Circuit Bent Saturdays, The eSymposium
EVERY Saturday, 12:00 noon – 3:00 PM
Lizard’s Liquid Lounge, 3058 W Irving Park Rd, (773) 463-7599
To nurture the Midwest experimental electronics community, we host a free weekly “eSymposium,” a lateral lecture series where participants are both teachers and students. There’s soldering, tinkering, Q&A, show-&-tell, bending circuits, hacking toys, and Chicago’s only weekly Circuit Bent Open Mic. Stop by, join the eSymposium’s Google Group, or check out what we’ve been up to at youtube.com/eSymposiumChicago and soundcloud.com/eSymposiumChicago.
Check out another fun flash audio toy from Hobnox, the creators of the Audiotool (that I’ve written about before) called Nudge. The above is my little creation. (You have to hit the triangle at the bottom right 2x to turn off playback)
Nudge is a virtual-instrument widget designed for self-expressive online music making & sharing. It’s fun and simple to use and you don’t need to know a single thing about producing music to make your own individual songs in minutes!
Brought to you by the developers of the Audiotool, nudge is yet another example of the pioneering work of the team dedicated to creating the best online music production tools.
Joshua Schnable have me the heads up and he did his own remix: {READ MORE}
Watching this documentary on the contemporary techno movement gave me goosebumps. And I recognized every single track in this trailer (yay for those technerd points).
Speaking in Code is an intimate account of people who are completely lost in music. A heartbreaking and lighthearted documentary, it’s a vérité glimpse into the world of techno.Captivating and entertaining, the film takes you around the world, following the people who make electronic music … their lives.
Starring: Modeselektor, Wighnomy Brothers, Monolake, Philip Sherburne, David Day & Amy Grill
Also featuring: Ellen Allien, Tobias Thomas, Marc LeClair AKA Akufen, Wolfgang Voigt, Michael Mayer, Reinhard Voigt, Sascha Ring AKA Apparat, Sascha Funke, Mario Willms AKA Douglas Greed, Miss Kittin, Dan Paluska AKA Six Million Dollar Dan, Mike Uzzi AKA Smartypants
Featuring music by: Modeselektor, Wighnomy Brothers, Robag Wruhme, Ellen Allien & Apparat, The Field, Monolake, Michael Mayer, Gas, Jonas Bering, SCSI-9, Gui Boratto, Superpitcher, Steadycam, Dettinger, The Rice Twins, Reinhard Voigt, Oxia
Although the artists featured are mostly based in Germany, the internet has spread this particular sound throughout the world through niche-oriented internet media. Germans aren’t the only ones generating the energy of the new movement, but their scene is very visible. We do need educational vehicles like one this to explain to the world why we’re so passionate about something so abstract, yet moving and emotional. Can’t wait to see the final product.
Techno enthusiasts, I would propose, operate on a generally more abstract level than just “having a beat you can dance to” along with a sung allegory of lost love or pursued-yet-unrequited love. Much along the lines of Western Classical enthusiasts, they giddily freak out about an unexpected bass-modulated, gated atonality, and derive blissful pleasure from well-placed syncopation and juxtaposing the minimal alongside the maximal.
This is a pretty amazing video. Granular Synthesis I can wrap my head around (imagine a more complex version of additive synthesis, but on a micro-scale), but what really amazes me is Curtis Roads was doing it in 1975 on a mainframe with punchcards. You heard me. How much more nerdcred does this guy need? Ok, lemme back up for a minute. I am, actually, old enough to know what punchcards are (but, keep in mind I was like 5 years old and hanging out at my mom’s company to learn about them). Back in the day (and my intro to computer science teacher in college was amazing because he explained this to us and made us basically write out our algorythms before we came to class to program them), a programmer would have to write out a program in its entirety and then wait for days sometimes, to get the program to execute. This is totally the opposite of people can work today, where they can see the results of a coding change realtime, or, on the web, with a simple page refresh. Pretty leet, I gotta say.
Check out this video–even an Autechre song makes a cameo (but, I would add to the video’s description that what made Autechre and similar IDM artists’ work so mindblowing wasn’t simply due to complex rhythms, it was that plus the unheard-of-before combination of electronically-generated revolutionary sounds while still maintaining a “more accessible” composition in terms of melody and so forth. At some point Roads says he considers his music “point, line, cloud” because a grain, or sound particle is a point, a series of points on either or both the x or y axis, and a cloud,–IMHO–is actually “a left-to-right series of chords”) BECAUSE CURTIS ROADS OPENED FOR THEM in the early 00s. Uh-huh.
He also recommends a book for sound-design inspiration. It’s called Education of a Gardener. Really. Just go watch this thing, ok? {READ MORE}
LOLkid. Also: Lawlkid. LOLkids are like Scene Kids except add 100 IQ points and subtract emo. (LOLkids=($humanIQ+100)-$emoFactor;).
LOLkids heart the intertronz and nerdery and are all about zar lawlz.
1. Is ok to LOL at yrself. In other words, don’t take yourself too seriously. This involves having a formidable degree of self confidence and not taking things personally. However, don’t overdo it and proclaim how awesome you are at every opportunity (like tweeting about your awesomeness) since others will get tired of you quickly.
I mean, look at this guy on 4chan. He rules. He actually put a shoe on his head. And everyone LOLd. This is the way to roll. [Frak I can't find the jpg.] Nvrmd.
2. Noe flaemz. “No flames.” Reference #1: LOLkids don’t take things personally, so they don’t find the need to start or partake in flame wars.
4. Moar internets. Having multiple accounts on various social networking platforms is awesome. It’s even better when APIs are introduced that allow streamlined account linkage or similar, like what Facebook and the Google and Digg toolbars have done (yay!). Also, the more beta a site is, the better, since it adds to your credibility (leetness). The more obscure and awesome the online app or platform is the better (Google apps that are in beta don’t count though, since even Gmail is still in beta. Feh). Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Buzznet kinda rule, but pr0n (pornography sites) are weak–LOLkids are too smart to have to resort to that to get attention. Sides, if you’re still in the teens it’s prolly illegal NEways.
5. Electronic music is ze way 2 plai. Let’s think about this for a minute. If you were a nerdy superstar do you think you would be wooh-ing at some emo folk dude sitting on a chair crying on his *analog* guitar? The answer–so you won’t get sidetracked by philosophic inquiry–is a resounding “NO.” LOLkids need their heads blown wide open by weirdo sounds that no frakking guitar or drum kit could ever dream of. Aphex Twin, Autechre and Squarepusher are pretty much the holy trinity of nerdtronica. Venetian Snares pulls a close fourth but he’s all aggro and weird and that’s kinda buzzkill sometimes. LOLkids like LOLs and happy so basically anything that sounds like a spaceship made it with a pretty melody (ala Close Encounters) will prolly fly. Off the top of my head, Lusine, Matthew Dear, Apparat, Bola and Kettel are main players. More transitional (as in accessible) peeps are The Presets, Pnau, Franz Ferdinand, Junior Boys and Orchestra of Bubbles. And if you want goofy and pretty go check out my stuff as Quantazelle (shameless plug for the lulz).
6. Go go gadget-awesome. Gadgets rule. But they have to be cutting-edge gadgets that add to your credibility in that they serve a wide variety of useful functions and often require a certain degree of persistence and knowledge to make them even more useful. Any Linux distro (Ubuntu / Fedora / Debian), Android G1 / rooted cellphone or OLPC / Kbuntu running on a Speak-N-Spell automatically adds cred. Off the shelf gadgets with a minimal degree of hackitude and a high degree of hype are lame (I virtually call you out, iPhone. Um, no copy-and-paste? WTF).
7. You don’t pay for shizznattle. You herd me. Why drop $25 bux a year on Flickr when you can just upload photos to a server (which better be your own PC on a T1 lol) and run Gallery2. Why pay for some bloated, wanked out email list service when there’s PHPList? I hope you’re starting to get the picture. Why dish out $20+ for a movie at the theater when there’s–ok you should get it by now.
Also, yes, I said PC. PS: This thing rules: Bumptop
8. A srsly sweet moniker lawl. You are going to need an account login name that rules as well. Mine is “Quantazelle” which you can’t find in the dictionary but still sounds like a superhero. It’s also my music production name (and making music or creating things in any other media adds leetpoints (credibility)). I wrote about choosing a music project name here with some links to online name generators that might be useful: Getting Publicity: Start With a Good Name for Your Project. Non-dictionary names are way better since a Google search will automatically put you at #1. Get to it, son.
9. Speak ruleage. LOLkid slang reflects one’s perpetual and contemporary internet presence. It borrows heavily from leetspeak (adding -age or -x0r to a noun or verb in place of the adjective form), with references to LOLcat grammar and forumslang (4chan.com / somethingaweful.com). For instance, “sauce”= source, “lawl”=laugh out loud, vocalizing common internet acronyms (“dubya tee eff?” for WTF), etc), and directly utilizing programming syntax ($omgWtf=func(self==”over_this_thread”);). The more clever you are with conveying your message to other humans in a programming language, the more leet points, frill (or “for real” as teh normalz sez). Also, replacing “-y” with “eh” implies a certain softhearted acceptance, as in “This kitteh is just too snuggles!”
10. Use profanity wisely If your profanity can reference sci-fi in any sort, we are in business. For example, vocalizing “frack, Frack, FRACK” when one has accidentally transformed one’s grilled cheese sandwich to a charcoal briquette when one was typing an involved blog post instead of watching the stove is perfectly acceptable. And if it directly relates to realtime IRL, more pwnage to you (and yes, I really did just briquette my grilled cheese and I’m not lovin’ it. Reboot foodage brb.).
11. Spell smartz.Yeh, leet spelling zar kinda ness. So this means substituing “-oa-” for “-o- (long o, ie “poast” instead of post), “eh” instead of “-y”, abbreviating words to their necessary and essential characteristics (ie: “ness,” && “sench” for necessary and essential), using metonomy frequently (“I has to puter 4 wrkz bbiab”), and inventing completely new words that get their meaning from context. One’s cred gets points when one can get other humans to use said neologisms (ie: “gURLs / guise”).A word of warning–don’t overdo it or you’ll end up alienating people (altho aliens kinda rulex0r). Use discretion.
12. Newb werds == new_gangtaAs in“Yea boi, cruisin’ tha tronz.” Using “noob words” ironically–as in referring to the internet as a “series of tubes” “asking Google,” or referring to the protocol of the series of standards within which the Internet is made possible as “the internets,” is kinda leet if played correctly. Again, it is better used for emphasis than as a dialect in itself. Be very careful with this, and its associated irony or you will be called out on the tubes forthright.
13. Adding .TLDs for emphasis or clarification.Adding .com, .net or .org to a statement can either emphasize the statement’s importance, clarify the context, or add lulz. For instance, “inacarwithtoomanyhumans.net,” “usuallyimtheonethatinitiatesthebreakup.org,” and “collectioncompanieswontstopcallingme.com.” See “Liz Revision” for that little gem (et c’est moi, another spam, sorry).
14. All up in the tronz You’ve got to stay ahead of all the memes currently in play. Here’s a lil cheat-sheet for you: Internet Memes Timeline. So, in other words, a replay of Star Wars Kid in this day and age will get you nothing but ignores and rolls-eyes and banz. The best places to stay ahead of the meme-curve are somethingaweful.com and 4chan.net. And other things that I am too leet to disclose to newbs. ::lawl::
15. Pirate Talk Prolly cause “Talk Like a Pirate Day” gained momentum on the internets, and since people who spend a lot of time on the tronz are savvy about acquiring things without paying for them, it is necessary for one to be fluent in pirate should the need arise (or just in general). Yarr, I be one-to-one seeding tharse blimey torrents, matey!
16. Random Foreign Words. Using foreign words sparingly emphasizes one’s global perceptiveness that has been cultivated through international forums (usu. revolving around a shared interest) and multicultural acceptance of others via chat programs. For instance “Cheers” instead of “Thanks” or “flat” instead of “apartment” reinforce this country-independent platform astuteness.
17. Cute pets. The whole LOLcats thing was enabled by pet-lovers (and involve mostleh cats). I mean, if you work at home without roommates there is a human need to connect w/ something that hearts you and doesn’t care about your post-count or forum rank. So please feel free to post pix of yr animals being silleh, and add captions to increase LOLfactor pls lol thx.
18. Accessorize yerself, scallywag! We has to pimps us with IRL (in real life) stuffs ftw (for the win). Best places frill == http://www.fractalspin.com (geek boutique with awesome nerdy for personal adornment), http://www.shanalogic.com (kewlz, more of ze same), http://www.threadless.com (web 2.0+tshirt design==win). But ThinkGeek is for newbs tho lol. LOL. You herd me.
19. Steer clear of Scene, by all means. I mean pls. That “scene” is lametronica and !clue (clueless). It’s like “Let’s be Emo but pretend we’re anime so we don’t get made fun of.” My friend called it “we’re old enough to get into a bar but lame enough that no one there cares.” Haha–whatever. It’s so played. FYI: LOLkids are high-IQ, rabidly individualistic, doers and hackers, and so over everything that’s overplayed and yeah.
20. You must win at 4chan. And by win, I mean the game, which you just lost.
21. Why not start up your own -chan? That’s leet.
22. Stay above it all and remember the lulz to be had with the game. Don’t take it seriously or personally, and remember that if you’ve gotten this far you’re awesome. Revel in it and don’t be afraid to be who you are. I hope you’re getting some shopping done too.
If you’ve got an electronic musician on your gift list but are clueless as to what would make them grin with delight on Xmas morning, I and the other staff at Create Digital Music are on hand with our suggestions for gifts for electronic musicians. Among them, a Ground Loop Isolator (for killing that annoying hum when you’re playing live), an excellent Laptop / Gig Bag (shown), and the Korg Kaossilator, a battery-powered synth that combines the touch interface of the Kaoss Pad with a bunch of Korg sounds and effects. Unfortunately the Kaossilator isn’t available in the US yet, but if you’re overseas you get first shot at playing with this cool toy.
Check out this interview I did with Gustavo Bravetti, an artist who is really pushing the envelope in terms of what can be done with live laptop performance. Specifically, he wrote a custom driver for Ableton Live that allows you to “nudge” the tempo in a way similar to DJing with records, created controllers to affect playback with a glove or a light, and rigged up an electronic drum kit to play back synth lines realtime. The stuff he’s doing is truly amazing.
… Uraguay-based Gustavo Bravetti is a master of live laptop performance with alternative controllers. (See previous video of him from Colombia.) He talks to Liz (aka Quantazelle, a laptop virtuoso herself) about the scene on the other side of the Americas and how he’s able to fire up crowds with unusual performance techniques, via three-axis light control and the P5 interactive glove….
If you’ve got an electronic musician on your gift list but are clueless as to what would make them grin with delight on Xmas morning, I and the other staff at 