"Any Location Can Be Interesting"

Field Recording and Experimental Music Scene
by Toshiya Tsunoda

Been meaning to post this for about a week, and am glad to finally be getting around to it. Please take a few minutes to read this wonderful essay by Toshiya Tsunoda on the ErstWords blog. It is highly recommended reading for those interested in vibrations of the highest genre-free, scene-free order. Seriously.

Much thanks to Jon and Yuko of Erstwhile for both initially requesting the essay and translating Tsunoda's Japanese text.

TV Pow and Mike Shiflet Three Pricks and an Asshole Live in Milwaukee

It was May of last year and Milwaukee was good to us. Even if the bulk of my memories revolve around "Devil Piss" (a crayon drawing with a very literal title) and cheese curds, I hold said memories quite dear. I don't remember much of this, but luckily there are little machines to handle that for me.

Weird audience recording of live set that starts off as one might expect and then proceeds to take several bizarre turns, each more suspect than the one before. A good time was had by at least a few.



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Apologies to Peter Woods and Hiroshi Hasegawa for potentially implying they had anything to do with this by posting the image above.

No Respsect, Parts One and Two

No Respect Part One: The Guest List

I was supposed to be on the list for an event last week, but when I showed up was not. Luckily this fellow "Andy Shifflit" didn't show up so I got his tickets.



Should note that this is no one in particular's fault. The venue is a strict union place and the act of putting a name on the guest list involves telling someone who walkie-talkies someone else who tells someone else to eventually talk to the person in charge of the guest list.


No Respect Part Two: On the Job

Unless I am completely relaxing, odds are that some thoughts about sound and/or my sound are running through my head. This leads to a lot of notes being typed into my blackberry and plenty of scribbling on scrap paper and post-its at work. I returned from a meeting last week to find a co-worker had made an amendment to an idea that I'd left sitting on my desk:



Would throwing in a Neil Hamburger "That's my life" here be the catchphrase equivalent of mixing metaphors? Not sure, but I'll stick with it.

Friday. June 26. Cincinnati. Ohio.

360 Degrees

Here's where the (most) the magic happens:



Click the image for the extremely wide panoramic mess, which is actually probably more like a 345º view. The doorway isn't much to look at.

New Members of the Family

Welcomed some new friends into the studio this week:



A Black Mass contact mic by Trauma Tone



And a pair of KRK Rokit 8 studio monitors


Good times.

Editions Shiflet Mixtape 02: Boba Fett Erotica

Title taken from a quote (by Mr. James Kennedy) in reference to the art skills of friend, former roommate, and awesome illustrator Paul Hornschemeier. "Paul’s not some jackass sitting in his mother’s basement, drawing Boba Fett erotica." If only we could all say the same.

The ten tracks here are culled from 2001-2003, the era in which I graduated from the youthful and obnoxious indulgence that almost all noise-makers must first wade through (and isn't all that different from that which keeps the internet's fan art supply heartily stocked) and finally started to hone my own approach to working with sound. These were very important years for me and this collection represents the era well. As I managed to find a couple other gems while digging these out, there will likely be more to come.

Tracklist:
01. George Washington's Wooden Heart
02. Second Thoughts (Excerpt)
03. (her) presence
04. January [Scenic Railroads]
05. High Freq. Interlude (BN remix) (Excerpt)
06. Being TV Pow is Funny (TV Pow remix)
07. Life, Death, Etc.
08. Example One
09. Remixed Rumors and Lies
10. Citrus [Scenic Railroads]

Download HERE