Archives: 2007 January

Archives: 2007 January

the most exciting thing just happened

January 24th, 2007

I get to wear this button at work now

needless to say I am pretty pumped

stopmakingsteve Posted insaying swears, signs n such | No Comments »
I’m the guy who sucks

January 23rd, 2007

Noise Fest was awesome. Coordinating a few dozen acts, getting them all in the same place at the right time is no small task - musicians aren’t always known for their punctuality and reliable transportation - but the whole thing was put together really well. There were a few acts that couldn’t make it and I heard one guy talking about how he totalled his car on the way there, and the schedule was thrown out right at the beginning, but a few improvised duos and surprise acts filled up any holes. They managed to draw a pretty good crowd of dudes with dirty hair who smelled like basements and dirty hair and weed smoke, too, even if half of them were also performing, and the day went pretty smoothly, with no big awkward gaps or anything.

I showed up in the middle of Our Brother the Native, some kids from east of here who do guitar wall of noise / shogaze stuff with warblely childlike vocals, and they had a girl playing viola, too. Later Raven Strain was really awesome, and Aaron Dilloway showed up with some huge synthesizer things and played a solo set, and Hair Police kicked ass. The highlight of the night for me, though, was the final act, Piasa, a band from Virginia who were nice enough to stop by on their ten day tour. One guy had a mic, one was using a drill on his guitar and this piece of metal, one guy had a guitar and was screaming into a quarter inch jack (does that do anything?), and these two brothers stalked around the room screaming into a megaphone and a smashing a broken saxophone and punching pieces of metal and thrashing around the metal tape from a tape measure and just screaming. They all ended up with bloody knuckles and broken instruments and a blown away crowd. Everyone was amazing, I had a great time.

Here’s a picture of me rocking out to Hair Police:

(I typed this next part a few days ago and don’t remember why I said it, but it’s funny)

Here’s another stupid boring thing I did in my stupid boring life then posted about on my stupid boring blog:

I took a cheap flashlight and replaced the bulb with a little motor, thinking I could use it to resonate strings or grind on metal or something. Well, it turns out physics had a big surprise for me because apparently when you put a motor near a pickup the magnets the spinning magnets interfere with the pickup magnets and it makes a cool noise without even vibrating the strings. That’s sort of how a Hammond organ works, I guess, spinning metal discs next to pickup-type things. Anyway, I will investigate further and report back.

stopmakingsteve Posted indiy, music, saying swears | 3 Comments »
welcome to violence

January 17th, 2007

I just recorded myself playing guitar for a while and cut out some interesting parts and put them online.

http://myspace.com/bloodwaterfall

stopmakingsteve Posted insaying swears | No Comments »
my jeans are 1% spandex

January 17th, 2007

and my body is 8% spandex

stopmakingsteve Posted insaying swears | No Comments »
I don’t sniff glue but I can understand why some people would want to

January 14th, 2007

I moved my stuff out of my room and into the basement a while ago since there’s more room down there and I can play at night. Having a mixer and pedals is awesome because you can just set the guitar aside and twist knobs for a while, maybe slap the strings a little bit, but mostly just balancing levels and rerouting streams of feedback in and out. This video is pretty awesome for ideas about playing guitar.

In other music news, I bought a tape player from a thrift store in Lansing the other day. Between the throngs of dirty poor people were a couple other middle class white kids, but the fact that I was looking for electronics instead of clothes made me somehow morally superior to them, so I just felt smug and told myself that I’m a noise artist and I don’t even live here I live in Chicago I’m just here for a while, and damn I’m so damn hip.

It cost $8.08 so I sang “Bossy” in my head for a while, and I got them to throw in this weird looking old mic that kind of sounds like crap, but there’s a hole in the back that you can blow in and make weird sounds.

Anyway, the reason I got the tape deck is because I can maybe make some tape loops. Apparently I got rid of all my cassettes at some point, so I had to pilfer one of my sister’s, then I spent like three hours last night trying to put together a working model. Magnetic tape is frustrating stuff to work with, and you have to get a loop of the exact right perimeter - too loose and it the wheels won’t move the tape, too tight and the wheels won’t spin at all. This guide is ok, and this page also has a lot of info, too. Finally tonight I think I got it right, and hearing my “hello hello hello…” fuzzily played back to me was pretty damn satisfying. We will see what comes of all this.

RIP Cracked Rear View (seriously) (sorry, Kels)

Oh, I forgot, the best part about being in the basement is that when I turn around to go back upstairs I run right into this thing:

That’s all for this issue, tune in next time for some more bored restless suburban rambling trying to keep my brain from quietly excusing itself into a coma while the body keeps on keeping on and dammit how can we be out of Diet Coke again already.

stopmakingsteve Posted indiy, music, pictures of animals, saying swears | 2 Comments »
moo moo it’s time for cowmics

January 9th, 2007

I couldn’t find the gif I wanted but here’s this one instead

click that shit, bitch

stopmakingsteve Posted incomics and books | 1 Comment »
five one seven represent

January 8th, 2007

This should be sweet. It’s actually a three day thing, but I don’t know if I can make the other days.

stopmakingsteve Posted inmusic | 1 Comment »
hmm

January 6th, 2007

Today I saw a car with a bumper sticker that had a Darwin fish, like the Jesus fish parody with feet that says “Darwin,” and it was crossed out, no smoking sign-style. I don’t know if the driver was against evolution or just didn’t want his religious iconography mocked, but either way it brightened my day.

stopmakingsteve Posted inpictures of animals, saying swears | 1 Comment »
The Top Ten Records of 2006

January 2nd, 2007

Everyone that made a top records list is dumb, and anyone who read any of those lists is also dumb.

stopmakingsteve Posted inpictures of animals, saying swears | No Comments »