Happy Halloween

(Cannibal Pumpkin by one of my former students, Jonathan Williams)

Ah Halloween! The first time I distinctly remember ever getting indigestion was when I was 12 after a binge session with my honking bag of candy. I also used to be one of those kids who found immense joy categorizing the loot by type, then flavor or shape, brand, color, etc. Of course, I'd eat those pieces that didn't fit into any predefined category first...yeah, I was weird.

I am utterly impressed that Tim Young from Contrast Podcast managed to get CP #31 out on the 31st AND have it be a spooky theme. I had intended to get the next Adzuki Bean Stash Podcast out by today, but I'm having techical difficulties with the new version of EZArchive. I keep getting script errors when I try to create a link. Sniffle.

But never fear Tim and the rest of his MP3 bloggers with the CP crew are here to
rescue your ears! I'm very happy that Voltaire is in the mix.



Please do check it out:

CP31: Music to watch ghouls by

Thanks to Fil from Pogoagogo for the theme. The intro alone makes it worthwhile and I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Robert Smith and Elizabeth Taylor look a little too much like each other these days.

Some songs to get you in the mood:
"When You're Evil" Voltaire
"Devil and My Family" Ghost Mice
"Ghost" Machine Made Pleasure

Happy Halloween everybody!

EZ archive delays... some down time

Just wanted to pop in and mention that the file storage utility I'm using, EZ archive, is upgrading to version 3.0 right now, so there's going to be some down time until my files get transfered. It supposed to be a couple of days or so, but there might be some glitches, hence, some links may not work. Bear with me...

Till then, here are some photos from the Lucid Dementia and Beyond Hope show from the show at Elysium on the 20th of October.

Beyond Hope consisting that night of Eric2 on keyboards and Delainey DeVane on vox:


One of my favorite pics from the Lucid Dementia set is is this one:


That's Mr. Lifto of the Jim Rose Circus Freakshow flashing, Byron, the LD guitarist his goods.

Pic of bloody Sheldon, puppet master and vocals:


Nic on bass and Holly on vox. You can just barely make out AsilX on drums in the background:


The original photo streams are here. Photos are by yours truly:
Lucid Dementia Photostream
Beyond Hope Photostream

best burger in the world continued

Ah yes, the legendary burger from Star Seeds was so good that my brother made a trip down to Austin just to try it out (actually, he came down for my hubby's b-day, but the burger was a good added incentive). Here he is in front of the restaurant:


Yeah, it's a dive, but hey, the food is good.

Here he is sampling the mediocre fries. Nothing compared to the burger though:


Luxurious:


I took a pic of my burger. I couldn't finish it, but did get much more eaten than this photo indicates...just had to work on it slowly. Look at the yummy busted yolk oozing onto the plate:


Our trusty waiter who yelled at the chef when he forgot the bacon. Consequently, JBro ended up getting a huge pile of bacon for his burger. Nice:


Travis and I looking content and fed:


Once again, all 3 of us showed up wearing concert T-shirts. I'd like to say my attire consists of more interesting items, but I'd be lying. Same goes for my husband. My brother on the other hand has the occasional Hawaiian T-shirt, some kick ass business suits and apparently a new TX Rollergirl's shirt.

More theremin happiness and Peter Pringle

I'm still working on uploading photos and editing video clips from the Lucid Dementia show this past Friday. That review will be up some time this week. Till then, here's more theremin happiness...

My brother Johnny came up to visit this weekend and we got my hubby to record us jamming, or at least trying to jam. I have a hard time hearing over the theremin a lot of time. Nothing spectacular, but hey, it's us on theremin and guitar. Might as well spread around uploaded media:


(regular url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m17_YpEvbIU)

I did notice that the one of my favorite theremin players in the world Peter Pringle updated his site with a few more MP3's. There are very few virtuosos who come close to Mr. Pringle's ability and I absolutely love the fact that he does a lot of classical repertoire. The type of tone quality and expression he creates is what I think a theremin is supposed to sound like. Using the instruemnt for interesting sound samples and textures for rock and digital music is certainly cool but there's something to be said about someone who can play an absolute solid theremin lead epecially when we're talking Puccini.

Listen to:
"White Voices" (clip)
"Un Bel Di"

Visit:
Peter Pringle's Official Website
Purchase Theremin Jewel Box

JBro and Cindy Adzuki Jamming...first show

I finally gave in and signed up for a YouTube account since it's stable and well, easy to use. What better way to capture moments like there, eh?

Anyhow, my brother came down to celebrate my hubby's bday and we spent a lot of time jamming on the various instruemnts around the house. Here's an example with theremin and guitar:



The party itself was a blast and I got to see tons of friends--some I hadn't seen in ages. We broke out instruments and jammed all night while eating good food. Trav got some amazing gifts. I'll post more details on that later.

As for the Lucid Dementia show, that went well, but it was a weird night. First of all I was greeted with a waiver I had to sign when the person working the desk noticied my SLR that I brought in. All this hoo haa with photography--bleh! I figured just asking the band leaders were good enough, but no, apparently you had to agree with the club not to take pictures of audience members. ???

More disappointly though, the bulk of the usual suspects were not at ELysium due to being completely exhausted from the night before with KMFDM. I was freaking tired too and feeling sick that morning (see previous post) but left work early and slept it off. However when I awoke, I just had this foreboding feeling of absolute dread I couldn't shake off. It mostly nerves, but the super intuitive side of me was telling me that the likely hood of seeing someone I knew at the show would be small. Turns out not a single person I knew managed to make it out (12 midnight show...yes, goes to show my friends and I are getting old). Fortunatey, Trav caught a little bit of it on the digital camera when he wasn't busy acting as my "roadie". Darling husband's job was to carry my harp and theremin to a from stage and make sure things were connected properly. It was cute and amusing.

The usual sound guy from the club wasn't there and according to him the output levels from the PA system were off. I had no fucking clue what was going on except that there was a tech guy, wedging a mic under legs trying to fit it under my harp at one point.



It sounded neat amped up while filling the club with it's out-of-place dulcet tones. Bernadette, the theremin, sung amazingly well. Supposedly the DJ thought it was just me at first until he realized I was flapping my arms about. As for glitches, it was a little nerve wracking when the taped intro didn't come on cuin the rest of the band in the beginning and I was sitting out there, nervously improvising for an extra 45 seconds or so getting anxious, but all went well from that point on-- at least as far as I can tell. Lucid Dementia put on a powerful performance and I really enjoyed watching them the rest of the night and taking photos.

6 seconds of harp soundcheck:



You can't see much in this clip except at the end (which was spliced from soundcheck), but you can definitely hear Bernadette's operatic wailing which got plenty of compliments after the show and even a unsolicited few hugs from strangers. That felt nice. The band was just a dream to play with and I'm definitely going to cherish that experience.



The rest of the show was fantastic. I'll most likely post details of that in my music blog later. For now, after staying up past 2:30 am for 3 nights in a row, I think I'm going to go to take a long nap again. So tired...but there's home-made bread pudding from Sammi in the fridge waiting for me when I wake up.

CAN'T GET SICK!!!!!!

OMG, I think I over exerted myself this week. I was feeling icky on Wednesday, took the day off, felt better, rehearsed, went to work...and now I'm REALLY starting to feel ill.

I need to will myself into feeling better. Currently, my neck hurts, my stomach hurts, my back hurts, my head feels hot and I feel feverish. I blame this on work. I realized this morning that when I wake up, my forehead is all furrowed especially when I'm dreaming about my current project I'm not too fond of.

Sucks. SUCK. SUCK. SUCK.

Myabe it's nerves, but this is not cool. Not cool at all.
I'm going to go home and try to sleep this off before my 7:00 call time. Showtime is at midnight. MUST...GET...BETTER.

Theremin happiness...and upcoming performances

Someone on the Moog Music board posted this rendition of Bobby Mcferrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy" on theremin. Although I'm tired of that song, I'm certainly happy someone played it on theremin.

Speaking of happy, I've got great theremin related news. In case you didn't know, I own a Moog Etherwave and her name is "Bernadette". She's been good to me and quite therapeutic ever since I blew out my voice a couple of years ago.

She's going to be deployed for the first time tomorrow night at Elysium with the best fucking goth metal band ever, Lucid Dementia. If you're in the Austin area, come check them out. Dallas' Beyond Hope will also be performing and from what I've heard so far, I'm looking forward to seeing them as well.

At the very least, come give me moral support as I'm nervous as heck. I'll be playing harp and theremin for LD's first song in their set. Anyhow, I've raved about Lucid Dementia numerous times.



Visit:
Lucid Dementia's Official Website
Lucid Dementia's MySpace
Beyond Hope's Myspace
Club Elysium

Nambavan

Anyone who has ever been mesmerized by a drum line knows that sometimes all you need is pure rhythm and Russia's Nambavan does this beautifully with his newest album Last Night the Dj Shaved My Ass. What a great title!

Is this merely a computer geek prone to making experimental sound? Indeed no. His prior albums Sex, Drugs and Russian Girls and Chechnya On a Dance Floor are homages to disco, pop rock and dance. Although his newest album veers more on the experimental side, it's still very listenable.

So who all influenced Mr. Nambavan? As mentioned on one of my favorite sites, WM Recordings:
His musical diet consists of Blondie, the Sex Pistols, Cerrone, Sonic Youth, Jimi Hendrix, Iggy Pop, The Doors, Giorgio Moroder, Donna Summer, Madonna, Supermax, and the Bee Gees.


Listen to (courtesy of WM Recordings):
"Last Night the DJ Shaved My Ass"
"Sad Song"
"Liver" (from Sex, Drugs and Russian Girls)

Visit:
Nambavan's Official Web Site
Weird Music Recordings

salmon cravings, broken noses and cold toes

My feet are freezing right now.
It's raining outside and while sloshing through puddles on my way to the office, I managed to soak my shoes. So, I'm barefoot at the moment, braving the carpet that probably hasn't been washed since the 60's and updating this blog because I can't concentrate.

***

Trav's nose is doing much better. Once the swelling went down, his bridge straightened out. It's still a little fat looking, but at least when he sneezes blood clots don't go shooting out. The bruises are traveling across his face under his eyes now and although he looks like a heroin junkie, it is a sign that he's healing. The good news is that he probably won't need surgery.

My brother-in-law's daughter broke her arm while playing soccer the other day. Ironic. I guess the universe is trying to tell Trav that he ought to lay off the ball for a while and he should since his ankle has been bothering him anyway.

***

If you know me, you know I love salmon. That's the one food I crave the most and this weekend was no exception. I had salmon, roasted veggies and couscous for breakfast yesterday complete with home made tartar sauce. I make damn good tartar sauce:

2tbs sweet relish
3tbs chopped fresh parsley
1/3-1/2 of a red onion chopped finely
1 stalk of green onion finely chopped
juice of one lemon or lime
4 tbs of mayonaisse
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp garlic salt and 1/4 tsp of paprika
or
1/2 tsp of Tony Sacher's seasoning salt
(you can adjust the spices to taste)

Just mix it all together and let it sit in the fridge for at least an hour.
I prepare my salmon by shaking a little salt and pepper on top and then dousing it with melted butter and lime juice. Sometimes I put chopped parsely on top. I then bake it at 450 degrees until it's nice a flaky. Yum Yum.

Anyhow, T was amused that I ate this full meal at 10am on Sunday morning, but he wasn't the least bit suprised. "You're part cat," he said. I woke up and decided that's what I wanted for breakfast, so I had it.

***

I broke down and bought a gem scale from Ebay. I know I know. I should have known better. Yeah. When I saw accurate to the nearest hundreth, I didn't know that the scale *rounds up* regardless. I only paid a dollar for it, but still...

***

I saw a bit of Engrish this past weekend at the new Asian Supermaket Center in town. Outside a sweets shop there was a sign for "Free Unsecure Internet Access"
Heh.

Travis broke his nose

As Sandy put it so eloquently: Just goes to show how unhealthy exercise is...

Yeah, so as the title indicates, my darling husband broke his schnoz this weekend. Basically he went for a header during soccer and missed. At the same time, some idiot from the other team decided to go for the ball as Travis's head was traveling in a direction close to this man's leg and well, you can imagine what happened....yet another trip to the ER due to soccer. I wish I was at the game so I could have kicked that guy's ass and then chew out the ref for not carding the other player. Apparently he didn't even come over and apologize or help when everyone else was frantically trying to stop the blood, providing ice, water, comfort, etc.

Can you believe that?

From the left:


From the right:


It's a little hard to see, but there are 3 distinct fractures where a chunk of the tip has broken off. What you can't see in the scans are the hairline fractures (3 or 4 of them radiating down to the anchor point of his nose).

What's more startling is the front view:

Oy! it is crooked (click on image for high resolution scan)and we were advised by the doctor in the ER to seek out a Ear, Nose and Throat specialist to ensure that it heals straight.

Course, being the guy that he is, Travis asked me to take pictures when the bleeding stopped (the rag was scarlet red on the field):


Sigh...I am none too pleased and needless to say, neither one of us slept too well last night. If Travis leaned his head forward, blood would dribble out. If he sneezed, it would REALLY start to bleed. Tilting his head back, the blood would drip into his throat. He was already nauseated due to the large amounts he swallowed.

Gallery of Tacky Rings found on Ebay pt. 4

If you're new to this, here are the earlier volumes:

Gallery of Tacky Rings Part 1
Gallery of Tacky Rings Part 2
Gallery of Tacky Rings Part 3

I'd like to start with a confession... *I* own a tacky ring and it may very well end up on Ebay soon, so watch for it if you're into this type of gaudy jewelry.

Yes, my dear old grandma gave this door knocker to me supposedly because she though I'd get a great kick out of it.



In case you're wondering what it is made out of. The center stone is an enormous 16.5 x 12mm aventurine quartz cabochon set atop an art nouveau head and shank made out of 14k white gold.



Lately, I wonder what drugs my grandfather was consuming when he made this purchase. Or, perhaps he wanted a nice sturdy ring for grandma to punch thugs and irritating daughter-in-laws with if the situation came up.

Moving right along...can you figure out what hell this is?


The description says "orange tube ring." I see the orange and I sort of see the ring part, but what exactly are they refering to when they say "tube?" It honestly looks more like the crown prince of the planet zogg keeled over and decided to start sobbing. He depressed because he's so ugly. His friends are depressed too.

Speaking of planet Zogg:



We come in peace and we bring you meat!!!!!!
Ah yes, you too can have a slab of bacon worn knuckle to knuckle. I'm sure it works great as an ice scraper too. I think that meaty looking thing is agate.

As for this one:


I can't figure out what is more tackier: the fact that there's this enormous hunk of rose quartz teetering atop a mess of wire or the fact that there's an encaged bill inside. What is this ring trying to say?

Money is evil! It allows wankers to buy shit like this!!!!

For the drag queen in all of us:



Boom chicka chicka chicka Boom chicka chicka chicka
Boom chicka
Boom chicka
Boom chicka chicka chicka

This one is lovely:


It works great for dips and salsas!


For those who want to honor Marge Simpson or perhaps it's an ode to half eaten cotton candy. This one calls out to all purple lovers. I know a lot of purple loves. None of them would ever wear this ring.

Good intentions gone wrong:


Does the figure on the left have diamonds as boobies????
I can appreciate this as a sculpture, but at the same time, do you really want to wear something that looks like 3 women are having an orgy humping a giant pink sapphire? I believe this ring was commissioned for some sort of breast cancer awareness campaign, but maybe it was for a porn site.

For the porn site celebrating males:

Either that or it's for the Society of Teapot Enthusiasts. Why would you ever mount a slab of amber that way? I guess you could pick your teeth with the phallic looking thing up front.


M-I-C...K-E-Y...M-O...wait a second. We've been through this before.


Honey, I dropped the colander in the garbage disposal by accident, but don't you worry! I saved it and made ya somethin'...

If you like your eggs over easy:

Unfortunately, I see these kinds of ring on Ebay quite frequently. $4200 is the "appraisal" value for this "fancy yellow diamond ring." There's nothing fancy about this! I'd rather wear a bottle of dijon mustard on my finger than this piece of shit. As one clever user on Diamond Talk said:

I'm betting the "cert" says 1.72 ct VVS1 Fancy Yellow translucent diamond with small transparent inclusions. Ick!

Another jeweler even noticed that the prongs aren't even secured onto the stone (look at the upper left prong). Frankly I'd be relieved if this stone fell out of my setting!

I've known irritating users on jewelry forums who actualy like this ring:


Let me tell you something. At some point a burnt out artist is gonna start making things just to pad his retirement fund and this is easily the case. Just because he's famous and just because a ring costs an arm and a leg does not mean it is within good taste. It looks as if he left the torch on for too long and accidentally over melted the rib work on the setting.

What the hell is that little diamond doing in the middle of the mexican fire opal? Everyone has a freaking belly button stud these days--even gemstones. Furthermore, the undershank looks as if this poor ring has goiter and warts. Bleh..

Karsh Kale: Broken English

I finally got my copy of Karsh Kale's Broken English in the mail the other day and I must say, I'm greatly pleased. Although it is a good bit different from the Indian infused atmospheric electro-pop that I fell in love with from Liberation and Realize, Kale's newest studio album still offers richs sounds and amazing vocals, albeit with a heavier hand. Broken English contains more elements of hip-hop, dance and pop-rock due in part to the various guests artists featured including Midival Punditz, Crystal Method, and rapper MC Napolean.

The song "Dancing at Sunset" displays Kale's gift for merging East and West soundscapes beautifully with sophisticated pop vocals while "Hole in the Sky" showcases his trademark musical programming skills.

All great musicians evolve and that's exactly what Karsh Kale is doing. Like his other albums, I think this one will also easily get better with age.

Listen to:
"Dancing at Sunset"
"Hole in the Sky"

Visit:
Karsh Kale's Official Website
Karsh Kale's Myspace
Buy Broken English from Amazon
Six Degree Records (I pretty much like everything from this label)

Does size matter?

Not if you can't get your mouth around it.
Now, Rob Sheridan might have had a mighty big one but Derek Lawson's is freaking huge.

I'm talking about gummy bears, people. This one is so big it would feed a small village.

Ah yes, these gummy bears not only possess cognitive skills-- they're the types that win Field's Metals. Of course, I'm sure they also eat people for food on occasion. If you bite its ear off, it won't just maul you to death at night like the other giant gummy bears. No, this breed of gummy bear will most likely start by stealing your identity, then liquidating your savings and then finally, framing you for murder.

I think next time I'm in Raleigh, NC, I'm gonna have to get one just cause. You can also order these from www.candyship.com.

We could put it againt the cats and see who gets terrified first.

Lacuna Coil: Karmacode

Although my friends listen to this group, I didn't really get into Lacuna Coil until after I heard a fantastic cover of Enjoy the Silence through a post over at My Old Kentucky Blog.

Yeah yeah...it's a another goth band...but it's a goth band from Italy! And yes, I realize at quick glance it looks like they grabbed their song titles from a Nine Inch Nails lyrics generator, but hey, they're pretty fucking good. I haven't quite warmed up to the vocal stylings of Christina Scabbia, but I do like the metal guitar work and they're all nice to look at too.

Listen to:
"Enjoy the Silence" (Depeche Mode cover)
"Closer"
"Fragile"

Visit:
Official Lacuna Coil Website
lacuna Coil's Myspace
Empty Spiral: Lacuna Coil Community (I'll refrain from making jokes about the NIN Spiral community...)
Buy Karmacode from Amazon

two gigs!

Wow, just when things started to get really gloomy, two performance gigs popped up.
Sheldon Reynold's of Lucid Dementia thinks he might be able to use me on harp or theremin to open up their show at Elysium on the 20th. I'm flattered and also a little nervous. I love their music....

The Austin Civic Wind Ensemble is thinking of using me on theremin for their Halloween Concert on the 30th. I still have no idea what that one entails but I am excited. Logistically its sort of becoming complicated since the theremin needs to be amped up to make an audible sound and um, I don't think ACWE is exactly prone to keeping band gear around. Heh.

I'm sure I can work through this though.

Looks like I'm taking Bernadette the Theremin and Merv the Harp on the road with me. :)

Atari Teenage Riot and CP27: Songs with a Political Message

New Contrast Podcast is up and this time the mood is all political. Deek Deekster from Pod of Funk came up with the theme and as always this is a great contrasty mix of musicians, albeit slanting a bit left in general, but what do you expect from those who dabble in mp3 bloggery? Thanks to Tim Young for compiling the show.



My contribution was from a group called Atari Teenage Riot. There's nothing better to wake up to than brutal in-your-face angry anarchist anti-fascist anti-nationalistic screaming. Political agenda aside, one does wonder how this group managed to tour without all blowing out their vocals, but ah well, another tangent to ponder.

Listen to:
"Fuck All"

Visit:
Atari Teenage Riot's Myspace
Biography at Digital Hardcore
Purchase ATR CDs

On a unrelated note, I HATE EZarchive. It ain't easy! It's freaking unstable. Does anyone know of a better file storeage utility I can use????

OMG! All Drum Corp Radio

I'm in heaven...my co-worker Andy discovered an all Drum Corp Radio station on Live365.com Awesome!

Listen to:
All Drum Corp Music

Don't know what a drum corp is? Visit:
Wiki Entry on Drum and Bugle Corps

good grief

I took a depression screening today because, well, I couldn't concentrate at work and got this result:

Your answers also show you might be at risk for harming yourself.

You are advised to see your doctor or a mental health professional immediately for a complete evaluation - or dial "911" - or call 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255). - or go immediately to the nearest hospital Emergency Room for an evaluation.

Um, that sounds a lot worse than I actually feel. The funny thing is I've felt about the same for the past 10 years or so--maybe longer. It sorta makes me laugh as sordid as that is.

The really sad thing is that I validated that site's HTML and it failed with 18 errors. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

What's even funnier to me is that the above paragraph was preceded by this sentence:

Your screening results indicate a high likelihood that you are suffering from severe depression.

Well, duh.