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old new tones

old new z1 reworker

This is an old tune I revamped with a patch from my old faithful Korg Z1 synthesizer. I seriously love this synth. I can't find any softsynth that comes near the degree of programability of this guy, maybe it's just because I know it so well though. The "virtual analog" oscillators and filters are a joke, but who cares, the harsh digital qualities of the Z1 makes it sound so unique.

audiomulch drumphun

Download corbinherrera - mulchy drumphun

Download corbinherrera - feedbackerreworked


This is a test, I want to see if it will work. This is some old music of mine.

Big Nothing

It's one of those riddles where you feel trapped in semantics: What is Nothingness? If it is Nothing, if we can recognize it as such, then it must be Something distinct. It's a delusional state of mind to say that life means nothing. Because instantly it has a meaning of nothingness. A nothingness value. It's like saying there is no such thing as Truth, instantly that expression becomes a declaration of an absolute. This is all word play or maybe just bad poetry. You can define truth not as a thing, but more of a function of power/knowledge relationships, not a a center but a function, or a sociological tactic of persuasion. In such a way Truth becomes not a What but a How, an expression of the highest values of it's user. When people get caught up in believing something has no value, "it doesn't mean anything" they delude themselves into believing that something is without significance, it lacks symbolic power, it lacks cultural reference. We give emotional nothingness a charm, we can't feel anything so it becomes Nothing. The nothingness of space is not like anything else. Negative space in a painting is recognizable as something specific. It's dizzying and pointless trying to unravel it. What's the point, you know?

You're a rock and roll suicide

My second viewing of Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox story wasn't as fun as the first, but it did make me think about the narrative of rock and roll a little more. The reaction to rock music by conservative voices was accurate; this would be a transport to rebellion, irrational behavior, to destruction of tradition, it would lead to new values, new traditions, new models, new stories. Plato's decision to kick the poets out of the Republic for the same reasons has been echoed throughout music history though, any break with tradition has met some opposition or accusation of corruption or demonic possession. It's funny that it still happens today where christian groups rid their music collections of satanic influences. But you know what? I think their fear is justified. Rock music can replace their values and lead people away from those conservative traditions. There are many people who can recite passages of the Bible or the Koran. I know every word of the Smiths discography. Those words have become my psalms.
The last few weeks I have been relentlessly listening to Xiu Xiu's albums. I would vote Jamie Stewart as Morrissey's truest heir. The theme of suicide appears on every album, multiple times, and rightly so being his dad committed suicide. "Ian Curtis wishlist" makes me wonder about the roll of suicide in Rock history. Suicide has been romanticized, well since the German Romantics gave a sense of passion and bravery to it( the Sorrows of Young Werther). During my life lets see, Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith, who else? There are those that flirt with it: David Bowie(Rock and roll suicide), Lou Reed(the Bed), Leonard Cohen ( Dress Rehersal Rag), Morrissey, Xiu Xiu, Catpower, granted im thinking of music that is relevant to me not retarded crap. I'm wondering about how cultures around the world have used suicide as a way of accomplishment. You think of the Japanese samurai and kame kazi fighters, the suicide bombers, any other examples? Has Rock n Roll also given a way of dying that in some way provides a sense of accomplishment as these other examples? What is actually accomplished? Is it a way to simply be like someone else? mimetic destruction? Is their something else in there? Like Cobain's weariness to be a real big rockstar, the dreaded humilation of selling out? Is it a way to stay true to your passions? A way to show that you actually follow all your passions so intensely that you carry it out to the end? Rock definitely values the passionate life. If this is the case the conservative reaction to Rock is definitely appropriate.

but still be the biggest and still do what other people tell you to do. You did it to still be a winn

Sociologist Robert Sapolsky wrote an article called testosterone Rules where he concludes that testosterone doesn't necessarily cause aggressive behaivor rather aggressive behavior raises testosterone. He points to how even being put in positions of dominance raises testosterone levels and increases aggressiveness. Even a nerd winning a chess match can raise testosterone. I'd imagine that other hormones and chemicals are involved in Winning and we must seek strategies to win. Of course not every strategy is available to everyone, there's an element of Geworfenheit to it. I'm sure we can deceive ourselves playing out strategies of achievement by fulfilling roles that we arbitrarily see as winning. We can legitamize theses successes by comparing our lives to the roles made famous in our cultural narratives. I think of the roles of Lou Reed, David Bowie, and Brett Anderson, the gender bending, the drug addictions all being available to be absorbed into an identity of an impressionable teenager. Ways for those "skinny boys to be one of girls", to achieve where they couldn't in other areas of mainstream culture. "Here comes success" I can here Iggy Pop laugh.

Is there any point in ever having children?

It fascinates me how recent rock music and the whole pop music phenomena is. There's so much that intersects it's ontological status: technology, politics, morality, civil rights, populism, etc. Chris talked about how it's only recently possible to even achieve the status of celebrity that is available to contemporary celebrities because of technological formats that have recently come into existence: movies, television, the internet and the ability for these formats to actually reach people has only been around so shortly . The fascination with celebrities and their lives that Chris criticizes is understandable and I share many of his sentiments, but I think there might be something human in the fascination. (just because it is human isn't a good argument that it's okay. That would be like saying xenophobia is human and therefore endearing. (My problem with "humanism"?)) But maybe we can uncover something about what it means to be human by looking at these fascinations we have with celebrities, develop some empathy and compassion for the human race. (we can go into nihilism pretty simply by saying well isn't human as well to not be compassionate and understanding and why be moralistic about it? What can you tie the ultimate value of compassion to? What's the point of all this understanding? A short answer might be to read up on evolutionary advantages of cooperation and morality.)
I think it's in Seduction that Baudrillard talks of the fitting name we have given celebrities, Stars and more recently superstars. Read it for his musings. We've always been fascinated by shiny things, bright flickery flames, and the life and death of stars. I think we have been more fascinated by stories and the characters in the stories. We can't help but see our relation to the stories we hear, putting our selves in them, living them out, being told through them, our identity evolving out of them, through them. ( i've been thinking of how the internet tells the story of us. how the internet can create us, facilitate our identities, through blogs and youtubes, forums, how we can post our music online, indulge in the things that relate us to celebrities.) I'm sure we develop a sense of self worth through the fulfillment of roles we play in the types of stories we our told. We focus mostly on the characters in the stories, the role players/models. We don't like to be reminded that there is someone behind things telling the characters what to do, that's too outdated to our sense of self created free will. I've always been attracted to storytellers that tend to interupt this veil between the audience and the story. But it's fun to indulge in a movie, a song, a good book, to get carried away by the medium.
Celebrities are the closest thing to an omnipresent being we can imagine now. The allure of them being everywhere, on the same televisions worldwide is unprecedented. It has it's own outcome. It must have been a challenge of faith to the christians who discovered there were people who never heard of jesus.
My main criticism of Chris' entry is the presumption that the enitity of the contemporary celebrity is not of much value because of it's impermanence, that they won't be remembered because the format of their performance will be obselete. But many stories from the past have become obsolete and the characters have been forgotten because the format of word of mouth storytelling has been lost or the language can't be translated, but that doesn't mean the roles that these characters played had less importance to the audience of their day. If the characters are real or just actors in a story becomes less significant through out time...? maybe the illusion of reality is important to some. Whether Christ was real or a character is important to some Christians and not others, but he's definitely a celebrity. His role and the significance of reinacting it to create a selfworth is what's important to people.
I understand that Chris is not simply attacking celebrities but what famous people do or even what they don't do that is exgeratedly important to people without due credit. I agree. I'm just playing off of him as usual. the straight man in the cosmic joke.
Film stars as a focus point in a meditation of possible roles you can play out in your life(breathless/bogart/belmondo)fulfilling those roles. satisfaction.
I'll return to talk about pop music and roles and stories, ways of existing through, because of music. music/identity, short lived life of pop. technology and music, recorded music, celebrities, the internet.