So, I happen to have a close friend that produces electronic music; it’s all fun and games until he starts talking about IDM, noise, Burial and other jibber-jabber.
Problem is I don’t know anything about all this stuff, so let’s see..

HOW TO PRETEND YOU KNOW SHIT ABOUT ELECTRONIC MUSIC

Q: So, let’s say I’ve just met some hottie in a club and she mentions she’s into electronic music; which CD’s should I casually say I own, in order to bring said hottie to my apartment and “listen to some music while we chill out”?

A: Eh, hard to say, to play it safe i’d go for:

• Mezzanine by Massive Attack
• Incunabula by Autechre
• Druqks by Aphex Twin
• Hard normal daddy by Squarepusher
• Rossz csillag alatt született by Venetian Snares

Q: I’m pretty sure there is some artist that I should mock in front of her in order to look like an expert in the field
A: Sure, today just say something bad about Skillex and you’ll be pretty safe. He’s making a shitload of money even if all the songs he makes sound exactly the same, plus he looks really awful.

Q: What if she starts talking about some artist I don’t know anything about?
A: Just casually ask if she remembers the name of the artist label, and when she does just go “Ah, right, did you like his track in the latest <label name> sampler?”. Almost fail-safe.

Q: Great, gotta remember that. Now, a great way to show off would be to tell her who’s the artist that made the song that is currently playing, is there any secret trick to fake some knowledge?
A: It’s obviously very hard to guess, but here are some guidelines that might help:

• The MC is too close to the microphone = Kode9 and the Spaceape
• Woodblock broken beats = Burial
• Sounds like a worn-out educational movie on how to prevent forest fires = Boards of Canada
• Fast-forwarding the song produces no results = Oval
• Melodic intro – pause – BWAWAWAWAWA – drop – BWAWAWAWAWAWIWIWIWWIWAWAWAWA = Gotta be a dubstep track, to guess the artist name just mumble something ending with “-a”, e.g.: BassnectAH, BengAH, CaspAH, JazzSteppAH (just avoid Ghostface KillAH)

Q: Last question, do you happen to have 5 words I can casually say from time to time to look like A FUCKING PRO?
A: Ahahaha i’ve got thousands of them, just say:

• Sidechain
• Generative Composition
• Mention you own the Merzbox
• Field recording (does wonders with ambient/illbient aficionados)
• Additive synthesis (she should be already naked by now)

There you go, now you can look like an electronic music know-it-all, go test your new skills and come back here to report in the comments!

Today’s expert in the field was Maestro delle Metope, a talented musician from Italy that plays under the Alberto Ricca moniker when he wants to avoid fans.
I like most of the stuff he produces, but if I really had to pick my favorite, it would be Flesh Haiku:

He mostly plays IDM/noise, and if you don’t know what that means you need to study this post again.

Today’s one-liner: The arc bobs against a god.

For those of you that don’t know what an Eastpak Pak’r is, let me introduce you to this fine piece of shitluggage:

This simple bag has been used for decades by many students as the hip alternative to your older brother’s Invicta bag with mandatory Iron Maiden patch and hand-written 80′s music lyrics.

While this bag might be suitable for general school duties (carrying books, drugs and porn magazines), only an idiot would use it for travelling, mainly due to the bag size.

I had to try.

This unhealthy decision came to my mind while i was packing for a week-long trip to Barcelona; i own a great and durable lightweight alpine backpack with sturdy shoulder straps and comfortable foam frame, but why settle for smart decisions when you can embark on an shitty enterprise like travelling with a nylon pig bladder full of clothes, equipped with 2 shitty zippers and uncomfortable straps?

Anyway, here’s what i managed to pack into that poor excuse for a backpack:

• Moleskine notebook, to show to myself and to others that i’m a hardcore traveller, not just some fucker on vacation
• Ballpen
• Meds
• Small shower gel/shampoo bottle
• Small quick-dry microfiber towel
• Travel brush and toothspaste (in a 10x4x1cm plastic box)
• Deo stick
• 2 bathing swimsuits, one of wich i found out to be useless
• 4 t-shirts
• 3 shorts
• 1light jacket
• 5 boxers
• 2 supermarket plastic bags
• One pair of sandals
• 3 pairs of socks
• Skater shoes
• Lock (a combination lock would have been better, the key could get lost easily)
• Beach towel
• Cellphone
• Cellphone battery recharger
• Digital camera with 2 rechargeable batteries i forgot to buy
• Batteries charger (useless since i forgot to bring rechargeable batteries, and they costed too much in Spain. For a 7 days trip you just need 4 common AA batteries, bought on site)
• SD Card (2 GB)
• Bandana (useless)
• Short-sleeved shirt
• Sleeping bag
• Jeans (useless)

Here are a couple tips for weirdos that want to hurt themselves by travelling with an Eastpak Pak’r:

• All your bathing gear and meds can be kept inside a small 20x10cm ziploc bag (those used by drug dealers, you can find it easily in any store); put it in the front pocket.
• If you bring shampoo / shower gel (and you shouldn’t, buy it there!) put it in a separate ziploc bag. Everything that may open and leak fluids on meds and clothes will magically break open during the trip, so make sure it’s separated from valuable stuff.
• No, really, the shower gel WILL leak, filling the ziploc bag and your meds and your clothes with shampoo; keep stuff that may leak separated from the rest.
• Properly fold clothes and then roll them, in this way you’ll earn valuable space and you’ll avoid wrinkles. Albeit smart and useful, i don’t recommend the OneBag wrapping system with a small, useless backpack like Eastpak Pak’r.
• Put larger clothing rolls (in my case jeans and beach towel) at the bottom, near the lower angles, to give your backpack a little more stability and weight balance. Stuff other bulky stuff at the sides, over the bottom rolls, thus creating an arc that follows the outer shape of your Eastpak Pak’r; smaller, less cumbersome stuff will easily fit inside the arc (check the following diagram):

• Eastpak Pak’r’s have useless plastic zippers, make sure you stuff the front pocket as much as you can, so that few seconds before heading to the airport it will explode and you’ll have to check-in like a bum, with your Eastpak wrapped in plastic bags and shoe laces to make sure that your useless, cheap stuff doesn’t fall to the ground. Good boy.
• Of course every night, starting from the second trip day, you’ll wash your clothes with your shower gel while taking a shower.
• To fast dry washed clothes, lay down on the floor your beach towel and lay wet clothes over it; roll the beach towel lenghtwise, keeping the clothes inside, then start twisting one end while having the other end being held by a friend or tied to a door knob. This will extract water from the clothes and they will be dry in 2-3 hours.

I hope that these tips are enough to make you stop thinking about silly stuff like travelling with an Eastpak Pak’r, consider getting something better like a mothercucking GORUCK Radio Ruck, which I learned to appreciate thanks to the awesome dude behind Pack light. Go Fast.

See you soon gringos.

Quick infos:

• Yet another blog platform change (Chyrp, at least for what i need now, sucks big time — and fuck you PHP templates)
• Yet another feed URL, i can’t access the old one due to GoogleAccount silly policies, please update your RSS feed reader info

In-depth explanation:
I had to switch from WordPress to Chyrp due to some limitations that i couldn’t cope with; I’ve took the chance to rethinker all the infekted blog stuff and I’ve decided to apply some dictatorial rules such as:

1. Posting more often
2. Posting original content only
3. Posting in english only

Let’s hope for the best and see what happens,
t.

PS: WordPress sucks big time as well, but at least it’s mainly plain editable PHP