Thursday 29
mouse music
After many years of listening to and enjoying electronic music (IDM/electronica/whatever)
I am finally starting to learn how to make it myself. This is my new obsession.
This is due principally to the fact that is has literally never been easier
or cheaper to make music with computers. All I need is a copy of Reason
and away I go!
Except. It’s not really that easy, is it? So far I have produced a grand
total of two passable drum patterns…but hey, some people never make an
original drum pattern in their lives! Anyway, I am really loving it, and obsessively
geeking out big time, the way I do whenever a new field of interest suddenly
opens up and spreads out before me in all it's unknown majesty. There shure
is a lot to learn – all that crazy terminology, for a start. And in parallel
with the technology I guess I am going to have to be learning about music
theory to some degree. I am already diligently researching the history of
‘dance music’, inspired largely by the beyond-excellent Channel
4 series ‘Pump Up The Volume’, featuring as it did numerous reminiscences
from the movers and shakers on the scene, many of whom were literally making
it up as they went along.
One of the most pleasant side benefits of this new course of study is gaining
an insight into how tracks are constructed, and the Job-like patience which
goes into making the more complex examples of the genre. It also give me an
added respect for master exponents of the art. For instance, right now I am
listening to Niun
Niggung by Mouse On Mars, who
are without question my fave electronics-using band (they are not technically
electronica as they also incorporate toy pianos. strings, oboes and teapots,
probably) and I have NO CLUE how they come up with their amazing melodic,
organic, dense, humourous collages of sound (aka 'songs'). I’m guessing
lots and lots of hard work, patience, and a sizeable dose of genius. Oh, and
if you ever get to see them live, they rock ass! (There is an interesting
interview with
MOM on the Native Instruments website, regarding their use of the mad and
brilliant soft-synth and crazy -sound-generator Reaktor, among many other
things.)
Anyway, I would burble on in this fashion for hours, but I have a sequencer
to learn how to work. Boing!
PS. MOM’s new album, Idiology,
is even better than Niun Niggung, marking as it does a new plateau in the
combination of electronic and organic instrumentation. Warning: it is wildly
eclectic, so if you can't handle pastoral ditties warping into insane Drill'N'Bass
it is best left alone.
If I have sufficiently piqued your interest you can download a new, free
Mouse on Mars track (United States Of...) from the Sonig
website. You'll have to find it, I can't link directly due to their use of
clever DHTML.
And one more MOM
interview at pitchfork. I'm such a fanboy...
bereft
My powerbook went off to be evaulated by the Insurance company prior to repair.
They estimate two weeks before I get it back. Bugger. I'll have to get a life,
or something.
Friday 23
tongues and taxis and hot ducks
tongues and
taxis. michael hoving: nutbar.
brrrrriiiinnnggg!!!
ah yes, remember when phone rings were actual physical bells? Now you get
jolted out of your reverie by the some spotty gimp with the theme from Mission
Impossible, or Get Yer Freak On, all in wonderful bleepytone. Has anyone published
a paper on the psychology of ringtone selection? And also, how about some
nice warp records ringtones? I quite fancy a bit of squarepusher…well,
I would, but I have a Siemens P.O.S*. which doesn’t allow such fun. Sigh.
And additionally also as well, why is it that companies such as Siemens can
sell phones with such fucking godawful, counterintuitive, irritating ‘solid
user interfaces’? Seems only Nokia know how to do them properly. Maybe
I’ll get a Treo next time, at
least the Palm OS is lovely.
* piece of shit
some actual links
warp films. the
electronic music label explores pastures new, good on ‘em! incidentally,
the warprecords message forum is
one of the more amusing around.
flong - java graphics genius from MIT wunderkind
Golan Levin.
Youngpup.net – sweet design,
DHTML goodies. [via zeldman]. I may
well steal his idea of a ‘personal dreck’ filter. Mind you, then
you'd have nothing to read.
Dean ‘Inimitable is my middle name’ Allen [textism]
explains how to make your web pages more readable: Reading
Design [ala]
Carracho client for OS X is now available for download.
Good luck getting it to work from behind a firewall. %-(
intense tv
Wow, The Sopranos was pretty intense last night, wasn’t it? Best TV
series ever, and you’d be a fool and a communist to think otherwise.
Twin Peaks Series
1 is out on DVD, speaking of great TV. Damn fine Apple Pie…
Thursday 22
music coming out of my ears
I heart Epitonic. A lot. I’m
literally discovering interesting new [to me] bands by the minute: Shipping
News, Thingy
(Thingy are great!), The
Convocation Of..., Microphones,
Neutrino,
and loads more I can’t be arsed to link. It’s amazing I am getting
any work done today… ~8-)
all tomorrows parties
A fairly stellar lineup at next year’s All
Tomorrows Parties, curated by Shellac, including Blonde
Redhead, Breeders, Cheap Trick [!], Low,
Mission of Burma
[reformed!], Neurosis, Oxes, Rachel's, Shellac
and Will Oldham. That is my idea of fun. Guitars and lots of them. If anyone
wants to share a chalet, let me know!
dumb
David Lynch does flash cartoon: dumbland.
how do you like them apples?
Apparently, the Apple logo is inspired by the story that Alan Turing, visionary
genius and hounded-to-death-by-the-ungrateful-state gaylord (even the fact
he practically won the war single-handed couldn't compensate for the fact
that he liked teddies and men's bottoms in the eyes of the homophobic establishment)
topped himself by taking a bite out of an apple which he has previously injected
with poison. I like it even more, now. (an apple aside – the other
famous appley Cambridge fellow is of course Sir Isaac Newton, who has a pub
named after him in the town. They even have a brick apple set into the wall
as a tribute, but unfortunately to my eyes it looks more like a big mooning
arsehole. I'll get a photo to prove my point…)
shitty shit shit
It looks like it is going to take two entire weeks to get my powerbook
fixed. Shit. What will I do? How will I survive? Ulp, I may have to…GET
A LIFE!
blog blog
The Guardian has an online blog (what other kind is there, he asked rhetorically)
called onlineblog.
gobble gobble
Happy Thanksgiving! And three cheers for Liberty the turkey. You know who
I mean…
live live
Even yet still more fabbo live performance music software, the imaginatively-named
Live from Ableton.
It’s an audio sequencer that you can play like an instrument, in a live
context! No, really.
45
Last night I went to Borders, with the intention of getting my laptop out
and learning some more about Reason.
Instead, I spent 2 and a half hours reading 45
by Bill Drummond (one half of the lovely KLF). Very, very entertaining stuff
from the man who, gasp, burned a million quid.
frames = bad
Why do some web designing holdouts still use sodding frames? They are clearly
pure evil. Apropos of nothing except I couldn't link directly to the Live
or Reason product pages due to frameal usage.
mac expo excuse
So I really want to go to mac expo tomorrow, but I don't want to take a holiday
day off work as I only have a few left, and I can't pull a sicky as I was
genuinely sick the week before last, so my only recourse is to think up a
plausible cover story which implies that attending mac expo will help me grow
as a web designer. Anyone got any ideas about how I can word it? Tell
me.
Wednesday 21
just the (epi)tonic
If you are looking for interesting mp3s to download, you could do a lot worse
than head over to the splendiferous epitonic.com.
Thousands of bands, all lovingly cross-referenced in helpful categories, with
intelligent reviews. Lovely.
rambo vs. osama
The script is in the works, apparently.
I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, laugh and cry at the same time, or
kill myself now.
hey, I can be stoopid!
Odd Todd. He got laid off, he made
a crappy, but quite amusing, flash animation, he put a donation link on his
page, and now he is getting $1000 a week! Fuck! I could do that, I’m
pretty stupid, sometimes it has been claimed I can be funny. Is this
funny? I think so...
That’s where I’ve been going wrong for months, I lost site of a
golden rule of the web – there is an insatiable desire for stupid,
stupid crap. And sometimes people will pay for it! With this is mind, my enthusiasm
for the web has redoubled, I was getting way too serious. No, really. As of
now, prepare for a tsunami of cretinous bullshit, some of which will hopefully
be mildly amusing. I’m sure I’ve got some funny ideas written down
in notebooks…or, or maybe I can have an original idea? Meanwhile, you’ll
have to make do with the same old
rubbish
I keep recycling. Hey at least I *do* recycle!
family affair
So I got my DVD of the first series of Family
Guy this morning. Oh happy day! Fourteen episodes of comic genius. Unlike
Dude, Where's My Car, which I eventually got round to seeing and would rate
as: mostly not very good.
Friday 16
for the birds
Sure, I'm looking forward to Monsters Inc., but I'm rilly rilly looking forward
to seeing For the Birds.
The snippet on the Pixar site is hilarious. You can also see most of their
short films in all their glory.
bbci
The beeb has redesigned and rebranded as bbci.
They have gone all grey-scale, which is so last month, yeah? But seriously,
the bbc has some completely amazing graphic/motion graphic designers, I'm
stunned by the stuff they manage to do on the news at short notice.
In associated news, BBC 2 are redesigning
their idents. Thankfully, they are keeping the animated 2s. The new idents
are designed by Lambie-Nairn, as
are the ones they replaced. Martin Lambie-Nairn also designed the original
Channel
4 spinning 3-D '4' ident, which I remember thinking was pretty cool at
the time. Oh, and they did Anglia.
[I prefer the old revolving silver horseman on a
pedestal myself] I quite fancy a future career in broadcast graphics,
it can't be too big of a leap from doing adverts in flash, can it? To this
end I am feverishly learning After Effects, which lets one do insanely cool
stuff that flash can't even think about. It's not interactive, but who cares?
I always thought interactivity was overrated – just sit there and
enjoy the pretty pictures! Maybe one day I will be as good as twenty2
product. Or Belief, or any of the
good people behind the wonderful untitled:
02 – infinity pieces. Yeah, I've linked it before, but it's
just so cool!
bus bastards
So this morning I had to endure a double-whammy of bus driver jobsworth assholeism.
The first driver was *just* starting to pull away when I waved frantically
at him – he waved back and continued on his merry way. He could
have stopped, really he could.
So I went to get a latte. The second bus arrived five minutes later, and
I was informed curtly that I couldn't bring my drink on board, it's not allowed.
“But”, I protested “I often bring a coffee on board, nobody
has ever complained before!”. “Not on my bus, you might spill it”
– this despite the sipper lid. He was clearly not going to budge on this
issue, so I muttered “that's bullshit” and got off the bus. While
waiting for the next bus I experienced a delightful few minutes of
l'esprit d'escalier, thinking of all the things I could have said which
would have been cooler than that. My favourite was "Wow, of all the bus
drivers in Cambridge, *you* are the biggest asshole, and that is against some
pretty stiff competition!" Needless to say, war has been declared…he's
not heard the end of this. Oh no.
Addendum: I forgot to recount the experience of one of Adrienne's work colleagues,
who like me, waved at her bus to get it to stop, which it failed to do. This
is a charter bus which is specifically *for* employees of RLC, mind you. Anyway,
the next day she admonished the driver, asking why he hadn't stopped for her.
His response: "I can't just be stopping for everyone who waves at me…"
Guh? YES YOU CAN! YOUR A BUS DRIVER!! IT'S YOUR FUCKING JOB!!!
Gypsy types in baby-stealing stereotype confirmation shock
The other day there was a local news story about three Romanian Roma (gypsy)
asylum seekers who had arrived at Oakington reception centre (where Adrienne
works as a case worker for the Refugee Legal Centre) who had arrived with
a 5-week old baby, which it transpired they had, well, stolen somewhere in
Europe. I thought the notion of Roma stealing children from the Gadje
(non-Roma), was just a myth, but this seems not to be the case. Having done
five minutes of cursory google 'research', it transpires that some of them
are sick of having their
own children stolen. I really must read up on the Roma, they have a very
fascinating culture. Nearly all I know about them is from films such as Black
Cat, White Cat…
Stop this H. Potter madness!
So what with the Harry Potter mania reaching an even higher fever pitch with
the release of the film, which is absoutely going to be the biggest film ever
of all time bar none, I will take this opportunity to once again draw your
attention to the vastly superior "His
Dark Materials" trilogy, by the brilliant, shed-dwelling Philip Pullman.
You need to read them. Anyone who is called a satanist by the barking mad
religious zealots of middle America must be doing something right. [It's
probably that bit where they kill God which annoyed them so much. Except it
isn't really God. You'll just have to read them]
To be fair, I've only read the first Potter book, in the spirit of research,
and it was okay. Maybe they get better, but I wasn't particularly impressed.
Someone [I forget whom] wrote in the Guardian a very acute assessment of the
Potter books which put their astonishing success in part down to the way J.
K. Rowling had managed to cram in virtually every classic childrens yarn trope,
which is itself a sort of genius, I humbly concede.
more tedious style sheets blather
Matt points to the minty fresh xlab,
built entirely with stylesheets. Copacetic. I predict pale minty green will
be the colour du jour this season. Some lovely minimal sites coming outta
Newcastle these days. Speaking of CSS, like I do, yesterday I knocked up a
demo page for
my old boss Colin. Except it doesn't work properly, in Win IE6 or Opera 5.
It is supposed to look like this.
The main text wraps round the floated left element (containing the brochure
image and address). Any help in debugging this will be gratefully received.
Wednesday 14
movie news
Wes Anderson, director of the estimable Rushmore, has a new film out, and
a spiffy website to promote it: The
Royal Tenebaums. We will probably get it in the UK in about a year. Donnie
Darko also look promising; the immersive website is by the always brilliant
hi res!
toon army
Pixar have put all their short
films online. Meant to link that days ago, forgot until this morning [Thanks
Chris!] Also, Channel 4 is showing a damn fine animation series – Hot
Reels – which is only let down by Adam and Joe being not very
funny at all hosts. Animation is serious, godammit! [Oh,
it is also let down by the fact that it starts at 12:30am. Bastards! We don't
all have VHS players, you know! Some of us have moved into a bold new DVD
future, where, um, we can't record TV shows. Poo.]
rustboy
While I am on an animation tip (bwoy): Rustboy,
by the unnaturally talented Brian Taylor, who is also responsible for the
hunky-dory Dodge Magazine.
hoogebrugge
Modern Living. Lovely
Time to Jack, Jack
Last night was a primo night for sitting like a slack-jawed fool in front
of the idiot box, as there was also a fascinating show on the history of House
music – Pump Up The Volume.
Check out the PUTV mixing desk – it is shit. Not 'the shit', just
shit. Sorry. But the show was copacetic.
Tuesday 13
oopsie daisy
So anyway, I was biking to my French class last night, skidded on some mud,
fell off, broke the left hinge of my beloved powerbook. And they say titanium
is strong. Pfff. £515 of your earth pounds to repair it. Double arse.
Luckily it should be covered by my household insurance. Despite this severe
emotional trauma, I’m in quite a good mood today…at least I haven’t
had a jet liner crash into my house. Puts it all in perspective, eh?
IQ of 150 and the memory of a duck?!
I wish I could remember the hysterically funny thing Adrienne and I were
talking about last night, in order to share it with you. It really was very,
very amusing. We often think of funny things that would be great to recount
on this here blog, but then when it comes to writing it, all you get is this
dreary drivel. I’m amazed you come back for more, I really am…perhaps
I should stop smoking nazi crank.
Thursday 08
friendsre…
Old school friends have started to contact me recently through friends
reunited. Strangely, I am quite happy about this. I say strangely because
I had a singularly fucking miserable time at school, and when I left thought
I would be happy if I never saw a single soul from the place again. But time
is a great healer, and I’ve mellowed, and now it seems a perversely intriguing
proposition to meet some of those old school chums (and also dread enemies,
in some cases) and see how we have all turned out.
[I deleted lots of moaning here…]
linkslut
Oh joy! I’ve made it to the useless
links page of this Canadian type person. I’ve arrived!
stakhanovite
I’ve been ill again. I know. I’m always ill. ‘Flu, and a particularly
virulent one at that. But there is only so much time one can spend in bed,
feeling toxic, so I hauled my ass out and I’ve made another skin, inspired
by Soviet-era constructivist poster designer Alexander Rodchenko. That’s
just my Stakhanovite work ethic, I guess. Give it a go, why duncha? OKAY!
And now I’m going to go and have a little lie down.
Tuesday 06
pathetic insecure loser freak boy
It’s a funny thing, my mind. I’ve been in a sort of bad mood all
day, for no apparent reason, just a kind of free-floating annoyance. And then
it hit me, I was angry because someone posted a sarcastic response to my silly
Shrek post on MetaFilter (see below).
Bear with me, this is going somewhere, but be warned that this is very sad
reflection on my fragile psyche and my desperate desire to be accepted by
a trendy clique. And a virtual clique at that ;).
[More unconstructive and frankly adolescent-style self-pity wallowing and
navel-gazing has been excised judiciously round about here]
Jundle of Boy
Seth is a daddy again. Congratulations,
you guy you.
Monday 05
book
Bought a great book at the weekend. Actually I swapped a less-great book
for it, technically. Anyway, it is called “The
Animator's Survival Kit” by Richard Williams [animation
director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit], and is nothing less than an exhaustive
compedium of animation techniques, many of them gleaned from the old masters
at Disney. And the more I learn about animation, the more I come to realize
it is really jolly difficult to do at all well. Oh sure, we can all zoom text
all over the shop, and do motion tweens in our sleep, but have you ever done
a decent walk cycle? Nope? Me neither…At least the computer makes things
a bit simpler, no need for layers of acetate and suchlike. Not that I think
using a Wacom pad will ever become second nature: so I draw here and
it appears there? Erk.
stylin'
Yes, another new look, simplified the layout, complexified the options. Have
a play with the StyleOverContent™ dynamic-style-switcheroo-widget®,
[over on the left, there] courtesy of those
wunnerful folk at A List Apart.
[Works in IE5.x NS6.x] I will of course be
added many, many more styles as time goes on, from the sublime to the unnutterably
grotesque, probably. Fun! Note: The dragon one uses
about 76K of background images, but it sure is purty.
But right now, I have to go see the fireworks. All together now: FUNT!..........Pooooon!
“Ahhhh!”
MeFi SchmeFi
So I posted a silly post on metafilter,
and I was reading kottke.org, and he had linked to the “best
Metafilter comment of all time”, which it turns out was an amusingly
sarcastic response to my somewhat overenthusiastic post ;). Sure is a small
web, eh what?
Friday 03
flashy
Amazing flash work at levitated.net. I've been out of the cutting-edge design loop for a bit, trying to learn some of my own chops, so to speak. Herm.
Half Life for PS2
This is
a good thing. Best game I ever played.
Thursday 01
Favourite Shrek moments #1
The bit where Shrek is twatting the Knights, WWF-style, and for a second
the camera rests upon Lord Farquaad, stunned, mouthing “What the F…?”
Hee hee.
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