flux

big deejay shows, and big changes:

new house (really soon)
new baby (soon)
other ish, 2.

updating eventually! in the meantime:

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hip hop and the occult...

so i listen to part 1 of an interview with mitch horowitz on the (occasionally goofy or dull) occult of personality podcast (which is also sometimes fascinating). a little while later, i notice mitch horowitz is guestblogging over at boingboing. he has an article up on the occult and hip hop there, which links to a piece on npr, which has an excerpt from his new book, "occult america". the piece on npr discusses the influence of 5-percenters/nation of gods and earths on hip hop artists, as well as how they differ notably from the nation of islam movement. i first delved into 5-percent material through the wu-tang manual, written by rza, but mos def, busta rhymes, rakim & big daddy kane are all affiliated with the 5-percenters. they utilize a system of "supreme mathematics", including the 8th degree, "building", which is definitely a word i hear most around emcees... "let's sit and build for a minute." insha'allah we will! this all makes me want to go back and listen to old mystik journeymen albums to see if i can decipher any occult truths!

but for real, most of the great musicians (or artists or thinkers) ply some sort of spiritual dimension to their music (or art or thought), even when they mock it in the same breath... so the article seemed kind of obvious to me... but notable still for the fact that these idea seem more mainstream, more present in pop consciousness...

saul williams, whose self-titled album is littered with occult reference

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recent playlists...

Played two great parties this week... my opening night at the brillo box (beautiful!) and the very fun down n derby roller disco at belvedeere's (fun!)... the first was a great night... there had been g20 clashes in the streets all day, so the music leaned a bit radical, while still international and dancey... the second was a great opportunity to play all the house, techno & more funky tunes i came up on. props to vince and crew for a great event with good vibes. i'll def. be back.

Sept 24th (the garden of ) Earthly Delights debut night @ brillobox

10pm - 11:11pm cocktail social zone

Burnt Freidman & the Nu Dub Players - pater noster
Burial - Gutted
Manitas de plata - Track 05
pandit shivkumar sharma & ustad zakir hussain - Raga Kamod, Gat In Jhaptaal
Unknown Japanese (Splendeur du koto) - Piste 6
Dembu - Dagusa Dirarey
Ompeh - Effutu Area in 12
Boxcutter - kab 27
Beem - Is This the Future? (feat. Daniel Dermes)
Hugh Mundell & Augustus Pablo - Run Revolution A Come
Kinski - Badunk Gadunk
Mos Def - Revelations
Illyah & Ltd. Candy - Fight The Formation
Wary - Sallama
TONY ALLEN - Asiko
tlen-huicani - Track 13
Unknown Indian (4000 years of musical heritage) - Track 23
Nouvelle Vague - Guns Of Brixton
Yo Majesty - BUY LOVE
Henry & Louis featuring Steve Harper - Rise Up (DJ Pinch Remix)
The Spit Brothers - Roll And Tumble (Bakir And Dubsworth's VIP Mix)
Danny Breaks & DJ Adlib - The Sound

11:11pm - 12am 1st dance set

Cypress Hill - When The Shit Goes Down
DJ Vadim - Your Revolution (feat. Sarah Jones)
Major Lazer - Hold The Line (DJ C Remix)
Monaster - Pour Toi
Julieta con los Nuñez - Viernes Cultural (Dick el Demasiado Sabado Cultural remix)
Los Daddys - Cumbia Negra
Tifa & Natalie Storm - Talk Of The Town
Nicolette - No Government
Watcha Clan - Balkan Qoulou
Balkan Beat Box - Habibi Min Zaman (Mr. Tune Remix)
Michel Cleis - La Mezcla (Original Mix)
Madera Limpia - La Lenta (Schlachtofbronx remix)
Erick Rincon - Magdalena (Exclusiva Gales)
Busy Signal - Da style deh (Douster Dagga remix)
M.I.A. - Bamboo Banga
Douster - TASSPé
dead prez - Warzone (with Pete Rock)
Mohommad Reza Mortazavi - Travel Fever
ROB - Make It Fast, Make It Slow
Fambo - Unknown (creepa riddim)
the coup - laugh/love/fuck and drink liquor
Afronaut - Hencho En Casa (feat Hector Calderon - Landslide vox mix)
Rodrigo y Gabriela - Diablo Rojo
Dr Meaker - Bad Boy Calling (Rob Smith's Festive Road Remix)
Ekstrak - Mass Dampers
Unknown Sufi - Müstear

12am - 1am - Pete Pandemic's set...

1am - 2am 2nd dance set

Mr. Marcus & The Hollow Sisters - unknown (prison jam)
Dead Prez & Outlawz - How U Like That
King - Dont Taze Me Bro (DTMB)
Filastine - Desordenador
Borgore - Foes (16bit Fuck Hoes Remix)
Clouds - Too Much
Digital Mystikz - Anti War Dub
Iration Steppas & Dan Man - Too Much War
Jahdan Blakkamoore - jahdan_blakkamoore-the_general_(original_mix)
damian marley - We're Gonna Make it
Schlachthofbronx - Good to go
Krazy Baldhead - Revolution (Para One remix)
Buraka Som Sistema - New Africas pt. 2
dj tameil - get silly
Joker and Ginz - ReUp
Meat Katie & D. Ramirez feat Odissi - Stop The Revolution (dubfire mix)
Daft Punk - Revolution 909
Dorian Concept - Color Sexist
Matthew Dear - it's over now
Claude von Stroke - Who's Afraid of Detroit
ricardo villalobos - Ichso
Ellen Allien & Apparat - Metric
Beat Pharmacy feat. mutabaraka - wata
Shackleton - Death Is Not Final (Feat. Vengeance Tenfold)
Kromestar Vs Hatcha - fuel head
Emalkay - My Story
The Widdler - Positive_Vibes_(HD4000_Remix)
Untold - Discipline
Burnt Freidman & the Nu Dub Players - life is worth dying for

Sept. 26th Down n' Derby roller disco night @ belvedeere's

9pm - 11:30pm - my set

Soulphiction - B2.What's Your Name
Matthew Herbert - Gang Of Boys
Willie Colon & Ruben Blades - Plastico (Bugz in the Attic Remix)
dJ food - Break
Boxcutter - Cosmic Parent
Boxcutter - Mp Post Funk
Trus'me - 12:12
Mike Monday - 11 11 (Original Mix)
FALSE - Love Letters
Isolee - Pillowtalk
Bloc Party - Where is Home? (Burial Remix)
Burial - Distant Lights
El-B Feat. Rolla - Serious (Locked On)
Artful Dodger - Movin' Too Fast (New Version)
Horsepower Productions - special 131
mj cole - Never Say Never (Duncan Powell mix)
akufen - radio shuffle
Moodymann - Freeki Mutha F cker
Troubleman - Strikehard
Richie Hawtin - shufflephunk
Patrick Dawes - crispy duck [Akwaaba Rmx]
Cooly G - Floating
Ark - E-Cone (Akufen Rmx)
THE EVASIONS & GARY'S GANG - Wikka Wrap
Chuck Love - Funkinwitdasystem - Original Mix
Aaron Roberts - Soul It As Funk - Scud Bloom's Velcro Bonus Mix
Angie Brown - Movin Up (Stupid Fresh Mix)
Kyle Watson - Setup - Original Mix
Solid Groove & Sinden - Red Hot
Solid Groove & Sinden - Gotta Get Up__Original Mix
Armand Van Helden - Illin N Fillin It (Lee Mortimer's Wearhouse Music Remix)
Chris Grant - The Jimmy Jam - The Sound Republic's Government Cheese Mix
Kenneth Bager - Fragment Seven (Les Fleurs) (Jesse Rose Remix)
luke vibert - Disco Bus
Luke Vibert - House Stabs
Junesex - Who Wants Freedom
Isolee - Enrico
Felix Da Housecat - What Does it Feel Like (Röyksop dmx)
DJ Mujava - Township Funk (Radioclit Remix)
DJ T - Funk on You (Original)
A Made Up Sound - Sunday
mouse on mars - Send Me Shivers
mr. oizo - Patrick 122
DJ Kue - Fuk It Up
DJ Mehdi - I am somebody (paris version)
Diplo - Veni Vidi Vici (Diplo Remix)

11:30pm - 3am - DJ Royale's set...

thanks to negrophonic, dutty artz, ghetto bassquake, masala, mashit, mad decent, palms out, heatwave & mr. jennings for tipping me to some of the tracks i played... keep up the ill curation, folks. props to torrentech for keeping the dubs coming. and of course respect due to all the artists... they make deejaying such a pleasure. If anyone has any trouble finding more information about any of these artist's i'd be happy to help pass along what i know...

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two dubstep mixes...

the first mix is called "dubstep a to z". it's a simple and quick concept mix... a challenge to my flexibility. each artists name starts with a, b, c, d, etc... in order. certain songs were picked for me because i only had 1 "x" artist and 1 "y" artist... other letters i had limited choices so i had to build the mix based on what worked for what was there. it's a pretty chill dubstep mix... not a lot of pummeling... i wouldn't exactly call it ambient, but it's percussive, textural and skankin'. i'll definitely do more of these if i could find some more "x" and "y" artists!

26 tracks. 55 minutes.

the track list is as follows:

Aardvarck - "untitled"

Boxcutter - "rusty break"

Coki - "all of a sudden"

Disrupt - "true creators"

Eleven8 - "static (promo mix)"

F - "phantom"

Giant - "rain mind"

Hurtdeer - "vasopressin"

Indigo - "cosmos"

Jack sparrow - "the chase"

Kromestar - "my sound"

L-wiz - "prayer room"

Martyn - "natural selection"

Nokea - "cassava"

Overcast radio - "vendetta"

Pangea - "bear witness"

Quest - "deep inside"

Ramadanman - "revenue"

Shackleton - "el din (pt. 2)"

Truth - "revelation"

Untold - "discipline"

Vibesquad - "clowncollege"

Wiley - "ground zero (devil's mix)"

XI - "distress signal"

Youthman - "bombs over baghdad"

Zomby - "strange fruit"

download "dubstep a to z" here!

the second mix is called "pummeled". this mix is short, dirty and VERY heavy. full contact bass-sauce mixed high and noisy... some of the blends are a little sloppy and or adventurous, but i think it fits the style... this mix was an outlet for my interest in more aggressive sounds that are absent from the a-z mix. i tried to capture the essence of a small but dedicated dancefloor of dubstep fiends... sweaty, raucous and LOUD. not for the faint-hearted... especially the end!

13 tracks. 21 minutes.

tracklist is as follows:

kromestar vs. hatcha - "twin towers"

the widdler - "froggy style"

ultrablack - "you need jesus"

guns n' bombs - "riddle of steel" (12th planet & teaLong remix)

max ulis - "soundkilla"

ganja white night - "strawberry cough"

borgore - "guided relaxation dub" (edit)

noah d & babylon system - "examination of time" (VIP mix)

distance vs. benga - "chokehold"

16 bit - "texaco"

bar 9 - "murda sound" (VIP mix)

reso - "beasts in the basement"

nero - "end of the world"

download "pummeled" here!

NOTE: none of these mixes contain any of the tracks on "tower of babel" which is my dubstep inspired opus mix... that mix wont progress until i work out some bugs with my ableton setup. but some day! in the meantime i hope you enjoy these mixes, and let me know what you think about them.... and come see me play records!

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http://styliferous.blogspot.com/

I've created a new blog specifically for my D.J. events. It's

http://styliferous.blogspot.com/

It features some of my past events, and

current heat like my new monthly @ the brillo box:

(Here's the crazy flyer I made: click to enlarge)

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the pittsburgh grassroots examiner

a photo of our hero from my archive of early 20th century anarchists...

all you need to know
about the upcoming g20 in pittsburgh
and the accompanying bullshit, lies and state terrorism
can be found in the erudite, funny, subjective, personal and ultimately
triumphant column of the pittsburgh grassroots examiner,
which is penned by mike boda (formerly the town crier for
the yinsurrectionary times)...

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"The Bird of Babylon" complete! (mostly...)

first, a money shot... (notice the piles of materials and tools below it!) this shot was taken after a 24+ hour art binge before the visionary arts festival...

second, a note on photography. this bird suffers a bit from under-documentation. for example, the only shots i have of the finished bird were taken in a severely sleep-deprived state, or by attendants of the arts festival. some day i'll have a professional photographer shoot it, but that will have to wait. also, i've marked all but the first two photos with a creative commons license... please link back here for any use... the bird says thanks!

The Bird of Babylon... it's a piece that's been knocking around my head for a while, so it's great to have it out of there and in the world... basically i've been collecting scraps of colorful trash for years in the hopes of making something out of them... when i found a huge cache of fake flowers tossed unceremoniously in the muddy landfill of a local cemetery, the piece just clicked... i could use the flower petals to make bird feathers...

i brought all the junk i had collected, along with a rotary tool and some knives, to my friend laurie trok's studio... she has a similar interest in junk and found materials, so it seemed a good environment to work on the piece. after an hour or so sorting through the bits and bones, it seemed obvious laurie should help with the project. while i brought her the idea of making a bird out of trash, she is an equal author of the final object...

at first we thought we could make something like a bas relief... mounted flat on a wall... the first sketches of the head reflected this idea. but upon playing with the stems from the fake flowers, it became clear that we had great material to make a complete sculpture. we made a simple armature out of just the stems pieces, but eventually created a stronger structure using four flower arrangement stands also found in the cemetery...

the legs, feet and interior structure are fairly visible in this shot.

the structure is mostly held together by the stems, a plastic coated bundle of posable wire, however we also used a good amount of obsolete intercom wire i pulled out of the penn avenue basement. the poking out ends of the stem wire and the intercom wire provided a useful base to attach the old knit cotton t-shirts for use as skin. by tightening the shirts into the sculpture, we created a convex and concave musculature...

the inner torso of the bird is lined with bright red leather from a golf bag... we hoped to make a visible interior area of the bird, with a smaller bird inside, and still may...

laurie knotted together the fabric around the tail to create a very naturalistic rendition of that area.

we then began experimenting with various feather making techniques. i was convinced that i would be able to sew the feathers together with the intercom wire, but this proved incredibly difficult and time consuming. laurie saved the bird with the strong suggestion to get over the fetishization of found materials and use some hot glue! we glued the feathers to each other, onto strips, and directly to the fabric skin...

the finished product is largely a concoction of the wire fabric and petal/feather technique, but other parts of the bird required some different techniques... the neck was created using some iridescent ribbon found at the cemetery, and was stuffed with some of the uglier flowers... the head was assembled using a combination of cut automobile panel, flowers and other trash wired together through drilled holes...

this shot shows a little of the front of the wings, which we left mostly exposed to show the armature... it also shows our pictures of the anhinga, the real bird we based the anatomy of our bird off...

this back shot above is high resolution - click here to enlarge!

this head shot above is high resolution - click here to enlarge!

a face only the artists could love! notice the shattered lighter used as the upper beak flap. my wife laura suggested we retain some of the ugliness of the trash and i hope to integrate more of that idea in the finished product... so that the piece says more than "trash into treasure". there is something important to me about the beauty and ugliness of "babylon", both as a reference to modern culture and to it's opposite, "paradise"...

this shot shows the top of the log we stood the bird on. the log is scarred by chainsaws, and seems an apt perch. the feet, claws and legs will be finished when we do the final installation of the bird wherever it finds a home. we've got some really sweet pieces for the claws... fierce!

me posing with the bird for scale.

so while there is some touching up and more details to add, like the feet, the inner chamber and the final perch... the bird exists now... the theory behind it has changed and evolved through the process, through collaboration and will change even more in the final presentation, but there is no escaping the image of a phoenix arising out of the excesses of babylon, the natural world insisting upon space to spread it's wings...

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dante's paradise

a great piece of writing was sent in answer to one of my questions... it not only answered my question but it was so charming in it's delivery i thought it would be enjoyable to others...

me (paraphrased):

"hey... what's the deal with the paradiso?"

brilliant response from an un-named genius:

"I confess to having a strong preference for the Paradiso, which is not shared by many. For whatever reason, a lot of people are intrigued by the rather creatively imagined punishments and purgative exercises in the other volumes (e.g., the proud carrying around heavy rocks on their shoulders so that they can't look up!), but as someone drawn to the classic mystics, I find the whole structure of the Paradiso-- ending with the sublime and inexpressible (even for Dante) beatific vision-- utterly fascinating. You just have to accept that it's a bit of a shortcut through the medieval mind to begin there. There's quite enough to keep one busy for a long time, because it's impossible to avoid following the footnotes into the cosmology and angelic theology of Pseudo-Dionysius (the most esoteric of the lot, who probably only made it into mainstream Christian thought because of his pseudonym), Bernard of Clairvaux, Aquinas, the Neo-Platonists, etc.

I am hardly a scholar on the subject (although I've certainly accumulated the resources to do it if I should suddenly acquire a different kind of mind.) I've always felt free to mine the metaphors liberally-- and avoid the arguments that stopped being interesting several centuries ago (not to mention Italian city-state politics-- which got Dante exiled and with some speculative time on his hands in the first place). Maybe it was exile that evoked in him such a compelling interest in the final resolution of things... And keep in mind that Dante wasn't entirely literal about all of this. There's a place where he explains that the whole distribution of the souls that he encounters into the various planetary spheres is really just an organizational convenience arranged for the benefit of his mortal mind. Rather generous of God, I think-- but one of the reasons that I retain more patience than most with classic Christian symbology. The truth in it has nothing whatsoever in common with the verifiability of the six o'clock news..."

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that veiled gazette #369

blogging is hard...

it's been a long time since the last digest... a lot of current events have passed, scandals, debates, triumphs, miseries... i'm not going to touch on most of them... but only share with you the fragments i collected in the meantime... just things i dragged into the ever-over-flowing folder of "blog ideas" on the bookmark bar... blogging has been a weird fit for my current efforts, and there has been much talk and some action on quitting the internet around me... BUT, i feel the flame hasn't died quite yet... and we'll see where this shrouded deer leads us next.

quality performance art...

ART, FASHION : fascinating article about faking a vermeer... old pal's art on boing boing video... dj ripley has been posting a lot of great jamaican fashion from her trip there. here, here, here, here, and here. flower mandalas and other decent new-agey art. speaking of new-agey (old-agey?) this celtic talismanic jewelry reminded me of calder's contour drawings of animals. this guys design is supercolorcleanskillz. subway mind fuck art. did you know that motorcycles used to look WAY cooler? here's good billboard mod. and more book sculpture.. this time a face. the results of this camera art are boring, but the idea is good. more pretty art on basic sounds... also, van gogh didn't cut off his ear... it was gauguin!

MUSIC: flute-boxing. daichi-boxing. woman-boxing. competition-boxing. music of colombia via geko jones. love this guy's tabla style. blue daisy sounds like flying lotus, burial and a nice hum. great new mellowish dubstep artists here, here, and here. afro punk interview. LOVED this 10 essential wiley tunes article. poppy music blog. lovin' this old school jam. wendy carlos interview (if you don't know about her, you need to read up...) a bonus for those who actually read these digests, i picked my favorite brian eno tracks off his first four pop albums and put them here. old buddy from college's remix site, remixin. skweee... get hip. oh, and can someone please toss me khalid's secret eq chart?... yeah, thanks.

90 degree angles get old quick...

ARCHITECTURE, ECO, DIY: holy shit, dangerous tea house! splendid, extensive collection of beautiful and bizarre houses... including the one above... great inspiration there for designing or remodeling buildings (both of which i've been doing recently)... i've posted before about art made with books, including shelves, but here's a cool upside-down book shelf design... LED lights can now do pretty much every color... some interesting eco work... saw it on the colbert report... ceiling porn. bottles and cob. laundry water greywater system. other bizarre houses and furnishings chronicled in dornob magazine.

one of many real angels...

SEX: i continue to be interested in finding a way to fit sex into this blog. i enjoy it being mostly family friendly... but there's something to the eroticism of brian's blog that helps counterpoint the brutal truths and mystic bliss. apparently obsession with sex goes back some ways. anyway, as erotica goes, mod fetish tends to be more artful and interesting than most, but is mostly just photos of naked women... i guess there's just a big part of me that would rather be naked at burning man... and that's about all the sexual openness i can muster for the moment.

ALEXANDRIA IS OPEN, GREATSITE, TECHNOLOGY : the pirate bay just got sold, but that's o.k. because google is the new pirate bay. it's a silly issue, because pirates buy more music than non-pirates. this is a nice collection of rainbow design tutorials, (including how to make lines like in the picture above). good source of high res photojournalism is the boston globe's big picture and the wall street journals photo journal. I always enjoy looking up words on the online etymological dictionary (try magic!), but the urban dictionary is indispensable for slang (try hyphy!) dig the voting process. yeah, yeah, change the internet forever... and phones. i'm up in the air about internet privacy issues, but this tool seems to make it simple to stalk. oh, and if you're going to waste time playing video games, this one helps map proteins...

BABYLON, POLITICS : the g20 is in pittsburgh soon, and that fucks with me... mostly because i have some outspoken anarchist youth using my first floor to feed people and have meetings, and cops love to fuck with innocents. grr. obama - he releases some important secrets, blocks other important secrets. i could do a whole post just on how complex my feelings are about obama and the new senate... among the issues are the "two" wars... the cronyism going on that he campaigned against, and the fact that the soldiers are still being told to "hunt people for jesus". (of course the bush era version of this was far weirder... really, really weird.) after 5 years, portugal's drug decriminalization has produced some seriously positive results. did you know that as many people are making their living from blogging as are from being lawyers? old bomb scars. face transplant successful (warning, graphic images) here. old castes in newly revealed maps... constant police brutality. how will the newspapers survive? there's no huffington post without the new york times, so can the grey lady stay alive by being a non-profit? REX84... yuck. and google beware.

WEIRD, SUFI: plants can recognize genetically identical cuttings... i'm a big fan of rumi... and never heard him weigh in on hallaj until reading this poem. great zen motivational poster from the great mojo1000. weird water properties. weirder other substances, including the ferro-fluids in the video above. earliest bible online for free. gurdjieff's long gone, but a movement technique not unlike his exists(youtube)... tap the wisdom of the crowd. it appears having religion is good for your health... remote viewing experiment - hey, you don't have to convince me. mentalist whoops master chess players(youtube). remember, death is milliseconds away.

seriously...

HUMOR: stephen colbert in iraq... i had profoundly mixed feelings about the whole thing, partially because apparently conservatives don't realize stephen colbert is joking (seriously!) laura and i were hurting from laughter watching this old snl thing. this may not be funny to some, but a lot of people got weirded out when amazon dropped all of it's search results for gay and lesbian books, but it may have just been one lone hacker making a "point" facial hair contestants. mark twain motivational posters. funny silhouettes. married to the sea.

VIDEO: parkour (first 7 seconds AMAZINGZOMGWTFAWESOMESOX)... free running... speed stacking... psychedelic yoooooouuuutube... and now witness a baby give a fiery sermon. it's not what you say, but how you say it, apparently:

PERSONAL, POINTSOFPROCESS: mixing dirty was named as a tie for mix of the year. I've got a brand new deejay night, which i'm gonna call "The Garden of Earthly Delights". Way more details (and previews of the gorgeous flyers i made) coming. as i've been blogging less, i've mostly been tossing little tidbits on facebook. i post compelling images in an album called "incarnations", and some art in an album called "art i like" Some links that probably aren't here are here on facebook. maybe i'd have more time to blog if i had a monkey babysitter. but seriously... kids are awesome. i love my son... he's such a joy... and we're having another in february. but then that's enough. two will do... i'm travelling now to take him to see his 6 grandparents... which is why i have the leisure to blog. pittsburgh too hot! i-man haffi cool out, up on the mountain top...

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how to dance to dubstep

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in the meantime.

anyone in really worried that i'm not blogging (due to total craziness revolving around dj gigs, the visionary arts festival and the g20 in pittsburgh) should just head over to brian's blog... he keeps it coming. if he learned about sacred geometry, pittsburgh and dirty ass electronic music, i'd quit blogging for good.

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