Monthly Archives: March 2008

First Past The Post

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ADVERTISEMENT!!!!1♣ I have finished, well nearly finished, the super duper severed heads video collection and it’s a double DVD called Showbag*. Double DVD because that’s infinitely cheaper than 1 dual layer disc – economies of scale at work. More on this coming up on the old sevcom.com site.

* Yes, aware that there is a band called Showbag. There is probably a band name for every combination of words in the English language. This is God’s way of saying – guys, knock it off already. Have you checked to make sure there’s not an emo band using your surname? Phew!

So I have also nearly finished the minidisc that goes into the snappily titled Album 10542304 box set of different formats. Each of the elements in the box has to follow at least two rules: it should employ contemporary methods that best address the media, and it has to start with a piano. Lucky in this case, contemporary methods include a whole truck load of digital tomfoolery of the kind used by Autechre back in the 90′s. Which makes what was a piano into just about everything you ever wanted, so long as it has little clicking noises.

Autechre and friends working as Gescom recorded their minidisc back in the 90′s much to the pleasure of Sony Corporation, who gave them a resounding testimonial something along the lines of this band should be as popular and as long lasting as our minidisc format. Or maybe something less grim. Anyway, even though I’m not making the same record as they did, there’s only so much difference between gleep, blorp, splat and ticky ticky no matter who does it. Because it’s a very limited genre really and already has its own tombstone on which is written: Post Digital.

Say again?

Yes folks, we are in a Post Digital culture now. Various people have explained this to me and some of them, mostly those that were drunk at the time, made a lot of sense. Post is the word we use for the let down, the realisation that systems won’t take care of everything. Hence Post Modern in essence is the realisation that modernity wasn’t the answer to everything. Which makes sense but is a reactionary stance, no matter the sugar on top. It’s like the wise guy in the film who says, ‘that plan won’t work! You can’t climb twenty feet of sheer metal! I prefer the modern guy who says, ‘Well we have to try anyway!’ who usually ends up eaten by the monster in reel 6.

Post Digital is the failure of digital mechanisms, the skipping CD, the effects unit that overloads and makes splat sounds. It’s every tedious Oval album you wished you hadn’t bought. It’s now built into many digital recording tools such as Ableton Live, where failure can be successfully controlled and automated. In 2008 it’s also the 12 bar blues of electronic music. The rules seem to be pretty much in place and everyone knows them. That’s kind of Post Digital too I guess. But what worries me is that when I use analogue equipment that screws up, is that Post Analogue? Is tape hiss Post Analogue? I mean that makes every record that came out for decades unwittingly post something or other. Like Frampton Comes Alive. Very Post Analogue.

Taxonomy, folks. It keeps the university system rolling along.

Recently I was part of a seminar that also included some performances by academically endowed musician types. I was not one of them, being well known as ‘that fat bastard who does that old 80s stuff’. How little they know. Anyway the genre of the evening was most definitely 12 bar post digital, but to be honest it was the moments that didn’t fit that rule that made it bearable. Forget the names, there was the overall idea that this was a concert on the edge of something current, but only in the times where it leaned back into standards such as melody and rhythm that I found any interest. Lord help us if the fetishes of the 90′s became the new academy. MaxMSP, I have my guns out, I’m a coming for ya.

Are we ready for Post ‘Post’?

OK let’s get down to business

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(Here are thesis notes in flux. For me, so I can read them on the move. Shoulder surf if you like.)

Technology, and prime usage.

Score, of course. Sibelius?

Player Piano – prime usage Nancarrow, maybe Stravinsky. In any case the use of assisted notes.
So I have no means to construct a piano roll, given that the Mastertouch factory closed in 2005. The equipment probably exists somewhere but I don’t think there’s time to find that. There’s two possibilities:

a. Create or locate software that can take a MIDI stream and create a print of a piano roll, using black for holes. While that is rather cute, on reflection it’s not central to the issue here, it’s a translation of the score but not in any way augmenting it.

b. Better idea – locate a disklavier. Somebody must have one, and might let me load up a disc.

http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/piano/product/europe/dl/dl.html

They are jolly expensive!

Gramophone/Cylinder – topologically the same and probably should be considered as such. It’s hard to pick a distinct usage and perhaps better if we consider the general knowledge of acoustic recording that built up despite secrecy. Task then is to make an acoustic recording.

Another thought – can I create an impulse from an existing gramophone and then reuse that to treat my recording? So how do I do that? I could easily pass an impulse through a horn… but what about the playback mechanics? Ideally what I need is the same sound on a 78 disc and completely raw. Which means making up a 78 disc. Which goes in circles, because I’d be simulating a 78 disc with a 78 disc. Shit. Maybe the horn is the key.

CBS 33rpm disc – there are multiple aspects of this disc worthy of consideration but I suspect that the 12 inch single A/B side as a recipe is probably the most fruitful. Q: what is the first dub version we have? I have multi sources here e.g.

In 1968, Kingston, Jamaica sound system operator Ruddy Redwood went to Treasure Isle studio to cut a one-off dub plate. Engineer Byron Smith left the vocal track out by accident, but Redwood kept the result and played it at his next dance with his deejay Wassy toasting over the rhythm. Singles started to appear with a vocal mix on one side and the word “version” on the other.

http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/multiarticlesub.aspx?csid1=114&csid2=779&fid1=27342

RCA 45rpm disc – I am leaning towards Magical Mystery Tour as a possible example only because I owned a copy of this in 45 form. But I am not able show for example that sides are arranged so that tracks are interleaved for the auto stacker mechanism. I need to get the track listing. Also, was it ever available with auto stacker holes? I need to think this. I also need to think if I need an auto stacker.

Question then is: do I need to press some 45′s? This is getting expensive.

8 Track cartridge – even though it seems to been an accident I still think that Lou Reeds Metal Machine Music my prime usage for 8 Track.

http://www.8trackheaven.com/

I have the 8 track machine up and running and I still think the idea of tape loops is the most stimulating.

Compact Disc, prime usage was by Brian Eno, Thursday Afternoon, 1985

http://disquiet.com/2005/12/04/after-thursday-afternoon/

http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/TA-txt.html

To be honest, the CD is becoming the least interesting format. What’s so interesting about a CD?

Mini Disc, prime usage was by GESCOM – 1998 (Prix Ars Electronica Winner)

http://touchshop.org/product_info.php?products_id=110

This recording is going great! I am really happy with it – sounds like Gescom on the piano :-)

DVD – we have United States Patent 7085844. Still to find a musical usage that predates my own but this could be a matter of it being too trivial!

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7085844.html

This one is going great too.

Internet – perhaps this starts with Tracker musicians on BBS sites – then perhaps http://www.kosmic.org/ or I think earlier

Friday is Dead God Day

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I wish gods would get born or die more often because it means instant relaxation time. Jesus dies, Jesus gets born – day off work. Bring back the Greek gods and we would have much happier relaxed lives. Having said that, I realise it’s pagan, which suddenly makes me feel all wicca and emo. Dear God (pick one) haven’t we been busy inventing words over the last decade?

Well then here is an opportunity to talk garbage for a while. Dweeb garbage what’s more. You see I am having a Maddox moment – I am typing this on a machine running Vista SP1, and feeling like an ubermensch.

Surely this is not possible. After all, every week in The Register we read mail such as:

wankerI am the systems manager at large company and I tried installing Vista. It was impossible. Soap suds came spilling over the rim of the machine and every animal within exactly 4.5 metres died of radiation poisoning! Vista is sucks! It made my supercomputer slower than a C64! I am installing Ubuntu and making a joke with the word Micro$haft in it. With Ubuntu I know that my penis will be much longer. And so on.

Which leads me to suspect that systems managers aren’t what they used to be.

Actually that leads nicely into the whole topic of blog comments. Now you of course are a sensible intelligent individual, full of cooperative spirit and common sense wisdom. I suspect that you have sometimes thought of leaving a comment and then reading those that came before, decided not to besmirch yourself with their company. I’ve been trying to decide which site has the most retarded comments, but it’s quite a contest. YouTube of course is a leader in exclamation marks, but you’d expect that from anything youth, which is the euphemism these days for pig ignorant.

No, you need the extra offensiveness of people who think that they are very wise, while being… what are we allowed to call it… universe challenged. They need to be naked apart from a top hat. For a while I thought that Engadget was a winner – we can argue about preferred mobile phone forever. But I’ve been following the comments on The Register for a while and really feel that it offers up one of the lowest forms of human life: the opinionated, stupid, British computer expert.

You can predict this is going to fold into one of my pet hates – it does. I’m on about the comments whenever there is a story about pirating music or DRM.

wankerI never pay for any music and never will. All musicians are rich anyway. When labels try to protect themselves it’s an invasion of my civil rights. I downloaded all the albums by my favourite artist and made sure to upload them everywhere. That’s cause I am a fan! Artists should sell T Shirts at gigs and make their money that way. I spend 4 hours a day tagging my FLAC collection and then masturbate. And so on.

For God’s sake, is there no dignity in thieving any more? Come out and say – I am a thief. I dare you. You might even get laid.

Let’s find something useful to say now – in honour of these Robin Hoods I am placing a lot of my old albums up on archive.org, this will take time as their file management is a bit esoteric. I can’t supply those albums which are currently licensed – but there will still be quite a bit of listening. If you like an album, consider ordering a disc. There, I begged. Good musician, roll over, play dead.

Wednesday Night is Garbage Night.

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I am an embarrassment to Web 2.0. Comments are disabled by the way, I am not soliciting any responses from anyone, did that for about 16 years and what the hell. Actually I expect that everyone has their own blog that they have no time to keep filled, more democratic. It’s better that I just give the facts and get the hell out of your face. You’re busy. I’m busy. Babies are delivered – busy. Sad sad bloody world where everybody is so frantically busy all the time.

The box of vinyl discs is going to be late. About April we think. When the recordings are so old does a month matter? Did you know that if you are a VOD member you get a Severed Heads pillowcase? Seriously I couldn’t have plotted such a wonderfully… God help me… what’s a word for it… somewhere between appropriate and inane. It’s just got the bone chicken emblem on it. I would use mine as a Santa sack.

I’d like to tell you about the ALBUM, the box with all the formats in it, but I’ve been too busy at KUNST KAMP. (I dare not speak the real name of my employment in case there is a PDF somewhere: Form721/B Blog, Mention of Employer Therein.) Just call it Kunst Kamp… tomorrow a large number of young persons get asked this question: look at this strapping young lass (photo of Leni Riefenstahl looking sexy) – how is it do you think that she ended up directing what came to be known as the most EVIL DOCUMENTARY OF ALL TIME? (photo of Hitler’s armpit). Later we compare Triumph of the Will to An Inconvenient Truth (believe me, have a look).

If you have never lectured, you might not realise how many bloody hours it takes to set up that two hours. I was editing lines of jackboots all day.

So little visible progress on the ALBUM, although the DVD is up and working. Long story that will appear elsewhere – by deciding to have the tempo at 70 beats per minute (because it sounded right) I entered a world of pain, when frames (at 25fps) don’t line up. So the jumps are a little… jazzy. But it works and it changed key every now and then which is cute.

Gotta go… back soon.

So then, what was the experiment?

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I have been surprised by the interest from academia in our ‘Twister’ communities. Twister 5 (which has very recently quit this mortal coil) had a smattering of researchers lurking in the background, probably hoping for some insights into creativity and Web2.0. Before that we had a few receiving the mails from Twister 3 and even a few brave souls prepared to risk their dollar on the KDX powered version Twister 4 (on ya Julian). But really, all involved are probably curious about what we actually learned from moderating Severed Heads ‘fans’ for 15 years. I can’t really justify the time writing a considered analysis here, but a few notes are worth jotting down.

Firstly the overall dynamic of our communities was that of web communities in general. Put a large number of people together in anonymity and they behave badly. The mailing list was least affected as the participants’ email addresses were disclosed (a rarity in these spam filled days). The BBS was the worst. The symptoms are familiar – trolls, flames, and an incessant round of ‘Now I’ve Got You, You Son Of A Bitch’ – some of the usual features on any BBS.

If there was one factor that was uncommon, it was the mixed message of having a ‘fan’ discussion area where the population was discouraged from being fan-like. People joined ‘because’ of Severed Heads, but then were told to talk about anything but. This was intended to defuse the usual band/listener relationship, which it did when we had a wider spread of people, but when trouble came it seemed to draw energy from that uneasy set up. Put very simplistically:

A: Hello, I offer you a free place in my house. Never mind my photo on every wall, I’ve drawn moustaches on them!
B: What’s the catch? There’s always a catch.
A: There’s no catch, and you don’t have to tell me what I nice person I am.
B: Well, what if I piss on your floor?
A: Hey!

Neither A nor B gets out of the relationship looking too innocent. It would just be better to admit that it’s going to be uneven, but make sure everybody gets something out of it.

If you’re an artist that’s thinking about starting a discussion group, forget it. It won’t work. The resentment will overcome any attempt at self effacement. Let somebody else do it on your behalf if they want, and then give them lots of support.

Fan is of course short for Fanatic. There’s a lot of energy in that role and not all of it good. Think of Stephen King’s Misery.

Next point is why the membership slowly declined over those years. Numerically it waxed and waned – at all times we were plagued with dead members. On Twister 3 we once purged all accounts to clean out those addresses that bounced – 270 were phantoms. Twister 5 had a parade of people that joined and never came back. I simply have no idea why they would bother.

What I mean by ‘decline’ is more subtle. The question is bundled in the answer – we lost high achieving, creative members as they had no more time to participate, we lost people who had children, we lost people that became empowered and disdained community. In fact the Twister membership is a very interesting snapshot of the Internet: up front all the early adopters and enthusiasts roughly in their 20′s, who slowly leave the space, which becomes filled with the very young and the middle aged. And the young go to Facebook.

A similar process is going on with music. Concealed in the argument about free distribution is a decline in enthusiasm – music that was once listened to intensely is now just part of a lifestyle. Why would anyone be on a band discussion list?

Leaving out a whole line of thinking here – jump to the chase – I am not surprised to see in Time Magazine this week a discussion of ‘authenticity’ as an upcoming social issue – except I am more concerned with the flip side – what I am calling the ‘virtual ghetto’ – it won’t be much longer before poverty is associated with online services – the wealthy will have paper, the poor will have PDFs – this will take its toll on all online.

If there was ever going to be a Twister 6 it would be made of bricks.