Remix

If anyone is interested, I have 2 entries in the WFMU Rudy Remix Contest.

Click HERE for the blog page.

and, of course, I go by the TZA. MasterG and RudyXXX are minez.

Love, Peace, and Hair Grease,

TZA.

Baldheads, Bears and Bibles

The Bible gets pretty fierce at some points.
What would Jesus do?

Traction:Future Lounge - 11/07

Another installment of my 'Traction:Future Lounge' series.
The hippest 44 minutes of your day.



(right click image and hit 'save link as' to download the mp3)

the previous installment can be found HERE.

this episode includes a track-list for those who wanna be 'in the know'.



enjoy.

Loomer

Today is an overcast, foggy, grey-sky day here in north jersey.

My ipod had the good sense to shuffle in some My Bloody Valentine to enhance the mood. We all know that Loveless is a brilliant and classic recording on its own, but today it shed some light on other music in my mind.

Noise dosen't have to be ugly, harsh and brutal,
it can also be beautiful, dreamlike and surreal.

So much 'noise' music is made to be an abrasive, abusive assault on its listener. I am aware of VERY little noisy music that intends to soothe or seranade.

White noise? Pink noise? Blue noise?
Let's just try to avoid the dreaded 'brown note' at all costs.
Thank You.

The International Space Station sucks.

Back in 1968 Stanly Kubrick had a vision. He made a film called 2001:A Space Odessey. Well, it is now 2007 and we are nowhere near the advancements in science that he had envisioned for us. While it is true that this was a work of fiction, many educated people viewed it as a feasable and reasonable assumption of what the future of space exploration would hold.

Here is a representation of what a space station in 2001 was expected to look like:

This ring-shaped space station had a centrifugal gravity, artifical intelegence and room to spare.

This is the stylized vision of the technological advancements that were predicted:


While no one expects a film to dictate the reality of the future, Arthur C Clarke (the inventor of the geostationary orbit communications satellite) authored the story that the film was based on. He was not attempting to write some far-fetched tale of super-powers and fantasy. He was attempting to predict the possible problems that future reality might be faced with. Even while predicting the problems and pit-falls of the rapidly advancing technologies he still presumed that the human race would be able to create a streamlined, comfortable, productive enviornment outside of earths atmosphere.

This is the actual hunk of garbage cans that we ended up with.


This piece of junk looks like a floating trailer park. It is supposed to be the International Space Station, not the Fred Sanford Memorial Space Station. The TV antennaes on peoples roofs in 1974 looked frighteningly similar. I hope that the new space station does more than get fuzzy reception of 'Welcome Back Kotter' re-runs. Oscar the grouch had better accomadations.

The inside of this cluttered mess is closer to the apartment in the movie Pi than anywhere that you would expect high-level scientents to be preforming meaningful studies.

This is the spacious reality that our elite astronauts occupy:


And the twisted dementia that the obsessed charater in Pi devoloped:


It now makes sense that NASA was going to blast that crazy, diaper wearing, astronaut up there.
Hollywood-----------------------Reality

Santa Claus a PIMP?!?!

Check out THIS ARTICLE
In Australia some Santa Clauses are being asked not to say "HO-HO-HO" because it is a slang term for a prostitute. Um, wouldn't hookers be on the naughty list anyway and therefore not entitled to Saint Nick's holiday generosity? I thought that this kind of silly, over the top, political correctness was confined to the USA. I guess that I was mistaken. It's a good thing that the Easter Bunny doesn't hop around chirping "CUNT-CUNT-CUNT". Yeah, I know, I took it too far. Up yours!



And, of course, my all time favorite Christmas photo:

Rory, Travis, and a frightened Santa.

Small man, BIG laugh

Laughing German Midget

Add to My Profile | More Videos

All Time Brick

This answer comes unwound in real time and TANKS!



Here is the transcription for the hearing impared:

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because uh some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for.

ALL HAIL THE VALNOTT!!!

Furious Fretwork

Fingers don't fail me now!

WORST SLAM EVER

Jake Brown is HARDCORE.

Traction:Future Lounge 7/07

A DJ set of some chill-out by me,
~40 minutes of quality sounds:



(right click image and hit 'save link as' to download the mp3)



enjoy.

The Sounds of Ruin

The digital age has brought us a whole new era in recorded music. The CD, ProTools, home recording, and mp3's. Can anyone argue that the methods of capturing and presenting audio has changed drastically in the past few years? But, does it sound any better? Well, that depends on your definition of better. As recoding techniques have developed in recent history, so have mastering techniques. And one thing that has become an almost universal mantra in post production is "louder is better". I first noticed this in the late 1980's when i heard a Metallica song and a Janet Jackson song back to back. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but they sounded very similar to me and I was put off by that. Over the years I have come to realize that it was the massive amounts of compression applied to both that was the commonality I detected. There were NO dynamics. There was no room in any of the sound, not for an instant. Compressing music that heavily creates an almost white noise effect. There are no peaks and valleys anymore, just a plateau. FM radio had been doing this to their broadcasts for some time, to maximize their range and signal strength. This may create maximum impact when flipping radio stations, but for the critical listener it is a slap in the face. Can you imagine if the quiet parts in some of your favorite classic rock songs were artificially jacked up to the volume of the loud parts? Doing this to songs strips them of their impact, the very thing they were trying to achieve by this technique. I guess that modern radio-rock was never meant to be listened to critically anyway, so there is not much harm done there. But I can't help but feel that processing all music this way has led to the bleak monochromatic soundscape that we live in today. The insightful Bosco Mann has a theory that the recording of music has lost its way sometime in the 1980's. He states that throughout time we have used technological advances to make it easier and easier for someone to express themselves in a musical way. However, he states, sometime in the late 1980's to early 1990's things changed. The recording studio became a very complex and clinical place. I am a huge fan of the digital age, I believe it empowers creative people to do things that they never had the chance to do years ago. But is seems that the big commercial market has responded by trying to be the loudest, not necessarily the best. Screaming louder doesn't make you right, it just makes you obnoxious.

Here are some links to a short article explaining this same principal:

Why New Music Doesn't Sound As Good As It Did
and this video:
The Loudness War

Let's get dynamic!
Your pal,
TZA.

Wang-Wang

"Wang-Wang, Wang-wang, two foot nine.
He'll kick you in the nut sack from behind."

Knee-High Bad-Ass

Is it wrong that this makes me sooo happy?

Keith Richards: "I snorted my father"

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards said in an interview published on Tuesday that he once snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father. He was cremated, and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow," Richards said in the interview, which was posted on NME's Web site.

"My dad wouldn't have cared," Richards said, adding, "It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

The story lives HERE.

My hand is more famous than yours!

It's true, my hand is the white hand in the classic Boys Club commercial. My claim to fame.

Tell it like it is

'keep your kids from getting run over by some hard-on'

The Eagle has landed

"I'm a sky-high-a-trist, I smoke in a flight-suit." - Redman

Americia the Beautiful?

The Second Ammendment never looked soooo creepy!!



Click on the links to enjoy the rest of these gems:
OhGod!
WHY?!?!
Noooo!!
What the hell?

All-Time HAYMAKER

Fedoruk vs Orr Mar 21, 2007

Bollywood magic

And you thought the effects in '300' were bad ass?

got me dizzy

Well, I have vertigo....AGAIN.
It sux. A real 'buzz-kill'.
Here's a little gem I worked up anyway.

Worst Honeymoon Ever

Well, I really didn't expect to be ruining this blog so quickly, but, it seems that I am going to have to. I just received a picture that simply must be shared with the world. Not to be of any help to anyone else, but to bring the horror that my eyes have been subject to out to the rest of you. This is like when someone opens a jar and makes an awful face. The next thing they do is say: "OOOHHH, this STINKS, here, YOU smell it."

So, without further explanation, take a whiff of this :



Maximum Mitch never ceases to amaze.
I say it often, I'll say it again:
MITCH RULES!!

ATTN Skaters : "Stay Out The Bushes!"

Too many skaters are dying in Austrailia lately.
First, Ali Boulala and Shane Cross died in a motorcycle crash, then Ben Pappas turned up dead in a river. Something bad is going on over there.
Curse of the Croc Hunter?

It had to happen.

Well, the time has come.
A blog is born.
I plan to use this space as a totally random thought pile.
I seriously doubt that there will be any rhyme or reason involved.
So, enjoy, and ride high.