SOMETIMES I THROW IT UP [PT. II]
WHAT’S YOUR NAME BOY?!?
PT I > http://snd.sc/PAWQRp
STEMS : http://sdrv.ms/13mPh3c
“BRUH. BRUH. THIS GUYS GOT A KIT BRUH.”
SPAWNOFSID.TUMBLR.COM
PHILLY TMW
PETRBRUH TUESDADDY
MONTREAL THURSDAY
Friday, April 19, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Heading Home
REPORTING: #EDWIN PHENIX
LOCATION: Big Apple - Astoria
PROJECT: #feedcale
DATE: 4/17/13
BEGIN REPORT
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It's been a while since I've been back to my FLA Studio, and on my way down I decided to bring my friend Cale Wier, who is a homeboy from Wisconson. Cale and Kevin Fever go way back, used to by in the US Air Force before Kevin ran away into the woods as a concientious objector. Brought Cale up to Queens to stay in Astoria, while I met up with my second Mother Lido to do some producion and vocals on her live set at the Bossa Nova Civic Club. Isa GT was hosting the night along with some of the Maracuyeah DJ's from DC who were fantastic. After a long day of travels we arrived back at our apartment from the Bossa Nova which was in Brooklyn, to retire and regroup. Today I loom forward to reconvening with Didi C'oola and the Moon King Bros in McCarren Park in Brooklyn, hoping we can talk about bringing the band back together for Kevin. It's a long shot, but could just very well happen.
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END REPORT
LOCATION: Big Apple - Astoria
PROJECT: #feedcale
DATE: 4/17/13
BEGIN REPORT
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It's been a while since I've been back to my FLA Studio, and on my way down I decided to bring my friend Cale Wier, who is a homeboy from Wisconson. Cale and Kevin Fever go way back, used to by in the US Air Force before Kevin ran away into the woods as a concientious objector. Brought Cale up to Queens to stay in Astoria, while I met up with my second Mother Lido to do some producion and vocals on her live set at the Bossa Nova Civic Club. Isa GT was hosting the night along with some of the Maracuyeah DJ's from DC who were fantastic. After a long day of travels we arrived back at our apartment from the Bossa Nova which was in Brooklyn, to retire and regroup. Today I loom forward to reconvening with Didi C'oola and the Moon King Bros in McCarren Park in Brooklyn, hoping we can talk about bringing the band back together for Kevin. It's a long shot, but could just very well happen.
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END REPORT
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
MORE FEEDING BACK
cO-WORk FEEDBACK:
RE: Live Jazz
Although not incredibly original, it is always soothing to listen to some traditional jazz. In this dimly lit small club, this band is banging away while the bar is pouring taps in the background. Although the hand held camera focused mostly on the keyboard player, who I suppose is the leader of the trio, the bass player was doing some great handywork, which an interesting pan over to his fingers demonstrates. Unfortunately it was evident that the cameraman was interfering with the band at moments, we got a good impression of the feel of the night. I felt the keys sounded a little muffled and were lost sometimes amidst the drums. There could have been a little more seperation between the stand up bass and low toms as well. As it turns out the keys and bass were only captured by the room mics, which explains the lack of seperation. A great performance none the less!
RE:Recorded Jazz
Now this mix is great. Traditional in many aspects, but all the peices were present. Eli and Jesse were the ones who mixed it. I felt the drums were even a little be TOO present. Stand up was perfect in tone and mix, punch and boomy in a great way. The ride again was a little to high in the mix, but snare and an almost perfect level. Piano was places very well.
RE: Listening to our groups mixes on another system. The 1.5 - 3 k range seemed to stand out like a sore thumb, although in the mixing room it did not seem so. Another example of how mixes vary across systems and why it is important not to simply rely on one set of monitors for mixing. The energy of the recordings did indeed prespire fortunately and that is what was the most important to get across. Great songwriting translates absolutely.
Feeeding Back
These are my reactions to some of my co-workers works:
RE: PHAT AS PHUCK
I found that within the 5.1 mix the drums were really a secondary thought. Although the horns are the feature of the band, including Tom the trumpet player who I've worked with in the past, it is important to have that backbeat pulsing. They themselves will admit that the drums are lost in the mix. The video could have used some enhancement, or possibly been rendered to black and white, as the room itself was not the most interesting in terms of set or lighting. The stereo mix I found a little to boomy, perhaps because of the sub's resonance in the room we were listening back to. The horns had lost a lot of their body, as many mixing engineers tend to drop that out. However, knowing horn players, the prefer not to have their horns sound like midi horns and prefer to keep the low mids natural. You can get the same punch with a boost in the highs if it is your goal to have them punch through. Despite these mixing issues I was very glad to hear the band in its new incarnation, as I had heard and played with its predecessor CTRL+ALT+DANCE in the past.
RE: 3 CARS BAND
I wasn't too thrilled with this band. Performing at CMW, they seemed to be pretty run of the mill standard funk rock. With a solo just a little bit too long for enjoyment. The mix was a good representation of the music, however it's too bad they gave such a good treatment to such an unoriginal band. It is strange to me that people can get into creating textures and writing songs that sound like those of hundreds and hundreds of others, not even attempting to push music further than it has before.
RE: PHAT AS PHUCK
I found that within the 5.1 mix the drums were really a secondary thought. Although the horns are the feature of the band, including Tom the trumpet player who I've worked with in the past, it is important to have that backbeat pulsing. They themselves will admit that the drums are lost in the mix. The video could have used some enhancement, or possibly been rendered to black and white, as the room itself was not the most interesting in terms of set or lighting. The stereo mix I found a little to boomy, perhaps because of the sub's resonance in the room we were listening back to. The horns had lost a lot of their body, as many mixing engineers tend to drop that out. However, knowing horn players, the prefer not to have their horns sound like midi horns and prefer to keep the low mids natural. You can get the same punch with a boost in the highs if it is your goal to have them punch through. Despite these mixing issues I was very glad to hear the band in its new incarnation, as I had heard and played with its predecessor CTRL+ALT+DANCE in the past.
RE: 3 CARS BAND
I wasn't too thrilled with this band. Performing at CMW, they seemed to be pretty run of the mill standard funk rock. With a solo just a little bit too long for enjoyment. The mix was a good representation of the music, however it's too bad they gave such a good treatment to such an unoriginal band. It is strange to me that people can get into creating textures and writing songs that sound like those of hundreds and hundreds of others, not even attempting to push music further than it has before.
A BIZZARH DISSAPOINTMENT
EDWIN PHENIX BLOG
REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: CRAWL
PROJECT: A Bizzarh Dissapointment
DATE: 4/8/13
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A Bizzarh dissapointment. So, originally I was going to record the full length La Papessa album with Lido, which is still going to happen, however, for the purposes of this project and the constraints on her availability made this ficticious deadline even more of an illusion than it already was. Si my second plan was to record a split release of 2 if the upcoming Papessa demo tracks and two tracks I had arrange for the R&B duo Bizzarh. I areanged for a session with them last week, but they were no shows! I still haven't heard from them. At least if people aren't available, they should be honest about it. A lesson about this failed session is that communication is key. Even Steve Ward a touring musician who doubles as a phenomenal chef was able to be present for our session this past weekend. Anyways, U have the instrumentals sitting around and perhaps will get Lido to work on them if Bizzarh do not get back to me. They are truly as strange as they sound! They are very talented and I hope to continue working with them in the future, provided there is better communnication.
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END REPORT
A Bizzarh dissapointment. So, originally I was going to record the full length La Papessa album with Lido, which is still going to happen, however, for the purposes of this project and the constraints on her availability made this ficticious deadline even more of an illusion than it already was. Si my second plan was to record a split release of 2 if the upcoming Papessa demo tracks and two tracks I had arrange for the R&B duo Bizzarh. I areanged for a session with them last week, but they were no shows! I still haven't heard from them. At least if people aren't available, they should be honest about it. A lesson about this failed session is that communication is key. Even Steve Ward a touring musician who doubles as a phenomenal chef was able to be present for our session this past weekend. Anyways, U have the instrumentals sitting around and perhaps will get Lido to work on them if Bizzarh do not get back to me. They are truly as strange as they sound! They are very talented and I hope to continue working with them in the future, provided there is better communnication.
Monday, April 8, 2013
LIDO MIX
EDWIN PHENIX BLOG
REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: CRAWL
PROJECT: Mixing Lido
DATE: 4/8/13
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Mixing the tracks I was able to capture with Lido's limited amount of time [her being a full time student and mother] was vastly different from the Lost Babies. Although the tracks contain some raw elements that I threw into the composition process, it is not a compact tight and dirty grunge band, but rather I strove to create a both massive and present sound with the samples, voice and horn. Ruleta being a more straightforward track was certainly the easiest to mix, and came together quite well. There will be a little bit more to add to it, but not much - in fact there will most likely be much to cut away! Of course only some of these vocal takes are keepers, but for the purpose of this short 3 song EP of the upcoming album ' La Papessa ' this summer, it is a great performance. Lido's dynamic range is a tough beast to handle, but get some good AKG's on it with decent preamps and it sounds incredibly powerful. More thoughts soon.
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END REPORT
Lost Babies Mixing
EDWIN PHENIX BLOG
REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
PROJECT: LOST BABIES MIX
DATE: 4/8/13
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The Lost Babies were a great choice to mix, well rehearsed and sounded great off the floor. Although they weren't able to bring Mamoru's guitar amp, we were fortunate enough to get a good sound out of the resident fender using Mamoru's guitar amp. I did mixes of Tell Me Why and Snake Charmer using cakewalk as my protools rig seems to have permanently crashed and no forums or re-installs can help me fix it. Something to do with loading plug-in settings from other playlists. When I brought my mixes in to compare with Jacob and Stacey's it seemed as though I intentionally took a more dirty approach to the mixing, knowing the bands live sound and vying for a good representation of that. I really enjoyed Stacey's mixes and I hope the band really takes to her work. Mamoru still has some more guitar work to do, and we will continue to mix these tracks after handing in these first mixes. Unfortunately arbitrary timelines given by school are not realistic enough to give those of us mixing for the band and not the project satisfying mix results. It takes time and necessitates sitting on the mixes for more than a week or two, and getting direction and feedback from the band themselves. I really liked the kick sound Stacey was able to pull out of the muddy mix.
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END REPORT
Lido Session!
EDWIN PHENIX BLOG
REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
PROJECT: Lido Pimienta
DATE: 4/7/13
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Putting in the hours. After spending some time preparing all the samples for the track, we finally got together for a proper long session. Along with Lido, I had the pleasure of recording the distinguished Steve Ward of Friendly Rich and the Lollypop People and Caribou on Trombone. Unfortunately due to all the equipment being booked out, I had to simply use my AKG C14 which is a step down from the 414 I had hoped to use. All these tracks were totally new to Steve, but as he is a quite creative and talented lad we were able to bang out the tracks and a series of lines, to later be refined in the future. I was able to get a good sound with the sound devices preamp, which I've used for several projects now open reccomendation of a trusted colleague. More updates to come!
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END REPORT
Friday, April 5, 2013
STAFF REPORT x REMIXERLOU [HARMONIUS TRIBE]
STAFF REPORT
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Eli, Jacob and I met in the 5.1 mixing studio to work on the Von Krippon live mixdown. After a satisfying mix was acheived [minus the standing wave which was indesctructable] We bounced the stems down to our 6 5.1 mono stems. I have never mixed in 5.1 before and it was an interesting process to go through. Now came the hard part. Because none of us have ever used compressor, Final Cut or DVD maker pro we had to trudge our way through the commands not knowing anything. The most tedious was syncing our live audio to the non - timecode high quality DSLR footage that our friend was gracious enough to take, as all the camera equipment was inevitably booked for the weekend. However, this was not the most disturbing part of the experience. What was, was compressor. For whatever reason compressor does not let you choose the directory it dumps files into, or intuitively show you the progress bar. You must open as separate program in order to see that progress, which took a while to find, and in the meantime searching directories for files that had not yet been created but had seemingly been created instantly was quite frustrating. Finally we got everything into DVD maker pro, made a menu and all, and of course, the program claimed that the DVD was not formatted properly. OH THE HUMANITY.
Currently working on the Lost Babies mixes at my FLA studio.
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EDWIN PHENIX
My co-engineer from the Harmonius Tribe situated on the magical Island which houses 'Mt. Lava-Lula'. Quite a talented young lad I might say.
REMIXERLOU [HARMONIUS TRIBE]
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Eli, Jacob and I met in the 5.1 mixing studio to work on the Von Krippon live mixdown. After a satisfying mix was acheived [minus the standing wave which was indesctructable] We bounced the stems down to our 6 5.1 mono stems. I have never mixed in 5.1 before and it was an interesting process to go through. Now came the hard part. Because none of us have ever used compressor, Final Cut or DVD maker pro we had to trudge our way through the commands not knowing anything. The most tedious was syncing our live audio to the non - timecode high quality DSLR footage that our friend was gracious enough to take, as all the camera equipment was inevitably booked for the weekend. However, this was not the most disturbing part of the experience. What was, was compressor. For whatever reason compressor does not let you choose the directory it dumps files into, or intuitively show you the progress bar. You must open as separate program in order to see that progress, which took a while to find, and in the meantime searching directories for files that had not yet been created but had seemingly been created instantly was quite frustrating. Finally we got everything into DVD maker pro, made a menu and all, and of course, the program claimed that the DVD was not formatted properly. OH THE HUMANITY.
Currently working on the Lost Babies mixes at my FLA studio.
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EDWIN PHENIX
My co-engineer from the Harmonius Tribe situated on the magical Island which houses 'Mt. Lava-Lula'. Quite a talented young lad I might say.
REMIXERLOU [HARMONIUS TRIBE]
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
LOST IN COMBAT
EDWIN PHENIX BLOG
REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
PROJECT: LOST BABIES of VON KRIPPON
DATE: 3/4/13
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Lost in combat. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the BDC scouting mission of the various studios, including CBC which I would have really been interested to see. I have been to Revolution Recordings before to investigate their patching for a training program with RP DYNAMICS, wherein I went to the studio and was shown the restored Neve consoles, and their whole dedicated Revolution Recording hardware creation studio, which really interested me. Having your own gear being patented on site is something that I think seldom exists within these audio complexes.
However, the reason I was unable to attend was due to a dress rehearsal for a dance piece I have been sound designing for since late last year. Henry has read about this piece in my essay, and as he knows working with dancers and choreographers is a time consuming process. Even up until opening night of the show I was being asked to update the mix. Now, people are only human and can only do so much, so I had to be realistic with her and do only as much as I could. As I was working after four I had to send the updated mix as a high quality mp3 over the internet, but due to the lack of professional work world flexibility, the student Head of Audio refused to simply swap the 1 cue file in the program for the show. Alas, such is working in a school environment, fictitious deadlines, rushed artistic work, overbooked facilities and so on and so forth. At least we're young and have plenty of time to work off our infinite debt while being distracted from fundamental societal injustices induced by the corporate state.
Anyways, I look forward to our session tomorrow mixing Von Krippon in 5.1, and mixing the Lost Babies session from Monday night which went incredibly well. I have had a very hard time getting the gear I need for the times when my talent is available for my independent project, but am trying to power through these obstacles to my best ability. The play I am designing for on the contrary has gone incredibly well, and I can't wait to remount it in the real world!
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END REPORT
Sunday, March 31, 2013
LOST BABIES OF VON KRIPPON
REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
PROJECT: LOST BABIES of VON KRIPPON
DATE: 31/3/13
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BEGIN: REPORT
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
PROJECT: LOST BABIES of VON KRIPPON
DATE: 31/3/13
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BEGIN: REPORT
Our Mission: to take the live recordings of Von Krippon and Mix them in 5.1, and to capture and document the ancient sounds of the ' Lost Babies '. We captured the video of Von Krippon at the ' CREATURE CRAWL ' space a couple weeks ago. There was some unnerving events that unfolded that night. The two members of the gang got in a fight at a get together later that night, and we have not since heard from them. They put on a great performance with quality tone, but all would be for naught if they were to continue this feud. We await the outcome. However, we plan to mix the show in 5.1 once we get the footage. I was pleased to finally find out the format in which systems read 5.1 sound [AC3]. It is very interesting that a limited number of programs such as COMPRESSOR and one of the Adobe suite programs are the only ones that can document audio in this format.
Following this we captured a demo take of the ' LOST BABIES ' in rehearsal, unfortunately their lead singer was not present as she had to deal with some unforeseen circumstances, however our group met the band and we are preparing to capture their sound in studio. Key components of the setup are the D112 on the kick and AKG 414 on the vocals. NT4 will be used to capture the drum overheads along with a series of 57's for amps and close micing. We would like to experiment with the tascam 4-TRACK to see if we can get some good tape compression and saturation for some of the mixdowns. All in the near future, and our adventurous crew looks forward with a determined cinematic stare.
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END REPOR
Saturday, March 16, 2013
REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
PROJECT: Trouble in the Sewers
DATE: 16/3/13
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BEGIN: REPORT
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
PROJECT: Trouble in the Sewers
DATE: 16/3/13
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BEGIN: REPORT
Our crew decided that as a fallback plan we would record the LIVE SESSION at the creatures | crawl layer, where on the 16th they would be hosting a live performance event where everyone would be in pyjamas for a pyjama party, an ideal aesthetic situation for a live video shoot. However, for the comfort of the guests, the organizer of the event preferred that we organize to shoot with all the decor and all during the sound check to test, and then feel out whether to shoot the full audience or not after that. So we settled for that, however, noone at the Equipment Distribution facility knew how to find the 24 channel JoeCo recording unit, and so we would have to fall back on a Focusrite Saffire Pro 10, with 8 ins. Not ideal however we are able to run all the audience mics as a stereo mix reducing the needed amount of inputs on the rack. The video will be shot my 'Snake' on his 5d camera which has great resolution.
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END REPORT
END REPORT
Saturday, February 23, 2013
VOX ELECTRONIQUE || ENTERING THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE
REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
PROJECT: Week 5 Progress Report
DATE: 23/2/13
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BEGIN: REPORT
Have come to a clearing in the sonic jungle. It's been a while of insane audio madness, so I'm going to sum up the past month or so in one report. We began our endeavor into the jungle searching for the entrance to the "PARALLEL UNIVERSE". We would find the clues that would lead us to this universe through our first messengers 'Shintaro'. They are a DJ duo that we were going to have on our radio show at first, but then it turned out that they no longer perform live, however one of them would aid us by being a panelist on the show itself. In order to find the gate to the Parallel Universe it seems that we would have to find some other audio prophets to guide us to the entrance. We then were confronted with the other wordly Parallels, and Saturns.For some time we had trouble finding the appropriate time to meet with these audio Prophets, but we set our sights for the 20th of February. We had meetings with our crew on how to approach this mission, and as the date approached it was concluded that we would need the help of Lido Pimienta a breaking Canadian electronic music artist originally based out of Colombia [https://soundcloud.com/lido-pimienta/sets/lido-pimienta-color] and
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
PROJECT: Week 5 Progress Report
DATE: 23/2/13
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BEGIN: REPORT
Have come to a clearing in the sonic jungle. It's been a while of insane audio madness, so I'm going to sum up the past month or so in one report. We began our endeavor into the jungle searching for the entrance to the "PARALLEL UNIVERSE". We would find the clues that would lead us to this universe through our first messengers 'Shintaro'. They are a DJ duo that we were going to have on our radio show at first, but then it turned out that they no longer perform live, however one of them would aid us by being a panelist on the show itself. In order to find the gate to the Parallel Universe it seems that we would have to find some other audio prophets to guide us to the entrance. We then were confronted with the other wordly Parallels, and Saturns.For some time we had trouble finding the appropriate time to meet with these audio Prophets, but we set our sights for the 20th of February. We had meetings with our crew on how to approach this mission, and as the date approached it was concluded that we would need the help of Lido Pimienta a breaking Canadian electronic music artist originally based out of Colombia [https://soundcloud.com/lido-pimienta/sets/lido-pimienta-color] and
Tom Avis from the electronic music blog Silent Shout [http://silentshout.ca/]. We tried approach the gateway pre maturely, but were unable to get the necessary access and equipment due to competition from other crews of prospectors on similar quests, although ours would be the holiest of all. With only 7 hours total available time to prep for our entrance to the Parallel Universe we had to come up with an entrance plan - this would be the ingeniously created VOX ELECTRONIQUE stingers created by agent Eli Roths. As I was the head of the team I took the role of hosting all of our audio Prophets while the rest of the crew tackled the technical side. We were able to get footage of the entrance to this Parallel Universe curdosy of last minute crew member Leo Ashton, however the audio was sabotaged along with our protools session - although we had tested it in advance our system crashed. I suppose this is what happens when you try to access something as heavy as the 'Parallel Universe'. The Electric Eels crew was however pleased with the outcome despite some technological hiccups that were unavoidable. The only problem was the documentation of the event being sabotaged by cosmic forces. The prophets Parallels and Saturns were very happy along with the panel hosts Lido and Tom Avis and will continue to stay in communication into the future.
Aside from this, Edwin [speaking in third person] has had a continued repor with Lido Pimienta and will likely be assisting her as his next directive. After crossing through to the Parallel Universe he feels more than confident in his ability to create a documentation of her audio Prophesies in the form of an ep which will precede the full length album entitled La Papesa. This EP will be used for performances on CBC and for touring with the Montreal electronique artist BOOGAT [https://soundcloud.com/boogat]. Many more exciting news to come, going back into the audible jungle, slowly approaching the mountain which will hold unprecedented audio magic.
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END REPORT
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
BACK IN THE JUNGLE || WEEK 1
REPORTING: #EDWINPHENIX
LOCATION: #KEVINFEVER STUDIOS FLA
PROJECT: Week 1 Progress Report
DATE: 15/1/13
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BEGIN: REPORT
Brainstorming ideas for the Spirit Live radio broadcast we will be putting together for the BDC directive. Looking into a couple U.S touring acts to book into the show - some friends of friends. Also looking into getting 1 or 2 duos to either play or battle off for the interview. I have some experience working with Drums and Bass duos I SMELL BLOOD and KIZ AND LEGIN when I brought them down to New York for a showcase. It would be interesting to recreate this in a Canadian studio. I was thinking about putting up Tonka Puma with Kiz and Legin instead perhaps, also another drums and bass duo. Also, we have been looking into getting Odonis Odonis and Shintaro [http://shintaro.bandcamp.com/] as potential acts.
We're in good shape.
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END REPORT
LOCATION: #KEVINFEVER STUDIOS FLA
PROJECT: Week 1 Progress Report
DATE: 15/1/13
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BEGIN: REPORT
Brainstorming ideas for the Spirit Live radio broadcast we will be putting together for the BDC directive. Looking into a couple U.S touring acts to book into the show - some friends of friends. Also looking into getting 1 or 2 duos to either play or battle off for the interview. I have some experience working with Drums and Bass duos I SMELL BLOOD and KIZ AND LEGIN when I brought them down to New York for a showcase. It would be interesting to recreate this in a Canadian studio. I was thinking about putting up Tonka Puma with Kiz and Legin instead perhaps, also another drums and bass duo. Also, we have been looking into getting Odonis Odonis and Shintaro [http://shintaro.bandcamp.com/] as potential acts.
We're in good shape.
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END REPORT
Monday, January 7, 2013
Thursday, January 3, 2013
get lost.: Some from ometepe
get lost.: Some from ometepe: Boooosh
BEGIN REPORT: AGENT CHAZ TAYLOR AKA CLIVE KROEGER
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I'm getting behind on this blog again.
I'm typing this post sitting in a cab on our way out of Granada again. We're just going out to the edge of town to hitch hike our way back to the border of costa rica.
The rest of the gang are all flying home tomorrow and I'm continuing on to spend new years in samara, costa rica with some new and old friends. We spent our last week riding chicken busses, at volcanic music festivals, hiking waterfalls, adopting a Canadian, hanging out with a monkey, peace sticking, putting out fires scootering to rodeos, scaring German girls, surfing volcanoes, making fun of tourists, meeting some puppies and and raccoon and general debauchery with local and world citizens.
Magma fest.
We met a girl working at the bar at our hostel in Granada who told us of a festival on ometepe island for the solstice/ end of the world. Perfect! We planned on heading there anyway and what better way to spend the end of the world than on an actively volcanic island, one with a history of mayan settlements and with a landscape dotted with ancient stone carvings. I imagined a sleepy little town to come Alive with festivities, Mayan celebrations, dancing on the streets, locals from across Nicaragua to be out and about and celebrating life and the possible end of it. What we found out however, from two girls from Frankfurt and Berlin, respectively; just finished with their volunteer work in Granada; was that magma fest was the first ever electronic music in Nicaragua, a beer sponsored, wristband affair with security guards, unculminative house music and more white people than I've seen since leaving Canada. It was like a club downtown Toronto suddenly got placed on a beach and just kept on fist bumping. I ran into our friend from the hostel in the middle of the night and she looked at me wide eyed and says, "there's a lot of coke and speed going around, I'm pretty coke and speeded up, hold on, I've gotta go do something!"And with that she was gone, never to be seen again.
It was a strange place to find yourself in the middle of your travels, when all you expected was some nice hikes and to take in the beauty of the place. The island is actually being penned as a sort of biological reserve to attract that sort of Eco tourism that it deserves. The whole party traveller cheap hostel mentality is scarce on the island and that's how it should be in my opinion. The festival was bad in the sense that it directly contradicts that mentality and a lot of locals on the island are not too impressed, the fear that it could set ometepe up as a party destination is a legitimate concern. it will be interesting to see what it will lead to in future years.
Bur despite all that we still got more liquored up and danced harder then anyone else at the place. We had a great fucking time with our German friends from the ferry and our aforementioned friend shine. You guys are amazing!
Also we snuck in and didn't pay for the party or camping, take that magma fest! The budget prevails.
Our next days on the Isla were amazing, we said goodbye to our friends and headed to a beautiful little town on the southern end called Merida. We stayed at a gorgeous hostel, camping for 3 bucks a night. We met a few lovely young families
And enjoyed The biggest buffet I've ever had in my life, after that we were invited to a post graduation party down the street and the whole town was there! There was a dj with a big old sound system, women selling drinks and smokes from buckets behind a folding table and if you had to piss it was the forest or nothing. The dj set up on a basketball court and all the dancing was there, we had fun salsa dancing with some local hunnies, getting harassed by the town drunks and enjoying the actual humanity of the whole affair, it was an actual community come together to celebrate and have a good time. There was young nica boys grinding up on girls, shy girls asking us to dance and one CRAZY salsa dancer taking these girls for a spin, they could barely keep up! It was a stark contrast to magma fest the night before an we loved it.
We hiked volcan Maderas the next day, well halfway, to a beautiful waterfall spilling down from a hundred feet above us into a little pool we could swim in, there was even a rainbow, it was that fuckin beautiful. On the hike we met zac. We became fast friends and he was soon as important a member in our group as any of us. And he was Canadian, a maritimer! We talked about magma fest, he was there as well and ended up getting a lot of his stuff stolen, iPod, camera, money, his first aid kit? But he never complained however and really had an admirable character. Reminded me to just keep trucking. Don't let individual shitty experiences take away from the whole, not even a little.
On our way back to the hostel we stopped to eat at a little restaurant, not worth mentioning except it was some of the best fucking chicken we ever ate, and spaghetti.. and one of the owners of the place saw us jamming on our ukes and pulled a dusty old beaten up guitar out Of the closet, spent 45 minutes tuning the damn thing then blew our minds with some amazing Spanish guitar an a awesome rendition of la bamba. Just wild.
Zac stayed at our hostel that night, already a good enough friend to crash in out tents and the next morning we were off, a two and half hour drive across the island on a cramped sweaty chicken bus to the port town of moyagulpa. There we rented motorbikes and spent the afternoon driving around the island, where we stumbled upon a rodeo. A genuuuine Nicaraguan rodeo. There were wasted old men fighting with each other as much as the bulls, young kids taking some risks with some seriously pissed off bulls and a pizza truck!
The actual spectacle was super cruel and actually pretty rough to watch, those bulls were being treated very poorly, people throwing garbage at them, anything they could to Piss them off. I think rodeos are a little romanticized. Despite that it was fun and we left feeling like we saw something you don't see everyday.
We took the bikes back eventually to catch the ferry that the guy who rented us the bikes told us left at 530, but of course it was gone at four and he tried to get us to stay at his hostel. Hustler! But it turned out as a blessing because after we ditched him we found a great place to stay, but the story gets weird.
We arrived and found two other friends we had net on the hike, kiia and sophie, two girls from Finland and Quebec. Also the hostel owner had monkeys, capuchins, one Of which was as friendly as any dog and I crossed a check off my bucket list. Playing with a fucking monkey!!! I then had a shower and was walked in on by some Pervy old local dude and that was gross.
Anyway This was Christmas eve so we all went out for dinner but when we returned we found the entire back part of the hostel on fire! It was a Sort of cabinas structure made with a roof of banana leaves That housed the hammocks, which is of course where i was set up to sleep that Night. There were about forty people back there throwing buckets of water on the flames and I had a heart attack finding all my stuff which had been scattered in the chaos. I didn't lose anything expensive or important luckily and eventually the flames went out and we returned to the festivities. Also I got an upgrade to the "master suite" . double beds and a private bathroom, not too shabby. The rest of the night was a blast, hanging with our new friends and salsa dancing at the club next door.
Anyway...
Ive typed a lot on a small keyboard and I'm ready To go eat.
We split into groups this morning, saying goodbye in case we didn't see each other again; Dylan ad Janny fly out of San jose and ross and Kveshe from Liberia, quite a distance from each other; and we successfully hitch hiked across the country to the border. However I made a last minute decision to stay in Nicaragua one more night, I turned into San Juan del sur instead of heading to the border, so I said goodbye to Ross an Kveshe and and I'm goin to surf tommorow and head to costa tommorow night.
It's been some of the best days of my life traveling with you all and I'll miss it dearly.
Pura vida bitches.
I'm ready for chapter two.
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END REPORT.
BEGIN REPORT: AGENT CHAZ TAYLOR AKA CLIVE KROEGER
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I'm getting behind on this blog again.
I'm typing this post sitting in a cab on our way out of Granada again. We're just going out to the edge of town to hitch hike our way back to the border of costa rica.
The rest of the gang are all flying home tomorrow and I'm continuing on to spend new years in samara, costa rica with some new and old friends. We spent our last week riding chicken busses, at volcanic music festivals, hiking waterfalls, adopting a Canadian, hanging out with a monkey, peace sticking, putting out fires scootering to rodeos, scaring German girls, surfing volcanoes, making fun of tourists, meeting some puppies and and raccoon and general debauchery with local and world citizens.
Magma fest.
We met a girl working at the bar at our hostel in Granada who told us of a festival on ometepe island for the solstice/ end of the world. Perfect! We planned on heading there anyway and what better way to spend the end of the world than on an actively volcanic island, one with a history of mayan settlements and with a landscape dotted with ancient stone carvings. I imagined a sleepy little town to come Alive with festivities, Mayan celebrations, dancing on the streets, locals from across Nicaragua to be out and about and celebrating life and the possible end of it. What we found out however, from two girls from Frankfurt and Berlin, respectively; just finished with their volunteer work in Granada; was that magma fest was the first ever electronic music in Nicaragua, a beer sponsored, wristband affair with security guards, unculminative house music and more white people than I've seen since leaving Canada. It was like a club downtown Toronto suddenly got placed on a beach and just kept on fist bumping. I ran into our friend from the hostel in the middle of the night and she looked at me wide eyed and says, "there's a lot of coke and speed going around, I'm pretty coke and speeded up, hold on, I've gotta go do something!"And with that she was gone, never to be seen again.
It was a strange place to find yourself in the middle of your travels, when all you expected was some nice hikes and to take in the beauty of the place. The island is actually being penned as a sort of biological reserve to attract that sort of Eco tourism that it deserves. The whole party traveller cheap hostel mentality is scarce on the island and that's how it should be in my opinion. The festival was bad in the sense that it directly contradicts that mentality and a lot of locals on the island are not too impressed, the fear that it could set ometepe up as a party destination is a legitimate concern. it will be interesting to see what it will lead to in future years.
Bur despite all that we still got more liquored up and danced harder then anyone else at the place. We had a great fucking time with our German friends from the ferry and our aforementioned friend shine. You guys are amazing!
Also we snuck in and didn't pay for the party or camping, take that magma fest! The budget prevails.
Our next days on the Isla were amazing, we said goodbye to our friends and headed to a beautiful little town on the southern end called Merida. We stayed at a gorgeous hostel, camping for 3 bucks a night. We met a few lovely young families
And enjoyed The biggest buffet I've ever had in my life, after that we were invited to a post graduation party down the street and the whole town was there! There was a dj with a big old sound system, women selling drinks and smokes from buckets behind a folding table and if you had to piss it was the forest or nothing. The dj set up on a basketball court and all the dancing was there, we had fun salsa dancing with some local hunnies, getting harassed by the town drunks and enjoying the actual humanity of the whole affair, it was an actual community come together to celebrate and have a good time. There was young nica boys grinding up on girls, shy girls asking us to dance and one CRAZY salsa dancer taking these girls for a spin, they could barely keep up! It was a stark contrast to magma fest the night before an we loved it.
We hiked volcan Maderas the next day, well halfway, to a beautiful waterfall spilling down from a hundred feet above us into a little pool we could swim in, there was even a rainbow, it was that fuckin beautiful. On the hike we met zac. We became fast friends and he was soon as important a member in our group as any of us. And he was Canadian, a maritimer! We talked about magma fest, he was there as well and ended up getting a lot of his stuff stolen, iPod, camera, money, his first aid kit? But he never complained however and really had an admirable character. Reminded me to just keep trucking. Don't let individual shitty experiences take away from the whole, not even a little.
On our way back to the hostel we stopped to eat at a little restaurant, not worth mentioning except it was some of the best fucking chicken we ever ate, and spaghetti.. and one of the owners of the place saw us jamming on our ukes and pulled a dusty old beaten up guitar out Of the closet, spent 45 minutes tuning the damn thing then blew our minds with some amazing Spanish guitar an a awesome rendition of la bamba. Just wild.
Zac stayed at our hostel that night, already a good enough friend to crash in out tents and the next morning we were off, a two and half hour drive across the island on a cramped sweaty chicken bus to the port town of moyagulpa. There we rented motorbikes and spent the afternoon driving around the island, where we stumbled upon a rodeo. A genuuuine Nicaraguan rodeo. There were wasted old men fighting with each other as much as the bulls, young kids taking some risks with some seriously pissed off bulls and a pizza truck!
The actual spectacle was super cruel and actually pretty rough to watch, those bulls were being treated very poorly, people throwing garbage at them, anything they could to Piss them off. I think rodeos are a little romanticized. Despite that it was fun and we left feeling like we saw something you don't see everyday.
We took the bikes back eventually to catch the ferry that the guy who rented us the bikes told us left at 530, but of course it was gone at four and he tried to get us to stay at his hostel. Hustler! But it turned out as a blessing because after we ditched him we found a great place to stay, but the story gets weird.
We arrived and found two other friends we had net on the hike, kiia and sophie, two girls from Finland and Quebec. Also the hostel owner had monkeys, capuchins, one Of which was as friendly as any dog and I crossed a check off my bucket list. Playing with a fucking monkey!!! I then had a shower and was walked in on by some Pervy old local dude and that was gross.
Anyway This was Christmas eve so we all went out for dinner but when we returned we found the entire back part of the hostel on fire! It was a Sort of cabinas structure made with a roof of banana leaves That housed the hammocks, which is of course where i was set up to sleep that Night. There were about forty people back there throwing buckets of water on the flames and I had a heart attack finding all my stuff which had been scattered in the chaos. I didn't lose anything expensive or important luckily and eventually the flames went out and we returned to the festivities. Also I got an upgrade to the "master suite" . double beds and a private bathroom, not too shabby. The rest of the night was a blast, hanging with our new friends and salsa dancing at the club next door.
Anyway...
Ive typed a lot on a small keyboard and I'm ready To go eat.
We split into groups this morning, saying goodbye in case we didn't see each other again; Dylan ad Janny fly out of San jose and ross and Kveshe from Liberia, quite a distance from each other; and we successfully hitch hiked across the country to the border. However I made a last minute decision to stay in Nicaragua one more night, I turned into San Juan del sur instead of heading to the border, so I said goodbye to Ross an Kveshe and and I'm goin to surf tommorow and head to costa tommorow night.
It's been some of the best days of my life traveling with you all and I'll miss it dearly.
Pura vida bitches.
I'm ready for chapter two.
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END REPORT.
oh no I know this feeling, it creeps inside of me
starin' down the cano in anticipation, after ascending 1000 feet with Chaz and Steve
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http://gayaschristmas.bandcamp.com/track/frosty-beach-party-spawn-remix
http://flavors.me/spawn
http://edwinphenix.blogspot.com
http://surf-bored.blogspot.com
http://surfsupdeathisland.tumblr.com
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