What… Another Album?

What… Another Album?

Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that I announced the release of Um… Uh… Gum Eh?, my first album of circuit-bent music? Yeah, it’s true. Just last month I released a studio album containing over an hour of original music composed on homemade instruments and circuit-bent electronic toys. Um… Uh… Gum Eh? sounds great, and I encourage you to get a copy and listen to it, especially if you’ve got nothing better to do than read this blog. It’s a great album if I do say so myself, but you will probably never hear the music on it performed live, because Um… Uh… Gum Eh? involved many overdubs and a lot of audio editing that make the music hard to reproduce in concert.

However, I do, on occasion, perform live as a musician, and today I announce the release of a new live album, recorded at three gigs I played at The Hemp Connection in Garberville over the past year or so. The album is called Live Electric Didgeridoo, so called because when I perform live, I play the accordion.

Really, I love the sound of the didgeridoo, and I’ve played didgeridoo for over a decade now. In that time I’ve developed my own unique sound which involves a fair amount of electronic processing, but I do it all in real time, while I perform. My electric didgeridoo performances have been well received, and I love the sound of this new album.

You owe it to yourself to give it a listen, and to hear me play live. You’ll have a great opportunity to do both of those things this weekend. I’ll perform on electric didgeridoo at the Summer Solstice Gathering at Heartwood on June 21-23. I’ll play on Friday afternoon, June 21 and again on Sunday morning June 23, and I’ll have a booth there all weekend where you can get a copy of Live Electric Didgeridoo, Um… Uh… Gum Eh?, or some of my older albums likeHand Made, Never Turn Your Back on the Sea, 1-G707+FX, Hallucigenia Sparsa, Space Didge and A Pink Pair.

I’ll also have copies of my partner Amy Gustin’s radio series Living Earth Connection. I co-produce this radio series with Amy which explores the root causes of the environmental crisis and seeks to change our vision of our place in the world. It’s a great show that currently airs on KMUD on the fifth Sunday of the month, in months that have five Sundays, at 9:30 am.

We want to encourage other radio stations to air this provocative series, and make it available to listeners beyond the KMUD listening area. Sales of CD versions of the program will help offset the cost of distributing the show, and we welcome your support to help share these ideas with a wider audience. You can download the Living Earth Connection radio programs in mp3 format by visiting the Living Earth Connection blog at www.livingearthconnection.wordpress.com. CD versions of the show are available by mail order, or you can come by the booth at Heartwood and get CD copies of every program. June happens to be one of the four months this year that has five Sundays, and you can look forward to a brand new episode of Living Earth Connection on Sunday June 30 at 9:30 am on KMUD.

I’ll also have a very limited selection of lanterns made from recycled tin cans. In years past I have sold these lanterns at festivals all over the Pacific Northwest from The Whole Earth Festival in Davis to Oregon Country Fair near Eugene, OR and they are always a big hit. I stopped making them about five years ago, and only have a few left, but they will be available at Heartwood this weekend.

The Heartwood Summer Solstice Gathering looks like it will be a good time, with camping on site, organic vegetarian food, music and workshops all weekend. I hope I see you there!

Um… Uh… Gum Eh? CD Release Party in Garberville this Friday

Tin Can Luminary’s New Album, Um… Uh… Gum Eh?

CD Release Party in Garberville this Friday

This Friday, May 3 at the Hemp Connection in Garberville, I’ll debut my new album of Circuit-bent music titled Um… Uh… Gum Eh?

For younger readers, and others who might miss the rather obscure musical reference, the title and cover parody what is widely regarded as the worst (at least excluding the post-Roger dreck) Pink Floyd album, titled Ummagumma, a double album originally released in 1970.

A careful observer, or anyone with nothing better to do, can spot many parallels between Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma and my new album Um… Uh… Gum Eh? For instance:

Both albums contain a song about a guy who cuts people up with a sharp object:

Ummagumma has Careful With That Axe, Eugene

Um… Uh… Gum Eh? has Mr. Whisker.

Both albums include songs about outer space:

Ummagumma has Astronomy Domine

Um… Uh… Gum Eh? has The Saucer People Speak

Both albums have songs about knowledgeable beings:

Ummagumma has The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party

Um… Uh… Gum Eh? has The Orb of Omniscience

Both albums have long, spacy pieces where the only lyrics are “Oooh, Aaahh, and Ohhh”

Ummagumma has A Saucerful of Secrets

Um… Uh… Gum Eh? has Interzone Transit Authority

Both albums have collections of unrecognizable sounds, combined with spoken words:

Ummagumma has Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict

Um… Uh… Gum Eh? has I Made A Collage

Both albums have song titles that reference Greek mythology

Ummagumma has Sysyphus

Um… Uh… Gum Eh? has Sirens of Space, and here’s what it sounds like:

While Pink Floyd is famous for using gobs of state-of-the-art music equipment, I recorded Um… Uh… Gum Eh? With instruments I made out of tin cans, cigar boxes and second-hand childrens toys. That’s the state of my art, extremely low-budget and uniquely homemade. Even though Ummagumma is probably the worst Pink Floyd album, Um… Uh… Gum Eh? is undoubtedly my best album to date.  Um… Uh… Gum Eh? is my seventh solo album, btw.

Does Um… Uh… Gum Eh? sound better than Pink Floyd at their worst? Yeah, I think so. Does Um… Uh… Gum Eh? Sound like Pink Floyd? Not really, but like Pink Floyd, Um… Uh… Gum Eh? sounds great when you are really high. It’s a trip!

Um… Uh… Gum Eh? will make you smile, take you on a tour of the cosmos and bring you to the brink of insanity, before safely returning you to Earth.  Here’s the first video single from Um… Uh… Gum Eh? titled: Falling

So come out to The Hemp Connection in Garberville

on Friday, May 3rd to hear more from Um… Uh… Gum Eh?, see and hear my homemade circuit-bent instruments, and to hear me play electric didgeridoo, for free, as part of Arts Alive.  Also on the bill will be Patchy Fogg, playing musical saw.

And Now… A Musical Interlude; Falling by Tin Can Luminary

And Now… A Musical Interlude

I’m proud to present the first video single from my upcoming album of circuit-bent music:

Falling

by

Amy Gustin: vocals

John Hardin: didgeridoo and circuit-bent toys

The working title for the album is:

Um… Uh… Gum Eh?

Not that anyone buys albums anymore, or cares at all about them, or even has an hour to kill to listen to one, but that’s still how I think about my music projects. If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know that I’ve been working on this album of music made with hacked electronic toys,

and home-made electro-acoustic instruments,

for just about a year now.  It took me most of the summer to build the instruments,

and I spent most of the winter recording the music.

I hope to finish the entire project in perhaps a month.  In the mean time, I hope you enjoy this video single and share it with anyone you think might enjoy it.

Three Hours, One Note, Tonite at The Hemp Connection in Garberville

Didgeridoo music at the Hemp Connection for Arts Alive

Tonite, Friday August 3, starting between 5-5:30 pm, I’ll play electric didgeridoo at the Hemp Connection in Garberville.

I’ll also show off a few lanterns that I make from recycled tin cans.

Though it won’t really be datk enough to show them off properly.

The Return of Circuit Bending

The Return of Circuit Bending

So I didn’t tell you about our circuit bending workshop. I mean, I told you it was coming, plenty of times, but I didn’t tell you how it went. Well, it went swimmingly! We had a great turnout, more than I expected. My only regret was that with so many people in the workshop, building kits took the entire time, and CMKT4 didn’t get a chance to play.

CMKT4, who gave up their only day off on their 30 day West Coast tour, to do this workshop in G,ville, told me that our event turned out to be their highest grossing workshop on the entire tour. They had a great time at the event as well, and look forward to returning to Garberville soon. Next time, we’ll get started earlier and go later.

I had a terrific time! I met some cool new people, got to know some people I already knew better, and got to introduce some of my Ham friends to some of my music friends. I also got to stalk our local thrift stores with CMKT4 and ask some circuit bending questions of someone who knows their way around the insides of a Casio mini-keyboard.

I also got to build this spiffy cigar box drum machine. I love the sound. It reminds me of 50s sci-fi movies.

 

The box contains three piezoelectric contact microphones (probably overkill). The underside has three different sized expansion springs for reverb. Above board you can see a collection of soft drink lids, beer bottle caps, finger cymbals, a small brass bell, five different sized compression springs and two small wire chimes surgically removed from little plush toys.

I grabbed one of those little PAIA two transistor oscillator kits that SHARC was giving away at the event,

took it home and built this little light-controlled, Theremin-like instrument. I housed the project in a burned out solar yard light.

 

Since this oscillator runs on only one and a half volts, the single AAA battery holder in the yard light provided the power solution. I removed the LED, circuit board and solar panel from the lamp, replacing them with the oscillator circuit card and five photo-resistors wired in series, routing various wires through the hole that originally accommodated the LED. I found a speaker that fit perfectly into an old spray paint can lid, and mounted it to the bottom of the lamp with aluminum angle brackets I cut from an aluminum can. I mounted a momentary action switch, and an output jack in the lamp flange. The switch turns the oscillator on and off, the amount of light coming in the top controls the pitch.

I really hope everyone else who participated in the event had as much fun as I did. I hope CMKT4 will return to Garberville as soon as this Fall and we can have another circuit-bending event, and next time we’ll have some music, maybe including some local circuit-benders.

A Chance to Witness a Rare Live Performance

A Chance to Witness a Rare Live Performance

 

This Friday evening, June 1^st, at the Hemp Connection in Garberville, I’ll play electric didgeridoo and show off some of my tin can lanterns. I’ll set up in the patio and play by candlelight from 6-9pm, even though it barely gets dark before 9pm these days, as part of Garberville’s Arts Alive celebration in June.

I really don’t play out that much. The last time I played out was for Margriet Seinen’s opening reception last July, so these performances are rare. I play the didgeridoo almost every day, and I’m pretty good at it. Come out and see for yourself.  Here’s a sample of what you’ll hear:

 

Murdoch sells myspace.com at Yard Sale

Rupert Murdock’s NewsCorp Sells myspace.com at Yard Sale

Copyrights to music by every artist on the planet

and the personal information of millions of users

sold for a pennies on the dollar.

I very much enjoyed the news that Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp recently sold myspace.com for less than one-tenth what they paid for it, losing more than half a billion dollars on the deal. Think about it this way: Even though NewsCorp owned copyrights to half a dozen songs by every musician on earth, and could advertize to, and collect data from millions of users, not only could they not make money, they took a 500 million dollar bath.

 

In fact, all of those musicians, myself included, actually drove people away from myspace.com, and towards fecebook.com, with our constant barrage of self-promotional “comments” and “friend requests.” While my weird music has not made me any money, I’m quite proud that my efforts cost Rupert Murdoch half a billion.

 

It really didn’t take a genius to know that Rupert Murdoch overpaid for myspace.com, and that “the bloom was off the vine” as they say, even then. Everyone was already migrating to facebook.com, and online advertizing really hasn’t been that effective anywhere. So, the value of these social networking sites remains mostly speculative, and fads pass quickly. This one took 500 million dollars of Rupert Murdoch’s money, with it.

 

Anyone remember MP3.com? They imploded back in 2000, but they did a lot of things right for musicians, and cultivated a lively online community. If you were one of the few people with a fast internet connection back then, MP3.com held a vast collection of music, of all styles, from around the world, and offered lots of ways to access it. Musicians used it to find other musicians with enough in common to create online “scenes” and coordinate tours and gigs. I don’t think any site has matched MP3.com for musicians since then, but myspace.com could.

 

Most musicians still use their myspace.com site. It’s free, makes it easy for anyone to access all of your relevant information, as well as sample your music. I haven’t updated mine in years, but you can still hear:

1. Several cuts from: my 2006 CD Handmade at www.myspace.com/tincanluminary

2. My “circuit-bent” music at www.myspace.com/wasteuniversal

3. Episodes from my 1995-8 TV series, Nukebusters TV, currently in resurgence on Access Humboldt, and in Pakistan, at www.myspace.com/nukebusterstv

    

Other than artists and musicians, myspace.com has become kind of a ghetto. Real estate developers know that artists can turn a ghetto int a che-che neighborhood ripe for gentrification. I think myspace.com should work that angle, and do more to serve the needs of artists and musicians.

 

Maybe myspace.com should incorporate a “Pandora” like feature that sources all of the music at myspace.com. MP3.com gave musicians lots of opportunities to communicate with each other in groups, and lots of opportunities to work together to promote each others music. If you liked one band, MP3.com would also recommend other bands based on your taste. Just some suggestions for the new owners of myspace.com. If the new owners take my advice and shift the focus of myspace.com to serve the artists who most heavily rely on the site, I’ll bet myspace.com could lose even more money in the future.

Some of Humboldt’s Lesser Known Summer Festivals

Some of Humboldt’s Lesser Known Festivals

Well, its festival season again. Of course you’re going to Summer Arts and Music Festival, The Gaia Festival, Reggae on the River, Blues on the Bay, The Oyster Festival, North Country Fair and Burning Man, but keep these lesser known festivals in mind for those off-weekends, when you’ve got a few hundred extra bucks and nothing better to do:

The Gopherville Gopher Festival- June 30-31 This two day festival at the Gopherville Community Center, celebrates all things gopher. From the “Garden Gopher Roundup” to the gopher cook-off, you’ll see live gophers in their natural habitat, hear their pitiful screams as they get brutally slaughtered en-mass, and taste their delicious succulence as the areas best chefs compete to become to become the this year’s “King of Barbecued Gophers.” Two stages feature the best in regional underground music and 35 gopher themed craft booths include everything from gopher fur hoodies, to gopher lawn sculptures, to beautiful gopher tooth jewelry. In “Pups World”, children can pet live gophers in a petting zoo, make gopher masks, or play in the 3 acre subterranean tunnel maze. $80 for adults, $35 for children under 12, tickets include overnight camping on site.

This year, two festivals that previously competed with each other for attendees, because they both happened on the same weekend, have combined forces to create a single event that’s sure to make a big impact on the North Coast. In 2011, the “Manilla Mid-Summer Meth-Fest” and Samoa’s “Smack Daze” will combine forces to create The Humboldt Hard-Drug Hoedown. This festival promises to bring hard drug dealers and users from all over the country to the one-and-only festival of its kind in the U.S. Held at the Samoa Speedway with camping at the Dunes Boat Ramp and Campground across the street. Deep in the tsunami hazard zone, this location is almost a two hour walk from the nearest high ground. We’ll all hope for the best for this new event. It all takes place the first full weekend in August, tickets for the first Humboldt Hard-Drug Hoedown are free.

Reggae of the Right- With massive corporate sponsorship, and a huge volunteer staff of Christian fundamentalists, this festival has grown to mega-proportions in recent years. While many among the volunteer staff find the billowing clouds of ganja smoke, open drug use and uninhibited sexual activity, embarrassing, they are all happy to see so many young people embracing the violently anti-gay, anti-woman message of reggae music. Reggae of the Right prides itself on bringing only the most violent misogynous, homophobic reggae artists from around the globe, including a number of fugitives. “For security reasons, we cannot release the lineup for this year’s festival” the website proclaims “But we go to great lengths to bring attendees the worlds most wanted reggae artists.” Da riddems are hot, the lyrics are hard to understand, and the vibes are Irie, so come out to Rio Dell for Reggae of the Right on July 10, 11 and 12. tickets cost just one roll of quarters (40 pieces of silver).

With all of the festivals going on in the area, you should probably spend every weekend this summer wandering around an open field, getting drunk and sunburned while listening to a band you never heard of play through an awful sounding PA in broad daylight. Really, what else are you gonna do with what’s left of your life?