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Last night was the second of two nights Band Of Horses played at Neumo’s. They played pretty much the same setlist (sans “St. Augstine”) and it was just as good as it was on Thursday. The venue was less talkative and since I recorded from the venue floor, the recording came out a little fuller sounding I think.

Unfortunately, this recording has diginoise on a few tracks where I bumped or moved the recorder. This is testament to the fact that when I’m stealth recording, I need to just leave the recorder alone and not check the levels. I just get worried that, somehow, the Microtrack has stopped recording or I’m clipping or whatever. I need to cut that out.

Band Of Horses – 2006-04-14 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: boh2006-04-14.at943.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: boh2006-04-14sample.mp3

Dear People Standing Behind Me At The Concert Last Night,

I know you want everyone to think that you’re cool, interesting people that have important things to say but, really, no one cares about what TV shows you watch or what seasons you liked best or anything of that nature. Bearing that in mind, please don’t shout your conversations at such a level that the people around you can’t hear the opening band’s set. Also, please take note of the irony you create when you berate people who talk during a band’s set then continue to do so yourselves for the entire set.

Fuck You Very Much,

Brian Connolly

So the show last night was a good one. It’s the first of two nights that Band Of Horses is playing at Neumo’s this week, the first one being an all-ages affair and the second a 21+ shindig. Barring the assholes standing behind me who wouldn’t stop talking the entire night, it was an all around pleasing experience as far as concerts go.

In regards to the taping experience, though… not so much. I had permission to tape from Ben Bridwell himself and I even had the email stored on my phone so I could show security that everything was cool. They didn’t jive so well with me on that front. I was told that without a press pass I was not allowed to tape and since Ben wasn’t even at the venue yet, I couldn’t talk to him and straighten anything out.

Rather than cause a fuss, I resorted to Plan B and took my gear back to the car. I rigged up the stealth equipment and I was all set to go, but realized that my Microtrack wasn’t charged at all since I hadn’t actually planned on stealthing. I knew what I had to do. I shoved a 9v Li-Ion battery in the front of my pants and the voltage regulator in my back pocket. I wasn’t going to let some venue’s lame security get between me and this recording.

This is the second time I’ve stealthed at this venue. Since it was an all ages show and it was still early in the night, the 21+ balcony was pretty much deserted. I set up at the balcony’s outcropping that is about twelve feet away from (and directly in front of) the left stack. The results of taping in this location are very nice. I used the balcony railing to stabilize myself the entire night which cut down on phasing in the recording.

The opener was Sera Cahoone who, I believe, used to drum for Band Of Horses before they got a full band together. Her voice is very much in the style of Aimee Mann but the overall sound is very country/folk sounding. I really liked it.

Sera Cahoone – 2006-04-13 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: scahoone2006-04-13.at943.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: scahoone2006-04-13sample.mp3

Band Of Horses fucking killed, of course. I love a band that can not only perform their songs well, but be entertaining the entire time they do it. Ben Bridwell is the goofiest guy on stage and I love him for it. After every song, he cheers himself along with the audience with raised fists and a big grin on his face. I honestly don’t think he can play a show without smiling the entire time, he’s just not capable of it. They played a set similar to the last time I saw them, but this time they threw in “I Go To The Barn Because I Like The” and “Weed Party” which were both welcome additions to the setlist. They also busted out a Gram Parsons cover and closed the show with a blazing performance of “The Funeral”.

Suffice to say, I’m pretty stoked to see the second show tonight. Here’s hoping I don’t have to stealth again.

Band Of Horses – 2006-04-13 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: boh2006-04-13.at943.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: boh2006-04-13sample.mp3

Previously, I wrote a two-part entry where I documented the hardware and software that I used to make a home theatre PC capable of playing audio through my stereo system. The system worked well enough but it only lasted for about a month before I got tired of it.

It was too cumbersome.  Running a VGA cable under the rug looked stupid as did having an LCD monitor next to the couch.  The whole thing was annoying to use as the computer was loud, the bluetooth mouse was finnicky, the monitor was crappy, and the interface was clunky.

I am no stranger to defeat in the realm of technology.  When I realized my homebrew HTPC was a dud, I took it apart and tried to think of another solution.  Pretty much all of the ideas I came up with required me to build a full computer that would cost me at least $1,000.  I didn’t want to spend $1,000.

I then decided to take a look at pre-made solutions that were more tailored to my needs.  At this point I was still mainly interested in audio players which is why the Squeezebox from Slimdevices caught my eye.  It plays most of the formats I use, has a snazzy web interface, can access a music share wirelessly and is certainly less expensive than building an entire computer just to play audio in my living room.

I’d been using the Squeezebox for the last two months or so and loving it.  Then I began jonesing for a way to play my computer-specific video files in the living room.  You know, XViD and DiVX, that sort of thing.  I started looking for a pre-made solution for video but all of the reviews I found for these types of devices were less than stellar.  They choked on codecs or were a hassle to set up or they cost too much or the remote control sucked or they didn’t do wireless or any number of things.

I couldn’t see dropping a few hundred bucks on a device that was just going to frustrate me.  With my conundrum in hand, I turned to the goons of Something Awful for advice.  A few people recommended some devices I hadn’t heard about, but then a small army of posters came to tout the wonders of a soft-modded Xbox running Xbox Media Center (XBMC).  They didn’t give reasons or pros and cons.  They just said “Get an Xbox and soft-mod it. Install XBMC. You will be pleased.”

Usually I poo-poo this sort of advice, but I decided to investigate further and I found this thread which details how to soft-mod the Xbox and I decided “Why the hell not? If nothing else, I’ll have an Xbox.”  I went to Fred Meyer and picked up an Xbox with Forza Motorsport and an Action Replay.  I went to Blockbuster and rented Mech Assault (one of three games that allows for the exploit to work).  I was on my way.

I modified the Xbox in about 15 minutes.  Most of that time was spent installing Datel’s Action Replay software (which is ugly and not very intuitive by the by).  After that it pretty much went like this:

1. Transfer Mech Assault gamesave to the memory card.
2. Transfer Mech Assault gamesave from the memory card to the Xbox hard drive.
3. Load Mech Assault gamesave called “Run Linux”.
4. Bloop Bleep Boop Beep Linux Installed have fun.

After that it was a breeze to do anything else.  I installed XBMC and set it as the default dashboard. I cloned the contents of the tiny 8GB hard drive to a spare 160GB hard drive I had lying around and installed it in the Xbox.  I set up SMB shares for XBMC to stream media over the network.  I installed emulators for NES, SNES, MAME, Genesis, and N64.  Everything “just worked”.  It was like using a Mac without paying out the ass for it.  Once I had it all set up, I began to use it.

Oh god they were right.

It plays everything.  It plays every XViD file I have, it plays every audio file I have, the emulators work perfectly, the interface is beautifully intuitive and polished… it’s everything I’ve always wanted in a home theatre computer and it only cost me 200 dollars.

Oh yeah, and it plays Xbox games.

Saw The Gossip and Panther last night at Neumo’s. If you’ve never seen either of these bands perform then I highly recommend that you check them out.

Panther is the solo project of Charlie Salas-Humaras, the frontman of The Planet The and all around awesome guy. He sings and dances to pre-tracked instrumentals for about 20 minutes and let me tell you, it’s nothing short of amazing. This guy’s got the moves and he’s not afraid to bust them out. I really wish I could have recorded his set with video because the audio recording is only half the story.

Panther – 2006-04-05 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: panther2006-04-05.at943.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: panther2006-04-05sample.mp3

The Gossip played an impressive set even with Beth Ditto being under the weather. She’s got pipes I’ll tell you what. Even with her having a nasty cold, her vocals were still blazing. I also like that there are still bands out there who are about advocacy and social justice. God bless Slim Moon and his label of great bands.

The Gossip – 2006-04-05 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: gossip2006-04-05.at943.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: gossip2006-04-05sample.mp3

Sometimes you go to a show and the opening band make your eyes glaze over as you wait for them to finish whatever the hell it is they’re doing so you can see the band(s) you paid money to see. This is why people show up at the venue two hours late. Not because they want to look cool but because they hate sitting through craptacular opening bands.

But every so often you show up to a show in time to see the first band play and it’s not a total let down. In fact, sometimes you catch a band that is just as entertaining if not more so than than the headlining act and, let me tell you friends, that’s a golden opportunity right there. The crowd isn’t jam packed full of people and you can actually enjoy being up front listening to some decent tunes.

Friday night I went to see These Arms Are Snakes at Neumo’s (Isis was headlining but… meh) and the opening act, Zombi, proved that the order of the show’s lineup is not indicative of how “good” the bands are. These guys fucking killed. They have a huge sound, epic drumming, and an all around smooth sound.

To describe their sound I will say this: You know those action movies from the 80s that always get shown on network tv on Sunday afternoon? The music that plays while the renegade cop storms the abandon factory that the criminals are using to traffic their drugs. That’s what Zombi’s music sounds like. Synth driven, drum backed, guns-out electronic music that is destined to impress.

Zombi 2006-03-32 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: zombi2006-03-31.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: zombi2006-03-31sample.mp3

(I also recorded These Arms Are Snakes’ set but I promised the drummer that I would not publish the recording or trade it with anyone until their new album is out. Sorry.)

I like the Sunset Tavern. For being a run-of-the-mill bar in the heart of Ballard, it has a certain charm and allure. Sort of cozy and fun. The soundsystem also doesn’t suck and they have enough equipment to mic a full drumset and all of a band’s instruments, so that helps me to like it as well.

The show last night was all around good. The opening band, The Lonely Forest, played to a small crowd of about 20 people (10 of which were their family and friends). They were obviously a young group of kids but the music was good… sort of Counting Crows-ish without the whiney vocals.

Following them was Kimya Dawson whose name you might recognize from The Moldy Peaches. Her solo set is very soothing and comforting to listen to. You know that White Stripes song “We’re Going To Be Friends”? Imagine a whole set of songs like that with funnier lyrics.

A lot of talkers during this set. I’m surprised it turned out as audible as it did given that she’s a very soft spoken singer whose only accompaniment is an acoustic guitar. Even still, the recording is good and worth the listen.

Kimya Dawson – 2006-03-28 Sunset Tavern – Seattle, WA
Download: kdawson2006-03-28.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: kdawson2006-03-28sample.mp3

Jason Collett and his band Paso Mino took the stage at 11 and played for a solid 75 minutes. It was nice to have a band play for more than 45 minutes and even come out for an encore (even though the place didn’t have more than 30 people in it).

That’s something I noticed and found rather odd. I came to the show expecting some kind of turn out given that Jason Collett’s other band Broken Social Scene has a huge following of hip kids. The Sunset even marketed the show on their site as “Jason Collett of Broken Social Scene” so I thought a lot of people would come out to the show just to hear what his solo stuff sounds like. To my surprise, the room never filled up as I had expected. I mean, shit, this venue had more people in it when Wolf Eyes played in October.

No big deal, his set was great and I enjoyed it a good deal. Comparing his singing to Dylan is unavoidable so I will say this: His vocals sound like Ben Lee doing an impression of Bob Dylan. This isn’t a jab or anything, just what popped into my head when he first started singing.

The recording turned out nice enough. Some talkers underneath my stand but whatever, I’m not in the business of telling people what to do at shows. I’m almost positive that Calvin Johnson ran the soundboard for this set as you can hear Jason say his name when trying to fix the microphone after the fourth song. After the show the bass player told me they were going to record at a studio “about a half hour away” which might have meant Johnson’s recording studio Dub Narcotic Recording Studios in Olympia (which is really about an hour and a half away from Seattle).

Jason Collett – 2006-03-28 Sunset Tavern – Seattle, WA
Download: jcollett2006-03-28.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: jcollett2006-03-28sample.mp3

I figure since I’ve got a new hobby and it’s pretty fun, I should start sharing the fruits of my labor with my best friend, the Internet.

I’ve been taping pretty regularly since January. The list of shows includes:

The Advantage
Animal Collective
Band Of Horses
Big Business
Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins
Minus The Bear
These Arms Are Snakes

Most of these recordings turned out pretty well. I’m amazed at how easy it is to set up my equipment and pull a pretty good tape without really knowing all that much about audio and not having spent thousands of dollars on my equipment. I’m also really getting into taping local bands at smaller venues. I don’t know why but it’s cool to record something like that… it feels more like I’m doing a service to the city’s music scene by preserving local shows than it does when I record a band that is just touring through town.

Bearing that in mind, I’ve decided to upload my recording from Saturday night. Part Man Part Horse opened up for some touring bands at The Funhouse and I captured the aural magic. Gary was in top form and stoned out of his gourd as far as I could tell. He ran around the venue, threw water at people, called the crowd “stupid” on multiple occasions, and generally did his thing.

And now it’s your turn to share in that magic.

Part Man Part Horse – 2006-03-25 The Funhouse – Seattle, WA
Download:
MP3 Sample: pmph2006-03-25sample.mp3

All of these files are in FLAC because that is how I roll. Mac users will have to decode to WAV in order to get them to work I imagine (just use xACT) and Windows users, well…. Foobar2000 ver .9 just came out so go and get that and ditch Winamp for a change.

I sure do like buying stuff. I don’t enjoy materialism without purpose, though. I like buying nice stuff that I can use (or that will be worth metric truckloads of money in the future) and, just recently, I did that.

See, my new hobby is recording live concerts. Like most hobbies I take up, I spent a few weeks reading hundreds of forum threads on the Internet until I had a good idea of what equipment I needed and what I could realistically afford.

For situations where I would need to record shows “on the downlow” (as the kids say) I built a “stealth rig” consisting of the following components:

1) Sound Professionals CMC-8 microphones

These mics use the Audio Technica 943 capsules and terminate with an 1/8″ stereo plugin. They’re also tiny as hell.

2) Sound Professionals SPSB-6 battery box

This 9v battery box powers the mics (since they can’t take be powered with 48v phantom power) and also has a bass roll-off option to cure the mics of being too boomy. I usually roll off the left and right channels at 107Hz.

3) Sound Professionals 1/8″ to TRS dongle

This dongle converts the 1/8″ termination of the battery box into two 1/4″ TRS (tip-ring-sleeve) terminations.

4) M-Audio Microtrack 24/96

This is the real beauty of the setup. The Microtrack takes care of the analog to digital conversion stage and records to compact flash or a microdrive (at up to 24 bit-depth and 96 kHz sample rate). It really is a versatile device as it can record through digital coax if you have an outboard A/D converter and can be powered remotely via USB if you need to record for hours at a time.

That’s my covert ops recording setup. I also dropped some cash on an “open rig” for situations where both the venue and the band are cool with people recording the show. With an open setup you can add more pieces of equipment to the rig without having to hide it in your pants and, hopefully, end up with a better sounding recording than if you were recording on the sly. Here is what I’m curently using for open-tape situations:

1) AKG C1000S microphones

These are very much the “newbie taper” microphones, but for the price they get the job done very well. I recorded a friend’s band with them a few weeks ago and was amazed at the clarity they provided.

Each microphone is mounted in an Audio Technia 8415 shock mount which suspends the mic in an elastic cradle in case the mic stand is bumped during recording.

For various microphone configurations (which, as I’ve come to find out, there are an abundance of) I bought an AKG stereo bar which will easily allow me to set up the mics in HRTF, X/Y, DIN, AB, etc etc. The stereo bar mounts on a 10′ air cushioned light stand I bought at Glazer’s. See my lack of mic config know-how here.

2) Edirol UA-5

This device handles the mic power, gain, and A/D conversion stage. It provides the microphones with 48v of phantom power and allows for individual control of left and right gain. It outputs analog via RCA or digitally via digital coax or optical.

I bought a modified version of this unit from the TapersSection.com used equipment forum. It was modified by Doug Oade to have a transparent gain stage and a lower noise floor. It also has the Oade Plus Mod which alters the power supply and analog stage of the unit to increase detail and decrease noise.

To power this unit in the field, I went to RadioShack (which is lovingly referred to as “Rat Shack” in the taping community. It’s like the Micro$hit of the taper world.) and bought a li-ion battery and some of their Adaptaplugs (B plug for the battery end, M plug for the UA-5 end).

3) M-Audio Microtrack 24/96

Once again, running into the Microtrack but insead of using the TRS inputs I can use the S/PDIF digital coax input (running digital out from the UA-5).

I’m powering the Microtrack using the same model battery that powers the UA-5, but I had to get a voltage regulator to feed the unit 5v intsead of 9v. A member of TapersSection.com makes such a unit he calls The Juicebox. I got a used Juicebox from a TS.com member and it works just great.

For all of this gear, I have a a Lowe Pro Nova 5 camera bag. I still don’t have a solution for storing the microphones, though. The C1000S is a lot bigger than most field mics so it’s hard to find something to store them in that is low-profile. Here is my bag all packed up (sans the XLR cables).

I’ve been busy. Boy howdy have I ever. I’ve successfully pared down three of my jobs to two without taking an income hit so I have plenty of time to sit around and work on this book.

I’ve decided to scrap my original layout mock-up. It was too easy to lose the focus of the book by futzing with captions and multiple images per page. My new idea, inspired by comments two friends of mine made, is to have each page speak for itself. Every page will be a full-sized image without text (save for the header and the page number).

Secondly, I’ve chosen to make the table of contents as much a visual part of the book as the photos. I am going to illustrate the contents of the book on a map of Seattle with each page represented by a numbered circle on the map. The location of the circle will correspond to where in the city the photo was taken and the number will tell you what page to go to. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure of glorious street art!

I am going to try my hardest to make a presentable electronic version of the book. I don’t mean a simple PDF (though there will be one of those), I’m talking about a full-fledged Flash version of the book with animations and sounds and such. I don’t know Flash but I’m willing to learn (or, at the very least, find someone else to do this for me). I just want something people can look at and enjoy without having to bind hundreds of copies of the finished physical product.

Finally, I have spent a lot of time looking at digital processing techniques to make the images pop out of the page. I really like the way the photos shine when they’re processed to look like they were taken with a Lomo camera, so I believe I am going to edit them to look as such. Here is the before image and here is the after. If you have any other ditigal editing techniques, opinions, tips, or criticisms for me, please let me know!

I’ve written about Cold Killer often on other sites. I’ve even put up an entire photo album of Cold K tags on Flickr. I think more people should know about this. Judging by the amount of Cold K photos on Flickr, I’m not the only one who feels this way.

My fascination with these ubiquitous ghosts began in the fall of 2004 when I began noticing them all over the city. Sure, there were other taggers painting all over Seattle, but Cold K’s expressionless ghosts were identifiable, noticeable, and varied enough in style that they didn’t become boring. I imagine that if I owned property in the city I wouldn’t be too fond of graffiti artists but, since I don’t, and since I’ve always been a big fan of culture subversion, Cold Killer is my favorite tagger in Seattle.

So I began photographing.

I had a photography class last year during my senior year of college. I took that as an opportunity to splurge on a decent digital camera and started on my quest to document this art.

His art quickly became my own as I logged hundreds of photographs of these subjects using varying angles, exposures, and frames. It’s amazing how much more you will shoot given the digital age’s no-cost media.

I turned in my Cold Killer documentation as a final project in the introductory photography class, but felt like the project remained unfinished. I wanted the photographs presented in a more suitable manner. I wanted the documentation to manifest itself in something more tangible than a photo portfolio.

The idea for a book was born. At the moment, I am making that book.

I began laying it out last night like I promised myself I would. Here is an initial mock up of two example pages: mockup.png.

The layout process is rather tedious, but I’m quickly learning to employ the use of guides and snap-to grids in Photoshop. The pages are laid out on a tabloid sized template in landscape mode. After alotting the proper amount of paper for margins and binding, each page should end up being 7.25″ x 10.50″. I want the book cover to be constructed of something unusual… like plywood or something. There’s no end to what you can do with a book made out of plywood.

Oh, yeah. I’ve never made something like this before in my life. I really have no idea what I’m doing. I figure after countless hours of laying out pages and building this labor of love, I will, inevitably, transcend both space and time in a flurry of misplaced rage.

Keep an eye out, I’ll post updates on my progress as it happens. It will happen, I promise.