x0xb0x Etudes - pt 7

+1,500 solder points later....aaaccciiiddd


First run through is totally unaffected, then it gets run through an effect I wrote dubbed the Bitsmacker (it's a free download if you like distortion).

The decay knob just started working on me...must have been a bridged connection.

For the sake of the blog, I'm calling this one complete. Thank yall for taking this journey with me, and giving me an outlet to document the workflow.

For the sake of honesty, I doubt it will ever be done...I want to add some of the Devilfish mods and also things like audio in to the filter because that ho really whistles.

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Seeing Bands vs. Following Bands

This is a post about following bands. Tonight I saw {{{SUNSET}}} and Weird Weeds at the Cactus Cafe. I have seen both bands numerous times, and also fairly recently. That said, it was a great show I enjoyed very much. I think there is a part of me thats getting very "fuck you!" about bands on tour. Like actually, alot of them are really cool, and to tour is a beautiful thing, but maybe I should just get 30 years older and move to South Austin, because I prefer to hear the same old bands I like, i guess. Which is to say, to Follow them. Sunset played a song tonight that they usually play with a Rhodes, but this time they didn't bother schlepping the thing out. Also everything in their set was appropriately volumed. I saw em at Mohawk opening for Will Johnson, and it was really loud, which was good for the space, but it was better to be in a better space (Cactus) and have it be at a better volume. Like that space can do no wrong, it sounds great. That place and The Parish are acoustically the best rooms that I can think of in Austin, and barring places I haven't been yet, the only 2 really on their level.

But back to "the topic" (ha). Yeah, I really like those bands. I'm starting to pick up what the words to SUNSET songs are, and I don't have anything of theirs recorded. Its funny to consider music consumption patterns, be it via, a record, a cd, a tape, an mp3 blog, or a live show. Live shows are cool in the way they are fundamentally tied to the ephemerally of the whole bit, which gets sort of masked by a recording, but recordings are valuable for the opposite reason---they allow time for consideration to take effect. That's really a different "topic" as it were, but what I look for in a show is allowed to be something different if its a band I have seen a few times, and I just thought I would write a little something so if people were so inclined, they could think about how seeing bands over and over in a short period of time made them feel (as opposed to once every year to two years when they come around on tour).

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Casa Vista post 1

So apparently their is this thing called "music blogs". According to a reporter for the Austin Chronicle they are all the "new rage." I read about it on wikipedia and then I figured it was time to get in on the action. Call it "That Reverse X-Rays Kid," or call it "the lease is already signed on Rancho Relaxo but that was taken" (ranchorelaxo.blogspot.com ... lets see if this blog gets better). Really what made me excited to do this was the discovery that there are now blog aggregates that you can link to like Rotten Tomatoes, except for music blogs. Once this gets going a bit I will do that (elbo.ws and the hype machine are the two that wikipedia had listed)

So where am I tonight? I played music with Taft and some of his friends for the first time. They have a nice set up on 28th and a half. They've got a piano but the highlight was these Gibson acoustic guitars. Those guys have a Dylan vibe and can all sing. They are playing their first show proper at the Parlor in about a week, but I dont think they have a name yet. There was a party at Jenny Alvorado's tonight that the Strange Boys played among others but I couldn't go because I had my second to last shift of work for Jimmy Johns. I locked my keys in the car on the job which was embarassing. Shane went and said it was cool.

Tomorrow morning (eer...in a few hours) my mom is going to drive me to Fort Worth where we are going to watch my Uncle Martin compete in the Van Cliburn piano competition. He is in the amateurs bracket but its already a big honor, because they only accept 75 amateur contestants to be juried. I think he must be practicing alot because he is going to play the piece that he won the Dallas High School piano player competition with back in the 60s and hes played it for me before but there were parts he couldn't get through. I'm excited, he goes on at 1:30.

I have mp3s I want to post here soon once i figure out how. One in particular that my recently ex-roommate and all around awesome guy Jeff Cooper ripped off my vinyl for me. Its a dub track off KTW Dub by Junior Dan.

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