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April 30, 2006
Sid Luscious & The Pants Poster
And heres an alternate version cause I'm full of love for my fellow pant lovers.
The poster madness continues this week with Sid Luscious and the Pants. They're packing maximum new wave sound. I definately recommend the track Automatic if you want to listen to a great song from their upcoming album tentatively named "Pantalicious".
It appears they are fans of pants. And who isn't?
Details are as follows:
Sid Luscious and the Pants
San Francisco Motorcycle Club
May 6, 2006
Website: (featuring mp3 downloads from next record) Sid Luscious (blogspot)
If you want to get involved and have an upcoming show and want a gig poster done up details are here!. At the moment I'm doing this for free, and if you want your gig poster now's still the time to hit me up. If i have time I will do one for you. Email me on info at ausmusician dot com with your details.
Posted by funnelbc at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2006
Pirate Spotting in the modern age
Absolutely excellent. Very timely and amusing. Via electronic freedom foundation.org
Posted by funnelbc at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
iPod, Crap DRM, Bile apon the music establishment.
This all falls into the basket that I would loosely "Copyright Isanity" but I think if I had a category assigned to that I would be profoundly depressed.
Let me prefece this with a short story. A coworkers iPod shat it after a year and 3 months use. It was a U2 model - no accounting for taste... Just kidding Paul. It looked lovely. After taking it in for Apple service, he was informed by the smug Applestore girl that "they could replace the hardrive, but couldn't guarantee that it would work for long, they couldn't give a warrantee beyond 2 months for the repair, and to boot, couldn't gaurantee they would be replacing the hdd with a new one." Their advice? Buy a new one...
So, this morning, said coworker comes into work with a shiny new iPod. Slightly disappointed and annoyed, but nontheless willing to plonk down the cash to enjoy iPod related music listening. The point is coming soon folks. So he had a bunch of music that he has purchased from the iTunes store. Now here's the thing that bites. Even though when he realized that he no longer had a copy of the music on his desktop - (and subsequently lost the copy on his iPod obviously) and when he went to Purchase another copy of said music - the apple store recognized that he had previously bought it. And advised him to goto: Advanced > check for purchases.
Which informed him that he had all the purchased music available to his account. Less of course, every goddamn album he had downloaded off iTunes. It seems that even though the Apple store recognises that he has purchased the music in the past, he simply cannot download another copy to his machine. Music he copied onto his iPod which died after a year and 3 months.
I often hear stories about iPods dying, and being an office nerd, I also spend a lot of time helping folks with thier iPod problems. In a department with about 50 people working in my immediate area, I have had to troubleshoot 6 (maybe more) iPods, 3 of which had irrecoverable hard drive problems. I have an iPod myself, and this worries me slightly. It seems you don't have to ask far to discover someone who has had an iPod and had a bad experience. It seems when they work, they work, great. When they don't...
What I think is important to take from this: even the more flexible DRM systems still suck absolute goats balls. Secondly, buy Apple shares. These guys are absolutely minting it on products of questionable quality. And still they come up smelling of roses - Apple still have an amazing reputation. Which I find absolutely incredible.
Posted by funnelbc at 11:02 PM | Comments (1)
Welcome to ed & rowan & a call for contributors.
I'd like to formally welcome Ed (long time forum contributor) to the onetonnemusic team. He's contributed to the forums and has sent in a great review of a recent gig at the Prince of Wales in Melbourne.
Also I'd like to welcome Rowan who I work with, who has a collassal music collection of astounding coolness. Hopefully rowan will be able share some thoughts on here when he gets a chance!
Want to write music related things for onetonnemusic?
Anyone who wants to participate with this site, and share their pithy views on music, music culture, music creation, whatever - is welcome to. I would welcome any readers who would like to have a shot to drop me a line on info [at] ausmusician dot com. Everyone is welcome here - I'm happy to share any thoughts on quality music. We don't do pop shite, and if you are a regular viewer of the site, you know what kind of stuff I'm into. Er. Basically anything music or music nerd gets me. Points for being amusing and interesting will be rewarded also.
So don't hesitate. If you want to expose your writing to 800+ unique people every steenkin' day, email me on info [at] ausmusician.com and we'll chat!
Posters
Just a short update on the poster situation while I'm doing housekeeping. I have 2 more requests that I have received and I have some client work I need to sort out, but I intend to surprise the band members with fresh poster artwork by the end of the weekend. Watch this space. Details for poster design bizzo are here. Get one while they're hot. Related Another Poster Design & Dirty Secrets Poster
Posted by funnelbc at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)
Prince of Wales: Resin Dogs, Def Wish Cast & Hermitude...
For those who don't know, which I'm guessing is anyone who is reading this, I recently went to an Aussie Hip-Hop show at the Prince of Wales, Melbourne. Resin Dogs were the headliners with Def Wish Cast and Hermitude as the supporting acts along with some guest MC’s for the Resin Dogs set.
DJ G-San was there from the start playing some pretty cool tracks. He was mixing up some hip-hop - mainly artists from the US like Jurassic 5 - and then throwing in a few old soul tracks as well like Marlena Shaw’s “California Soul”. Anyway he was there until about 10:30 pm just setting the mood and waiting for the crowd to build up. He was doing a pretty good job of it too adding in a bit of scratching in between tracks and mixing in the tracks between each other.
After he went off Def Wish Cast were up with Katch from the Resin Dogs on the tables. I’m guessing that he’ll be doing the beats for the new Def Wish Cast album which is due “hopefully June” on the Hydro Funk label. Anyway, for people who don’t know about Def Wish Cast, they are Aussie hip-hop pioneers and were doing their stuff in the late 80’s to mid 90’s. They then went missing from the scene and I’m not sure why – it might have something to do with one of their MC’s having a big dent with a scar on the side of his head – but they’re back now and they’re producing some pretty good stuff.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from them, but when they were up on stage they were really good. Not only was the rhyming well executed, they were also interacting with the crowd and break dancing in between verses (including my favourite, the robot). Their upcoming album is certainly one to look out for as the new tracks they were performing were sounding pretty nice.
Def Wish Cast said their thank you's and good byes and Hermitude were then setting up to come on. Elgusto on the tables and Dubs on the keys. I wasn’t quite sure how they’d sound live but they pulled it off really well doing some live mixes of songs as well as making up a couple of tracks on the spot. With no MC's it was a bit hard to keep the crowd interested in the tracks but they were calling out to the crowd getting them to interact too which was a good thing (I’m all for crowd interaction!) I found that towards then end of their set I was getting a little bored as they sort of went from hip-hop to jungle and drum n bass. I like that sort of thing but I wasn’t in the mood for it.
They packed up and the Resin Dogs started organizing their mics and instruments (they were in their live band mode which was something to look forward to. Keys, guitar, drums, turntables and double bass). Once they had everything set up out came Abstract Rude, Mystro and Hau, who was wearing an elephant mask. From memory they started up with the new track Definition. It was good because there were some screens set up and they had the lyrics to the choruses so people could join in if they wanted to. The live band was sounding really good too.
Abstract Rude and Mystro were really into it and were really involving the crowd while Hau was more standing at the back just participating. Anyway they performed a few new songs which I’m guessing will be on the upcoming Resin Dogs album. I thought they sounded pretty good too so I’m looking forward to it being released. Along with the new tracks a few older ones came out.
It was weird, they finished one song and somebody climbed up onto the stage. The person looked like they were pretty drunk too but they were trying to talk to one of the guys from the Resin Dogs. Katch was telling him to get back down and was pointing him to get off but the guy kept standing there. Finally a big bouncer guy who was doing the sound levels or something got onto the stage, picked up the guy and carried him off like a baby to the back of the stage and then threw him down the stairs! That’s not the funny bit though, I’ll come back to this later!
Anyway, part way through one of the Resin Dog’s new tracks called A Destructive Circle (which is about greed and how “money don’t make the man”) they all stopped, bobbed down behind their instruments and on the screens they had a video going which was pretty much about the US attacking Iraq etc and was asking who is going to be next? Iran, North Korea etc. That went for a few minutes and then they started up the song again. It was pretty interesting.
After doing an encore which included one of the members of Def Wish Cast, Mystro said that there was an announcement to be made “somebody is getting married” to which a small group of people walked to the front of the stage. A girl got up and was acting like a bit of a dick (drunk, drugs or both) and then Mystro asked where the guy was. One of the guys who was with the girl said something to Mystro and he then said “oh it was the drunk guy! That guy who got thrown off! Well I think he might have been a bit too drunk to propose anyway! Where is he?” to which somebody said that he was still out the back or got kicked out or something!
So anyway it was a really good night. The only thing which was annoying was the few dickheads who were on drugs/really intoxicated and were dancing into me. It’s annoying when this happens because it takes your focus off the music and puts it onto the person. I ended up elbowing a guy really hard in the back one time and he moved off a little and then came back so I ended up moving.
So Def Wish Cast and also the Resin Dogs have new albums coming out which both should be really good. All the artists which performed were really good live so if you get the chance to see any of them go and do it. Hermitude are traveling overseas for the next few months too so for anybody overseas go and check them out if you can.
Posted by ed at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2006
another gig poster!
Or if blue is your thing, check out the other version!
For this week's gig poster, I'm happy to announce another fine rock and roll show. I will be unable to attend as I will be out of the state on the date of the show, but Pony is a goddamn rockin' venue and I've seen a couple of good shows there. I recommend it.
Details are as follows:
Trough Lollies
The Time of the Assassins
Erik
At Pony
68-70 Little Collins St
Melbourne
Thurs 4th May 9pm
$5
If you want to get involved and have an upcoming show and want a gig poster done up details are here!. At the moment I'm doing this for free, and if you want your gig poster nows the time to hit me up. If i have time I will do one for you. Email me on info at ausmusician dot com with your details.
Posted by funnelbc at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2006
Guitar Hero Controller + Max/Msp = Fun
In the department of more crazy things that can be done using Max/Msp (see: cycling74, is this hack that lets you use the PS2 Guitar Hero controller to control a simple sequencer. It assigns samples to each of the 5 fret positions (read buttons) and also input through the strumming lever. You can have up to 5 banks of samples, giving you 25 different samples to work with as well as the control achievable strumming.
This all sounds fairly hokey until you see the video in action and you start to appreciate the simple beauty of this idea. I really have to clear my desk and spend some quality time with Max/Msp because most of the time when I have a wild dream about a music interface or program, it usually already exists as a Max/Msp program.
Guitar Hero Interface to Sequencer Via Joystiq.com
Posted by funnelbc at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
NEW Create Digital Music Launched
Okay this is a bit of a crossover post; along with the amazing work of James Loveday and under the leadership of Peter Kirn, (as well a bunch of other great folks who have contributed) I am delighted to announce the redesign of Create Digital Music.
And what you see is the end result. There will be more things to come, and I will be continuing to help with a related project and some other CDM related stuff is surely to come. But until then, please visit and enjoy the new Create Digital Music!
More of the back story follows after the jump...
I got involved with CDM about a year and half previously when I was up late at night, and felt like refreshing their logo for them. I sent my design to them and said that I was a fan of the site, and here's some new artwork, use it if you like, or if not, not a problem either! Peter responded personally the next day, and the new logo and artwork was online. This started an exchange of emails, and nearly 10 months after that, Peter got in contact to let me know that he was ready to go full steam ahead with the new site design. Basically, by giving away a little bit of work, I somehow found myself working on this as a proper freelance gig. Working with folks who share similar interests as me is something I should do more often I think! This was an exciting and fun project to work on.
The design and implementation process on this site took quite a while - and Peters patience and understanding of freak Australian weather conditions such as 4 consecutive 36+ degree (celcius) days was fantastic. So after I had wrapped up the basic design, the implementation process started in earnest and James did his thing here. Which was nothing short of amazing. I gave him no short order of requirements in terms of the design, and his templating of that design is excellent!
I'm really proud to have been involved with this project. Thanks Peter, and thanks James!
Posted by funnelbc at 07:49 AM | Comments (0)
April 11, 2006
File: under Electroplankton, Cthulhu & Blues
Over on the shiny new CDM forums I came across this comment from Thomas from Milezero.org
Actually, I recently finished a sketch of an electroplankton song, in case anyone wants to hear.
And here's the link.
Basically. It's absolutely fantastic. Its a electroplankton composition, which is a blues song about HP Lovecraft's 'The Shadow over Innsmmouth'. What's not to love? This song rocks. Featuring lyrics such as "Yeah a whole lotta time till the shugga starts to roam!" it's got nerd cred in bags. It combines all sorts of pop-sub-culture references into a rather catchy tune. I dig it, and so will you (if you are a certified music nerd). Get it now!
Posted by funnelbc at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)
Prophet 64 Cart for Commodore 64
Astounding is probably how to best put this. Not only are these guys making software for the commodore 64 SID scene. They're releasing it in a genuine commodore 64 cartridge. Lovely!
Prophet 64 includes a sequencer, which apparently "If you find past C64 music programs incomprehensible or you never quite grasped the concept of "trackers", this software will open up a new world for you!". It also includes a mono synth, a bassline program (in a similar vein to the 303 - but not) and a TR style "Prophet 64 Drummer".
The fact that they've recognised that the tracker scene isn't the easiest to get into - and the lengths they've gone to make the c64 (with the addition of the cartridge) a viable platform (once again) for sequencing is just amazing. The feature set sounds very tasty indeed. You can download the disk image file (free) if you don't want to get the cartridge, although it looks like the money would be quite well spent on this music nerd oddity. The sound samples are pretty convincing and if you're into that acid sound you'll go right in for this.
Preorders are available from Prophet 64.com and they've slated an April release. Soon, basically. Launch price is slated at 39 euro. Bargain! Via retro-thing
Posted by funnelbc at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2006
Dirty Secrets - Thursday April 13th - Melbourne
I'm happy to announce that the very first cab off the rank for my side project FREE gig poster graphic design is ready to cook! If you want to get involved and have an upcoming show.. details are here!
You can check out what the full poster looks like here: clickety click
And the details are also included below, because I like to share! I will be attending the Mountain Goats on Wednesday evening this week and as long as I am still in one peice the following evening I think I shall also try to get along to dirty secrets show also!
Thursday April 13th
7.30 pm, $6 Entry
‘Dirty Secrets’
80 Smith St Collingwood
*$4 Stubbies, $5 Spirits!*
The Reject Rockers:
7.30: Trough Lollies
www.myspace.com/troughlollies
8.45: The Harlequin Smile
www.myspace.com/theharlequinsmile
10.00: CRISIS
www.myspace.com/everyonelovesacrisis
Posted by funnelbc at 01:32 AM | Comments (0)