apr 25
Random event/music post, to fill the time while I begin that new large drawing (after a number of hours of work, it still barely registers in a jpeg): Last night I saw Bubblyfish play at The Tank. If you haven’t enjoyed the pleasures of 8-bit electronic music played on Gameboys, visit her site here or her myspace page here. Glomag also provided an invigorating set, despite tech difficulties that knocked out a channel. I left in a fine mood indeed. Suffice to say I’m doing a lot of dancing around while drawing today.
April 25th, 2008 17:02
Ah! The viable offspring of Kraftwerk. Sounds “eggs saladent” (use of “fly hands”). Anecdote: once while attempting to drive 500 kilometers across (north to south) Western Australia, we could get no radio stations what so ever in the midst of an awful large area of outback. But I had one cassette with me: Kraftwerk’s WE ARE THE ROBOTS LP. After about 4 hours of non-stop driving, I was awoken out of a drowsy reverie as Sheila screeched the car to the side of the road, screamed and tore the cassette out, ripped the tape out of the cassette and threw it far away. Seems she had now heard the song “we are the robots” oh, about a gogolplex number of times and that combined with the monotony of the roads, she was hallucinating that they were singing “we are the road dogs”. To this day on long drives, we sing “we are the road dogs”.
Mark
April 25th, 2008 18:45
Also: if you pick up the new New Yorker (or one coming up) look for the piece written by Lynne Cox on swimming the northwest passage. Lynne’s a friend and one of the coolest people I know. She is relentlessly postive and upbeat, which I, of course, find borderline insane. But cool.
Mark
April 25th, 2008 19:54
Re: New Yorker: Cool, I read that article!
Re: Kraftwerk: Bubblyfish is featured on a whole album of Kraftwerk covers, all performed on Gameboys…
April 26th, 2008 13:26
Way back in the day, Kraftwerk used to pass out pocket calculators, that were hooked up to their crazed board of synths and computers and large numbers of the audience would play “Pocket Calculator.” Then of course, there were the robots that played INSTEAD of them. Kraftwerk is one of those “things”, like Durians or the Three Stooges, that you either really hate or really like. There is no middle ground. I have always enjoyed them, especially Europe Endless and Tour de France.
Fahn, Fahn, Fahn on ze Autobahn,
Mark, showroom dummy
April 26th, 2008 14:00
Kraftwerk was the first used vinyl I ever bought, as an almost-teen - it was Tour de France, I believe. I bought a Roland Juno 106 the next week and began writing stuff for a midi set-up that I could never get to work quite properly. Used to perform the pieces at school talent shows. Had that synthesizer for years, until the 90’s, when I traded it in for an acoustic guitar. Stupid. Kind of like when I sold of my rare XTC double album with the all of the B-sides on it. Shame, shame.
April 26th, 2008 17:27
You know Catherine, you would have made a quintessential and absolutely great New Wave tech-head musician! DON’T GIVE UP THE DREAM! Kraftwerk were the gods of about half the rock staff, and reviled by the other (straight-edge/hardcore) half. “Can’t we all just get along?” But Einsturzende Neubauten would bring us all together again: machine noise+destruction=happy staff. That and Peter and the Test Tube Babies.
Just back from atlasing the Berks from well before dawn (owls, snipe winnowing (great sound to sample), woodcock all over and bitterns pumping. Warblers just starting to arrive there, and had both waterthrushes, BT Green, B&White; Yellow and lots of Yellow-rumps. Still freakin’ cold though.
Mark L