getting the credit I deserve

Finally.

I rather like this response to Naomi Klein's new book.

It's getting increasingly difficult for me to figure out where I stand politically. Mushy thinking on one side, and apparent greed and selfishness on the other. I appreciate the author of this article taking her to task for making bad arguments while not representing some specific view that dissents from her own. I am just tired of people putting ideology before the facts. If you hate Bush (which is pretty common), it doesn't mean that you can therefore attribute any wrongdoing to him that you happen to fancy. It's the type of thinking that creates conspiracy theory.

For me conspiracy theory is the ultimate in mushy thinking. I am partial to the explanation that it arises from people's inability to deal with the fundamentally unordered and chaotic world we live in. Almost all conspiracy theory presents an idea of some person or group who exerts a tremendous level of power over the world, an unseen, and sometimes almost absolute power. Something in their brains makes it easier to deal with concept of this secret power, even if it's essentially evil, than to think of the world as motivated by random forces that we can't predict.

I have been thinking about things to write for my blog, and I would like to start a series where I dissect various popular conspiracy theories and show how hollow the thinking is. I do this mostly as a way of examining the thought processes involved, and hopefully to start some debate here on the site.

It will be a bit slow because I need to research the various theories to make sure I represent them accurately. I won't be able to be perfect, but that's why the illuminati put comments in when they created blogging, so you guys can correct me and show me how 9/11 was an inside job and we never went to the moon and so forth.

interview with yours truly

check it out!

music player hater

This imeem thing is really not working out. As you can see it is playing 30 second clips instead of my songs. We're going to get this figured out people, worry not.

Also, feel free to leave me comments here instead of on myspace. I'm kind of sick of that site because it's just giving Rupert Murdoch money for my hard work. I am planning a total overhaul of my myspace page to get rid of ads and direct people to my real site. The more I can get onto this one the better I think.

Also, I am really juiced to play shows now, and I have a booking agent and everything, so things should be picking up. I have one in Burlington Vermont coming up, and hopefully a bunch more, but I still need help from all of you. Send me cool places to play, nice venues in your city, people who put on good shows. The live show is getting better and better and it's going to blow at least some of your minds when you see it. It's just a matter of when I can get the wheels in motion for real, then there's no stopping it.

I love the nord modular G2.

I recently bought this amazing piece of technology and am steadily wrapping my head around it. For those who are not familiar with synthesis and the jargon, a modular synthesizer is one where you have a number of separate pieces or "modules" each of which does something different. You connect these modules with cables in different ways depending on what you want it to sound like. You have to decide the signal path and build the synth yourself by connecting these modules. We call this "patching". It allows a flexibility that no other synth can offer because you are designing it yourself. This is an example of one of these guys here:



The nord G2 is a keyboard that you plug into your computer and it lets you patch your own synth with virtual modules. It has over a hundred different modules and you can have as many in there as the chips can handle (a lot).




This has become my new obsession, patching new sounds. I am tempted to put out the 2nd mixtape right away, and to make a clear break between my pre and post G2 work. Friends of mine may have noticed that I'm not as available as I used to be, since I am now devoting every free moment I have to patching.

I am saving most of my really good stuff for later. I think I am getting sort of tired of the whole remix thing, and after the 2nd mixtape, I think I'll be concentrating on instrumentals and songs with guests (unless I decide to start rapping or singing myself). I might even put out an actual record (gasp!)

That being said, I still want to share some of my excitement. Here is a quicky fun jam I did with the G2. This isn't really a song, just a few tracks of noodling, but it's kind of fun. All sounds are from the G2 besides a drum track, which I programed in live, but ran through an effects patch on the G2.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/5npbwf