I think this blog is a failure

I've concluded that this blog as a medium for editing my rendition of the Divine Comedy has been a genuine failure on at least two levels.

first: I tried to use this blog space as a medium to do interactive editing on my version of Dante since I started no one has made a single comment on anything.

second: I've had fewer than ten viewers every day since I started doing this. I've sent this url to everyone I can think of who I thought would be interested in this and I doubt if it's been very interesting to them

third: the snails pace at which I have been transcribing the Comedy has made this blog a very boring place to visit often I have cut up the gaps between installments with youtube stuff which is largely irrelevant to the subject matter (Dante).

I think that this is becoming a useless exercise in naval gazing and is just adding an extra step to my process. A step I thought would be helpful and fun but which is becoming tedious and constantly apologetic. That's not good reading and it sucks to write.

I'm not giving up on Dante and I'm not giving up on Wiresource but I think the two together is like nuts and gum: great on their own terrible together.

I'm not sure what I'll do with this url now but I hope it's more enjoyable than telling you why I'm sorry the Dante transcriptions are late this time.

peace.

modular problems

so I'll spare you the epic version and go with the coles notes:

I ordered a custom synth case that never appeared and had to put the whole music project on hold as a result I'm getting my refund in the mail very soon.

I also got the replacement case I ordered and the past two days have been spent trying to fit everything into it. I think I've got it mostly figured out. It's smaller than the one I was promised and as a result I'll have to dump some modules to get everything to fit but in the end I think this is a good fit. Once I've moved and set up in my new studio I can get back to work on the musical side of this project. in the mean time here's a picture I've named them: the smaller black one is called Dante the larger multi coloured one is called Virgil:

Canto 16 Listen

Listen, a dull roar
As we near the circle's edge
The sound of mad bees

Three souls run 'tward us
They can tell I'm from Florence
As they speak, they dance

Circling clockwise
They were once warriors
They ask me for news

I have none to give
The same wars, new fighters
Do they have remorse?

Eyes fixed, heads turning
I'm supposed to feel for them
In some ways I do

Before they leave us
They want remembrance
It's how they live on

The roar of the stream
Has burned away every sound
We have reached the edge

Hell's Niagara Falls
We peer down through the warm spray
Virgil takes my belt

Tossed over the cliff
It falls with my confidence
to wake up our ride

There's something moving
It's swimming up through the air
The demon of Fraud

I met Sandow Birk yesterday

that's write, one of the translators and the illustrator of the text which inspired me to do my own Dante was in town for an art opening and he met up with me to talk about the poem, he was very encouraging and offered to read what I've got up here he also gave me some names and advice on how to break into the larger Dante community (apparently there is one and it's global!) I could really use that right now. one thing I have been dissapointed over is the lack of real criticism of the cantos I have published here, slowly more readers are trickling in and that's a great thing to see but I'd love for someone to really take me to task over my rendition of the work, I want to get into the meat of this text and create a condensed interpretation which really captures something of the original work while also offering something new and contemporary and poetically integral.

c'mon people who read this blog get mouthy with me over Dante I'm serious, I need poetic feedback and constructive criticism.

more cantos tomorrow

I couldn't resist...

delays again.

I've finally gotten over my recent medical problems but have been slacking on going back to work. I had a serious medical allergy issue with a part of treatment for an illness I have to live with for the rest of my life and going off that particular pill was pure hell I expect I'll have more to update tomorrow I'm ready to start working on this again.

If this guy had been on TV in the 80's we'd all be straightedge

drugs make you do stupid dancing... just say no to drugs

progress held up

I had a very rough couple of weeks dealing with newly discovered medication allergies. I think I'm on the mend now but still don't feel myself I will be away from blogging until I do until then I'm sorry but I can't it's just too intense. gimme a week, I'll be back at it. In the mean time I'm 4 cantos away from the end of Inferno 1st draft and will have more second for you when I'm better.

thank you for your patience.
CR

Canto 15 The Desert in Hell part 2: Sodomy

Fire and steam meet
And cancel above our heads
As we walk the banks

It's high and narrow
The red stream above the sand
Flows through a channel

A pack of dead souls
They stare at us with strange eyes
I see an old friend

He was my teacher
I can barely recognize
His face through the burns

He walks up, greets us
It grieves me to see him here
He taught me to write

He speaks prophecy
As he walks alongside us
And I mark his words

My guide nods his head
In the seething desert heat
I ask who's down here

My old friend tells me
Sodomy is the worst rape
Read Judges 19

Priests, Warlords, whole towns...
I don't ask him what he did
I don't want to know.

"Write of me Dante
I can not leave them for long"
He turns, sprinting, gone.

Canto 14 The Desert in Hell part 1: Blasphemers and The Old Man of Crete

We piled the leaves
before we set off again
He so loved Florence

The woods surround sand
Like the river does the trees
God's fearful judgment

Pay heed to my words
You, reading of punishments
For I saw terror

I saw herds of souls
Pinned down, in stress positions,
Wandering the sands

A rain of fire
Sparks the desert, violent
Snowfall in winter

Those wandering brush
To and fro against the flames
It is of no use

We see one stretched out
He curses God, his rage burns
Virgil, who is he?

He shouts back at us
"As I was alive, now dead!"
He was once a king.

Oh Capanaeus
You cursed God until you died
And you curse Him still.

We walk the border
Between the sand and the woods
A small red creek flows

Out of the forrest
Like a skid-row gutter stream
The colour of dread

Virgil tells me it's
Unlike anything I've seen
And I ask him how?

"In the wastes of Crete
Stands a mountain with no trees
A god's safe cradle

The mountain has caves
In a cave a statue cries
His tears form Hell's streams

His face set to Rome
He's Gold, Silver, Bronze, Iron,
His right foot is Clay.

Cracked from the neck down
His tears are for all mankind
They form rivers here."

Played a gig today

I played the Summer Dreams Reading Festival in Stanley Park here in Vancouver today. a short bit of it was filmed I will post it when it's been e-mailed to me.

I was described after my set as the Al Qaeda of Vancouver Spoken Word I can only assume that this is because my poetry hit like a bomb and scared the shit out of the audience. I like that...

Public Disturbance doing Dante in the park

Canto 13: the wood of the suicides

We entered the woods
No light, black leaves, no fruit, thorns.
The Harpies nest here

Half woman, half bird
They break and chew the branches
The empty woods moan

Virgil knows my thoughts
My questions will be answered
If I snap a twig

A shout, then comes blood
The tree is bleeding, it cries
Why did you do that?

Virgil tells him I
Wouldn't have believed the truth
"Who are you?" We ask

"Pier Delle Vigne,
Frederic II's Counsel was I
Envy sealed my fate.

Liars in his court
Had me blinded and then jailed
I was innocent

Still I killed myself
Please tell my tale, and clear my name."
Pitty silenced me

Virgil asked him tell
How his soul will met judgement
The tree answered us:

"Our bodies returned
Will hang from our souls branches
Unincarnated."

Two naked men sprint
Past us chased by pack of dogs
The slower one hides

The dogs set on him
Howling, eating, man and brush
They tear him apart.

Weeping foliage
We pile the leaves 'round it's roots
He was from my town

We talk, I'm sorry
I hanged myself in my home
This has been zone 2.

I think this came from the subconcious of Elvis Prestly

Canto 12 The Circle of violence against others: Bestiality, Rape, Warmongering

Long climb down steep trail
Landslide, boulders, and ruins
The wreckage Christ made

The first violent zone
Bestiality and rape
The monster of Crete

It sees us. Virgil
Curses at the Minotaur
It goes wild with rage

We slip past unseen
Further down, a blood river
Boils, and froths, and screams

We're stopped by Centaurs
They draw their bows, a rape gang,
A hunting party

Virgil calls Chiron,
Explains our mission and asks
Safe passage across

The river of blood.
We ride the centaur Nissus
Past the Violent Damned

Bush, Cheney, Hitler
Alexander and Pol-Pot
All submerged in blood

As we reach the ford
I recognise many souls
From my life on earth

On the other side
We are left by the centaur
And move on, alone.

Canto 11: answered questions, an explanation of the lowest deeps of Hell

On a rocky ledge
the stench forces us to stop
we sit down to talk

near a tomb that reads
"Here lies Anastasius"
I learn of the depths

So we don't waste time
Virgil explains the circles
Fraud and Violence

The worst in God's eyes
Is Fraud for it comes from man
They suffer deepest

Above them: Violence
Against Self, Neighbour, and God
Each has it's own zone

The first zone is for
The violent against others
Murder, theft, rape

The next zone is for
The violent against themselves
Suicide, Arson...

The last zone is for
The violence done against God
Cursing, Sodomy

Usury as well
those who lend at interest
are in this last zone

Below that is Fraud
First against strangers, then friends
Con-men, Liars

And last in all Hell
The traitors trapped with Satan
Suffer forever.

I ask a question
What about the upper parts?
Why aren't they in Dis?

Recall your "Ethics",
Three Human things Heaven hates
Lust, Vice, and Malice

If you think harder
It will all become more clear
Why God willed it thus

I look to Virgil
Why is usury down here
So far below us?

"It scorns creation
Making men wealthy through theft
From those who labour"

This was his answer
"Now we must start our descent
It is almost dawn"

Summer Dreams Reading Festival

Saturday August 22 2009
starts at noon
I'm on at 1:15pm

Lumbermans Arch Stanley Park
Vancouver BC

This is that gig I wrote about yesterday if you live in Vancouver and you want to come out it will be awsome I'm on the Main Stage!!

more info here at the Pandora's Collective website

The one thing better than attracting negative attention to yourself

is attracting positive attention to yourself!!!

So I've been doing this thing with electronic busking. I have a synth that is battery powered and a couple of stomp boxes and I've been taking it to the streets!

this was day three. My first day I made a lot of dirty looks doing this on the beach, the next day I tried a neighbourhood on the east side that I thought would be more tolerant but I was mistaken I made a dollar and a guy tried to pick a fight with me.

Today I took it out again and things went a lot better! I went to a third neighbourhood where a couple of friends said I might have better luck and I did! I made almost five dollars and I bought a copy of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Brian Eno and David Byrne.

I had a really good time and met with a lot of positive people! including a couple of very inquisitive infants and their parents. I'm going back to that part of town more for sure I don't need the up-tight hassle of the neighbourhood I live in, bleh.

Also I've been invited to perform at a poetry festival in Stanley Park on August 22 2009 I'll be reading selections from my Divine Comedy and Allen Ginsburg as well as performing with Public Disturbance! (that's the name of my electro-busking outfit).

I'll post details soon. More Dante tonight.

Canto 10: speaking to a heretic, walking to the abyss

We walk through the tombs
Open and burning, Dis cries
Judgement will shut them

Un-answered Questions
Epicurian Graveyard
My mind is troubled

A voice from the graves
Hey Florentine, what's your name?
Says Farinata.

As we exchange jabs
A soul asks about his son
I fail to answer

He cries in mourning
Farinata ignores this
"Your party will fall"

I ask a question:
Why can't you see the present?
Because it's God's Will

We see the future,
It's like being far sighted
but with time, not space

I ask forgiveness
Of the shade who weeps below,
His son is alive

Who else is in there?
An Emperor, a Cardinal
and thousands more souls.

I follow Virgil
Our path crests a high valley
The smell... deafening.

Canto 9 An Angel helps the travellers enter the city of Dis: first impressions of heretics and a change of direction

The Mosques of Dis burn
I turn pale while Virgil frets
Help has not yet come

Shrieking above us
The three furies claw and bleed
They call Medusa

Virgil shuts my eyes
Then a flash, bright, angelic
We bow to him

Walking on the Styx
One thousand souls run and hide
Our help has arived

He opens the gates,
Warning the Demons away.
We enter the town

A burning churchyard
Open tombs on fire and full
Here lie Heretics

All faiths, sects and cults
the leaders and followers
burn inside their graves

A long time ago
Virgil had to make this trip
Constrained by a Witch

Past burning churches
We turn right and keep going
Down to the bottom

Square Waves and Square Knots: time to write a blog entry

So it's almost 7am and I'm tired and a little buzzed and I've been awake all night listening to music and learning how to make a hemp necklace with spirally square knots it's time to write about what I did yesterday.

First of all my wife found a cat! we weren't looking it actually found us, his name (according to the tag) is Stewart, and from the look of him he's been outside a long time. I've decided to name him Stewart Nagasaki Squarewaves at least until his rotten negligent family insists on having him back.

Nagasaki because yesterday was the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki and Square Waves because it was the day that I was supposed to go to the Square Waves electronic music festival at the local library.


I was lucky I remembered what with the new cat-guest and all but I got up and went out to see music and meet up with friends.

I'm not a very competent reporter so I'll just describe what were, to me, some of the highlights of Square Waves and my impressions of the event.

first of all I missed th first two acts. I found my way down to the Alma VanDeussen Room at the library and when I got in there were three ladies playing home made synths and lots of guitar pedals. Finally I was in a room full of people who understand me! Seriously after over a year of disinterested relatives, friends and a saintly-tolerant wife being in a room full of real live not on the intertube synth geeks was a blasy of exciting and headdy fresh air.

At the interval I met these ladies and found a couple of my friends. The next act was one of the highlights for me, a dance troupe called Prophecy Sun did a composition of modern interpretive dance to really penetrating ambient vocal music and tape noise. I think of all the performances this one was my favourite.

I finally got a chance to hear Andrew Short's project Vedic Space Program do a tongue in cheek set consisting of samples from a hypnotism record and other interesting sounds including James Brown and clips from the riots after Martin Luther King was assasinated.

The next group, Stimulus Package played some really amazing electro-accoustic stuff featuring a Tenorion, the first one I've ever seen in real life. I might have to get one.

and lastly a group called Spectrum Interview, composed of members of the other acts and others got onstage for an eery and beautiful experimental synth oddessy. After the show I introduced one of my friends to the rest of them and mingled a bit, there were people filming the event and I'm hoping to get some footage to share with you soon.

If this is the experimental music scene in Vancouver then I want to be right in the thick of it. It felt a bit like coming home.

this orange used to scare the crap out of me when I was little

For more videos and games check out our new website at http://www.sesamestreet.org

In this video an orange sings Habanera from Carmen.

Sesame Street is a production of Sesame Workshop, a nonprofit educational organization which also produces Pinky Dinky Doo, The Electric Company, and other programs for children around the world.

Canto 8 The Styx voyage, Philippo Argenti, the travellers are denied entry to the city of Dis

Flames on tower roof
And torchlight on the dark waves...
"Virgil, what is it?"

"Signal Flares, a boat
speeds to us on the water."
Our ship has come in.

Enraged I'm alive
Phlegyas argues with us,
we get in the boat.

The Styx froths with rage
A damned soul calls out to me
I recognise him

Phillip Argenti
An abusive memory
"I weep without end"

"Then cry forever,
I have no pity for you"
I kick at his face.

Virgil's glad blessing
on me echoes the Ave
A strange sound in Hell

That soul is attacked
I thank God for the violence
as our boat speeds past

We reach the far shore
The City of Dis burns bright
Guarded by Devils

The Rebel Angels
Mock Virgil and damn my life
Virgil speaks with them

He leaves me alone
I'm scared, my doubts eat at me
we're locked out of Dis

Virgil consoles me
God has sent us an Angel
Alone it speeds forth.

Canto 7 the circles of Greed and Wrath, Fortune and The Styx

The Demon Plutus
Screams "Pape Satan, Pape
Satan Aleppe"

The shouts of Virgil
Silence the deamon of wealth.
The Circle of Greed.

An eternal fight
"Why Hoard?" "Why Spend?" The crowd seethes
Bloody and violent

Bald heads and clenched fists
And the corrupt of the Church
All are Fortune's Marks

Virgil lectures me
"Fortunes will shapes Fortune's things.
As we curse she smiles."

Climbing down the hill
we follow a fetid stream
to the river Styx

A burping swampland.
Those angry and those bitter
Fight and drown in it

We follow the shore
The stars say it's midnight here
A tall black tower.

Dante updates I finally finished Canto 28! Also 7 and 8 will find there way up here today

It's about bloody time! I stayed home from work today and decided that I wouldn't leave the apartment until I had worked on Dante It's a good thing too because it's brutally hot outside. I watered the garden then ate some food and wrote Canto 28 (fucking finally) and drew an illustration for Canto 5 I've also decided that since it's so hot and my day's work is basically shot (unless I went out and did it really late into the night) I should do canto's 7 and 8 here today and then relax with some mid period Swans and my modular synthesizer...





Here's some Swans for you:

delays and delays... in the mean time watch this video

I've been set back by medical stuff and the distinct possibillity that my wife and I'll be moving house at the end of September. I'll get another canto done tonight and posted. I find it really fascinating how when I began this as a rough draft I was doing a canto per night or more sometimes and then gradually things slowed down and now it's a struggle sometimes to get the work done.

I've never been very good at second drafts or anything of that sort so this is a real challenge though a rewarding one.

anyway appologies for the continuing delays and setbacks.

I ought to say this again

I'm hoping that this effort to post my second draft here will inspire you to comment with your thoughts, and criticism. I havn't been as regular with updates as I'd like but it's coming, slowly. I'm grateful for your patience. All five of you... :)

Canto 6: Gluttons, Judgement, and a prophecy

Canto 6

Freezing rain and slime
I came to among gluttons
Torn by Cerberus

Three Headed, Hell hound
The demon wolf howls, insane
We throw slime, it feasts

A shade calls to me
His name was once Ciacco
He was from my town.

He whispers something
“The whites and the blacks wage a war,
The bloodshed won't stop...

The Pope helps both sides
two men speak truth to power
but no one listens.”

Looking pale he falls
back in his own filth... eating
I ask after friends.

I'm told they're below.
As we leave Virgil tells me
About the Judgement...

When the trumpet blows
All souls return to their graves
And regain their flesh

The Harsh Arbiter
Shall read the fate of each soul
And all will hear it.

I asked my guide then,
What will it be like after
God's judgement is read?

Perfect pain and joy
All things are renewed by fire,
And tempered in coals

Our conversation
Continues as we follow
The curved walls of Hell

A wide, downward path
The enemy of mankind
Waits in Circle Four.

Canto 5: Minos and the Circle of Lust

Canto 5

We descend steps from
The land of hopeless heroes
And enter worse Hell

At the circle’s edge
Minos, the judge of fresh souls
Throws them in the pit

The dark stormy void
Swallows them, hungry, ancient
To land where they should

The demon sees us
“Be careful who you trust here”
It knows I’m not dead

The warning from Hell
Is countered by my guide who
Spits back at Minos

“This trip is God’s will
And it’s no concern of yours”
As we walk past him

A dark razor wind
Bodies, battered paper cranes
The lustful curse God

Don Juan, Warren Jeffs,
Tristan and Isold, all thrown
Through storm and rubble

Two souls entwined drift
Gracefully on the updraft
Virgil calls them near

Francesca and Paul
Float closer and tell their tale
Tragic and painful

A crime of passion
Sent us here, lust for each other
A one time mistake

My husband’s brother…
He can never leave my side
The man’s silent tears

When we were found out
My husband murdered us both
He suffers deeper.

Overcome by grief
And feeling giddy, I faint
The human storm cries.

Dante update

So I started to do some illustrations to offset the feeling of doing nothing. I think I've discovered a way forward on Canto 28 at last as well and hope to get back into it when I wake up. I was also listening to the old recording sessions I did with The Empire of Crime and wonder what exactly needs to be added at all? I should try and meet up with Mark and listen to them all with him then figure out if and what we need to do anything to them now. I kind of like the really minimal and ambient sound of this track

Inferno 3 by Desolation Sound

and I'm wondering whether or not it's a complete piece as it is.

Canto 4: Limbo

Canto 4

I woke on far shore
Virgil looks down and turns pale
The un-baptised woods

The cries of infants
Sinless souls, a crowd packed tight
None were born again

Once the Lord came down
To rescue Hebrew prophets
Before that, none left

Virgil says he lives
Here in this hopeless valley
Before us, a fire

Great poets: Homer
Horace, Ovid and Lucan
And they welcome me.

And now we are six
We talk of things kept secret
A distant castle

Seven walls, a stream
We entered, crossing the stream
Walking on water.

Inside the castle
Is a lush meadow valley
Past seven stone gates

Hollow and solemn
The heroes of history
Mourn fate together

Now six becomes two
As we leave my heart aches to
Free them all from Hell.

Canto #3: The Gates of Hell

“I am the gateway
To the city of the damned
And pain without end

I am the gateway
To the forgotten people
Whose cries go unheard

Justice, the builder
Omnipotence, the foreman
With Wisdom and Love

Among the First Things
I stand, Abandon all hope
You who enter me.”

That cruel warning
Ate my courage, I felt sick:
“Virgil I can’t go.”

“Don’t let fear rule you”
The brave, voice of calm reason
Urging me to trust.

Hand in trusting hand
Virgil guided me into
The mouth of the pit.

We walked into the
Dark terror and flies and saw
The mob Hell refused.

The Lukewarm holler
And demand entry to Hell
Their cries unanswered.

These Souls did nothing:
They lived in neutrality
In death they’re ignored

Here, on the threshold
Mixed with Angel bystanders
Look, and pass them by.

An empty standard
Flies above long rows of souls
The Moral Cowards

Plagued and stung by wasps
Their blood and tears mix with mud
And puss and maggots.

And now a line forms
Of fools who want to see Hell
This confuses me

My guide explains that
All those who hate God wait here
To cross Acheron

A stagnant river
The Boatman shouts, I can’t pass
Earth Quake and I faint.

Henry Rollins is awsome

Canto #2: Virgil and Beatrice and Divine Intercession

Canto #2

The day fades to dusk
All creation stops it’s work
I’m alone with doubt

Oh Muses help me
At war with myself I try
To tell what happened:

I sat down in fear
Who am I to walk through Hell?
I’m not a brave man

I’m not Aeneas,
and not Paul, I'm nobody
I don’t think I can.

In pity my guide
Said: “it’s human cowardice
That makes you speak so

I was sent for you
A woman named Beatrice
Braved Hell to find me

And she made the trip
At the request of Mary
And Saint Lucia

Mary pities you
These women want to see you,
I am to guide you.”

Amazed I told him
Beatrice was my first love
My heart died with her

“If this is the truth
You must follow me Dante
The way up is down.

This trip will purge you
Of the fear that holds you fast
And dims your spirit

These ladies hold you
In their hearts, such protection
Few souls ever know.”

With resolve I said
“You are my guide and teacher
And I will follow.”

I got up and walked
With Virgil through the forest
I’m still not that brave.

Canto #1: The Woods Woke Me Up

So I said in my last post that I would begin updating with whole cantos as a way to resume the editorial process so here we go! I don't have summary paragraphs for any of these yet and I'm on the fence about whether to write any or not. Anyway here's Draft #2 of Canto #1 I hope to update here nightly or almost nightly. Please feel free to leave comments if you have something constructive to add I want this to be very much a part of the editing process. It's getting to a point now where if I don't start to find new and interactive ways to work on this project I fear it will never be fully realised and I don't want to let it slide.

Canto #1

The woods woke me up
A history of fainting
I was middle aged

Wrong turns brought me here
Now looking for a way out
I started my climb

A steep hike uphill
A leopard blocked my path, then
a lion, I hid

Now starting again
I was scared to stop my climb
Stalked by a large wolf

I escaped, but lost
Walking in the wilderness
I see an old man.

I called out, he stopped
Running to him, ghost or man
No care, just gladness

“My name is Virgil
poet, born under Caesar
I wove Aeneid”

Please, can you help me?
I loved your poem deeply,
Now I find I’m lost.

“Why do you retreat?
Why don’t you climb this mountain,
The font of all joy?”

I told of the wolf
Bloody fur and mad hunger
Tired crying fear

“That wolf blocks all souls
What she won’t eat she mates with
The body of greed

One day a grey hound
Will come to end all terror
Hunting down the beast

He won’t fear hunger,
True virtue will be His food
He comes for Justice

His hunt will go on
Until the wolf is forced back
Through the jaws of Hell

Which is her true home
The gates will close and the land
Will know true freedom.

But now, come with me
We must, by a different road
Reach the mountain’s peak

I can be your guide
Through the deep eternal void
Where all is fire

Then through purgation
Where the dross is cleansed from souls
Singing as they climb

And to Peter’s Gate
For I can go no further
Than my sins forbid”

Virgil, I beg you,
Where you lead I will follow
For God’s sake, let’s go.

videos! And Dante Updates!

hey I made two new youtube videos for the one or two people who read this blog I hope you enjoy them!

Gristleizer


Chaquo


Also it's worth mentioning that I still have little idea how to move forward with The Inferno. I've come to the conclusion that I can't use the bishops responsible for the great schism, or if I do I need to bear constantly in mind that though their selfishness and persuit of power caused a thousand year and counting rift in the church out of which all sorts of horrors have spilled, if it had not been for that first breach there would not be the richness or variety of Christian theology we see today so though the church was rent in two God has made something better in it's place.

I keep coming back to the saying "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and as my friend Barrett remarked Inferno is a bag of rocks. All the more reason to try and stop the stone throwing because it's my belief that beyond the judgemental and sometimes bigotted attitudes presented in Dante's Hell there is a higher purpose to all this and a greater message and that's what I want to get to the heart of in my attempts to paraphrase it.

Soon I am going to begin posting Cantos to this blog in an effort to include you in the editing process and to fully begin writing the second draft. If it remains in a word doc on my work computer it may never get finished.

I have no idea how to proceed

I'm stuck again in Inferno. Canto 28 actually. In it Dante and Virgil decend yet another tier to the ditch of the schismatics: people who broke apart nations, church, and families for selfish reasons. I'm having problems with how to write it because I have issue with Dante on something I can't ignore or gloss over. Dante had a strong anti-Islam thing going on in Inferno. In Canto 8, the City of Dis is described as a city of burning mosques the Dorothy Sayers translation explains it this way

"mosques: Mohammedanism was looked on - Correctly enough - by the Middle Ages as being a Christian heresy (see Canto XVIII), and immediately inside the walls of Dis we shall, in fact, find the Circle of the Heretics. More generally the 'mosques' indicate that the City is devoted to a perverse and infidel cult." --(Inferno, Sayers Trans: pg.121 commentary on l.70 of Canto VIII).

I have been trying in some ways to make mine a revisionist paraphrase instead of adhereing to a strict interpretation of the translations I have access to. I've chosen in this respect to highlight the fact that all religions are equal in sin. Islam ought not to be so roundly condemned, and can't be by me. The fact that Dante chose to do so makes me very uncomfortable.

For another thing I disagree with both Dorothy Sayers and the Mideival Poet that Islam is a "Christian heresy". Yes it's true that Mohammed came after Christ and that Muslims recognise that Jesus Christ existed though they regard him as yet another prophet, the religion of Islam was influenced more by Judaism than by Christianity. The resemblance between the Kosher and Halaal regulations on food and the Shariah and Old Testament laws on conduct are quite simmilar, also it's my understanding that before Mecca was declaired the centre of Muslim religious life that honour was given to Jerusalem and it was after the Muslims were driven out of the Holy City that they established Mecca as their main place of worship and pilgrimage.

I could be wrong in these respects I am not very well versed in Muslim history or Jewish Talmud and Midrash, but none the less I believe that Islam was more an offshoot of Judaism than Christianity, and that (in purely technical terms) both are actually "heretical" breakaway sects of Judaism. How would Dante have written Inferno had he been Jewish?

Anyway this is proving to be very difficult to write. In Canto 28 Dante first encounters Mohammed split from his ass to his mouth and Mohammed's Son-in-law Ali, also mutilated, Leaving no doubt of what the poet thought of Muslims. I can't write that and I refuse to perpetuate this imagery. I tried re-writing it to replace them with the Pope and Patriarch who's conduct split the church into Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox but the punishment is so vile I have a hard time doing that as well and I don't much relish placing people in hell to begin with. I do it occasionally, as did Dante but I can't bring anyone to suffer in this way.

I'm not sure what to do to move forward.

Blogging about Dante.

So it was pointed out to me recently that though I send this blog to people to give them an idea of what I'm doing with Dante I actually spend more time doing just about anything else and up-loading youtube videos.

Here's where things are presently with the Dante Project:

I've stalled. I hate to admit it but I've stalled and I havn't been working on it as dilligently or as consistently as I was. To be totally honest I havn't picked it up in weeks. This bothers me. A lot.

I'm six cantos away from finishing my first draft of Inferno and I've only got five cantos into the second draft. I've started to procrastinate and I could spend time making excuses here for why I've stalled but in the end they'd just be excuses and I don't want to excuse this I want to get back into it and see this whole project through. I never thought that this was going to be such a mammoth undertaking when I agreed to it. It is a source of unending amazement to me that this has become such an elaborate project.

I need to get back into writing and stop slacking off because I really think that once it's finished you will like it.

Also, I'd like to play more gigs.

Watch me eat my words...

This isn't me I just found this when I looked for video of someone eating their words.

In a previous post on this blog I was talking smack about Buchla owners and their instruments of choice. Making value judgements on Buchla versus Serge synths (I had never even been in the same room as either of these instruments at the time I was shooting my mouth off). I recently had an opportunity to go to the University of Victoria to play their Buchla 200 modular synth. In the past few months I've been able to make the aquaintance of a number of Buchla owners and talked with Don a couple of times with regard to his synths and I have had an important realization: I let my mouth run on without actually using my brain and when I let my mouth do the thinking it never works out well because my mouth has no brains.

Anyway I want to take back some stupid shit I said on here about Don Buchla and all Buchla owners being pretentious. It's just not that black and white. Yes I've preferred the hand full of phone conversations I've had with Rex Probe at Serge to the equally small number of calls I've had with Don Buchla but that previous post was a pretty dumb one to make. I'm writing this here because I think it's worth saying, particularly since I'll be building my own Buchla 200e very soon. As for the people I've encountered who play the Buchla they've all been marvellously supportive, encouraging and friendly people.

I am an Idiot.

In my next post I'll tell you all about my trip to UVic and playing their Buchla 200, and how awsome it was.

I have photos!

Live Crime!

Here's the recording we made of our first performance it was recorded straight from the mixer so no audience sounds or bad accoustics.

The Empire of Crime Presents: Cantos 1-4 by Desolation Sound

hope you enjoy it. Please post with your feedback, this was our first gig, if you live in Vancouver BC you'd like us to perform let me know through this blog.

Thanks!

The Empire of Crime show

It happened! we performed Canto's 1-4 live tonight. It was a good show. the friend of mine who had offered to film our show flaked out at the last minute so there's no video coming but we recorded the audio and I will be making it available on soundcloud tomorrow when I go to the studio.

I had such a fucked up night. I played my very first live electronic gig in almost five years and then when I got home I decided I needed to unwind so I left for a walk. I hadn't had a great supper so I wanted to get a cornd beef sandwitch. I was on my way to the deli where they have these great sandwiches and it's 24 hours. I was almost half way there and I saw some dude shitkick someone across the street. I stopped and saw that it was a guy beating on a girl so I called 911. the Cops kept me on the line a lot longer than I would have liked. I really just wanted a sandwich I didn'rt want to be a "witness" and tried to assert my right to anonimity which almost got me arrested by this one dickhead cop but his good cop partner made to deal with me which is just as well because he was a lot easier to talk to than his buddy. ugh. so anyway enough about the pigs they did their job, they separated the dude from his girlfriend and got their statements, the shithead boyfriend had been beating up on his girlfriend if I'd had more courage I would have tried to nonviolently diffuse the situation without involving the cops at all but I know I didn't do the wrong thing and though I wish I could have done a ghandi on the situation there's a nagging suspicion in my mind that the prick would have just hit her again once I left. I hate the cops but I think I hate guys who beat women more, anyway I just wanted a sandwich...

once the "good cop" was done with me I contionued my walk towards smoked meat and garlic bagels. I got a sandwich and sat down outside but when I left the house I was wound tight by the time I got what I'd left the house for I was no less upset I took the scenic walk home along the beach and talked to God and sat and watched the waves and sang some blues to myself as I walked along the dark bike trail near the sand and now that I've been home a while and have had some time to reflect and write here I am glad that the show went as well as it did, musically it went off without a hitch and I'm listening to it now on my home computer I am very pleased with how it went. I'm also tired and I really want to go to bed. I hope that girl is ok and that her abusive shit head boyfriend gets his eyes opened to the fact that he was obviously messed up to hit a girl in the first place and I hope that he has a change of heart in his life that causes him to change the entire way he lives for the better, I also hope that she leaves his sorry ass and finds a man who won't beat on her or treat her bad.

I'm tired. soundcloud tomorrow.

News news news! and a cartoon!

As it turned out I was too weak most of the past seven days to do much of anything but I'm a lot better now. I did rough draft of Canto 26 tonight, that's the one with Ulusses and Diomedes and how they met their end.

I've got a gig performing Cantos 1-4 with The Empire of Crime tomorrow (or later today) it's at 7:15pm Friday (today) at Rhizome Cafee on Broadway and Kingsway in Vancouver BC it's pay what you can and I don't think anyone will be turned away for lack of funds. I should have posted about this a lot sooner but you know what with nearly dying I got a bit side tracked :P

One of my friends will be filming our set so it will go up on youtube and then up here at some point.

I'll also post pics of the live setup it was a real challenge seeing just how much stuff I could fit on a single pedalboard in the end I got it all on with room to spare! It's a very big pedalboard.

Smashing Guitars Ashville has finally got their website up and running and they are going to be shipping the first batch of Gristlizers on Monday. I got an e-mail about this great stuff and placed my order yesterday, they are really great folks to deal with and the Gristleizer is going to be right at home in my synth rig.

I was thinking about this cartoon while I was filling the hospital toilet with blood from my ass:

stool sample:

"You can't get a drink at a bar while sitting on one and you should never try and give them away for free at the Supermarket... Stool Sample..." -William S. Burroughs

I had some bad pork for dinner last night and became violently violently ill, so much so that my wife had to call 911 and get me to a hospital where they loaded me up with Gravol, fluids, anticonvulsants and let me rest. I had thrown up everything to the point where I was puking blood, thank God for Gravol. Anyway it's a frightening thing to poo blood and puke blood and sweat like your dying. I'm better now and at home again. I've been given some real heavy duty anti-biotics which should kill whatever food born bacteria got the better of my GI tract. I've talked to two different doctors about this, one from the hospital and another who's a friend of mine and both agreed that it was the pork. I'll be visiting the deli I got it from and telling them so that this doesn't happen to anyone else. I really like that place and it would suck if they closed down over health code violations. My tummy has been really gurgly today but no more blood! I think I may have poped a blood vessel in my ass which caused that. anyway that's about the most excitement I've had for some time, I really thought I might die at one point. I've got my Dante stuff here and I hope I will be finishing off the first draft while I convalesse. My wife, Yvonne is so wonderful she's been taking care of me and stayed with me all night at the hospital.

I'm going to sleep soon but I wanted to upload a video I made a couple of days ago if you've been reading this blog for a long time maybe you remember me promising to put up video of my modular synth? well here's the first of what I hope will be a sporadic but increasing number of youtube videos featuring me rig. enjoy!



all sounds are coming from an Analogue Solutions Vostok the only VCO in use is clocking the sequencer at an audio rate so that it acts as it's own VCO the Envelope Generators are also acting as VCOs one is set to ADSR the other is in repeating Attack decay mode. The only external module in use is an MFB videoscope module which is displaying the wave shapes on my TV Set. The Percussive Sample and Hold rythm is a combination of the two LFOs and the VCF which is being used exclusively as a sine wave generator.

Appologies for the blair-witch camera work and my bad ribbon controller skillz I made this video primarily to show what this synth is capable of not what I'm capable of.

updates on progress

I did Cantos 4 and 5 second draft last night and have been making some great noise with my new modules, the Doepfer Quantizer is awsome so is the Phase Locked Loop module. My wife's computer came back repaired so I'll be taking mine back to the studio today where I hope to upload some sounds into my daw and get to work with the audio Mark and I recorded, I also want to upload some of the experiments I've done with the East Coast Beast (that's what I've named my modular).

I had to send my Evolver back to DSI to have them fix some problems I've been having with the encoder knobs. Aparently the Evolver Sequencer is the one that glitches out the least so they are all as curious as I am to find out what's wrong with it. I guess the problem is so rare on the sequencers that they've offered to fix mine for free even though I'm past my warranty by about six months. I popped it in the mail yesterday and now there's a small rectangular space in my setup where my synth used to be. It's kind of lonely looking but I'll be happy to have it back fixed I can't tell you how annoying it is to try and dial something in precisely when the knob just wants to jump around seemingly at will.

I might also have found someone to share the cost of the studio with! this will be such a bonus if it works out. It's a beautiful day outside so I'm going to go do some gardening before my wife gets home and then bike to the sound refinery. In the mean time here's some Klaus Schultz for you.

Klaus Schulze - Live 1977 from Ernesto Cardenal on Vimeo.

Dante Second draft thoughts and slow progress.

So I started the second pass on Inferno and I've done the first three Canto's over again. It's pretty amazing to read over what I left out and how much improved these are with the re-write. I'm gaining insight into Dante's overall poetic formula and for those interested I decided to drop the attempts at making it conform to any one meter. I think that it would sound cool in Iambic Pentameter for sure but it wouldn't be mine any more I think what's more important is trying to capture the essence of the work in my own words and that's what I'm trying to do.

I've been invited to perform part of my Inferno at a concert near the end of the month. I have to figure out how I will be doing that but I've got a couple of ideas. It's kind of exciting I've never performed with my modular before, I'll only be taking part of it with me so I'll have to record what I've got going on here first and then use it as a backing track which I can improvise on top of. Also I've only got ten minutes? I could easily trance out and use up the whole time without even realizing it. eep!

Today was my friend Delaney's birthday I bought him a CD by Big Black and then he came over for dinner, Yvonne made lamb... mmmmm lamb. Ok so I'm going to work on the next Canto and update The Christian Radical blog.

something is happening

So to catch you up a bit:

I got a stomac bug the next day after my last post which laid me up in all sorts of horrible intestinal ways that I will spare you the details of. Then I went to my in-laws place to visit. My wife had gone over two days before leaving me alone with the toilet in my illness. Which is probably just as well because I'm a big baby when I get sick and I wouldn't want to inflict anything on her, also it pretty much guaranteed that if what I had was catching it was also mostly quarantined so nobody else has to suffer because of me.

My wife's parents and younger sister live out in the country and it's always a treat to visit them and their many cats (they have four of them!)

I'm working up the nerve to begin on the second draft of Inferno. I'm still ten cantos away from the end but I'm going to run out of notebook pages soon and I want to start working on it again in a way that will keep the momentum going.

I have inadvertently done some of the later stanzas in Iambic pentameter and I have been weighing the pros and cons of introducing a uniform cadence to my interpretation. Iambic pentameter would give it a more classical feel and it works nicely with the strict syllable structure I've chosen however I'm not certain I can do it deliberately and it would mean that I'd have to re-write 95% of my own work entirely and I might not be able to keep some of the stanzas I'm most proud of. I've been using this inner debate as a reason for not beginning the second draft, I've wanted to talk it over with two writers I know and respect but one is impossible to get on the phone and never replies to answering machine messages while the other I see often enough but I have to go to his book store if I want to have a conversation and he has to sell people books so our conversations take twice as long to say half as much.

I think though that while there is a real temptation to re-work my Inferno again to conform to a classical western meter I think I might be further tempted to let these technical issues hold the work back.

I definitely need to re-word parts, some of the earliest cantos might be better rewritten all together but that notwithstanding I think I have to get down to it. After all it's only a second draft and I'd like to give out a hand full of copies to people for review before I do one more pass at it and try sending pieces to publishers. I wonder how many places will reject my work...

Yesterday was an awsome day.

Best day in a long time.

I got a bunch of modules in the mail! so the East Coast Beast is slowly but surely taking shape.

I'm now thw proud owner of an increasingly formidable and challenging instrument. One of the packages I got contained a new controller it's a ribbon controller that can control midi and control voltages it's great as an interface because it's a bit like playing guitar and it's also moving me away from traditional keyboard oriented synths. I've got my eye on a device which will enable me to play microtonal music and particularly Bholen Pierce music! Also I think I've got an idea how I want to try incorporating the text of The Divine Comedy into music. It's not my own idea actually it's more an homage to William Basinski. I don't want to get to detailed on this untill I've had a chance to try the recording method first but I will probably have something to say on this soon.

Also I'm officially in the home stretch as far as the first draft of Inferno goes. I only have ten more cantos to write before I start transcribing. It's going to be a fair bit of work. I've written plenty in my life but rarely goten past the first-draft stage. If you are inclined to pray please say a good word to The Man Upstairs on behalf of this project for me.

It's appreciated.

I'll try and get some pictures soon but it will probably have to wait until next week when I get back from visiting my in-laws.

until then listen to some haunting music:


ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY by FRANCESCO ARENA (genoa, italy) & WILLIAM BASINSKI (new york, usa)

hey look it's post #100

In the studio today. It's been a slow grumpy sort of Sunday. I'm having modular synth issues and I have to take my computer home because my wife's was a piece of crap and now we need a new computer. At least I got to visit with a friend and make some music.

I was playing about with my tape echo trying to find out what settings were best for clear tape echo souds without overdriving it.

It can give of a beautiful dirty tube distortion and it will flutter into high piched insanity really easily so I was trying it out on low gain low swell/sustain levels and geting some very good results.

I guess this might sound pretentious and I don't mean it to be but having both a real spring reverb and a real tape echo is pure heaven, that's really all you need if you want to effect a guitar (in my opinion) I can now say I have both the real things and good quality digital reproductions (I've got a Space Echo pedal and an EHX Holier Grail) and the pedals do a very good job and I'd hate to ever have to move my tape echo for live playing but if you ever get a chance to buy even a cheap shitty quality tape echo (like mine I bought for $200 at a used guitar store) DO IT!! you won't regret that purchase at all.

A couple of Haiku

As I re-write Dante with my faux Haiku stanzas I'm also learning about the actual art of writing Japanese poetry here are two which I wrote today:



Dull tiles dance under
the flickering neon lights
Good Friday, Men's Room.

On Hastings and Pain
The rich drive past the dying
a living bird, thrown.

I need to get into the habit of carrying a notepad everywhere because now that I've started writing poetry again I've been finding that I notice poetic situations or otherwise get inspired at some of the oddest times.

That second Haiku I had to mooch a pen off a stranger on the buss or I might have forgotten it.

Anyway enough navel gazing I've got a Canto to write tonight and some other work to do besides.

Pinball Syn-phony

Suzanne Ciani working on the music and sounds for the Xenon pinball game from the Omni televsion show.

It's Alive HAHAAHAHAHHAAA! (internet at the studio)

Finally got the web at my studio today. It's great to be here and working instead of siting at home on the end of my couch trying to get shit done. All I've got to do now is get my DAW running and a bunch of other shit sorted out here and I'll be good to go! It's kind of a shame, I spent all day tidying up and moving things around and I haven't even played a single note : ( Of course the place looks fucking hardcore, also my wife found my camera so I'll have to take some pictures of the place and get some gear pr0n goin' on. Also I am very hungry and looking forward to a dinner of perogies when I get home, yum!

I have accomplished one thing, by the time I leave here today I'll have listened to every single thing that the Mahavishnu Orchestra has ever recorded.

Jan Hammer and John Mclaughlin are my heroes. The two of them together are like a musical storm or something.

Thoughts on selling a vintage synthesizer

I've found myself in a particular situation. I've thought about it off and on for a few months weighing my options and while I don't like it I think I have to sell my vintage Korg stuff. I've got an MS-20 and an SQ-10. I got them for my birthday last year from my mom and I love them both, they're amongst my prized possessions actually and they form a solid corner of my studio. The problem is that I want to get further into modular synths. Specifically that Surge I've been writing about.

I wish I didn't have to choose between the two but I don't have enough money to keep both without saving for a much longer time. I put them up on Craigslist because I want to sell them locally and I've already found someone who wants the sequencer now I have to find someone who wants to buy the synth... except as I write this I feel a part of me crying out that I'm making a big mistake. I'm not ready to part with these instruments. I've only owned them a year and they were a gift which came at great expense and effort.

I think I need more time... I think I'm ging to have to take these off Craigslist. I really really really want a Serge system, I know I could make great music with one and I'm eager to learn how to use it but I don't think I'm ready to part with my synths.

writing this here is helpful it's putting things into perspective.

I'm going to pull the add and tell the guy who wants to buy my sequencer that I'm not ready to part with it yet.

This is a picture of my monster about two months after I got it. I just don't feel good about selling it.

Further thoughts on the Serge

This is a three panel system I found using google image search


I've had a lot of time to think about this instrument and I've been researching them and I've come to a few conclusions. Despite some of the innovations which Don Buchla has brought to his instruments, most notably the ability to save knob settings on all his modules the functionality of his instruments goes only so far. The great thing about Serge is that it's function blocks are so fluid you can make it do so much more than a Buchla of equal size. Also the introductory Serge system is a fraction of the price of the entry level Buchla. For a little over 4000 dollars you can get a full Serge panel with everything you could want in a synth except a controller, but that isn't as much of a problem as you might think. Rex Probe offers a grounding kit and adaptors that allow you to plug your Serge into 1/4 inch and 1/8th inch modular systems and there are other interfaces available online as well.

Buchla also has the problem of notoriety, with fame often comes pretension and this would seem to be the case with Buchla the man, the company and the people who use his instruments. When I was still yearning for a 200e I had lots of trouble trying to get any kind of response from the users group and while Don was helpful enough Rex was twice that and much more enjoyable to talk with. It was the level of customer service as much as the flexibility of the Serge instruments which have swayed my opinion.

So that's that, I'm selling my MS-20 to raise the other half of the cost of my first Serge panel and once I've got the cash in hand I'll be mailing my checks to Sound Transform Systems.

I am also thinking about maybe taking a foray into the world of Synth DIY and replacing the 1/4inch jacks on my SQ-10 with Banana Jacks thus providing me an all analogue controller and clock source for any future Serge expansion.

Wave Goodbye

wave goodbye by Desolation Sound

Another track from The Empire of Crime. This is an oldie but one of my favourites. I wanted to post it with the last batch of sound cloud files but ran out of space for the month. I've been waiting ever since to upload it so here you go.

New Denver

This song is from my last album.

New Denver by Desolation Sound

As the Community Doukhobors left Saskatchewan, the "reserves" there were closed by 1918.

The Sons of Freedom, meanwhile, responded to the Doukhobors conflict with Canadian policy with mass nudity and arson as a means of protesting against materialism, the land seizure by the government, compulsory education in government schools and, later on, Verigin's supposed assassination. This led to many confrontations with the Canadian government and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (continuing into the 1970s).

Peter V. Verigin was killed in a still-unsolved Canadian Pacific Railway train explosion on October 29, 1924 near Farron, between Castlegar and Grand Forks, British Columbia. The government initially (during investigation) had stated the crime was perpetrated by people within the Doukhobor community, while the Doukhobors suspected Canadian government involvement...

...W. A. C. Bennett's Social Credit government, which came to power in 1952, took a harder stance against the "Doukhobor problem". In 1953, 150 children of the Sons of Freedom were forcible interned by the government agents in a residential school in New Denver, British Columbia...

Abuse of the interned children was later alleged, and a formal apology demanded. The B.C. government made an official Statement of Regret that satisfied some, but not others. The Canadian Federal government still has not apologized for its role in the removal of children from their homes, saying that it is not responsible for actions taken by the government in place 50 years ago.

Excerpts taken from Wikipedia

raw audio from The Inferno sessions

Inferno 3 by Desolation Sound

This is roughly one quarter of the raw audio from The Inferno sessions. I'm sick so I can't really get out to my studio right now but I'm hoping that very soon I'll be able to take this and all the rest of the recorded footage and re-arrange it into the sound scape for Dante's Inferno.

I will no longer be making the tracks available fr download like I was before. From now on I will try and release pieces through sound cloud and make them available to stream from here. This has the advantage of accessibility, there are no time restrictions on this file you can listen to it or share it as you please. I only ask that if you use it for any purpose that you get my permission first. Thanks.

I hope you enjoy this sneak peak into hell.

Chris

Blargh

I finished Canto 20 today and on Friday I'm getting Internet installed at my studio! I have a cold right now.

ugh.

No More Raw Audio

Ok that's it for audio samples, at least until I find a better way to post them.

more Dante recordings forthcoming.

I just had the second recording session with British Mark for the Inferno music it was intense and very different from the last one.

I want to post clips using sound cloud but that will have to wait until I can start editing. In the meantime I'll post the link to yousendit when Mark puts them in MP3 format.

I got an nswering machine message today from a man named Rex Probe.

that's right Rex Probe is an awsome name, so awsome I can't stop saying it even in text... Rex Probe.

Anyway I've been weighing my options for synth upgrades, I still think my dream instrument is a Buchla 200e but lately I've been thinking about Serge Modular Systems. I crunched numbers a few days ago and discovered that a four pannel Serge system would cost roughly the same as a three panel Buchla and the three panel Serge could be almost 5000 dollars less. Anyway it's food for thought.

I had questions about Serge instruments and so I called their factory. They don't have their own website, they don't have call waiting and they don't have e-mail. They do however have an answering machine so I left a message.

Then today I got a call frm Mr. Probe... he he he Probe.

Anyway when I got through to him we had a great conversation about his instruments and it's given me a bit of food for thought. Serge systems are incredibly dense, functionally and they represent a very different paradigm to any other modular instrument that I know of.

They make pannels instead of individual modules and each panel contains what they call "function blocks" These function blocks are a bit like modules in any other system in that they can do stuff like create voltages and waveforms and trigger pulses but theyre unlike anything else out there becase each block could be an oscillator, an envelope generator, a voltage source, or a filter depending on how they are patched up and where their knobs are set. This means that the whole instrument is flexible and can be defined as just about anything you like as you need it. This is a really big selling point for me.

On the other hand Buchla has a few things up on the Serge systems. Serge has no midi... I could get a good midi converter and Rex pointed me in the direction of a very good one but Buchla has a really good midi decoder module which allows you to save and recall knob settings on the whole instrument which is the next big thing that Buchla has up on Serge, patch memory, I think up to thirty or forty patches can be saved and the selection mechanism can be voltage controlled. No other modular instrument can do that. period.

Finally the last thing about Serge that bothers me is that it's systems are not as portable as a Buchla. The Buchla instruments can fold up and come with a road case. Rex said that he could fit a Serge instrument into a Zero case, Zero are a very good travelling case manufacturer but I'm not certain what that would look like or how difficult it would be.

In the end it's a good thing that I can't afford either one right now because it means I have that much more time to make up my mind. Besides my rig as it stands blows me away, I'm in no rush.

fun with real video

My wife sent me this one and it got me looking for other fun mashups.


I wanted to post a different Negativland video but youtube won't let me so here's one it will

Discussing the Divine Comedy With Dante

It's the painting the web is abuzz about - but what does it mean

Jonathan Jones
The Guardian
March 18 2009

You recognise some of them, but not all of them. So it is with the 103 famous people in this bizarrely ingenious Taiwanese oil painting, Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante, which has become an online cult. Echoes of classic art seem to spring out from every point - yet they are fiendishly elusive.

Pinning down the exact quotations of famous works is harder than it looks and can tease you just as certainly as trying to identify everyone. For starters, the painting alludes to an 18th-century genre known as the "conversation piece", epitomised by Johann Zoffany's Tribuna of the Uffizi (c 1770s).

read the rest here

here's a link to a good close-up of the painting

Played a gig last night.

It was a good show, small crowd. I played for my supper (literally, my wife and I had Irish Stew and good coffee) then I played a mix of revolutionary folk traditionals and music off my CD and two people bought copies! I was pleased. I'm selling numbered batches of the CD on a sliding scale of 5 to 10 dollars, along with each CD you get a copy of The Christian Radical a booklet with liner notes and stories about the making of the CD and some various other goodies like stickers or buttons really, what ever I have handy that I think people might appreciate. If you would be interested there are still four available in this batch. I will probably release the album soon for download on Bandcamp and continue to print numbered batches of CD's to order. If you'd like one you an write to me, my e-mail address is at the bottom of this blog just scroll down until you see the gmail address.

Angelo Badalamenti talks about making the Twin Peaks Theme

Sneak Peak

Here are two links to Yousendit where you can hear a rough draft of Canto 11 being read followed by some of the raw audio sessions which I hope to use to create The Inferno. This music was recorded in one evening by The Empire of Crime.

Inferno 1

Inferno 2

I don't know how long these links will be active so download fast!

Cantos cantos cantos!

I'm almost half way through the Inferno now! I wrote Canto 14 last night and 13 the night before. I'm starting to think about publishing options, Sander Hicks (formerly of Soft Skull Press) offered me a discount on a publishing package from his newer venture Long Dash Publishing. That was some time ago so I wrote him yesterday to see if the offer still stands. He no longer runs the place but he forwarded my message on to the guy who does.

I think I'l be writing to a few other author friends and see where that leads but for now I'm hoping Long Dash will be the place.

I've got a gig tomorrow I'm playing a 15 minute set of revolutionary folk songs at the Organizing Centre for Social and Economic Justice. The event is scheduled from 7 - 10, and the program will be from 8:00 - 9:00 on Tuesday, March 17.

The Organizing Centre is a 672 E. Broadway, at Fraser.

Come if you can this will be my first live performance in almost a year I'll have copies of The Christian Radical and maybe a few CD's for sale as well.

They're laughing at you Ozzy

Just found this little gem of Ozzie fighting with an ARP 2600 it reminded me of another video I saw of Stevie Wonder beating up his. At least Stevie knew how to play his.

movie time: The Electronic Edge

The Electronic Edge (1/2) 1976


Music: The Electronic Edge (2/2) 1976


I love this documentary because in some ways it's so dated yet in others it's so spot on, the narrator sounds like he's reading a manifesto and the music is great. Also, lots of good footage of John Cage and some guy playing an ARP on top of a piano

H/T to Matrixsynth

back to Dante

I've taken a break from the paraphrase work but tonight I'm going to begin again. In the interval I learned a bit about Haibun and Senryu poetry and bought the best freaking sequencer I've ever played.

Granted my sequencer experience is limited but I bought this one off Craigslist for just over $1000!

It's the big square one on top.

This picture has arrived here in a sort of round-about way. It was taken by the previous owner and I found it on Matrixsynth when I was looking it up prior to buying it.

I've got it playing my Virus right now mixed with wonderful chaotic sounds from the vostok.

This thing is great!

And now I go and write.

some classic zappa

h/t to The Stretta Procedure

Some of the best of Zappa were his ideas

God bless Don Buchla

I swear it's almost as though it's alive


CHARLES COHEN AT THE BUCHLA MUSIC EASEL from ∆LEX on Vimeo.
/ / / / / Viewing with headphones or a stereo source is highly recommended \ \ \ \ \

This colorful video features sound artist Charles Cohen improvising on a 1970's Buchla Music Easel. This extremely rare instrument is one of Don Buchla's 200 series. Buchla (a pioneer of audio synthesis) only manufactured 14 of these units. The entire film was edited from an hour-long set of free improvisation, with audio was taken directly from Charles' mixing board.

More at Matrixsynth

So very much Stockhausen

After almost a month of tedious downloading I am now the proud owner of Karlheinz Stockhausen's complete recorded works. If you want music that will put you at ease this isn't it. If you want music that some people would angrily deny is music at all I think we should talk... It's that kind of music.

There's a real sense of accomplishment to finding this torrent and actually downloading it because of how long it took.

I love this Brian Eno Quote that the Avantguard is like research music: you might not want to listen to it but you're glad someone did it.

Haiku Dante: some previews

I've begun in earnest converting Inferno to Haiku poetry and I think it's time to post a ouple of previews.

Each Canto is written as a series of poems in the Shinru style, each Shinru functions as a stanza condensing the narrative and creating a structure for the abridged text. These are first drafts and hopefully I'll be writing Arguments to go with each Canto and put these together as works which would acompany the Divine Comedy CD's.

Below are individual Shinru from various Cantos I don't want to give away too much here.

From Canto #1
The woods woke me up
A history of fainting
I was middle aged

From Canto #3
We walked into the
Dark Terror and flies and saw
the mob Hell refused

From Canto #4
The sighs of children
sinless souls packed tight
none were born again

From Canto #5
Overcome by grief
and feeling giddy, I faint,
The human storm cries.

From Canto #7
We follow the shore
The stars say it's midnight here
A tall black tower

Tracks by The Empire of Crime

The following three tracks are excerpted from the experimental music project I'm a part of called The Empire of Crime. We have a CD and again I hope to make it available for free online. For anyone interested this is what I mean when I talk about making electronic music.

The Hutchison Effect

12 The Hutchison Effect by Desolation Sound

Take The A Train (Duke Ellington re-mixed and mangled)

05 Take the A Train by Desolation Sound

coming soon:
More Empire of Crime and Desolation Sound tracks

I seem to have reached the limit of my free account I'll have to upload more later. From now on I'd like to upload at least one track every day or so who knows maybe this could be how I make my music available free of charge.

Desolation Sound: From The Fog

06 From the Fog by Desolation Sound

Desolation Sound: Qechua Child

01 Qechuan Child by Desolation Sound

This song is about Ecuador Todd MacDonald from The Winks is playing the percussion and flute

Desolation Sound: The Peace in December

I've taken far too long to get this done but I've finally gotten off my ass and started an account that will let me upload tracks here.

01 Peace in December by Desolation Sound

This is a track from my most recent CD I'm looking for some way to offer the entire album for free online if you want a hard copy along with a booklet and various surprise goodies you can e-mail me at i.am.using.the.internets (at) gmail.com

and for a very reasonable price I'll send you two CD's in numbered batches and lots of great stuff. Or you can wait for the songs to all go up online and download them for free. I'll probably make alternative versions available online so if you bought the album you'd get different stuff.

I just can't do it.

I can't bring myself to get a myspace account. It goes beyond just principle, I chose some years ago to avoid anything like myspace or facebook for personal reasons I won't go into here. But since finishing my second album and talking to people like Sandow Birk I've become very aware of the usefulness of myspace as a promotional tool so I started to think that maybe I could just sgn up for an account and use it to promote my music and nothing else after all I don't have to use it to meet new "friends" or blog there or anything but I just couldn't do it. I've read their terms of sevice and their privacy section is really deplorable. I would have to check a box that states that I am ok with the transfer of my personal information to the US where it would be subject to American (lack of) privacy laws and no matter how useful this site might be I just can't do it. I don't agree with their terms of service because I don't agree with the laws as they stand in the USA and I refuse to voluntarily put myself under them.
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This really gets under my skin because myspace is everywhere. If you are a musician and you want to promote yourself it seems these days that it's almost impossible to do it easily without myspace however I've got no choice there's nothing else out there that compares.

I'd like to use this blog in part to promote my music but I've no idea who's reading this or where and I still need to get an account somewhere that will allow me to upload tracks. I'd like to get my previous songs on here and maybe post some of the preliminary Dante work as well.

Haiku is working out well as a poetic medium, it's also solved a couple of problems I've written about here already. Because of the strict economy of language I can't easily succumb to the temptation of placing people in Hell and I don't have to agree with Dante's interpretations because as long as I include the major parts of each canto I can do it my own way. I'm up to Canto 6 now and I'm going to do Canto's 1 and 2 tonight. I'll probably re-record the narrative when I get the computer set up.

A few days ago I biked up to the studio wth a friend and unpacked a lot of the equipment then we jamed it was fun. I also started reading up on poetics and music theory. I'm itching to get my hands on something that will play in Bohlen-Pierce but first I've got to get the rest of my modular built and install the studio software. I'm dying to get this into high gear but so far I've been glad for the extra time it's allowed me to do a lot of reading and learning I had not anticipated.