:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Saturday, December 13, 2003 ::

Fans of Trevor Brown's art might want to check out Suehiro Maruo.
"This site is a small gallery of Suehiro Maruo's arts. He is an artist of stunning power and composition, mingling shock with nostalgia as well as humor. Some of these pictures contain nudity and almost all are deeply disturbing." VNSFW.

:: Dan 13.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Gig Review: DJ Qbert, Sir Beanz O.B.E., Wordsworth Surgery @ The Thekla, Bristol, 12.12.03

It appeared Bristol’s entire scratch DJ population turned up for this one. And a few non-DJs who just appreciate scratching, like myself.

I wasn’t too sure about Beanz to start with but as the evening went on his set, and his scratching, got better, and by the end I was converted. He’s pretty good. Wordsworth Surgery we’re similar. To start with I dismissed them as two country hicks from rural Dorset putting on bad boy London accents and saying “yo-yo-yo-yo-yo” a lot. But by the end of there second set I could see that they we’re actually two country hicks from rural Dorset putting on bad boy London accents who had a couple o decent tracks. These guys could improve a lot over time so I wouldn’t rule out ever seeing them again. Just give them some time.

DJ Qbert took to the stage and sat in the edge of a small table in front of what he called his new invention; the mixer and turntable in one. Apparently “you can take it with you anywhere, on a bike, to the bathroom, anywhere.” The thing looked heavy duty; it had a very deep base, was almost round, had faders mounted on each corner (except the one the tone arm was mounted on) and pots around the edges. He used some sort of remote control to play a backing track of beats which he scratched over and mixed with. The first track was a great show of force, warning of what was to come, with scratch trick after scratch trick, the crowd practically collectively wetting themselves at some points. Unfortunately, the more impressive the trick performed, the louder the roar of the crowd, and so the less it could be heard. After two pretty similar tracks, both building breaking down, building and them ending in the same way, it was time for something different. A whole track played without any use of the faders, just one record scratching back and forth. This really was quite an impressive number. The pace was slacked a little next with a slower funkier number, but still equally capable of whipping the crowd into a frenzy every now and again. We were also treated to some 80’s style acid house tracks (like the stuff he did for the Scratch soundtrack) and some killer Drum and Bass (although not enough of the latter in my opinion). The vinyl was used to scratch out known tunes, bass lines, as well as just the normal cuts you’d expect to hear. One of the real highlights was the use of a drum fill to pick out individual percussion sounds to create a new drum loop, which would then change every four bars or so. Impressive. The crowd didn’t want to let him go, so at the point when he seemed to have used all of his prepared material Beanz joined him for a little scratch battle. (Beanz sounded much better than he had earlier in the evening, I think his style isn’t as fluid as it could be so he benefits from the battle style of taking turns so he can set up his next move.) Finally the beat boxing of monkey boy (can’t remember his name, but it had monkey in it somewhere) was fantastic and didn’t really even need any starching to complement it.

In all, Qbert played for an hour, all on his custom deck, then retired to sign autographs(!) It was a stunning show, and I’m sure there will be even more wannabe scratch DJs in Bristol after this show than there was before. Anyone got some decks I can borrow?

:: Dan 13.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Female mayor 'mortified' after secret strip exposed

Kidney Auction Man Warned

:: Dan 12.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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The Picture of Everything

:: Dan 12.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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An Army bid to outdo the Navy with their own amphibious warfare unit has been shelved - after an experiment went disastrously wrong (28MB MPEG, annoyingly nothing interesting happens for the first half of the footage, but bear with it.) Sensationalised background story.

:: Dan 12.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Moog Movie:

In Revolution OS hackers have a film that chart the history of what is probably one of the most important revolutions in computing history. The electronic music community will be getting the same sort of document for what is probably one of the most important revolutions in synthesis, if not in music, the Moog Synthesiser.

Moog will tell the story of the maverick inventor, in his own words, rather than try to tell the whole story of his 50 years of contributing to electronic music. Dr. Moog allowed the filmmakers unprecedented access to his world and different sides of his story are told by Don Buchla, Jim Scott, Wendy Carlos et al. A specially commissioned soundtrack produced on Moog instruments includes exclusive tracks from Stereolab, Meat Beat Manifesto, Tortoise, DJ Spooky, Money Mark, Luke Vibert, Charlie Clouser, Electric Skychurch and the Cure among others.

The film is due for US release next summer, so it might be a long wait until we can see it in the UK. In the mean time there is a four and a half minute preview (30MB MPEG / 14MB Quicktime) and a little preview article written by some Butthead.

:: Dan 12.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Sunjammer live set from Oslo Synth Festival

:: Dan 12.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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The Daily Mail claim that the Turkey Cooking equation looks like this:

But I don’t believe that’s it for a second.

'Clockwork Orange' killer jailed

US claim global warming is a hoax! "Kyoto and its policies are inconsistent with freedom, prosperity and environmental policy progress,'' said Sen. James Inhofe, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. "I'm becoming more and more convinced, as time goes by and we look at the research, that global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people and the world.''
I'm gob smacked.

Warchalking.org. What's next War-remote-controlled-roadkill? Quick, register the URL Popcorn!

:: Dan 12.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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You may have heard of wardriving/warcycling/warchalking* etc. Now there's warflying.

75 mins flying time
2013 Wireless access points found
71% Had no encryption.

Oh, the possible carnage.


*Wireless network hacking

:: popcorn 11.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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The US passed a "no spam" law very reacently, and all ready someone has been arrested and faces 25 years!

:: popcorn 11.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Turkey Cooking Equation:
Peter Barham, of Bristol University, says his heat-transfer equation accounts for every relevant variable, including the difference in temperature between fridge and oven, the ratio of the specific heat of the turkey to the specific heat of the air, and the radius, girth and precise physical geometry of the turkey

Americans think they have a better idea

Deep linking between websites could become a thing of the past

Could Your CD Contain Corn? Sanyo uses vegetables to build an environmentally friendly disc

:: Dan 11.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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The Gusset Music page has been updated and now includes a grab of John Peel introducing and playing The Imagination is in the Spelling last week (2MB MP3).

:: Dan 10.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Evening peeps,

A late night post of profanity, don't use this in work unless you have headphones

:: Spokesy 9.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Gusset get played by John Peel. Listing and stream.

:: Dan 9.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Richard Herring appears to be almost as gutted about finding out Sophie Ellis-Bextor is pregnant as I was.

So farewell then Amp and Deck, as buyers ditch hi-fi in favour of DVD "Separates have become marginalised. The only person who would buy them is the sort of guy who'd buy a Morgan sports car instead of an S-class Mercedes." I don’t see why the two are incompatible though. Look at some of the new stuff Terratec are making, and what’s a TiVo if it’s not another separate?

"Internet cruising is its own form of punishment, Dante's e-ferno where thousands of disembodied souls in e-ternal torment..." Now you don’t expect to find puns of that calibre in an article about gaydar do you?

:: Dan 8.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Warning: Dan on Soap Box again.

This year’s Tuner Prise has been awarded amid the normal media circus and probably intentional headline grabbing. It was awarded to potter Grayson Perry, who happens to be a transvestite. The fact that he is a trannie seems to be the main point made in most of the headlines today, although I don’t see how it is quite so important or shocking. As soon as you delve any deeper into any of the stories one of the first points made is the fact that some of his works depict domestic violence and child abuse, both important subjects in today’s society that should be discussed more. Havening recently discovered that one of my wives work colleges is frequently beaten by her husband has made me stop and think about how common a problem domestic violence actually is and what I should do to bring some attention to this problem. For a start, I’m writing this, but I mustn’t fool myself into think that is enough. Anyway, back to my point about the media coverage of the Turner Prise; there is a subtle subtext running through most of the coverage that implies that "art made by a transvestite, about child abuse, must be the work of a perverted mind and shouldn’t be given any sort of public award as it is only going to subvert the masses" (paraphrasing). The BBC discussion page is the perfect example of how this narrow-minded easy-column-inches sensationalism is swaying the opinions of the public (albeit, the already bigoted). Rather than try and summarise the views in all of the papers, here’s the google news results on the subject, judge for yourself. (Note the happy family picture used in some of the stories.)

Much as, from a feminist view point, the forced wearing of head scarves by women of certain religions could be viewed as degrading, the banning of wearing them in western countries could equally be viewed as a more against freedom of choice and expression and could even be viewed as raciest. When French President Jacques Chirac says "the presence of the veil has something aggressive about it" it stinks of US style knee-jerk reactions that only lead to more walls being constructed between cultures. Let us hope that the rest of Europe follows Britain’s more tolerant (if still not tolerant enough) stance.

Working for an American owned company we have for the last few years suffered the political correctness gone mad obsession with sending non-religious “holiday cards” every Christmas. Now, I don’t really bother much with Christmas, it’s just an excuse to get the family together once a year in my eyes, but isn’t this somehow missing the point?

:: Dan 8.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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