The Pool Parties are in full swing at the East River Park, which is about 5 blocks from Death By Audio. The summer lineup is pretty great, and the Dirty Projectors put on a phenomenal show yesterday. The view from the park is also amazing, and between bands you can lounge in the grass, play dodgeball, grab a drink in the 21+ section, or play basketball.
Needless to say, it's quicker for me to walk there than try to find a place to lock my bike.
Anyway, I went to Handmade Music at the 3rd Ward and saw some amazing uses of accelerometers and solenoids in digital sequencers. If you don't know what that means, that's okay. I went home and started looking into homemade accelerometer projects, and discovered Johnny Lee who used the Wii remote to do some amazing things. Check these videos out:
I grabbed a Wii remote and figured out how to use it as a computer mouse. It truly is one of the most versatile inventions of our time. It can be connected to anything via bluetooth. I'm working on developing a program that uses the Wii remote in conjunction with some of the projects here at Death By Audio. Not going to release anything until it's done, obviously.
In my perusing of TED.com, I also came across another video that is half amazing and half really scary:
After seeing something like this, I wonder how people are going to view privacy, and how much time will actually be spent in the real world as opposed to the virtual world. This video also convinced me to never buy an iPhone. I never want to have internet access all the time, though I'm sure it will happen within 5 years to all phones.
On one last note, I wandered over to the show space last week to see what was going on. I managed to catch the set of the band Religious Girls
They're basically a spastic explosion of drums and synthesizers reminiscent of early Animal Collective. They played on the floor and sprawled into the crowd with their excessive amounts of drums. It was hard to tell who was officially in the band and who decided to just pick up a drum and join in. At one point, one of the members took a floor tom to the middle of the room and spread blue and red paint all over the head. Everyone dipped their hands in the mix and walked through the crowd, smearing it on everyone's face. They put on quite the live show, and as I walked back into DBA afterwards covered in blue paint, I was greeted by a "what the fuck just happened to you" reaction. It was glorious. Best band I've seen in a while.
Everything has been great. If only I can get some kind of musical project together, things would be ideal.
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