for me. I wish “feral” showed up in more tag clouds…

The May 24, 2008 playlist generated this cloud– it’s funny how the thing I remember most about this broadcast (playing from the Bearly Queen disc near the end of the set) hardly shows up in the cloud. And Bikelophone is huge, haha! If the cloud only knew the Bikelophone track was just a few minutes long, versus BQ’s 18-minute monster…

Wow, I made a lot of these things. I sure hope you like Wordle clouds, ’cause I’m shoving them down your throat. This is made from the June 14, 2008 playlist. Again, it’s very difficult not to read as a poem: “Much nice ITDE sound download / miss work, got birds like cello intertwined.”

Looks like I played some of The Harmful Free Radicals, eh? Made from the June 21, 2008 set.

One day after the previous cloud, I did the June 22, 2008 broadcast– turned in this set, which is quite different in scope.

This was the result of combing all the above playlists, minus common English words. For some reason, this reminds me of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” movie poster.

Here’s the biggie– many years worth of my playlists… I think I used 2006, 2005, and some from 2003. Entering these in was a pain in the ass, because there was no easy way to get rid of my original +++ used to separate playlist entries. Anyhow, it’s a nice birdseye look at my show’s earlier days. Feel free to leave links to your Wordle clouds in the comments section!

Mail Art vs. Philately

Every now and then, an interesting-looking package will show up in my mailbox, despite the postal service’s best efforts to eat or destroy much of my incoming mail. Although the majority of packages I receive have bar coded or machine-printed postage, some of you care enough to share your spit with me. Others (and I’m kicking myself for not being able to locate so many of the cool things that have come in over the years) are more into the mail art side of things.

If you ever want something really fun to arrive in the mail, try ordering from Josh Ronsen or Crank Sturgeon! The last CS care package I got had mistreated playing cards, sticks, a portion of a children’s book, and some sort of human resources manual along with Crank’s bizarre approach to cdr and tape packaging. As I recall, Ronsen had a way with tin foil and re-purposed mailers.

As I mentioned, these sorts of things arrive every so often– with enough regularity that I will try to hold onto the more interesting stamps or art for a while, intending to share them with you– but most often, misplacing them before getting around to scanning stuff. That’s why this is an anemic display… perhaps you’ll enjoy it regardless? Be sure to click the scans to visit the associated labels and artists!

Here’s one from Lona Records, in Hong Kong:

This one is from Luovaja Records, in Finland:

It’s not a stamp, but it’s still pretty good-looking– from New Juche!

I forgot to mention Ukraine’s Nexsound earlier– although their mailers are generally plain brown, they have some amazing talent for creating beautiful album art and packaging.

This one caught my son’s eye– it’s from Sonic Anta, here in the U.S.

Finally, my favorite city– New York City! Gorgeously-designed packages are part of every The Land Of release, but I’m also digging these cancelled stamps… auto-mailart, anyone?

Very sad news/Flaming balls with report

There will be no broadcast this Saturday, June 28th, as I will be out of town. Feel free to drop by and leave coke in my fridge, or money in my mailbox– and no fair taking money back out, either!

I’ll have my next broadcast of “It’s Too Damn Early” on July 5th, so expect lots of explosions, etc. If anyone has firework-themed recordings, now is the time to start e-mailing me links; you know how much I love these! While you’re waiting, go see some of my friend Heather Lose’s photographs, from firework stands in Tennessee.

Liveblogging! Commentary for “ITDE” 6/22/08

I’m covering for the Jazz Kitten right now– just got finished babysitting the “New Dimensions” program… something about “living democracy,” ugh. I’ve noticed that every time I hear that program, the host and interviewee sound.. I don’t know, breathy. Like two people falling asleep while talking politics. Music, please!

I’m playing from Dr. Mint’s superb “Visions and Nightmares” album right now, with an excellent lead-in from the California Outside Music Associates, and their disc “Big Words.” I rarely mention this, but it’s just wonderful to be able to get music like this on the radio. It may not be much compared to the corporate behemoths, but it’s got to count for something! I won’t lie– it’s all an uphill battle. Last night’s big musical event was a live covers band, who apparently slogged through some Steely Dan to the drunken delight of an enormous crowd. Dr. Mint, come save us!

You want to talk about taking a risk? I’m dropping the next half hour on one artist– and one work– Nicolas Bougaïeff’s “Dies Irae.” That’s more or less radio suicide, but I like this piece so much I’m doing it anyway. Let’s hope some folks stick around for the whole thing. As a side note, do not listen to “Dies Irae” following a scary movie viewing. I made that mistake during my last show, and spent a lot of being totally paranoid.

I’m bargaining with people in SLSK’s noise chat– the host of CFMU-FM’s “A Little Noise in the System” will check out my show if I dig his sometime. Sounds fair.

If you weren’t listening, you just missed a really beautiful bit with Annea Lockwood’s “Fridingden to Ulm,” co-existing with Sabrina Siegel’s “Fire”. Gorgeous stuff– and too bad I’m not recording this broadcast… Next up, I have a work from Robert Dow, entitled “Precipitation Within Sight.”

I finished off the show with an excerpt from Solitary B label’s new release “For Birds, Planes & Cello,” which was a nice way to lead into “Music From Beyond the Lakes,” and its annual “Porchswing Music” broadcast.

Frederique Bruyas — Christophe Tarkos, Poeme choisi in Pan, Editions P.O.L.
Bob Marsh — Over Time You’ll See
California Outside Music Associates — Folketymology
Dr. Mint — Fire Flight
Henri Chopin — La civilisation du papier
Nicolas Bougaïeff — Dies Irae
Miss High Heel — A Holocaust Offered to Soft-Moloch
Frank Rothkamm — Half Man, Half Amazing
Sabrina Siegel — Ring
Sabrina Siegel — Fire
Annea Lockwood — A Sound Map of the Danube, Fridingden to Ulm
Robert Dow — Precipitation Within Sight
Al Margolis/If, Bwana — An Innocent, Abroad: Abroad
Miya Masaoka, Joan Jeanrenaud — For Birds, Planes & Cello (excerpt)

DaveX goes among the normal people

I’m covering for the Jazz Kitten’s normal broadcast, so all of you lazy folks who sleep each night will have no excuse for missing my broadcast this time around– tune in Sunday, June 22 from 6-8 p.m., CST for a solid dose of experimental sound.

Ordinarily, the Jazz Kitten presents jazz standards… hopefully, I don’t get too many irate/confused callers!

Liveblogging! Commentary for “ITDE” 6/21/08

I don’t have a whole lot to say this week so far, just been letting the music speak in my place. Right now, I’m downloading Skype to the WDBX master studio computer– I have been toying around with the idea of doing a simultaneous Skypecast, so I’m going to implement this today!

As for the music, I had been thinking about this Harmful Free Radicals album, “Duplicate Factories of Washington State” all day, and knew I was going to play it when I got here. When I got around to it, I thought I had lost the album! Of course, it was located in my dismally-organized case, and now you can hear it. Like the MSPaint-type cover art, this is a weirdly blunt disc– obviously odd, but totally comfortable in that mode. Naturally, it’s a lot of fun to hear. More long titles for DJs to type, though!

Oh! My Skype install is complete. More details in a bit.

I’ve got a treat coming up– in less than a minute… new material from Nicolas Bougaïeff… “Dies Irae”

Alrighty, Skype is up and running. I’m already hosting a Skypecast. If you have Skype, just click this link to listen. If not, consider getting a free copy. I may end up doing more of these in the future.

Frederique Bruyas — Christophe Tarkos
Frederique Bruyas — Gherasim Luca
The Harmful Free Radicals — Beauty (After Peer Review)
The Harmful Free Radicals — Can I Eat the Whole Thing?
The Harmful Free Radicals — The First Time I Heard the Word ‘Billabong’
Stephane Roy — Appartences, Theme celt
Stephane Roy — Appartences, Theme latin
Stephane Roy — Appartences, Theme oriental
Nicolas Bougaïeff – Dies Irae
Nicholas Szczepanik — 05 10
GRKZGL — Live at Cafe Independent, Tokyo
Ethan Tripp — A Spear Through the Purple Indefinite
Miya Masaoki — While I Was Walking, I Heard a Sound…

Imaginary software fanfic!

The other day, I was imagining an mp3 player of sorts, something that would allow the user to manipulate a variety of data about a virtual listener to generate playlists reflecting their age, location, and time. It’s basically the reverse of something like LastFM– instead of running into people and discovering them through their music, users of this program (which I’m calling “Malty”) would discover the music through virtual persons of their own design.

I decided that it would be a fun project to create a couple mock-ups of Malty– not only do I have no coding experience to create a program, but such an idea seems rather far-fetched anyways! Still, it’s been fun… something like software fanfic, if you think about it. Stephen King’s “Word Processor of the Gods” might fit the genre, too.

To create the mock-ups, I imported various screen caps into Photoshop, mostly of Photoshop and EAC preference windows. A little bit of cutting and pasting work, and voila! I present Malty 1.0, fanfic for the most extreme version of vaporware ever. Feel free to register your copy of Malty by leaving a comment!

PLEASE BE SURE TO VIEW THESE MOCK-UPS IN FULL SIZE!!

As you can see, Malty allows users to select the age and gender of the virtual listener. A “race weighting” feature allows users to generate playlists for virtual listeners ranging from extremely sheltered to cosmopolitan in outlook. The “religion shaping” tool can add realistic flourishes, using Malty’s patent-pending Pezee-Myers algorithm. The “odd formats” option introduces otherwise out-of-date formats into the mix; for example, a teen in the 1980’s could theoretically select from 78 RPM recordings.

Where Malty 1.0 is particularly exceptional, however, is in the pioneering field of realistic external sound generation. As no music is experienced in a vacuum, users can toggle the external sound playback function to generate lifelike incidental noises heard alongside the standard playback feature. Virtual listener profiles created within city environments will produce typical urban sounds appropriate to their day, all heard through the lens of your listener’s selected environment. Registered users can also import everyday sounds using the HarS plugin.

Social support is a given. Malty is iTunes-enabled, with auto-downloading of any playback recordings to user-defined libraries, or share playback lists across LastFM. Integrated Skypecasting allows virtual listeners to host “listening parties,” with 100% virtual listener control available– your virtual listener will interact with other created listeners worldwide, with temporal and cultural mashups providing hours of entertainment.

The time settings section allows Malty users to precisely select the time and duration of the playback span. Dates spanning approximately 4,000 years are available, however, years preceding the known history of recorded music will generate modern reproductions of historical and hypothetical music– e.g, Bach played by the New York Philharmonic, or interpolations of how a Hurrian hymn may have sounded.

Venue compensation lets Malty weight playback selections to account for listener profiles exposed to popular music via live settings; such as concert halls, discoteques, vaudeville, dive bars, or even coffee shops. A wide variety of settings are being developed by users everyday, utilizing Malty’s open-source code and venue-generator tool. The “parent” button can be toggled on and off during playback to simulate mom or dad returning home– try it during playback involving explicit lyrics!

Various playback methods are also included, with appropriate historical players available within the listener profile. Finally, users can browse the “situation library” to accurately frame the playback list– the same listener profile will generate different possible lists based on this information. Choose nearly any situation from cross-country roadtrip to quiet basement flat, pre-suicide to post-coital!

Future versions of Malty will allow situation “gradients,” for example, moving from over time from “drunken spree” into “slumber party.” Millions of combinations!

Waiting…

Firefox 3 drops at noon (my time), which surprised me. I figured I could jump out of bed, pad over the computer in my PJs, and have some sort of geeky pseudo-Xmas morning event.

No such luck!

Now I’m waiting on those slowpoke San Franciscans to wake up, have their coffee, read some blogs, etc… In the meantime, be sure to get over to the download pledge site and help Mozilla win a world record!

Update: Here’s a hint– if you invite everyone to a party, be sure to have enough chairs. 30 mins in, and I’m still getting time out errors, ack! BTW, this is my first animated gif. Feel free to throw those party chairs at me, but I think it turned out well!

Update 2: It took about an hour, but I finally got Firefox 3 downloaded. I’m really enjoying the way bookmarks are set up, especially in regards to live bookmarks. The back/forward/recent button is pretty fab, too! I’m still not a big fan of the new location bar, it’s kinda big and ugly… wouldn’t mind being able to turn that off easily, it’s too weird having bookmarks pop up as I type, especially for miscellaneous internal links at the main site I may be attempting to reach. I’m also happy to have my Adblock Plus back– it wasn’t compatible right off, but seems to be working now. With any luck, I’ll get the Skype and Linkify plugins back soon.

Weird similarity

I don’t ordinarily have television, but I overheard a McDonald’s commercial on my father’s tv last week that caught my ear– the accompanying music sounded like a bizarre acapella version of “Kepone Factory” by the Dead Kennedys!

I made a mental note to check this possibility out (-Wesley, -rednecks, if you want to get decent Google results for “Dead Kennedys” AND “McDonalds,” btw)… but didn’t find anything. Luckily, the commercial was popular enough to find its way to YouTube, so I can share it with you!

Turns out that the song used is actually called “Hocus Pocus” and is by the band Focus. Overall, it doesn’t sound much like the Dead Kennedys at all, and is quite irritating.

This is how my brain works– catch the back 5 seconds of a McDonald’s commercial, spend half and hour figuring out exactly which DK song it reminds me of, and then painstakingly research the whole thing a week later.

Both kinds of ’struction

Some concepts I’m having for this blog:

1) More links! I was thinking of meeting The Listenerd halfway. He’s adding more personal writing, and I need to add more ways to get out. There’s lots of interesting things online… maybe you’ll be interested in some of them. Whaddya know, here’s one: Cloak of Silence!

2) Reviews. I love reading them, I hate writing them. Unfortunately, everybody seems to like the damned things. They also feel like an accomplishment… probably because I take forever constructing them. Part of me wants to never write one again, another part wants to write one each day. Aside from getting your band some cheap PR, how useful are these things to you? Would you miss them?

3) More audio. I’ve got a few gigs to work with on WordPress. Maybe audio-only posts could liven things up a bit? Do I actually need more work? Who wants to hear me review albums while listening to them and cleaning my house? THAT would be unique!

4) You better start leaving some comments. I don’t get paid for any of this, you know.

I can’t quit/kill you.

Okaaaaay, so I’m a lazy SOB. This, we have established. In other news, no fatal consequences to my stats– not sure if this is a good thing or not.

As longer-time readers/listeners can guess, I’m inside one of my periodic “low” times, with both the show and blog suffering as a result. My past what? whole bunch of shows have had suck-ass accompanying liveblogs, no download, and a silent host. It’s no comment on the music, to be sure, but that’s what you get from a DJ half-decided to build his broadcast around an “I’m a useless waste of space” theme. Ugh.

I just deleted a whole bunch of stuff from this entry. Too introspective!

Oh, and deleted a lot more again. Too dramatic!

In a nutshell, if I can’t get things together to my liking, I’m giving up entirely. Let’s see how it goes.

Taking a break until Saturday

I’m a bit overwhelmed at the moment, and don’t want to have anything to do with blogging for a bit– my head’s in it, but my heart feels lazy and burdened with radio and blogs right now. I’m going to step back until Saturday, and just give myself the gift of “relaxing”… I put this in quotes because my body will be doing anything but relaxing… lots of driving coming up, lots of family, and lots of stuff to do IRL.

Yuck.

Anyways, I’ll get the last playlist up at that time, and I promise to have the next show recorded and available for download as well. Honest!

Last show, I had to call a hipster (born in 1985) on his assertion that he “stopped listening” to Metallica after Master of Puppets. Umm, what, when he was 1 year old?

On the upside, I pulled a u-turn yesterday to go back for a turtle crossing the highway– I wanted to move him off into the grass before someone hit him. I was happy to see the car in front of me had the same idea, so I managed traffic while he got the slowpoke reptile off the road. If you know a Southern Illinoisian with the license plate “Jolvo,” be sure to give him a big thumbs-up.

See you Saturday!

Disappointment / Moon Crickets

Well, the Vatican hedged their bets, and ended up hanging its collective ass out. Too bad about NASA’s big announcement, though– I was hoping it would be the discovery of Planet X, or better yet, another habitable Earth-like planet… instead, they’ve discovered the most recent example of a supernova, one dating from around the time of the Civil War.

Still, it’s always fun to listen to a NASA briefing. One reporter just asked what would be my first question– in a nutshell, what’s the big deal with THIS supernova?

Uhh… did someone just ask about “moon crickets?” WTF? MOON CRICKETS!!! Now he’s asking about the Swoogy Supernova of 2007… ah, sounds like someone is goofing on NASA.

Hmm.. a quick visit to the Urban Dictionary confirms that moon crickets and swoogie are both racial epithets for African-Americans. Oh my. I’m guessing that must have been a reporter for the Pinhead Daily. Glad to see folks representing themselves so well.

Oh… and we end with someone screaming about vaginas… Yes, NASA folks, they ARE looneys.

As can be expected, I’ve been taping this conference. There’s some semi-interesting stuff going on still, despite the press conference officially being over. Sounds like someone left the mic on, maybe?

The Vatican covers its ass

So… the Pope’s “chief astronomer” now says that aliens could exist, and that some of them might even be free from original sin. Sounds to me like the Vatican is covering its ass for the day we dig E.T. up!

In the spirit of being helpful, here’s a few more amazing facts for the pope to add to his next muttering:

1) Tom Cruise might be a complete loon.

2) It’s entirely possible that corporate radio sucks audibly.

3) The teapot’s celestial orbit is more eccentric than originally thought.

Olinda radio calling me

I’m really excited about the BBC’s new “Olinda” radio. I’ll admit that, as an American, the whole BBC thing is a bit mystifying to me– but the Olinda is surely one of the more interesting, positive aspects that come from having such a powerful public broadcaster. Let’s be real, the best thing PBS ever offered was a tote bag.

Anyways, the Olinda is a radio with a detachable portion that will allow programmers and electronics enthusiasts the ability to create third-party applications and modules for the radio. It’s a pretty far-out concept in the physical world; but well-known to anyone familiar with Facebook, GoogleEarth, or even fan-fic if we stretch the analogy a bit… the radio is a useful platform that becomes more useful as we build upon it. Check this out:

“When you get the module you configure it to connect to your home wireless network and then you set it up with your friends. You’ll notice in the pictures that there are slots for your friends - these are wipe-clean spaces for writing your friends’ names or sticking in a picture. So each slot on the wireless is customised and configured to represent one of your friends. And each slot has an associated combined light and button.

Then whenever they are listening to the radio their slot on your radio will light up. And when you push the associated button your radio will show you what they are listening to. And if you want to listen alongside them? Just push select and it tunes to the station - you’re now listening alongside your friend.

So we hope this might provide a sense of community around your radio, harking back to the times when families and friends used to gather around the radio to listen. But Olinda provides this in a glance-able, non-intrusive manner. And it will start to support conversations around radio programming and the discovery of new shows and stations. Social networking for your radio.”

It’s doubtful I’ll ever see something like this around my area, but it is a very interesting idea– maybe interesting enough that I should attempt to explore it some in one of my next radio broadcasts, who knows?

Liveblogging! Commentary for “ITDE” 5/3/08

Strange… there was nobody here when I arrived at the station today. Just the “emergency programming” spinning, which (for the 15 minutes or so I was listening to it) was a half-alright mix of delta blues and gloomy Texan ballads. A little David Bowie was playing when I came into the darkened studio… always a weird feeling to find the controls set to “phantom”…

On the upside, pledge drive is over. WDBX met its goal, so it looks like we’ll be here another season. I’m celebrating by playing the final 25-minute cut from Public Eyesore’s release of Anla Courtis, Seichi Yamamoto, and Yoshimi’s “Live at Kanadian.” I’ve been listening to this thing all week, trying to write a review of it, and I’m having a hell of a time. I’ll just say it’s rather resistant to being reviewed– every time I think I have a handle on this one, it slips away from me.

I’m afraid this isn’t going to be much of a “liveblog” this week– Aaron Jones, a local musician involved with experimental project Maggotapplewonderland, has come to hang out here in the Hi-Life Room. And let’s not neglect Karthik, now the proud owner of yet more amperage to wield in his sets. Anyhow, getting acquainted has taken precedence over liveblogging… luckily, there’s this wonderful playlist to keep you amused.

Brainiac — Hot Metal Dobermans
Brainiac — Fucking with the Altimeter
Anla Courtis, Seichi Yamamoto, Yoshimi — Live at Kanadian, pt.4
George Korein — Quiet Now
George Korein — Writhe, Sally Writhe
George Korein — God Give me Earlids
Rune Lindblad — Fragment 0
Rune Lindblad — Fragment 1
Conure — Some Vowed Abstinence
Conure — At First, We Didn’t Believe It
Rothkamm — Temporarily Unavailable OR Descent into LAX
Rothkamm — Los Angeles OR LATV
Rothkamm — Beehive OR Focal Point of Masonic Meditation
Shelf Life — tkcrdsuow
Shelf Life — cuswodkrt
Barry Chabala, Glenn Weyant — aZona
Barry Chabala, Glenn Weyant — soZona
Barry Chabala, Glenn Weyant — bZona
Warm Climate –  Forced Spring for Rising Tide
The Bastard Sons of Morton Subotnick — Nola EKG
Liteworks — Bermuda Conference
Chef Menteur — Aquavitae
King Ghidorah — Bring Me the Head of Michael Brown
Potpie — Blues for the Lower 9
Liteworks — Liteworks
Murmur — Secondary Fermentation

Interview with Cristopher Cichocki

I’ve been super-impressed with Cristopher Cichocki’s “Elemental Shift” DVD-R release for brand-new label Table of Contents, so much so that I did what I always do when I find an interesting artist– pick his brain with a bunch of questions! Lucky for us, Cichocki was more than willing to take a bit of time for STARTLING MONIKER, and provide some nice video links and photos as well. Be sure to tune in during my upcoming May 3rd broadcast, as I will be playing a portion of this disc– as well as making an important announcement about my broadcast for the 10th of May!

STARTLING MONIKER: Creating “Elemental Shift” took you over two years to accomplish. It’s beyond doubt that the editing alone was a grueling task– what was it connecting you to “Elemental Shift” that kept you going?

CRISTOPHER CICHOCKI: Well, it was really a question of when do I stop. Walking away is the hard part for me. I’ve gone through countless incarnations experimenting with my material, and the work continues to flux and re-fragment within my sets that I project in live venues and public spaces. Just like a band plays their set and has room for improvisation on each song from night to night, I re-edit my work each time I project it at a venue. It keeps it fresh and exciting for me, and also makes it much more than just showing my video again and again. Like an organism that can extend and embody itself into morphing hybrid forms, the material from Elemental Shift continues to evolve.

SM: I’ve read that you call your work “video composition,” which seems to imply a more musical approach to directing. Can you explain why you’re using this new term to describe “Elemental Shift”?

CC: The root of the project started from making audio tracks with field recordings that I’d manipulate and layer upon. I thought of releasing these early tracks in a straightforward fashion until I began to capture video and photos in the mix of my field recording journeys. Being influenced by Earthwork artists I’ve always liked the idea of extrapolating various audio and visual content from a specific site and then reintroducing those forms building a new cohesive entity. I call my work “video composition” because there is a symbiotic relationship of visual and audio being constructed in the process. The audio informs the visual on equivocal grounds, and both are composed in a see-sawing, back-forth method of experimental fragmentation. I build it up, I tear it down, again, and again.

SM: Noise art is often a music of limits; the limit of our willingness to listen to it, the limit of performers’ ability to push forward, and even the limits of pain have all been explored. I’m curious about your limits. What limits is “Elemental Shift” testing? What limited you in its creation? If you’re pursuing this direction in the future, what limitation do you hope to overcome the most?

CC: Well, I have many labor intensive ideas for video installations that are interactive with my painting, photography, and sculpture. It’s really just a matter of budget and context until I can manifest these works. As far as other ideas of limitation, I think my work has a maximal element that many noise artists are invested in, but I’m equally interested in minimalism as well. I’m interested in the narrative of emotion that a roller coaster provides. You have a slow ride up to the top in anticipation, then switch into hyper full throttle on your way down. You repeat this over and over again, still interested in the next phase.

SM: For much of “Elemental Shift,” the visual pacing could really only be described as frenetic. However in the last section, a nearly static cityscape dominates the frame, with only a few small movements. Eventually, it is replaced with darkness while the music continues. What is your intent in this final portion of the work?

CC: Most of the first half hour in Elemental Shift blazes by with a fury of fast paced over-stimuli. The minimalist ending with the LA nightscape is an opportunity for people to come out of that hypnotic overload and take a breather within a vast environment of fresh smog.

SM: What musicians and filmmakers are you excited about right now?

CC: I definitely think there’s a huge list of artists doing really exciting things right now. Some of which are listed here…

SM: What do you have coming up? Will “Elemental Shift” be showing at film festivals?

CC: I should submit to film festivals, but haven’t given it much thought to be honest. I’m currently working intensively on my side project with Ryan Seymour called State Rec (State Recreation) which is a site/ non-site noise video project that incorporates live footage of us performing at the Salton Sea and other abandoned desert areas not too far from where I live. I just finished up a music video for Foot Village, a band I toured with to SXSW.

I’m also making a handful of videos for Kevin Shields, Gerritt, Rale, Warm Climate, and others far too gruesome to mention. I’ll be certain to keep you posted.

Happy May Day!

As always, I’d like to wish everyone a very happy May Day– if the last year of struggling for basic human rights, peace, and reason have got you down; and if another year of combating poverty, ignorance, and waste looks to be too much to bear– take this small message of solidarity to heart.

For the rest of you– take your National Day of Prayer, and shove it up your ass.

Now you can see what you missed!

For those of you who missed the live set by Karthik Kakarala on my last “It’s Too Damn Early” broadcast, I’m happy to say that it was extensively documented. Along with my short embedded video below, you can watch a large portion of the set at YouTube, thanks to Tom Vasilj. Apparently, this guy never puts the camera down– so don’t make his work for naught– check out both parts here and here.

Liveblogging! Commentary for “ITDE” 4/26/08

There’s a nice little audience here to see Karthik tonight– and it looks like he’s brought everything but the kitchen sink in for some noise-making. Seems like 5am is going to be the magic hour, so stay tuned!

Zbigniew Karkaowski, Damion Romero — 9 Before 9, part 1
Zbigniew Karkaowski, Damion Romero — 9 Before 9, part 2
Rune Lindblad — Death of the Moon
Rune Lindblad — Fragment 0
Rune Lindblad — Fragment 1
Dr. Mint — Summon the Shadow Sun
KARTHIK KAKARALA, LIVE GUEST, IT’S TOO DAMN EARLY WDBX-FM
George Korein — Liftoff
George Korein — Peak Altitude
George Korein — Evasive Measures
George Korein — Acceleration
George Korein — Crash Landing
George Korein — Flying Corpse Flies Again
George Korein — Gleaming Corpse I
George Korein — Singsong Corpse I
George Korein — Gleaming Corpse II
George Korein — Singsong Corpse II
George Korein — Gleaming Corpse III
George Korein — Pulsing Corpse