My kick ass guitar teacher has a brother who developed software that allows you to create loops and other sorts of musical feats without ever touching a computer. Amazingly cool. Introducing, the Amazing Rolo’s Wii Loop Machine!
I can’t wait to check it out. I already am imagining myself dancing around the kitchen while making music for radio, with just the click of a button.
PS–I have to say it’s a little eerie how much my guitar teacher and his brother look alike.PPS-And NPR passed on this guy when he applied for a Kroc fellowship. I can’t believe they let this genius slip through their fingers. Or wait, maybe I can.
This week’s HV cast is for Poetry Month. Sonia Sanchez performs her poem written to “all you young girls.” Produced by Steve Rowland and mixed by Joe Waters (a commission from WXPN with funding from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts) with original music by Jamaaladeen Tacuma. “Song #2” (mp3 1:56):
Even the military is starting to see the light or feel the warmth, as the case may be. I thought the most interesting point (made in the audio portion) of the story was retired Gen. Anthony Zinni’s comment that the real resource war isn’t going to be about hydrocarbons. It will be about hydrology or, in other words, water scarcity. He noted that many of the same places in the world that are rich in oil are poor in water.
The ShortWaveMusic Soundblog was dormant; but Myke Weiskopf is back w/ his shortwave-radio recordings. His “Duelling XMTRs!” — multiple transmitters vying for the same spot on your dial — are transcendent serendipitous audio art; Pentacostal preachers overlap Muslim chants, spy stations compete w/ 3rd world pop.
Duelling XMTRs!: Family Radio vs. V2
“A Spanish five-figure CIA numbers station (‘V2’) was coolly running digits over a Family Radio liturgy in perfect balance.”
Duelling XMTRs! #3 Duelling XMTRs! #3 VOIRI vs. the World
“This has it all: interval signals for VOIRI and BBC, Spanish ham-radio operators, slow Morse code, data squalls, fading, phasing, heterodyne”:
Lotsa mp3s at ShortWaveMusic, from seven-stringed zithers to the Voice of Vietnam, along w/ explanations of “numbers stations” and “data squalls.” Mike has a new CD of his music that samples said SW transmissions. (Just bought my copy today.)
The 2007 Third Coast International Audio Festival ShortDocs competition theme is Dollar Storeys:
“Dollar Storeys is a public audio project that invites producers, artists, writers and radio fans of all backgrounds to submit finished audio stories clearly based on one of three specific dollar store items [pictured at 3rd Coast] and lasting 2:30-3:00 (min).”
Saw a Segway roll by this morn. I live outta town on a rural dirt road. We’ve seen moose, bear, elk, and deer out our door — not everyday, but certainly not unexpected. A Segway, tho, that was a surprise.
Check the platform and wheel frame. They’ve beefed up these things for off-asphalt trails since I last looked. He was movin’ over dirt at a good clip, about 15mph. Wonder if they go on snow.
Now, here’s what we country folk are more used to seeing. These furry folk were in my backyard. On the right, that’s Elk butt you’re looking at — or as it’s called here in Montana: Dinner.
The work of field-recordist extraordinaire Chris Watson (fmr Cabaret Voltaire) is on National Geographic Channel’s Galápagos web. (Click “Launch Site”; skip the opening video, use the lower-right audio controls.)
A (VJ Pablo Productions) video for Skyward song “Sundial” — cover of a tune by Yasmine Mohammedi by French band Lighthouse — off the self-titled Skyward CD (emusic | amazon):
Skyward has composed lotsa music for HV productions. Check the 3-bass Loop for our auto Oddio Art maker.
WFMUs blog-post of Kurt Vonnegut MP3s reminded me the SoCal prog-rock pop band, Ambrosia, put Kurt’s couplet from Cat’s Cradle to music (circa 1975)– “Nice, Nice, Very Nice”:
Here’s one of the mp3s posted by WFMU, from Ice-9 Ballads by Dave Soldier w/ Kurt Vonnegut Jr , “Annihilation Life”:
In some martial arts, there is an emphasis places on exploiting pressure points. Political activists trying to get China to review its cozy relationship with Sudan over Darfur finally found one in the 2008 Olympics. Apparently, it is really a chain of pressure points since Mia Farrow, in an editorial warned Steven Spielberg that he could “go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games,†for his role in helping promote them. He, in turn, wrote a letter to China’s president, Hu Jintao, decrying China’s support of Sudan’s government.
Perhaps the new logo for the 2008 games should look like this:
(or maybe a picture of Hu Jintao wincing)
Last post had old folks doing “Young Folks.” On a related power-chord, here’s the oldest band in the world, The Zimmers (lead singer Alf is 90), doing “My Generation”:
OK, it’s official. Peter, Bjorn & John’s “Young Folks” is a music phenom. I can’t play it (on KGLT-Bozeman) w/o someone calling and demanding details. Personally, I think the song’s just OK, but combine that listener response with this tres kewl vid:
And here’s where phenom-ville starts- Old folks (mostly) have now done “Young Folks” bluegrass-style (dawn Landes & the WEST Band):
Above is Part 1 of a documentary by Gottfried Geist, here’s parts: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. And John Hockenberry’s interview with him (In Second Life cyberspace) for the radio series The Infinite Mind.Eight rules for writing fiction (from Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons 1999), 9-10):
Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
The latest issue of TIME has a cover story on our worn out military but what would you expect from the liberal media? But then there’s the other Times and I’m not talking about the one in Godless New York City, gun lovers, but rather the conservative counterpart to the Washington Post. In a recent op-ed piece, Robert H. Scales asked, “Is the Army headed for collapse?” But what would a retired Major General and former commander of the Army War College know about that?
Donald Rumsfeld infamously stated, “As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want.” (Never mind that you could always wait for a war worth fighting and even then anticipate the troops’ needs). Scales points out:
“The lesson from this sad story is simple: When you fight a long war with a long-service professional Army, the force you begin with will not get any larger or better over the duration of the conflict.”
“That is the scientific answer to the question: what makes the perfect bacon sandwich?
And, no, it is not April 1.
Researchers at Leeds University spent more than 1,000 hours testing 700 variants on the traditional bacon sandwich, which many Britons refer to as a bacon butty (eschewing the term sandwich, said to have been coined to honor the fourth Earl of Sandwich’s habit of eating meat between slices of bread around 1762).”
“Vox Humana” is the theme of this month’s Radio DavidByrne.com, his 3-hour monthly webcast. Sez Bryne: “I’ve recently stumbled on a bunch of wonderful recent recordings that feature spoken word or the human voice manipulated in various ways — it almost makes me think this might be a time when this vague genre might be flourishing. Really exciting and sometimes funny stuff. Not quite singing, most of the time, but definitely musical. I have read that singing uses one side of the brain and speaking the other, and this stuff probably bridges the gap.”
The a web-stream playlist (128K mp3; also in iTunes Radio: Eclectic) is stuffed w/ great musical Spoken-Wierd, including Joe Frank, Eno, Waits, T.Heads, the Books, Beefheart, and lotsa stuff by the talented SLC composer, and bud of HV, Phillip Kent Bimstein.
This week’s HV cast is a father-daughter dialog for Poetry Month: Jack Kerouac’s daughter Jan, reads her an ode to her rarely seen dad; intertwined with Kerouac’s speeches and prose; produced by by . “Jan & Jack” (mp3 6:34):
Found this at PRX Youthcast blog; quoting Kiera Feldman:
“‘As Slow As Possible’ by John Cage is my new favorite song. It takes 639 years to play. This is what it currently sounds like:”
“(Feel free to listen at your convenience–the next note won’t be added to the song until July 5, 2008). ‘As Slow As Possible’ is scheduled to conclude September 5, 2640.”
Kiera asks, if she played it at a party, “would you dance?” The piece is known as ORGAN 2/ASLSP (“as slowly and softly as possible”, reads Cage’s score).
This week’s 
The 2007 Third Coast International Audio Festival ShortDocs competition theme is 
The latest issue of TIME has a cover story on our worn out military but what would you expect from the liberal media? But then there’s the other Times and I’m not talking about the one in Godless New York City, gun lovers, but rather the conservative counterpart to the Washington Post. In a recent 
“That is the scientific answer to the question: what makes the perfect bacon sandwich?
“Vox Humana” is the theme of this month’s 
This week’s 