DIBS BITCHES

ATTENTION HUNAMS

TOMORROW IN ONE (ONE!) DAY I WILL BE ATTENDING THE PARTY OF LAZER

YOU MAY SAY TO YOUR SELVES “OH NOES JAIRUIS!”

THAT IS RIGHT

AND HE’S BRINGING HIS BABY-EATING GIRLFRIEND

“OH DOUBLE NOES!!!#!#@##BASHBASHBASH”

SO HIDE YOUR BABIES AND BABY-LIKE FRIENDS

HOUSE OF KHAN IN FULL EFFECT

here there be hungry hungry hippos

Spent the day today retching and sleeping, sleeping and retching. Only recently have I dared to put food anywhere near my mouth, knowing the DOOM that might await me.

Now, I play the waiting game.

—

I’ve received a couple of emails over the past day or two complimenting me on my (never-updated) web writing, which only serves as a reminder that I need to finish the design and coding of my new websites. I’m splitting my website into two websites, now. One of them will be a more traditional weblog, with external links, commentary, reviews, winamp playlist, comments enabled, etc. The other will be much more low-profile. Three sections devoted to writing — personal narrative, dreams, fiction, and nothing else. No links, no comments, no fancyness. After they’re online, I’ll probably stop using LJ entirely, unless I feel like coding up a hack that syndicates my entries to my LJ, without using the crappy native RSS syndication.

I already have the domains in place for these sites, and I’ve got the backend up and running for one of them. I’m going for a table-free pure XHTML/CSS layout for these sites, which is taking a bit of time to get right. After the CSS is in place, I want the markup to be flexible enough that I can do a site-wide redesign via a replacement CSS file, with no modification to the XHTML whatsoever. Secretly, I’m not finding it nearly as challenging as I thought I would, which is part of the reason I’ve been so lazy about it. I think I’ve learned all I’m going to learn about the technology. Might be time to pick up a new skill.

With that said, the sites will degrade gracefully in any browser, all the way down to Lynx. They will be perfectly viewable in screen-readers for the blind, web-enabled cellphones, crawlers, or any other reader from HTML 1.2 onwards. Now if only I could find someone to pay me for doing this.

—

Every time I start to feel good about the music that I’m writing, I see a show that kicks my ass. Mono No Aware’s live set was some of the most intelligent rhythmic noise I’ve heard in a long, long time — Iszo’s music just keeps getting better and better, and Prospero really impressed me with his techno-oriented stuff. There’s a lot of really talented people working in industrial music today, and I want to make sure that any contribution of mine is on the same level, regardless of how well received it is. I don’t want to be the next Noisex.

I’ve been focusing a lot on structure, but I need to work more on the sounds themselves, I think. A lot of the ‘noise’ that I’m working on is ending up too muddy, or harsh, or whatever. It lacks a certain clarity and definition that I feel is essential to the kind of music I want to make. Also, I can’t write a melody to save my life. It helps, though, that I’ve had a good dozen strangers contact me out of the blue to let me know they liked my Iszoloscope remix (including being asked to play in the UK based on that one remix alone), especially considering that my contact info isn’t listed on the Iszo website.

I might be working on with Lament Configuration on a track or two sometime soon, which strikes me as an opportunity to make some really wicked music. I think his music really excels in the areas where my music suffers, and I have some solid ideas about what it is that I have to contribute. If we manage to find a happy medium somewhere between the two of us, it could sound pretty good. If my remix work with Iszo/Urusai/Converter has taught me anything, it’s that I work a lot better when I’m not left to my own devices. Working with someone else’s melodies/beats/etc., I really put a lot of effort into writing music that highlights and compliments the work of the other people involved. My own music is not nearly so sacred to me, and I think that my work suffers for it.

—

This Sunday will mark the first of the new Retro Underground weekly night at Zaphods. I’m hoping that as a new night, the crowd it’ll attract will be one that is there primarily for the music, and not necessarily the social aspect that seems to be so prevalent in the other weekly electronic nights in the city. As a new weekly without an established crowd, there’s a lot of room for people to find a space they enjoy, especially if they feel out of place in the more genre-specific nights like Tuesday@Phods, Thursday@Buddha, Friday@Surface, etc. I might be too optimistic about this, but I really do think there are a lot of people in this city that will come out for the music.

I’m also looking forward to working with all the wicked DJs involved in it. Recently, a lot of the events I’ve been involved with (rave, radio, art or otherwise) have felt like work (which it is), but with any luck this night will be something special.

We’ve got great music, wicked DJs, and a good venue. All we need now is for people to show up.

BRITS!

From an interview with Sleazy, in regards to his recent move to Thailand from the UK:

More or less everything (food, rent, utilities, transport, but not Apple Macs’) is about a quarter the price of the West especially the UK, so a modest Coil income goes four times further.

There are some things in Thailand that present problems though. The main one for me is that in the UK it’s easy to be motivated to do a lot of work (or a lot of very expensive ‘play’) since there’s basically nothing else to do! In Thailand there are a million beautiful ways to pass the days, so motivating myself to get things done there is much harder.

The England that I grew up in, which was an inspiration to me for so long, has changed a great deal and I am no longer able to see any good side to it. […]

It seems to me that now virtually all artistic endeavour in the UK is actually regarded simply as a means to an end; a means of obtaining fame, a lifestyle, a flat-screen TV, an Audi or the right flowers in the right pot. I’m including people starting up as musicians, artists and fashion designers, the people who will shape the cultural identity of the country in years to come. Nobody seems to be doing these things just because they are driven to, any more. So their work is compromised.

[On Downloading Music]

The debate of the relative merits of ownership of special things vs. the possession of special information will never die. I prefer the latter but Jhonn the former. To be sure, the experience of holding an object, especially a hand-made object will not be equalled electronically for many years. I’d like to think Coil are weeks rather than months away from offering our work as downloads.

303

Dr. Phil is such a fucking idiot. It’s amazing, I’m flipping through the channels, and this man is able to make me so angry, so quickly.

If I lived in LA, I’d be on my way to smash his Ferrari right now.

More Filesharing Stuffs

I received this email today from Downhill Battle:

Hey everyone,

This is a very important heads-up to anyone who’s a musician, or who’s connected to running a record label. The Future of Music Coalition is running a survey now, in partnership with the Pew Research Center, of musicians’ attitudes towards the Internet. Within just a few months, we could see laws pass that would start sending people to jail for filesharing. The major record labels lie to the public that they’re doing this to protect musicians, so right now it’s vitally important that the public hear what most musicians really think. The Pew Research Center is a respected institution, and when they release a study like this it makes news; you’ve got an opportunity here to make your voice heard. Take the suvey, and please pass this on to all of your friends who play music:

http://websurveyor.net/wsb.dll/11719/Music.htm

THE DEADLINE FOR THIS SURVEY IS APRIL 15th. For more information about the study, and about the Future of Music Coalition, check out:

http://futureofmusic.org/research/musiciansurvey.cfm and
http://futureofmusic.org/manifesto/index.cfm

The survey isn’t especially good. There are lots of questions that are rather leading. For example: “Overall, do you think file sharing on the Internet poses a MAJOR threat to creative industries like music and movies, a MINOR threat, or that it poses no real threat at all?” They exclude the increasingly obvious answer: that filesharing is a good thing for the independent/underground side of the music business because it’s breaking the major labels’ monopoly. And they don’t ask the question: “Do you want to see working parents and students going to jail for sharing music?” –which is an important question to ask since it’s on the horizon. But try to work within the limited questions to get your message across.

And again, pass this around to your friends. We’ve only got four more days (’till Thursday)!

Stuffs

I’m putting together a playlist on WebJay, which is a where you can link to MP3s available on the web, and…make…playlists out of them.

Yeah.

Anyhow, this is the playlist I’m working on. I’m looking for suggestions of industrial/noise artists or labels that offer full-song downloads, so feel free to leave a comment or three.

Ryan Malcolm knows what’s up.

Federal Heritage Minister Helene Scherrer has spoken. Although Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled against CRIA, she has decided to take matters into her own hands.

“As minister of Canadian Heritage, I will, as quickly as possible, make changes to our copyright law.”


Canada to Helene Scherrer: Suck My Balls.

The problem with this, of course, is that Canadian copyright law has been going through a slow and thoughtful reformation process. Since the unveiling of A Framework for Copyright Reform in 2001, a lot of progress has been made in updating the laws to reflect the needs and concerns of content producers, and the public domain.

Now, however, it seems that all of this work will be bulldozed by Helene Scherrer, who declared her intentions at the Juno Awards last night. (Public interest and existing law be damned, we’ve got businesses to cater to!)

If this bothers you, please contact the Copyright Policy Branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage at (819) 997-5638. It’s your country too.

294

A beautiful view of the Himalayas from the International Space Station.


Oblique view of the Himalayas, looking south from over the Tibetan Plateau.

At first glance, one might think that the image looks like a picture taken from an airplane, until you remember that the summits of Makalu [left (8,462 meters; 27,765 feet)] and Everest [right (8,850 meters; 29,035 feet)] are at the heights typically flown by commercial aircraft. The full mosaic covers over 130 kilometers (80 miles) of the Himalayan front, and could never be seen this way from an airplane.

287

I’ve now unloaded the last of the restraint.org servers from my home computer. For FTP users, you can connect to geekhaus.kicks-ass.net instead of the address you were using previously.

Soon, I will be able to format with impunity.

Longhorn, here I come.