The Null Device Blog

There’s something very gratifying about walking down the street and seeing your own face on someone’s tshirt.

Okay, lots of people, good crowd.
Hey, what’s with the 8-foot DMZ, folks? We’re the locals! C’mon up!
Ratio of people I don’t know to people I know strongly favors the former. I still like that for some reason.
Wha? Backing tracks? That’s weird, I thought Matt was doing intros. I’ll say something witty about it…
“I guess Matt decided we don’t deserve an intro.”
Ah. Yes. Brilliant. Lets leave the banter to the frontman for the rest of this set, eh?
Entry coming up…
[hits first chord]
Holy fuck, I sound like God. What did Adam do to the monitors between soundcheck and now? this kicks ass!
Whoops, where did beat one go?
Damn, where am I?
That’s okay, the keyboards are swoopy and arpeggiated, no one’ll know the difference. Hell, I don’t know the difference. Take a guess…
…ooh, ouch, full beat early. Let it slide under you…there. Ride it out.
…
…
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disconnected tonight, little stiff, lower the left shoulder, relax
…
c’mon, let’s breathe here, dude
feeling stiff, don’t go for the scalar bit in the second solo, back off and pull the sleight of hand
that’s good, add the 16th note triplets in these two bars
dammit, missed high C, bend it
arm over, it looks cool
…okay, not too bad, intro hurt, let’s wind up.
*whew* fuck I need water, chug it
hmmm…there is a significantly larger quantity of people by Chuck and Eric than me. Somehow I feel I’d best not devote too much mental energy to that thought.
…y’gotta love a song with a good wakkachikkawakka in it.
…
…
Solo, just pound this
*grunt*
fuck, it feels like my left leg’s gonna buckle, notch the wah and switch legs, grab a note and shake it to cover…
thank god. damn that hurts, too fat
…
ow fucking legs fucking wah ow ow ow
…
easy part, rockstar face! grimace!
“C’mon Madison!! Put your hands together!!”
Oh nice. That’s not cliche as all — holy shit! People are clapping!
Vocals are nice and warm tonight, too. Man these monitors sound good. Adam is god.
…
Whoop! Song’s done, carry over one bar, quick fade, no one’s the wiser. Where was my cue?
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bounce bounce bounce bounce, split, don’t stop the rock, bobby brown move!
…
keep it in dorian, no tritone, it’s darker.
aaaaannd polish it in phrygian, love that flat second
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whew, need more water chug it
big one, bounce bounce bounce
someone’s giggling, can’t blame them bet I look funny
go for the palm muted sixteenths on the back of this intro
bleah, that was a mistake, keep it huge, keep it huge
lower the shoulder, breathe
arm-over mute, keep the hammer-ons loose
man, I know I can cram more notes in here, gotta work on that
32nds, nice and rubbery, emphasize the flat sixth
stiffening up, breathe, fucker
okay, sustained, feels fucking good. give ‘em an iron maiden up on the monitor
work the tongue!
well, that sure as hell got a laugh. glad to hear some folks got a good sense of humor out there
…
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whoa. boobies.
…
right hand’s feeling good, let’s tremolo pick this bit, double it at the end
yeah, fuck yeah. smooth
…
no time for water, here it comes
punk as fuck leap! dig the 6-inch vert
well, that didn’t go over. felt good to me, though; fuck ‘em.
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keep this tapping bit smooth, intonation’s been bad on high E lately
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someone’s yelling at me, who’s yelling at me? sidestage, probably a photographer needs me out of the way of Eric, I’ll back up
water, sweet sweet water
last one, the big cover
…
heh. everyone clapped louder for the backing tracks than me and chuck. that’s friggin’ hilarious
Hm. better announce Eric so he can get his due
“And Eric Oehler on vocals and everything else!”
Ah, good, they went nuts. Super cool
Hey! I hit the intro dead on! Keep it smooth, sit back, gotta put this one in the hips.
shit. clean tone spikes like 10dB as usual. back off the right hand
…
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oh ouch, I’m a half-step flat on backups. listen more than you sing, jackass, c’mon, think!
…
okay, same solo order as beginning
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now reverse the solos
bend it right on…
falsetto, keep it tight, keep it tight
E major
*large exhalation*
god yes. is this what I love? fuck yeah! this is it! this is what I love!

Every album has a track that just takes forever and overwhelms the hell out of me.

On “Crimson” it was “Stoplights” – the whole thing was me doing weird one-shot sound programming and I wasn’t sure it’d all fit together until the very end.

On “Sublimation” it was “Fly Skyward” which got re-recorded form the ground up three times. I was never entirely happy with the vocal cadences.

On this one, it’s “Someone Else.” Most of the track is fine, I’ve just never been quite happy with the intro. Add to that the fact that it was once a single 12-minute song with “Sevgilim”, and it’s been reworked a few times. I’ve just spent three hours in the studio tweaking a single bass drum hit. I just need one big thunderous cavernous thud. I think I’ve got it, although a real sample of thuinder would be better.

(Oooh, it’s raining. Be right back…

Damn, can’t sample the rain. Mic cable’s not long enough to go anywhere other than the basement window, and all I hear there is the water cascading out of the neighbors’ uncleaned gutters. )

Well, anyway, with the compo of the more ambient intro that builds a little slower than it did previously, I think I’m on the right track. And I have to say, the string-and-duduk breakdown in the “middle 8″ is really, really nice.

Kraftwerk has a new album and single out, called “Tour De France Soundtracks” and “Tour De France 2003″ respectively.

Now, the songs actually called “Tour De France” sound nothing like the 1982 original. The lyrics are differnet, the music is different…and yet three reputable reviews I’ve read classify the new version as a “remix/remake.”

Which leads me to question just what a remix is these days. When Aphex Twin “remixed” NIN it seemed a bit clearer, since he basically took a track, made it into a snare drum sound, and wrote a whole new song around it – but had the good sense to give it a different name. With so many songs being wholly rebuilt by a remixer – when does it stop being a derivative work of the original? When does it become a track of its own?

Something to devote some brain cycles to.

Well, I’ve had a day or two to catch up on sleep, relax a little and pontificate.

I’m still tired. I think this means if I want to gig more I’m going to have to get into better shape. If it takes 2 days to recover from a show, then touring is just out of the question.

Something interesting to think about for me – everyone said it was our best show yet, although technically I screwed up worse than at any previous gigs. Ned said he had pretty much the same issue – he claimed it was one of their worst technical gigs – and yet I didn’t really notice. It kind of proves to me that a band’s enthusiasm really can make up for some mistakes. Something to ponder anyway.

I’m deeply glad I got to hang out with the guys from Iris, especially Andrew and Blitz. It’s strangely reassuring to know that there are guys like that out there making music – it didn’t hurt that both of them shared a lot of my opinions about modern music.

I regret not getting to talk with Voltaire more – the brief interactions I got were that he was very professional and very funny, but I maybe talked with him for 20 minutes total the whole weekend. Same was truew with B00le – I got to have a short chat with Br0d but by the time I really got to talk with them they were all very drunk.

And while I risked shin splints, the leaping that accompanied Stromkern, I think it was worth it. I was half expecting the floor to give way and a news report on “Tragedy strikes local nightclub” kind of thing to occur, but none of that happened.