Don't Touch That Dial

Here's a tumblr worth visiting more than once: Old fashioned and beautiful. The range of different types of sound quality is charming. You can make quite a sound-clash by strategically using the play/pause buttons on several clips at a time.

Of their content they say:
"All programs are considered to be in Public Domain unless noted otherwise."

Their 'Random Program' button can lead in interesting directions.


From MeFi:
"...is a simple tumblr that collects radio shows and advertisements now in the public domain. The archive is pretty great..."

Free image from the noun project.

Consumer and Creative...

Billy Bragg and Fergal SHarkey feature. .. and, is that Corey Doctorow? Thanks Mark Thomas.

Big Bang Lab

Big Bang Lab, Cultural Social Responsibility from Big Bang Lab on Vimeo.

Big Bang Lab is a leading cultural-social enterprise that creates and delivers dynamic learning programmes and high quality productions. We combine original music with archive and silent films, both contemporary and historical.

An interesting collection of projects using media and community groups to create new work. Plenty to research. Inspiring stuff.

Modul8 + Respect Your VJ

After using Resolume on my old PC for quite a while I've been investigating Modul8 on Mac.

I loved the simple intuitive clip mixing interface of Resolume. It had lots of great plug-ins too. I've tried the latest version: Avenue, but I'm not sure It's what I want to use for performance: especially as it doesn't currently support flash nor all the great FreeFrame plug-ins that it did in earlier versions before.

Modul8 supports a few great FreeFrame plug-ins: bloom is a new favourite: a simple, but effective blur. Along with that, the paint + animate tools on Modul8 mean generating content has never been so easy.

Another interesting piece of software on the list of things to look into when I find more time is VDMX

I've been talking about these a lot recently. If you're not familiar with them yet and you like to make visual or audiable things with digital tools you will probably enjoy; Create Digital Music and Create Digital Motion.

Found on a VJ forum.
VJ notes from the ground:
Respect Your VJ

Otomo Yoshihide + The Thing 191108 / ramble

This show was a little treat. There were many indie rock shows and disco things around Belfast but I chose to attend a noise feast full of jazz things.

A good time was had listening to experts extract thoroughly odd and extreme tones from their instruments.



WARNING - Here's where the post goes off on one:
I took some footage of the show, but have decided not to put it straight on youtube. I was thinking about the value it would add to or subtract from the band. A number of questions popped into my head.

If people can see and hear a live show online, will that make them want to attend the show and buy merch, or will they be satisfied with (or turned off by) a recording thus informing a potential customer of what they might be letting themselvs in for?

It is particularly tricky when it comes to musicians who improvise and do not play standard songs with the same form each night. Is it more important to experience it as it happens, as opposed to listening to a recording of it?

How many 'live/bootleg' albums have I enjoyed? My listening experience wasn't marred by my not being in attendance/being born at the time. But then again flash media/mp3/tape/CD/vinyl don't offer the same thing as a show.

If I publish footage I've taken from a performance, do I own the mechanical rights to it? I think so; as I have hard copy, but it was taken wthout permission, and so could be seen as evidence that I 'stole' it. I have been asked to take down clips from youtube by a record company in the past; I did as they asked.

Now I intend to ask the people I record if I can post their material. Their word is not a contract, but usually a good indicator of how their business associates will react to finding their material distributed for free (and of dubious quality) online.

I wonder how many audioblogs have contacted the people whose material they post? I have seen the disclaimer (maybe cut n' paste jobs?) declaring that the mp3's are supposed to be promotional material, some even including links to sites where legitimate products can be purchased, with the 'if you don't want it posted here, drop me a line and I'll remove it' tag. Does this in some way suggest that the poster is aware that their posting of someone else's product might be objectionable?

I imagine training to be a lawyer dealing with online distribution and copyright must be a headache these days...

I'm gonna avoid posting material unless I've been in contact with the people who made it from now on.

Soul Ambition - Kick Up The Arts

Soul Ambition - Kick Up The Arts, Blick Studios, 27.09.08

Soul Ambition is a life coach operation. Not something I would usually have a lot of time for, but I found it interesting enough to give a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. To open Tracy Dempsey asked up the people in the room to take turns to introduce themselves; they gave their name, relationship to the music industry in Northern Ireland and what they hoped to get out of the event. Some familiar names and some new. Mostly musicians of some kind, and some people who worked in more than one area related to the business side of things as opposed the to creative side of things.

An ineresting man called Davy Sims then gave a short provocative talk based around a quote from himself circa 1983, "There is no music industry in Northern Ireland" He then put forward a case to suggest that this was still the case, which led to speculation from a few people that this was due to a lack of management skills and busines knowledge. The positive outcome of this is that there wil hopefully be some speakers and instructive sessions involved in similar get-togethers in the future.

There was a bit of moaning about venues, promoters, people's attitudes (which has been covered before, elsewhere) and a comple of heated exchanges when certain people (in the media)'s names were mentioned. Thankfully it didn't go on too long.

I don't have photos on this PC (I have some I may post later) but I should have some images of the 'Kick Up the Arts' event (blog links) and the Heavy Trash (feat. Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray.) gig in the Kings Head, and maybe even some video to go along with a bit of feedback on Friday's ECKER at the Front Page.

In other news I'm continuing to write reviews of other people's records in a hope that I can keep my ears open to critical listening exercises before I make some decisions about editing my own sounds.

There is a chance to hear some of these quite new sounds (heavily influenced by older sounds) this Friday at the Black Box, Belfast as part of the Oscillations festival. BEW will be doing visual tricks as the other electronic artists play audio and then playing an audio set at about 12pm. Also that evening, an opening of a show of screen print poster art.

ASIWYFA / Adebisi Shank / WAK - 160808

And So I Watch You From Afar...

Adebisi Shank

We Are Knives


Lavery's, Belfast. A little bar on the top floor beside the pool tables. Organised by Alternative Ulster.


Eddie of No Clarity.
Matt of Imprint This On Your Mind.
Andy of Good On Paper. Bloggers of Belfast who attended this rock show, it was nice to say hello in person.

Musical Rooms

I think it's interesting and often inspiring to work in a different, new space. This can be for performances, writing or recording. Whilst clicking links in the sidebars of various blogs (as I do most days during tea break) I found Musical Rooms.

I think it's a pretty interesting read, I can relate to some of the annecdotes from the various artists that have contributed, and also hope to strike it lucky and spend some time in some of the deluxe sounding spaces others have mentioned.

Anyone out there who knows me can probably guess which articles I enjoyed most.

Michel Waiswisz - RIP

Although it's not breaking news, I was sad to learn that the long time head of STEIM Michel Waiswisz passed away this year. I heard his album "Crackle" a while ago and it influenced me a lot. It's a fairly wild sounding recording that features a lot of synths barking and buzzing. A version of this disc can be found over at the sterling audioblog; Mutant Sounds

The news of his death is sadening to say the least. However, I can say with some certainty that he has left the world a richer place for having been here, leaving behind much information that people who work in creating audio can use to help them move forward, and that those who love listening can reference to help understand some of the challenging work created by contemporary composers.

If you enjoy far out music and noise, and you have not yet heard the album "Crackle", now is the time to change that.

A:muse - BEW

David over at Amuse.me has just published a little BEW piece. Nice.

I note that the photo has been cropped to hide the fact that I am lurking with some manequins bums. The same photo was taken off myspace as it was offensive. Plastic asses; not everyones cup of tea.

Permalink : http://www.amuze.me/featured/barry-cullen-release/

Show love...

The bew 8bit version of paranoid android is being hosted on two blogs.
www.nialler9.com/blog
www.noclarity.co.uk

I am thrilled.
Some people having a good time in a field.