Drown Radio - Me Geek Pretty One Day

Experimental synth

Doc Pop — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:03:47 +0000

I love this twist on the traditional keyboard. The interface is like a tweaked out Stylophone. The user has contact points on his finger. When these points make contact with the board, the sound is triggered. What’s interesting is that this device is multitouch, unlike the monophonic input on the Stylophone.
Since there are no buttons, I assume there is no velocity sensors (for volume control based on how hard a key was hit for instance), but this keyboard does have something else really cool… It appears that touching the same note at different points on it’s Y axis will generate different timbres.
At the top of the board is one long touch interface. Instead of having discreet notes, the user slides continuously from one note to another. These notes line up with the keys below, so if you slid from a low C to a mid C on the slide, you could drag your finger down the X axis to land on the middle C key.
What’s really amazing about the sliding board is that is also polyphonic. I’ve never seen any sort of ribbon control or touch pad that handled multiple notes like this before.
I don’t know more about this device, but MatrixSynth has more videos and info on their site.

Themselves new video

Doc Pop — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:30:48 +0000

“Roman is as Roman Does” is the first official video off of Themselves‘ Crowns Down. It’s an odd mix of animation, hip hop, and cupcakes.

Also on worth noting is this live but arty video of Oversleeping, another track off of their new album. Dose kills it, but it’s always to watch Jel’s MPC wizardry in action.

Themselves – “Oversleeping” in Utah from anticon. on Vimeo.

Google produced infomercial for Studio 132, featuring Drown Radio

Doc Pop — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:51:53 +0000

Back in March, I was involved with a quick video shoot at my friend BZ’s studio in Oakland. The shoot was produced by Google but focuses on Studio 132, which is where I recorded and mixed most of Me Geek Pretty One Day. I had completely forgotten about the shoot until I happened to come across it on YouTube today.

New video from Slew

Doc Pop — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:29:18 +0000

Kid Koala’s newest project is a turntable based rock band named Slew. Kid, with Dynomite D and ex-members of Wolf Mother, will take Slew on tour in just a few weeks. They’ll be hitting San Franicisco’s Independent Theater on 9/25/09. He says this tour will be the only time Slew will perform live, so catch them if you can.

Above is Slew’s first music video, but you can also catch some tracks on XLR8R.

update: After bugging Eric for weeks trying to find out if this was shot on a PXL2000, I finally got an answer

Yeah we shot it on a PXL 2000. and maxell xlii-s cassettes!

LOLcats music video by Dan Lamoureux

Doc Pop — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:17:27 +0000

LOLcats, the first official music video from my newest album Me Geek Pretty One Day has been finally released. We shot the video on July 12th, 2008 on Quincy Street and the video magically finished production on July 12th, 2009. It was also a year ago that Dan caught this live performance of LOLcats at the Double Dutch in San Francisco. Dan has plenty more pics and information about the video’s production on his blog.

If you like my LOLcats song you can purchase Me Geek Pretty One Day from my webstore, iTunes, or Amazon.

Jason Flanders transcribes Aphex Twin for guitar

Doc Pop — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:59:22 +0000

I’m a total sucker for acoustic covers of my classic electronic songs, so finding Andrew Flanders’ cover of Aphex Twin’s “Four” really made my day… But then I realized he has a entire series of Aphex covers on YouTube, as well as tabs and mp3s! Holy shit! Time to practice!

Jason did an awesome job on these transcriptions, but I should mention you’ll need a capo (I’m on my way to Lark in the Morning for mine now). He also included the bpms for each track so that “someone can sync a metronome add drums or whatever if they have an interest. “, so get remixing! If you’d like to hear more of Jason’s music, check out his band Echoes From Mars.

Aesop Rock rocks the “bill” with Despot and Ratatat

Doc Pop — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:09:28 +0000

Ratatat and Despot are currently touring the US. During each day of the tour, the duo will write, record, and perform a new song that will eventually be released on a free album when the tour is finished. During their recent San Francisco show, they asked Aesop Rock to appear on their daily track. Aes documented his experience and posted it on youtube. Check it out above. The tour only lasts for 6 more days, so hopefully we’ll see the album appear in a week or so.

4′33″ ringtones, remixes, mashups, and more!

Doc Pop — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:47:46 +0000

Semi-obscure music fans rejoice: iTunes is currently featuring John Cage’s “Four Minutes, Thirty Three Seconds” as their Discovery Download of the week! For those that don’t know, 4′33″ is a composition in which Cage instructs the musician not to play anything at all for four minutes and thirty three seconds. It’s the sort of piece that was written to insite conversation in high school intro to music classes and to be a long running joke for music majors for generations to come. I’ve got to admit it’s really cool to see iTunes feature it so prominently in their store. Maybe it will encourage a few people to check out some of Cage’s other pieces (like his scores for prepared piano). Grab the free iTunes download of 4′33″ here.

Inspired by John Cage’s composition of silence, I have created a few musical re-interpretations for you to download:
4′33″ iPhone ringtone (inspired by @sfslim)
4′33″ Drown Radio’s Bangin’ Remix
Cage VS Rock (a mashup of 4′33″ with A.R.’s “Lucy”)

And here are some related pieces culled from the internets… If you have any you’d like to share, please post them in the comments below:
John Cage Vs. Pineal Gland Zirbeldruese “4:33 Erotic Emergency” by Catcubed
4′33″ of the return on BART from Paule Anglim by ifyouseeclay (more here)

MC Lars Knows a lot of people (& I’m one of ‘em!)

Doc Pop — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:18:44 +0000

A few months ago I did production (& rapping) on The Digital Gangster LP (iTunes link), the split album by ytcracker and MC Lars. “MC Lars’s Facebook Count” is the second music video from DG and was directed by Tim Thompson and Odin Wadleigh (who also directed White Kids Aren’t Hyphy). I’m really proud of my work on the DG lp, and this track is no exception. I had a blast appearing in the video, which I also sing in obviously, and you can check out more flickr pics of the video shoot here. BTW, you can’t front like this beat isn’t fucking fantastic!

smooth beats and sleek feet

Doc Pop — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:07:25 +0000

I love this old music video “Tired” by Controller 7. Controller 7 played a show in SF tonight, and I’m bummed I couldn’t catch it since I’ve been dieing to see him for years. I’m always hoping that he’ll come out of retirement and make some new beats, or even post some new entries on his hip hop newsblog, but www.controller7.com hasn’t been updated since double ought seven. You can hear his beats on Myspace, but if you make music too, you can’t add him as a friend. C7 has a classic sound and was a personal influence when I was still living in the Twin Cities (that Deep Puddle Dynamics remix in ‘99 still gets play!), so here’s hoping 2009 is the year he drops a new album…. but if it isn’t, at least we still have this awesome rollerskate video.