here are some new photos.  we spent last weekend at a rented beach house out at the coast just like we did last year around this time (98, 99, 100).  the beach was beautiful but very depressing.  there was so much garbage and plastic everywhere.  nicole found so many plastic bottles with asian labels all over. she filled several trash bags just casually walking between the house and the town.  i can’t imagine how many bags you could fill if you picked up every piece just to have to start over again the next time the tide comes back in.

here are a few new polaroid photos.  the bottom one shows our bird feeder which i recently fitted with a contact mic hooked up to my digital recorder in order to record the sounds of the birds picking up and eating the seeds…  really beautiful texture. more on that later.

here is a set of photos that it took this week using a pinhole camera that i made from a broken polaroid land camera. i recently unearthed about six packs of  very expired color and b+w land camera film that i found at goodwill about a year ago.  i am curious to see what kinds of things develop from them.

i’ve been pretty busy lately but haven’t posted anything for a while. sorry.  here are a few photos of recent happenings at home and around my neighborhood.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/s5m.mp3

(download here)

it has been beautiful in portland over the last week. lots of sun and lots of old friends passing through town.

here are a bunch of photos i’ve snapping while walking around and a bit of music that i recorded as part of my ongoing online collaboration with devin underwood.  i can’t wait to hear what he does with it.  i hope that he can find a way to fit something in there.  it is just one track of baritone guitar but wound up being pretty dense.

it looks like the rain is on it’s way back to us. hope everyone has a good week.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/02_28_10.mp3

(download here)

for the first time in a long, long while matt and i got together with ted and brian for sunday morning music making. it was a very productive session.  i recorded a bit of it with my field recorder. here are a few little sections cross faded together (including the beginning which was a voice memo recorded on my phone as i returned to the studio from a bathroom break. i just love the sound of  music echoing down the hallway).

the players + the played…

ted – cello / laptop

brian – microphones / laptop ( processing lines sent out from everyone)

matt – electric guitar / laptop / electroncs

marc – acoustic guitar / laptop / electronics / bass guitar

i recorded gemma performing this little musical improvisation the other morning.  she was laying on her back and with one foot kicking the happy apple and with the other she was kicking this jingly penguin.  i set my recorder down near these objects and captured the results.

last night i dropped them into Live and started processing them.  my part is pretty quiet throughout and gemma’s part remains unedited.

who would have thought that when my first happy apple post appeared a year ago that i would be collaborating with my baby daughter in the same room using the same tools?

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/02_18_10m.mp3

(or you can listen/download here)

yesterday there were some nice sunny breaks in the rain so gemma and i took a walk up to the food carts on mississippi and got some sushi.  it was so nice out.  on the way back home we took a detour to albina press and got some coffee and meandered down the alleys all the way home.  its really interesting to me to see a side of the neighborhood that is normally hidden from view.

i spotted this super bright moss growing from under a fence a few blocks from home.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/02_11_10un.mp3

just a brief room mic excerpt from the most recent unrecnow session.  we have a show in march and are trying to flush out ideas for a new piece.  we’ve been moving around between a few different ideas, we’ll see what happens.

we also had to take some photos of ourselves for the website of a documentary that we are scoring.  i’m really looking forward to getting more of the footage so that we can begin the scoring in ernest.

who would guess that it is february in portland right now?  sunny, warm and dry with flowers beginning to come out.  people out and about with sunglasses and smiles on their faces. the bitter sweet part of it is that we all know that it could change at any moment and by the looks of my weather widget that moment looks like it will happen tomorrow. more rain, rain, rain for days to come.  i’m glad that we enjoyed fake spring while it lasted. it just makes me even more excited for the real thing to come around.

over the last few days i scanned  over one hundred old photos from ten to seventeen years ago. the overwhelming majority of them are music related from shows up and down the west coast.  i feel very fortunate to have been part of a such a great and supportive music community in my teens and twenties.  i saw some of the best shows of my life in the basements of houses and in tiny clubs in bad neighborhoods played by bands that played with so much energy and love.  some of these bands only played a hand full of shows but have left a lasting impression on me all these years later.  those were amazing years.

i’m sure that this thing happens all over the world all the time but to me and the friends that i made during this period, there was something very special happening.

hello again, it is good be back.

since my last post of year one i took a few weeks off and a funny thing happened…  i still kept working on creative projects everyday even without the commitment to posting them to this blog.  i still made music, made field recordings, took photos, sewed a felt monome cover… you know, business as usual.  i had some anxiety that when my year was up that i would lose the urge to keep creating.  i was quite relieved that it was not the case.

anyway, i’d like to welcome you to the start of year two of dust breeding.

above are some photos of what i have been up to while on my break.  i hope to keep things going and post something almost everyday this year. i’ve decided that if i miss a day or two here or there that i will be fine with it… i hope you will be too.

thanks again for all of the great support and kind words.

~m

sometimes i wish i had the talent for sleeping that these three do.  it seems as though they can fall asleep anytime, anywhere… and they love to rub it in.

tonight i recorded a few little songs from my lap harp for gemma.  i played twinkle twinkle little star to her over and over and see really seemed to like it so i figured that i should try and make some lullaby loops for her of a few of the classic songs.  i also couldn’t resist plugging in my monome and manipulating the recordings in ableton live.  i’ll post the finished recordings when the are completed.

sweet dreams.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/01_04_10un.mp3

(download)

matt + i managed to make it down to the studio tonight for a bit of unrecognizable now time.  after just working on music by myself so much recently it felt great to be able to play music with another person.  here is a bit of an improvisation that we recorded… just guitar + baritone guitar with various delays + loopers.

i’m sure it won’t last for long but i’m glad that we got some snow.

i hope that everyone has a great holiday.

much love,

marc

i don’t know why exactly… but i really love wrapping presents.  i always have.

happy belated birthday to ericka.

actual & dim.  what does that mean?

the last days of my month of paternity leave are near and i am really sad about it.

another cold cold night here in portland. the widget on my laptop says it is a chilly 18?.  every morning for the last few days i’ve had to run a hair dryer in the basement to keep the water flowing to the pipes in our kitchen.  it looks like it should warm up a little  soon so my dreams of snow + another white christmas might be over for a while…

we’ll see.

here is the most recent edit of my current video project.  i presented the first half of it back on 301 and the second on 308. i think that i’m pretty with the edit.  expect to see a few more vignettes like this in the next few weeks.

bare branches + a rare mostly cloudless day in portland.

hello december.

i went out for a bike ride today just as the sun was going down.  it was my first real get out of the house activity in as long as i can remember.  i just biked around up to alberta st. and took photos in the neighborhoods.  here are a few that i liked.

here are a few stills from an upcoming video project.  it’s focus is on natural light.

more experiments in cloud folding. this time in the form of an origami crane.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/11_17_09m.mp3

(to listen w/o flash or download, go here)

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here is just a short little bit of music from a much larger piece.   i was super sleepy and couldn’t keep my eyes open enough to finish the longer version… i think that the music was making me even sleepier.

nicole and my mom picked up a sleep sheep for gemma this weekend.  at its core, the sleep sheep is a white noise drone machine with sounds like rain, heartbeat, ocean and whales.  it is kind of like a buddha machine for kids.  i really want to make some recordings using the two of them together.

maybe some day soon.

good night.

it finally happened.  after 11 weeks in the hospital, i’m happy to say…

“welcome home gemma corinne fischer!”

After a long day I had very little energy left for creative projects. Here are a few photos taken while laying in bed.

there are great things to come.  i’ll explain later.

Good night.

kathan zerzan asked me to show some photographs for first thursday this month.  she is curating little shows monthly in a little space on the top floor of her house that used to be the office of miller safety & health consulting. i selected a few photos from different groups that have appeared on this site and had them printed at my favorite photo finisher in portland.

i spent some time tonight mapping out the order that each grouping should be displayed in.  i’m pretty happy with the results.

if you are in portland and out walking around for first thursday… come by and look at some photos.

1631 NW Johnson St
Portland, OR 97209

nicole and i spent the better part of the weekend cleaning and reorganizing the house.  it’s funny the kinds of stuff that you uncover… like strange notes that require decoding even though they were written in your own handwriting.  some of it made us laugh a lot.  photos of one of our cats when he was a tiny kitten… but looked more like a fetal ewok.

…and these negatives.

i don’t remember where they came from but i love the interactions between the people + animals in them.

i really love the one of the girl feeding the deer.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/10_31_09m.mp3
(you can also listen/download here if you don’t have flash.)

here is a little piano melody i recorded with the wurlitzer turned off. it’s just the sound that you hear coming from the keys. i really like the percussive quality it has.

what a gray day.

here’s a photo from a few days ago when we still were lucky enough to see blue skies over portland + some music from tonight.  just gray clouds of guitar.

layer upon layer.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/10_21_09m.mp3

(if you don’t have flash… you can listen here)

today was…

sun, rain, sun (repeat)

all of that mixed in with a migraine and it was quite a day.  i did manage to fire off some pretty fall photos on our morning walk to the bakery before the rain really set in.

here is some music that starts and ends with a recording of some of the heaviest of the afternoon rain breaks. the music is made up of pieces of my collaboration with specta ciera cut up using mlrv.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/10_17_09m.mp3

(if you don’t have flash, try and listen here)

more paint peeling from the celling.  this time it’s the new paint + old paint and it is coming off in huge sheets.

sometimes you can’t win.

this week i started an internet collaboration with devin underwood (aka: specta ciera). i was excited to work with him on something, i really like his music.  we both appeared on the wonderful PS010 compilation from the barcelona based public spaces label. (if you haven’t downloaded it yet, you really should. it’s free after all)

devin sent me a 3 1/2 min long track that i added two parts to. one of granulated xylophone and the other was a stretched out, scrubbed and resampled portion of the track he sent to me.

here is a rough mix of the results so far.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/specta_ciera-mapmap_roughmix.mp3

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(if you don’t have flash, you can listen here)

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there was a beautiful moon out tonight.  i thought that i’d try and make some long exposure photos of it… but they didn’t really turn out so i did something else instead.

well i’ve made it into the final 100 days of my year long blog project,,, hard to believe that i’ve made it this long.  i really didn’t think that i would even make it though the first 100 days.

thanks to everyone that has been so supportive of me and this project.  all of your words of encouragement have really kept this whole thing going.

thank you, thank you.

~marc

i attempted to paint the celling in our extra bedroom only to run into an issue with the old paint being pulled off by the roller.  i spent the next few hours up on a stepladder attempting to remove the loose paint using a vacuum cleaner. it worked well but i got about 1/4 done and gave up.  i’ll next try sanding it off.

while on the ladder staring up at the celling i was reminded of this website’s namesake and the quote that described it in the october 1922 edition of littérature…

“How arid it is — how fertile — how joyful — how sad.”

~Rrose Sélavy

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http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/redstart.mp3

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as promised, here is a sound sample from the audible audubon series.

tonight on our way to the hospital we saw a man standing on the edge of the fremont bridge.  nicole called 911 but they had already been alerted.

i hope he is okay.

(i’ll post audio samples of this great machine in the morning)

there were some amazing clouds out today.

we ripped a kitchen cabinet out and exposed some interesting textures behind it.  i am fairly sure that it is the original unpainted plaster.  we also discovered a torn photograph of  a chicken.  strange to think of the things that you live with everyday for years and never see until something prompts you to uncover it.

some photos of little hospital details and 4min of slow moving guitar for you on a monday morning.

acoustic guitar, granular delay, ring modulation.

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http://unrecnow.com/dust/09_27_09m.mp3

(you can listen here if you don’t have flash)

_

here are more toy camera photos that nicole and i took while out and about today.  i took the first four and nicole took the last three.

we got some sad news today up at the hospital.  it turns out that one of gemma’s neighbors in the NICU, a little boy named noah, died today.  he was born a little over a month before gemma at 23 weeks and had been plagued by health issues.  we were there when it happened but didn’t realize exactly what was happening.

our hearts go out to his family.

tonight i started experimenting with a new piece of software for image processing.  i started with the photo in the lower left and wound up with the graphic above in just a few steps.

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http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/09_19_09m.mp3

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just some acoustic guitar drones + plucking that i recorded tonight.  nothing too fancy.

the photo above is of a logging truck that i was driving along side the other day.  i find it to kind of be both pretty and sad.

(if you don’t have flash, you can listen here.)

here are some silhouettes  of some tiny tools that i got this week.  they are each just a few inches long. very cute.

sublimation in action.

another late night at the hospital.  gemma was a lot better tonight than she was when we saw her this afternoon. that made us happy.

here are some long exposure shots taken from my front yard.  extra points if you get the 90’s music reference in the title of today’s post.

good night.

Nicole spotted this big guy hanging out on our kitchen celling. we have no idea how he got into the house.  before releasing him outside, he was kind enough to sit in for a photo shoot.

today was a pretty good day. nicole got to hold gemma again.  it was the highlight of my day.

here is a little piece of music made from some clarinet samples + granular processing.

_

(if you don’t have flash you can listen here.  otherwise,  you can listen below)

090906m.mp3

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it was a gray and rainy day here in portland today. let’s hope summer isn’t quite over yet.  instead, we can try and think of those days when the sky was blue instead of gray.

three pinecones. small, medium + large.

just a few paper constructions made from photos of empty pools + colored tape.

today was a really good day for nicole + gemma. nicole got to hold her against her chest for two whole hours.  it was so great and made me so happy.  nicole started working on a little web site to keep people updated on gemma’s progress… it looks really nice so far.

good-night. sleep well.

today we finally got home.  what an amazing feeling to take a shower in your own shower and lay down on your own bed. i’m sure more creative posts will start up again soon.  for now i am just happy that nicole and gemma are both doing well.

(the photo above is not our home… but someone else’s.  i took the photo this morning in nw portland)

we are so close to being home… right now, gemma is doing well in the n.i.c.u. and nicole was released from the hospital today and has been put on bedrest for several weeks. one roadblock in nicole’s homecoming is that we can’t even go home right now because there is a full on all day long whiteboy blues rock open jam session happening in front of our house today. I swear that i could not even make something like this up. Reports are in that it sounds like a guitar center showroom on our corner. Everyone shredding to the beat of a different drummer. Awesome :(
Many thanks to k + r for putting us up for the night and for their unwavering support throughout this whole ordeal.
we can’t wait to sleep in our own bed again.

thanks to everyone that sent us their well-wishes, flowers and gifts over the last few days. it makes all the difference in keeping spirits up.  it started out kind of rough this morning but nicole and gemma are both doing well today.  they are two really tough ladies and i love them both dearly.

it has been a super difficult past few days. i won’t get into details but i just have to say… my wife nicole is the toughest person around.  anyone that has seen her lately would not and could not disagree. i just hope that our new little girl has the same kind of fight in her that her mother does. being born so premature, she has a long hard road ahead of her.

please welcome to the world gemma corinne fischer.

_

(the photo is of nicole + i holding hands during the operation after gemma was delivered)

saturday morning (vancouver ave, mississippi neighborhood)

sunday morning (providence hospital, ne portland)

it’s frightening where a day can take you.

i got a new microphone in the mail yesterday.  i love the design. it looks very much like a classic ribbon mic (even though this mic’s guts are not nearly that fancy) here are a few close-ups of the body of the microphone. i really like the grill pattern… it’s like the front of the apple G5/macpro.

as promised, here is an edit of a few parts from the unrecongizable now/oo-ray session from sunday.  matt is playing guitar + xylophone, ted is playing cello + laptop and i am playing baritone guitar, monome and laptop. it was kind of nice to listen back to this after a few days and hear so much nice stuff that i don’t even remember hearing the first time.  i guess sometimes you almost get put in a trance when you are creating music like this where it all becomes a blur.   i think that i kind of enjoy that.

hope you like it.

090816_un_or

(or if you don’t have flash, you can listen here)

_

this evening i went exploring the grounds of this old hotel on the columbia river.  the hotel is split into two parts by the freeway that runs from portland to vancouver.  the part of the hotel on the west side of the freeway is totally abandoned… the part on the east side seems like it is on life support.  there is still activity, but it feels like it is trapped in another decade.

i can only imagine how fancy the hotel must have been in it’s heyday.  huge ballrooms and exhibition space. giant chandeliers. tons of rooms. i’m sure that in the years before the expo and convention centers where built this hotel was hopping with activity.

i wonder what will become of it…

for now it is definitely breeding dust.

a nice sunday.

i started the morning off by having another great drone session with ted + matt (maybe i’ll post some excerpts if people are interested) then went to a really nice bbq at the zerzan compound in Milwaukee  where i was able to scavenge a bowl of blackberries from the bushes around the property after two other groups of pickers had already swept through.  i guess being tall with long reaching arms really comes in handy sometimes.

nicole and i also went on a nice evening stroll around the neighborhood. there were a lot of cute cats hanging out on porches but none of them came down to say hi to us.

here is a new letraset animal that made tonight.  he is a chubby little quail.  it’s been a while since i last posted one. i’m hoping to get back into it again once summer is over.

anyway… back to work tomorrow.  where does the weekend go?

goodnight.

i took a little morning walk around our neighborhood this morning on my way to get coffee.  despite the terrible economy, it seems like a lot of construction projects are still moving forward.  more condos, more shops, more food carts… it won’t be long before all the little industrial spaces around us are filled up with retail spaces and condominiums. kind of crazy.  at the moment, it just doesn’t seem like it is sustainable.  who is going to buy/rent these places?…

i really hope that our local economy stabilizes soon.  it seems like every week i hear about more local businesses closing their doors.  i just found out on friday that one of my favorite shops in portland is closing at the end of the month.

so sad.

one thing that doesn’t make me sad is the smiley face at the bottom of the office sign.  i love it.

just a series of 15 second exposures of the night sky over our house.  i love the movement in the clouds.

earlier today i was talking to some coworkers about art + physics. we thought it would be cool to photograph shapes with an odd perspective… or the possibility of building whole room sets where you could play with perspective and size where none of the angles are correct .

i made these little boxes kind of as a test to play with that idea.

there are a few blocks along a street in my neighborhood where almost every house is a really bold color. here is a sampling of the houses between haight avenue + kerby avenue along north failing street.

the photos at the top are of the rooftop across from the studio where i work.  the guy in the disguise is our neighborhood mystery.  we see him almost every week running across rooftops and between buildings.  we first thought that he was a graffiti artist but now i am kind of thinking that he is a vigilante of some sort.  i think that he thinks of himself as superhero or something.  you would probably think of him as the same if you had seen him in a cape (like in the third photo at the top). maybe he is just really excited that the watchmen is now out on dvd…. who knows?

_

all the other photos are of the little industrial area that runs along the south side of I-84 near 22nd ave.

p.s. i love that he wears a fanny pack.

…star wars.

i know it’s super geeky, but i heard about this project and thought it would be fun to get involved.  i had 30 days to finish a 15 second recreation of a scene from star wars.  i slacked off and now i only have 5 days left.  i think i will just animate these cardboard stills in flash and add the dialogue using the good old apple mac voice.  it’s only 15 seconds… but it sure takes a long time.

in better news… i am now on my 200th consecutive blog entry of documenting a creative thing everyday.  i am pretty proud of myself.  it’s strange to think of all that has happened in the last 200 days… and all that could happen in the next 165.

it was a really nice night this evening. not too hot and with a pretty amazing sunset.

here are some photos from our nightly walk.   oh, and i didn’t see any free bananas… people must have been hungry.

today ericka + david got married at oxbow park.  it was such a beautiful wedding. nicole + i, along with a handful of other helpful friends + family members decorated the whole area together. it turned out great and i think everyone had a great time.

now we are so tired… but so happy.

congratulations ericka + david.

here are details of some graffiti on the drop box behind city liquidators in the east side industrial area. it might be hard to see, but most of it is done in silver ink.  it looks really great in the hot portland sun.

just a few macro photos of these little people.  nicole has been making little things using these railroad miniatures for years. now we’d like to try and make a little shadow box scene using them and one of those little peep-hole lenses (like the kind you find on someone’s front door) to give it a kind of fisheye view.   i’ve almost collected all the parts that we need to start the project. we’ll see how it turns out.

after a long hot day (and a bad dehydration headache) the night was very pleasant.  it had cooled down quite a bit and the sky was quite clear.  there was no one out on the streets and the only real sound was that of AC units from near and far.

we spent the day driving along the coast and checking out some vacant beach houses.  most of them felt like walking into a time warp. it was fun but a little depressing.  at one time people lived in them… and some may have died in them.

after sitting in the hot sun eating our vegan corn dogs we were more than happy to retreat to the cool dark basement of the board of trade building for our wednesday night music session.  don’t get me wrong, i love the summers in portland.   just sometimes it’s nice to have someplace to cool down and work on creative things.

here are little random bits of stuff that we recorded tonight all stuck together…

if you don’t have flash you can listen here.

otherwise….

07_22_09un.mp3

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while setting out for an evening walk, nicole and i stopped by the house on the corner of failing and haight. in their yard they have ducks, geese and a pair of goats.  nicole brought along some beet greens to feed them but they really weren’t that interested in them. they really seem to prefer the food pellets that their owner put out in a small tin dispenser for people to pass to them through the cyclone fence.

i made a little audio recording of them munching away but i didn’t put the windscreen over the microphones.  their breathing makes it sound like a wind storm… too bad.

this weekend i past the half-way point of this blog project.  it’s a strange feeling.  i am super happy that i have made it so far into my goal and it has been so much fun to push myself to be more productive (creatively) but then i am kind of sad that now it’s all winding down.  i know that’s silly because there is still a long way to go before i finish this project.

i guess it’s just the question of “then what?” that’s looming out there.

thanks to everyone for being so supportive of all my little projects especially nicole, maura, brian, modi, jon, james and everyone else that leaves me their words of encouragement. you guys are great.

thanks also to jolayne for writing a little feature on her website about this blog several times (the most recent being this weekend)

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the photo above is from a trial run that i did today of one of my sound boxes.  it sounded pretty good. quiet, but good.

here is a little piece of music that i put together using a toy melodica (that looks like a little red clarinet) and a field recording of my neighborhood on my morning walk to get coffee.  hope you like it.

090719 (or if you don’t have flash… http://tr.im/dust184)

a friend of mine is taking submissions for a new blog that she started about patterns and repetition.  you are supposed to send in photos of patterns that you’ve drawn inspiration from recently.  the top three (monome buttons + 2 x letraset) i actually have drawn inspiration from recently… the bottom two are just for fun.

while at oxbow park today we noticed a few balloons caught up in trees and laying around  the grounds in the area that ericka + david will have their wedding this august.  it seemed strange to see them there.  quite a juxtaposition of the natural / unnatural.  although they did look very festive…i collected and disposed of them.

we were also lucky enough to see a pair of deer that wandered through the area.  the baby deer even stopped long enough for me to snap a photo of it’s cute silhouette.

i felt pretty low energy all day today… but i was nothing like this little guy.  be barely moved all day.

the lower photos are of the back of a building in northwest portland. i liked the two different windows together.

hope everyone is having a good weekend.

despite the rain, nicole and i had a great time wandering around and exploring vancouver today.  i took us the wrong direction down a street this morning that wound up taking us right to the edge of stanley park… not such a bad thing.  we spotted this little raccoon climbing down a tree and a crow couple lecturing their baby on a branch.  we will try and go back to spend more time there when the weather clears up.

tonight we met up with jolayne and xavier for drinks and a snack.  they are a sweet and inspiring couple.  i’m very happy to have met them in person.  if you have time, please bookmark their blogs and check in frequently.

here is a view of downtown seattle as seen from the o deck of the space needle and another one of the space needle from below.  in person, the nearly full moon looked so huge on the horizon… not so much in the photos though.

what a nice night.

today while on the coast i picked up a little piece of driftwood on the beach. i started whittling away at it and this was the results.  it’s a little whale.  he is a bit asymmetrical, but i think he turned out pretty good for a first attempt.

when i was a little kid i used to use my swiss army knife (naturally) to whittle away at sticks while on camping trips. i don’t think that i ever attempted to make anything out of the sticks… except for sharper sticks.

this week i graduated from the swiss army knife to the bad boy you see in the bottom photo.  it’s called the remix and i really like it.  many thanks to the folks at gerber legendary blades for sending me this knife.  i hope to make more stuff with it.

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just some photos of the narrow areas between the morrison bridge and the surrounding buildings .  i really like this part of industrial southeast portland.  i wonder what will happen to this part of town as portland grows… it’s already changed quite a bit in the last few years.  i kind of hope it stays as is for as long as it can.

today, after years away from the retail world, i’ve jumped back into the store window display game.

i designed this window for our friend modi’s store idom. i based it on the photo shoot that we did a few months back for her spring summer collection.  i can’t wait to see how the photos that we did on saturday turned out.

nicole made this yarn bird to match the yarn deer that she spent hours wrapping for the yarn shoot.   they are a cute pair.

today i created this recording studio inside our photography studio for a photo shoot tomorrow… floor, walls and all.  we were going for a really clean, kind of late 60’s 70’s vibe. i pulled a bunch of stuff from my basement and the unrecnow rehearsal space to use as props for the set.  i never realized until now how much old equipment i have.

i really wish my home studio looked this nice.

i’ll post more photos tomorrow after the shoot.  i hope it goes well.

here’s my first attempt at a walrus. tusks, whiskers and all.  once again it has been a while since i made one of these little letraset  animals… but i think i’ve become better at jumping back into it. getting started is always the hardest part.

a few weeks back my friend joe ryckebosch and i got to talking about a the possibility of a collaboration. joe makes really amazing art from old chartpak graphic tape (you really have to see it in person to appreciate the level detail he puts into it) and i have been making these creatures from old letraset transfers…  each one of our chosen media are obsolete graphic design tools that are now being re-used in way they were never intended.

at some point, we would really love to do a show somewhere together displaying some of our work and possibly collaborating on some pieces that would incorporate both the tape and the letters.  i would love it.

after sunset nicole and i went on a little walk around the neighborhood.   i made frequent stops and took these long exposure shots.  i love the sky at this time of night.  so cool to see how the colors start changing so quickly as the sun vanishes.  i guess the days are getting shorter at this point.  too bad.

a few years back my dad gave me this allan sherman record out of his collection saying that he remembered it being very clever and funny .  this year, for father’s day i recorded it for him and burned it to disc.  i tried my best to remove the major pops and skips in the vinyl digitally. i then photographed the cover of the lp and printed it out to adhere to a cardboard cd jacket.  i hope he doesn’t see this before it arrives in the mail. (fingers crossed)

it was a great evening tonight.  the 3rd annual rocky butte sunset bike ride + potluck/dance party went off without a hitch. special honors go out to billy for hauling a little gas bbq up to the top in his brand new bike trailer where he cooked fake chicken burgers for us.  so good.

it was a much different crowd this year…  a little less communal and a little more noisy bike punk. but it was still a ton of fun and i can’t wait for next year.

thursday night is the 3rd annual sunset rocky butte potluck ride.  a bunch of people meet on the east end of irving park and ride bikes together up to the top of rocky butte.  once we get to the top, people break out all the food and drinks they brought with them and everyone feasts.  we eat, we drink, we watch the sunset and all the while this tiny sound system will be pumping out music for all to listen and dance to.  savannah, our friend and bike ride organizer, is kind enough to provide a car battery and power inverter to run the little sound system and disco light.  this is one of those events that always makes me really love portland.  

if anyone is interested in participating, come on over to n.e. 11th + klickitat thursday evening.  we will be leaving at 6pm.  here’s a map of the route.   http://tr.im/oTCn

feel free to bring your ipod or walkman.  the DJ mixer is always open to those who’d like to take a turn.

check out other pedalpalooza events here

i finally got around to finishing off this new music box enclosure.  it’s the junior version of my classic music box.  i made it from a wooden container that i found at ikea a long time ago.  i first noticed it because it reminded me so much of the box i built for my old one (…even down to the card slot with the rounded edges). when nicole and i found a mini version to the same music box movement down in silverlake, i knew it would be the perfect size.  where i had installed a guitar pickup in the larger music box i opted for a simple contact mic in this version.  it sounds great.  i’ll post a recording soon.  

today marks my 150th creative-thing-a-day post.  it feels pretty good to have made it this far.  

speaking of thing-a-day projects…. jon (a fellow portlander + monome-ist) and his sister have each started their own thing-a-day blogs.  jon is not ever a week into it and has already posted some great music + his own music box related project.  please check these sites out…

toiletooth.com

hergentlemadness.com

i’m just trying to think of some fun t-shirt designs right now.

here’s a little something based on a photo of me as a kid flying a kite at a park near my parent’s house.  in the actual photo you can see that i am wearing a pair of baby blue slip-on vans with a rainbow printed across the tops.  pretty funny.

i know that i said there would be a music box on tap for today’s project… but after i started working on it i realized that i forgot my drill at the practice space.  it will have to wait until tomorrow.

sometimes an amplifier makes some sounds that just don’t seem right. one of my sunn beta leads was cutting out  and crackling like crazy. not good. i have two of these amps and now both are behaving badly. it’s so sad because they have served me well for many years.  matt and i did take advantage of the sad sounds coming out of this sunn.  i recorded some of the fuzzy loops that were coming out of it and mixed them into the track below.  i’ll have to find a good solid state amp repair place here in portland. if anyone has suggestions, please let me know. (if you are going to suggest someone with the initials b.s. that has a company with the initals s.s. …no need, that guy is dead to me)

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if you don’t have flash (like if you are on an iphone)  you can listen here.

otherwise…

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/090611.mp3

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this afternoon i built these pedal boards for imaad from some scrap wood and carpet that i had laying around the house.  it all came together really quickly and easily. it helps to have a table saw hand for quick cuts.  imaad picked up this nice green suitcase at a thrift store on hawthorne today and it was the perfect size to fit all his pedals. we used little rubber bumpers to the back edge of each board, both to elevate the back edge and to keep the boards from sliding on the stage.  little things like this that can save you time on set-up and tear-down can really make a big difference in helping things run smoothly.  

the pedal boards made their debut tonight and passed the stage test with flying colors.  the pedal boards will be appearing at the warfield later this week…. along with some other people.

my good pal adam played drums at two great shows tonight as a member of imaad wasif + the two part beast.  i love this photo of bobb at the top. it looks like a ghost bobb is coming out of his body.  the photo on the lower left is of a chandelier at the crystal ballroom the others are from mississippi studios.

it’s always nice to see old friends and even better if you can also catch a good show… or two.

it was a long hard battle… but i finally finished this custom cover for a 40h kit.  i’ve made a few 40h covers before so i really don’t know why this one was so tough to make…  it took me about 2 hours longer than normal.  i guess on thing is that the 40h kits are always different. it looks really huge compared to the standard 64 cover. you can see the size difference in the second photo.  this 40h cover will be sent off to vinay in killara, australia tomorrow.  i think it turned out really well. i hope he likes it. 

tonight i also finished up the audio for my lantern. it was pretty easy to load the sound files onto it because of the easy access to the usb port on top.  i think kathan is delivering it to store for a month tomorrow.  i hope people will be able to hear it inside the store.  we shall see.

today we say good-bye to our trusty 1983 240 series volvo.  it’s not dead, we just sold it off.  we were both kind of sad to see it go… but it needed to happen.  it was a good and trustworthy car… maybe the most reliable one i’ve ever owned.  i hope that it treats it’s new owners as well as it treated us over the many years that we it was in the family.

here is a little bit of music from an unrecognizable now session from this evening.  i only have my half of it.  you’ll have to use your imagination for matt’s half.  picture really pretty guitar picking through a bunch of delays with some droney elements looping… got it? okay, that was pretty much what it was like.

if you don’t have flash (like on an iphone) you can listen here. otherwise, see below.

090601un.mp3

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oh, in other news… i registered the url dustbreeding.com. nothing too exciting, it just goes instantly to dust.unrecnow.com

i just thought i should nab it since it was available.

tonight after dinner, nicole and i stopped by the goodwill just to see what there was to see.  i happened upon this tiny rusted lamp on one of the shelves.  it was just what i was looking for!  kathan asked me to contribute a sound element to her portion of the store for a month show that opens next week.  she is working within the theme of canaries in the coal mine.  she has been busy making (dead) birds out of chrome wire and recycled yellow caution tape.  our original idea was to place some kind of sound emitting device inside one of the birds. it seemed like there would be plenty of room, but something made me want to try and embed the sound generator inside of an object that would exist along side the birds.  this little lantern was perfect.  it reminded me of something you’d see in an abandoned mine.

once i got it home, i went for a complete tear down of the lamp and all its parts.  i unscrewed the glass lens and to my surprise, the first speaker that i picked up was exactly the right size to pop right in.  inside, i was able to embed an old mp3 player that nicole and i found on a hike.  i also soldered on an 1/8″ jack that goes to the speaker and a momentary switch that can turn the mp3 player on/off and play/pause. i was able to allow the usb plug to pop out the top (under the red dome) so that i can still access it in order to load sounds onto it without taking the whole thing apart again.  i can’t believe how fast the whole thing came together.

this little guy sounds pretty good for just a tiny speaker with pretty much a tin can body.  

next step: make some ambient music using canary sounds as the main source material.

i picked up some new felt to experiment with last weekend. it’s only about 2mm thinner than the nice thick stuff that i’ve been using for my monome covers… but it feels a lot different to sew.  i got a little of this chocolate brown and some clay grey/brown felt.

this 64 cover turned out really well. i think i will be able to sell these for slightly less than the monome covers that use the thicker stuff.  i am going to start making some when i can and keep them on hand from people to order that way.  i am still willing to do custom stuff as well.  just ask.

if anyone likes this cover and would like it for their very own, drop me a line.

nicole recently designed and made this copper cuff.  she hand etched the woodgrain design and did all of the cutting and shaping. it really has a great amount of fantastic detail. copper jewelry can be tough because of the way it tarnishes and can turn your skin green.  i think we came up with a nice solution.  tonight i added the felt lining to it, made from a nice scrap of  green felt left over from my monome covers.  i  think that the green is really fitting for the natural feel of the wood. kind of like a moss covered log you’d find in the forrest.  

i’m pretty sure that the cuff will be available to purchase at the idom’s new location on nw 23rd here in portland.  once they re-open, stop by and check it out.

right now i’m in the process of putting a website together for portland artist kathan zerzan.  i took some photos in her studio yesterday and mixed them in with the existing photos of her work to use for the top header/banner on the site.  the idea is that they will randomly cycle through each time that the site is loaded or refreshed. here are nine of the banners that i created tonight.  i put a little test together that seems to work well.  thank goodness for wordpress and all the developers that make it so easy to create sites like this so quickly.

just back from a really fantastic show at holocene. it was such a great line up…. windy & carl, white rainbow, christopher willits and benoît pioulard.  i really enjoyed the sets everyone played.  it was a special treat to see windy & carl.  there was a while back in the late 90’s where i went to sleep to their records every night for months.  such beautiful soundscapes.

thanks go out to christopher willits for putting me on the guest list. all of his stuff is always great.

it was another beautiful day in portland today.  the sky was clear… the sun was out… not too warm, not too cold and garage sales on every corner.  despite all the great conditions today was kind of bitter sweet.  this afternoon nicole and i, along with her parents, went to visit the cemetery where her grandfather is buried.  he died one year ago today.  he was a pretty amazing guy with a great sense of humor. any of us would be lucky to have half as many people in this world care about us the way his friends and family cared about him.

this afternoon i made this little terrarium for nicole out of an old pyrex laboratory beaker.  it was kind of a small area to work in because of the narrow opening at the top, but i think it turned out well.

i also made this little recording of me playing around with a baritone ukulele outside on our front porch.  it’s all being run through some granular effects and compressors.  i like the sounds of cars and kids playing that kind of works it’s way to the surface now and then.

(if you don’t have flash you can listen here.  otherwise…)

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/090521.mp3

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i finally got my laptop back from apple.  after a lot of odd repairs i am now having to restore the hard drive from a recent back up.  so far i’ve already had one unsuccessful attempt.  it was in the final stages of restoration when the system just froze up and stopped working.  i’m on my second attempt and the progress bar is moving pretty slowly.  fingers crossed… i hope it works this time.  i’m kind of just waiting around to see what happens at this point.

i had a nice music session with matt tonight.  we in the early stages of getting some material together to make another full length album.  we want to try and do a more sight specific recordings and environmental sampling.  who knows what will happen. i’m just glad that we are excited to start something new.

the thing on the upper right is a new (used) little compact midi controller that i just got from a fellow named john in tacoma.  it’s pretty nice little box covered in leds and knobs. it seems like it will be a good companion for the monome in a live setting.  i look forward to using it (if my laptop ever comes back from the dead)

(update: as of this morning everything looks like it is working fine.  even my cluttered desktop is just as i left it. i hope that everything else is still intact)

here are a few more custom monome covers i finished tonight. the small one on the left is for paul in ft. collins, co. the one one the right is for jonathan in new york, ny.  jonathan opted for a rectangular back pocket on the 128 cover.  this is something that i had thought of doing in the original design but had decided to leave it out and instead offer it as a custom option.  i didn’t photograph the last pocketed 128 that i made so i’m happy that i had time to shoot this one.

orders for the monome covers have been slowing down a bit lately which actually works out well for me.  my supply of the thick felt that i use for the main body of the covers is running very low. i have been trying to decide if i should re-order more felt and keep the one man sweatshop running or to cease production once my current felt supply runs dry.  there are pros and cons to both.  i really like making them and getting to know (albeit briefly) people from around the world that get in touch with me… all of my interactions have certainly reinforced my belief that people in the monome community (not only have great taste in felt monome covers.. but) are some of the nicest and most supportive people around.

another thing that i’ve discussed with people is to do away with the custom options and instead produce batches of them in different color combinations and let people order from whatever stock i have available at the time.  that way i could just spend some time making a bunch of them at once and not have to worry about making one here and there as the orders come in.   for me the worst part of making the monome covers is the time that passes between receiving an order and the cover being delivered.  i really don’t like holding on to people’s money.  it makes me nervous… i always feel like i have to start sewing the moment i get the email that a payment has been sent.  maybe letting people order from the covers i have on hand would help relieve some of that stress.  

i don’t know… is there anybody out there that has an opinion on what they would like to see happen?

(sorry about the rambling.  i should go to bed now. it’s late + i have an early call time tomorrow.)

here are some photos and part of a time lapse video that i made of a mushroom growing then dyeing in the soil surrounding a potted plant that we have at home.  it was pretty hot here in portland today. it’s not surprising that this little guys just shriveled up and died. mondays are tough for me too.

today was another beautiful day in portland so we spent a while today walking around oaks bottom wildlife refuge. there were so many great things to see there… including a pair of bald eagles! they few right over our heads and perched in a tree. i couldn’t believe that for the second day in a row we had an eagle sighting.  unbelievable. 

on our way down the trail we noticed these painted patterns along the cracks in the pavement. it looks like someone is keeping track of them as they spread. interesting patterns.

here’s a recording from this afternoon.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/05_17_09.mp3

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today was such a beautiful day. we spent this afternoon walking around part of a nature preserve on sauvie island. we saw and heard many different animals. the highlight by far was seeing a bald eagle nest with the head of the mother eagle poking out the top.  some nasty starlings were tormenting the eagles… it was kind of stressful.

here is a field recording of the area where we watched the eagle’s nest from. i think you can hear some baby eagles chirping away throughout.

(if you don’t have flash, listen here. otherwise, see below)

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/05_16.mp3

more graffiti masking photos. these ones are from a few buildings on albina avenue in north portland. the blue is from the tarr building and the yellow is the building next door to the gotham tavern.  i love walking past the yellow building… there are always drum beats coming out of the windows on the upper floor no matter what time of day. 

the long dark area on the photo at the top if this page comes form the workers at tarr resting their boot heels against the wall while they are on cigarette breaks.  it’s kind of interesting to me to watch those kinds of patterns emerge over time.

after the failed attempt at fixing music equipment with brian the other night. i had to try to revive something form the music gear graveyard.

i finally got around to fixing the output jack on this old drum machine.  the connection was really intermittent and would sometimes also cause the tempo to increase.  i also went trough and tuned the bass drum sound to a nice boomy setting. to me the layout of all of the components inside is really a work of art. it looks like a strange craft project with a hand drawn circuit board + all of the resistors standing upright.  they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.

this drum machine was given to me years ago by joe, along with a big box of all sorts of other random electronics. that box of parts fueled many experiments over the years… but the combo sideman is pretty much all that remains.  i think it might have been used by slim in witchypoo before joe had it… he told me once but i can’t quite remember.

i also sewed up another felt monome cover tonight.  this one is a 128 cover for markus zorn in berlin, germany.  i hope he likes it. i think it turned out pretty well.

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i just saw this… it looks like the combo sideman it related to the donkamatic.

just some photos from a midnight trip to portland international airport to pick up my friend katie who is just back from a cruise around the caribbean.   all of the photos are from the airport except for the top one which is of the white satin sugar building on n.e. lombard. when i pass it on my way to the airport. i always think that it says white satan. i find it kind of amusing.

last year i started gathering some pieces to put together an outdoor guerrilla sound art installation in a small neighborhood park.  i dragged my feet and didn’t get it finished before the rain set in. this year i have to finish it.  

my idea was to build small speaker boxes that could be hidden in the branches of a tree or inside a bush.  each box will contain a small digital voice recorder connected to a compact speaker that will play back a 20sec loop of sound.   at the moment i have six of these 20 second recorders and an inexpensive rca mp3 player (for longer loops).   part of the original idea was to use field recordings of things that don’t exist in close proximity to the park along with short bits of guitar and xylophone.  i’m not sure if i’m going to stick with that idea or not.  i might try and compose a 20 second song and divide the different instruments among the boxes… letting them fall in and out of sync.

we’ll see.  i’m sure i will post more about it soon.

here is a little test of an idea that i had a while back that finally got around to trying out.  there is a wonderful place in my neighborhood called the rebuilding center that sells all sorts of salvaged building materials from reclaimed buildings and homes. off and on i’ve seen door bells in the electrical department and wondered how easy it would be to use the solenoids in the doorbell to make a battery operated mallet that could do things like play drums or xylophone (very similar to a door bell).  the answer is… very easy!

i put this little guy together today in about 15min.  the part that took the longest was looking for my drill bits to drill the holes in the little plastic case. ( i always forget where i put them last.)  when matt and i met up to play music tonight i tried it out on an old fire bell and on the lowest string on my baritone guitar.  it was kind of fun to press the little buttons and have it hit a string while messing around with pedals and all that good stuff.

the next step is to split the two solenoids into two different enclosures and then figure out a way to control them via computer (midi).  i know that people have done that kind of thing using the adruino but that is still a bit out of my league.  maybe one of these kits is a bit more my speed.

this afternoon we drove out to astoria for the wedding of some friends.  it has been years since we last made it out there.   it’s funny that in the almost 10 years that i’ve lived in portland, this is the first year that i’ve really enjoyed the mountain (at least in a snowy season) and now this was the second weekend in a row that we’ve been out to the oregon coast when that is usually just an annual event.  maybe 2009 is actually the year of doing more things locally rather than taking trips to other states/countries?.. i hope it’s true to a certain degree, but we still want to plan a larger vacation at some point. it seems like everyone i know has either just returned from a trip or has travel plans in the works.  

we better get planning.

it was a nice sunny day in portland today.  it was the perfect opportunity to get out of the photo studio and do some painting… buffing graffiti that is.  back in the late 90’s when i lived in olympia, my friend  avalon kalin and i had some long discussions about graffiti-masking (what we called it before we found out that ‘buffing’ was the correct term).  avalon’s ideas on graffiti masking later became the basis of a film called  the subconscious art of graffiti removal (excerpt) by matt mccormick.  the part of graffiti buffing that always intrigued me the most was the possibility that you could covertly paint these abstract geometric shapes in areas that were routinely graffitied and see if someone would then buff your buff.  is graffiti only objectionable to property owners if it contains words or identifiable shapes and pictures?  

i have yet to try this experiment out even after 10 years of pondering.  maybe i will get around to it someday are report the results back here.  until then you can check out the buffing archive blog that i am a contributer to.

today i finally got around to taking good quality photos of some of my letraset animals.  i was able to shoot 13 out of 14 of the ones i’ve posted here using one of the new canon 1DS mark IIs that we recently picked up at work.  with these high resolution (21.1 mpxl) shots i am hoping to have a couple of things happen.  the first would be to choose one or more of them to work into a t-shirt design for a company that contacted me a few months ago and the other would be to have printing plates made of them so that i can make prints using my handy old chandler + price letterpress.

tonight was the second monday in a row that i went out to valentine’s to see friends of mine play experimental music.  i kind of like this new ritual.  my friend george and his band chen santa maria came through portland on tour on their way back to oakland.  it was great to see him. it had been years since the last time i saw him.  

my friend adam (white rainbow) played as well.  he told me afterward that he just wanted to play ambient house for everyone that came… that’s exactly what he did.  

pretty great.  

off to bed.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/04_26_09m.mp3

today marks the 100th day in a row that i have created something and posted it to this blog.  when i started in on this project i really wasn’t so sure i’d make it this far.  it’s been a really interesting 100 days so far… not only have i felt the most productive that i have in years (maybe ever) i have also been in touch with a lot of people from all over that have happened upon this site one way or another.  everyone has been really supportive and so kind.  i hope that the next 265 days are as great as the first 100.

so today i have a short piece of music that is based around two field recordings.. one of the ocean at manzanita and the other of red-winged blackbirds at a lakeside recreation area on the way back from the coast.  the photos are from the site of the second field recording.  there were a lot of cute birds all around there along with teenagers hanging out inside the ruins on an old mill.  nicole also spotted a rabbit hopping around near some flattened blackberry bushes.

another nice day at the coast. it was a bit rainy but with some sun breaks from time to time.  we spent a good part of the afternoon doing some beach combing and walking around the small downtown area.  there was a nice little coffee shop and news stand that had a good selection of magazines and stationery.  i was so surprised to see that they carried the wire that i had to pick up a copy.  who knew that people in small coastal oregon towns like to read british magazines about experimental music? i’ve really tried to kick my magazine habit but i guess i broke down.  i also picked up a little notebook where i started making a drawing of the gangs of sandpipers that we saw dotting the beach.  maybe i’ll finish it and add it to this post at a later date.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/04_24m.mp3

we arrived on the oregon coast this afternoon.  we rented a big wooden house right across from the beach from today until sunday.  it’s been clear and windy.  i really hope that it stays this was for the rest of our stay.   i am sitting here in bed sampling +  re-sampling the room sounds… wind, heater and house creaking… then layering them in with some guitar samples that i brought with me.  

lots of hum and crackles.

this scrub jay was terrorizing all of  poor little chickadees that were visiting our bird feeders today.  He looks pretty small here but compared to the chickadees he was huge.  come on guys… can’t you just share the food.  we won’t leave you hungry.  

we promise.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/04_22un.mp3

here’s my half of the music that matt and i were working on tonight.  to me, the little baritone ukulele that i have sometimes sounds a lot like a piano.  this is the first piece of music that we’ve done in a while that has any kind of beat in it at all… i played it using a contact mic on a little suitcase using chopsticks as drum sticks. the rest was just ukulele and a little casio sk-5 played into a series of looping and delay pedals.  nothing too fancy. matt’s half sounded really good.  deep bass tones and looped fuzzy tremoloed keyboard. it’s definitely the most upbeat thing we’ve done for a long time… maybe since our album (iTunes link).

i can’t wait until we put it all together.

the photo is of the cherry tree in front of my house… it’s exploded since i took this video

on our lunch break today, katie and i took a walk down under the fremont bridge to the river.  this was a favorite activity a few summers ago among people that worked at the studio. down there you can always find a lot of weird stuff… usually trash related. katie was hoping to see a rat today. no such luck. what we did find was pretty nice though.  surprisingly (for river garbage) there were a lot of nice bright colors to see.

what a nice night.  i don’t think that i’ve had a monday night feel so much like a friday in recent memory.  it was nice to see so many people our riding their bikes and enjoying the sun the last few days. i know it’s sure not to last, but i am really feeling like the warm weather has made it to portland and it makes me happy.  after playing music tonight matt + i walked down the street to valentine’s to see pete swanson + grouper. here are a few photos of pete.  i think that they look much like his set sounded tonight… one sound smearing up against another with textures coming in and out of focus.  too bad my camera battery died.

let’s hope the rest of the week goes as well.

this video is a time lapse of the cherry blossoms in front of my porch that i recorded this afternoon. i think that they are partially responsible for my allergies this season… but i like them anyway.
the music is something that matt and i recorded this morning out in the concrete hallway that leads up to our practice room in downtown portland. matt is playing an unplugged electric guitar and i am playing a xylophone.
it was recorded with a little akai microphone that originally went with an old reel to reel. 
all natural reverb on this one. no effects or plugins.

the photos are of the little practice amp that we used to pipe music into our hallway echo chamber.

tonight i got back into the sewing game after a short break from it.  this felt monome 128 cover is for Robbert from the netherlands. i think it turned out really well. i hope that he likes it.

here’s a 9min drone piece i recorded using baritone guitar and my homemade granular delay plugin.  it was all done live…i should have edited it down to make it shorter but i couldn’t decide what to keep and what to cut out..

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/feltdrones.mp3

(edited: uploaded the wrong audio file at first. now it’s fixed)

_

i noticed a few weeks ago on my way to work, that there was a shopping cart next to one of the supports under the fremont bridge. a few days later there was another one… then another… then another… now there are six shopping carts under the bridge in the same little area.  there are a two carts from target, two from home depot one from winco foods another from wild oats. none of which are stores that are anywhere near by. i guess as far as things go, if you were a shopping cart and you could find a little grassy spot under a tree in industrial north portland… why not meet up with some friends and hang out there.

this situation reminds me of these two things…

the first is my lonely objects post from february 28th. the last photo on the page was one of a single shopping cart peeking around the corner.

the second thing is this video that rob tyler made and i made the music for.  it’s an old one but i still like it.  it was just wurlitzer, bass synth pedal, xylophone, a field recording of the beeping carts from fred meyer and korg es-1 recorded to midi disc then edited with protools free.  i’m so glad that ableton live came along.

what a long post.

kathan asked nicole if she could have me photograph the trillium around the zerzan compound in milwaukie, or.  they dot the fern and moss covered ground along the gravel drive that leads up to the house. wikipedia says that picking the flower can seriously injure the plant. the three leaves below the flower are the plant’s only ability to produce food stores + a picked trillium can take many years to recover.

the flower on the bottom right isn’t a trillium but it was pretty so i thought it deserved to have it’s picture taken.

if you have a request, i might be up for it… so feel free to ask.

just a few shots i took today while walking around portland. it turned out to be a pretty nice day. now i’ve started to get excited about the prospect of about riding bikes and other activities.

my allergies have been so bad the last few days.  it’s sad to say it, but i am looking forward to a little rain tomorrow… for no other reason than to clear the air from these tiny jerks.  all of this enemy pollen has been making my life hell lately.

a co-worker gave me some claritin that dissolves in your mouth today.  it seemed to work pretty well.  he gave me the first one free to get me hooked…  isn’t that always how it starts?

today was a wonderful day (weather wise) in portland.  my allergies got the best of me though… it pretty much ruined my morning.  

i made my first felt monome cover for a local today.  this one will help transport surya’s monome down to california on tuesday where he will prepare to do some live visuals for the coachella festival. it was pretty satisfying to hand it over in person rather than packaging it up and saying my farewells to it at the post office.

 i wish it were always that easy.

oh, not sure if anyone really cares or not… but i added this little share button to the bottom of the posts that lets you send links to things like delicious, digg, twitter and so on.  i’m not sure if it works or not.  give it a try and tell me how it goes.

just got home from the show that matt + i played at the Fez .  it went pretty well and despite some technical issues, it was fun for us. it’s been more than half a year since our last live show.  where does time go?  

earlier today, nicole and amanda pulled an extreme makeover on our sad neglected parking strip in front of the house. it looks great. they worked super hard on it. 

it was like night and day.

photos above…

jetfinger’s modular synthesizer, david chandler performing, new plantings in front of the house, moss detail

they have slowly been tearing down the big old union pacific railroad building down under the bridge.  it looks really sad right now.  after work today i took a little drive around there and took some photos. it looks like business as usual down there except for the big piles of rubble and metal skin of the building has been pealed back to reveal it’s skeleton.  i was able to get some like angles of the fremont bridge as well.

today was a much better day than yesterday for these reasons…

all that video rendering from yesterday was finished today and it looks pretty good.  

the custom felt 40h cover that i messed up the measurements on yesterday was finished today and also looks pretty good. 

i did not fall victim of any fooling today.

best of all…

today marks the 75th day in a row that i’ve posted a thing or creative project on this blog.  so far so good.

thanks to everyone that checks in on my progress and leaves comments for me here.  that stuff means a lot to me.

(the cover above is for steve in LA.  hope he likes it.)

it’s been a long night of sewing and rendering video.  i’ve had a few set backs in both departments… why does video have to take so long to render?  i guess it would help if i had a computer with an actual video card.   i got most of the way through a custom sewing job and realized that i messed up the measurements of the side panels.  hmmpf. i guess that means that it’s time to go to bed.

the natural/rust/lime monome cover above is for jonathan in new york.  it is the one thing that turned out well tonight.  i hope he likes it.

today i picked up one square yard of this nice charcoal gray felt.  the color reminds me a lot of  this little guy. it’s the same thickness as the stuff i was using before but much softer.  i made myself this 64 cover as a test.  i think it turned out really well.  I’ll only be able to offer it as a color option for a limited amount of monome covers and unfortunately i’ll have to charge a little more for it too.  

i’ll put a swatch up soon.

this evening after filming birds and trees at crystal springs, matt and i headed down to the holgate train yards.  we made it there just in time to film a passing amtrak.  we spent the rest of the time walking around and shooting the cars and tracks.  matt spread out some change on the tracks hoping to come away with some flattened coins when the next train came around. we waited and waited… then called it a night.  

as i was getting out of matt’s car back at crystal springs we could hear the train rumbling by in the distance. damn.

here’s an update to the thread nest that i posted way back on dust breeding 38. it’s been made up with the trimmed ends of the thread from my monome covers.  it’s grown quite a bit in a month.

piano

drums

today matt and i conducted a little experiment.  after running through our set for our upcoming show we placed our baritone ukulele on top of the piano in our practice space. the contact mic that was attached to it turned the whole thing into a microphone.  The ukulele was then fed into three delay pedals (eventide time factor, line 6 DL-4 and MXR analog delay) and then back into the amps in the room.  

the first bit of audio is matt playing piano while i am manipulating the delays.  the second one is of me playing drums.  

before we started practice i happened to tell matt “you can never have too many delay pedals.”

i really think that’s true.

the photo is of a house near ours that’s raised high in the air as it’s new foundation hardens.

this morning we had quite a few visitors to one of our bird feeders. there was a young downy woodpecker that we had never seen before.  he was so cute. we think that he lives in a half dead tree right next to our house. i hope he comes out more often.

tonight i realized that one of the things that i really like about making all of these monome covers is getting all the little details just right.  it’s kind of silly but i really take great pride in it.   

this cover is for Taro in Santa Cruz.

this big guy took much longer than i thought he would.  i guess i’ve become pretty rusty since i’ve taken a break from this series to focus more time on making monome covers.   today was one of those days where nothing really went the way i would have liked it to.

oh, i also finally put up an archive page of all of the posts so far. it’s at the top of the page in the menu bar. take a look. it’s easier than clicking through the pages one by one.

This afternoon we went out to oxbow park to check out the spot where ericka + david are having their wedding.  it was a really beautiful location overlooking the sandy river.  i’m sure it will be even prettier this summer.

this afternoon i made this for chad in virginia.  it was a day full of green things.

here are some photos of the new felt cover that i finished tonight.  it’s a special version of my felt monome covers made to hold not one… but two of the original monome 40h.  it was a custom made for Julien from metz, france.  the 40h was thinner but had a larger footprint than the current monome 64 so i had to build a whole new set of templates based on monome.org’s excellent documentation. i made a pair of fake monomes out of old gift boxes to test the fit.  those are the two white things in the lower photo.  

i hope the real things fit as nicely as my cardboard version.

it was a good challenge

i went to the doctor’s office today to get checked out for what i thought was a possible sinus infection.  after a long long time waiting to be seen… it turns out that it was nothing

we attended a great show tonight by efterklang from copenhagen, denmark. there was lots of drumming, singing and clapping along… not at all what i thought it would be like based on their first two records but after seeing them live i wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

if they are coming to your town, it would be worth it to go and support them.

here are a few macro shots of tiny snow drifts that i took up on mt. hood today.  it’s funny how with no point of reference  you can really have a hard time determining scale.

here are some portraits of a just a few of  the many animals that nicole and i share our home with.  these ones are pretty low maintenance.  no food cost or vet bills to speak of.

here is a mini take on my felt monome covers 

i decided to try and make a little camera case for my new canon G9 (an awesome b-day gift from nicole).  i think it turned out pretty well.  i think it will still work even if i have the neck strap on… i know the strap is dorky but i really don’t want to risk dropping it.   

i’m sure that i will be making felt covers for a lot of things now.

pause-play+record-unpause-pause-(repeat)

i picked up this great tape recorder at goodwill this weekend.  it must have been some kind of tape deck for group listening because it has SIX headphone outputs.   

this is a little thing i recorded using a technique that was a favorite of mine back in my tape music days (before i ever used a computer for making music).  it’s just baritone guitar being plucked, recorded, paused and un-paused repeatedly. it’s a super simple but really cool effect.  

matt and i have been utilizing this cassette deck a lot for creating source material for our show in early april.  i love the musical texture that tape adds to simple sounds.

here are some penguins marching their way to the post office tomorrow.  i made these thank you cards to send to my friends and family from dust breeding entry number 13. it’s just an inkjet print… i still hope to someday letterpress prints of a few animals in the alphabet animal series.  if anyone has a favorite in the series that they’d like to see turned into a letterpress print, leave a comment or send me an email.

this is otto.  nicole and i found him next to our chimney when he was only a few days old.  we had to bottle feed him and make him poop every few hours.  nicole and i took turns taking him to work with us every day in a little bowling bag with a hot water bottle to keep him warm.  at times, we weren’t sure he would make it.  

that was years ago and now he if big and fluffy.  he feeds himself and uses the litter box on his own.

by looking at him….

you’d never know that he is the devil.

lonely things found on the outskirts of a shopping center.

here are two brand new green on green on green monome covers.  this could be my new favorite color combo.

one is going to fletcher in new york and the other is for cody in colorado.  it’s off to the post office saturday morning for these two.

it was a beautiful sunny day in portland today with tons of fantastic fast moving clouds in the sky.

here’s one of the new green monome covers i started sewing this week.  i added a bunch of new color options for people to choose from here.  this particular one will be going to joseph in Greenville, SC.  i’m really happy with these new ones.  this felt is even denser than the first batch of natural colored felt that i made the prototypes from.  there are many more on the way soon.

hard at work tonight cutting + sewing a new batch of felt monome covers.  i’m excited to get them out to all the people that have been ordering them.  they have been turning out really well.

now it’s time to sleep.

while up on the mountain this weekend, we went snowshoeing for the first time at white river.  it’s really hard work but a lot of fun.  once we got off of the snowshoe highway and headed for the trees nicole and i spotted these funny little snow mounds that were just begging for faces to be put on them.  most of them were done by nicole but most of the photos were taken by me… group effort!

here are some circle that i found around the building that i was working in for the last two days.  it’s an amazing building with a bright future.

i just got back from my first trip skiing in about 10 years.  it was so much fun. i have no idea why i hadn’t gone before this.  this lights were beautiful in the mist.

thanks so much to everyone for the kind words on the last bird i posted.  a site that i really love posted a photo and a link to that one.  it was very exciting for me.

01_22_09 music box

a little melody i made today with my punch card music box.

http://unrecnow.com/dust/audio/01_19_rjdj.mp3

i took a ride around the waterfront today and made this recording through RJDJ of me crossing the steel bridge.  it was really cold and very windy… the pitched delays from RJDJ make it sound like it felt.

i sewed this monome cover tonight for Jonathan Ntuk in New York.  he saw the one that i made for my 128 and asked if i could make one for him.  i was glad that i kept the template that made when i designed the original.