h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

K's not really a big gamer, actually. He has four or five games he likes to play, one in particular. I bought him an infrared mouse for Xmas but gave it to him early because I wanted to use it for a project I was working on.

I'm thinking a wood djembe of some sort, or something like that. Or one of those Asian ones with the little paddle thingy you rub back and forth and makes noise- no idea what it's called but I like the sounds they make. He got a cowbell and a thunder tube for his birthday. And a double bass pedal.

I totally blagged myself once. I bought a big book, a potted history of anarchism, weighed more than my head. All the time I was weighing it up as a present for my gran and then about two days after I thought "my gran isn't going to want this, I just bought it for me" I got her stained glass windows instead.

Djembes are great. Good as well because you can get a lot of different sounds out of them. Has he got a chinese cymbal? Those are awesome. The sound of them gives me goosebumps.

I'll look for a Chinese cymbal while we're there, too. for the idea!

Check out hang drums. Pretty pricey I believe but beautiful sounds.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TQXn5ba0aT8

Those look kind of bigger than what I had in mind, but I'll see what I find. If I *do* find something, I'll get a photo when K's not around and post a link.

Well... the music shop was a wash- they had some sticks and brushes, which weren't the weight K uses, and two very small djembes priced at around $350 each. Waaay too much for something that'd be used for decoration only.

The show was really entertaining, though!

Incidentally, I was thinking about a_a_e's mention of "lo-fi". (I wouldn't consider Alex Chilton to be lo-fi in general, but some of his stuff is fantastic lo-fi indeed) What sorts of lo-fi artists do y'all like?

I'd say the ones I like most are Beat Happening and The Clean. We've got a handful of stuff by Bratmobile, Archers of Loaf, Young Marble Giants, Daniel Johnston, Dinosaur Jr and the Eels, to name the artists I can think of off the top of my head. And while I'm not a huge fan, and don't own any albums or tracks of hers, I don't run screaming when I hear local girl Liz Phair.

Is Daniel Johnston that mental dude that Kurt loved so much? Never heard, but I do admire the prestige he has. I love the idea of "outsider art".

Well I love Steve Albini production values, as you know (drum track in the bathroom? Ho yus). But when I think of lo-fi I generally think of cheezy techno, which is not quite sticking a drumstick in a speaker-cone but can be very "lo-tech" tech. I've heard some "chiptune" and "SID" music that was very entertaining. Another one for a_a_e to expound upon. I'm very into CSS at the mo, and not just because of the singer.

A while ago I mentioned to Ed that I'd lost an album of Ancient Sumerian and Greek music called "De Organographia" which was recorded on reconstructions of the instruments from translations of the original notations. Here's some spiel

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/OM/DO.html

Anyway I just found it again, email me for more info.

Yeah, Kobain was apparently a fan. Johnston's really talented, if a bit odd. There's an interesting docu about him called "The Devil & Daniel Johnston".

Having hung around on the fringes of the punk scene here for a bit over two decades now, I'm quite fond of DIY and outsider art. My two favorite artists who aren't musicians- Henry Darger and Joe Coleman.

Another one I quite like is electro-sex-pest Peaches. Not Peaches Geldof, no-one needs that. But this one's a real laugh, Fuck The Pain Away (NSFW, obviously)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Yju_W4uVuxc

You gotta admire a lass who has an album called "Impeach My Bush"

I saw too many DJs once. They do a nice remix of that.

I tend to think of glitch stuff, when I think of lo-fi, even though it isn't lo-fi really. I'd say lo-fi is more an aesthetic than to do with actual level of sophistication in the method of production. Gritty, messy, subdued sounds.

I read some Steve Albini interviews that I think you posted somewhere Chris. I'd heard of him before but didn’t know the name. If you like that Lee Scratch Perry should be good as well. His specifications for drum recording made people think he was mental (or more mental) but if you think about it they make sense: big concrete pit full of water underneath and chicken wire on top. Nice resonant bass and dead top end.

Mouse on Mars are a favourite as well, also some Boards of Canada stuff, there are some good lo-fi punk techno peops on Tigerbeat6 but I can never remember their names. Joseph Nothing’s first album is great, s'like circus music or something but all with weird circuit bent synths and odd samples. Also Bogdan Rochanski that's probably spelled wrong.

There is a great nes chip version of Theme from Squarepusher on youtube. I seriously doubt it was done using a real nes though because the programming on the chip was all numerical FM.

I have a sidstation, a hard sid, various emulators and two actual c64s. I love them like my children. Check out 8-bit operators.

A few new tunes
http://www.myspace.com/threesevendee

Nice! Good epileptic page too.

This is an old friend of mine I was in a band with some time ago

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=60716906

Steve Albini is a great producer but all evidence I've seen has suggested he's also a bit of a dick.

Albini's not so much a dick as he doesn't suffer fools or suckups. Not that I'm well acquainted with him or anything. But he's pretty prolific and I do know a bunch of local musician types, so you see people around...

Oh, and he's not a "producer", Chris. He's a recording engineer. His recording studio http://electrical.com/ is located walking distance from my home. I've never recorded there, though.

Being serious again... not only is he a fantastic recording engineer, but he's had two of the best bands ever (Big Black and Shellac).

Meh, potata potahta

K's Christmas problem dilemma is solved. I'd decided against an XBox because he said he wouldn't play it much. The keyboard I had in mind gets poor reviews and I can't see K programming all the macros anyway. So I'll hold off and find a backlit keyboard without gaming keys later.

So I went to Guitar Center and ordered a few pairs of Vic Firth nylon tip sticks and a Pearl kick pedal: http://tinyurl.com/6fjc9z .

Sweet.

I got into music by playing drums, when I was about 10. I had a great teacher called Bill. My dad lost his job shortly after I started playing but Bill gave me lessons for free but at 6:30 in the morning before the school had properly opened. He had some good tactics to get me to learn: I was terrified of Chucky from Child's Play (still am) and he used to lock me in this room with loads of cupboards that had the best kit in and with a poster on the wall he made that said CHUCKY SAYS something different each week. The one I remember best was CHUCKY SAYS KEEP THE BEAT! I was like a terrified little metronome

I'm just a wee bit annoyed that I placed the order on Thursday, with the expectation that it would ship out on Friday, and selected two-day shipping. Of course the order wasn't processed for shipping till yesterday, which means it will arrive tomorrow instead of today. K's picking me up tomorrow for an errand, so he'll see the carton it was shipped in.