The build your own ambient sundae bar

If you haven't checked out shortwave music, I highly recommend it. My favorite feature of the site is the fact that all the embedded players can be played at the same time making it possible to create your own ambient mash-ups of the beautiful music that Myke Weiskopf posts.

Since it is possible to do the same thing with the embedded players on this page, I decided to post some tracks for that purpose. (If you create something from these that you like, shoot me a copy and I'll post it as well).

First up are two takes of my own using the embedded players at shortwave music.
Long wave

Sweet


Next are some tracks that I created for my wife to use in a multimedia installation she staged while in Architecture school at UNM (1998, or so).
swarm i

swarm ii

swarm iii

swarm iv

swarm v


Finally two versions a dub loop from Gnomonic off the album valis
gnomonic dub i

gnomonic dub ii (speaker killing bass warning: careful).


Don't be afraid to include para!helion, meditations on time, or any of the other stuff already posted. Have fun. Next up, Choke.

Waltz Bop Shop: All my idears are flawed in sum way

Album: All my idears are flawed in sum way
Style: post-punk proto-math-rock with a good dose of no-wave
Limited release cassette from 1994

Waltz Bop Shop:
Keif Henley- Guitar, rants, crying
Rodney Cupp - Bass, vocals, lyrics (aka Cranky)
Me- drum kit, samples

I am a terrible record keeper. My copy of the cassette master for this release has no cover, no information about recording date, and no song titles. I tried to remember the track names, but I know I got some of them wrong. I am guessing on the date based on the track Kenneth! What's the frequency? That cursed REM song came out a few months after we recorded Kenneth...and they couldn't even get the phrase right. Of course, Game Theory beat us to it by about 7 years anyway, so who are we to complain.

Update:
My much more together compatriot Rodney has sent me the corrected song titles (see below). I have updated the file names at the internet archive as well...looks like I only got 2 out of 8 right.

Tracklist:

1. Self-Congratulatory Non-Conformist

2. Tax Shelter
3. Kenneth! What's the Frequency
4. 8 1/2
5. Dress Code at Tito's
6. Liquid Gang
7. Evening News
8. Feeble (Kiss Me Boy! Kiss Me!)

Get it (FLAC,Ogg Vorbis,mp3) or original post.


Note: the player plays the whole album

Musique concrète: Meditations On Time

Source: NMSU Experimental Music Lab tapes
Style: frippery and musique concrète

Recorded in the early 80's in the New Mexico State University experimental music lab, Meditations on Time is a piece for three tape decks, found objects, and piano. Around the time this was recorded I became a founding member of the Ars Nova Guild, an organization dedicated to all things avante-garde. Most of the tapes from these days are in pretty rough shape. I will be working to find the ones that are salvageable and posting them here.

Meditations On Time



Enjoy.

covers: Waltz Bop Shop & Jonny Cats

Playing covers of other people's songs has never been a big part of any of the bands I have been in over the years. Today's post contains a couple of exceptions to that rule.

Up first is a cover of the T-Rex classic Liquid Gang performed by Waltz Bop Shop and recorded at KUNM. Waltz Bop Shop was a trio (and later a quartet) and was the longest lived project I have been involved in. Spanning most of the 90's Waltz Bop Shop played proto-math-rock and fractured jazz with a decidedly quirky mix of pop and experimental sensibilities.

Track: Liquid Gang
(from the cassette: All my idears are flawed in sum way)
Players:
Keif Henley - guitar
Rodney Cupp, ph.d. - bass, vocals, piano intro
me- drum kit

Get it here (@192)

Up next is a cover of Gun Club's Sex Beat by the infamous Jonny Cats. The Jonny Cats tore through the Albuquerque scene alongside bands like The Drags in the mid-90's playing surf-beat-cow-punk-mutherfucker. The Jonny Cats would have been household names if it weren't for a focused dedication to all of the most self-destructive aspects of the rock-n-roll life style. This track was recorded for a compilation cd that never happened.

Track: Sex Beat (unreleased)
The Jonny Cats were:
Kenta Henmi - lead guitar (now in The Violenta)
Dave Chavez - bass
Jonny Jarden - vocals, nudity
Jonny Reed - guitar
Johnny T- drum kit

Get it here (@ 192)

More tunes from both bands will follow.

Swayback - Last Ride (unreleased demo)

unreleased single from 2002
style: cow punk

Players:
Jon - Guitar and vocals
Lucky - Bass
me - drum kit

Swayback was a short lived trio I was in with my old bandmate Jon Reed from the Jonny Cats (watch for Jonny Cats posts soon). Last Ride is a little diddy we recorded as a demo. The band did only one show, but I really liked the direction it was going.

Go on one "Last Ride" (@320) (also here)


Update: Check out Lucky and Jon in Sin Serenade.

¡para!helion - 3 Miles from Mecca

Album: 3 Miles from Mecca
Style: Opium Den Ambiance
Released in very limited quantities in 1999

Players:
Dave- Trumpet, effects
Jeff - Electric Balilaika, effects
me- African Kettle Drums, Dumbek, Clay Djemba

This is the first ¡para!helion release that I played on (Dave & Jeff had released some earlier work with a different drummer). The bulk of these were recorded live at Mecca coffeehouse in Albuquerque to entertain the troops as Basement Films projected and archived a massive donation of educational films. We played with films projecting on every available piece of wall space. The first and last track were recorded in Dave's living room.

Get "3 Miles from Mecca" (@ 320)
Update: available at the internet archive (Flac,Ogg Vorbis,mp3 or stream or original posting).

Note: player plays the whole album.
Enjoy.

¡para!helion- Midaq Alley

Album: Midaq Alley.
Style: Dirges from the desert.
Released in very limited quantities in 1999.
Featuring:
Dave-Trumpet, effects
Jeff - Electric Balilaika, effects
Me - percussion, loops, and acoustic bass.
Improvised and recorded live to two track.

Get part one and part two (@320)
Update: available from the internet archive: on one page (here includes FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, mp3) or on two (part one & part two)

Track List:

1) Allal
2) The fqih
3) Istikhara
4) The Waters of Izli
5) Mejdoub
6) The Wind at Beni Midar
7) The Story of Lahcen and Idir
8) 1000 days of Mokhtar
9) Abhilash Talkies (Thanks to Ernie for the mumbling.)
10) Ayemenem
11) Naxos
12) The Fqih (Slight Return)

Read a review of Midaq Alley here

Welcome...a head start

This blog is intended to share musical moments from my life.
While you wait for more substantive postings, feel free to get a head start by visiting cd.baby where you can buy/download a couple of albums that my brother and I recorded a few years ago: valis and P.E.N. (also available on iTunes, of course).

Update: You can preview both albums in full here.