8-bit Nostalgia and Miss September 63's Influence on Tactile Controls.

I love my wife’s new nano, the slickness of the interface, its ease of use and the fluid movement of pages on such a small screen is pretty darn cool.  I almost wish Apple would release a developer’s kit to add a control interface capability. Aww, com’on you know you agree, this would be the ultimate key fob.

Yet, am I alone in feeling that the new nano and even the iPad is well, soul-less? I am troubled- only somewhat mildly mind you (I DO work in the belly of the beast)- by the frictionless gloss of icons.  In fact, in the spirit of true disclosure I have to admit that I do not get surround sound, having compared it to overblown quad some years back on a pro AV forum on AOL.   I still, mostly, stand by that assessment today. 

Which brings me to my main point; I miss the tactile feel of a physical interface.  Perhaps it is simple nostalgia but I long for the clickty-clack-clunk of an 8-track tape, the solid mechanical ka-chunk of open reel tape decks, and the tactile feel and response of weighted gain knobs. I am not sure just why I love these knobs so much, the sheer pleasure of them in my hand – they just feel right, perfectly balanced in my fingers and against my palm.  I could make an innuendo here, which would be apt and very Miss September 63, but I think you get the gist.  So deep is my love for the classic high-end gain knob that I argued vehemently to include a version on a product, I was asked to do some preliminary concept work on. (I also wanted it to have a more ‘retro’ look with a maple or cherry wood front. Perhaps I do have too many vintage Playboys with their Cutty Shark ads).  The product got its gain knob but the front is basic black and silver.  

Additionally I tend to gravitate toward older looking games. I still watch in awe at the offerings G4 reviews and get that reflexive itch when I am near new game consoles but I am drawn by a greater gravitational pull – the text based Zork.  If you have ever played this game, you know what I am taking about.  It is a simple game really; it is a treasure hunt with fighting trolls, endless caverns, singing demons in hades and an abandoned dam.  All of this, and your action commands, are in text for which you have to draw maps if you are to get through it all.  It is work, hands on paper and brain imagining in 3 dimensions. Do you know the old saying, that things are far more provocative when a little is left to the imagination, yeah – Sophia Loren like.

So, why I am blathering on about all this? What point could I possibly be trying to make?  I really dig this video by HOLLERADO:

 The Video is a one shot, one chance to get it right, human analog of effects.  'There was a time when we made things with our hands'

 

 

 

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Neo Industrial Technorotic Aesthetic Death Trip.

Design, the facet of presentation which attracts the eye and stirs thelittle grey cells into action. I have long understood that I have an aesthetic which is somewhat off center with most of those around me. Yet, If I were to invite you to my second life abode the chill would soon settle into a yet unrecognized comfort; like sinking into the plush furniture of proper Victorian drawing room.

I bring this subject up from a find whilst I scrolled through my 300 news feeds in my Google reader, (love google reader), and came across a metal skull lamp in an article in Gizmodo. The writer of the article calls it “..the most terrifying table lamp…”.I call it beautiful. I want it, crave it.
If I could have my druthers I would have a ‘den’ which looked much like the ‘Closer’ video by NIN, this is what I would do if means were no object.
 
Growing up in Sag Harbor I was fascinated by the Victorian aesthetic and had ample opportunity to explore show homes which reproduced this, but it was too soft, too tranquil. Where, I asked were the drawing rooms of great explorers, whalers, and botanists?-(think about it, in order for someone to see and study a rare plant he would have to travel in harsh accommodations and face death by nature every moment. No rescue by GPS here. Darwin was a tough mother!). Everything had been sanitized by the local historical revisionists.

I left the semi isolated Sag Harbor to shack up with an artsy hipster in downtown NYC and found a world I only previously dreamed I could be part of. The girl and I soon parted but the stamp of what I was introduced to struck home, THIS is where I was supposed to be, this is what I had been searching for.

Concurrently I had just begun to understand and appreciate the Punk and hardcore movement in music when I met Pam and Marc. The Koch’s were uber NYC downtown rock hipsters via  Buffalo and close friends with one of the great unknown bands of the early 80s, The Splat Cats. Marc collected the ephemera of kitsch gothic ghoulishness. Their Ludlow street apartment was filled to the brim with records, comic books, videos, pop culture models, books of suspicious origins and early 19th century coffins-the ones with viewing windows on the cover. I still have several of the birthday cards given to me which consisted of heavily gilded photos of a specific coffin or groups of coffins. One birthday I was given the book Wisconsin Death Trip, a book I read nearly as often as I do Cyrano de Bergerac or  Foucault's Pendulum. The Koch’s home was not so much an education as a revelation, that central aesthetic which I had been searching now surrounded me each time I entered their home. I was introduced to the art of Joe Coleman, Joel Peter Witkin and innumerable bands of nearly every genre. It was a cross between Maxilla and Mandible and the Rembrant room at the Met.

Around the same time I chanced to meet Robin Ludwig, an artisan for whom the word itself is his being.  I met Robin through his daughter when I was in an Aveda show, I had very famous scissor hands cut my, then looong, hair and got a few products and bucks to boot.  Robin played gritty guitar, growled when he sang and created works of art out of metal with skilled delicate hands. Watching him work was nearly as intoxicating as the mead wine he brewed in the loft apartment they occupied smack dab in the heart of Chinatown.

This combination of old world craftsmanship and a full involvement of the modern drew me into a local high end audio store to drool over an early 80's retro tube amp placed in the front window, and to be promptly be escorted out by staff – “come back when you have money to spend kid!”.   The amp itself was evidently very good but the cost was for the art of the product, it called out and pulled you in with how it played with the light, its warmth and visual shimmer.

While I worked in recording studio and learned the in n’ outs of the main gear I was constantly drawn to theFocusrites, Joe Meek gear and theUREI LA-2A’s . The fascination was not just as moth to flame but a concerted study of the device and the names behind it.  The boxes spoke to me, called me in to learn not just about compression or EQ but about the early days of audio and the men who made or inspired these gleaming boxes; I also found out about their inspiration and obsessions.

So, you’ll excuse me as I mount this “…most terrifying…” lamp to a brushed aluminum stand shaped like a gothic fence rail and revel in its lineage of history, artisanal heritage and learning it encapsulates for me. 

I mean, once work's out there it's meant to be used. - Kathy Acker

I am a minimalist by nurture with regards to my physical space-(I like my art cluttered, my space sparse), as my family moved eight times before I was fifteen and each new place was totally rebuilt as we lived in it.  I shared a room with my sister more than I did not as walls were stripped down and rebuilt around us.  I remember the spackle dust most, not quite unlike animal hair; it tends to get onto and in everything no matter the preventative measures taken. Not having a lot of room for things you learned to keep tidy or lose all hope of finding something which would wind up buried in growing piles of clutter.  When my then girlfriend had first spent a few nights at my Spartan apartment and viewed my tightly folded and distinctly organized clothes she was convinced for months that I had either spent time in the military -(no, I did not) or might be a bit psychotic-(jury is still out) .  My Wife met me at a time during which I only wore black, every item of my wardrobe was black leave for one dark red 50’s shark skin sport jacket.  Wearing black had several advantages. It was hipster de rigueur for lower Manhattan, anything I wore would be back stage appropriate and everything could go in the same load of wash. When my then girlfriend –soon to be wife-and I decided to move in and ‘take the next step’ she needed a moving truck while I moved all I possessed in the back of a small van in one trip. Now I live with two kids under 5, my wife, 2 cats and a thousand toys – (I am convinced that the latter multiply overnight in some sick toy mating ritual\orgy) – and a secret part of me yearn’d for minimalist order of prior.

As I have been thinking about this I came across an article on Gizmodo about a set of ‘one line’ furniture by Aykut Erol.  Perhaps as I have been tinkering with concepts of space and environmental influence (see ‘My God it’s full of Stars’ and ‘I Sing the Building Electric’) and my growing comfort with overstuffed plush-ness of Victorian drawing rooms, I had an immediate, and unexpected, repulsion to the images.  The first two images suit me just fine and echo the Pompideu or the Blue Man Group Tubulum.  The third picture just does me in as I instantly associate it with Edward Kienholz’s ‘ The State Hospital’ and get a real uneasy feeling at how similar the color and lighting are. Both are most certainly places I’d rather not be.

I also like my Radio (Terrestrial, Satellite or Streaming) to be bare bones and simple. Gob it up with excess chatter, nonsense bumpers or too many ads and I will not listen – or at least I will find ways to note the non music cycles and avoid the station at those times. I have no issue with stations generating revenue but make it something I have the option of pulling up. Make it flashy, intriguing, and compelling but do not interrupt my access to content. Now the RIAA is equating General radio broadcasts as “a form of piracy”. Essentially the RIAA is attempting to push legislation to enforce radio stations to pay royalties on every song played. The RIAA already wants streaming stations to pay fees based on a per song \ per user structure. In the end this just means stations will pay for the added fees by playing less music and inserting more ads.  Will any of these collected fees ever go to any of the artists RIAA claims to be ‘protecting?’ 

To be clear here I have never been a supporter of the Napsters of the Inter-tubes. My strong opinion is that if the artist wants to sell the music based on per item fee structure, then obtaining it any other way is stealing, period. You can disagree with the concept but it is how this artist has decided to do business. If you have strong feelings about this do not buy their ‘product’ and do not go to their shows, the market will dictate.  If you like the music enough then you must respect the wishes of the artist, otherwise have nothing to do with them. More artists are breaking –(or attempting to ) from their labels, how can major labels survive when mainstream artists like Josh Stone proclaim piracy to be ‘great'.
 
NPR has been running a great series on the arts and Internet in China. The second article in the series of three is a real eye opener for me. The article entitled ‘Internet helps liberate, Create Music in China’ discusses the duality of the internet’s ability to expose millions –(or be exposed yourself) to music in a society where piracy is rampant to the point of cultural. China may be the test model for where the west will be in 5 years. Chinese artists are struggling to make a living from their music where selling content is already considered worthless. An early answer is to provide file sharing as a collective by offering the tools and content, pooling resources and drawing users to each artist’s live events. The article also has a link to the independent collective site and tools mentioned in the article. The Site is in Chinese but is fairly intuitive to negotiate – (although many of the links pop up new browser session which can be a bit of a clutter).

I just have to ask, who says pirates are a bad thing? Think of the environment people!

I Sing the Building Electric

David  Byrne has performed several exhibition pieces around the world by playing (and letting attendees play) buildings. The instrument consists of hooking up an organ keyboard to servos and motors attached  to the structures of buildings (columns, beams, radiators, etc) .  

 

David Byrne has more videos of the set up and performances on his website

 The sound is somewhat ambient, moves like dada, and has at its heart the early punk ethos –‘a musician could not play it any better a person off the street…’

 

 

Control Geek.net wants to kill more White Mice

John Huntington of ControlGeek.net has posed the question: Just why does most live sound suck?
See his original post at  http://www.controlgeek.net/why-does-live-sound-suck/.

John has also posted a the start of a 'Concert Goer's Bill of Rights at http://www.controlgeek.net/blog/2008/3/26/concert-goers-bill-of-rights.html

So why does most live sound suck?

My thoughts on the situation:

1. Over the last 10 years there has been a progressive decline in audio quality contained in the mass market audio mediums, from CDs to the ubiquitous iPod.  While there are most certainly very high quality digital formats available for  the connoisseur,  the majority of music consumers are quite happy with a highly compressed MP3- especially if it is free!  So we start off with a general lower quality expectation by those who would actually go to a show. 

2. The cost of commercial real estate in nearly every major urban center can be extraordinarily prohibitive to investing in a quality acoustic design and upkeep.  Let's face it, most NYC venues are concerned with getting the most out of every event by keeping costs low and margins high-(moderate ticket prices, $8 dollar beers).  a Venue providing simply adequate sound is able to cut cost by installing 'shout boxes' which provide a very middle sound quality and tons of volume.  I have lost count on the number of  venues  I have attended shows where it was very obvious that pure volume was used to create excitement at the loss of depth-(the old Ritz anyone? ) I will say that I was blown away by the sound quality at the Lion's Den -(McDougall and Bleeker) some 15 years ago. I could hear every lyric and each of the 7 instruments being played.  Not only could I hear the music, I did not leave with my ears ringing for a week!  I went to see  a multitude of bands  at 'the den' I had never heard of -and in many cases never would again- just for the quality sound of the venue. (well, that and the beers were $2 if you showed up early).

3. We have to face it, there are a lot of live sound engineers who either

• Never received any formal education in the art of live sound



• Never served an internship with a veteran sound engineer and learned from their guiding hand.



• Have blown their ears by doing it wrong but refuse to give up the back center stool.

4. It makes white mice spontaneously explode - poor white lab mice, everyone  knows high school sucks.

For the record I support John's Bill O' Rights for concert goers, but fear it will suffer the same fate as the travelers bill of rights - which appears to be suffering from lack of support and atrophy.

T6 readers: what are  your thoughts?  add them to the comment section of this post as this response is linked to John's blog.