Circadian Shift

Here's a little something I whipped up using typoGenerator, IrfanView, and Microsoft Paint.

Just because I can.

Newly uploaded to Circadian Shift: The Outpost is this working music 3-pack:

• "I Go to Work" by Kool Moe Dee (MP3; 4,373 KB) -- getting down to business with some late 80s hip-hop
• "Work for Love (Extended Version)" by Ministry (MP3; 7,512 KB) -- danceable, funky synthpop from Ministry's early years; not at all like their later sound
• "Work" by Front 242 (MP3; 3,275 KB) -- mid 80s Belgian industrial, still synth-based and no guitars

(MP3s derived from various sources 'round the net and dug up from backup CD-ROM)

Don't remember which MP3 blog I found this on. But it works.

Sure, they're annoying. However, a fire drill is the perfect excuse for getting out of even-more-annoying meetings. Whoohoo!

Some related linkage which may possibly be of use:

• an info sheet from the Pasadena Fire Department
• a Fire Drill and Evacuation Planning FAQ
• How to Plan a High Rise Fire Drill
• Tips on Conducting an Emergency Evacuation Drill -- Tip #2, "Vary the hazards encountered in your fire drills", provides much room for creativity ;)
• Fire Kills -- a site devoted to fire safety
• then there's The Fire Safety Institute
• should none of those appeal, there's always Elmo's Fire Safety Game (Flash, needs sound)

Here, here, and here.

Grab 'em while they're hot.

The sidebar now stretches out longer than the main body of the blog frontpage, which means that I haven't been posting much lately.

Anyway...

Just because, here's a photo of Shirley Manson from Garbage, taken circa Version 2.0. I like the pic, and it fills up lots of space.

Have a nice day.

Right.

Over at Ripples, David St. Lawrence offers some sobering words, as well as encouragement, on escaping a dead end job.

On with the day.

Tomorrow is promising to be another fun-filled day at the office.

So here's some more music.

• swens blog writes about Z'ev and links to a page on Epitonic where you can download some free tracks
• the Z'ev post reminded me of this late night listening playlist that I posted about a year ago; it's moody, glitchy, electro-ambient stuff, all free for taking from Epitonic
• Radio Babylon points to some new goodies from Afrika Bambaata
• Silence is a Rhythm Two has some old treats from Thomas Dolby

(p.s. Thanks, as usual, to Gaping Void for the visual stimuli.)

I wish I could remember which MP3 blog pointed me to it, but Creative misuse and abuse of musical tools has a rather large and nicely curated selection of "Glitch Electronica". From the site's About page:

"I am interested in the 'wrong' use of musical technology in the production of music, and the semiotics of 'wrong' sounds. This project is meant to serve as a documentation of such sound production over time, and as a means to make available music that may have been written about more than it has been heard."

The artists represented range from John Cage and The Beatles to Grandmaster Flash. Very cool stuff.

Meanwhile, welcome back to newly resurrected music blog NewFrontEars. After falling silent in late January, NFE is back to fill you in on the latest news about "contemporary and C20th classical, jazz, Baroque, improv, the outer fringes of rock, electronica, global... and a little Early Music too".

Spoilt Victorian Child has lots and lots of Acid House MP3s for download, plus some linkage.

Gogogogogogogogogogogo......

Digging through some old files that had been burned to CD, way back when, yielded this artifact:

Above image converted from this PDF (11 kb), which had been generated from this Microsoft Word file (21 kb).

I have no idea what I was working on, back on October 12, 2001, but obviously I felt the need to blow off some steam in the manner portrayed above.

(It is, of course, based on the well-known screed "Adminspotting", which in turn was derived from those immortal words out of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting.)

It must truly be a sign of geekdom when one's lunch-hour "feeling cranky" micro-shopping trip results in the purchase of office supplies as an emotional salve.

Bought:

• 1 package of 100 3"x5" index cards (white, unlined)
• 4 Staedtler 'triplus ball' pens (2 red, 2 blue; going for half price at the local Grand & Toy)

Am thinking of putting together my own Hipster PDA.

Meanwhile, gapingvoid offered this wee scribble a few days back:

Exactly.

Brilliant -- utterly freaking brilliant:

"If you all don’t lower your voices and cease calling me Satan, I will have to sing show tunes."

Via lactose incompetent.

Meanwhile, stereogum posts photos from Britney Spears' wedding, featuring the bride and groom in matching white baggy tracksuits. Mock all you want to, but I'll admit that -- more than once -- it's occured to me that an all-sweatpants wedding would not (necessarily) be a bad thing.

As Davezilla would say: "Klassy with a capital K."

While Googling about, I found this most awesome old-school funk/hip-hop mix:

WeFunk Show 238 (June 21, 2002)
All about the breaks -- bringin' it rough and tough

With Roxanne Shante & Biz Markie, The Beastie Boys, Curtis Mayfield, De La Soul, and the song I was looking for -- "Do It to the Crowd" by Twin Hype (find it about 42 minutes into the mix).

Yeeeeaaaaah!

Given the state of The Hovel, one might think that I've been getting my decorating tips from toothpastefordinner:

Some good tunage, like these moody mixes, helps to ease the pain. Grab 'em fast before they're gone.

Addendum 16 August 2004: Indeed, the mixes have now dropped off, and there are new ones up in their place. Will have to check those out later today.

Yesterday's Non Sequitur sums it up pretty well:

Top 'o the morning to you, too...

Graig has uploaded the latest installment of his MP3 sideblog, "21 Minutes", and it's all tunage from Bjork.

Raspberry vinaigrette dressing has a natural attraction to white shirts. Other laws of physics, such as gravity, may be bent accordingly.

New tunes up at Circadian Shift: The Outpost:

• "Can You Party" by Royal House (MP3; 5,799 KB) -- a landmark house track by Todd Terry
• "Shakin' Shankar" by DMF/Premi/Bindu (MP3; 4,083 KB) -- early 90s bhangra with a healthy dose of acid
• "Your Jolly Giant" by Nubile G & The Spurious Whiz (MP3; 4,647 KB) -- a catchy sound collage from the now-hard-to-find Death of Vinyl compilation, which also happens to be the first CD I ever bought

Was in a super-cranky mood when I got home from work today. All it took though, was a healthy dose of Growl Karaoke to render me into a giggling idiot. Kudos to MP3 blog Rummage Through the Crevices for the link.

There's no shortage of retro music to be found via MP3 blogland this weekend:

• Silence is a Rhythm Two has tunage from Haircut 100 and ABC
• music (for robots) gets into the acid with tracks by 808 State and A Guy Called Gerald
• An Idiot's Guide to Dreaming goes ska with three songs from The Specials
• Music is a Virus has Soft Cell
• Antificial Radio Weblog digs up a demo version of "Regiment" by Brian Eno and David Byrne
• *SIXEYES points to an MP3 index, where you can find tunes by Lords of the New Church, Tones On Tail, The Fall, Joe Strummer, and Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, amongst others
• in case you've somehow managed to miss past linkage to mp3s by The Primitives and by Killing Joke, here's another MP3 index which has one of each

And, I'm due for another retro upload myself. Head over to Circadian Shift: The Outpost and download what's there now, if you haven't done so already.

Addendum: Lost Bands of the New Wave Era comes up with another nugget for CFNY fans: "New York City" by The Demics

Although I'd spotted the link several times before on del.icio.us, I never bothered to click through to Badger Badger Badger until yesterday.

Now I can't get it out of my head.

So, of course, I must share the link with others.

heh heh heh...

(Flash, needs sound)

The next week or so is going to be rather busy.

I'll probably still be indulging in "drive-by linkage", so check the sidebar, or my del.icio.us page.

• "Breakdown" by The Buzzcocks
• "Stand Down Margaret" by The (English) Beat
• "Rebel Girl" by Bikini Kill

Lost Bands of the New Wave Era has the 12" version of "Love Me Today" by Correct Spelling. Early 80s listeners of CFNY will probably recognize it.

If the voice sounds familiar, it's because singer Michelle McAdorey later fronted the band Crash Vegas.

Go download it nownownownowNOW!

Your very own sonic box-of-chocolates:

1. Visit the MP3Blogs Aggregator
2. Click a bunch of links to various blogs
3. Download MP3s
4. Follow links from those blogs to other blogs
5. Download MP3s
6. Repeat above to taste
7. Burn a whole freaking mess o' files to CD-ROM
8. Put CD in MP3/CD player
9. Set player to "Shuffle"
10. Press "Play"

It helps if you combine tunes that you know well, tunes you sort of know, and tunes you know nothing about but the writeup sounded interesting so you clicked 'download'.

I've been enjoying several hundred megabytes worth of serendipitous musical programming since yesterday. At this rate, I'll never go back to "regular" radio.

In case you've somehow managed to missed it, Troutgirl has been fired by her employer, Friendster, over her blog.

Yep, that Friendster -- the company whose product facilitates networking and socializing online. Kind of like the way blogs do.

That's a real head-scratcher.

The prime source of linkage tracking the blogosphere's reaction seems to be over on Jeremy Zawodny's Blog, so I'll not bother to duplicate it here, having spewed out my own list of links about blogging and employment not too long ago. (Further irony: one of the articles in that list was written by Joyce Park -- Troutgirl herself.)

(Yes, I'm writing this while at work. The less said about that, the better.)

Via disquiet comes word of a new Kwook! EP -- 'Immiscible'. One of the tracks, called "Washerloop", features the sound of a washing machine.

Perhaps we're witnessing the emergence of a new sub-genre: Laundry-Techno.