spinning drum blog

So I spent the weekend geeking out, as my roommate calls it, at UBC for the 3rd annual Bloggers Conference Northern Voice. I got a heavy dose of the social software scene and had a chance to integrate myself into blogger world, which until now I had never really identified myself as part of. Sure I have a blog, doesn’t everyone? I thought when I set up my little wordpress wonder two years ago, I would simply compliment the Spinning Drum web site with a random note side page dedicated to my turntable discoveries. It was a place to work out ideas, cast them into the digital ocean and hope they’d float by a few musically inclined web surfers. Well, my naivety about my simple little blog was shed this past weekend as I immersed myself f2f in the real world bloggisphere.

If you look at a web site like a house, the blog, I thought, was like a side room, maybe a small bedroom off the kitchen, near the back, but now I realized for many it’s the front door whose space extends into the living room. The blog like the living room, gets more of the foot traffic than the rest of the house, and it was a virtual place to meet and greet, more often than not the most active entertainment room for most of your guests. Northern Voice gave me a little paradigm shift and reinvigorated my blogging interests. I feel a renewed commitment to mixing it up in the blog world.

At Northern Voice the big draw for me, aside from the philosophical explorations of why we blog and who the hell cares, were the podcasting workshops. Dave Olson’s The Three Ps of Podcasting:Plan, Produce and Promote was my favorite. With no more tech-aid than a stack of paper and a paint brush, Olson made one of the most creative and hilarious presentations I’d seen in a long time. Better yet the piece was not only easy to understand and incredibly informative, but he also affirmed the importance of a beverage while producing a podcast. It’s these little details that allow you to get through some of the mind numbing parts inherent to digital hobbies. Getting your podcast levels right was affirmed by the Levelator presentation which gave the audience a recording 101, and if nothing else, reiterated the evils of clipping. The main bent of the whole presentation was to advertise the fact that this new software freebie could turn any voice based podcaster into an intermediate sound engineer through a drop and drag process. Providing newbie sound engineers with a brainless way to even out voice recordings is a worthy endeavour, maybe the corp should apply for charity status given how many ears they may save.

Overall, the most important thing I walked away with besides the importance of the blog to the evolution of humanity was I got a handle of what to do with my feeds (burn baby burn), and signed up with feedburner, technoratis and all the other rss agents that promise to deliver my blog to the masses.

So in the end what does it mean to the spinningdrum? Well perhaps more frequent blog posts, now you can subscribe; and as of last night, I let feed burner write and sort all my feeds. Sort of a more work less work equation for me and a less work less work equation for readers. Thank you Northern Voice.

For notes on the conference and all the good blog stuff you missed check the Northern Voice Wiki

Want to get podcasting try these tutorials
The Art of Podcasting
Podcast-how to
Podcasting from wikipedia

Anytime I fell a little rough around the edges it’s invariably because my records are out of sorts. Strewn all around this cubicle I call my studio, records are crammed into crates, tucked under my mixing desk, shelved between cd piles, propped up against speakers, and generally anywhere they’ll fit. Being that clear floor space is a rare commodity, my cat these days has taken to sleeping on the record crates at night and curling around my latest selections during the day. I like how she’s made do with the space the crunch. I wish I could do the same and trade in my bed for even more working space. And to think, I’m only a minor vinyl addict who’s been relegated to merely romancing the remix since my vinyl buying budget got the mid-winter-poverty cut.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I throw myself into the mix with the orderliness of a chef with a kitchen clean-up crew behind him. Except I don’t have such luxury – no vinyl tidying entourage for me – and days go by till I reorganize the record mess strewn on what I call the cutting room floor. It would certainly help if after 8 years I learned to stick a record back in its sleeve once finished with it. This skill still eludes me. I swear to god the moment I pull a record from a sleeve, the latter instantly goes missing – sometimes totally unlocatable for days . I’ve tried all the tricks, making a separate pile, sticking the cover half out the crate; nonetheless, sleeves disappear consistently into the over crammed vinyl void under my mixing desk. If they designed clapper technology for record sleeves, I’d be all over it.

I remember watching Grand Wizard Theodore a few years ago in a cut and scratch frenzy that ended in a blindfolded needle drop. He just pulled out record after record, mixed them for a few seconds then added them to the mounting vinyl tower beside him. No doubt there must have been a little vinyl tidying crew for post show clean-up; but still, within the demands of quick cut and paste, record sleeves seemed superfluous. I felt a little redeemed, and I imagined when you’re the Grand Wizard, you probably never have to deal with a record sleeve again if you don’t want.

For me, whether due to lacking some organizational gene or not, this little refiling ability is one of the hardest for me to master. I hate to say it, but it honestly begets a new years resolution. Don’t get the wrong impression though; I do sort my vinyl regularly enough, most often when unpacking from a show. Most recently I captured the process on my hard drive in my I8 mix. Selections randomly pulled from my Intention new year’s record bag, unplanned but in the flow, I8 is my first tribal techno throwdown for 2007.

i8:tribal techno mix

So today I returned to practicing with my left hand on the transformer. I switch back and forth, not so much undecided, but with the goal of ambidextrous proficiency. What I’m amazed at is even though my left hand may exhibit a certain rusty finger flare on the crossfader, nonetheless, its overall ability has still improved. This improvement occured despite my left-handed laziness and recent penchant for right-handed only transforming. So regardless of the fact that for months my left-hand barely touched the crossfader, when I asked it to do so, it hadn’t lagged so far behind.

There is no doubt in my mind that a daily dose of juggling nourishes the skilz of both hands, no matter which is on the record and which on the fader. Invariably it makes little difference to the brain in regards to the fact both are asking for highly tuned motor control. It is how lubricated the connection between the left and right side of the brain, the ease of which they work in harmony, that really fuels skill development. It reminds of the fact that while both my little and big muscles do much of the work, the real magic starts in the mind.

spins and scratches from the studio b session
ambidextrous take 1