The Gentleman Loser

PEELANDER-Z

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:30:00 +0000

Saw a very cool Japanese punk band called PEELANDER-Z that really was into crowd interaction. More on it late, for now, a hastily edited video.

Coming Soon: Weekend of fun, Cemetary Improvement Society, The Revolving Doors, Old Fake, Child Bite and Sally Grundy

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:50:00 +0000

Last weekend spent a lot of time at The Frequency watching some good acts including Cemetary Improvement Society, The Revolving Doors, Old Fake, Child Bite and Sally Grundy.

Reviews and whatnot will be forthcoming, for now, just enjoy some photos of the shows:

Venus DeMars and All The Pretty Horses

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:55:00 +0000

As I approach the door to The Inferno, I can already hear the voice of Jai from Sensuous Enemy beckoning, a mix of seduction and soul-rending emotion. However, tonite, they are not the reason I came. I came to see something different, something that practically begs to be seen live.

Venus DeMars and All The Pretty Horses is a Minneapolis, MN-based glam rock band. The leadsinger, Venus, is the talented and transgenered S. Grandell whose performance art past lends itself to the band's presentation.

It only took a few songs for me to note an interesting dichotomy. Venus DeMars and All The Pretty Horses, while having the appearance and presentation of a glam-rock band, were for the most part playing music that harkened back more to grunge rock than to anything Gary Glitter would have envisioned.

The show itself was rather straightforward. What makes the show interesting are the people on the stage, no fancy light show, no (well few) weird props. Both Venus and the bass player LeFreak have fantastic outfits. LeFreak, seemingly taking Jermaine/Ziggy-Stardust-Tour-Bowie's advice about the eyepatch, is a show in himself, while Venus coordinates chains and feathers brilliantly. Just the way they move around the stage, how they interact with each other and their instruments brings to mind some sort of Bachhian nightmare. When this band plays, there are sparks, litterally.

Check out the small video below showcasing a taste of what this band can do.

David Linton: The Bicameral Research Sound and Projection System

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:13:00 +0000

So I've started going to these Starlight Cinema events at the UW union building. They generally do a good job of pushing the boundaries of the little container in my brain that stores fucked-up shit. This show was no different.

I arrived late, as is, unfortunately, usually the case due to my work schedule. Approching the Play Circle theatre, I could tell the show was midway through, due to the loud droning noise of feedback coming from behind the walls. I knew this was, very possibly, going to be one of the more difficult things I have taken the time to bear witness to. Still, I found an open seat in the front row and took it.

Seemingly random bars of light flickered at seizure-inducing speeds on the the screen as the loud droning feedback squelched from all speakers. Now I figure I should try to explain to you, the reader, exactly what this show is supposed to be. See, there is a line of thinking that through auditory (espeially if there is a specific frequency offset between each speakers) and visual stimulation, one can effect a change in the subject's brainwave patterns that goes beyond simple viewer engagement. Unfortunately, this usually means that the stimiulation is increadibly noisy (and loud, as to drown out competing stimulation), there is structure, but it is not pleasant to listen to. The video below will give you an idea.

What was interesting, was that the video imagery shown was not some random computer flashes, as I had expected. Instead, the performer, Daid Linton, had a number of different objects rotating on turntables with camera's aimed at them (candles, glass spheres, cat heads...more on that in a bit). For additional light (and specific frequency strobing as well) was a TV monitor flashing bars of static (sometimes through a color gel that he would put in front of it). All of this feeding into a video mixer produced the images we saw on the screen. The audio, however, appeared to be a series of tracks being cued up on a computer screen.

After about a half hour of staring at the screen, it happened. I started to feel my brain slip off into an altered-state. Something was slushing it's way up from the bottom of my brain stem, and my mind stated to become diffuse. It was almost as if my proprioception shifted so that my body extended across the room. It was pretty interesting, but then the sound in the tone took a shift for the darker, and feedback stated building into an overwhelming sound that started to reel me back in. Then it happened. On the screen, there was the GIANT KITTEN EXPLODING GODHEAD. An image of a vauge torso with a plastic cat's head, visual feedback flowing off of the head in two directions somehow in sync with the building feedback of the noise that surrounded me. With a shock like that, you can do little else than be yanked right back into reality.

Looking around the theatre, I saw peoples faces illuminated in the pale light reflecting off of the screen. Their muscles slack, jaws open, minds somewhere else. After a little while longer, the intensity of the audio and video started to subside, and it wound down to a pleasant, medatative atmosphere. The sound started to fade out, and the little table of cameras and light faded down and the show drew to a close. Lights still dim, crowd silent, David blows out a candle, and like the final cleansing rite to some elaborate ritual, the crowd is released from his spell, and comes back, minds returned to the limitations of space and time.

...and were back

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:11:00 +0000

Blog has been left un-updated for awhile now. Back online. Mostly going to talk about various events that I attend around this fine city of Madison, WI. Will porbably backdate a few posts as well for things I had meant to write about. Such as the Chikka and Bubblyfish show, or The Dandy Warhols, or The Fireball, to ame a few.

Okay, I give up...

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 07:29:00 +0000

I mean seriously. There's selling out and there's getting an item on the bloody Denny's menu. Like I don't expect more from these bands, but still, come on man. It makes sense though, you always see the tweens at Denny's late night after the shows. For added bonus, check the photos of the various bands in Denny's "chef" outfits. See, Eddie Reyes is in the back slaving over your Taking Back Bacon Burger Fries....

PS, I think the menu item from Eagles of Death Metal should, instead of "Heart on a Plate" pancakes, be a waffle dish called "Death Waffles."

Radiohead: House of Data Points

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:06:00 +0000

So Radiohead, seemingly in an innovation penny war with Nine Inch Nails, has unveiled it's newest oddity. A music video without the video.

Radiohead's new music video for the In/Rainbows song "House of Cards" was shot not with cameras, but with a 3D modeling laser array. Instead of footage on a videotape, the "footage" was a giant spreadsheet of XYZ coordinates. Blogger: The Gentleman Loser - Create PostAfter being fed into computers that must have been running software on the bleeding edge, the points of data were plotted in three dimensional space and manipulated in such a manner to create the video you see on the right. In addition to providing the video, you can go to the Google Labs page for this little experiment and manipulate the 3D data in a (rather slow, though understandably) viewer.

More interesting is the fact that you can download the 3D "Point Cloud" data off of the site in a CSV (an open standard spreadsheet format) file, thus allowing anyone with a beefy computer and some 3D knowhow (I wonder if trusty old trueSpace can use it) to make a video. In fact some people already have. I like this trend that is occuring. Not only are we getting bands leaving their labels (even if Radiohead totally went running back to one) to make a stake on their own, but the bands simutaniously discover the merits of fan service. More specifically, getting fans invloved in the art. Nine Inch Nails uploads multitrack files for fans to remix with, Radiohead lets the fans price their CDs. Nine Inch Nails opens a "film festival" for their double album Ghosts, Radiohead essentially gives fan the video equivilant to multitrack files. So whether you are With_Teeth or In/Rainbows we all win.

Church Tower

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:23:00 +0000

Damn That Sideways Smile

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:01:00 +0000

Tight Jeans and Long Sleeve Shirts

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Sat, 31 May 2008 07:29:00 +0000

French Kicks take the stage and the crowd rushes to the front to...stand there and look too cool. Fear not, however, later in the show, with an adjustment of his belt and a sway of his hips, Matt Stinchcomb turns the crowd all the way up to listliss swaying and half-hearted swing dancing. To the right of me, Ryan attempts to break the mold with a brief burst of The Roboto.

Their music is conducive to this behavior, it's the sonic equivalent to Quaaludes. Matt alternates between guitar, and running over to the left side of the stage to play keyboards. The guitar buzzes into the type of haze one associates with Sonic Youth. however, out of the haze, the bass player chimes in precisely accented notes that cut through like church bells.

Vocals seem to be a mash-up of The Appleseed Cast and M83 with the enunciation of The Twighlight Singers, though their world-weary, raspy voice is replaced by youthful energy.

The music follows the indie post-Radiohead stuff most of the time, but occasionally takes a dive to some more classical styles that almost seem reminiscent of the 1950's. The vaguely retro-stylings suit the band well and leave the listener with a non-specific nostalgia. The feeling that we can remember when there was a better time, when things were okay, if only we can concentrate hard enough.

RASHnotes

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:45:00 +0000

This film was created in April for the Wis-Kino 2008 Spring Kabaret. The theme (drawn out of a hat two nights beforehand) was "Prop: Ice Cream Cones". It's called "RASHnotes: 1984" and it's a kickoff of a new series. Basically the premise goes like this: Sam and I pick a book we have never read, we go to the mall's Barnes and Nobel, grab the Cliff's Notes for the book, sit in the attached Starbucks and drink overpriced coffee while we read the two page summary, then make a movie with minimal costumes and props. (NOTE that this is the rush-cut version, a reshoot is planned to fix some of the audio issues and tighten the script.)

We Love Your Haircuts

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 15 May 2008 06:29:00 +0000

Last Saturday, May 9th, I went to see Margot and the Nuclear So and So's at The Orpheum Stagedoor. I had first discovered the band a little over a year ago when I saw their video for "Quiet as a Mouse" on a DVD sampler. I loved the video and immediately went to the video store and bought the CD, every song was a gem. Quiet, emotional folk-tinged music.

Starting out their live show were some newer songs. If they are any indication, you can expect their next CD to be a less quiet affair. Electric guitar seems to have been heavily added to the mix even in the performances of tracks from "The Dust of Retreat."

Did I mention that this was a big band? It really is. We are talking about an 8-piece band with two guitarist's, two bassists, two drummers (okay, one plays drums, the other bangs on a wide assortment of things while performing other strange rites), a violinist/lap steal guitarist, a keyboardist and a brass player. Stealing the show, for me at least, were Hubert Glover (the brass player) and Casey Tennis (the aforementioned jack-of-all-trade's percussionist). Not only does the brass give the band a sound that is often looked over by today's bands, but Glover's collection of instruments lent a distinct visual flair to the performance. Mr. Tennis...well he seems like a strange, squirrelly fellow. He had some sort of design written on his face, and the strange bravado the went into each often overexaggerated swing of the mallet or shake of the...shaker commanded attention. Did I mention that the entire band came on stage wearing animal mask's, with Richard Edwards (the singer and guitarist) dressed as an expeditionist (not exhibitionist)? They did, but it didn't take long for the masks (including Glover's cigarette-enhanced white tiger mask) to come off. It was then that I took note that the memebers of this band looked nothing like I had envisioned them to. I expected some sort of well dressed band with trendy haircuts, instead I was pleasantly surprised to see a group of gangly fellows (and one lady) with the half-strung-out look of a grunge band.

There was a good blend of new and old material, jumping back and forth between the two in a bi-polar spree. At the end of the show, Edwards simply got up onto the mic with an acoustic guitar and kept on doing songs as much of the rest of the band quietly took apart and put away the stage. Tennis would occasionally shake a cymbal or something to the beat of the music as he packed away his playpen of toys, occasionally joining Edwards. One of the last songs played was a tribute cover of "He's on drugs again" by LonPaul, a fellow musician and friend that had died a few days prior. Footage of the song is viewable on the YouTube clip below.

Some bands are better live. Some bands are worse. In the case of Margot and the Nuclear So and So's, they are a completely different animal altogether.

The Slip (Not The Clap)

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:30:00 +0000

So yeah, late last night, only a few months after releasing an expansive instrumental double album for just a $5 download, nine inch nails releases a new 10-track/43 min album completely for free. Not instrumentals this time, but a more standard album called "the slip" and available for download in many different audio formats. And it ain't a bad album either. Don't really know where this one falls sonically or thematically in relation to other releases, it's a somewhat hard to classify album. Tracks are as follows:

999,999
1,000,000
letting you
discipline
echoplex
head down
lights in the sky
corona radiata
the four of us are dying
demon seed

The first track is a weird glitchy intro to the album. The four tacks that follow sound like they could be at home with the 2005 release [with_teeth], except done better, louder, harder. In fact, the songs "1,000,000" and especially "letting you" are about as loud and angry as I have ever heard nine inch nails. The song "Discipline," which was released a few weeks ago as a radio single, sounds like Trent said "Okay, lets make a dancy song like 'Only', except this time not so silly sounding."

"Head Down" is immediately my favorite of the album. Doesn't really sound like anything else I have heard by nin, the chorus is warm lush all while glitch and distortion rule the background. "Lights in the Sky" is your nin-standard quiet song that every album seems to have. "Corona Radiata" and "The Four of Us Are Dying" are instrumentals that sounds like they would be at home on The Fragile, aside from the layers, note the signature guitar stylings. The last track, "Demon Seed" is another one that is hard to place, some of the synth sounds are reminiscent of the Reznor-produced Saul Williams album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, regardless, it's probably my second favorite song on the album and has some unique lyrical progression.

I also find it interesting that I noted a trend on nine inch nails discussion boards where fans were wishing they could have the option to pay for this release. Like some sort of strange Stockholm's syndrome, once released from the captivity of the status quo for record releases, they try to go running back to something more familiar.

Below I have set up a playlist with the entire album, so you can just go ahead and check it out now if you like:

Pitof, the man behind Catwoman

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 01 May 2008 06:53:00 +0000

My mind, as it is so often prone to do, wanders in random directions. One such direction was to the enigmatic director of the box office bitch, Catwoman: Pitof.

So IMDB referes to the following as his "Trade Mark": Extensive use of CG environments, Use of fast editing, Use of extreme close ups of eyes, and Constantly moving camera. They might have well put down instead, "Bad directing," and saved those four lines of text. The bad CG and the distracting over-cutting were the faults in the movie Catwoman that stood out beyond the absolutely horrible script.

The director's real name is Jean-Christophe Comar, but his childhood nickname was Pitof, and for some reason he decided that a name kids called him would be the more professional moniker for his film work.

It is also mentioned that he worked on music videos in the 80's for Lenny Kravitz, which is obviously is a sign of success considering the vast amount of CD's that Mr. Kravitz had released in the 80's.

Granted, I should lay off of him a little bit. Looking through his career it is obvious that he doesn't have much of a directing background. His work was mainly in FX supervising (however, that makes the poor CGI in Catwoman that much more unforgivable) and apparently is quite accomplished in France and has won many awards. From reading the posts of those who defend him on the IMDB message boards, one can summize that he is an all around nice down-to-earth guy...who insists on being referred to by a dubious one-word name that carries all the pretentiousness of a heavyweight without all of the, well, weight to back it up. One such defender stated that Pitof had the following to say when the subject of his ill-fated Hollywood foray came up:

"I'm no masterful feature director and I won't hesitate to admit that. I got offered to the film and leaped at the opportunity as I felt it might be 'once in a lifetime' and figured "why not?" At least most people on the production felt that the script was of the stereotypical quality expected from marginalized characters. You could not make anything resembling diamond out of that pile of dirt. I tried to get something out it, but that effort was erased by the fact the studio had final cut over the film. Yes, I am to blame still, but it could have never been anything more than okay with that script."

In light of this, I will admit. If some studio had came to me and asked me to direct Catwoman, I too would consider it a "once in a lifetime" opportunity and accept it despite knowing full well that it was destined for failure. However, since I would already expect it to fail, I would have fun with it. I would have cast Seth Rogan as Catwoman, and there would be no explanation in the movie as to why Catwoman only had breasts in the loosest sense of the word. I would also cameo in it during an unsimulated sex scene where Catwoman would pleasure me orally. During the explanatory dialogue scenes I would increase the amount of cut's 10-fold by cutting at the end of each syllable. There would be an entire still frame photo animated opening sequence and John Travola would be in it. I would make Catwoman blind, but able to "see" through the use of purring-based sonar JUST LIKE A CAT DOES.

My version of Catwoman would be so bad that no one could possibly call me a bad director without being called out for not understanding cynisism. It worked for Verhoeven.

Repo: The Genetic Opera

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:00:00 +0000

So I ran across this little movie a while ago. It comes out August 8th according to the most current IMDB information on it. It's about a future where people are hooked on surgery (these people are referred to as "scalpel sluts") like it was some kind of drug, if in fact, they arn't hooked on the illegal anesthetic Zydrate. There is a company called GeneCo that specialises in providing transplant organs. Good thing too, since there is a worldwide epidemic of organ failure. The thing is, if you can't keep up on your payments, they send a Repo man out to take back the unpayed "product." Did I mention that this is all done in full rock opera style? Well it is.

This one looks stunningly strange. It was based off of a stage performance that started in L.A. (big surprise) and ended in New York. The movie version has a lot of odd cameo's from members of bands including but not limited to Skinny Puppy, Filter, Jane's Addiction and Bauhaus. Lions Gate is putting this one out, further securing their reputation as being the guys who will release anything regardless of how niche the market might be.

I can't wait to see this. It seems like the whole gene-punk thing is in now (guess if Gattaca would have been released today it would have been more widely accepted), and there is another movie coming out called The Gene Generation (which immediately makes me think of wonder movies like The Doom Generation) that is about a society where you genetics determine your status in life, so there are "gene hackers" who kill people to steal their genes and get ahead. That one looks very straight-to-video, and Bai Ling's presence seals that particular deal. Still could be an interesting action movie with a little bit of brains in it though, so I am holding out hope for it.

So I leave you with this. The trailer to the infinitely idiosyncratic Repo - The Genetic Opera:

Billy Idol: Cyberpunk

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:02:00 +0000

Wow. Just wow. See, Billy Idol was the real birth of industrial music and he invented genre cyberpunk, I has the proofz right here. (Did I hear a Front242 sample in there??)

Happy Spring and Shit

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:29:00 +0000

Here is your present. I put together a playlist of what I have been listening to as of late when I'm not in the mood for EBM. A lot of the stuff on this list was music my friend Phil turned me on to.

Wis-Kino Spring Kabaret

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:57:00 +0000

We had our Spring 48-Hour Film Kabaret and it was as big of a success as I could expect for our spring celebration. This was our first screening in the luxurious Sundance Cinemas.

Sam and I had drawn the theme of "Prop: Ice Cream Cones" on Friday and in short time decided we would make a film about a guy who is at a work meeting with a bunch of ladies. They serve ice cream and the suddenly all the people at the meeting go into this orgy of seductive ice cream eating. Our main character gets a phone call from his wife and ducks into a nearby room. We would cut to him being alone in the room and she asks how things are doing, our main character would sheepishly peer out the doorway to see the ridiculous ice cream orgy was continuing and calmly chock out "Okay." He would find out his wife will remain out of town, and he decides to take advantage of this situation going on in the boardroom (yeah, he's a pig), but they are done with their ice cream. So he volunteers to do a snack run, resulting in a montage of purchasing the most phallic looking foods he can find.

Saturday we finalized the script and got the house cleaned. We were banking on a bunch of our friends being available after the Mercury Players production of Compleat Female Stage Beauty had gotten out. We ran to the grocery, filmed the montage and got back only to find that we couldn't get anyone to come. We postpone the shoot until tomorrow and come up with some plan B and C film ideas.

Mere hours before the screening on Sunday we filmed our B Plot idea. In the morning, we ran to the local Barnes and Noble, and went to the Cliffs Notes rack. We picked a book neither of us had read or seen adaptations of: 1984 (okay, I have read the first chapter). We read the two page summery and then left the store. Armed with a brief reading of the summary, we set out to make a 5-minute film of 1984.

Where did the ice cream cones fit in? The trip to the craft store to buy pipe cleaners and googly eyes that would transform some ice cream cones into the rats that eat Winston's face. The film was shot with the help of our friend Julie, who conveniently played the character of Julia, in about 3 hours. The audio was horrendous because we didn't have time to do a proper recording (it would have added too much time to edit because we use an external audio recorder). However, it was funny nonetheless with such lines as "Dear illegal diary, I had that dream again about the rats. I hope they never eat my face," read in listless monotone. It was beautiful cheese.

The screening itself went off more smoothly than most Kabarets, with the exception of some cropping issues from the projector's settings being a bit off. That caused us to have to replay some films that had their tops and bottoms chopped off, and that caused us to run a little late. Other than that, it was a great screening, and I look forward to showing them what a big crowd we can bring to the Fall Kabaret this coming November.

Two Men Enter, Two Men Leave

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:30:00 +0000

As I walk in, I hear civilized gentry music as Alan! and Caustic take turns reading from books that could only have titles like "HTML & Javascript for Beginners", "Bible Passages for the Elderly" and "New Employee Orientation Guide for Pasta A-Go-Go."

This continues for about an eternity. People are talking about grilled cheese sandwiches, I can smell them, but I can't see the evidence of one anywhere. Then we get what seems like it could be a screwed version of a Public Enemy song mixed with opera music. I'm not sure.

Around the entrance to The Inferno, is a battlefield of toy soldiers. To the left of them, a pile of contraceptives and lube with a sign next to them that says, "These are for Eating." A deluge of 80's pop and hair rock spews out of the speakers like bile. I just order more drinks. I curse Nick for telling me about this, and swear that I will murder and eat him. Just then Alan! dumps a pile of bacon off next to me at the bar, I want to partake, but I'm worried about the implications of doing so. I order more drinks instead. Someone is looping the lyrics "Brown Eyed Girl" over and over again while some other song entirely plays on top of it.

...and suddenly it sounds like Santana mixed with The Electric Company. "This is poetry," I think as I drink my rum and coke and hopes and dreams for a tomorrow that just won't fucking come.

Death metal becomes the predominate theme as I assume we shift into the "Death Metal Bingo" portion of the night's entertainments. Bingo cards are handed out, though I do not recall numbers being called. I grab one of the sheets of "My Little Pony" stickers that are left around the bar and put a purple pony on my cell phone. Never question my sexuality. I need to drink more alcohol, so I do. At this point it starts to get a little hazy to me.

There is a Pepsi repairman or something testing the soda dispensers behind the bar. I was wearing a shirt with a faux Pepsi logo, so I thought this funny. This errant though leading me off onto a tangent.

This is a cognitive nightmare. We disseminate. We sort, organize, delineate. Then we masturbate. We classify the orgasm. Carefully measure the ejaculation. We record this. This is the new pornography. We are all the cartographers of the fleshy paths. It is human nature, the nature of nurture. Pixelized pollen from the stamen of the soul. Data, light, sound, static and harmony, the sweat of the subconscious.

Girls are on the dance floor fighting with inflated condoms as the bartender wears a sticker that says "huffing glue is cheap." What does that mean? Does it mean that glue huffing is not costly or that only cheap people indulge in such pleasures?

I leave the party for awhile, drive down to the Bartell Theatre, get bitten by Pete who is happy with the opening of Compleat Female Stage Beauty. I step into The Mercury Lounge, douchebag DJs and a crowd of kids who are one Abercrombie away from being fratboys. Pipes are being passed around, I decline. I return to The Inferno.

"James Brown is Dead," blares from the speakers. Indeed he is. All that and more.

I settle into a seat somewhere. I am almost out of cash, so I give the bartender two dollars and ask for whatever that will buy. I get a bottle of PBR. Brown Eyed Girl is played again, I protest. Deaf ears. Time goes by. I call Alan! a Barbecue Fetishist, because he, in fact, is. There are cards all over that ask if you would date, or fuck, Alan! and ask you to circle your answer. Some of them only have the option of "yes" while others lack even that basic facility. I want to smash the little toy soldiers.

The night ends. I sit in my car on the phone, hoping to catch an afterparty. Instead I go home, disappointed, and cook myself some eggs.

Ghost Stories...Creative Commons, The Kino Movement, and the Music Industry

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:19:00 +0000

So if any of you know me, you probably know that I am a big fan of nine inch nails. Like, obsessive fan, as in I used to have a scrapbook full of nine inch nails stuff...and only threw it away last year.

So Trent has been doing everything humanly possible to say to the world "Hey! Look what you can do when you are not on a label!" He releases the multi-tracks for his entire last album and creates a website where people can post remixes of nine inch nails music (okay, he was technically still with Interscope for that). He works with poet/rapper Saul Williams and they release their collaborative work for free on the internet, ala Radiohead. Then they release a nice big fat two disc instrumental CD called Ghosts with no advertising or fanfare, just a $5 download (or free download of about 1/4 of the songs) with options for getting assorted limited edition physical versions. And what the hell, while he’s at it, he releases it under a Creative Commonslicense, which all-but plainly states that we are all intended to experiment with this music as much as he and the other musicians did while creating it.

Now he goes one step further into the world of film. He wants fans to shoot videos for all of the songs on the album and is working with YouTube to sort through them, pick the exceptional ones, and do "something" with them.

I should really be excited about this shouldn’t I? I mean here is a band that I have loved for the last decade and a half being mixed with amateur/indie (seriously, those two words are interchangeable, but one sounds more respectable) filmmaking which I have done one way or another for almost as long and is currently something I obsess over almost as much. However, I remember always wanting to remix nine inch nails and wishing for multitracks, but now that I have them, all I did was one crappy remix of The Hand That Feeds. It seems like the same thing may happen here.

Regardless, I still think it is a great idea, and I can’t wait to see how it plays out. What he is doing here is quite similar to what we are doing with Wis-Kino and the Kino movement in general. The important subtext is in this part of Trent’s announcement:

"This isn’t a contest and you don’t win elaborate prizes - it’s meant to be an experiment in collaboration and a chance for us to interact beyond the typical one-way artist-to-fan relationship"

The heart of the Kino movement has been collaboration over competition. This is what sets it apart from things like The 48-Hour Film Project, which may have similarity to our 48-hour film challenges but is competitive, as well as other independent cinema which has become a matter of style and attitude over substance. It seems like what is being set up here will develop into a real collaborative dynamic between fans that can draw off of their individual creative talents.

I have seen in the recent years, that the general direction nine inch nails has been going in has been one that involves active participation of the fans to create a collaborative reality. Look at last year’s ARG promotion for Year Zero, while it was most certainly an ad campaign, I watch from the message boards and saw people forming constructive (and sometimes destructive) social advocacy, others worked on a number of collaborative art projects involving the theme of activism that predominated the ARG. The ARG itself required the collective detective work of all the participants.

All the tech geeks around me know (and lament) the term "Web 2.0" (or it’s sexy counterpart Porn 2 point oh yeah), hell, your viewing it right now. It seems as though Mr. Reznor is as much a futurist as a good musician, because he and only a small number of other musicians seem to be paving the way to move those concepts into an industry that is desperately trying to find relevance in today’s culture. Today’s (and yesterday’s and the day before’s) music industry sucks (well, to be more precise, the major labels suck), but maybe we can elevate it into a more personal, enlightened experience. Because let’s face it, ain’t nobody ever been excited about "The Music Industry" outside of stuffy white men who are lining their pockets because of it, let’s see if we can’t all start to benifit in some way from it now.

Voldamort kills Ron with an axe. Harry inexplicably falls in love with Snape. The end.

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 19:12:00 +0000

Yeah, I read it. I haven't read a single Harry Potter book in my entire life, but even I, strong of will, could not resist the torrential tide of publicity surrounding this book. And in the end, it was good, but not great. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, just not as much as I could have been enjoying the new book "Spook Country" by William Gibson, or the new-esque book "Rant" by Chuck Palahniuk (or finishing American Psycho which I really need to do).

Now as far as life has been for me as of late, "Busy" is a useful descriptive term. I haven't been especially social for the last month or so. I have been editing stuff in my free time after work, assisting (I use that term loosely) in Rob's movie "Massacre! - The Musical", organizing WisKino here and there, co-wrote for and live-filmed Blitz (in which I had my totally awesome mohawk), and then to add one more thing, I filmed Reverence (a goth/techno/industrial fest) for an unspecified documentary project.

The Reverence shoot was a blast. Not only did I get to film 4 nights of music, but I got to interview most of the bands as well (the lead singer from Bella Morte was surprisingly friendly and outgoing). Caustic (who organized the event) was more than accommodating and generally an all-around cool chap. Hopefully the video will see the light of day sometime soon. If not, well hell, I tried.

Also, I picked up a Holga camera and now I am having fun with the wonderful world of taking photos with film again, but doing it with a camera that has cheap Chinese optics and an unreliable focus setting. The pictures come out all soft and colorful and 70's looking. An interesting toy, I have picture from it on my flickr page.

Now, with any luck, I can get caught up with editing in time to let the upcoming game "Bioshock" temporarily steal away my life, after which I can finally get back to music. Yes, I really seriously totally plan on writing some new shit again finally. This time, I want to do vocals. Something with punk vocals and structure but electronic instrumentation. It could be cool. Or it could suck entirely. I want to call the project "Bloody Effusion" but I think that's too geeky and needs to be saved for some other project.

***UPDATE***

Per converstation with Jesse, Colm, Cara and Pete, the aforementioned punk-techno project will be called "Nipple Rejector" due to a converstation about my friend John's wife's breats.

The Last Days of France

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 00:44:00 +0000

It is nearing the final hours of the trip. It is night, we are again in Paris. All of us are having a picnic by the channel. The police cleared us out of the neighboring park at closing time. Fillip plays guitar and sings as one song flows into another. Across the river, a group of police watch as another officer says something, wildly gesturing with her arms.

The Kabaret at Nogent-le-Rotou is over. The films were great. I appeared in five or six of them. Sometimes as an extra, sometimes in a more substantial role. One of the Austrians taught me how he smoked a cigarette with his asshole, a lesson I am bound to take value from in some way.

There were countless moments that I meant to preserve in writing in the last few days, but many of them never made it to the page. Last night, after the screening, we made party. A French DJ played Britney Spears and I was disappointed but still sang lyrics by another obnoxious pop star to the beat and claimed to be Australian. I asked a teenage girl from the town if it was true that in France, there was always a half moon. When she said they had full moons too, I denied it and claimed to be from Manchester. We ate greasy ham and cheese grilled sandwiches with the cheese on the outside and wrapped in tin foil and drank beers like Leffe, 1664, and Heineken.

I sit at a bar getting late-night food to bring back to the party with a woman from Corsica who reminds me of the French woman from Lost. She is the resident FXC person. Her car is full of low grade explosives, fake blood, and accelerants. She talks to my camera as we wait, talking about proclaiming herself as a "Video Terrorist" after being stopped by a police officer for setting fire to a car outside a grocery.

The day before I am exhausted from once again climbing up to a castle (every freaking town we go to has a castle in it) near where we would film. I am acting as DP, and I think most of the shots look great. Pascal puts makeup on me and everyone else. Flour and ash from a burnt cork. In black and white, we look like zombies. Sam keeps telling us not to say the zed word. I give Sam a little wish fulfillment by asking for multiple takes and angles during a sex scene between him (as a dead man) and Pascal. Nothing much else happens. In the morning, Sam and I had filmed a bit for his piece.

The day before that is officially the first day of the Kabaret. The theme is
"If only I had known," but it is ignored by most. In the afternoon I go with Joe up to the top of some hills to wait in the rain. I swear, it just randomly starts raining in France, and always when you are in the middle of nowhere with sensitive electronic recording equipment. As I write this, what appears to be a transvestite goth kid walks by, momentarily breaking my attention.

We arrive in Nogent-le-Rotrou by train two days previous to the Kabaret. We are one day earlier than everyone else. We were due to stay at the apartment in Paris for one more night, but at about 2:30, Samuel bursts in and says he got a call from Karim and we need to be out by 3:00, as the apartment owner was coming home. Every hotel and hostel in Paris is booked because of a music festival coming up. So we run with all our baggage to catch the last train to Nogent. The hotels in Nogent are cheap, only 45 euros for the three of us. Cheaper than our hostel was. We sleep, the next day everyone else arrived and we had dinner on the eve of the Kabaret.

And so this ends. In a few hours I will go to sleep. A few hours after that, we will wake up, take the Metro to the train station, retrieved our luggage that we stowed in secured lockers, and take the train to the airport. Paris to Newark, Newark to Madison. Sam and I grab our bags and get ready to leave the group of people we have spent the last two weeks with. We say our goodbyes to everyone. Abel and Hamid practically molest Sam in their goodbye, and we leave them still gathered by the channel. We get about half a block away and they are still yelling goodbye to us, I stop, turn around, and blow a big kiss out to them. We keep walking until they disappear from sight. A fat lady walks past us, and I shit you not, she begins to sing.

France Day 6,7, and 8 (Paris)

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:07:00 +0000

It is 10:30 pm and the sun is still up. That's one thing I still haven't gotten used to. Night is so far away here...

Today was our third day in Paris (if you don't count the day we arrived, which was a wash; we stayed in the hostel and slept). We had plans to leave for Chinon today and stay there for a few days before moving on to Nugent, however they fell through. We are staying in a stranger's house whom we have never met. He is a friend of Karim's and that's all we need to know. Since we were going to be in Paris longer than expected, Sam and I decided to go out and see all that touristy stuff we promised ourselves we wouldn't. Joe, the man from Manchester, was able to catch a ride to Chinon; Samuel, the guy from Sydney, left to meet with some friends of his. Sam and I started out the day by finding Jim Morrison's grave. After an hour and a half detour courtesy of Sam, we found it. It was nothing special, just a grave, but with fresh flowers thrown all over it. We then set out for Oscar Wilde's grave. We talked about how wonderful it would be if we could get access to film there at night. Oscar's grave is about as flamboyant as I would expect. It wouldn't stand out, if it weren't for the giant Egyptian goddess statue and the kiss marks all over his grave.

We stopped at an Italian restaurant, and I had pesto and an Orangina. I have drunk more Orangina on this trip than I have cumulatively in my entire life. I love the stuff. We then make the obligatory stop at the Eiffel Tower. Sam and I discuss the difficulty to properly committing suicide by leaping off the top of the tower. We figured that it would require the assistance of a hang glider or at least a kite to properly clear the lower parts. You wouldn't want to hit something on the way down, or else you might lose a limb or get bisected, and that would hurt for the several seconds before hitting the ground. As we start arriving toward the underbelly of the tower, we contemplate that being beheaded on the way down would be an interesting experience. Under the tower there are military police, all armed with heavy duty machine guns. We see the arches that Napoleon built, and decide they would be easy to commit suicide off of. I wanted to visit the Louvre, but it was closed because it was Monday, and everything is closed on Mondays in France.

We go to the movie theatre and watch Zodiac, which only recently was released in Europe.

The day before was spent moving from the Hostel and Karim's place for the afternoon before moving in to the house we are now in. We all took the metro to the cinema in to watch Death Proof, which Sam and I had already seen, but Samuel and Joe had not.

Our first proper day in Paris, I wake up in the hostel. Above me I see the particle board of the bunk bed above me. Written on it is "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jumped over the candle stick and burnt his dick." That pretty much says everything that needs to be said about the Hostel. We leave at 11am because hostel rules require us to leave the room between 11am and 3pm. We spend much of the afternoon wandering around the shopping districts of Paris. We stop at a comic book shop, an electronics shop, Notre Dame, Moulin Rouge, and some cheap restaurants. That night we go to a closed restaurant where Karim and the other local Kino people are throwing a party/screening. Many films are shown. Many I wish to have a copy of. Especially the crazy techno granny one. They show some WisKino films as well; however, an especially boring one from the compilation comes on and gets the WisKino footage boo'ed off.

Around 1am I realize that the Metro probably closes soon, and the four of us run off to get on. We are a slight bit tipsy, and start hitting on the French girls on the other side of the platform while waiting for the next train to arrive. Samuel's Ausse accent has the most effectiveness. The girls say they are going back to the mission. I ask facetiously, "You're nuns?" We laugh, and their train arrives. Sam and Samuel start hitting unabashedly on the girls in our next train, while Joe apologizes for them politely in his best Manchester accent before starting in with the most vile and profane things that I will not repeat. We get back to the hostel and know that soon we will have to wake up and pack to lug everything over to Karim's to figure out what we will do next.

France Day 5

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:57:00 +0000

The van lurched and I wake up, neck aching from being bent in an odd position. If there is one universal, it is rush hour. I am Paris bound, small dark orange-red flowers dot the foliage to our sides. Lavender and white join the sight. I am half awake with my head against the window fingering the smoother rubberized edge of the windowblade.

Two nights ago I had a dream that I lived in a big house with a tower. I shared this house with Sam and with Kathy Fischer from WisKino. Rob lived in the tower. In the tower was a giant ornate metal ball that Rob would roll around in and Kathy was always trying to get into the tower, though I tried not to let her. The dream I had last night was stranger, but I don't remember the details.

Back in the van, we are running late, hence running into rush hour. There are toll stops which only add to the traffic problem. There is a clear and concise reason we are running late.

This morning, as I woke up in my hotel bed and noticed that Sam was not there, he was waking up in a hospital bed with an IV in his arm attached to a bag of 0.9% Sodium Chloride.

As we drive to Paris we pass a control box on the median strip. It is lying open, circuit boards exposed to the elements. There is less and less green now. We are just approaching the outskirts of Paris.

When I woke up sans Sam, I went down stairs and had breakfast. Eggs, cheese, tea and tea biscuits. I decide that he must have gone home with Pascal. I go back to sleep to wait for him to get home so we can start packing. At noon, our hosts come in to say it is time to pack. Now I am pissed. I rush to the bathroom to use the shower that in France is referred to as the Douche. I pack all my stuff and bring it down stairs to the door. I wait a bit for Sam to arrive. He must be damn hung over to sleep in this late. I pack his stuff and clean up the room a bit before the hosts take over. They pack up the three magnum bottles of Chinon wine we bought the previous day for a vertical wine tasting in a white plastic shopping back filled with newspaper. I leave for the Maison des Associations to meet up with the rest of the Kinoites to tell them that Sam and Pascal sill aren't back.

We are now entering the outer city of Paris. It is all newer construction and looks kind-of like Milwaukee, except that that graffiti is all in French.

I arrive, and Pascal is there. Sam is not. She explains that at 6am, he walked her home and that was the last anyone saw of him. They all thought he had gone back to our hotel room. Everyone panics about now. We walk to the nearest police outpost and after 15 minutes that feels like an hour, they inform us that he is in a hospital in the neighboring town. A brief ride through the countryside and we arrive at the hospital. It has neon signs all around and there are mounds of dirt just randomly strewn around places. It looks so, non-clinical.

Sam is standing near the entrance ready to leave, though we don't notice him until we try to hail a passing nurse. His clothes are different. The T-Shirt that he had been wearing beneath his button-down shirt was gone. The last thing he remembers of the night was drinking a bug swig of the West Indies rum that he had joked was from "The Americas". The doctors and nurses didn't speak English, so the details of his arrival at the hospital remain a mystery. We tell him he was last seen giving Pascal a walk home. He says "well, that was nice of me," and get in the car back to Chinon. We pile into the van. As we drive, I put in my headphones and drift off to sleep.

We enter into a tunnel and everything turns a jaundice shade under the tunnel lights. When we emerge, we are greeted by skyscrapers. The green foliage from before for is now totally replaced by stone and cement. A ridiculously small car drives past us in the right lane. It looks like an already small euro-car with the entire back seat truncated.

We arrive at the hostile. It is squalor compared to where we have been staying. Pizza for dinner and then we go to bed.

France Day 4

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:46:00 +0000

We arrive at the caves. More of a basement, but it serves as a middle ages hall. Sam and I, dressed as sailors of the time, our role is to drink wine and sing along in a trashy French song that has something to do with having sex on the toilet. There are French drinking songs and nothing makes sense, but I sing along and spill wine as I cheer. The wine pitchers are ceramic and look like a pot bellied monk, but the wine dribbles down the sides and over the monk's face, giving it a disgusting look. Amidst the chaos Sam leans over and says to me "Nothing can ever take this away from us…"

"Alzheimer's can," I briefly think.

A few hours later, we wake up in our hotel room clearly having missed dinner. We go to the Kino lab to finish editing our films. Sam edits on an unused Macintosh, except Final Cut Pro is all in French and the keyboard is rearranged. Still QWERTY, but with some of the keys moved around. We return to sleep at our hotel room at 7am.

At 10am I am woken by the presence of two French men in our room; other filmmakers. They urge us to wake up and join them for a filming in the extensive wine caverns. I protest, and Abel, the one who looks more like a Spaniard, jumps into my bed and starts humping me. I borrowed a power cable from him last night, which he threatened to "burn me with his pee" if I forgot to return, I guess he is very comfortable with me now. He jumps out of my bed, pleading me again to wake up and join them. He drops the back of his pants and starts singing Britney Spears songs in broken English, Sam is already getting dressed.

We arrive in the caverns and a German man that looks more like Charles Manson is there dressed as Jesus. This is the final scene of the movie. We beat a man to death and eat him alive as Jesus dances to techno music. We leave for lunch at the Kino lab.

Dinner is the same as lunch. Tabulie, chicken, bread, assorted cheese and wine. At the table, we decide what hostile we will spend the next few days between Kabarets in. We will be joined by the rest of the English-as-a-first-language-ers. A guy from Sydney and a guy from Manchester.

We leave, as it is time for the screening. It takes place in an old church hall that I don't think is used for religion anymore. The number of viewers is in the hundreds.

Right now, we are at Les Café Francois. Before that we were at La Hazard. As artist of the Kabaret, we get access to the bars of Chinon past closing time. Sam is hitting on a girl named Pascal that he will not get. I am writing this on a copy of the Excentrique Festival flier (the festival that the Kabaret is a part of). The table I am sitting at has a painting of a mysterious French woman with eyes like a cold winter day. No one in this room has eyes like that.

I have been taking photos all day. Pictures of rooftops and winding stairways, the many cats that roam the alleys of Chinon and the people. I get people to pose, hold hands, and walk in courtyards. I plan to make several photocollages of what I see in my head when I look at this place we are in. I may even make a photo animation of some of it. I look over at my mostly empty pint of Guinness and decide I need another. I look over at Sam who has an entire bottle of wine to himself. We will have to pack before I go to bed tonight, but won't. It is almost 3am and the bar will be closing soon.

At close, we gather outside the bar and go to the Kino lab where Karim has a surprise for us. Several magnum bottles of Chinon wine, bread, and a selection of cheese. We all go in the pitch blackness with our treasure and gather by the river near our hotel. We eat and drink and stumble in the dark. Louis passes around a bottle of Rum from the West Indies, someone else passes a bottle of Cognac witch is disagreeable to the man from Manchester. After awhile, I leave, taking the long, bulky gate key to the hotel from Sam, leaving the gate open for him. I settle into bed and can still hear them outside by the river, carrying on. I let this sound guide me to sleep, and I dream.