| Once More, With Feeling |
[Aug. 16th, 2006|08:37 pm] |
I think the stupid blog software should no longer crap out and catch fire whenever people who aren't me attempt to use it.
So, without further ado, I present, again, my new, other weblog:
http://andrew.pilsch.com
Enjoy. Because it might crash again at any moment (kind of like the environment!). |
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| Music |
[Apr. 13th, 2006|10:58 pm] |
Following Cues From Others, this is a list of albums I love or have been listening to lately:
( Saving Space ) |
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| Low Down, Security Alarm Blues Pt. 1 |
[Sep. 21st, 2005|12:45 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah! - Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away | ] |
I totally set off the security alarm in class today. It was brilliant. Thankfully, the cops didn't show up, but my students did get to hear me say "fuck!" It all worked out, in the end. We were listening to and discussing the definition of "music" and when I played them some Merzbow, one of the kids in the back remarked that it sounded like the alarm. Victory. |
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| Internet... |
[Sep. 15th, 2005|02:24 am] |
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...not just for the office anymore!!! (someone isn't sleeping tonight, and his name is me). |
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| To reuse an old cliche ... |
[Sep. 4th, 2005|10:03 pm] |
5 years at an engineering school: 0 dates
1 week in an english literature graduate school: 1 date
The Liberal Arts: Priceless |
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| Teaching |
[Aug. 31st, 2005|01:51 pm] |
So, it turns out, teaching is a lot harder than it looks. I led my first class (off a cliff (i kid, i kid)) today and, well, i just want to go home and drink until I can't stand up (which, as soon as my office hours are over, is exactly what I plan on doing). It's surprisingly more difficult than I ever thought to explain complicated knowledge to a room full of completely blank-faced 18 year-olds. Shit. Anyway. Wow. Hopefully, Friday will be better. |
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| Without |
[Aug. 17th, 2005|12:05 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Isis - Deconstructing Towers (on iPod) | ] |
I'm in Pennsylvania (which I think is how you spell it (I really should figure that out)). Speaking of figuring things out (or not), did you know that buying liquor in Pennsylvania is frighteningly confusing? I ended up having to call a friend of my mom's to find the answer (the conversation was appropriately odd: "Hey mother's friend." "Oh hey Andrew, are you in PA?" "Why yes and I was wondering how I go about buying booze."). Anyway, I'm going to take a field trip later today and try and hunt down the state liquor control board's store and purchase some adult beverages. As long as they aren't beer. Apparently the only way to get beer by the six pack is from something called a bottle store (and these are usually located in hotel lobbies (???)). Anyway, I've been just drinking the bourbon I brought up from ATL, but, I tell you what, I miss Green's (Atlanta's one stop shop for vice).
Anyway, so I would imagine you'd rather here about what I've been doing and all that shit (yeah, right). I'm in the Pattee library at the moment (which is fucking gigantic (the lobby looks like Grand Central Station)) because my house doesn't have internet access (or cable). It's nice to be back in the womb-like embrace of information flow. Anyway, it's not been super bad. One of my house mates has a really extensive DVD library, so I've just been watching lots of TV and cooking (even though we have no microwave and dishwasher and only half a stove (and the oven doesn't work very good)). I also just found out that I didn't actually need to be here until the 23rd (as opposed to the 19th like I was told (twice)). So, yeah, to all the Atlanta people whom I sort of abandoned ... my bad, I thought I was in a bit more of a rush. Now I have a whole lot more free time on my hands (and thank god I'm back on the internet (seriously, it's really weird, I feel a lot better now that I'm in front of a networked computer (that's bad, right?))). Anywho ... I guess I should stop typing on this thing, I'm trying to install GnuPod on my computer at home (which is fun to do with Gentoo when you don't have a GD internet hook-up). So, I've got to figure how bad I'd frag my iPod if I were to delete everything off of it and us it to carry the install files home. Yeah. Awesome.
Okay, I'm done. |
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| Done |
[Aug. 10th, 2005|04:34 am] |
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Well, I'm leaving town tomorrow. To everyone in Atlanta, it's been fun. |
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| State College |
[Jul. 9th, 2005|01:13 am] |
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I drove from State College today. 13 hours (noon until one AM). Listened to William Gibson reading "Neuromancer" and a bunch of Sherlock Holmes short stories. I have a Penn State ID card, I will get paid on time, and I am moved into my new house. Awesome. |
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| Random |
[Jun. 25th, 2005|06:40 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Wolf Parade [#01 Live on CBC Radio 3] Lousy Pictures | ] |
- So there's this band I like, called Wolf Parade. Wolf Parade has this amazing song called "I'll Believe In Anything, You'll Believe In Anything" and, on this song, the lyrics are all romantic in an indie-rock kind of way. Then I realized that the song is, at least partly, about the movie Krull.
- My show's promo can beat up your show's promo (this is actually, at this moment, in the queue to be periodically aired on WREK)
- The summer has been going a lot better recently. I'm starting to get things sort out with Penn State (although a road trip to Pennsyltucky is coming in the near future). Will and I are making Thursday our get drunk in public evening, so if you have an event and you would like to hear about all the latest WREK gossip (and there's just mounds), let me know.
- That's it, I suppose
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| Things that are special / Things That Fade, pt. 1 |
[Jun. 17th, 2005|12:19 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Boredoms [Seadrum/House of Sun #01] Seadrum | ] |
WREK was probably dead before I started working there, but when I was young, it felt like a really awesome place to work. Somehow, during my five years at Georgia Tech, it seems like it's died. Maybe I didn't love it hard enough. Either way, the proposed format change, written "to be more responsive to the kinds of programming that the GT community wants to hear," were finally announced to the staff this evening. On July 1st, a lingering sickness within the WREK community will finally become apparent on the airwaves. All of our (admittedly rather liberally biased1) public affairs programs have been moved to peak radio hours, 6AM-noon on Saturday. The two most challenging (and two of the longest running) shows on the station have been ghettozied to Sunday morning. We now feature four hours of trance music split between two incarnations of the EDM Soundsystem and we now feature four hours of classic rock every friday night.
Ignoring the fact that my show, Psych-Out, is now lumped in with the other "electronic" shows2, these changes may reflect "the kinds of programming that the GT community wants to hear" but I know for a fact that they represent the kinds of programming that WREK programming director Markus Haas enjoys. From conversations with Markus, I've become aware that he loves techno, has no taste re music that is not techno (compare Saneesh-era BAPR3 shows with Markus-era shows, if you doubt me), and hates noise. Low and behold, the survey (which Markus conducted) revealed that the students want more of the music Markus likes and less of the edgy, experimental fare that has been WREK's bread-and-butter for at least 20 years. I would think it might be prudent to be subtle, but, frankly, I feel that Markus has made these changes to the schedule based on his own feelings about what WREK should be playing and not out of any broader consideration of WREK's listernship or it's programming history.
That said, WREK's programming of late has been rather stale ... as Will Fisher mentioned to me, one night, over beers, "WREK does play noise and experimental music, but it's one very specific kind of noise. It isn't the kind of noise that I like." Comment, if you want, about the fact that I and my friends actually divide noise music into different sub-genres, but the fact remains that WREK no longer programs things because they are good, but because they sound like what is already in rotation. I think the problem with this arises from a large corpice of music directors who don't understand the styles of music they are being asked to program. Avant-garde composition and performance is an exciting field and, especially right now, there are a lot of great composers and musicians recording. Unfortunately, WREK is not playing them, and is playing albums like "Music With the Changing Price of Gold"4 because some MD doesn't understand the difference between good and bad forms of noise (which, admittedly, is pretty difficult). Even, at times, I've found myself rejecting or programming albums I was marginal about simply because "they sounded WREK."
In any case, the problem here is not what WREK plays, in terms of broad sonic ideals (in fact one of the things that many people cite as a unique facet of listening to WREK is the ability to hear several different styles of music in the same set), but a two fold problem: 1) WREK is no longer receiving good music in large enough quantities and 2) Our DJs are not being properly trained. This is especially true very recently (following our move to the new studio). Now, we are attracting new DJs who are interested solely in "saying silly things on the air" and have no knowledge of or love for music. Obviously, this leads to awful programming (like the Cusp5) in which WREK's random pastiche of genres becomes more frustrating than profound. This shift in programmatic goodness has occured because the WREK training program focuses solely on equipment operation. If someone can correctly press a sequence of buttons, they can have a radio show. No account is made for musical taste or ability. This is not to say they should be able to speak cogently and at length about the finer aspects of Fred Firth's music as incoming Ops (I certainly did think that the Velvet Underground was the height of musical experimentation when I was a new Op), but they should be able to exhibit an interest in music and a willingness to learn more. I've trained DJs who have actually said things like "I don't like music" and "I'm not sure I want to listen to anymore Jazz" (the latter during a Jazz shift (the Jazz WREK plays would make anyone hate Jazz, though. Damn, our Jazz rotation sucks)). While button pressing (and in the correct order) is essential to the DJ craft, the selection of discs is something that is of greater importance.
While training is the leading cause of the quality vacuum at WREK of late, there are two other points I would like to address about the recent troubles, but, as it is very late, I will have to table this discussion/essay and continue tomorrow.
END NOTES:
1 I'm getting tired of "liberal" being used as insult by people who voted for the first time in the 2k4 presidential election and wouldn't know FDR from DDR. Further, I'm getting rather tired of feeling a little ill when I say "liberal" in a correct usage, because I'm worrying I might have offended someone (like when I say that someone is "a Jew" or "gay").
2 Credit yourself with hearing one rant about how Psychedelic music (especially the modern, "New Weird America" scene) is anti-technology and a reaction against the alienation partly inherent within the hyper-genrefiction of "electronic dance" music and the information economic boom it provided a soundtrack to during the mid-90s.
3 Back Alley Pork Roost
4 The album is, in fact, what the title states. Some guy sonified the price fluctuations of the gold market. The album is both silly and awful and inspired "The Kernel Music," which is my project to do the same thing with the Linux Kernel source (mine sounded better).
5 If you don't know what "The Cusp" is, you really are better off not knowing. It was everything wrong with WREK ops over-boiled into a grand theatre of the absurd. |
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| surly |
[Jun. 5th, 2005|01:39 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps | ] |
This is gonna be a long, hot summer:
- Monty Python IS a lot funnier (funny, period?) after a four pack of Duvel
- Devin is calling this the summer of alcoholism, in his head, too. Exciting. Seriously, though, drinking cheap is good drinking (despite being fucked up beyond belief, I think that Duvel wasn't worth it).
- Beer before ice cream never sicker (what?). Ice cream before beer in the clear.
- No one expects the Spanish inquisition.
- Boston Baked Beans: Peanuts in sweet, sweet plastic shells.
- I can't type this drunk (probably shouldn't be psotin')
- Bored
- Drunk
- Summer |
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| Rappers |
[Jun. 2nd, 2005|01:41 pm] |
I don't know how familiar any of you are with Home Park, but it's the Georgia Tech student slum between 10th and 14th streets in Atlanta. Anyway, it's where I'm living this summer and it's a truly strange place, especially my house.
We live in this gigantic, fairly run-down house that is only three years old (!!!). Anyway, standard student house ... garbage, beer bottles, tire tracks in a yard that doesn't have grass. Across the street, though, is this rather non-descript looking building ...
... that happens to be the most selective rap recording studio in the Southeast.
Anyway, this morning, I'm on my way to Kroger and who should be hanging out in front of the studio but Kanye West and his entourage. It was pretty wild.
So that's all I got. |
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| Rambling |
[May. 13th, 2005|11:47 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | WWVV - Weird Wisteria Tangles Carrion Christ But Intends... | ] |
I've been bored since I got done with school. I'm moving in to new digs tomorrow (or so I think) and starting work on Monday morning (10-4 are pretty good hours for a summer). Anyway, the previously discussed rent trainwreck worked out towards me living somewhere else this summer. I think it's for the best, although Corona's on the roof of our swank midtown apt would have been cool (although cookouts and libations are a distinct possibility at the new pad).
I've been listening to a lot of new music lately and I came across this review when reading about Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice's first LP (WWVV being, alternately, the best and worst new band I've started listening to). Fitting my love/hate relationship with the band, this is either the best or the worst record review I have ever read. If you've heard Xiao (which, of course, none of you have), you'll understand what he's talking about. Of course, otherwise, it's not really a record review at all. I like it because it doesn't even have the condescending twist ending that so many reviews over on PFM have. It's just a confusing story ... without any mention of the album (beyond quoting lyrics). But, whatever, I'm talking about a guy (not )talking about a record none of you would like or even bother to listen to so I'll stop. I just wanted to pass along a little critical insanity.
PS: One other thing I forgot to mention. I'm on Lightning Bolt's website (a lot). I think I'm getting too old for LB shows. I did not enjoy getting kicked in the knees/punched in the face for an hour and, frankly, LB was way, way off. All the hardcore kids who were seeing them for the first time, though, loved it. Frankly ... I don't know ... it just wasn't the same. Either way, 16 Bitch Pile-Up and Burning Star Core were both freaking amazing. Cinncinnati (or however you spell it) has amazing noise bands (too bad about Atlanta). |
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| Victory |
[May. 6th, 2005|10:37 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | David Bowie - Star | ] |
A word to the wise: Pappy Van Winkle 15 Year Reserve Fine Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey is a great graduation gift and LCC professors are cooler than your professors.
Anyway, I'm graduating tomorrow. It's pretty surreal. Then I'm off to Kentucky to see Lightning Bolt/Burning Star Core and find out where Bourbon comes from.
Exciting. (We may also get to gamble on horses).
That's it. Befitting the night before graduation, there has been drinking and I ened to go to sleep. |
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| Bitter |
[Apr. 29th, 2005|01:10 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | Geography of North Carolina | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Wolf Parade - Grounds For Divorce | ] |
I don't really have any emotional investment in the thing I'm about to bitch about (which calls into question my motives for wanting to bitch about it at all (ergo, I probably do have emotional investment in said matter (ugh, whatever))).
I'm attempting to rent an apartment for the summer. It's a very nice place. Older building on Peachtree. Close to Tech (where I may/may-not be working this summer (more ugh, really)). Anyway, the landlords seem a little strange (of course the landlord-tenant relationship is overly mediated and quite entropic (we get all our news from a math-physics major (and math/physics is a decadent drug culture like the Weimar Republic or Miami in the 1980s (or so I'm told)))). Basically, as far as I've had it explained to me, the people currently renting the place have a lease that charges X amount for a four-bedroom apartment with four people living there. The other units (I love referring to apartments as "units" I sound like such an asshole realtor. Subcultural language games are going to ultimately destroy civilization) in the building are being rented as three-person apartments for X-100. Apparently, though, the leasing agency (which is called the "Cartel Group" (and has got to sell coke)) would rather make X-100 per month than X from a group of poor college students. Frankly, none of said poor college students has any idea why. Reducing the inequality, we are left with 0 < 100, which is clearly true. The "Cartel Group," though, has apparently decided that they would rather the "unit" be a three person apartment (isn't the arbitrary nature of the signifier fun?).
Whatever. So, basically, my formally (ie last week) stable living arrangements are now chaotic again. I find myself, now, standing on the edge of the double abysses (abii?) of graduating (boldly stepping forward) and living at home with the parents for the summer (which isn't the end of the world (you can taste it from there, though (it tastes like peanut butter)). God, so, yeah, more than anything, though, this whole thing got me reflecting about how angry and bitter I am. Because, I suppose the standard response to asshole leasing agencies on the part of someone who is studying to be part of the "liberal academic bias" (I get accused of the dumbest things (I told him that, actually, I don't believe in democratic government at all, so calling me a liberal is specious)) would be to call for the reform of leasing laws or advocate a lease rebellion and seize the means of value production (in this case, the "unit"). Instead, I thought to myself, "self, you need to become a leasing agency so you can dick over college students." I guess, in a way, I am still a Marxist at heart. I just want to spread the pain around instead of the wealth. Is this how capitalists are born? Did Adam Smith have a jack-ass landlord and decide to get wealthier, buy the house from the landlord, and evict the fuck out of her and her crying babies. God I love America. Why does the prospect of being able to screw over economically misfortunate people excite me so much (And does it explain why I haven't had a serious girlfriend in X years (where X is way too fucking long))?
In short, I love/hate Georgia Tech and the world and people. In other words, yet again, some idiot posted something on a blog that didn't accomplish anything. The internet is awesome/shit.
(did any of this make any sense?) |
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| Free Movies |
[Mar. 26th, 2005|08:40 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Dragonforce - Soldiers of the Wasteland | ] |
You like free movies, yeah? Well there will be three free film screenings at Georgia Tech next week (and I will be presenting the movies, as I'm in charge of the festival):
Monday, March 28th 8:00pm
Evil Dead II (1987)
Directed by Sam Raimi
Runtime: 85 mins
Skiles Room 368
Tuesday, March 29th 8:00pm
The Elephant Man (1980)
Directed by David Lynch
Runtime: 124 mins
Skiles Room 368
Wednesday, March 30th 8:00pm
Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux sans visage) (1959)
Directed by Georges Franju
Runtime: 88 mins
Skiles Room 368
You should come out and watch me stumble through three impromptu introductions and then stay for some very awesome movies (Eyes Without a Face is one of the few movies that has ever made me truly uncomfortable). |
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| Grad School |
[Mar. 21st, 2005|11:17 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Mouthus - Throat | ] |
Visited Penn State this week. It was incredibly awesome. I will be living in State College, PA, starting next fall. Ask me about it for details of all the shenanigans (including watching PhD students do keg stands). |
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| FUCK |
[Mar. 3rd, 2005|02:06 am] |
OH FUCK
(so for those of you (all of you) who don't like the kind of music I like, that band line-up is pretty much all of my favorite bands in America right now.).
Also, it is the weekend before my birthday. I think this calls for a two day psychedelic birthday blow-out of epic proportions. |
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[Mar. 2nd, 2005|10:13 pm] |
Yay! |
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