Journal sielwolf's Journal: Shout out to Bristol! 5
Thank God! I've had a camera calibration assignment hanging over my head like the Sword of Damocles for the last two weeks. It looked bad: lot of linear maths, lot of obscure naming conventions. But I sat down with my buddy and he was able to help me through some of the brainfarts I had. So 6 hours and the first project was up and done. It ended up being a Bizarro Program where it only worked when I multiplied my resulting transformation matrix by -1. Odd but that's what got me some very acceptable residuals. So fuck it. I'm happy.
I never like that "can't work together" rule but I understand why its there. You always have the "here let me copy your code" kids. And I think you always will. This is just there so you can take away their assistantships when you find out. But like what I was doing. I was comparing my results against my buddy's and he helped me see some fuck ups in my code. Ask anybody and they would say "fine" but by letter of the law it was wrong. Oh well. Writ is always to be interpreted. Onl fools think that bureacracy is the solution to actually having to pay attention.
I also found a nice little ambient dub with some deep beats last night. Slowdeck Multiple Offenses. I've been fiending for some good dub (dub in the modern sense not in the Scientist sense although that rocks my boat too). Beth from Portishead reported that they were working on a new album and that she was going to do a solo disc in the mean time. But I still wanted something similar to tide me over. Slowdeck fits the bill.
Now they're from the UK Seattle, Bristol (i.e. the city that was the "next big thing" since Massive Attack, Tricky, and Portishead all stomped around there in the 90's). It is downtempo and a lot of folks would call it trip-hop. But I've always considered trip-hop the more R&B stylings of ambient dub: prominent vocalism, less noodling with soundscapes. Slowdeck is what folks chill out to smoking a j and trying to forget how miserable life is.
I like the risks they take. How often is the second track almost nine minutes long? And then later on have one at 56 seconds? Female vocals show up here and there in a stoned out croon. Very nice.
It still isn't any Portishead. They always seemed to take a very personal and small place and turn it into an event of global urgency. Lost love as spy movie and such. A lot like Tool.
But what saves Slowdeck from the crapiosity of such B-stringers as Lamb and Sneaker Pimps is that they attack the dulled beats with no sense of artistic pompousness. Let the track build itself seems to be their motto. Making Multiple Offenses a nice addition to my collection.
Slowdeck Multiple Offenses ****
Seattle USA (Score:1)
Depressing event. Tourist with camera walks up to me, asks if I know where the starbucks is. Sure I tell him, this is Seattle, there is one on ever other corner. No, He wants the original starbucks. I have clue where it is at.
I do want to yell at the puke though. My word, this is SEATTLE damnit, we damn nearly spawned entire new genres of music, we have world class performances of EVERY genre of music out there, we have museums up to wazoo (ok not that many but still a goodly deal!!!), some of the most beautiful scenery that you are going to find at all in this country, and an entire freaking UNDERGROUND CITY, and this yuppie punk wants to take photos of a STARBUCKS?
Yeesh.
Re:Seattle USA (Score:2)
I still wonder what this guy would have said when showing it off to his friends: "And this is the original Starbucks!"
"Wow..."
"Our lives have no meaning..."
"You are right!"
BANG!
Re:Seattle USA (Score:1)
If all they knew about was pop, then sure.
Mind you there is that entire University of Washington thing sitting here, along with some of the (if not the) best Children's Hospital facilities in the nation, as well as the best Jazz Clubs outside of Renaissance Harlem.
Ahh but... (Score:1)
Re:Ahh but... (Score:2)