Saturday, June 24, 2006

Gnostic Rocket Live:
Sunday, June 24
Kensington Market

ps_sunday3.jpg
Me playing theremin at the last Pedestrian Sunday
photo (c) Erin Leah Pryde

Join me this Sunday in Kensington Market for Pedestrian Sunday. The streets will be closed to traffic and there will be food and music and dancing and all kinds of craziness. It really is a fantastic time. I will be performing with my frequent partner-in-crime, guitarist Sean Beresford.

We will be performing on Augusta just south of College, in front of Paradise Bound (a great record store), right next to the Supermarket patio from approximately 1pm to 4pm. Drop by and say hello.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Gnostic Rocket - Live at Cherry Beach
Sunday, June 18 - 6pm

show_ps_photo.jpg
Sean and I at Pedestrian Sunday
photo (c) Erin Leah Pryde

Join Sean Beresford (guitar, Echoplex, effects), Jason Darby (drums) and I (custom-built delay, samples, drum machines, effects, theremin) as we perform at an outdoor party at Cherry Beach. Park at the end of Cherry Beach and follow the bike path East - you'll hear the music. We will be performing at 6pm.

Hope to see you there.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Recommended Online Experimental Music:
Volume Three (Robots)

Some more online experimental music links for you. This week with a motorized theme.

====================================

Artist: Scrawn

20_scrawn.jpg

"...pieces for motorised piano, constructing small powered objects which can strum, stroke and tap the open strings of an upright piano. These include 2V motors, fans and electric bell hammers."

====================================

Artist: league of electronic musical urban robots

Home of the the following amazing creations:

Guitarbot:

20_guitarbot.jpg

"In designing GuitarBot, our goal was to create an electrified slide guitar that was versatile, responsive, capable of fast and slow playing, easy to control, with high-quality sound, modular and portable. We also wanted to extend, not simply duplicate, the capabilities of a human guitarist."

Watch this awesome video of it in action.

Also home to the Tibetbot and the !rbot.

====================================

Artist: Ensemble Robot

20_boticello.jpg

Home of the Bott(i)Cello "...a tree-shaped electric string robot that uses fans to pluck strings of changing lengths. It has three arms, each holding a electric guitar string on one end. The arms curl in and out like the petals of a flower, and as they move they change the pitch of the guitar string. It was designed by Christine Southworth, Yu-Cheng Hsu, and Jeff Lieberman, and built in 2005-06 by Ensemble Robot."

====================================

Karl Briullov (1799-1852)

The cover of my recent release on Umbrella Noize Collective, A Eulogy for History, is a painting done by Russian Karl Briullov (December 12, 1799, St Petersburg - June 11, 1852, Rome).

19_self.jpg
Karl Brulloff. Self-Portrait. Painted for the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 1833. Unfinished. Oil on panel.

The painting used for the cover is "The Last Day of Pompeii" and it is a large and detailed work (15 X 21 feet).

19_pompeii.jpg
The Last Day of Pompeii. 1830-1833. Oil on canvas

I am also really fond of some of his sepia works:

19_italian.jpg
Italian Woman Blowing a Kiss. 1826. Sepia and whitewash on paper.

19_mother.jpg
Mother Awoken by Her Crying Child. 1831. Sepia.

19_satyr.jpg
Silen, Satyr and Bacchanals. 1830s. Sepia and pencil on paper.


And this one is also a favourite.

19_self.jpg
Diana, Endymion, and Satyr. Oil on cardboard.

There is an excellent gallery of his work here.

Monday, June 05, 2006

The Toronto Star and "Terror":
Cutting through the spectacle

18_thugs.jpg
Picture from the Globe and Mail

I have usually been a Globe and Mail reader, but the recent coverage of Toronto's "terror" arrests in The Toronto Star has gained them a new reader.

Check out the article, Police put on a `good spectacle' by Linda Diebel, staff reporter.

"A good spectacle ... theatrical atmosphere ... like 24 ... an awards show."

Reviews for a Mirvish production, right? Maybe a Hollywood blockbuster or fast-paced new action series on Fox?

Wrong. It's how several lawyers and security experts describe the sombre, indeed frightening, events which transpired in the GTA over the past weekend.


This is incredible journalism.

Read the article, write letters of support into the editor and writer. More importantly, write the Globe and Mail (Newsroom@globeandmail.com) and prod them to tread the "terror" news waters with similar grace, style and skepticism towards the law and order agenda. And let's all keep our heads and show these bozos up for what they really are. And by bozo's I mean all of these thugs at the RCMP and CSIS that are gunning for an american-style militarization of our police forces. Big fear leads to big budgets. But we're on to you clowns. Don't embarrass yourselves.

For example this picture from the "terror" press conference from the Globe and Mail:

18_evidence.jpg

Terrifying indeed. Flashlights, a barbeque grill, an AC adaptor for a car, and some duct tape. All wrapped up in the ultimate nightmare, an Ikea bag.

Get real. Get a better "props" person.

New album: A Eulogy for History

eulogy_sm.jpg

I am pleased to announce the release of a new Gnostic Rocket album, A Eulogy for History. This is a free online-only release, exclusively available through The Umbrella Noize Collective, a wonderful Oklahoma City based net-collective featuring a ton of great releases by artists including ctephin, Value Village People, noiseFloor, Big City Orchestra and more.

This work was composed using spoken word samples, Magnatone lap steel guitar, Kay Speed Demon electric guitar, Danelectro Reel Echo, Korg X911 guitar synth, and the Springboard Dub.

By the way, ctephin and I are working on a split C-30 for the roilnoise label to be released later this summer. Stay tuned.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Hey Toronto:
Welcome to Fear, American-Style

pol_evd.jpg
"Items are shown on display during a press conference. The bag of fertilizer, right, was not seized during the raid and was there for display purposes only." - Globe and Mail website

I've managed to keep politics out of this blog for a while but the recent Toronto terrorist "scare" is just one step too far.

RCMP behind bomb material - Toronto Star, June 4th.

So you read this article carefully, and what comes out is that the RCMP monitored some websites where a "group of young men", were obviously discussing their anger at American politics and what they were going to do about it. These "young men" then "forged letters about a bogus school trip to give to their parents" to attend a terrorist training camp, actually just "a field north of the city" where they made a video "imitating warfare".

They were high school students?

So the RCMP begins to monitor them, observes them skipping school and horsing around in a field with a video camera "imitating warfare" and then decides to start an "undercover sting operation".

"The RCMP said yesterday that after investigating the alleged homegrown terrorist cell for months, they had to move quickly Friday night to arrest 12 men and five youths before the group could launch a bomb attack on Canadian soil."

Sources say investigators who had learned of the group's alleged plan to build a bomb were controlling the sale and transport of the massive amount of fertilizer, a key component in creating explosives. Once the deal was done, the RCMP-led anti-terrorism task force moved in for the arrests."


List of Suspects from CNN, with ages.

So let me get this straight, of the 17 arrested, 5 were clearly high school students and another 6 were 21 or under; four more were under 25. So of the 17 suspects, 15 of them were basically children.

And the three tonnes of fertilizer was sold and set up for delivery to this group of "young men" BY THE RCMP!! So they weren't prevented from carrying out attacks, so much as they were prevented from carrying out attacks that were encouraged by the RCMP!

Photo from Globe and Mail of evidence

Follow this link and you will note that the ammonium nitrate provided for show at the press conference was described as not from the raid but is there for "display purposes". It would appear that these "suspects" never even had their hands on the fertilizer, or at least just long enough to get entrapped for buying it from the RCMP. Hardly a case of rushing in to stop spontaneous attacks at the last minute.

Basically, the RCMP set up a bunch of angry children (mostly high-school students or recent graduates) by cultivating their anger and then offering them explosives. This is the best they can come up with for a Canadian terror threat?

This just demonstrates that without the RCMP and CSIS funding, supporting, coordinating and supplying them, we wouldn't have credible neo-nazi or terrorist movements in this country (Note: CSIS has been accused of basically setting up the Heritage Front, a neo-nazi organization, in Toronto, also comprised of mostly disaffected youth).

This kind of critique needs to spread far and fast if we are not to be infected with politically motivated fear and witch hunts here in Canada. And for those who are legitimately angry at the direction of our current Canadian and American administrations, do not forget, anger is very easy to manipulate. Be wary of those who encourage your anger to become violence, you are being set-up. The use of violence in the pursuit of any goal is unlikely to succeed in the long run, and is a lazy choice regardless of the cause.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

3" mini CDR now available

I am proud to announce the release of a brand new Gnostic Rocket 3" mini CDR.

store_gr1cover.jpg

GR1 - Gnostic Rocket - 3" mini CDR

Track Listing:
1 - The Old Man Didn't Blink an Eye (Spaghetti mix)
2 - Behind Him Follows
3 - a huge blubbery creature with piggish eyes
4 - Twenty-five Tentacles
5 - Excerpt from "A Eulogy for History"

Price: $6.50 including shipping

Ships in a clear vinyl sleeve

Go to the store to place an order.