Camera Obscura - I Love My Jeans
http://www.youtube.com
Arcadia - The Flame
http://www.youtube.com
Deeelite - Groove is in the Heart
http://www.youtube.com
Lisa Loeb - Stay (I Missed You)
http://www.youtube.com
Add comment May 18th, 2008
I love analog effects yo, but that stuff is crazy expensive. Lately, to satisfy my craving for audio mangling, I’ve been picking up unloved digital effects from the early ‘90s (and some of a more recent vintage). One of the best finds was from a couple of months ago: the Alesis Wedge, made for a short period of time circa 1997. The one I found on eBay was covered in grim, but it was also dirt cheap – I think around $35.00. This is a great little reverb box that lets you actually edit the effects parameters via four sliders, which is insanely cool. I’ve been using it to create these huge ambient washes. If you want an idea of what this sounds like in a mix, checkout this six minute jam with Mike Spicer from a while back. It’s mostly my Kurzweil K2000VX played through the Wedge. That other synth noodling is Mike playing his Casio keyboard through a tremolo pedal. Everything was tracked to an Alesis ADAT.
The Wedge and a MIDIVerb III chained-up via a ProCo patchbay. The beginnings of my modular effects rack.
Another, and newer, digital effect boxes I’ve picked-up recently is the DigiTech RP50. I got this one off of CraigsList for $25.00. It’s the crappiest constructed effects boxes I’ve ever come across, but it sounds great. It was designed for guitarists, so it’s really easy to use. I bought it because I love the older DigiTech whammy and pitch shifter pedals – but both of those are super expense on the used market these days. The RP50 has both of these effects, along with a ton of other ones like reverb and delay. And I think you can chain up to five effects at once. To make the whammy or wah effect work, I just hook-up my controller pedal. Apparently there is even a built in drum machine, but I haven’t tried that yet. And it has stereo inputs and outputs. And it works fine with a line level signal. The list of cheap awesomeness goes on and on. Here is an example of my K2000VX played through the Wedge with the RP50 in whammy mode at the end of the effects chain.
I did make one extravagant analog purchase recently though. With some of my tax return money I bought a used Frostwave Resonator effects pedal. I wanted to by an Analogue Solutions Filtered Coffee from the UK, which features the filter, LFOs, and envelope follower of the Korg MS-20, but it runs about $500.00 new (maybe more because of the dollar’s continuing weakness against the Pound). For around $200.00, I bought an Australian built Resonator off of eBay, which just features the filter section from the MS-20. That means no crazy Goldfrapp style vocal effects, but still lots of fun. I’ve found this pedal is most useful when the knobs are not turned to “11” since the Resonator tends to get a bit wild and unpredictable when pushed to the edge. Rather, I’ve used the filter to give character to otherwise boring sounded synths. Here is my junky Yamaha TG-33 played through the Resonator. Here is an ARP Quadra sample on my K2000VX played through the Resonator (with apologies to Boards of Canada).
Cholula loves the warmth of my Lexicon LXP-15. Unfortunately this one has blown capacitors, so I’m looking to replace it with the smaller LXP-1. Oh, one other thing I wanted to mention, Cholula is on Matrixsynth this week. My cat blogging continues unabated.
Add comment May 15th, 2008
Photobombers
http://listoftheday.blogspot.com
Coolville Supermarket
http://www.flickr.com
13 Fabulous Photos of a Rainy Day
http://digital-photography-school.com
Large-Format Kodachrome Prints
http://blog.photoshelter.com
Add comment May 12th, 2008
I recently re-watched Noah Baumbach’s (The Squid and the Whale) 1995 film following the stuck-in-neutral lives of recent college graduates who can’t quite work-up the courage to leave the familiarity of college life. I saw the film when it came out, one year after I graduated college, and wasn’t crazy about it. The movie probably struck a raw nerve, since much of what the main characters go through over the course of the film mirrored what many college grads like myself faced in the early to mid ‘90s. There is Grover (Josh Hamilton), whose girlfriend Jane has left for Prague, but Grover can’t seem to bring himself to join her, preferring the more predictable existence of living with college buddies. Grover’s roommates include Max (Chris Eigeman), who hangs around the house doing crossword puzzles. Then there is Otis (Carlos Jacott), who can’t seem to muster the gumption to get on a plane to Milwaukee and engineering school (he also thinks a pajama top can pass as formal wear). And finally, there is Skippy (Jason Wiles), who doesn’t seem to have any aspirations other than reading all the American great short novels.
Kicking and Screaming has actually aged far better than its contemporaries, like Ben Stiller’s Reality Bites. That film attempted to cover all those Gen-X issues Newsweek reported back in the day. I’m sure some compare this film to those of Wilt Stillman, but I think Baumbach is a better filmmaker. I certainly like the characters in Baumbach’s films better than in Stillman’s. Those guys in Kicking and Screaming are flawed in ways almost all of us can relate to — whether we want to or not.
Add comment May 7th, 2008
I meant for this be a more comprehensive recap of this year’s PDX Film Fest (also known as the Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival), but the sad truth is I only went to the Invitational on Saturday night. That means I missed the new karaoke video thing on Friday night and Andy new film The Pull in the local shorts segment. But the Invitational was fun like it always is. It was weird going to the Hollywood Theater instead of the Guild, but the screen seems bigger and the seating more plentiful. This year’s line-up was notable for the number of films that featured excessive strobing – like those Japanese cartoons that made headlines a couple of years ago. I didn’t see anyone overcome by seizure, but I did end up fighting a slight headache at the end of the program. And I got skunked at bingo again this year.
The after party was at Pagoda, that funky Chinese restaurant not far from the Hollywood. The award ceremony took place in the lounge, which is quite small and maybe not the best place for this sort of thing. Despite the crush of people, I still managed to have fun drinking w/ Tony at the bar and talking to Andy’s dad.
Add comment May 6th, 2008
Many Portland readers have received their ballots by now and like me, you’re wondering who to vote for in the primary. Just in case there’re any undecided voters out there, here are my recommendations.
City Council Position #1: Charles Lewis
OK, I’ll just get this embarrassing disclosure out of the way first: Charles and I were frat brothers back in college. That being said, it’s not coloring my decision to vote for him. My decision is based on my experience working with Charles on the student activities board at the University of Portland and as a volunteer at Ethos. Charles is a tireless organizer and has a bottomless well of energy – it would be wonderful to have that kind of focus and drive on City Council. I do like Chris Smith’s transportation smarts, but I’m going to have to go with youthfulness and energy on this one.
Mayor: Sam Adams
Not a tough decision here, since I’m not a fan of Sho Dozono…the guy has just never said anything that really impressed me and he doesn’t seem to have a clear vision for the city. I think having Dozono as Portland mayor
would be like having a sleepwalking copy of Tom Potter. Adams’ free spending ways do unsettle me though – and this whole business relocating the Sauvie Island bridge in the Pearl strikes me as retarded. If a bike/pedestrian bridge is needed there, why not just go with a cheaper alternative? It’s not like that bridge is some masterpiece, right? It’s just a freakin old bridge. Regardless of past boneheaded ideas, I’ll still vote for Adams because the man’s strengthens far exceeds his weaknesses.
President: Sen. Barack Obama
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Clintons, but I’m still having trouble getting over Hillary’s vote to authorize the war in Iraq. I know it’s kind of silly to get hung-up on little issues like that, but it does make me wonder if she really does have a functioning political compass. And now all that sillyness with the national gas tax holiday. Do people really buy that crap? Will some Joe Six-pack in a flyover state go, “I’m voting for that lady senator because she saved me thirty bucks last summer”? If people really do eat that empty rhetoric up, God help us all. At least Barack has the balls to tell us we, citizens of the United States, can’t have everything we want. Just as an aside, is it just me or is the second Bush administration starting to look like the Hoover one circa the onset of the Great Depression?
U.S. Senate: Steve Novick
I know Gordon Smith has worked hard to cultivate an image that brings to mind such Oregon Republican icons such as Mark Hatfield, Bob Packwood and Tom McCall, but it’s been an utter failure. The man just seems like a copy of one of those vacuous CEOs from a Fortune 500 company. He looks and sounds great at the shareholders meeting, but can’t actually make the company profitable. Novick, on the other hand, isn’t flashy or statesman like, but he gets stuff done and he gets it done right.
3 comments May 5th, 2008
This Is Tomorrow
http://www.submarinechannel.com
Charlie the Unicorn 2
http://www.youtube.com
Drum Table: Perfect Accompaniment for Drinking Songs
http://gizmodo.com
Leprechaun!
http://www.youtube.com
Add comment May 1st, 2008
I’ve been good at refraining from posting photos of my cats on this blog, but not so much on other people’s blogs.
Clementine on Cat Synth
http://www.ptank.com/catsynth
Add comment April 30th, 2008
Korg DS-10 for the Nintendo DS
http://musicthing.blogspot.com
What the Future Sounded Like
http://whatthefuturesoundedlike.com
Buchla Music Easel
http://www.vimeo.com
Yellow Drum Machine
http://letsmakerobots.com
Add comment April 27th, 2008
Last weekend I bought my first new car ever, a 2008 Rabbit S. It was one of those loss leader where the car is listed in the paper for a low price ($12,900 in this case) to get people on the lot. But when you arrive at the dealership, they claim the car in question has already sold. So dad and I got to Dick Hannah in Vancouver right at opening last Saturday with the intention of buy the listed Rabbit regardless of color or options. Of course the first salesman who approached us claimed the car had already sold, despite the fact we were the first people on the lot, but we persisted and half an hour later, we finally got to see the mythical loss leader. It took another half hour to convince the salesman this was the car I wanted, but I was finally able to get the keys after much paperwork and hustling.
After driving the Rabbit around for the last week, I gotta say, it’s a great little car. The engine is a beefy 2.5 liter 5 cylinder producing about 170 horsepower, which is quite a lot for such a small car. Its got all sort of fancy business, like cruise control and an iPod dock, that seem so decadent to me but I guess are considered standard options these day. The Rabbit handles quite well on the freeway, probably because of the independent suspension. Gas mileage will probably end up about 30 to 34 on the freeway, so that’s not all that bad. BTW, the crappy old Subaru has been sold back to my sister. Circle of life.
1 comment April 19th, 2008