Welcome to Describetheruckus.com

Multi-touch Controller

December 31, 2008 4:39 pm

by Mike Burnett

One of my many audaciously hopeful New Years resolutions is to somehow get my hands on this, even if for a second. It’s a multi-touch, expressive music controller. We’ve seen similar sorts of thing before with the Kaoss Pad and Yamaha’s Tenori-on, but this interface seems to have a potential for expression that approaches traditional instruments like the guitar. It strikes me that it’s probably more closely related to the theremin than it is to other flat interfaces.

Here’s the video:

Multitouch Prototype 2 from Randy Jones on Vimeo.

Super Honorable Mention

December 26, 2008 1:02 am

by Mike Burnett

I was reminded by my good friend Scott tonight about an album, which when I had originally starting conceiving my top 10 for 2008, was totally a staple of the list. Somewhere along the road I left it out, which is a travesty. The Breeders’ Mountain Battles deserves a spot as much as any other album on my top 10 11. When people say my band reminds them of 90s music, I lie awake at night hoping they mean something closer to The Breeders than Smashmouth.

I mentioned the band and the album on this blog back in March. You can pick up Mountain Battles on eMusic.com just like most of the artists on my top 10. Harvey Milk’s new one is not available there yet though, unfortunately.

My Best Albums for 2008

December 25, 2008 2:15 am

by Mike Burnett

In no real order (the top 10 is a vacuum).

10. Santogold – Santogold

This is a solid record and very indicative of where I think pop music is going, which is toward a meaningful co-existence of hip-hop, rock, and R&B without the stink of novelty. I was working in a restaurant with some pretty nasty cable radio going on, and I was always elated when one of the singles came on. The record is brimming with a sense of entitlement that really pushes my buttons. There are obviously a lot of comparisons to M.I.A. being made, but I think this world’s plenty big enough, and you can hear the ladies demonstrating it here on this amazing collaboration: http://prettymuchamazing.com/uncategorized/new-santogold-mia-get-it-up/.

9. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

Okay so maybe it’s Graceland minus Ladysmith Black Mambazo, but it stands on its own as a great record. It was hip without sounding like everything else, and the lyrics are significantly anti-pretense and good, which is a rare combination. I guess if I got sucked into thinking about the East Coast ivy league thing, it might creep me out. For the record, I use the oxford comma.

8. The Bug – London Zoo

I wish I could have made it to see these guys open for NIN. The Bug is angry music, but unlike Trent Reznor who is perennially the same kind of angry, The Bug are mad about the political state of the world. Someone has to sing about it other than Green Day and Bruce Springsteen, and who better than some punk/dub agitpropists. “…all dem people whose warrantless stupidness is only surpassed by the weakness of other people… how did we get here and where do we go now?” Ouch, but yeah.

7. Gang Gang Dance – Saint Dymphna

Gang Gang Dance come a little more distilled with this effort, not so sonically and rhythmically mind blowing as God’s Money or my personal favorite, the S/T record. That might be in part because of my own growing palate, or it might because the group wants to make more emotionally effective music. There are more hooks and songs with actuall vocal melodies and lyrics, although they are eventually deconstructed into Gang Gang Dance’s traditional rhythm anarchies.

6. Grouper – Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill

I sometimes cynically want to believe that many bands who make shoegaze / dreampop stuff do it because it’s so easy to be reminded of the great originals they’re emulating; distortion, reverb, and two chords will get you pretty close. Then someone puts out an album like this, and I’m completely humbled by the beauty and simplicity of the soundscape. Grouper is a Portland musician to boot. Try to get out walking and listen to it before the snow melts.

5. Women – Women

Slowly but surely Canada is starting to convince America of its superiority. They tried to do it with sketch comedy and universal health care, but Americans’ funny bones were broken sans insurance. So Canadians started chopping at the roots of the proud oak that is America with rock and roll. Bands like Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade, The New Pornographers, The Hidden Cameras, and Of Montreal started taking over everything. Women are just the next soldiers out of the Torontonian horse (actually they’re from Calgary). Seriously, this album is great. It’s Beach-Boys-wall-of-soundy with beautiful vocal harmonies that don’t subsist on reverb alone. Yes it will remind you of The Shins.

4. Harvey Milk – Life… The Best Game in Town

There were a lot of metal albums albums I found amusing (Dragonforce, Amon Amarth), but I just wasn’t feeling them beyond a wow and a chuckle. Harvey Milk, on the other hand, delivered the riffs and the aggression without all the embarrassment. They’re more reminiscent of Motörhead or Pantera than any death or black metal bands. The band’s name makes it that much better (they formed in the early 90s). This will definitely be the hardest rocking album on this list.

3. Matmos – Supreme Balloon

Matmos forgo their time-tested technique of microphone field recording turned concept albums, and on this one use only electronically generated sounds, i.e., no microphones whatsoever. I love the idea of listening to modern artists who have either grown up listening to 8-bit video game music or have been making electronic music for so long that default ARP, Moog, and Casio sounds become “organic” to them. This is a really playful, fun record if you like beeps and clicks, and only a cold-hearted robot doesn’t like beeps and clicks.

2. Vic Chestnut / Elf Power – Dark Developments

This album is just full of vibrant, memorable songs, and as always Chesnut delivers with the lyrical umph. If “Teddy Bear” doesn’t turn your bones to mush, you might as well just give up on music. That’s stupidly heavy handed, but it’s an incredible song, from its backwards structure to its simple, haunting refrain. Elf Power totally deliver in the production dept. too.

1. Mercury Rev – Snowflake Midnight

These guys could probably sneeze into the mic with some cathedral reverb and it’d make my top 10. I think that’s actually on Boces. Jk, but a few albums ago Mercury Rev sang my favorite lyric ever, and Snowflake Midnight follows up with the kind of optimism that only Oprah and Jonathan Donahue can pull off: “Snowflake in a hot world / don’t let them get to you / don’t let them tell you / you’re all the same.” Yes! I am a snowflake!

What Child Is This

December 24, 2008 4:07 pm

by Mike Burnett

What Child Is This from Mike Burnett on Vimeo.

Video From Yesterday During The Snow Storm

December 21, 2008 3:46 am

by Mike Burnett

I made this video tonight instead of sleeping.

Portland, OR, Dec 20 2008, Music by Weirdo from Mike Burnett on Vimeo.

How Portland Feels Right Now

December 20, 2008 10:45 pm

by Mike Burnett

Click for larger image.

About Wefeelfine.org:

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world’s newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling”. When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the “feeling” expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

Portlanders feel 18.9 times more grateful than “the normal level”, which I’m assuming means the average gratefulness of the blog aggregate, or “blogregate”, which I just coined to replace the dreadful “blogosphere”. I imagine that has as much to do with how much we love blogging as it does with how much we love this city. Or maybe it’s the prospect of a snow day on Monday.

Filmed By Bike Festival Hiring Intern

9:13 pm

by Mike Burnett

From Craigslist:

The Seventh Annual Filmed by Bike is a festival of bike-themed short independent movies from around the world. The festival takes places every April in Portland, Oregon. Intern will work closely with the Festival Director and Promotion Assistant to present another great festival with thousands of moviegoers. This is a very fun position that offers an excellent opportunity to learn on the job while being a part of a Portland favorite event.

5-20 hours a week on average. Jan 20-April 30, 2009.

FESTIVAL INFO: FilmedByBike.org

A Delightful Young Christmas

December 18, 2008 5:35 pm

by Mike Burnett

My friends Delightful Young Man, always keen to the Christmas spirit, have made this heart warming Christmas music video called Christmas Circa 78:

Last year’s video: It’s Always Christmas When You’re Dead
www.delightfulyoungman.com
DYM on Myspace

The Shoe Hurling Other

December 15, 2008 3:31 pm

by Mike Burnett

Hitting someone with a shoe is a deep insult in the Arab world, signifying that the person being struck is as low as the dirt underneath the sole of a shoe. Compounding the insult were Mr. Zaidi’s words as he hurled his footwear at President Bush: “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” While calling someone a dog is never polite, among Arabs, who traditionally consider dogs unclean, the words were an even stronger slight. [...] His action ran counter to deeply held Iraqi traditions of hospitality toward guests, even if they are enemies.

Thank you, New York Times!