freedumb

This is, as far as I can recall, the first ever post I’ve made on this (or any) blog at a cybercafe. And the only reason I’m typing this at a cybercafe instead of at home is because, yeah, exams are over and I’ve been indulging in my growing CoD4 addiction with a couple of friends. Today’s been the best gaming so far, since we’ve managed to play quite a lot with 6 people instead of the usual 4. It’s also been good because I’ve been pretty much owning my buds, although that might have more to do with their lack of ability rather than any sort of real talent on my part.

Exams are over and I feel good about it. Very good. We all do, I assume. It’s, I guess, a mix of both having gotten both Syntax papers out of the way and of having finished the bloody exams. The relief is evident, I guess, due to the fact that people have been making comments about how I’ve been looking particularly happy and/or relieved. And who am I to argue? I am, pretty much. Relieved I am. I’m still not totally in the holiday mood, but hey, they only officially start tomorrow so yea.

I don’t think I’ve celebrated the end of exams like this, ever. Many, many hours of CoD4, dinner at Williams, etcetc. Usually everyone just goes their separate ways, but I don’t know why it’s been kinda different this time. If I hadn’t proposed the idea of playing a few games of CoD4 last Monday, though, things might be very, very different. As it is, we’re all addicted to CoD4, and it shows. Two three-hour sessions a day? Oh yes, pretty much addicted for sure. Sure, I can play at home, but it’s not as fun as, y’know, playing at a cybercafe with friends. The gaming is about the same, but the social element is a bit different. And I enjoy the social element.

I’m finding the widescreen monitor here at this cybercafe really . . . interesting, for lack of a better term. I almost think I want one. Almost.

whee~

I’m tired. Pretty fucking tired. Getting two hours of sleep and being up since 2am (it’s 9pm) now does that to you, I guess. Caught the Manure vs. Arse game, and then, since I had an exam at 9, I (along with the three other buggers I was with, all of whom were sitting for the same exam) somewhat decided to, y’know, not sleep. Or, at least, not much. Yeah. The only way I’ve managed to survive until now is being around friends, making shitloads of noise (TALKTALKTALKTALK) and lots and lots of gaming. Spent three hours at one of the cybercafes here in Kelana Jaya after the exam, most of which were spent playing CoD4, as is the norm these days, although not without a few diversions here and there.

I was just about ready to pass out while watching some episodes of Top Gear just now.

For some odd reason I’ve started gaming much, much more recently. Maybe it was that fateful spur-of-the-moment decision to play some CoD4 with a handful of my friends after our exam on Monday. Maybe, maybe. I was never much of a hardcore FPS guy, much preferring solitary pursuits such as RPGs, but man, I don’t know, I really like CoD4. I’ve started playing Left 4 Dead, too. Which is also great, and, y’know, might just become my next obsession. Shitloads of zombies! Weapons! Blood! Guts! Ace replayability! What more could you want?

One more exam on Sunday and I’m done for this semester. Can’t wait. Will be pretty occupied between now and then, though. I’m playing at a jam session here in KJ tomorrow evening, and then I’ll be hitting the Gudang Noisy stage with xLumbrahx on Saturday. I’ll probably be playing two sets tomorrow, too; one with a (most probably) one-off band playing Misfits, Ramones and Weezer covers and one with xLumbrahx, as a sort of warmup for the aforementioned Saturday gig. At least, that’s the plan. I’m looking forward to my first somewhat-public performance behind the drumkit, too, and have been trying to get more people to attend. Let’s just hope I don’t fuck things up too much. Might want to lay off the slightly overambitious double pedal bits. Yeah, yeah. That might be better.

Oh, and no surprises for guessing what I’m going to be doing after that last paper. Dude who used to have long hair and who likes to use the word “dude,” you better bring it!

(Why lie, I actually suck at CoD4, it’s just that my friends suck more.)

dr. phibes

Mostly music/musical exploits-related entry, because there’s quite a bit of it to write about this time around, surprisingly. That, and because I really can’t be bothered either writing about the major, major problem that’s been haunting/hantuing me lately or ranting/complaining about something silly I saw on the ‘Net/read in he news/heard on tv/saw someone do/etcetc. So, yes. Music.

I’m probably going to postpone getting my collection of short stories printed due to the fact that I’m playing two gigs soon, on the 1st and 2nd of May, with two totally different bands. One band is pretty much new, although it consists of people I’m used to playing with. Playing at a friend’s birthday party-cum-jam session, and we’re planning to bash out some Misfits/Ramones covers. And then xLumbrahx are most probably hitting the stage at Gudang Noisy again on the 2nd, and we haven’t played together since October last year. I’m trying to see if we can add a few more songs to our setlist, one original and two covers, both of which are pretty short and fast.

I was also planning to get some small gear for my noise project (more on that later), but it’ll have to wait until after the 2nd of May to survey the damage, so to say, and start budgeting for both said gear and the aforementioned printing. I could get the gear now, yeah, but then that might leave me with not enough money to pay for my share of rehearsal time/other band-related expenses, and while I have a feeling my bandmates would be willing to pitch in, I’m not too keen on that. Makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, knowing that I myself made the choice to spend my money. If I were forced to spend the money, though, it wouldn’t bother me as much, yeah. But I still wouldn’t be keen on it.

I took my/my brother’s/our acoustic guitar out this morning to class. ‘Twas the somewhat-traditional last-class-of-the-semester potluck thingy and I decided that, what with my cough and slightly sore throat, it’d be a great time to provide some entertainment. I shall have some photos and video up soon, I hope, but basically imagine a hairy fat bloke who can’t really sing in a Pig Destroyer t-shirt and shorts with a pair of oh-so-large sunglasses (y’know, the kind girls wear… and no, they weren’t mine) running through some Weezer covers with a friend before launching into two fully-improvised songs, one about a classmate and one about his lecturer. I felt cool, man. Really cool. Appreciated the applause and praise too. Greatly. Man, I haven’t gotten any of that in a long time, especially applause that didn’t come off as people just trying to be polite.

And, oh, that noise project. As most of you don’t know at all (and, for those of you that do: have you been stalking my Facebook activity recently? Damn), I’ve started to really get into this whole “noise” thing, and have somewhat-officially decided to put Toni! This Is Sal! on a bit of a hiatus to focus on this project, tentatively named mahathirXmohamad. Yeah, mahathirXmohamad. Or any other possible permutations in regards to the capitalisation. Maybe mahathirxmohamad. Yeah.

A split with a friend is going to be released eventually, probably on a Netlabel of some sort, with some of my earlier experiments in noise with my guitar as a soundsource. Over the span of just a few weeks I’ve somewhat transitioned into creating lots of that harsh noise wall stuff akin to, say, The Rita and Werewolf Jerusalem. I didn’t set out to ape them or anything, it just . . . happened. Even before I’d listened to either of the two acts. I’m rocking the ever-cliche setup of a shaker box (not even a metal box!) and some pedals (delay + distortion). Thinking of another distortion, maybe another delay, and deffo an EQ or some sort. Me wants a cheap DOD/Digitech Death Metal.

Thinking of getting a second pedal chain going as well, namely some sort of white noise/static generator (a pocket radio or whatever, probably?) into a distortion and maybe an EQ or something, dunno yet. If I do find the cash to build up that second chain I’ll probably keep it simple, as I’m thinking that it’ll serve more as additional flavour, as well as a sound to kinda fall back on during moments when I feel like cutting out the shaker box action for a while and “lightening up.” Ha. Ha.

Which means I need a mixer. God, all this to make a form of sound that will probably never make me any money? Oh so very me!

miscellaneous

I, in part, caused a friend to be fined RM200 yesterday. He has shitty neighbours. Fuck them. But we had fun, and that’s great. Improvised grindcore assaults for the win.

Certain events yesterday also reminded me of how small this world actually is. And also that, no matter how hard I try, it’s impossible for me to get to know someone that no-one else I know knows. Quite literally every friend/acquaintance I make and I always have at least two mutual friends/acquaintances. It’s getting a bit silly now, if I may be honest.

I’ve closed the book, so to speak, on new material for the book/short story collection/zine/chapbook and am now working on the sequencing of stories as well as, of course, editing and proofreading. I might need some help with that, anyone up for some proofreading?

There’s a faint possibility that I’ll eventually be releasing another collection of stories this year, although if it does happen it might be a split with this other bloke. We’ll see how it goes. We seem to share a love of absurdity and boldfaced lies.

monsoon sonata

I am most probably going to be releasing a split with a friend of mine sometime soon-ish, and it’s going to be quite, quite noisy. He’s got the whole digital noise/manipulations thing going on, while I rock the guitar into delay (Ibanez DE7) into two distortion pedals (Zoom Tri-Metal and a Beta Aivin Heavy Metal HM-100) route. I think my material’s actually quite good, surprisingly! It’s probably going to be an Internet/netlabel release, but who knows, maybe in the future we’ll graduate to CDrs?

Speaking of gear, I do hope to add an octave or pitch shifter pedal to my setup within the year, but that depends. On money, mostly.

Man, I really want to perform live. Wish that friend of mine was still here in Malaysia (and not studying in Aussie) so that we’d be able to wreck people’s eardrums together. Oh well. Kinda regret selling my amp now, since I’d need an amp to perform live and, well, I don’t know anyone that I can borrow one from.

The zine/chapbook/book is coming along pretty fine, too, if anyone’s wondering. I’ve written some pretty good stories, I feel. Mostly long(er) ones, too, although they’re still pretty short by most standards. Length isn’t really important anyway, is it.

jud jud

Got my hands on the four expired rolls of slide film I had a friend buy for me today (two rolls of Fuji Velvia100F and two rolls of Kodak Ektachrome 100VS). I then finished up the roll of BW400CN in my XA and popped a roll of that Ektachrome in it. Looking forward to finishing the roll up and seeing the results. Am probably going to have it cross-processed so yeah, should be fairly unpredictable.

The slight problem of printing/replication for the ‘zine/book/chapbook/whatever has pretty much been solved, too. I’m most probably going to get it all done at, surprise surprise, the Ricecooker. Now it’s probably just a matter of “when” and not “if” in regards to the book-thingy. It all depends on how fast I can write and how much of that writing is actually good.

let’s hope i don’t jinx this shit

Remember me once saying that I was planning to put out a ‘zine/chapbook of my short prose? Well ages after first stating my intention to do so, I can safely say that, yes, it will most probably happen. I know, this is so unlikely of me, but yes, if I may be allowed to repeat myself, I’m quite confident in the fact that it will indeed happen. I can’t give you any sort of timeframe since I’m still working on material for it as I type this. Some of the stuff I’ve put up here on the blog over the past few months will be in it, but I don’t plan on putting any old material (read: anything from before this year) in it. At least not in their orignal forms.

Sure, my last attempt at self-publishing (a CDr) fell flat on its face and left something of a sour taste in my mouth, but there’s really no harm in giving it another go, eh? Well, ok, sure, there’s always the danger of it not going down well and thus being stuck with stuff no-one wants to read and some sort of financial deficit but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Potential cover:

I quite like it, if I may be honest. Reminds me a bit of the cover of Joy Divison’s Closer cross-bred with the cover of Bauhaus’ In the Flat Field. Somewhat. But then again not really.

astigmatism

Finished up the roll of film in my XA and dropped it off at the store today. Got the scans and negative back a few hours later. Will start uploading soon-ish. Maybe once I finish uploading the good stuff from this roll of Acros, maybe sooner.

I’m trying to come up with a few names for the obligatory thanks list for the EP’s liner notes. We’re not doing individual thanks lists so I’m going to have to keep things simple… I’m sure my more well-connected bandmates will have more important people to thank. Haha.

Seems like the EP’s going to be coming out kinda soon-ish. Whoo, I’m excited.

drone

Goh Lee Kwang’s performance earlier tonight was awesome. Really, really enjoyed it. I also enjoyed hanging out with the Findars guys afterwards and engaging in a bit of acoustic guitar-and-percussion jamming, although I really need to work on my free jam skills. I started out wanting to do a bit of the whole raga thing, but with acoustic guitar or maybe a bit of the whole free improv thing but I soon realised that I’m total crap at that shit and thus decided to rein things in and focus on laying down grooves with occasional flavourings of lame attempts at dissonance and jazz stuff. Or something like that.

gömul vísa um vorið

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, eh? Haha, yeah, four days is “a while” when it comes to my usual standards, I guess.

I’ve been a bit unwell recently. Thankfully, however, I haven’t (yet?) succumbed to any sort of fever, but I have been coughing a lot, and my throat’s a bit sore, although it’s not that bad right now. Not bad at all, actually.

Things have been a bit slow recently. Haven’t been out shooting in a while, which means that I’ve actually been wasting the Zinc-Air battery in my OM-1 (those only last a month or so, give or take). I do plan to rectify it soon though, particularly since I’m looking forward to not only seeing how Fuji’s Acros 100 is but also because I have a roll of Tri-X 400 to burn through, and I am definitely looking forward to seeing the results I get from that.

As you might expect, I’ve been writing a lot too, although I’ve managed to refrain from posting any of the new stuff on the Internet (so far). I did post this one up on Facebook, but that’s about it. Might be posting some more soon, although I’m not sure what. I feel quite good about some of the stuff I’ve written recently and I’m looking forward to hopefully being able to release it on an unsuspecting—yeah right, probably the only people that will get the “book” (for lack of a better term) are the people that I’ll have endlessly pimped it to—and very limited public. It’s not about making money or becoming well-known or anything of the sort, though: I want to do this because, well, I want to. Teringin, if I may. At least if I ever have to do it again in the future (for a ‘zine or whatever) I’ll know what I’m doing. Roughly, at least.

With writing comes reading, and I’ve been reading a lot of both Rabih Alameddine’s Koolaids and Etgar Keret’s Missing Kissinger. It helps, yes, that both books aren’t novels: Keret’s book is a collection of short stories and Alameddine’s, while it has a storyline, is very non-linear and structured in (generally very short) vignettes that allow me to skip through it at will, reading whichever vignette(s) I choose. Koolaids is probably one of the best books I’ve read recently and has rocketed to the upper echelons of my “favourites” list, as has Missing Kissinger. I got Koolaids for RM9 at the Pay Less in One Utama too, which, I think you’ll agree, is obscene. Has to rank among the best RM9 I’ve ever spent.

And yeah, Keret is Jewish, so what.

Aside from that it’s been mostly lazing around, CoD4 online and lots of  kinda-wierdo kinda-noisy music (Kuupuu, Islaja, Fursaxa, Hospitals, Sightings, Pocahaunted, Anaksimandros, Kemialliset Ystävät, John Zorn, Naked City, Kría Brekkan, etcetc). It’s good shit. I feel so trendy right now.

No updates in regards to the xLumbrahx EP, don’t know what’s up with that.

And, since I’m in the mood (read: I was bored and looking through my photos and felt like uploading something), here’s a photo: