old-time goodness has come to the youtuberie - behold! the finest of champaign and vermilion counties...
unfortunately there is no documentation of a cornlikkers show at the former blind pig co. venue, circa the same time, which featured the unique and posilutely riveting double jug attack of jim and gerald. gerald also joined the williwaw endeavour on tuba in a loving rendition of færies wear boots with bill and meghan on saxamaphones. alas, there is no known document of that massive outing, either. pity the færies, pity the jugs.
29 October 2007
19 October 2007
intruder alert, intruder alert
the last post hereabouts (finally posted this very day) waxed on the greatness of the Van Halen album track, Intruder, and its place in williwaw lore. yesterday, an intruder broke into the house, took the laptop, a digital camera, and a fishbowl full of coins. fu¢king intruder. i blame michael anthony. for everything.
years ago (about 10½, to be approximate), in a house no longer there, behind the champaign public library, there was a break-in. that perpetrator broke the kitchen window, took a cup of coins, peter pollack's leather jacket (leaving their lesser jacket behind), and made themselves a tuna salad and cherry tomato sandwich with their hands. that, in retrospect, was hilarious. this break-in, not so much so. thanks for nothing, michael anthony.
years ago (about 10½, to be approximate), in a house no longer there, behind the champaign public library, there was a break-in. that perpetrator broke the kitchen window, took a cup of coins, peter pollack's leather jacket (leaving their lesser jacket behind), and made themselves a tuna salad and cherry tomato sandwich with their hands. that, in retrospect, was hilarious. this break-in, not so much so. thanks for nothing, michael anthony.
music for bicycling, 3
the ongoing rules of music for bicycling: never play your music, no matter how jolly-rocking it may be, loud enough to mask the environment around you, even if the environment includes a woman in a car yelling that your vest isn't very reflective. especially when she turns out to be right: the supposedly illuminating vest worn for that lovable evening commute doesn't reflect shit. piece of crap.
a bicyclists best friend: Melvyn Bragg. No, it's not music, but the BBC Radio 4's In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg is the best bet for safe, boredom-free cycling. well, you have to enjoy topics like antimatter, the divine right of kings and the history of Arabian Nights, but other than that, it's darn good listening.
in addition to the previously mentioned failures of kraftwerk, other experiments with other sequential masters also have come up less than satisfactory: tangerine dream - in their sequencer prime (e.g., Rubycon) - ain't got the goods. Phase based minimal works, such as Steve Reich's Six Marimbas does a bit better. Only problem is that as a 'Classical' recording, it has to be compressed and limited to make it through the mp3/earbud conduit of lo-fidelity listening.
drunken drumming always helps. Van Halen I would seem like good cyclin' folly, but some of it really drags the ol' pedals down. but a coupla' numbers by the brothers of Halen do propel one steadily onward. A higher gear was reached listening to Everybody Wants Some from Women and Children First. Similar gear-minded go-ness was attained listening to Dog Eat Dog by those lovable aussies AC/DC (yes, it's supposed to be a lightning bolt, not a slash. fine). The connection? That beat, man, that groovy, groovy beat. It's the standard clavé pattern (3+3+2) played a bit slow with heavy use of the tommy-toms. For some yet-to-be-known reason, that hunkers the ol' feller down, and the spokes begin to blur...
another clear winner is The Who. Not much of a surprise, though, given the loose and manic stylings of Keith Moon. granted, only the hits have been tried, but everything from Pictures of Lilly to Won't Get Fooled Again works splendidly. As long as the rockin' don't stop the people from knockin' your reflective gear. sigh.
a bicyclists best friend: Melvyn Bragg. No, it's not music, but the BBC Radio 4's In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg is the best bet for safe, boredom-free cycling. well, you have to enjoy topics like antimatter, the divine right of kings and the history of Arabian Nights, but other than that, it's darn good listening.
in addition to the previously mentioned failures of kraftwerk, other experiments with other sequential masters also have come up less than satisfactory: tangerine dream - in their sequencer prime (e.g., Rubycon) - ain't got the goods. Phase based minimal works, such as Steve Reich's Six Marimbas does a bit better. Only problem is that as a 'Classical' recording, it has to be compressed and limited to make it through the mp3/earbud conduit of lo-fidelity listening.
drunken drumming always helps. Van Halen I would seem like good cyclin' folly, but some of it really drags the ol' pedals down. but a coupla' numbers by the brothers of Halen do propel one steadily onward. A higher gear was reached listening to Everybody Wants Some from Women and Children First. Similar gear-minded go-ness was attained listening to Dog Eat Dog by those lovable aussies AC/DC (yes, it's supposed to be a lightning bolt, not a slash. fine). The connection? That beat, man, that groovy, groovy beat. It's the standard clavé pattern (3+3+2) played a bit slow with heavy use of the tommy-toms. For some yet-to-be-known reason, that hunkers the ol' feller down, and the spokes begin to blur...
williwaw has been a big fan of high-gain pick-scrapes and other noises of the now tragicomic character, former guitar hero known as Edward Van Halen. the inaugural williwaw show in the fall of 1994 at mabel's, opening for true heroes lonely trailer (brian still brings the heroics in his new masterful venture with other true hero nicholas rudd) included a take on the Van Halen afterthought Intruder (from Diver Down) with pat hawley and t.j. harrison. that song, one of the great ones.
another clear winner is The Who. Not much of a surprise, though, given the loose and manic stylings of Keith Moon. granted, only the hits have been tried, but everything from Pictures of Lilly to Won't Get Fooled Again works splendidly. As long as the rockin' don't stop the people from knockin' your reflective gear. sigh.
16 October 2007
the devil's in the dvd extras
like most other gibberishes on the inter-web, the youtube has many redeeming facets, and no, not just watching lovingly rendered williwaw bits. but it does have its troubles, and when you're a complete uke nerd trying to deduce every finger movement of a Roy Smeck short, fidelity is everything, and Smeck's fingers might move too fast for uncompressed 30 fps film, let alone the distorto-world of the youtube. so when the opportunity strikes to see someone play all close up and vivid-like, it's downright keen.
Case in point: a value-added documentary for a documentary - a meta-doc? - entitled in the edges: the grizzly man session, currently showing on one of the satellite stations, the sundance channel, or more conveniently as a dvd extra to the documentary film grizzly man. it's another hyphenated-but-still-dangling-preposition making-of chronicle of a two-day recording session for Werner Herzog's take-it-or-leave-it film. the session is helmed by Henry Kaiser, huzzah!, with a whole lot of footage of Richard Thompson playing electric and acoustic guitar: close-up, long takes, enough to study his signature bends, open voicings and other fodder for the oh-please-me set. there's also the methods of film scoring; (paraphrasing) okay, now we need something very similar but in a different tuning for exactly 36 seconds. jinkies. and Mr. Thompson does it all with aplomb (of course, he's scored for films before). it is just a making-of doohickey, but watching Thompson play is worthwhile. maybe not worthowning worthwhile, but worthrenting worthwhile.
older films often suffer from poor syncing and/or dubbing to get a clear idea of what's a-happenin' with the talented folk's fingers and strings. heck, there's been cliff edwards appearances (yes, i scan every one of his appearances for the chance to catch him play) where he's not even playing the same instrument as the recording he's strumming along to. hmph-a-dickles. but a while back, a rare one graced the satellites that has several scenes of Josh White playing the good folk blues, including some very in'eresting side-of-thumb slide: The Walking Hills. rest of the motion picture ain't too bad either, but the Josh White scenes are pure gravy. one of 'em is on that detail-obscuring devil, the youtube (not available for the embeddin', alas).
Case in point: a value-added documentary for a documentary - a meta-doc? - entitled in the edges: the grizzly man session, currently showing on one of the satellite stations, the sundance channel, or more conveniently as a dvd extra to the documentary film grizzly man. it's another hyphenated-but-still-dangling-preposition making-of chronicle of a two-day recording session for Werner Herzog's take-it-or-leave-it film. the session is helmed by Henry Kaiser, huzzah!, with a whole lot of footage of Richard Thompson playing electric and acoustic guitar: close-up, long takes, enough to study his signature bends, open voicings and other fodder for the oh-please-me set. there's also the methods of film scoring; (paraphrasing) okay, now we need something very similar but in a different tuning for exactly 36 seconds. jinkies. and Mr. Thompson does it all with aplomb (of course, he's scored for films before). it is just a making-of doohickey, but watching Thompson play is worthwhile. maybe not worthowning worthwhile, but worthrenting worthwhile.
note: williwaw has had one venture in scoring: the introduction to the fine film, rock that uke. truth be told, I never saw the final cut, so don't know how it came out, but a fine film, of that I'm sure.
older films often suffer from poor syncing and/or dubbing to get a clear idea of what's a-happenin' with the talented folk's fingers and strings. heck, there's been cliff edwards appearances (yes, i scan every one of his appearances for the chance to catch him play) where he's not even playing the same instrument as the recording he's strumming along to. hmph-a-dickles. but a while back, a rare one graced the satellites that has several scenes of Josh White playing the good folk blues, including some very in'eresting side-of-thumb slide: The Walking Hills. rest of the motion picture ain't too bad either, but the Josh White scenes are pure gravy. one of 'em is on that detail-obscuring devil, the youtube (not available for the embeddin', alas).
perhaps of note: having recently watched many a bit of musical youtuberie with sync troubles, it's interesting to your local perceptual psychologist how the amount of audio-visual delay allowed for music, say, the striking of a drum, before it becomes disorienting is much shorter than for speech. speech is highly redundant, which allows for greater asynchrony, although when the delay is increased past threshold, the audio and video become separate streams, and tax the cognitive load ever so much.
10 October 2007
a stable build
donkeyscratch industries, the home of williwaw and the williwaw ensemble, now has a fully stable build, that is, a fully built stable. no, that's not it. a bicycle built for two. no, a (fingers-crossed) error-free website. i'm sure there's something about it that isn't W3 compliant, but it's rather close, b'golly.
and the content - oh! the content! - so many sounds to hear! here a sound, there a sound, everywhere a sound-sound. yes, even sound-sounds.
some of the content is runnin' on less than a full tank, but it keeps a-comin', b'gosh 'n' golly.
and the content - oh! the content! - so many sounds to hear! here a sound, there a sound, everywhere a sound-sound. yes, even sound-sounds.
some of the content is runnin' on less than a full tank, but it keeps a-comin', b'gosh 'n' golly.
09 October 2007
matt pike is neat
scrolling through photos of a high on fire in-store appearance at amoeba records, and something just doesn't add up about matt pike's guitar - holy wigsphere! it's a nine-string monstrosity (not a "Nashville guitar" as I had originally posted, though, but Big Joe Williams would be proud): single strings on the bottom 3, double strings on the top 3. some of the heaviest rockin' 'round, and it's comin' out of a studio oddity. a custom-built studio oddity. neat.
08 October 2007
music for bicycling, 2
before any stalwarts begin their own brand of electroacoustic-pedal-stimulation experimentation, a general note or two:
the foley operator is not your friend
Stereo sound effects are bad. Very bad. Tried some popular tracks that the kids love (some Missy 'Misdemeanor' Elliott singles, to be precise), one of which has a stereo panned siren and other automobile sounds - to paraphrase the not-so-poetic Peter Burns, bad and dangerous to know. Gripping sound-effect laden portraits of street life are not the only foible in cycling's sonic fables, oh no. Radio plays, such as those put on by the BBC (Radio 4 podcasts from afar, for example) are fine until they go live on the scene. Then it's distracting, bordering on destructing. There's also an otherwise cyclable track by Buffalo Daughter about turkeys (oh, that inscrutable Japanglish translation nuttiness! sigh) that includes the sound of a passing semi-hauler. Bad, and still dangerous (unlike the career of the aforementioned Peter Burns).
Not all stereo is bad. Paul to one side, John to the other - that's fine. It's the sweeping Lucasfilms-esque shenanigans that are to be avoided in the poo-poo'ed pastime of musical cycling. Wait, musical cycling: Is that where riders hope from seat to seat until the music stops? Horrendous!
positively pannekaker
with all these not-to's, a little plus: Swedish Death Metal will not fail. Specifically, the Gothenberg sound. The secret? Two things: palm-muting and unison basslines. The chug-chug-chugga guitar parts have a sort of visceral appeal. Coupled with the chugging is the unison basslines, which are also usually recorded with a bit more high-end bite than, say, a jazz outing, hence nothing is lost in the low-end. And the screaming. People screaming is always a good motivator. 50,000 P.E. teachers can't be wrong, can they? And the Swedes? They do screaming right. That Tomas Lindberg feller. That feller from Refused. Great screaming, incessant screaming. Trust in the Bjorler Bros: At The Gates & The Haunted records - cycling gems! Well, not the most recent Haunted recording - that one kind of wallows/whimpers/whines. Slaughter Of The Soul and The Haunted Made Me Do It could've put Floyd Landis in the victory jersey without a drop of testojuice.
the foley operator is not your friend
Stereo sound effects are bad. Very bad. Tried some popular tracks that the kids love (some Missy 'Misdemeanor' Elliott singles, to be precise), one of which has a stereo panned siren and other automobile sounds - to paraphrase the not-so-poetic Peter Burns, bad and dangerous to know. Gripping sound-effect laden portraits of street life are not the only foible in cycling's sonic fables, oh no. Radio plays, such as those put on by the BBC (Radio 4 podcasts from afar, for example) are fine until they go live on the scene. Then it's distracting, bordering on destructing. There's also an otherwise cyclable track by Buffalo Daughter about turkeys (oh, that inscrutable Japanglish translation nuttiness! sigh) that includes the sound of a passing semi-hauler. Bad, and still dangerous (unlike the career of the aforementioned Peter Burns).
Not all stereo is bad. Paul to one side, John to the other - that's fine. It's the sweeping Lucasfilms-esque shenanigans that are to be avoided in the poo-poo'ed pastime of musical cycling. Wait, musical cycling: Is that where riders hope from seat to seat until the music stops? Horrendous!
positively pannekaker
with all these not-to's, a little plus: Swedish Death Metal will not fail. Specifically, the Gothenberg sound. The secret? Two things: palm-muting and unison basslines. The chug-chug-chugga guitar parts have a sort of visceral appeal. Coupled with the chugging is the unison basslines, which are also usually recorded with a bit more high-end bite than, say, a jazz outing, hence nothing is lost in the low-end. And the screaming. People screaming is always a good motivator. 50,000 P.E. teachers can't be wrong, can they? And the Swedes? They do screaming right. That Tomas Lindberg feller. That feller from Refused. Great screaming, incessant screaming. Trust in the Bjorler Bros: At The Gates & The Haunted records - cycling gems! Well, not the most recent Haunted recording - that one kind of wallows/whimpers/whines. Slaughter Of The Soul and The Haunted Made Me Do It could've put Floyd Landis in the victory jersey without a drop of testojuice.
05 October 2007
music for bicycling
for a good while now, a series of horrendously unethical experiments have been committed whilst on the workday commute. namely, the listening to music ... on a bicycle! tsk-tsk, yes, but our foolhardy lad has done it for science, namely the science of musical propulsion. that is, do certain musics help propel a cyclist forward? do others decelerate the noble rider? Studies were done with a small flash-memory media player and a pair of hanging-in-the-pinna "earbuds" (not to be confused with "earbuds" that have some sort of inserted rubber coupler that creates a seal).
notice: there is terrible bass response in earbuds, as there is rampant leakage, along with large amounts of wind noise masking the desired input. This is of great consequence in the effectiveness of the music by way of its fidelity: my spine may be the bass line, but these cotton-pickin' headphones aren't cutting it (though they sure are cutting out the bass). that is, if the music relies on low-frequency communication, it ain't going to cut it. so much with cuts, on to the results!
so early in the race, a surprise
kraftwerk, despite rolf & florian's love of all things pedal-powered, doesn't make for great cycling. how could this be? they even wrote some music for the tour de france! methinks the answer is twofold: teutonic beats aren't as great as they might seem for the rhythm of cycling, and a lot of kraftwerk's bass lines are narrowband signals (read: pseudo-sine waves) that get lost in the wind-trashed morass. all of man-machine, autobahn & computer love were tried. the audibility issue was supported by further attempts with selections from their live collection minimum/maximum, which gave a bit more propulsion thanks to the live-sound compression, but still not enough to call kraftwerk cyclable. perish the thought!
notice: there is terrible bass response in earbuds, as there is rampant leakage, along with large amounts of wind noise masking the desired input. This is of great consequence in the effectiveness of the music by way of its fidelity: my spine may be the bass line, but these cotton-pickin' headphones aren't cutting it (though they sure are cutting out the bass). that is, if the music relies on low-frequency communication, it ain't going to cut it. so much with cuts, on to the results!
so early in the race, a surprise
kraftwerk, despite rolf & florian's love of all things pedal-powered, doesn't make for great cycling. how could this be? they even wrote some music for the tour de france! methinks the answer is twofold: teutonic beats aren't as great as they might seem for the rhythm of cycling, and a lot of kraftwerk's bass lines are narrowband signals (read: pseudo-sine waves) that get lost in the wind-trashed morass. all of man-machine, autobahn & computer love were tried. the audibility issue was supported by further attempts with selections from their live collection minimum/maximum, which gave a bit more propulsion thanks to the live-sound compression, but still not enough to call kraftwerk cyclable. perish the thought!
04 October 2007
don gerard, fashion plate
behold! the winner of the inaugral williwear prize, don gerard...
have you looked simply dashing in your fine williwaw ± ensemble tee? let the good folks know of your dashing ways. sure, you're no don gerard, but we know you got style, brothers and sisters. jealous? let the good folks know and you'll get one of your very own - 'tis true!
note: williwear is an actual and notable fashion label begun by willi smith (r.i.p.); well before there was the throng of African-American owned labels [For Us By Us (FUBU) and its ilk], there was williwear. i'm guessing a bit of homophobia mixed with the great (though definitely not continental) divide between street and haut couture circles played a part in his general obscurity. suck on that, Phatties.
03 October 2007
on with the youtuberie
The latest in what's becoming a relatively reasonable line of
audiovisual mayhem from donkeyscratch industries:
this one was once again done with the minimal-bordering-on-useless Windows Movie Maker, hence everything is done with fades. actually fades and one vertical wipe, but really, just fades. it's not very good, but if it helps you listen to all that is ryans song [part one], than it has all be justifiably justificated. all of the films were from the American Biograph & Mutoscope Co., and were taken forthrightly from the LOC American Memory website.
audiovisual mayhem from donkeyscratch industries:
this one was once again done with the minimal-bordering-on-useless Windows Movie Maker, hence everything is done with fades. actually fades and one vertical wipe, but really, just fades. it's not very good, but if it helps you listen to all that is ryans song [part one], than it has all be justifiably justificated. all of the films were from the American Biograph & Mutoscope Co., and were taken forthrightly from the LOC American Memory website.
and so it begins...
Here it is. williwaw has entered the world of the weblog. And all williwaw really wanted to do was to sign up to someone else's weblog, but that got over here, then there, and well, here we are now.
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