Oh bugger

I knew I was forgetting something. Settling down in the next stepping stone between the birthing bed and the grave. All the boxes that are to be unpacked have been, and most things have found new homes or niches into which they snugly fit*. I still need to sort out the work corner that will house my noise gear, keyboard and the work table that will *crosses fingers* see some non-aural projects come to fruition.

There have been some incredibly good sounds bouncing back and forth between Joseph and I, which I cannot imagine won’t end up on a new Nests of Disorder release. I really should try to shop this one around a bit and see if I can’t coerce some kind soul into a physical release.

The ex introduced me to something evil: http://www.teefury.com/

Super limited edition pop culture shirts for nerds, geeks and children of the 70s and 80s (and those who pretend to be). I was sold when I saw the Big Trouble in Little China shirt.

I feel like a grown-up. I bought a comforter for my bed. And curtains. Now all I need is an apron. Ah shit. Never mind…

This shiraz is terrible, but I suppose that is what I get for drinking on a school night.

* Read: Beat to fit; painted to match.

The fainting feint

I can no longer deny the obvious: I am a giant nerd. This has become an inescapable conclusion since yesterday I began my Harry Potter movie marathon*. Going back and watching the first three movies, I have to say that I do find Michael Gambon to be a better Dumbledore than Richard Harris. I didn’t want to admit it, but it is true.

A few quick notes of projects on the horizon, should this nonsense of being unemployed and potentially homeless resolve itself in a timely manner. First, it is with great pleasure that I announce the unofficial resumption of the Nests of Disorder project. Joseph and I are kicking around some sounds and have, at least momentarily, hit upon the same magic we discovered the first time around. With any luck, the magic will persist, and hopefully I will end up in a place where I can spread my wings a bit and have the room to set up what little gear I have left, so that I can really get back into the swing of noise-making.

The other endeavor currently occupying my time is an expansion of the Sound Design Tools area of the Projects section of the site. I am in the process of uploading six years worth of field recordings. Some of these will be mirrored in SIGHUP’s fantastic Sounds Found project, and some of them are from my personal stash, as-of-yet not shared with the plebs truculenta. I’m not the FLAC fanatic that SIGHUP is, so I will be offering the files in WAV and MP3 format (I hate downloading something that I have to then convert to a usable format). It’s close to 2GB of recordings, so it might be a few days before everything is uploaded and the page is available. I’ll report back when all is available.

In the meantime, caveat emptor, motherfuckers.

* Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve been a giant nerd for as long as I care to remember. This is not even the nerdiest thing I’ve done in the last seven days.

Have mercy

Summer is finally creeping up on Seattle, and I am none too pleased. After listening to the other locals whining and complaining about the protracted Spring, the sun has finally made an indelible appearance, hastening the arrival of my freckle explosion, mild sunburns and a profusion of sweat. The last of these things brings about a multitude of woes, from rank undershirts to outbreaks of unsightly blemishes. Lamentable as all this may be, it skirts around the main issue, which is that I absolutely loathe sweating. Above and beyond any other physical condition, short of waterboarding, sweating makes me surly, argumentative and just plain cranky. The heat and humidity is also an oppressive force that fogs my mental faculties and degrades my already diminishing creative inspiration. Summer, the bane of me.

Among the millions of things I could be doing right now instead of whinging on my blog, is looking for a new job and a new place to live. The former should have already been resolved, but thanks to some cold feet too far up the food chain for me to throttle, that fell through. The latter is equally frustrating and difficult, but has to be resolved before the end of the month. Seemingly both of these things should take precedent over simple pleasures, like venting and trying to get laid. As it turns out, only one of those endeavors happens organically. The other requires more effort than I can muster at this given moment.

Oddly enough, The Dark Knight finally clicked with me night before last. There are still elements that I find worrisome (such as Bruce Wayne performing Batman duties in the middle of the day, sans disguise), but I finally GET why Nolan dispensed with all the fantasy trappings of Batman Begins in lieu of the more realistic setting. Sometimes I’m a tad slow.

I also finally find The Producers funny. Certainly it’s no Blazing Saddles or even Spaceballs, but after a few watches it has grown on me. Initially I wasn’t too impressed, because too much of the humor seemed like it may have been risque in the 60s, but was commonplace today (like the gay director). But some of the other jokes have worn well (like Franz complaining about the way Churchill pronounced “Nazis”).

I have a handful more DESTROY pictures that I captured earlier this week, along with some other interesting graffiti. I’ll try to get those up this weekend. Right now, I’m off to delve into a bit of atmosphere that Joseph has sent me for a possible revival of the Nests of Disorder project.

Auf wiedersehen, baby.

Addendum

Good news, everyone! Sunday and Monday night I spent some time scouring the internet for public domain videos that I could swipe, hack and reassemble for the purpose of making a new video. The end result turned out to be something that I felt was suited for Nests of Disorder, so I beat it to fit one of the tracks from The Light Has Failed Us and sent it off to Joseph for feedback.

As it turns out, he liked it. So, without further ado, I present to you all the video for “These Shadows Grow Restless”:

http://www.intelligentmachinery.net/?page_id=540

Be warned that it does contain some graphic content, so if you have tender eyes, or share a room with someone who does, you may want to be careful.

Enjoy!

Whew!

It was Gay Pride weekend here in the Emerald City. I didn’t realize that until this afternoon when I took the kids out to eat downtown, and ran into the obstacle that was the Gay Pride Parade. After I saw the kids safely off with their ride home, I hit up some friends and wound up paying an exorbitant cover to get into the happening gay bar in the neighborhood. The good news is that my friends are cheap and shifty, so we were drinking tailgate style at someone’s car, instead of paying for drinks in the bar. The bad news is that I’m far too drunk, now, to be productive.

I’m going over the submissions for the Mental Hygiene League release, and trying to determine a proper order for the tracklist. We’ve got the cover art done, the one-page history done and now I’m just hacking out the tracklist and the accompanying one-page for that. Then the project will be finished.

I also got a sound file from Joseph today. If everything goes according to plan, this will be the second track for the new Nests of Disorder album. I’m using this tentative collaboration as an excuse to invest in the Zoom H2. I need a better method for capturing field recordings than my current hodge podge of miniDisc and microcassette recorders.

Yeah. In the words of David Yow: “EEREERERYOU BEEPUP OOGUH EEF NUN SHOGUH MUGULEE!! ROOOOOOOOOWWWWWR!”