October 30, 2013 I'm getting that itch again. Time for a new look around here.

October 28, 2013 Halloween is almost here. Stokers Halloween After Kenny's memorial, me and a couple of Daves recorded this cover version of his song at the old studio.

October 22, 2013 Everyday, another product. I was thinking what it would be like to eliminate everything made of plastic from my house. I suppose it would be possible. And this naturally led me to thinking about products. If they are considered abstractly, without regard for what they are supposed to be used for, they are just like any other collectible thing. Products are so ubiquitous that we hardly notice them- until they are gone. Can I buy a 6-pack of Colt 45 for instance? And every conceivable variation of a product can be collectable. And imagine the fun to be had with misprints! Fortunately, all products are being carefully preserved in multiple locations around the world- buried and hidden away for future generations of collectors... (later) The production of Argan Oil supports some 2.2 million people, supposedly. Wow. Products have stuff in them that doesn't come from petroleum???

October 20, 2013 Many moons ago I bought an Alesis DM Pro electronic drum sampler for Steam Powered because having the studio in my basement meant that acoustic drums were mostly out of the question. I used to create drum tracks using low budget home-made triggers. I spent a lot of time cleaning them up. In the new place I can record acoustic drums just about any time I want, but I still have that electronic drum sampler and it's still got great sounds, useful for a lot of different kinds of music. Today I got an electronic drum kit to drive it. After all these years, it's a treat!

October 17, 2013 You've probably seen this by now. They've found several skulls at a dig in Georgia that seem to indicate that there were fewer variations among early humans that was suspected. It seems that people, like dogs, come in all shapes and sizes. And always have. What I think is most interesting is that these skulls were discovered in caverns that collapsed, caverns that had been the homes of big predators. These remains, which are giving us a better idea of how we got here, were once humanoids, "people", who were killed and eaten by big cats. Their lives came to tragic ends- no one could have imagined that they would enrich our lives. But maybe... Maybe someone did imagine such a thing. Maybe someone who loved one of them imagined that their death was for some greater good somehow. Maybe they were right.

October 14, 2013 This is something I just found a use for. What the hell do you do with a sub harmonic synthesizer anyway? I'm thinking dance clubs, walls of 18" speakers, an electronic kick drum at 15 Hz... But no, actually, I have a bunch of recordings, dubbed from cassette tape. The bass is there, but it's buried in noise, and so everything on the low end had to be chopped off. How can I make the bass guitar and the kick drum sound right? Why, the sub harmonic synthesizer, of course. It takes stuff from a higher pitch and generates lower pitches from it. This could be a bad thing, but in this case, it's exactly what I needed to restore some bottom to this tape. Future X Halloween Future X was a band with Kenny Gross on guitar and vocals. Here they're doing a song he wrote about his experiences wearing a dress to a Halloween party. Classic Kenny. Thanks to Dave Crossley for making and preserving this recording!

October 12, 2013 Ya know, the scariest thing about death isn't actually death. Some people believe that it's not the end of themselves, and so for them it's a time to look forward to rebirth or eternal happiness. Some believe that death is final, and so what? We won't know or care- we'll be dead! But no matter what you think about actual death, the scary part is not knowing where the line is. How will we know when we're dead? What if we sort of die, but sort of keep on going? Scary stories center on this aspect of death. Movies often feature people who are dead but don't know it. Sometimes they are the good guys, sometimes they are just zombies. And then there are vampires, who cannot die and "complete the natural cycle". And ghosts, who seem to feel emotions but who are unable to release their grip on earth. In reality, all these things are life's inventions, and they reveal our uncertainty about life and death. Death itself doesn't actually do anything. Death means being acted on, not acting. Interestingly enough, one thing all these scary "undead" creatures have in common is that they continue to act. Scary "undead" things include non-human beings that seem to perform willful actions. Robots and monsters of all kinds. Do they have minds, intentions, thoughts? We can't know for certain, but we can imagine how they feel, and we give them feelings of rage, of hatred, and we do this because we can't imagine that "they" could be satisfied with having will or consciousness without being human. The scariest thing about death isn't death- it's that we're not sure what being alive is. Maybe we're afraid that we will reach the end of our ride without finding out?

October 10, 2013 Added some of the recent studio work here on the homepage. Check out the audio segment from Britten's War Requiem for some thrills and chills...

October 09, 2013 Halloween night of 2007 I stuck a microphone out the third floor window of our house on Maple Ave in Lancaster and recorded the sounds of the trick or treaters. Our neighborhood was a popular trick-or-treat zone. People came in from all over town. Here's a short segment from early that evening six years ago. It's amazingly busy, and it kept up like this for hours. You can hear handfulls of candy hitting sacks...

October 05, 2013 An Unexpected Treat! Here's me as Liv Pooleside, sound engineer, mixing a Curious Kin gig using one of them eye-pads. Can you tell that I'm excited? It's a fantastic way to run a show! It was funny, because as I was walking around through the crowd to hear the PA from different places people must have thought that I was filming the band. They kept ducking out of the way! I only wish that we had a chance to work out some of the details before start time. When it locked up half-way through, we couldn't be sure we could restart it without loosing all our settings, so we had to disable the remote and work the digital faders by hand. But it did lock up gracefully, and didn't play any tricks. Sadly, this was the last CK gig- Dave needs to retire the band. Fortunately, there are recordings of the show...

October 04, 2013 Now as far as great soundtracks go, it's hard to beat Carnival of Souls. Most people will remember the creepy organ parts, but really, the folli work is pretty cool. When Mary is running, her footsteps are over-loud, and twice as fast as natural. Also, there's a strange rhythm to them- the sound is "footsteps", but not really. More like tribal drumming. (doesn't he remind you of someone? David Lynch perhaps?) The camerawork in this is fantastic. The image seen here is just one of the many effects in the movie. Made in three weeks, they say. Click the pic to watch it, and try to stay out of the water!

October 02, 2013 Years ago I posted a field recording up on Free Sound. I used to drive past this little factory in Lancaster, the National Novelty Brush Co., and in the summertime, when they had the windows open, you could hear all the machines in there making stuff. I love the syncopated sounds machinery makes, and the ambience of concrete and glass, and one night I recorded it from my car parked outside on the street. Someone else loved it too, and used it as an intro to their song. Used it for my metal band's new single. Your authorship is mentioned on all our pages in track infos. Thank you for this perfect sound!Cheers! I wonder what they make in there, at the National Novelty Brush Co.?

October 01, 2013 October. Soon time for the grave digger's ball