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.