i need to stop to eat & shower.

& i need to find some way to get a hold of the coordinator at the divisional court, in the morning.

inri029 updated and tested

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/warning

inri028 updated and tested

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/pop-music-a-tribute-to-carbon-dioxide

inri027 updated and tested

two more.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/gene-os-a-soundtrack-for-an-italian-breakfast-cereal

i'm sure that last comment pissed a few people off. meh.

i think it's a fairly unobjectionable statement, actually. you could make the argument that it's a concerto, and i guess i'd say "ok, but a piano concerto is not a piece for solo piano", and that is what the ravel piece often actually is, in actuality.

there are some points where it blows up, sure.

but, if you watch the video, even the conductor gets bored near the end, he's just kind of standing there, like he's in a shoegaze band, or something, waving his little baton around like he just watched the german hockey team get walloped by the canadian squad.

"15-0. great. give me another schnitzel."

self-indulgent is actually the right way to describe a piece like this, that allows the lead instrument to delve into these long passages that bore everybody to tears.

that said, the focus of the piece is the first part of it, and this is a compelling piece of music when it wants to be.

but, they could really chop a good section out of it. 

i've always found this piece to be a little bit self-indulgent, honestly, but it's not awful and i won't skip it.

inri016 updated and tested

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/eat-my-fuck

this is a particularly obtuse piece by stravinsky, who is known for his obtuse pieces.

inri003 is updated and tested

four more, and i'll be able to move on to inri015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrisampled

actually, i'd be more likely to argue that nothing changes on new year's day.

it's really a triviality. truly. it doesn't matter...

it's just an arbitrary way for us to measure time, and the universe doesn't care about our silly calendar; everything just keeps spinning, like nothing even happened at all.

we can't even agree when it even is.

nothing happens. nothing changes. nothing matters.

inri002 updated and tested

this one had some typos that i really needed soundcard access to in order to fix

the last five should all be quite quick.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled

ok, let's get to work on this for the night.

inri001 updated and tested

2 down, 6 to go.

i need to take a nap.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-2

inri000 updated and tested

that's step one.

there's only eight of them.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1

so, what have we got for the first half, at least?

1st - poppy + defiled. maybe. it's a good combo show, but we'll see how i feel on saturday.

3rd - shoegaze show @ ufo. probably not.

4th - prog show @ otus, ferndale or marching band show @ el club. maybe.

7th - django reinhardt tribute @cliff's bells. probably not.

14/15/16 - la mer @ dso. for sure.

this band has played in detroit frequently over the last few years, and i'm a little bit confused at the lack of a review. i'm sure i've listened to the record, and i'm sure i've written things about it.

i've wondered before if posts are disappearing, but why would somebody delete a review of a record? if some institution were to be removing posts, i would expect them to be political analyses, not artistic reviews.

i may have pulled back. i do that sometimes. i know i was strongly considering going back in september, but i think i decided it wouldn't really be any.....fun. i remember thinking the record was kind of haphazardly looped, although i'm not feeling that way right now.

and, i may have decided that i didn't have much to actually add to a review, or that posting about them wasn't worthwhile.

a show like this would be pretty brutal - cathartic and potentially sort of violent. it's curious to me that they keep coming back to hamtramck, as though they're looking to start a fight, and that's another angle to ponder about what they're doing. are they even aware that hamtramck is the only municipality in north america that is majority muslim? they're clearly standing for the rights of iranians, and the city is perhaps more full of porn shops and liquor stores and bars than anywhere else in metro detroit, but it's just as clear that there are people in that neighbourhood that would get very angry at them being there. it's a weird little place. do they know what they're doing, really, in repeatedly playing there?

i have a level of solidarity with what they're doing, though, even as i question if i'd enjoy it. i would definitely go see them play in the right circumstances, but it's a good distance to travel in february, and i know i wouldn't get as much out of it as i'd like, on it's own.

https://hide3.bandcamp.com/

this is the second half of that show, and manages to exist in a middle point between technical fusion and sci-fi style krautrock, a somewhat natural combination that should probably be more common, but actually isn't; nowadays, you tend to either get the towering synth throwbacks or the guitar hero workouts, you don't get the synthesis that was actually pretty normal back in the 70s.

https://tauk.bandcamp.com/album/

ok.

so, that minor change appears to have done exactly what i wanted it to do - it now loads flawlessly in both browsers.

now i have to fix it... 

to be clear, what i have to do is remove the codecs=CODEC section everywhere it exists.

i guess it was 2016 or 2017 that i noticed a spate of jam bands start playing around town, but it kind of dried up as soon as it started, and otherwise morphed into something a little less interesting - funk, country rock and other styles that appeal very specifically to a specific type of dude that i tend to avoid like the plague.

there's a bunch of this stuff happening here this weekend, all at once, meaning that a fan of the genre is likely to be both overwhelmed and perhaps somewhat disappointed by the scheduling conflicts. personally, i can't claim to be particularly interested in much of it, as most of it falls too far into that bro-rock category for me.

i mean, it's a fine line, i acknowledge that, and one that a lot of people might have a hard time discerning around. but, a general rule is that i'm going to want to avoid anything with vocals. even if the musicians in these bands all have similar viewpoints, it's actually only the ones that feel the need to share their opinions that are going to end up rubbing me the wrong way. if you don't tell me your outlook on life, i'm not going to get revolted by it.

i'm also going to want to lean more towards the psychedelic and try to distance myself from anything that's rootsy or folksy or country, as even the aesthetic can be grating. but, you have to remember: i'm fundamentally a composer. so, i'm going to find interest in a large variety of styles that are more abstract, and instrumental guitar rock can certainly be abstract and written enough to be interesting, but i kind of also demand that it actually is - i don't want to listen to repetitive or boring riffs, either..

there is one show happening on tuesday that has a couple of acts that strike me as more interesting.

this act here is very guitar-centric, and you could criticize them for really being little more than a vehicle for the guitar player. but, to me, that's the point of interest - and it's a feature, because it means i'm not forced to deal with pompous singers or other musicians competing for space in the track. it's one dimensional, but it avoids the pitfalls i mentioned, and i could very well find myself at the show.

https://consciouspilotofficial.bandcamp.com/album/autopilot

there are flac codecs in the system, but the version of the chrome browser that is installed on the 90s laptop is too old to be able to launch flac over html5, and it's picked for a reason - if i start using newer versions of the browser, the system won't run.

i'm a little concerned about that machine, though. i've been noticing for a while that every time i take it out of hibernation, it shuts off. this is actually primarily frustrating because it means i lose my place in the youtube video i'm watching and have to start over again. i don't have any interest in what's happening on that machine in general, but it was really overheating, and i'm concerned about the electrical, and it kind of defeats the point if i have to start the video over again every time i turn it on. so, it's now going to sit unplugged from the internet. there's no wireless in the device. and, let me check my electrical...

yeah, this is weird.

this is an example of my control:

<audio autoplay controls style="width:500px;height:50px" id="Player">
<source id=flac src="../inri - inrisampled - 02 war.flac" type='audio/flac; codecs="flac"'>
<source id=mp3 src="../inri - inrisampled - 02 war.mp3" type='audio/mpeg; codecs="mp3"'>
<source id=aac src="../inri - inrisampled - 02 war.m4a" type='audio/mp4'>
<source id=wav src="../inri - inrisampled - 02 war.wav" type='audio/wav'>
<source id=ogg src="../inri - inrisampled - 02 war.ogg" type='audio/ogg; codecs="vorbis"'>
</audio>

the controls work for all five types on firefox in windows, and for the last four types on chrome in the chrome os. i don't see any logical reason why flac breaks when mp3 doesn't, other than that chrome doesn't like being told to use that codec. so, i think that's more of a chrome-specific thing.

i want it to work, though....

i'm not even going to test on...they call ie "edge" now, right? whatever.

the fourth major browser is safari, and i don't have an apple device, so i don't do any testing with anything to do with apple - no apple lossless, no safari, none of it, because i just don't have access to it. sorry...

so, i can test with firefox and with chrome, on windows and on the chrome os, giving me four possible testing scenarios.

i'm going to then argue it's irrational to run firefox on the chrome os and rule out that possibility. so, the last thing i can try is the chrome browser in windows, and i do use chrome on the 90s laptop, because it's too old to launch a version of firefox that is new enough to run html5, which you now need for youtube. they forced me into it, basically. 

i just did a search to make sure i'm not missing anything, and firefox' share has sure declined recently, although it's actually safari's share that seems to have gone strangely up. chrome has been at 65% for a while, now - i'm not surprised by that. but, how did safari get to 25%? i thought iphones were losing badly to android? double-checked - yup. are apple pcs up, then? no, they're down. ??. so, how can safari have a 25% market share if the iphone is at 15% and apple pcs are at 10%?

the last version of safari for windows was in 2013, and you would bizarrely need to run it via wine to use it on linux, according to a cursory google search.

but, you can install safari on android devices. so, i guess that a lot of people have switched from iphone to android, but don't want to let go of safari just yet? even so, the numbers are still weird.

it may be closer to the truth that firefox' decline is tied more to the general decline of the desktop/laptop and it's increasing replacement with phones. it may be less that people are moving away from firefox, and more that people are moving away from computers altogether.

i'm going to continue to resist this, and when i do finally move past firefox, it's going to be to some kind of fork. i could end up migrating to linux, and using a linux fork of firefox. i don't know what's still kicking, it's been a long time.

i've just had issues with chrome being particularly invasive, in terms of spyware. i had it installed for a while, years ago, but i kept finding it dialing home, and every time i turned it off, it would install itself back into the startup menu. it was acting like a virus, basically, and i don't have a lot of patience for aggressive corporate spyware like that. so, i ripped it right out of my machine, and i've avoided it ever since. i don't intend to go back to it....

but, i should check to see how this thing behaves on the 90s laptop, first. if...does it even have flac codecs at all?

if it was funny over aac or ogg, i wouldn't mind so much, but i expect people to download in flac, so i want this to work on the chromebook. in the world of windows and linux, flac is the default lossless audio codec.

we're reimaging. that's fine. it will be quick, there's nothing to play with this time, i didn't really alter anything.

i remember when i skipped grimes at the babylon in ottawa, although i almost went to see the opening act (born gold), and would have if i wasn't broke, although i was considering leaving early...

"it just sounds like madonna. this isn't going anywhere. it's just all hype."

and, i don't step away from that analysis. grimes is overrated.

but, it is a show i regret missing,

on second thought....no. 

this is what i had:

type='audio/flac; codec="flac"'

i thought i had dropped the ' after the flac, and changing it to:

type='audio/flac'; codec="flac"'

did actually get it to work in the chrome browser, but now i'm concerned that it's going to be broken in firefox, because it should actually be wrong, and i don't have a soundcard...

these finicky browsers, huh? fuck...

i'm convinced that my hard drive is fine, so i'm going to turn the hd audio chip on in the bios and take my chances. i may have to reimage. whatever. i need sound. when i come up in the laptop next week, i'll need to add hardware components back in one at a time - including my new wired usb keyboard.

but, it's hard to understand how it could be a driver issue if it boots fine and is fine for a day or two. that doesn't add up.

i'm also going to copy over all five options for inri003 and test them thoroughly in the chrome os to see if i can figure out a pattern.

i think i want:

type="audio/flac"

...i.e. i should drop the codec specification. that seems to be what's confusing things. but i need to make sure it actually works.

so, let's try to get the audio up on the desktop, here we go....

to be clear, it's just the html5 frontends that need the update. the pdfs & docs are fine, so the stuff at noise trade can stay, and the music journals are ok, too.

it's just the zip files in each of the liner note packages...

and, then i'll have to redownload everything again and replace it on the external.

this is a pain in the ass. absolutely. but, it's just time consuming, it's not hard.

*sigh*.

i had only previously tested in firefox, and everything worked perfectly. so, i was a little surprised to realize that flac wasn't playing back on the chromebook.

it turns out i dropped a ' in the controls, and i did it consistently - hundreds of times.

so, i have to go back and fix everything. 

that should take the rest of the night.

to be clear: it's very minor. but i have to do it.

it will give me some time to listen, and there's maybe more going on this month than i thought, after all.

i can tell you that i can relate to the feeling of being surrounded by zombies, alright. this would appear to be a bit of a tongue-in-cheek-commentary, and so maybe they had no choice but to tone it down a little, but it sort of defeats the point.

so, i wish this was a bit more complicated....but, then, all of the zombies would probably get confused, right?

https://toomanyzooz.bandcamp.com/

this is a little more lively, and a little more up my alley, but it's still only leaning towards something more exciting, and has a lot of slow moving sections. 

i wish there was something else happening this night, and i could drop in.

https://peeldreammagazine.bandcamp.com/

i've bumped into him before, and i do find the record pleasant in a kind of belle & sebastien meets the sea and cake sort of way, but i wish it was just a bit less "chill" and a bit more engaging, for the purposes of enjoying it in a live setting.

https://jfernandez.bandcamp.com/

i mean, my rejection of sanders is not about some broad moral principle. it's neither deontological, nor is it consequentialist, although i would usually lean more towards consequentialism, and i agree that colin powell is infinitely worse than joe rogan.

rather, he's made it clear to me that it would not be in my self-interest, as a trans person, to support him - because he'd throw me under the bus as soon as it's expedient to do so.

and, yes - this is frustrating, because he's the only mainstream candidate with anything approaching a political program that i'd even consider supporting. warren has made attempts to court voters like me, but i don't support her politics, and i'm not going to pick appeals to identity over economic self-interest.

i need to retreat back to the far left, which is where i came from.

joe rogan is not on the ballot.

but, he does have the inalienable right to cast one, and what the rest of the world thinks about that doesn't actually matter.

i think there's a difference between talking to joe rogan - which didn't bother me much - and accepting his endorsement, which leans more towards shrugging off his politics. but, bernie sanders has already established a pattern with this, and this doesn't surprise me.

however.

i sometimes feel like we get this backwards.

i reject claims that being critical of islam is "bigoted" or "racist", especially due to the fact that so much of the criticism is due to islam's own inherent racism and bigotry - and homophobia and misogyny. it's a false equivalency. while it's important to recognize that humans are individuals, and wrong to prejudge them based on their background, it nonetheless remains the case that standing up against prejudice means standing against islam, rather than with it. you can't pretend to stand for equality if you're standing there endorsing islam - it's preposterous, and that kind of hypocrisy needs to be called out loudly. i'm wiling to do that openly, and i'm willing to take flack for it.

so, i reject the idea that i'm in any way promoting oppression - i insist that i'm consistently fighting against it, and my critics are deeply confused as to what the right side of this debate is, or actively supporting oppression, themselves.

but, i recognize that a lot of people might not want my endorsement, either because they legitimately disagree with me (in which case they're wrong, and need to be convinced of it) or because they just don't want to engage in as subtle a debate as this is. they don't want the controversy...

but, i'd basically tell them to fuck off if they told me that, because politicians don't pick voters, voters pick politicians.

i've decided i'm not endorsing sanders, i'm going to support the greens. the greens might not exactly like my endorsement - i would hope they'd see where i'm coming from, and there are issues that for me are not ballot issues where we'd disagree (such as iran. i'm not voting on iran.), but they might make the choice to say "we don't want this", and that's fine. but, that doesn't change where my self-interest is...

if my ballot issue is about health care, and the party that best represents my interests in health care (speciously) thinks i'm a racist, that doesn't change where my interests on health care are. i'm still going to vote and support the group that is best for me, whether they like it or not.

i think a lot of the disconnect with this comes up with the concept of identity voting. if voting is about joining a club, i'm willing to acknowledge that i'm certainly not in the democratic club, and that i'd no doubt have a lot of disagreements with anybody in the green socialist club. i'd want to join the insurrectionary anarchist club, but that would be a very small club. i completely reject this, though. voting is not about joining a club, it's about advancing one's self interests. i consequently don't really care about these identity issues. but, i abstractly grasp where people are coming from with this, too.

so, should sanders reject rogan's endorsement? i think that if you were expecting him to, you haven't really been paying attention - that wasn't an expectation that is supported by the evidence built up over the last few years. i think he might not realize that it's in his self-interest to say something about it, and that, if he doesn't, it might hurt him with key demographics that he's likely to do poorly with, anyways. he seems to have a flawed concept of the demographics that he needs to win; this is a broad strategic problem, and we'll see how it plays out over the next few weeks. i think he's going to regret the decisions he's made, and his uncritical acceptance of rogan's endorsement is just one example of this.

but, it's ultimately not his place to pick his voters, it's ultimately the place of voters to pick the candidates that best represent their interests.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/1/27/21081876/joe-rogan-bernie-sanders-henry-kissinger

ok.

so, i think my initial perception that this is just shallow capitalism was actually spot on. you can say i didn't get the joke, i guess, but it's less that i didn't get it and more that i just saw right through it - it's more like when a comedian walks into a club and says something she thinks is absolutely hilarious, and then just gets dead air instead. it's more stupid than it is funny, really.

so, if i thought there was nothing to this besides an attempt to maximize profit, i guess i was right. and, this video here would appear to be the decryption matrix.

i dunno. i still might want to get out of the house. put some makeup on. have a few beers. let's see what else i can line up for the month....

chic chick is kind of nicely cheeky, but there's not really anything worth taking note of here, either. it's just generic, period pop.

so, this new record is really out of nowhere.

hrmmn.

yeah, it's not hard to understand why this didn't blip across my radar, at all. it's just regurgitated madonna. again.

i hadn't seen the name "poppy" in years.

it looks like a slow month, though.

and, if i scratch out most of the rest of the month off early, i may find myself wanting to get out of the house on saturday night.

i think i have grounds to expect a show at least.

i might give it a chance to redeem itself as performance art. maybe....

like i say: i want to pull something out of this, i just really don't like the metallic imagery. i wish it was less system of a down and more bjork...

i had to sleep.

those thoughts were rambly and unorganized. so, let me summarize.

poppy is not a metal singer, but she has appropriated the aesthetic of metal in a very shallow and surface manner. i initially reacted by comparing her to marilyn manson, but manson himself was essentially just 80s hair metal, and this is an idea that is maybe better rooted in something like van halen. her music is essentially a series of strung together cliches, which the kids today call "memes", but which music critics still can't like, even if it's currently hip and trendy to be unoriginal.

i have a longstanding aversion to the aesthetic she is shallowly appropriating, stemming from my upbringing in 90s anti-rock iconoclasm. my initial reaction was exceedingly negative, as would be expected from anybody coming from that background.

her music has a certain level of elaborateness to it, though, and i can't help but be drawn to the complexity underlying it, and sort of want to find some underlying value to it. i can often sort through a bad surface image to try to get through to something more worthwhile underneath. however, i find the surface heavy metal aesthetic to be singularly too unappealing to be able to do this in any substantive way, and i'm not convinced that there's actually much there, anyways.

i've mentioned that i'm at least pleasantly surprised by the more serious nature of the younger generation of pop musicians, and this might fall into that category, eventually.

but, my opinion is that this walk down the road of heavy metal imagery is a decidedly wrong turn, and if that poppy is going to write substantive pop music in the future then she'll have to drop the 80s metal cliches, which are just simply artistically irredeemable.

so, it might seem like i should know all about this. i might have commented on her videos when she was just getting started, even. but, that wasn't reflective of genuine interest - i was just trying to game the commenting system for personal benefit, to draw attention to my own music.

stated tersely, i'm actually too old to even be commenting on this.

it makes me wonder, though. that's the last slant on this, before i move on. i was at one time a weird internet personality trying to get somewhere over youtube (before they shut me down). i write guitar-focused electronic music. my music is not as pop-oriented, and i don't want it to be; i would rather prevent myself from being the centre of attention, etc. i'm not a natural pop star like this girl obviously is. and, my guitar style is psychedelic, experimental, blues, punk - but never metal, ever. that said, i also mentioned in the 1000 gecs video that what i do is not that far from it. and, it's not outside of the realm of possibility that i could have been producing music quite similar to poppy's, if i was a completely different person. i know that that's a weird statement - i would never write music like this. but, i could have, potentially. or, somebody could have potentially remixed some of my tracks this way....

i doubt this is the last i'll hear from her. i do hope that she shifts her aesthetic a little to something i can engage with a little better.

just to finish up on the poppy.

iirc, she dated pewdiepie for a while in like 2016, right? i guess i cared a little bit about what was trending in the youtube community back when i thought i could use the commenting system as a means of marketing my own music. so, i would go on to these popular videos and make dozens of comments for the purposes of trying to drop links back to my own music. and, yes, i was trolling, but i was trolling in a way that was very consciously designed to maximize reactions. 

i would literally go to the youtube trending site and just click the top link and go to town.

i didn't otherwise care remotely about pewdiepie or taylor swift or whatever else i was commenting on. and, i probably wouldn't know who she is at all if it hadn't been for that tactic i was using...

they shut me down in a dozen different ways. i got shadow banned. they ruined the trending page. they changed the status updates. they broke the commenting system. i just got completely shut down.

how much does she owe to pewdiepie? that's a question, i don't know. i know i tried to figure out what she was, but i'm not sure i remember it clicking that she was a musician. i think i might have thought she was a blogger.

there are components in her music that, if taken in a different direction, might be more interesting. i think my reaction is mostly a function of my broad aversion to the culture of heavy metal, and the extent that she's dabbling in it is maybe too shallow to justify it - she might be co-opting the imagery of it more than anything else, but even that is enough to make me cringe. it's partly a function of my own gender identity crisis. i legitimately don't like anything about metalheads, but what i dislike more than i dislike metalheads is being mistaken for one. i've had long hair and an effeminate outward appearance since i was about 12 or 13, but i've often been mistaken for a metalhead rather than a transwoman, and i really don't get it. so, i've developed this kneejerk hate-on for anything that remotely reflects heavy metal imagery, even if it's doing so in the most shallow and transparent way possible.

there are some tracks that remind me a little bit of a really watered down take on early queen, but early queen never fell into cliches like this. i just can't connect to the guitar style. in fact, it makes me irrationally angry to hear it. 

you could compare this to the 1000 gecs record, which i gave moral support to, despite writing off as stupid. this isn't really that different - it's a little more metal, a little less experimental, but broadly in the same genre. why did i react better to that than this? the answer is that i didn't get that angry kneejerk to the metallic imagery produced by the guitar work, however shallow it really is.

sometimes, a specific concept will set me off like that....

but, i'm never going to react well to music with this kind of aesthetic, and i hope i've done a little to explain why.

if i were to provide a little bit of critical advice to poppy, it's that she should drop the stupid rebellious metalhead slant and focus more on being a pop star. all of that pointlessly abrasive guitar work is just ruining what might otherwise be moderately interesting pop songs.

you might imagine i'd like this, but i was actually always the kid that thought marilyn manson was stupid and his fans were retards. they weren't misunderstood. they weren't deep in a strange or subtle way. they were just actually the dumbest kids at school, straight up. i was 15 in 1996, and i never bought a single manson record.

i'm basically having the same reaction to this - this is stupid. it's not even pretentious. it's just dumb. and, you're dumb if you're falling for it.

now, that said, i did try to suspend a critical analysis for long enough to see if the music stands up if you strip it from the underlying idiocy, and it really doesn't. it's interesting for a few seconds, until you realize it's just a series of overdone cliches...

somebody's making a lot of money, here. there's nothing else to it than that.

there is a show listed at the leland club from 10:00-4:30 with this band playing, and they insist there will be music until 4:30.

i've been, err, phished a few times by that club. and, i wish this was a little bit more abstract than it is. 

that said, i'm sure they'll go until at least 2:30, so if you're a little less hardcore than i am, it's no doubt long enough. and, if it was just a bit more abstract...

that said, i haven't completely ruled it out yet, either. 

https://stormychromer.bandcamp.com/album/12-31-2019-nye-jam-ann-arbor-mi

so, i've got the list built up, but i'm actually mostly going to be listening to classical music for the next however long.

i told you this was coming.

i like ravel, but i couldn't imagine going to one of his operas. the "debussy and ravel" night the week after is more likely. and, then they're doing beethoven's sixth the week after that.

as for rock shows, it is very likely that i'll hit man or astroman at the end of the month - that's actually a kind of a bucket list show, for me. that's the only thing i'm taking seriously, right now.

there are a few shows in march, but it looks like april is particularly stacked. i may find myself wanting to save up, instead.

so, i'll be spending the day listening and testing.

and, is vivaldi "classical", strictly?

well, that particular piece sure is.

as mentioned, it almost sounds like beethoven....

vivaldi is in the pile of stuff that i generally write off as robotic and trite, but this is a surprisingly dynamic, if somewhat fruity and bourgeois, little piece that i probably would have enjoyed, in the right context.

i don't want to let him off the hook entirely. it toys with you - being that it was written when it was, it's neither the gutwrenching renaissance piece that it hints at, nor is it the proto-romantic romp that it perhaps should be. it is, in a real sense, exactly what's wrong with the "classical" period, which i use here in the strict technical sense.

but, it's also particularly good, for what it is; i don't expect to hear pieces this interesting from this period, and would be curious about exploring pieces similar to this one. maybe there's some music from the classical era (strictly speaking) that's worth holding on to, after all...

on second thought, i found a few things near the end of the month that are pretty high probability.....

i'll get a list up in a bit.

i'm going to be analyzing shows in detroit for the next month, but i don't expect to attend many, if any at all.

i would go after adam schiff on his finances.

he comes off as some kind of jerry falwell type figure, where he's preaching the gospel during the day, and taking it in the ass every night.

when somebody files their contributions with $720,000 from "retired  people", the third most in congress, that should probably raise some red flags about him hiding the identity of his backers.

i mean, he can't be that popular with the old folks.

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=W06%20%20&cycle=2020&recipdetail=H&Mem=Y&sortorder=U

$40,000 from the defense industry, huh.

https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/pacs?cid=N00009585&cycle=2020

i really haven't been paying attention to this stuff recently, i've been immersed in my art, i just happened to tune in here recently because i was wondering where i'd go to keep loosely informed now that the real news has imploded (it seems like everybody's moved over to here), and, crikey, schiff has gone and brought back the john birch society...

i think any sane person would recognize the absolute absurdity of this rant. but, i've tuned out of this for a reason - this is the reason - so it's particularly surreal to get a mouthful of it out of the blue, like somebody left some rat droppings in your bag of skittles. yikes. 

and, maybe the fact that i've been so completely disinterested in this for so long gives me some clarity in reaction, as well, in the face of pretty much everybody's neuroticism, one way or the other. like, i've been under a self-imposed blackout on this. this is completely fresh to me. 

my immediate thoughts are that i'm walking into a debate, one that may be closing, on what america's make believe enemy ought to be. what schiff seems to be doing is appropriating a lot of the arguments that you heard during the war on terrorism and reapplying them towards russia. these weren't really cold war arguments, either, they were specific to islamic extremism. so, for example, you never heard anyone argue that you had to fight the soviets in vietnam so you didn't have to fight them at berkeley - that's an argument that you heard from the likes of ann coulter, as applied to iraq. i'm sure - certain - that there are direct quotes from ann coulter, where she argued in favour of the iraq war by suggesting that if you don't fight them in the middle east, they'll come to america, and she was really just channeling byzantine military strategy in the region when she was saying that - it's a barbarian management strategy. likewise, the wounded animal analogy is something that i've actually applied myself, i think far more accurately, to isis. 

why is schiff speaking in these precise terms? well, it seems scripted - these are talking points. there seems to be a conscious intent, here, to shift the focus of american military aggression out of the middle east and back towards russia, and that's just the tip of this long standing debate around who it is that america should be flailing against - the russians or the muslims. to an extent, it's a question of if we're at war with eurasia or eastasia, right. it's perhaps naive to expect this to resolve itself, but it's a definite faultline that exists in the power elite. 

i'm actually wondering if schiff is basically being lobbied by the saudis, though.

i mean, there's two layers to this. there's a legitimate strategic dialogue, and honest questions around how america should be directing it's military resources, and this is healthy. but, if this is essentially a struggle between the russians and the saudis for influence in washington, the reality is that the russians just don't lobby the way the saudis do. a lot of these people are essentially just being bought off with arab blood money, and paid to recite what are ridiculous lines, with the intent to shift the dialogue. this might be the reason he's using the precise language he's using. this is speculation...

what i think is more than speculation is that he is very consciously attempting to appropriate the language from the war on terrorism and reutilize it against the russians, and that this is happening in the context of this broader strategic debate. and, that should make everybody think carefully about the path they're being led down....

again: i don't think there's any evidence that iran is building a bomb, and i don't think that's a left/right issue. it's an empirical question. you don't figure this out by citing bakunin (or adam smith), you figure it out by consulting the people doing the work on the ground, and they're all absolutely adamant: there's no evidence of any weapons program.

i'm not interested in conspiracy theories that rely on covert israeli intelligence, either. the motives behind these conspiracy theories are crystal clear.

so, no - iran does not appear to be building a bomb.

but, i don't actually think this is a choice, like it is here in canada. up in canada, we have reactors online. we sold the technology to india, actually. we really could build them if we wanted to, and really don't want to.

i think the actual reason that iran isn't enriching is that they wouldn't have a fucking clue what to do with the enriched product - it's reflective of how primitive their technological capacity actually is. they might not even be able to store it. their "nuclear program" is really more of a propaganda ploy to stick it to the empire, and try and demonstrate that the revolution has made them powerful. with allah's help, they will control the atom! but, it's just a line of complete bullshit. the west buys into it because it props up the military-industrial complex and keeps an enemy lined up, but iran would be lucky to get a bomb built before 2200. science doesn't tend to do well under totalitarian theocratic rule; that's a general pattern in history. iran doesn't have an actual fucking clue - it's a backwards society, with retarded levels of innovation due to the theocracy snubbing everything out. they kill or imprison all of the smart people.

the saudis are in a similar scenario. they keep buying these advanced weapons systems, and it looks really scary, but the fact is that they need to hire an american military planner to turn any of it on. yes, it's irresponsible to sell this shit to these crazy religious nutcases. but, the sobering reality is that they don't have a fucking clue how to use any of it.

so, i don't want to even have this debate.

but, i wouldn't want to have it, anyways. if iran was enriching, i would actually support their right to do that, in principle. i don't think the empire has any particular authority to come in and say "stop doing this". and, they clearly have some reason to need to defend themselves.

so, they aren't doing it, and i would support their right to do it if they were.

but, i'd still like to overthrow the government there, because it's still particularly brutal, wmds or not, and i'm willing to be pragmatic about finding creative ways to take the mullahs out. if this is how you do it....

this is what happens when you wake up and realize the left has been co-opted by the traditionalist right. so-called left-wing voices are all of a sudden pushing some kind of religiously motivated opposition to war on moral principles, rather than agitating for revolutionary overthrow of capitalist states. it's exactly what the bourgeoisie always dreamed of. and, they're willing to stand with the worst abusers of human rights on the planet. it's positively orwellian. truly.

i don't like aligning with the right, and need to be clear what my differences in operating philosophy are with them. i'm not particularly concerned about wmds in iran at all, actually. but, i have no patience with these groups that stand with the mullahs and the sheikhs by hiding behind these flimsy anti-colonial theories, that are really just rebranded, if somewhat inverted, orientalism.

i'm disenfranchised; the left, overall, is. i know it....

the liner notes for inri029 have been augmented by 4 pages, and the video for inertia has been added.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/warning

the liner notes for inri028 have been augmented by 2 pages, as well.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/pop-music-a-tribute-to-carbon-dioxide

the liner notes for inri027 have been augmented by two pages.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/gene-os-a-soundtrack-for-an-italian-breakfast-cereal

the liner notes for inri016 have been increased by one post from dec, 2013.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/eat-my-fuck

this has now been updated as well, but the update is a single line in each of the documents, to stamp the release as 'jam001', and will not be noted further.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrisampled

first liner note release for inri002

i've released a dozen different things with the title "inricycled", making it more of a concept than a release. it's not just the material i'm recycling, now, it's the idea of recycling material.

i hope this is the final iteration. the difference, here, is that i'm trying to isolate segments of songs that people interested in my more recent compositions would find interesting. these fragments aren't entirely void of lyrics, but they're very minimal. they're also quite short.

i've retitled most of the tracks to get a feel of what the music sounds like and/or what i was thinking as i was writing it.

the material in this volume is taken from the following cassette demos, , inri000 and inri001:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1 (1996)
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-2 (1997)

this is the best possible absolute starting point for my musical material.

written and recorded over 1996 and 1997. digitally remastered, sequenced and mildly modified in the fall of 2013. released dec 11, 2013. finalized as lp000 on july 3, 2016. first liner note release added on jan 26, 2020. i consider this my unofficial zeroth record. as always, please use headphones.

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 2013-2020). as of jan 26, 2020, the release includes a 106 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio & video frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over sept-dec, 2013, as well as the video for inertia, from dec, 2013 .

credits

released July 1, 1997

j - guitars, effects, bass, drums, vocals, keyboards, tapes, found sounds, metronomes, digital wave editing, production.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled

so, we're doing this one at a time, which means the posts will be stretched out a little. it seems like it's the long way if it's you, but it's really not if it's me.

inri001 has been updated to include the video for inertia, which also added a half a page to the liner notes at the very end. the doc & pdf files just had hyperlinks added, but the html file embedded it. this is consistent with the other media files.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-2

i'm having difficulty focusing, again.

i've got the typos corrected for inri000. this is not a re-release, and barely justifies mentioning it.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1

no, i'm a left-anarchist in the tradition of bakunin or kropotkin. it's mostly about the question of property - if you reject property, you align on the left.

it's just that in america, words don't mean what they mean everywhere else. barack obama and bernie sanders would be considered conservatives in most places, while donald trump would be considered to be decidedly liberal. the meaning of things get confused.

it's been a while since i called the lot of you conservatives, but it's still true.

pacifism, for example, is a conservative ideology. leftists believe in armed revolution, and a diversity of tactics around how to get there. i know this is confusing if you went to school here, but it's true - pacifism aligns with the religious and traditionalist types, like the quakers and orthodox jews, whereas the left is all hankering to burn the place down. now, i'll admit that bombing iraq is not the same thing as executing the pope, but there's still a fundamental point of confusion here between who is a radical pushing for change and who is a conservative trying to stop it. if you associate anti-war movements with the left, you're deeply confused. 

there's other examples; not right now. i've done it before, and i'll do it again.

to the extent that it's the really existing movements on the ground that are important rather than the abstract labels, what that means is that a person like me that tries to react to the actual meaning of words needs to be empirical - and it took me a few tries, but i've figured that out, now. chances are actually pretty good that your local socialist 101 is actually full of religious conservatives, rather than marxist or anarchist radicals. if you're looking for radicals, you're better of trying the religious groups. & etc. you've just gotta do the research, find the mapping, figure out how things actually are...

i'm done my fruit, so i'm shutting down.

but, it smells like a fucking dumpster fire in here.

and, i'll say it again.

you might think that you'd be free to smoke all day every day in a stateless society. who would stop you, right? but, i'll tell you - it's the cops that are protecting you from people that want to bang your door down and yell your face off, and drive you out of fucking town. you get rid of the state to protect you, and you won't like what happens next....

if you believed in liberty, you would respect the rights of your neighbours to sobriety, and to clean air.

you don't believe in liberty in any rational way.

you just believe in selfishness.

if you want to throw around libertarian arguments, be rigorous about it.

otherwise, what you are is a fucking nihilist - a randian objectivist, a utility monster and a piece of shit

but, listen.

that's not the point.

smoke yourself retarded. i don't give a fuck. just respect the fact that i don't want in on this and make sure your habits aren't bothering me.

it's a basic non-aggression principle - if your rights end where mine begin, that means you keep your smoke to yourself, and you take responsibility for it when people bitch about it.

this idea that you have some right to smoke wherever you want and fuck everybody else is fucking asinine.

and, every court system on the planet will uphold that it is, even if the cops in this city are fucking morons.

the un convention on the rights to smoke yourself retarded.

it's a fucking joke.

how many conventions and documents talk about the right to fresh air?

now, how many talk about the right to get stoned?

it's not a serious debate. one is a fundamental right and freedom, and the other is a lot of baloney.

and, would that piece of shit go smoke somewhere else?

i should have the right to fresh air, along with my right to hot air. the right to clear thinking is just as fundamental as the right to free speech....

1) this is the noise trade link for the readable version of the third semester, 2013 archive for this blog:
http://books.noisetrade.com/j/092013-122013-deathtokoalas

2) this is the noise trade link for the readable version of the full 2013 archive of this blog (current reality abridgement, so from july 16th-dec 31st):
http://books.noisetrade.com/j/072013-122013-deathtokoalas-22

unfortunately, noise trade did not work out as a hosting solution, and i never got a clear answer as to why. but, i decided in the end that the site was full of ads and unworkable, anyways.

these archives are no longer available as standalones, but only as components of the following archives:

1) as a component in the half year archive at smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026620

2) ...or as a component in the first reconstruction phase archive, available in the following places:
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-deathtokoalas-blog/ebook/product-zrgr94.html
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10DbwOVdqWt73rHNzWJWgEfduzREogExX/view

the bandcamp archives for july through to december are here:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/07-2013-music-journal-2-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/08-2013-music-journal
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/09-2013-music-journal
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/10-2013-music-journal
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/11-2013-music-journal
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/12-2013-music-journal

the sixth entry in the music journal series, which is the month of december, 2013 and is 113 pages long. i am not going to summarize the story, but it is available on the web over here:musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2013/12/.

this is a compilation of written correspondences that occurred around me over december, 2013. it includes facebook posts, google+ posts, youtube comments discussions and emails with acquaintances and family members, in an attempt to document the first reconstruction phase of rebuilding my discography, including remastering and (re)publishing inri002, inri015, inri021, inri022 and inri023. the contents of this download are the dummy track, a word doc file and a pdf file, both written in a more readable, chronological ordering. i've also added the respective files for my other three blogs, for general interest, as well as 18 separate txt documents (17 html files + 1 further pdf document) that are referenced in the journal.

the events documented in this journal occurred in december, 2013 and were compiled into a narrative in several stages over the years 2014-2020. journal completed, released and finalized in doc and pdf format on jan 22, 2020. doc201312.

credits

released January 1, 2014

j - editing, participant

panglos - participant
joris van dijk - participant
nor easter - participant
futur incertain uncertainfutur (aka parhasard57) - participant
robert decreon - participant
trevor johnston - participant
tomhulcelover - participant
tom alma - participant
babalooey100 - participant
aussie dave - participant
matthew joseph harrington - participant
bryan piekarski - participant
happyhooliedaze - partcipiant
paul boisvert - participant
marios laskaris - partcipiant
lukmruk - participant
miaumiaucatmagician - participant
mattlaureys - participant
alfredo rodriguez - participant
randomusername987 - participant
sam steinhauer - participant
gonzocurt - participant
michael hamilton berry - participant

mom - participant
the initial landlord - participant
public works, city of windsor - participant
ollie - participant

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/12-2013-music-journal

here, finally, is the readable version of the december, 2013 archive of this blog.

http://books.noisetrade.com/j/122013-deathtokoalas

unfortunately, noise trade did not work out as a hosting solution, and i never got a clear answer as to why. but, i decided in the end that the site was full of ads and unworkable, anyways.

the readable version of the december, 2013 archive for this blog is now available as a standalone in the music journal package at bandcamp:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/12-2013-music-journal

...or as a component in the half year archive at smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026620

...or as a component in the first reconstruction phase archive, available in the following places:
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-deathtokoalas-blog/ebook/product-zrgr94.html
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10DbwOVdqWt73rHNzWJWgEfduzREogExX/view

what serious means to a person like justin trudeau is that you look and act and talk in a specific way. it's an image, a perception, a projection - but nothing of any actual substance.

i only mentioned krugman in passing, but there's something perceptive in doing so, for if justin trudeau was not a very serious person before, his new and improved and more serious persona is more very serious than ever before - and not even a pithy krugman reference will get a capitalization out of me, not even that's the right ploy.

so, when the government approaches the question of being serious as a wardrobe decision, what's the point of even bothering anymore? when they're that fundamentally unserious, is it time for them to just give up?

there doesn't seem to be a purpose in western bourgeois politics at this point behind playing the game to win it. people play because they want to play. that's it. there's no longer any plot. 

and, it's a level of decadence whose days are numbered.

you can't fix stupid. k?

it's just...

rather than pretend that he's really serious now, that he's put his stupid socks away and grown up, i think it would be better for everybody if he just acknowledged what he is and what he isn't.

he's an actor. he likes playing dress up, and doing skits, and putting on a show, and playing a part. that's what he does. and, that is fundamentally unserious, in fact even more so when he's trying to be serious. when the sad clown does his crying skit, he's still a clown, right?

so, i've been nailing the government as unserious for months, and if he thinks this is going to help it isn't, it just cements the point. and, the fact is that you don't get from an unserious government to a serious government with a change of wardrobe, or a change of location on the set - you have to actually do actual serious things, for that to happen.

there will always be a place for a prime minister with a flair for drama. that's always been something a good politician can pull out of their rabbit hat - that's not an unuseful skillset. at all....

...but the thing about serious people, and i'm not sure i'm actually one myself, but the thing about serious people is that they take being serious seriously, and they're hard to trick with stunts and props. 

he should probably delegate this serious business to some serious people, and get on with it.

apologies to paul krugman.

so, they're trotting trudeau out there in a homeless guy plaid jacket to go along with his hobo beard, now, too.

it's just another costume....

the guy's a goof. even when he's pretending he's serious, he's still a goof.

it's like when homer puts on those glasses to look more intelligent. remember that? i'll find it.

this is not intended to be a new site, it's just intended to be a placeholder to ensure that people searching for me can actually find me.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHuac0RATJVAIQyXz0rxG6Q

fwiw, if you search on youtube, my site comes up first, and there's some various videos at my blog site explaining the process i went through to dismantle the site:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=deathtokoalas

that said, i'm going to set up a placeholder just so people aren't confused and don't think the other site is me. i mean, it should be obvious that it isn't me. those are things i wouldn't like. that's not a picture of me. i don't kiss people, gross. etc. but not everybody that is looking for me is going to have read everything i've written...

again: i don't know what the purpose of this is.

but, i feel i have little choice.

wait. if trotsky had invaded germany some time in the 20s, is that an increase or a decrease in bloodshed that results from it?

how would the cartels have reacted to a communist germany? might they have tried to taker over spain, instead?

it's rare that you can articulate something better than hitchens could.

he's basically right. i would take a more fundamental position of restricting statist authority, because i'm more of an anarchist than he was, but i don't have any disagreement with him.

and, this is the position one would expect from people that call themselves "liberals".

"Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech." - chomsky

my mom didn't tell me much of value when i was a kid, and i don't often cite her for wisdom, but she did tell me this, and i think it's good advice in determining what harm is, in context:

sticks and stones may break my bones,

but words can never hurt me

governments and politicians that seek to police speech need to be fought against and removed from power.

it's a red line they can't cross.

now, that said, free speech is about the limitations of government actions, it doesn't apply to behaviour between private individuals in personal communication, or over any kind of market.

so, when i say that the state has no grounds for interference, that doesn't extend to the behaviour of private individuals, who also maintain freedom of association.

what that means is that if you don't like somebody's facebook posts about the prime minister or "muslims", the proper thing to do is, in fact, fuck off - which could mean deleting them from facebook, not inviting them to parties, generally snubbing them in public, not sending them christmas cards, etc. you don't have an obligation to be nice to them, or associate with them in any way. that's your own right. saying certain things in public over a platform may lead to social consequences, and it's up to the people saying them to weigh that before they do it.

but, it's not the role of government to police speech.

and, that view is at the very crux of our culture and our civilization, and is something worth holding on to and fighting for.

i'm not a strict free speech literalist in the tradition of somebody like chomsky or hitchens, but i'm about as close to it as you can get to it without actually being it, and i do tend to go directly to mill in my arguments.

so, following mill, the only justification for state intervention on the question of speech is to prevent imminent harm. chomsky doesn't even believe in libel; i do believe in it abstractly, but i think the standard needs to be pretty high, and you have to demonstrate a clear financial injury - that is, you have to demonstrate actual harm.

i would reject the competing "offense principle" on it's face, and argue that people promoting it are perpetuating a kind of backwards, statist barbarism.

if you threaten to hurt somebody, that would be creating harm, but the threat has to be actually real. it's not enough to imagine that you might hurt somebody, or abstractly ponder hurting somebody - it has to be clear and actionable.

so, unless there were actual concrete threats to harm somebody, i would consider running one's mouth off about the prime minister or "muslims" on facebook to be protected speech, even if it offends virtually everybody. arresting somebody over this would be a breakdown in the rule of law, and an infringement of constitutionally protected rights. that person deserves compensation.

the police have way too much power right now, and they're using it in ridiculously inappropriate ways that shit all over the rule of law.

and, liberals are cheering it on when they should be pushing back against it.

i do hope, however, that this person seeks proper financial compensation for the trouble that the police are putting them through.

we are developing a serious problem with a police state in this country, and if the legislature won't address it then we will need the courts to.

technically speaking, what i'm doing is public, clearly.

but, a facebook post should actually be considered private conversation, and that's probably the easiest away around this kind of authoritarian bullshit.

it's a shame, because i'd like to see the laws torn down completely. it probably won't be necessary for this case....

if you don't like what i think, then fuck off.

you think you can tell me what i can or can't say in public?

that my expression should be policed by whether or not you find it offensive? that that matters? that i should care?

no. that is backwards. that is barbaric. and, that kind of attitude cannot be tolerated in a free society - that must be struggled against by appeals to freedom of expression, until it is educated out of the most ignorant of the ignorant.

freedom must win this debate, and there can be no compromising on it - the state has no place in the facebook feeds, or blogspot posts, of the nation.

we have some of the most backwards speech laws in the western world, laws that are more reflective of a backwards country like iran, and that has to change.

canada's restrictive and authoritarian speech laws have been an embarrassment to this country for far too long, and it is far past time that they are struck down as unconstitutional.

i, for one, will stand up for freedom in the face of tyranny until i'm struck down in cold blood, as i no doubt will be.

i will not be silenced.

i will stand for what is right.

these kinds of laws have no place in a free society, and i hope that he fights for his rights to freedom of expression and has the laws torn down as unconstitutional.

islam is a system of organized violence, and there are legitimate grounds to speak out against it.

but, i'm actually more concerned about the threats to speech that come from fake liberals like justin trudeau, that align with these authoritarian systems of violence so willingly. this is a threat to democracy that we need to take seriously and we need to defeat through education and appeals to the rule of law under civilized discourse. we cannot be led into religious or authoritarian backwardsness. 

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/01/17/man-charged-in-connection-to-online-threats-aimed-at-trudeau-and-muslims.html

it's maybe forgotten to history, but the idea underlying this record was that ziggy took a trip to america, and it was consequently intended to sound like the then thriving glam and punk scene in detroit.

so, for this blog, i should be:

1) focusing on the best of 2019.
2) maybe listening to some stuff from 2013. where did those posts go, anyways?
3) rebuilding late 2013 and early 2014.

k.

so, my machine has been very, very unstable over the last two weeks or so, which i'm quite certain is a consequence of a cyberattack by the american government, with an unknown level of collusion with canadian law enforcement. i believe that they think i'm working for a foreign government. because they're stupid, basically.

the idea is ridiculous...but cops are what they are, and they're not usually rhodes scholars. *shrug*.

i don't know if i've resolved anything or not in any meaningful way, but i'm going to try to get back to work now, and i need to kind of recap where i'm at, here, before i do, so i know where i'm going.

- i got back from toronto on the 11th and needed to sleep it off and clean for a bit. i was sick with something i'd picked up on the 6th or 7th..
- show reviews were done by the 16th
- the liner note releases for november, 2013 were completed over dec 15-26th.
- near the end of the year, i started sorting through a best of for 2019. this has only just begun.
- i started the master document for december over the last few days of the year, and it was done by the 30th.
- i started with the show lookahead for january on the 3rd. i wanted to multitask listening with rebuilding, but the machine kept crashing (starting on the morning of the 6th), so i did most of this on the chromebook.
- i did manage to post most of the month of december, 2013 between the 30th and the 6th. i need to get back to that.
- i have now cleared the month out and do not plan to attend any shows. i do not plan to attend any shows in february, either. so, i should be able to get back to the best of for a few weeks, at least.

would this be better if it was a little more structured?

it works, as it is, as background music. they'd have to focus a bit more for it to work as something in the active listening category.

if you like that intersection between davis style jazz, canterbury style prog and no wave-ish branca/zorn noise rock, this should do it for you, though.

i just want some kind of process.

https://mouthbreathr.bandcamp.com/releases

people arguing against daws are literally arguing against automation.

they're on the wrong side of history.

they should embrace the technology...

for an act that bills itself as being dawless as a selling point (and i think that to daw or not to daw is a triviality - i care about what it sounds like, not what gear you use to make it. i'm willing to use real synths and software synths, myself, depending on what i have access to - sometimes in the same song. and, no, you can't tell me you can hear the difference between somebody using a nord lead plugin programmed with a midi sequence, and somebody using an actual nord lead programmed with a hardware sequencer. but, a nord lead costs about $5000 and you can download plugins for free. people that push the point too strenuously are just being juvenile, but it's worse than that - it's more of a class argument, a status position, and an attempt to restrict people's access to the technology. that is the great thing about daws - they make the technology more accessible to more people. a good sound artist should have room for everything they can find, and a wish list of things they can't.), it's a shame that you can't really tell.

they make a lot of use of the kinds of sounds that trent reznor & atticus ross did about ten years ago. they were using daws. and sound fonts. and, they drew very heavily from stuff that moby was doing a little earlier.

it's pleasant.

but, i can't help but think that if they just programmed this as a backbeat (and, they could. easily.) then it would open up a lot of space to do some more dynamic and creative writing. there are points that could use a good lead part, or something to otherwise break out of the loops. if they weren't so focused on operating all of this legacy gear....

https://pinksky.bandcamp.com/album/meditations-ii

i'd rather use serbia as a model than iraq.

if american troops stormed tehran, would the iranians treat them us liberators?

well, that seems unlikely.

but, american air power (precision strikes targeting the clerics, specifically) could conceivably create a tipping point that allows the protestors to seize power - that would be the ideal.

but, as mentioned, i wonder if they wouldn't be better off with a classic imperial deposition, via whatever carnage it necessitates.

it's worth remembering what the argument against the invasion of iraq actually was, on the left.

nobody argued it was immoral. nobody - on the left - argued it was costly. there was a scholarly argument against the legality of it, but the implication was that it would have been fine, if the united nations hadn't voted against it, which made it a sort of a red herring on the question of if it was actually justified. and, nobody argued in terms of cultural relativism, either, if you want to even imagine what that means, as applied to the baathist regime of saddam hussein.

rather, the argument was "we can't do it for them. they have to do it themselves.".

and, there was no movement on the ground in iraq, except a movement towards backwardsness. bush went on tv and argued that they'd treat us as liberators; smart people knew better.

the situation is reversed in iran. it is still true - they have to do it themselves. but, they're trying. i'd like to help.

do i think that iran is building a nuclear weapon?

the evidence i've seen suggests otherwise.

but, i don't think that this really has much to do with what's actually happening, and it doesn't have much of an effect on my support of or opposition to military action against them.

like, i'm not trying to take a side here.

i stand with the iranian people against the tyranny of the iranian state.

fwiw, i would also support military action for the purposes of regime change to secular democracy in saudi arabia.

i'm somewhere not far from hitchens on iran, if you want a reference. i disagreed with him about iraq, but this is a contextual thing - there was no serious opposition on the ground, and the bombing was punitive rather than productive.

i also opposed the action in libya (for similar reasons) and continue to oppose military action in syria (against assad, i mean. i supported the bombing of isis.). 

but, i might have supported an invasion of iran in 2003, and i might support one tomorrow, or in 2023.

i don't think that governments should pretend they can determine what's "moral" and what isn't, but i would challenge the claim that military action against iran would be immoral.

the iranian regime is one of the most brutally vicious regimes on the planet, and has been for the entire extent of my lifetime. the oppression suffered by the iranian people since the 1979 counter-revolution has been worse than those suffered by almost any other people on earth.

i am an insurrectionary anarchist; i am in favour of struggle, of revolution. there is no place on earth where such a revolution is more justified than iran. there is no government anywhere that deserves to be torn down more than the one in iran.

and, no leftist would write off the oppression perpetuated by the iranian government by appeals to cultural relativism. the iranian people have spoken out about their hardships. to assign the iranian people a lesser concept of freedom, or a lesser concept of democracy, based on the tyrannical dictates and brutality of their existing ruling class would be blatantly racist. their women deserve the same rights as women everywhere else. their queers deserve the same rights as queers everywhere else. and, if you will not stand with them against the government and the religion that oppresses them, you have no reasonable claim to stand on the left - you are a reactionary liberal and must stand with the bourgeois rulers you sympathize with.

so, my solidarity is where it has always been - with the secular left in iran, the socialists, the atheists and those seeking to overthrow the totalitarian state.

i have nothing but disdain for those that would stand with the mullahs. you are on the wrong side of history. you will be struck down.

this is more developed writing, and actually something more like what you would hope somebody could tame the feedback into, if they could understand the mathematics of the reverberation well enough.

the vocal segments are fairly weak, though.

https://saariselka.bandcamp.com

i posted this a while back.

this is interesting in a purely nerdy way, but i don't hear any actual songwriting (it's more just somebody fucking around with natural reverb in a warehouse) and i'm not sure how interesting it's going to come off in a space that isn't the one it's been recorded in.

i've seen a few things like this recently, and, as mentioned, the idea is interesting, but i want to see somebody actually approach it as a design problem. i want to see the math presented as a score, xenakis-like. it's only once you've taken complete control of the space in this manner that you can present the outcome as a fully realized work of art.

and, then, i want to hear the result fully orchestrated in a way that is compelling as a standalone piece of music, rather than merely being presented as a gimmick to sell a composition that is otherwise not particularly interesting. 

with a space like this that has this kind of natural decay, you should have excellent voiceleading opportunities, to build to ridiculous crescendos and cadences. that this is being ignored for some twiddly melodies and some busted-over counterpoint is a squandered opportunity.

https://leabertucci.bandcamp.com/album/resonant-field

this is pleasant, if already done to death.

i wouldn't imagine it would be very exciting, live.

https://forestmanagement.bandcamp.com/album/21st-century-man

but, there's no need to get twisted up over rastakraut pasta, guys.

i actually had a copy of rastakraut pasta at one point, although i initially thought that "moebius and plank" would be a duo of performing string theory lecturers.

this is a more interesting recording than existed in this space the last time i was there, and the kind of thing i'd like to get to early-ish before something else, but it is ultimately still pointless. i know: unlike the rest of existence, which is full of meaning, right?

if they stick to the thighpaulsandra as a guiding influence, they could develop something in the end, but these are at best sketches, ideas.

https://rastakraut.bandcamp.com/

i think the stripper we really want to see, though, is queen harriet.

if 'prince harry' was a handle for a gay stripper, you know what you'd get don't you?

that's a bear. clearly.

canadians are pretty welcoming to people that are claiming refugee status, which is abstractly the right concept, here.

we don't want to support a royal family.

we already have to support the trudeaus.

i'm not referring to anybody as prince anything, unless it's a stage name for a band or a handle for a gay stripper.

if harry...what is his last name, even?....harry windsor? harry wettin? 

if harry whatshisface and megan markle want to come to canada as private citizens and get jobs and pay taxes, then that is a question for immigration to ponder. i wouldn't imagine myself qualified to make a decision such as that.

but, as a canadian, i feel no particular attachment to the monarchy, and do not want to see the country placed in a situation where it needs to accommodate a bunch of aristocrats that appear to be being expelled from their aristocracy due to base racism. 

i mean, it's always sad when a family refuses to accept people because they're different, sure. and, like i say - it's up to immigration to rule on immigration claims. but, canada is not a colony of the british empire, and not an escape mechanism for feuds within the royal family.

this is a record that i keep waiting to pick up, but never does and one that i kind of have to write off as sort of boring, in the end. the pieces are here for something interesting, but it doesn't actually come together, it just kind of meanders nowhere in particular. unfortunately...

https://modernnature.bandcamp.com/

this has got to be some kind of joke. 

https://suburbanants1.bandcamp.com/album/avant-garde-proletariat-studio-album

i just want to add to that dana review.

it's not that what i said isn't true in an absolute sense, but what i'm hinting at is unrealized potential. and, it's true - they're not there yet.

however, after sorting through their bandcamp site a little more, i need to point out that their new record is really light years beyond their last one. so, while i think it's fair to give them shit for being generic, it's not fair to give them shit for stagnation. they are at least evolving in the right direction, i'll give them that.

it's my fucking birthday on monday, but the weather is really just horrible, and i'd really rather stay in. 

https://www.tvo.org/article/were-not-tragically-hip-fans-and-yes-were-canadian

no.

i'll double down.

maybe you can't see yourself in the mirror. maybe you don't realize what you actually look like.

but, if you honestly think that gord fucking downie belongs on the $5 bill, you look a lot like bob and/or doug, or julian and/or ricky, to me.

that is what your average tragically hip fan was like - pickup truck driving, beer swilling, low iq, white bread retards.

or, maybe we can put julian & ricky on the $20.

the queen's almost dead, anyways.

fuck, why don't we just put julian's shot glass on the front, and a giant blunt on the back.

somebody needs to write a defence of laurier. he belongs there. these other clowns don't.

hey, after we put gord downey on the $5, maybe we can put bob on the loonie and doug on the toonie.

you fucking hosers.

this has some moments, but it's kind of reflective of where we really are with rock music at this point. this doesn't really appear to intend to accomplish anything besides being absurd, which has become kind of the status quo - it's entirely pointless. was there ever any point? well, i guess it's an open question, and i don't really want to overthink it too dramatically, when it doesn't intend to be overthought.

what we're seeing over and over are these acts that kind of have this aesthetic of being "art rock", while really just being novelty. so, they make use of a theremin in a way that's just a gimmick, opening up the question of if i have an example of a band that used a theremin substantively, and i actually don't. but, when gimmicks are repeated, they become cliches, and then novelties. like marx' history repeating as farce, and then tragedy - itself a cliche, at this point.

which isn't to say that this probably wouldn't be fun on a different night, in a different climate. it's a shitty weekend in detroit; unseasonably warm, perhaps, but rainy and gross, overall. it's a good night to stay in, drink some hot coffee and read a book.

but, i'd like to hear these kinds of bands kind of break out of the expectations and do something legitimately different, rather than retread the same ideas over and over - and i know that's not going to happen. i know this is done, as a form.

if you're closer to the venue, this is probably worth a beer or two, but it could be that much better. really.

https://danabandohio.bandcamp.com/album/glowing-auras-and-black-money

laurier is probably the best leader that this country will ever have.

it will be a sad, backwards day in this country's history if you replace him on the five with an overrated rock star that wrote trite garbage and trafficked in the worst cliches imaginable.

i've still actually never heard of viola desmond, or know why she's on the bill, other than that she was black, and they wanted a black person on the bill.

wouldn't that be embarrassing..

i hate what this country has become. truly.

https://www.narcity.com/news/ca/canadas-five-dollar-bill-redesign-consultation-has-people-voting-for-gord-downie