Activitypal and troubador J played a live set on John Aielli’s Eklektikos show on KUT today, and it was great. Karla, Alex, and Steve joined him on about 8 songs including ActivityStory faves "Sunday Morn," "Room 304," and "Sleep".
The performance is semi-faithfully represented in mp3 form here (recorded it from the radio like I was in 6th grade again):
> J Molin "jumpin’ through the Speakerboxx"
(when he said that, J.A., responded., in deadpan, "That’s great.")
I’ve heard all of these songs many times, both live and on record, and with many different arrangements, and love them all. They sounded a little different today, fresh and heavy and bright. I tried to think what it would sound like if I didn’t know J, or wasn’t picturing him in the studio. It’s strange, the radio. And magic.
* from J’s "Jesus rode a bike"
So, after almost 3 months of mandatory virtual world exploring (I’m taking this class…), I’m finally starting to look at Second Life as something fun. The project that Greg and I have been working on has been coming together, and we had our first event on Wednesday night, a sound-object jam session (with Melanie, Alex, and some people we just met in SL). I recorded it for posterity, and was planning to podcast it, but maybe it’s better to make downloading/listening to this one, um, voluntary:
> Sound Field Collaboration Result 1 (mp3)
The loops and sounds are things greg and I made and attached to objects floating in the space that play when you click them. Mine are mostly from things I made and recorded around 1999, so some are recognizable to diehard P fans. The typing sounds are the several of us chatting with one another in SL. Next idea is to record and remix that and the other interface sounds (like the screenshot/snapshot sound and the menu click and selection sounds) to add to the fray. The coolest thing to me was how well SL handles sound spatially— you can hear sources getting quieter and louder based on my moving around in the space.
It all probably requires a little more explanation than that, but I need to write it up for real first.
****Update:We’ve had two more events, with simarly somewhat-listenable results:
> Sound Field Session 2
> Sound Field Session 3
I know that’s the oldest Wurstfest joke in the book (and I’ve been using it for years), but how better to let all of y’all know we’re back from another successful salute to sausage. I posted my pictures to flickr, so take a look at the fun.
Highlights included:
- Wurstgoulash
- Sandy and Randi screaming Wurstfest to everyone we passed in the car
- Longest game of "What’s your favorite?" in recorded history
- Bob provides inspiration and examples for next Assignment:The World assignment (more to come on that)
- Paul eats four rounds of german food in about an hour
- Bread Pudding with Butter Sauce
- Fellow Resort-at-the-Bahn guest warns us of gators in the pond at 4am
- Trains passing w/ in 100 feet of the hotel room all weekend long
- Tag-along praying mantis
I also recently posted pictures of folks on halloween, if you’re interested.
Hate to be that guy, but twice in the last week or so my day has been made by a podcast. Both have been from Morning Becomes Eclectic, and both included live sets from bands that I’d recently seen that didn’t play all the songs I wanted to hear.
- Today, it was Sons and Daughters, who played pretty much the same set that I paid someone with an extra ticket $40 (this is a totally unprecedented level of fandom for me) to see in support of the boring-ass Decemberists during ACL, plus "Taste the Last Girl," which is probably their most radio-ready song of all. Also, there’s video!
- The other was Gang of Four, about a week after Kelly and I caught them at Emo’s. We almost didn’t go (being a little worried and conflicted, like others), but then some unwanted tickets surfaced for cheap. It was a great show, but there were a few jams I wished they had played. Here they are thanks to the internets, and there’s also an interview that made me feel better about the whole tour. A little. All told, it’s about 1:15 of solid gold entertainment that helped me kill time waiting to see the awesome Squid and Whale, one of two highlights of the Austin film festival last week.
The audio quality could be better, but this is the kind of service that should have us shaking in our boots about the fate of public radio. Donate now, freeloaders!
I’ll be keeping my ears peeled on November 11 if, at the Parish tonight, The Clientele neglect to play "I Had To Say This" or "Reflections After Jane" or "Kelvin Parade" or "Geometry of Lawns" or….
***Note: Honestly, I don’t hate the Decemberists, but everytime I hear one of their songs, I find myself wishing it was from frontman Colin Meloy’s EP of Morrissey greats instead.
If you haven’t been playing with Google Print this morning, you should be.
Do a search on Kelly’s full name and you get this as the first result.
We had no idea she was published in this book, and now we’ll be buying it. How’s that for early evidence that Google Print won’t shut down the publishing industry?
