I’ll get back to updating more when I can. I love you guys.

I suppose I should be honest about how this whole “Speed Creating” thing started.  Around November, my girlfriend of roughly 4 years and I broke up.  I’m not trying to turn this into one of the closing scenes of My So Called Life, I just want to be honest about my motivations as opposed to my usual  practice of remaining willfully ignorant of the things that make me do the things I do.

One of the chief concerns I was having as the relationship kind of fell apart was “what makes me happy?”.  A heavy set of circumstances had me feeling pretty terrible about myself and “Who I Am”.  I didn’t really have a good sense of how to make myself happy or how to express myself…I was lost and not only was it a weight on my relationship, it was obviously a huge weight on me.  When I racked my brain to find a way out of the bouts of deep depression I often found myself in, I didn’t have any answers, save for this weird hint that “What Makes Me Happy” is “Creating”.  My whole life I’ve been drawn to making things…doesn’t matter what, just making stuff.  In the moments where my head is down and ideas are flowing, I’m not thinking of anything else and I feel great.

So that is what I set myself up to do.  Chase down my tiny thread of creative DNA, wrestle it to the ground and stare at it to see if it really held what I needed.

Around the time of the breakup I saw what Dominic Wilcox had done, and it immediately clicked with me.  There was no doubt that I was going to follow the same regimented path, to turn my potential happiness into a homework assignment.  I picked January, because the winter out here kind of sucks the soul anyway, and it could double as kind of a New Years Resolution deal.

I’m happy to report that this thing has been extremely eye-opening.  You’ll have to forgive the cheesiness here, but I made a pretty big realization during this thing – that I am on this earth to create.  Apologies for the hyperbole, but as a weapon I’m only pulling it out here because I plan on using it.

Up until this point I struggled to find a box for what I love to do…am I a “writer”?  Am I a “photographer”?  I’m not very good at design, but I love doing it, so could I call myself a “designer”?  I’ve had a Flip Cam duct-taped to my hand for the last 3 years…does that make me a “videographer”?  What the hell AM I?  I always considered myself a writer, but only because I do that more than anything, and it gives me the most crisis-laden stressful high of anything I do.  But I’m not all that great at making a career out of it.

I’m straying.  My point is, I learned (in one of many moments of forehead-slappery) that I am not any of those things.  I’m just a guy who likes to “create”. “Creator”, I suppose, but that is too specific and a little weird.  So I’m more comfortable with “Guy Who Lives To Create”…funny…I just tried to type “Guy Who LIKES To Create” just now, but I slipped on the “k” and put a “v” instead….giving me “lives” instead of “likes”…ha…the K and the V are nowhere near each other on the keyboard.  Even I don’t know what I’m thinking.  Wow.

So, that being said, I LIVE to create I guess.  All of those things I listed above – writing, photography, video, music, design – flick the exact same switch.  The same light goes on and off no matter what triggers it – writing about zombies, making music with Ben, taking light painting photos, shooting in the snowy streets with my Holga, cutting and pasting like a madman in Photoshop, sketching, ironing on letters – all of that provides the same simple impulse that I’ve been chasing my whole life.

I’m not saying I found my life’s purpose.  That would be a little much.  I did find though, that I had been neglecting a massive part of what made Me “Me”, and I’m glad to be reconnected to it.

I also learned more about where my skills are.  I learned that I am pretty good at writing zombie stories, that I am able to edit videos that make me laugh, that I am not a very good musician but I love to make noise and record it, that I can almost execute an idea with a photograph, that I have a basic understanding of design and how to make something look halfway decent, and that when pressed (especially when pressed) I can create at the drop of a hat.

Like I’ve always said, none of the stuff I make has any illusions about being “good”, but that’s not the point.  It is all still an expression.  Good or bad, the switch gets flicked.

With the motivation behind this thing out in the open, I hope I can continue to do this stuff.  I want to just keep doing something every day because it really does make me happy.  Don’t worry though, I wont meticulously blog about it.  I’ll just do it because I love doing it.  I highly recommend it to everyone…whatever your talents are, use them every day, and then do some stuff you are less than talented at.

Day 1 – Optronics 4-1 with Oceans in Space  [VIDEO]

Day 2 – The Lightpainting Mini Booth

Day 3 – Allegedly Hilarious T-Shirt

Day 4 – Disposable Camera Photos

Day 5 – Photoshop Vs. Jandek

Day 6 – Photos From the MiniBooth

Day 7 – Desert Lightpaintings

Day 8 – Noise Tape Layout 1

Day 9 – Noise Tape Layout 2 + Download

Day 10 – Noise Tape Layout 3 (Black Metal?)

Day 11 – Optronics 4-2 With Oceans In Space  [VIDEO]

Day 12 – Fuckin “Art”, Brah

Day 13 – Movies That Bugged Me Out as a Kid – Body Parts

Day 14 – Brian Tumors Download

Day 15 – Zombie Fiction – “Cakewalk” Part 1

Day 16 – Recaptured:  L5D – “Advanced Ants Dance”

Day 17 – Lil B @ Highline Ballroom  [VIDEO]

Day 18 – Mirror Lightpainting

Day 19 – The Battle of the Red Dragon  [VIDEO]

Day 20 – Ke$ha Slowed by 800%

Day 21 – Anthony:  A Life (In Three Parts)  [VIDEO]

Day 22 – The Scum Noise Tape Full Download

Day 23 – Cocktail Napkin Zombie Story

Day 24 – Zombie Fiction – “Cakewalk” Part 2

Day 25 – Zombie Fiction – “Untitled” Part 5

Day 26 – Blizzard/Apocalypse Music

Day 27 – Canvas Drawing

Day 28 – Ghostbusters Firehouse Holga Photos

Day 29 – Allegedly Hilarious Lil B T-Shirt

Day 30 – More Holga Photos

Day 31 – Drew is an Art Dealer Now  [VIDEO]

I’ve had this debate a few times with different people.  Well…I don’t know if it could necessarily be called a “debate”.  It usually goes like this… “Why the fuck do you like Lil B?  He’s terrible” and then my answer usually goes something like “Well, I don’t think he is an awesome rapper or anything, but he is definitely an interesting hip hop experiment…”

Or something wanky to that extent.  But really, the dude is an interesting rapper…he makes a video basically every week, he has a fucking ambient rap album, about a thousand myspace profiles with unique songs on each, he’s been wearing the same pair of shitty Vans for about 7 years (which seems minor, but in the footwear-obsessed rap world, I count it as significant), he name checks Antony and the Johnsons as one of his top 5 favorite new MC’s, and his only official release is a self-help book written via email and text message.

Does this always add up to good rap?  No.  But in there, spread thin through all the output is some greatness, and for what its worth, he is not formulaic.  So I think we need him out there pushing the boundaries, no matter how offensive to “rap” sensibility he may be.

Anyway, one of his signature lines is “Hoes on my dick cuz I look like (insert crazy name like “Jesus” “Mel Gibson”, etc.)” and its awesome.  After his first New York show, my friend Jesse and I had a blast running through the streets thinking of new people/things to look like.  “Hoes on my dick cuz I look like MAYONNAISE”  BAHAHAHAHA.  See?  Hilarious.

So the idea hit me to make another (allegedly) hilarious t shirt.  This is a prototype, if you want to buy one, hit me up warnberh at gmail dot com.  I will only charge 25 bucks each.  Custom made!   Hoes on my dick cuz I look like I make iron-on t-shirts!

As the snow fell (hard) here in New York, I rushed home from dropping off my film to try and make some music.  I had some grand ideas, but most could not be done in one night (especially not by an untalented dick like me)…so I kept it pretty simple.  My goal for side B of those noise tapes (the ones I keep blathering about shut up already) was to include some tracks from the past, as well as some one-of-a-kind recorded improvisations.

Tonight, I made one of those beasts, and it sounds like hell.  I ended up making the kind of shit that people question what is wrong with you when they catch you listening to it, doubly so if they find out you made the shit.

So lock me up.  This stuff kind of sounds like the Snowpocalypse that was occurring outside my window.  I mean Jesus, look what I did to my room.

I love a room like that…terrifying and comforting at the same time.  What you see is how I created this “song”.  A Microkorg, a terrible distortion pedal, my laptop, a tape recorder and a lifetime of dealing with horseshit like traffic, wet socks, hard to open packages, non-functioning tape recorders, friends who never had batteries for their cool toys, Predators, the goddamn papyrus font, people who forget to bring their ID’s out, tequila, and the motherfucking Gin Blossoms.  Especially those assholes.

Here is a snippet of the track set to a video from out my window.  I’ll leave the whole track for the poor schmuck who ends up with the tape.

I consider this a creation because it took a lot of time and effort to get these songs from my computer onto a tape via a questionable cable setup and an extremely old and almost broken tape recorder (see the rig below).  Each song had its own unique levels, since they were all recorded at different times, so I had to do a lot of testing to make sure they werent TOO blown out…a little bit of that is OK.

I’m happy with the result, so here is a download of the first tape, side A.  I think of analog as its own instrument…you take some sound, you run it through a tape, and it comes out different.  These songs came out wrapped in this warm layer of dirt that I think sounds badass.  I still need to do the same move on the two other tapes.  At which point I will drop them off at record stores.

Download The Scum Noise Tape 1 – Side A

A while back, some genius decided to take Justin Bieber’s “U Smile” and run it through a program called Paul Stretch, slowing it down by 800%. What came out was a glacial piece noise that sounded like Brian-Eno and Christian Fennesz skipping through the heaven sequences of What Dreams May Come. You can check out a clip of that right here.

Well yesterday night before I started working on yesterday’s video, my co-worker Alex and I started experimenting with putting different pop songs through the same filter.  For some reason, we had an mp3 of Ke$ha’s autotuned “rap” thing “Tik Tok” lying around.  So we ran that song through the process, and what came out was DEATH, HELL, and MURDER.  Jesus god it was meaner than Merzbow shitting tacks.  It was also 24 goddamn minutes long.  Here is 4 minutes of it. Starting with the pre-chorus.

Honestly, I dont know what the hell to do here.  Yes, this is a creation.  Good luck getting through 4 minutes of it.

“Recaptured” is a series of old content – music, recordings, writings, photos I’ve been coming across in random shoeboxes and plastic crates. (Hopefully) by digitizing/writing this stuff up I will keep it from being lost forever.

After that understated and amazing basement performance I wrote about a while back,  my good friend Colin jumped on a plane (or possibly a series of boats) to Norway, to go study music at a school he only called Monkey Island.  The way I understood it was that he would study at this strange place on an island with a bunch of other progressive and young musical freaks.  The school was not easy to get in to, so I also knew he must have been on to something, for them to let him through the door.

While there he had access to a fully equipped studio, a bunch of kids to collaborate with, teachers who helped refine his skills, and in his time there he created this beautiful little album called “Advanced Ants Dance” under the name L5D.  I’m not sure anyone else made anything similar to what he did, but I can say that the album is brilliant, and it should win some award for being an under-appreciated gem.

Its a strange collage of sampled beats, cut and paste melodies, analog warmth, and the first time I ever heard Colin sing.  A few names that I feel comfortable throwing around, for those who like to have something to compare to – Boards of Canada, Radiohead, Mum, even Nine Inch Nails.

Here it is, for you to download, complete with the layout that Joe designed back in 2003…he’ll probably kill me for posting it…sorry Joe, your shit is 10,000x better now.

Download L5D – Advanced Ants Dance

Also, if you like the album, leave some feedback here in the comments…we don’t have enough of that around here.

]]> http://namedropacid.com/2011/01/speed-creating-day-16-recaptured-l5d-advanced-ants-dance/feed/ 2 http://namedropacid.com/2011/01/speed-creating-day-14-brian-tumors-download/ http://namedropacid.com/2011/01/speed-creating-day-14-brian-tumors-download/#comments Sat, 15 Jan 2011 22:53:12 +0000 C______ http://namedropacid.com/?p=790

Every once in a while I pick up DJ shifts at this shitty bar in the West Village.  I don’t really do any “DJ”-ing, I just plug in my laptop, play a bunch of beer-pong jams, and drink free beer all night.  Its a pretty great gig.

Last night I picked up a shift, thinking I could just jump on the wifi at the bar and post my creation.  Didn’t happen.  No one at the bar knew the Wifi password so I was kind of stuck.  So I had to put my “creation” out on twitter, since I could only work from my phone.  None of this really matters though.

My friend Drew is in an awesome punk/hardcore band called Brain Tumors.  If you live in or around Minneapolis, go see them.  In the process of creating their new EP, they gave their masters to our friend Ben (also known as Oceans In Space) to do a mix of the album.  Not only did he do an awesome mix, that I’m sure you will eventually hear, he did an absolutely batshit-insane remix that turns the whole thing into some kind of cyborg-grind-synthesizer-shitstorm.  I’m considering it a new kind of music.

So here it is to listen to and download.  Note:  THIS IS A DEMO.  It doesn’t represent Brain Tumors at all (thats why its called BRIAN Tumors), other than that they are just as awesome. Get it now, before they tell me to take it down.

I made a cover for it…it was supposed to be more elaborate but I was pretty mad at the wifi situation so just I drew an evil wizard with his dick out on a post it note and called it a day (see above).  Enjoy.

Download – Brain Tumors – The Oceans In Space Brian Tumors Remix