Cacheflowe vs. H.dot

some friends working it for KGNU and Denver Open Media.

CacheFlowe vs. H.Dot at D.O.M. from Plastic Sound Supply on Vimeo.

hack fest.

took it a little easier on the bike this week. all this riding has been murdering my lungs in a good way. so good that i have quit smoking again. i think it might stick this time, except for those too-sweet-to-pass-up-occasions. but maybe that's a bad sign saying that, i've kept the edge for a little while so far and the hacking has started. all that wonderful lung butter/hazardous waste is making its way up and out. so i've given myself a little recovery time off the bike.

got to go to a wonderful hazmat training session this entire week! now i know all the federal regulations i need to do my job safely, but also be there for cleanup when the time comes, still need some hands on training, but got to check out the amazing hazmat truck the portland fire department has. i was as excited as a kid getting to see a fire truck for the first time.

got out a little early and i took advantage of the gorgeous weather that came around today! went on a nice 60 mile down south again to tualatin and back through hillsboro and up the west hills via germantown road and back home. part of the same route in which i got horribly lost, but better because i know where i'm going now. it was awesome to put in the miles and have a steep grade to negotiate after 40 of them. after that, some practice descending. it looked like this.

and then up and over the st johns bridge. it's my favorite way to come home and it usually give me a boost because i know i'm within ten miles of home. coming up and over the bridge and on a day like today you can see mount st helens, mt hood and mt adams (?-still learning them all) carefully framed by the most beautiful bridge on earth.

i've been spending a lot of time lately in those hills right behind the bridge.

sorry it's just the wikipedia pic, but please check out some of the ridiculous photos people have taken via image search.

i haven't been posting photos much, because i am one of those camera-less. the forgotten ones from yesteryear.

maybe someday i'll purchase one, but for now it's stealing-borrowing brooke's. i just don't want to break it. maybe i'll steal it tomorrow for the next ride. i saw on the map that there's a meier rd, and i'm gonna go see if any of the relatives live out there.
oh, and got to try out my brand new CO2 pump. it's the best. it's weird how i just got it yesterday and got to give it a go today. thank you mr nail for being there.

getting taken for a ride.

inspiration for me takes many many forms, and sometimes just a little change in the weather can open up a whole new can of worms. in the last post i wrote about getting back out on the bike and just letting the mountains (or hills depending on your frame of reference- coloradoans) just take over. well, they have shown me something quite new.
i've caught a cycling bug again. and this time it's for real.
i was getting super strong pushing the 'ol 52x16 up skyline road up to three times a week. but as tough as i felt riding up a mountain in the biggest gear possible was like riding with square wheels. it sure hasn't been as bad as that time i was riding the morgul-bismarck "wall" and started rolling back in between pedal strokes. i should be flying up the hills like a true grimpeur. the climbs are what makes cycling so interesting. it's where classic battles are fought and people crack. where the suffering begins. mountains are the teachers.
but i sure wasn't flying up the mountains. and i was suffering in the wrong way, to be perfectly honest.
i also wanted to go further past the hills, get lost, and find myself in my new surroundings here. i wanted to go... faster.
i decided to invest in some firepower. i chose a better weapon.
i bought a new bicycle.
i felt like i have betrayed faustina, but it is time to let go a little bit. thousands upon thousand of miles that bike has taken me.
fast (except on the uphill).
it's been less than two weeks now and i have put about 200 miles on the new bicycle. it has changed how i ride.
the difference is unbelievable. i had been riding on my toes because of the momentum of the drivetrain. i couldn't shake the saddle sores even after three seat changes. my lungs are opening up because of the wider handlebars. and even after all of that pain (the wrong kind), i still loved riding that old bicycle. i was ready for something new. i couldn't wait to take it out for a huge ride, further than i had gone before.
well, last weekend i got taken for a ride. i was out forty miles (which mapmyride told me later), before i even realized that i had gone that far and before i realized that i had no idea where i was. i was trying to get down to the tulip festival in woodburn, which on paper was only supposed to be 45 miles- 50 tops (mapmyride), then hitch a ride back with brooke, her brother and nephews. easy. i've done that distance on the fixed gear no problem. did it a week before!
but take a few wrong turns and voila! epic ride time.
i think i actually cracked a little more mentally than i did physically that day. but, it was more of realizing that i knew nothing out of the area that i have seen in the past few months of living here. and that's okay. i was really afraid of having to ask for help or something, or of getting blown over in the wind because of exhaustion (i admit, it's happened before and it's no fun). i had to stop and figure out where the hell my new bicycle had taken me. i had to turn around. i had to make the phone call to abort the mission. i didn't want to get picked up. bicycling and independence go hand in hand for me... i had to find my own way back home, or back to brooke's brother's house. something.
i had to buy some maps. stopping helped me to realize that i wasn't really lost that badly, because i wasn't ever in the middle of nowhere. i was in the suburbs of suburbs of suburbs of portland.
sometimes that is even more scary than being in the middle of nowhere.
i was in wilsonville.
it took two maps to get back to town. and morale improved greatly when i got to put away the map that was further away from home. i really had to suck it up and just pedal one circle at a time, not take any more chances, and make sure that i was on the right road. it got me to focus on my form very seriously. thirty or so miles later i was near the new rendezvous point in hillsboro. back in fairly familiar territory. a old B-17 bomber was flying low overhead and i knew that i was near the hillsboro airport (they have a pretty big airshow this time of year)... coming in for a landing. i started riding faster again, with a little fist pump that i had made it. i was finally suffering in the right way. i was humbled. i let my mind beat me before my legs even gave out. i was shown where my place was. and it didn't even take a mountain to show me that. perspective.
i am so ready for more. can't wait to try the ronde van portlandia and the otto miller/dutch canyon rides. and then, this summer, a ride to the coast.

GO!

... for a bike ride. highly recommended!
at LEAST 25 miles or so.
everything seems to melt away, especially up a huge hill.
I like to seek them out.
they are not very nice and will let you know just how they feel about you.
so will traffic, but that's another story.

and then, there's nothing like power-washing a bike, breaking it down into piles of hardware, stripping, sanding and re-painting the frame, putting it back together and tuning it up! my ride would have been much easier/faster had i tuned it up before the ride this weekend.

also, did a lot of practicing this weekend on the turntables and am really excited about a new mix. it made the last recording feel as if i were forcing a lot of the mixes together. don't wanna say TOO much cause i'll probably start over-thinking it (i still have to record it). i have learned quite a lot from the last attempt at a *full length* mix on so many different levels.
kind of like climbing a mountain on a bicycle (without all that physical exercise).

equal and just.

I've been really moving forward on learning music theory and production techniques, but sometimes that really just means finding the place to begin, and is the place at which one begins, the beginning?
I have found a very interesting place to begin this time, although i feel like i have been beginning for a long time. It's not starting over, it is attempting a method that allows one to begin. and for me, it starts with the mechanics, the pure tones and the mathematics. i have found it futile to experiment with the vain hope to find interesting new sounds without that foundation. I want to learn the processes, how effects work, synthesis from the ground up from microsounds/granules to sine waves, to the samples, processing, to the beat, sculpturing, and completed "song."
i've been experimenting with a programming environment called Pd, or pure data, learning the basics and using the program to also learn the basics of music theory. i have always wanted to hear the difference between different types of intonation of scales, specifically 12 Tone-Equal-Temperament (12TET) and Just Intonation. since most instruments today are not designed to play in Just, i thought it would be really interesting to hear what it sounds like, without searching for it somewhere on the internet. it would be good to compare it to other sources, of course, and check the results. in a way, i am tuning the computer-as-instrument and myself. the foundation for these experiments have come from the numbers themselves.
12TET is a logarithmic division of the octave into equal parts, so that each step is the same distance. Just is based off of the overtone series and are fractional steps from the base tone.
I have just finished debugging and listening to the 12TET scale that i programmed (and will post it up here soon), so now it's on to the Just scale.
Most of my influence in this has come from a few books i have been reading as of late: Harmonic Experience, by W.A. Mathieu, Musimathics, by Gareth Loy. Wikipedia has been awesome for a lot of the introductory information, too. and of course, Theory of Electronic Music, by Miller Puckette. with these three books is an interesting synthesis of computers, mathematics and western and eastern music theory, and ear training by singing sargam syllables over drone. hmm. good 'ol drones...

Now on to the next step... making the sound of fog.

well, someday.

played some records at a friends birthday party a couple of weeks ago. same 'ol thing of "can you play this?" "got any electro/techno?" i think that i worked too hard the week before practicing and arranging, to not give someone the staredown at those questions, but i might have a sketch for a new mix for the people who do care.

As for work that pays the bills, well the winter term here at PSU has come to an end, so things are quiet(er).

explode into fun.

at long last, i finally got to see explode into colors play live this weekend. quite the refreshing twist of punk rock style, psychedelia, afrobeat, and the atmosphere and space of dub. love the reverb/echo in the vocals and that most of the lyrics aren't. mostly giddy chirps yowls and wails (with the occasional quotation of 'bomb's over baghdad' placed very nicely within "heat"-also called "two for jazz")... percussion/rhythm heavy but not overpowering, and it will make you dance! you have no choice! fun music. important music.
explode into colors-2 for jazz/heat
explode into colors-sharpen the knife
thanks wfmu

time for contemplation.

it's winter, it's a new year, and time for some contemplation.
there's something with the fog and the clouds, the cold, the bridges, the dark. sometimes it rains... as you may have heard. it's been pretty mild as far as i am concerned, almost too mild. i keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and rain all day, every day.
so, i've been reading a whole lot, especially about the concepts of time and space: david deutsch's "fabric of reality," palle yourgrau's "a world without time," some sci-fi time travel books (joe haldeman), and now i felt like going back to the future to "the critique of pure reason" by immanuel kant. I am really excited about the book, but more excited about the criticism that follows to learn more about what the author was thinking. i suppose that is almost what interests me the most, is how people think and reason *about* concepts and time, space and being.
haven't been working all that much with the turntables lately. i have been getting a little bored with other peoples music, and the urge to make my own has taken over, but how?
regardless of thinking things out too much, as i usually do, have been trying to simplify things as much as possible without reinventing the wheel or becoming a technician.
I can hear the music, i just have to figure out how to make it happen.

a few local bands have really been inspiring this push: Thrones (Joe Preston, formerly of the Melvins), Grouper, and Strategy. i have been listening to a lot of doom metal, some grindcore: portland's very own, SUPERBAD.

i have been going to shows. saw matt and kim the other day, too. they have taken positivity to a new level- further than the logical positivists ever could (ahem). it was refreshing that they have so much fun doing what they want. i felt it was like having a party with a panda bear, but i realized that it would be too cute and the panda would be a little too coy. i must've been the panda bear, i think...
just needed a little change of pace.
(note: i actually watched the super bowl this year. it was one of the best games i've ever seen, of the *millions* of games, i've seen).