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::Saturday, August 30, 2003::
㊯
City News
Check out this christian newspaper (United Church of the Kingdom of God) that I was handed on the street this morning:
.... catchy headline....
Go on then, Shyesha... I guess it's worth a try.
:.
12:13:54 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Religion
::Friday, August 29, 2003::
㉴
Erase The World: "A friend of mine did some research and found that the average speed of cars in London is 16mph. The average speed of traffic in London when it was all horse-drawn? 15mph. "
Really wishing I hadn't said that thing about the bloody cars... But then again, speed isn't the whole story - not everybody has space for stables or time for cleaning up horse shit.
Must comment further on the notion of Labour Saving Devices.
:.
12:40:05 PM :: permalink
Keywords: OtherBlogs
::Thursday, August 28, 2003::
㊁
North Woolwich
Check out what the kids were up to yesterday. These pictures are taken from my office window...
Fire
Fire Brigade
I move back to Stratford on Monday - glad to be out of there.
:.
4:55:38 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Work
㊜
NEW TRACK - HUMAN THING
This one was a bit more fun to do than the last one! Check it out here
"What's wrong? What are you wanting human thing?"
:.
4:19:39 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Smunk
㊉
And still no-one's linking to me. :-(
:: cosmos ::
Apart from Mark. Cheers mate.
:.
11:52:52 AM :: permalink
Keywords:
㊩
New artwork preview!
Here's some of my sister's work-in progress on my cd-inlay design. You lucky people!
See Ann's website for more of her stuff. And GIVE HER A JOB!
:.
11:47:07 AM :: permalink
Keywords: Smunk
㊇
John on Padlocking ... 'I am zfixing zthis zpadlòck ztò zthis zfence as a zsymbòl òf òur zlòve'* ...
*Hungarian.
I pissed myself :-)
:.
11:37:38 AM :: permalink
Keywords: OtherBlogs
㊯
What the hell? - A marketing-science rant.
Observe this scientific graph showing how 'a scientific test' proved that this shampoo makes hair "4 times smoother". You see - 'smoothness' on the y-axis, 'Classic Shampoo' on the left and 'Smooth-intense Shampoo + Conditioner' on the right along the x-axis. And you can see, look, the one on the right is 4x taller than the one on the left. And they've colour coded it for you and put in a big arrow with '4x', and the title of the graph is '4x smoother hair', and they've put '4x' in bold for you.
1. WHAT?!
2. I'm not sure I know the scientific units of measuring hair-smoothness... But obviously they couldn't go into any more details because girls don't really understand science... (me be ironing)
3. The test on the left is "classic shampoo" on its own, whereas the one on the right, if I understand correctly, is the result of a combination of no less than three different bottles of stuff - shampoo, "anti-frizz serum" and conditioner.
4. "Nutrileum"?!!! Fuck off.
I went to have a bath to relax*, but the copy of Heat lying on the floor distracted and angered me.
* Don't fucking get me started on Radox... "Proven to relax"?!! With that utterly unqualified statement staring at me, relaxation is the last possible option. 'If you're not relaxed by this product then there's something wrong with you' 'relaxation can be guaranteed through the nasal intake of Chemical X'. This one's even worse, because it's talking about people's brains and moods, not just their hair. If wish some fanatic would pick up on this and BAN IT TO HELL. Grrr.
:.
11:32:25 AM :: permalink
Keywords: Science Rants
::Wednesday, August 27, 2003::
㉪
Cool Inventions In no particular order
Glass
Broadband
Light Bulbs
Mobile Phones
Writing
The Pill
Every Single Musical Instrument Ever.
I just can't stop blogging today...
:.
3:37:49 PM :: permalink
Keywords: TechStuff
㊦
Aaargh. I had to re-type that last entry about 4 times because when I clicked "Post and Publish" Blogger was removing my text from the New Post frame and then LOSING IT! But I think it might have been a one-off thing. Pretty god-damn annoying though.
:.
3:11:17 PM :: permalink
Keywords:
㉡
Stevland's Super Fast Computer: "This post used to have a picture of a little girl sticking her tounge out, with a caption that read 'you're a LOSER'. I found the picture via Google Images and thought it the most appropriate image for this post. You can imagine my shock when I was contacted by the little girl's father! He has asked me to remove the image, and of course, I have done so. The irony and hipocracy here is obvious-- the fact is that I used a stolen image to decorate a post about people stealing my site template and personal writing. I would like to publicly appologize to the gentleman and acknowledge my own membership into the Moron Club."
What are the chances, eh?
I started the following on the site's comments:
It's a sticky subject. When does learning become plagarism? I have a similar thing with music. Where's the line between being influenced by someone/something, and copying something. And sampling... We can compose with samples, and it's the way we assemble those samples that constitutes the creative process...
There are also traditions... Traditions provide models that you're supposed to copy...
Thinking about creativity frequently gets hyperdimensional in this way. I wish I could be happy with a lifeline of Fear and Love...
I'm currently seeing it in terms of "sexual reproduction of memes". And I don't mean metaphorically. I'm talking about literal meme-sex...
:.
2:39:06 PM :: permalink
Keywords: OtherBlogs
㊫
Web Pages That Suck -- Examples of Bad Web Design ... Found this page via Userland - top ranked site. I posted this in the comments:
Yes, this is a pretty ugly website ...BUT... Is it deliberately ironic that "webpagesthatsuck.com" actively delivers more traffic to these crappy sites, thus significantly enhancing their chances of survival?! I find the whole "it's so bad it's good" thing a little tiresome after a while...
:.
1:57:13 PM :: permalink
Keywords: TechStuff
㊈
.. In progress ..
I'm working on a lengthy entry about the evolution of my belief system at the moment. I'm sure you will appreciate that I want to get it right.
Meanwhile...
:. Work is progressing very nicely on the artwork for my demo inlay - my sister Ann is on the case and doing an excellent job. I will upload some preview glimpses this evening.
:. I'm reading Sound On Sound and reminding myself why I don't buy these magazines any more. It's hard enough not to get sucked into the latest-technology-lust without having to look at page after page of adverts for all these fancy equipments that cost thousands of pounds to buy.
:. I'm moving back to my office in Stratford on Monday, which has been refurbished all open-plan, so I will not be able to blog so brazenly during office hours. I may have to type into wordpad or a spreadsheet and then copy that very quickly into a very small Blogger window while nobody's looking. Do not fret.
:.
10:17:31 AM :: permalink
Keywords: Life
::Friday, August 22, 2003::
㊜
I Feel Love
Starting to feel a bit guilty about poaching all these links from Mark, but hey...
:.
7:15:51 PM :: permalink
Keywords: OtherBlogs
㉦
foreach (idle thought) [glob at johnhorner.nu]
Buffy fan. Good stuff.
:.
7:14:11 PM :: permalink
Keywords: OtherBlogs
::Thursday, August 21, 2003::
㊅
Mike's afternoon daydream
Hanging out my sheets on the line out back - looking at the backstage door of Brixton Academy - Beck's playing tonight. What to shout if I see him?
"Hey Beck! Can you help me wire up my patch-bay?"
I just bought a patch bay and I'm having trouble wiring it in.
"Maybe after you've done the sound check. It get's a bit boring waiting around to play, don't it. And I know you like to plug things in." ... "Yeah - I'll play you some of my stuff, but you gotta promise not to rip anything off.." ... "You think it's fantastic? You'll talk to your people? Yeah - I guess that'd be cool." ... "Nah - I haven't heard much of your latest stuff - Midnight Vultures didn't quite do it for me. The production was a bit ... I dunno - unsubtle - rigid - overbearing..." ... "Yeah, I guess you could come into my room and lay down some vocals - might be good to get a young up and coming pair of ears on the job..."... "Hang around backstage? Well - I would, but I gotta pick up my girl from the station in a bit, so.... " ... etc... etc...
:.
3:20:36 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Rants
::Wednesday, August 20, 2003::
㊌
Buying more equipment
Tomorrow... A patch bay and some proper monitors... I swear I must spend an average of about £400 for each track I produce... MUST IMPROVE THIS RATIO! Earning money as a musician? I'll be happy to be breaking even!
Yet another reason to be LESS PERFECTIONIST, LESS PRECIOUS and MORE PROLIFIC!
:.
2:06:22 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Smunk
㊌
This freakin W32/Sobig-F virus is pissing me off. I've had about 50-odd emails all saying things like "Re: Your Application", "Thank You", "Your Details" etc... I'm glad I haven't been applying for jobs or ordering stuff online - it could have tricked me...
:.
2:00:52 PM :: permalink
Keywords: TechStuff
㊌
So how about that astrology research news story yesterday? What a waste of fucking time. One Mystic Meg is, unfortunately, worth a thousand scientists...
:.
1:30:50 PM :: permalink
Keywords:
㉬
Following Mark's response to my quasi-progress/technol-rant
(Thanks Mark for responding cos I think pathological/irrationally irritable/arsehole Mike had a large hand in writing that entry...)
So....
"Is the distinction between the general Progress of technology and specific instances of new technological developments, some of which may not count as progress at all?"
I think that's what I was trying to say... But philosophically, I still can't seem to conclusively reconcile the term with either scale...
"I just don’t buy the ’Progress’ narrative of technology any more than I buy the Progressive account of evolution. Who is measuring this progress and what standards are they using?"
Standards of 'measuring progress' will always be illusory, as far as their actual bearing on reality is concerned. When do we dispense with our maps and desires to attribute positive or negative interpretations on all the details of nature/not-nature? Technological and evolutionary change cannot be measured against a scale - there is no goal, there is no incrementally approached "target". We can only measure this kind of change retrospectively, and come to agreements of the many changes that have taken place are 'positive' enough to be considered 'progress'*. If we can't call positive technological change Progress, then what can we use this word for? It just seems to me that because technology is so fascinating, it has been scrutinised far more thoroughly than most phenomena, and gets nitpicked to death and we forget how amazing it is. In everyday life, I suppose we would comfortably talk about progress as simply meaning "completing coursework assignments" and "producing X code module" or "recording some bass" etc... Mundane stuff in many ways, (but then again it depends on what scale you're looking at - God is in the Detail etc...).
It feels like we should be able to apply the notion of progress to technological development. But it's important to point out things that, on reflection, are not 100% Progress (the Cars Poster) because people are habituated into unquestioningly seeing technology as progress's very embodiment, so they probably need to have the flaws pointed out in order to regain a bit of balance... Really, it's never gonna be black and white - "Good Science vs Bad Science" (which reminds me, I was gonna do a section on this site to express technological advance** in terms of an ongoing war between Good and Evil technology)
And we don't have any way of judging much of anything in terms beyond 'human-use value' do we? We're mostly interested in how thing affect US.
Can we agree, perhaps, that there is nothing more mundane than the use of new technology as a "labour saving device". The attempted use of the synthesizer as a quick and easy "substitute" for real instruments...
And do we really want to be aspiring towards a "leisure society"? Wouldn't we all get rather bored if when a new piece of technology came along we simply used it to do as much, and only as much, as we could do before, only quicker?
Technology is part of us - use of technology is a large part of what makes us so different from all the other animals. And I think we could almost say that 'mobile phone using humans' are a different species of animal to house-phone using humans... Technology isn't part of our "extended phenotype", it's really part of our phenotype... (I'm leaving myself open to genetics-centric criticism). Even clothes - to quote (roughly, as I don't have the book to hand) Daniel C Dennett "In a zoological textbook, a human should no more be depicted naked than a gorilla should be depicted riding a bicycle wearing a clown-suit" (I'm going somewhere with this, I'm just not sure where yet...)
It's interesting, the Gibson taxonomy point - I have tended to see technology as only making new things possible, overlooking the fact that it renders some things impossible in the process. I think my objection was against any possible implication that all those things that are lost are Good (and I was certainly mistaken if I thought that this was what was being implied). We will always hold on to the things we love when they are threatened with extinction, but we should never cling to things for the sole reason that we've got used to them...
We have a strong sense that technology has a direction... Maybe this is where the idea of progress comes in. New technology consistently builds on old/established technologies. I'm tempted to say "Increased Complexity=Progress", but that's not always the case - some of the best ideas (e.g. blogging!) are progressive without upping the complexity, so I really don't know.
We're always focused on the changes. We will always mourn over loss. I just think it's better to embrace and explore new developments - they're so crazy and exciting! Plus, resistance is futile...
In conclusion then: I Have No Free Will.
*Can anybody suggest to me a better way of writing this stuff than relentless use of """scare quotes"""?
** I know, I know, I've suddenly used the word 'advance' instead of 'progress', but it's not a pivotal part of the discussion, and it just sounded cooler.
:.
11:44:41 AM :: permalink
Keywords: TEchStuff OtherBlogs
::Monday, August 18, 2003::
㊨
k-punk On Technology
"The delusion we all have about technology is that it improves , as if the latest version of something merely performs the same function better . As if the CD were simply a better version of the record. So it was sold to us, as if nothing were lost in this process, and everything was gained."
"...mobile phone cameras. Gibson notes that the ubiquity of such devices stealthily deletes the possibility of certain experiences. For instance, once you could tell someone about a woman you have met; and, for months, they might only carry a picture in their head of this new companion of yours. Zip. In a flash, in a moment of transmission - 'This is Helen' - a whole zone of the imaginary is wiped... "
"Technology doesn't 'progress.' This isn't a nostalgic point, but a technical one. New machines change and augment the functions that are performed, they don't simply perform an old function better."
Technology does progress, in the strongest sense that the word has any meaning. The mistake is to interprete each new mutation (usually facilitated by incredible scientific and engineering breakthroughs, that are impressive enough in their own right) as a 'progression'. Technology evolves, new things appear and disappear - many mutants are created and only a few survive. And some new technologies do do old jobs better. I don't see anyone using 5¼" floppy disks or flat-irons or taking the kids to school in a horse-drawn cart. (Well - there probably are, but they're either doing it to make some sort of point, or they wish they could afford the newer technologies...)
If I hear one more person talking about how great vinyl is compared to CDs, I'm gonna break something. Who cares that CDs were sold to us as an improvement on vinyl? That was ages ago, and I think in the intervening years, those of us who care have come to appreciate the differences, seeing beyond the marketing (which is never exactly thorough or accurate at the best of times!). The implication that 'vinyl is better than CD' is just as absurd as that vice's versa. Yes, they're different things - vinyl is the last tactile medium (and I love the idea of an alien with hypersensitive eyes being able to 'hear' our music by simply looking at the surface of a record. The information's all right there on the surface... would the alien take in the whole thing at once, or follow the groove serially? Could the alien notice if it was going around the groove backwards?*) ... CDs are a vast improvement over vinyl in some contexts! My grandpa played me some Bach yesterday, on vinyl, an old record, and the fidelity issues were quite significant - the dynamic range in classical music is much wider than the music most of 'us kids' are used to listening to, so the quiet sections really suffered from the fuzzing and crackling (this was on a fancy Linn turntable and proper expensive equipment too). It would have been better on CD. I object to the description of CDs as:
" a wipe-clean mirrored surface. Just a thin clean layer of Mr Sheen looking back at me..." Come on, that rainbow psychadelia effect you get with CDs is still pretty damn funky, isn't it?
I'm tired of people talking about vinyl with such posthumous intonations... It's not dead! It's doing fine! It's not used for everything any more, but so what? And I think it's a very bad example for talking about perceived advances in technology. Listening to music doesn't involve hard work in the same way as, say, ironing does... And when we're talking about replacement of older technologies, the timeframes during which technologies have been around should be considered, and the shifts of contexts of frames of imaginings (consistently and massively influenced by new technologies), before nostalgising about what has been so tragically lost... The 'mental image of Helen', 'wiped' by the mobile camera? What was so sacred about that 'experience'? If you think about it, how long has it been possible for the 'most people' to have that experience anyway? Before the ubiquitous super-transport we all take for granted these days, people lived in much smaller groups so you would have been unlikely to meet anyone that everybody didn't already know... (barring traders and invaders/invadees). And anyway: Mr Gibson can't possibly think that a tiny pixellated and poorly timed image of some new person could possibly erase all imaginings about the full extent of that person's character... Does he posit any less catastrophizing examples of these supposedly experience-destroying phenomena?
All is change. Things don't get 'generally better or worse', they shift and morph and interact, reproduce and die - it's a seething deltasphere we're all in. You'd be hard pressed to find a stronger force for change than technology. It's stronger than us. It's already reproducing itself as we watch in awe, and this process is only going to get faster. It cannot work without death - death of organisms, death of experiences, supplantment of ideas - we are in a time of increasing techno-feedback - the environment that selects survivors is being modified by those survivors on progressively shorter and shorter time scales, and we're gonna reach a point soon where the changers will overtake the change, or there will be a singularity as the exponentiation reaches infinity and we can't stop it - we don't have that kind of control, even if we had the will power and actually wanted to stop it. Forget Terminator, forget The Matrix - these are small-minded visions of the future based on almost linear change - we need to be thinking EXPONENTIALLY if we are to have any chance of preparing for what will come.
Blast it. I'm at work and I've been side-tracked into this blog and I'm gonna get in trouble if I'm not careful. This is a debate on which I will argue with a literally religious fervour...
Reading back over this I am aware that there is a divergence of emotional lines, but I'm fairly certain that my convictions about the subject matter are consistent with both...
*(This could apply to CDs too, I guess- once my fictional already super-powered alien had deduced the sample-resolution - but it wouldn't be a visio-tactile experience in the same way as 'watching a vinyl')
:.
11:30:13 AM :: permalink
Keywords: TechStuff OtherBlogs
㉧
But anyway...
BMB+4Z - my two brothers, Beatmaster Bill and Peter MC4Z... I'm listening to a CD they did (and didn't initially want to give to me because it was 'rubbish') and I'm full of a mixture of joy, love, jealousy, competitiveness (to mention the first things that come to mind)... They've got some funky-assed hip-hop going on - phat sounds, nice arrangements, skillful performances, and all infused with 'we love this shit!'
Peter's on tour with Scorsayzee in October. I'm pretty damn impressed.
But I'm making excuses to myself already - he's so much more outgoing than me. Not no introvert like me. Some of the excuses are a bit more self-defeating (or maybe forgiving?) - he's got much less inertia than me, as a beatboxer, whereas I rely on an array of hard-to-carry technology. I don't have a Scene or a Genre-Specification to work to. I set myself outrageously difficult challenges "making something work that shouldn't work", trying to get the production slick, not using samples if I can possibly avoid it... Underspecialisation? Or difficult challenges constantly moved to the level that I can't quite reach yet? Or is it, as it seems in my more optimistic/happy/manic moments, something I will do that will break boundaries, start movements, inspire people... My first (trained now) reaction is "of course, it's most likely to be somewhere in between". But where's in-between? It seems that most of the time I can't think in enough dimensions to visualise what I'm trying to achieve...
But anyway. Massive, massive props to my brothers in the neighbourhood of R-O-T. I love them both with shaking, fretful vehemence... Like I love music.
:.
1:33:13 AM :: permalink
Keywords: Music
㊮
Family Family Family
Is there any influence more powerful on our day to day existence than our families? The voices that tell you what you're doing wrong, the things you assume other people must know, the reasons you're doing what you're doing... A couple of hours with the siblings (6 in my case, all younger - 2 brothers, a sister, 2 step-sisters and a half-sister), the parents, the grandparents, and suddenly all those baffling habits that get you into all that trouble, impede communication and set you apart to your friends, aquaintances, lovers, and potential all-of-those-people - it all comes into focus - the voices and interpretations are all there, coming out of their mouths...
I'm fronting a bit-- my brother picks up instantly... my 'irony' makes sense to them, because they know what I obviously don't mean... they can hear what's new in me - and they can do things to me with that information... And I'm the same - the slightest hint or tone of voice and I'm on the defensive - suddenly angry - "STOP ALWAYS THINKING I'M TRYING TO BE AN ARSEHOLE - I'M TRYING TO EXPLAIN SOMETHING - I'M JUST BEING THE PERSON THAT I AM AND I WISH YOU'D JUST ACCEPT THAT!" ... "No, no no! He didn't mean that!" ... sorry... I forget that it's not just me that's different now...
We revert to our old habits. I find myself hitting my brother, 'jokingly', but I'm not in control. It's someone I used to be, and he's stronger than me here. I'm winning the fight but it's an exhausting struggle.
Brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers... We shared our souls, when we were younger. For years and years. We saw the same things, did the same things. We interacted with each other more than anyone else... We don't forget any opinions that we expressed about each other. Even once, a word said in malice and taken for truth STAYS WITH ME, BECOMES PART OF ME
Exhausting. After three hours and I'm choking back tears... walking out... I come back and I've hidden their influence... wiped it from my eyes... they may suspect, but I won't let them know.
I want them to see ME, as I am NOW. But I'm not ready yet. I'm never ready.
:.
12:38:48 AM :: permalink
Keywords: Rants
::Friday, August 15, 2003::
㊎
Spent the afternoon today with a little baby - Marianne is the first friend of mine to have spawned anything so far... He's cool. I'll put a little picture up (possible with grotesque morphing on it...)
:.
5:06:45 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Life
::Wednesday, August 13, 2003::
㉲
'The way I talk to people' should say The way I talk to people that don't know anything about me
I've been reflecting. And I've met a couple of new people over the last 2 days and it's been quite comfortable. This is partly because it has been on business terms (anybody want to do a website for an American/Swedish mp3-player distribution business? I said I'd charge about £2k if I did it, but declined the offer because I don't have the time - the guy's done a slick looking layout in Fireworks, so it would be htmlizing, framizing, adding some fancy flash scrolling and possibly a stock management database back end... email me if you want me to put you touch with him...) ... Anyway - it's been businessy, but it's the same kind of way I have with people if they come up to me having seen me on stage, or anyone I've met through a mutual friend. There is a strange element of trying to second-guess what the other person knows about you in this situation. I kinda like it. It's much easier when someone else has spoken about me to someone before I meet them. You can get a conversation going that way. So maybe I have to start merely volunteering random snippets of information about myself to new people. But the problem then is "What's appropriate?!"
:.
3:26:30 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Rants
㉣
BLOGGER ARG!
I am having the same issues of this blog not publishing as everybody else. It keeps coming up with novel error messages that make me email my web hosting company but then fix themselves. Blogger Status shows any messages about server malfunctions and so on, so check it before panicking.
:.
3:14:58 PM :: permalink
Keywords:
::Tuesday, August 12, 2003::
㉲
The way I talk to people..
..tends to require an awful lot of background information about me. I was standing outside just now with someone who works in the same office, having a fag, desperately trying to think of something to say other than a reiteration of "man - it's too hot". My head is particularly overloaded today - family, friends, business opportunities, girlfriend, 9-5 job issues, not to mention MUSIC - it's a time-management crisis. How can I connect to anybody? I can't stand meaningless small talk. I really can't. And I can't do it anyway. I don't really watch the news or read the papers, I watch very little tv, I'm not particularly interested in sports... Real life is just way more interesting, but impossible to communicate to somebody who doesn't know me quite well, so I just come across as shy, insular, moody and probably not worth talking to. I occasionally try to broach some topic that I actually find interesting with these people, but inevitably find myself having to explain the mutating foundations of my entire belief system from scratch, and I end up in the same situation. If I'm not talking about the jewels - those points where things become strange and interesting (from my frame of reference), I tend to be bored, and it shows. But I do try! But everything turns out to be so tangled when I start trying to express it!
What will happen if I just say what I'm thinking and stop worrying about whether anybody understands, I wonder?
:.
4:59:15 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Life
㉻
Distance
I want to write about my girl... but she doesn't want me to blab too much up here. It's been a long-distance thing for about three months, but yesterday she got a job in London. It was first interview (as a microbiologist) she's had and they said she was "inspiring"... I already knew this, but it's good to know that other people can see that too! She's great. There's a lot of trust and understanding, and we're able help each other, and she's sexy as heck. I feel lucky to have her.
I'm worried though - she's embarking on scary change with frightening momentum, and I feel like I'm just standing still. I want to be able to keep up, but I don't know what I want (I'm talking about music and stuff here) so I don't know how to get it, and when I do know what I want, I get too scared and end up not doing anything until it's too late. I had the thought today that maybe I'm just dragging my heels musically because I'm waiting for some accident to befall me that costs me my hearing so I have something else to blame for my lack of progress.
But she's doing it, so I have to keep raising my own bar if I'm gonna keep up.
:.
1:29:55 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Life
::Monday, August 11, 2003::
㉴
Cannabis stops me wanting to cry.
:.
2:11:28 PM :: permalink
Keywords:
::Friday, August 08, 2003::
㊢
The Brixton Traffic isn't much help when it comes to crisp+clean recordings either. Road-Sweeping machines... the unpredictably timed source of FUDGE. Although the police sirens in the background add a certain element of grimy urbanosity.
:.
2:42:27 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Life Smunk
㊪
You know what's really difficult?
Getting the levels right when recording the trumpet on your own in your bedroom. There's clipping at strange times, even though the signal's too quiet. The level meters are really small on things, and if I set it up so I can see one set, I can't see another, let alone correct it in real time. I need a wall-sized monitor!
:.
2:00:48 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Smunk
::Thursday, August 07, 2003::
㊖
From Erasetheworld
"...love-as-drugs is a dreadful metaphor: you can always get them, they invariably work (in some way), they don't actually let you down, or have a personality, you could feasibly take drugs until you are 90 whereas love (as in all-consuming passion, whitehotfire desire, hammering-nails-into-the-head intensity) lasts about 3 years if youre lucky/unlucky [...] it's all a second hand emotion, y'know"
Now, I don't really like Spiritualised (the context from which this quote is taken) that much, but I almost completely disagree with this...
Love-as-drugs isn't a metaphor - Love IS Hardcore Drugs. The chemicals you get when that feeling (that ARE that feeling) are highly addictive. Drugs: You can always get them? Not really - you might have a good dealer for a while, but the timescales work in the same way as they do with relationships... Drugs don't actually let you down? Drugs are extremely unpredictable if you ask me... I tend to have about a one-in-three success rate with drugs (having a really nice time, as opposed to locked-foetal-posture inducing paranoia or feeling grumpy and pissed off, or nothing happening), which is approximately the same rate as I've had with relationships... Taking drugs till you're ninety... Have you seen people who have been taking drugs for a long time?
"Love" is different each time - the chemicals become available, in the same varying way as with drugs, and you're addicted. Dependence builds up (this blurs/is enticed by love-chemicals into not just a chemical dependence, but also habits, possessions etc...), tolerance to the chemicals increases (I think... people get bored with each other, what used to be enough isn't any more - 'new things' are tried...) ... there is the same variety and multitude of (slow-time level) experience with love as there is with drugs...
Wish I could think about this more clearly, but my intuitions are all in this direction, so I'll defend this viewpoint until someone convinces me otherwise (which might be very easy - not sure really).
Speaking of slow-time...
... try putting the "slow-down-time" cheat in GTA - Vice City [T:U:R:D:S:R2:R1] and playing it like that for 45 minutes... I did this yesterday and for the next hour or so, real life seemed more detailed, less urgent- more savourable... weird.
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4:26:49 PM :: permalink
Keywords: OtherBlogs
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The Statistics show...
...that I'm generally the only person looking at this page. [host81-152-156-47.range81-152.btcentralplus.com/.gb] is me at home and [(151.133.222.93).gb] is me at work. I'm constantly checking for comments! Ah well.
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12:22:43 PM :: permalink
Keywords: TechStuff
::Wednesday, August 06, 2003::
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Hotness
I'm trying to work but it's 37 (99) degrees in the office and not getting any cooler.
The fridge broke at home, too.
Can't wait for the 1 hour tube journey home...
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2:47:55 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Life
::Tuesday, August 05, 2003::
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Dammit
I gave that song a stupid title because I wanted to move on from it before I started getting pissed off!
So that's it. I'm moving on to the next thing. Some people like it, most people like bits of it, so that should be enough.
Something else. The whole TRUMPET MELODY thing! I believe that each new track I do will be better than what came before it...
I wish I could stop only talking about MYSELF! I want to talk about all the other wonderful things in the world.
...well probably not the wonderful things, but at least the things that are more generally accessible than than the Workings of Michael's Fucking Head.
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4:28:00 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Smunk
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More On Clarity
Cheers Ben for letting me repeat this here!
This is the bulk of an email I wrote yesterday (to violently paraphrase J. Hughlings Jackson*) "not only to tell you what I think, but to tell me what I think", mainly in response to an assertion (that I have inflated out of all proportion, but that's just the way I go...) that my music is confused...
* [whoever he is: it was a quote used in the book I'm reading]
I am a chaotic, schizophrenic character. I'm often confused and I make music that's confused and grimy as a result. I don't see this as necessarily being a bad thing . It comes from having lots of ideas and very eclectic tastes, and I see it as my primary challenge to bring elements of all these loves (and they are LOVES, I find the chaotic lo-fi guitar and drawling crazy insights/meta-ordered psychadelia bombs of Captain Beefheart every bit as beautiful as the crystalline constraint, emotional outpourings, concise compositions of Portishead... um ... for instance). I see clarity as a danger as well as a goal - it will inevitably be incomplete, and can unwittingly be used as a justification for evil deeds (the 'scientific proof' of the 'inferiority' of certain groups that helped to facilitiate the Nazi concentration camps, for example) - although I would have to conceed that in music, this is probably not as dangerous as in other human pursuits... [although best not to rule it out completely... propaganda, conditioning, association etc..]. But you see my point philosophically I hope, even if I can't easily express it pragmatically in relation to music. Maybe more important is the fact that I can't seem to STAY CLEAR anyway! If I could just stick to one idea for long enough then I'd be able to develop the necessary skills to GET SOMEWHERE with it. But my life is lived in unpredictable rhythms of clarity and confusion, ups and downs, successes and failures - all measured over a multitude of time-scales (life-scales) - but I often can't see the arc for the tangle [...the forrest for the trees..?]... I envy those with clarity despite myself... It's just so much more effective...
I love learning from SPECIALISTS. I'm a synthesist - which means I'm PRETTY GOOD at lots of things, but not VERY GOOD at anything... I'm interested in a kind of quasi-sexual-reproduction of musical (..amongst other types of..) memes... This is something that is fairly common, even in pop music. Pop music reproduces through shallow, short-lived relationships between (often very similar) genres which keeps the risk to a minimum and the profits to a maximum. My music comes out like a messy orgy, a mass of (often very) different personalities, all picked for their strength-of-character, and often it's not surprising that there are so many conflicts... The potential for exciting new mutations is much greater here, but the risk is high and it's bloody hard work. (As I write this, there is a clarity - I seem to be describing the relationships within my large family - I guess I'm a lot more used to exhausting conflicts of extremely strong and obtuse characters all trying to live together than most. We didn't have any orgies, of course.) I've recently realised that this is a core aspect of my character... I instinctively avoid allowing any creation in which I am involved to become easily classifiable, because I think (often against rational judgement) of classification as a negative thing - something that is classified is "understood", and I don't believe anything can be fully understood... Genre classifications are breeding environments that produce a multitude of mutant offspring, but the whole system is self sustaining, such that the weaker mutants can cling to the success of the stronger ones that sound superficially similar. Of course, these classifications are far more essential in dance music than in, say, 'jazz', because of the practical requirements of the DJs (and the reliable and fairly uniform effects of the drugs involved). Hence dance music's endless genre, sub-genre, sub-sub-genre obsession to describe the tiniest of mutations, compared to the term 'jazz', which covers an endless multitude of styles, tempos, progressions, feelings, orchestrations etc... In jazz, the artist is the key node, the key point of reference when describing what something sounds like, not the genre. [I think I'm gonna stick with this Jazz/Dance Music opposition - it seems to hit the spot...]
The crash-point for me is in the response. Jazz music tends to be for chin-stroking, smiling, and occasionally toe-tapping [certainly modern jazz, anyway]. It is a music that freezes out uncommitted newcomers by sounding a bit difficult, and it's easy for most people to ignore the whole lot because they "don't understand this music" - despite the fact that the best of ANY music does not need to be "understood" to be enjoyed. It just needs to be repeated. The intended response of dance music is very different. People don't need to reference a respected canon in order to appreciate something good - it's a bodily response (it also helps that it's so loud...) - if it makes you dance then it's good! Not everybody likes the same style of dance music, but they're not cut off from exploration in the same way as they are from 'outside'* jazz. [I put outside in brackets, because for me, there is no boundary. Everything's just music as far as I'm concerned].
But I don't believe that making something dancable means it can't also be complex (or, god forbid, confusing...). I'm trying to come at funkyness from 'first principles', in a way... The music I'm making is inherently experimental in this respect... I wan't to make something that really SHOULDN'T WORK, but for some reason it's got just enough of what it needs to work ... um .. to work... but has more than is necessary from a functional perspective. I want unpredictability at the non-funktional scales...
Back to the orgy me-ta-fer; I am becoming aware that maybe I'm trying too hard to fuck everybody at once. Clearly impractical, and less fun, because I don't give a chance for expectations to build up, or periods to be savoured. Everything is better in reference to everything else, but it's probably not a good idea to have everything at once. Makes things, for want of a better word, Confused...
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4:09:31 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Life Rants
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Some Blogs:
From Luka##Heronbone
"i'm a firm believer in things like star quality, i don't want to level it out and pretend everyone's equally good, yeah, sure, you're equally valuable as human beings, but don't think what i do amounts to some collection of tics and gestures and poses, you can't copy this, you can't check what words i use, ape the postures i take, use the same cadences, it won't work, BECAUSE I DO ME" I feel this way sometimes... Being uncopyable is an obsession, and if I'm expressing me then I'm doing all I can possibly do. And all those times that I regret, that seem wasted, where I don't remember being "active" ... "i was teaching myself something, i was REWIRING MY FUCKING BRAIN" Thanks for that one too... I'll shout it at my APE next time it tries to grind me down...
BUT... How can I possibly justify doing me? How can I say "My music's confused because I'mconfused?" ... Who the hell am I?! Why should anybody give two shits about me? You don't like my music because you don't like me... It needs to be improved therefore I need to be improved... I know, I know, "APE", but The Parasite Entity is DISGUISED as you so I block you out... block everybody out...
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3:45:45 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Rants
::Saturday, August 02, 2003::
㊣
Legalities
Hadn't thought much about this, but my lawyer friend Alan has offered to help keep me safe legally and intellectual-property-wise, which is very cool.
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5:45:42 PM :: permalink
Keywords:
::Friday, August 01, 2003::
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7:15:59 PM :: permalink
Keywords: Smunk
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