Friday, September 18, 2009

OBAMA vs KANYE: Berlin 1989

Check it out. Audio track featuring off-the-record Obama in his assault against college dropout Kanye West. Enjoy the "video"
Feel the burn....


I made this kanye spoof image and this musical composition. But it wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for Kanye's moment of hubristic selflessness and Obama's off-the-record rebuke. The music is composed mostly of samples from freesound.org users: patchen (trickyhop beat), djgriffin (acidhouse bass), acclivity (cuckoo), sagetyrtle (bells2), and BristolStories (chimes).

Did you like my autotuning? It was fun and a pain to do for free. If you would like to know how to autotune for free, here we go. Download FL Studio 9 Demo for free. This is a good program, but won't let you export from the demo version. Even if it did, FL Studio does not come with the ability to autotune. Thats where freeware .dll plugin for audio editors GSnap comes in. Made by GVST, this plugin allows you to manipulate autotuning through the frame of a different editor. Unfortunately, it is not compatible with Audacity (claims to be) and I had trouble using it in free sound editor Wavosaur. Yet it worked like a charm on FL Studio 9.

If only I could actually export the sample I made without paying for the license. The main difficulty with trying to autotune is that most audio editors can only do part of what you want and many editors are incompatible with autotuning plugins. It ruined my evening for a couple hours, as I had all the other samples ready.

Here's the simple way. It's easy if you go back to basics. Apply the GSnap effect to the modifications given in this video by youtuber WizardRuru: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J3Hlih9dvI
Plug your computer into some decent speakers to play out your unexportable FL/Gsnap autotuning effect and set up a decent digital microphone at a small distance from the speakers. Or you could even use the headphone jack connected to an audio editor, but I used a digital mic. Ha. Record output effect in your usual program as a source audio and taa-daa. It even made the sound slightly more robotic.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

kanye west, berserker hentai

I've been working on some promotional images for the blog. The idea is to scatter them around the internet looking for new readers.
Here's the first, playing into the KanyeWest/TaylorSwift meme that's run wild since the 2009 Video Music Awards controversy. Important stuff.
A lot of similarly themed image collages featuring Kanye's hubristic moment of selflessness can be seen at http://kanyegate.tumblr.com/

the apocalypse popsicle contribution
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this next one is somewhat inspired by the Love Among Freaks song Berserker, a song made famous by the film Clerks. but that's only half the idea...
berserker-APtag1

if you haven't heard the song Berserker, you really should
here's a link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miYMx59P_uM

Fun fact: Love Among Freaks are from New Jersey like me. Also, their drummer went on to play in the psychedelic metal band Monster Magnet. I saw Monster Magnet play at the Jersey shore and Kid Rock opened for them before he was "famous".
You will be quizzed on this material.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Invasion 1963

Did you know JFK was replaced by an alien from outerspace sometime in 1963? Part of an ill-fated exchange program with Venus, the alien-JFK impersonated our 35th President with great skill. It was this alien that suffered the murderous assassin's bullet that fateful afternoon in Dallas. With our young Catholic president seemingly deceased, the REAL John F Kennedy lives even today in exile on the sandy shores of Venus. His return to Earth would reveal the existence of extra-terrestrials. If this knowledge had been made public in '63, it would have unfortunately destroyed the Great Work that the Kennedy's and the Venutians had been building together for two decades.

Here, on this very video, you can hear the tale of the false-JFK's interstellar travel to earth and the aftermath that resulted from the assassination of the Venutian Ambassador. From the lips of alien-JFK's only living hybrid offspring, Ralph Kennedy, the tragic journey of Ralph's grandfather is told here for the first time.


I made this movie. The words and voice are mine. Any footage used here has the direct cultural purpose of subversion in that the images are meant to narrate visually an intent that is both similar yet distinct from the intent of the poem recited. That is to say, that the original intent of the footage has not been reproduced nor would the resulting montage ever have cause to replace demand for the original works that help compose my video.
Fair Use is at play.

Many thanks and credit is due to freesound.org musicians and audio adepts: james.brody for his bean belt shaker, ultratone for his circus-like mashed drum sample, suonho (thanks again) for his basscapes samples, Cyril_Laurier provided wind, jakeharries provided water sound, pryght and marvman for their bass lines, sagetyrtle and st4ngs for their laughter audio, and Andrew Duke for his roll effect.

Spoken word piece by me entitled
"In Southerly Places"

low in the tawny tendrilous grass does grow
a speckled mother of pearlescent shadow
upon the tilted dolled-up dreamcoat
on the river-worn weakened shore
where the ferrymen bedraggled and weathered
refuse to touch a clay orange hand
the shadowy man shakes a shadowy hand
if you be seeing me again
there won't be any wound to mend
and none that sparkles in the east
can lead these men across the plains
the sandy wind to catch in sails
holding mouths wide open to suck the bravado born breeze
to swiftly speed the journey dead
in southerly places,
they speak in codes



Did you know that JFK was replaced with an alien in 1963?
I did. That's why they shot him. Although the world was kept in the dark, he was an alien worth mourning. The public killing made it impossible for JFK to return to Earth, leaving him to spend the remainder of his days on the planet Venus....
blog

A picture of Kennedy's kept woman; a Venutian/Human hybrid called "Claire"
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Thursday, September 3, 2009

An Introduction to Poetry

Enclosed herein: a short tutorial for aspiring poets with sample metaphors and instructional tips


I made this movie. The words and voice are mine. Any footage used here has the direct cultural purpose of subversion in that the images are meant to narrate visually an intent that is both similar yet distinct from the intent of the poem recited. That is to say, that the original intent of the footage has not been reproduced nor would the resulting montage ever have cause to replace demand for the original works that help compose my video.
Fair Use is at play.

The audio samples used were created by freesound.org users: suonho (memory moon blaster effect), sleep (weird loop), patchen (drowning 83 drum loop). Thanks for making your work available. Aspiring hip hop artists and subversion novices should check out http://www.freesound.org/ and http://creativecommons.org/

Text version of An Introduction to Poetry:

alabaster
words like alligator
connected by sound to poetic image
let's be blunt about it
it's just like mom's homemade apple pie
to an orphan, the foreign flavor it is
of never had, yet lost, pleasure
re-experienced in a deja vu first impression
long lasting taste
the most confusing memory
the longer the grasping moment of disconnect
it is just reminiscent
it is only liquid tension
held in stasis by rubber band fences
remember
remember what to forget
the remembering to forget, yes yes
how salivating, the desire to suddenly punch
i'll give you now what will be memory
hidden obscurely, traveling where i cannot see
beneath skull and between ears
that absorb and contain selectively impressed notions
push it out your mouth now
bring it back
bite it into segments with your shiny, relevant teeth
i will eat it like a baby bird
you regurgitate my intent
i consume your interpretation.