“The relative sizes of different sensory representations in naked mole-rats S1. The chart on the right shows the percentage of cortex devoted to different body parts. On the left the different body parts are illustrated according to their cortical proportions. This “mole-ratunculus” provides a graphic illustration of the cortical magnification of the incisors and head (illustration by Lana Finch).”
“Olfactory training of bees has been used to locate mines and weapons of mass destruction. The Hybrid Insect Micro Electromechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) program is aimed at developing technology to provide control over insect locomotion, just as reins are needed for effective control over horse locomotion.”
After reading Paintwork I’m reminded of and sensitive to the fact that people respond to the mastery-of-the-thing inherent in analog, but damn, I would like to see this in AR.
Herpetologists at Conservation International have rediscovered the exotic Sambas stream toad (aka Borneo rainbow toad, aka Ansonia latidisca) after 87 years of evasion, and released the first ever photographs of the brightly colored amphibian.
The spindly-legged species was last seen in 1924 and European explorers in Borneo only made monochrome illustrations of it. A decade or so later, the CI and the SSC Amphibian Specialist Group added the species to its World’s Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Frogs campaign.
“Brain’s connective cells are much more than glue”
Glia cells, named for the Greek word for “glue,” hold the brain’s neurons together and protect the cells that determine our thoughts and behaviors, but scientists have long puzzled over their prominence in the activities of the brain dedicated to learning and memory. Now Tel Aviv University researchers say that glia cells are central to the brain’s plasticity — how the brain adapts, learns, and stores information.
We had a suspicion they were way more important than just “structural support” in our experiments with adult neurogenesis.
The brain is like a social network, says Prof. Ben-Jacob. Messages may originate with the neurons, which use the synapses as their delivery system, but the glia serve as an overall moderator, regulating which messages are sent on and when. These cells can either prompt the transfer of information, or slow activity if the synapses are becoming overactive. This makes the glia cells the guardians of our learning and memory processes, he notes, orchestrating the transmission of information for optimal brain function. (via)
Above: A pic of my glias, just hanging out, being awesome.
Okay, roll call. Who are you? Where ya from? What is it you do? Why do you do it? Why didn’t you bring me gifts?
Darren Deicide. I was born in Chicago, but I reside in Jersey City, NJ. I play rhythm, blues, and rock, and I do it stripped down to the core. I do it because I really just can’t help myself. If I weren’t able to rock, you’d probably have your next active shooter on your hands. Why the hell do you want gifts?
Specific inspirations/heroes/substances-of-choice?
I don’t have any heroes. I draw inspiration from the music I was steeped in as well as observing the human animal and being sure not to take life too seriously. And a true professional doesn’t admit to anything, so don’t ask me about substances.
If you could fight any historical figure, fictional or non, who would it be?
Jesus, because I know I’d win.
Personally, though I miss Mtv’s heyday, I’m pleased it died, along with commercial radio. We’ve witnessed a swath of open ground for indie musicians online in it’s wake, of course. There was a period wherein many of us were lost on where to find new music, such was the monopoly on music. You guys are a touch younger. Did that switch have any impact on your digs, or am I just an old codger, still holding onto yesteryear?
You’re probably an old codger still holding onto yesteryear. I’m also glad MTV is gone. Yeah, the heyday was a very interesting time for music. There are certainly some great musicians that were able to use the music video medium in profoundly creative ways, but MTV stopped playing music videos long ago and became a vehicle for “reality” shows. I say good riddance. Besides, the internet is a vast, uncontrolled terrain, so the possibility for something interesting to sprout from it keeps me excited about what may come. I’ve been playing shows for about 5 years now, and in all that time the internet has been around. It’s business as usual in my world. Honestly, the internet has only exposed my music to a wider audience. The question is whether or not that is counterbalanced by the oversaturating effect the internet has. The medium is flooded with so much tooling around rather than artistry, so I do think the internet public is suffering from a type of numbness.
For me, the real music scene is in dives. Clubs that pack in 5 or 6 bands a night, for a small entry fee. There’s a visceral connectivity there, that you simply don’t find, via a screen. T.V. or computer (Although, clearly, the net offers many pros > cons). This was essential in my running into you lot. Do you think you’d ever go for stadium shows, if that sort of “success” found you?
I agree wholeheartedly about the dives. Recently I went to see AC/DC in Giants Stadium, and while I love that band, the show was just an overly bloated spectacle where AC/DC was just a blip in my vision, and the security clearly wasn’t going to allow too much fun to happen. It was strange, and I may be writing a song about it.
Anyway, I don’t think my live show lends itself to the impersonal spectator atmosphere created by stadium shows. So while it’s a funny little fantasy to envision, I don’t think jocks, weekend warriors, and others who like that sort of passive entertainment are ever going to see eye to eye with what I’m doing. My shows are a chance for people to dance like there’s nobody watching not sit on their asses and be lame.
Speaking of, how has touring affected your life?
I love touring. I can’t do it too much because that lifestyle can be physically and emotionally rigorous. I still need a place to call home. Still, I tour many times a year, and love every second of it. It’s especially great to go back to places where people remember the last time you played there. If I go to your town, and it kicks ass, I’ll probably be back again.
Are there any art forms outside of music, that you’re excited about, currently?
Yes.
Name/link one site you think Gonzo Squad readers should check out?
No.
Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff? There is no wrong answer. Definitely Bela Lugosi, but I’d take a good Peter Lorre psychodrama over either of them any time.
So, Darren, There’s a healthy LaVeyan sense of humor throughout your work. Often times, Satanists miss the point and become uber serious caricatures of themselves. What keeps you honest?
I think you’re going to see Satanists apply the philosophy of Satanism to their lives in very unique ways, after all, Satanism makes individualism a sacrament. Authentic exceptionality is encouraged and embraced, whereas in the rest of society it’s only encouraged when it’s prepackaged and sold. The way an individual Satanist manifests their uniqueness may not resonate with you, but it doesn’t make them less honest.
I’ve always been attracted to great showmen who understood the paradigms they were working with and sought to shake their premises. Anton Lavey was one, but there are others. These brave people keep mass programming on its toes and galvanize the way people understand art and expression. I think that’s one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed the elements of punk culture that have been influenced by Situationism and Dadaism.
Within these philosophies, there is a conscious effort to damage the presumptions of any given scenario one finds themself in through the use of aesthetic terrorism or direct action. Situationists called this strategy “detournement”. I really like that idea. It opens up a whole other can of worms within iconoclasm.
But I’m not particularly interested in trying to save humanity from its own march towards entropy. I am only interested in being responsible for myself. In the context of art, that means being a terror to all the principles that I believe are holding responsible and productive people back from gifting society with their contributions and calling out all the useless people for what they are. And believe me, they are everywhere…from the highest social echelons to the lowest dregs. America is disordered in ways that often blows my mind. But like I said, I don’t consider my guiding principles some sort of noble mission that I have to bestow on the masses. Fuck the masses. Most of them ordain their servitude and wouldn’t even know what to do with freedom if it ran up and smacked them in the face. Such self-loathing is contemptible, and if no one is willing to say it then I will, if not for anything but to let fellow free-thinking individualists on the margins know that they are not alone. And if it’s funny, well then har har har motherfuckers.
I specifically speak of those who take a note from mall goths, in that they never allow themselves to smile unless they’re doing something “dark”. Hehe. It’s so rare that I encounter Satanists concretely on their feet, I forget the rest of your are out there. Apologies. Hail. You answered my next five questions with your one answer. And rather well, so moving on…
No apologies necessary. I know the type, and often the presumed Satanists are much different than those who actually study Satanism. They should spend less time on their makeup and more time on their brains. Anyway…
I’ve gone over your work repeatedly and the one artist who keeps coming around in the brainpan, is Screamin’ J. Hawkins. I, by no means, imply rip-off status or even homage, but you two seem to share the same fire, and well, fucking boogie. There’s a fair amount of his influence in Psychobilly, but not oft in punk/blues. Or maybe it’s just punk is rarely infused with humor, anymore. Is there a connection for you?
I love Screamin’ J Hawkins, but he’s sort of an anomaly that transcends any easy box. Maybe that’s the connection between him and me. Really though that’s just rock n roll at work. Rock n roll, more than anything else, has become more like an artistic philosophy than a sound. The only commonality one could find throughout rock n roll is that there is always a relationship between rhythm and blues and an urge to push the boundaries of propriety. Aside from that, one generation’s rock n roll may not have much of anything in common with another generation’s. I think that’s why rock n roll always seems to evolve.
And punk has lost its sense of humor. I blame activists and pop-punkers. They’ve hijacked a great deal of punk. The activist lot lost their sense of humor a long time ago when the politically correct took over. If you’re not willing to offend anyone, you’ve resigned yourself to a sort of bland impotence that is the mark of the hopelessly irrelevant. On the other hand, the pop-punkers found a way to sterilize and package the image. Safe punk is an oxymoron and should be cast into obsolescence along with “soft rock”, “christian metal”, and other laughable art forms.
Speaking of fighting back, you’ve been at Ever-Reviled Records since 98. Any sign of winning/losing? I mean in a general sense. From the perspective of a musician in trenches, what’s the battle field looking like at the moment/since 98?
I generally don’t pay much attention to mainstream trends of music anymore. I got bored with that a long time ago. Perhaps when I was younger and more idealistic I’d pay close attention to it. At the time, I thought I was sort of studying an enemy to try and find vulnerable openings, but as time goes on, it’s become clear to me that some precepts are immovable. Mainstream music will mostly be a lame attempt to pander to the pacified, and the industry will always be defined by who you know. That’s become even more so with the advent of digital production.
Now that is certainly an observable difference. Nowadays, you don’t have to be a virtuosic musician to play music. Hell, you don’t even have to be a musician! We now have programs for that. So one way that music has clearly changed is that, in general, the human herd is even more disconnected from the values that once made music a magical experience. The innovative geniuses have been buried in a sea of plastic. The average person is easier to please than ever. Give them a simple hook that they could sing along to and some beat programmed by a computer, and they’re happy. Lace it with some meaningless and horribly superficial lyrics, and you definitely have yourself a hit. It also helps to tie it to some public soap opera that mass media can latch on to. That gives something for the pathetic to vicariously live through.
It’s hard to say whether this phenomenon is a win or a loss for music. I suppose someone may come along and use the digital palette in such a way that an undeniable level of achievement will be acknowledged, but the burden of proof is higher given the easily attainable possibilities of the medium, and I wonder, considering the values of the mainstream, would anybody even care? My sense is that most music of value is far too sophisticated or unpretentious for the average person and would have the effect of a tree falling in the woods. In order for there to be some massive change in this department, there would have to be a shift in social conditions that would make people fed up with this contrived nonsense. You would think the current state of the world, from global warming to religious warfare, would be fuel enough to drive people away from trite pop music. Such is not the case. It will have to get worse.
No doubt, apathy is truly *the* ultimate modern pop song. No need for notes, really, as the masses who consume said “music” don’t even care for music. Or art of any sort, so far as I can tell. The bad guys are winning. But, I can’t help but foster a shred of hope, given that the same digital age that’s bastardized music, is also a breeding ground for folks like yourself. Our meeting was pure chance, but chances are someone would’ve sent me a link to your stuff after your performance. That ever-useful MySpace profile, eh? Love it or hate it, it’s a bloody handy tool, if utilized properly. The bleeting throngs aside, there are those of us out there, fighting against the stampede, who adore music that moves us…instead of the variety that just barks at us about buying space-age toothpaste, personal winnebago-tanks and edible underwear. I just went off to nowhere, didn’t I..? I guess that was about hope. I am new at this interviewy biz.
Oh yes, that is certainly true. The digital age has brought the internet, and the internet has allowed many outlets for niches to find each other. That is great news for music aficianados. Never before has music been more readily accessible as it is now. Of course, with that leveled playing field comes a wellspring of nonsense, so even that has its positive and negative. If you could use your music as a collaborative tool in another medium, which would it be? Anything else tickling your fancy. Film, theatre, street performance, etc?
I approach collaboration very organically and don’t have any specific aspirations. One area of expression that I really enjoy is writing. I was a columnist for The Aquarian Weekly but was cut from the fray when they downsized. In general, print mediums are collapsing under the weight of the internet. But I’d like to compile those articles into a publication, and that’s an idea that I have on the burner. I also made a cameo in the movie “Clown Dad”, which will be released on Troma Entertainment and even has Lloyd Kaufman in it. There’s nothing like a sanctioned and recorded pie fight. That was fun, and I always enjoy acting. I’ve been in theatre and other things like it. When possible, I like to dabble in that realm.
As far as what is tickling my fancy goes, I’m really enthralled by the surge of neo-blues that is coming out of labels like Alive Records, Fat Possum Records, and our own label, Ever Reviled Records. Jersey City has an excellent crop of people exploring this terrain. My own tastes are quite fringe and diverse. I draw quite a bit of creative expression from these sources. There are so many that it would be absurd to list them all here, but generally speaking, I tend to find value in art that has been lost in the memory hole. I really enjoy finding those gems in the cultural dustbin, blowing them off, and giving them a spin. I’m being literal about that too. Vinyl is definitely a medium that has my attention, and I’m often sifting through records at shops and swaps.
Final query: If no one reads this article, do I get immunity?
Miss Pattern and I just booked our hotel room in Flordia for Sept 15/16…. We’ve talked a lot about making this trip, and now it’s gonna happen. You see, the Space Shuttle fleet is being retired by NASA this year, and the 16th of Sept is the final launch day scheduled. I’m super excited to get to see the final shuttle launch, as I’e seen 2 shuttle launches live when I was a kid. Though the feeling is a little bittersweet….
Prez. Obama has cut funding to NASA due to financial woes (understandable)… but this means that the Constellation program is being scrapped. The Orion capsule was to be the next generation of manned space craft as part of this program sort of like a giant Apollo capsule, the Orion (and it’s giant Ares rockets) were to ferry larger crews to orbit, to the international space station, and then onto the moon again. But all that is done.
Instead, for the foreseeable future, American Astronauts will be hitching rides on the Soviet Soyuz capsules to the space station. And Obama seems to be lending his verbal support to priate sector “space” travel such as Virgin Galactic.
All of this is very bittersweet for me. In my lifetime “manned space exploration” has been nothing more than flying around the Earth or cargo ferrying to the space station, and while I understand that this work is crucial to understanding life in space, I feel let down. When I was a kid I envisioned man not only going back to the moon, but onward to Mars and perhaps other places in our solar system. And now that vision is relegated to the realm of science fiction. One of the central tennants of many sci-fi works is that man belongs in space, man is destined to extend his reach outward to the universe. And I believe that. Otherwise we’re just fish in a bowl. A very large bowl, but a bowl nonetheless.
Some say the future of space exploration is in advanced robotics; that it’s safer, and more hard science can be accomplished. This may be true, but playing it safe isn’t going to help us grow and extend our reach beyond our own planet. Yes space travel is risky, we’ve witnessed many people sacrifice their lives for it. But if you ask any astronaut they’ll say it’s a risk worth taking, and I agree.
So for me, on Sept 16th I’ll be there to send off the last of the shuttle fleet as it roars skyward, but I’ll also be saying goodbye, not just to the era of the space shuttle, but to the dreams of space exploration I had as a child.
That’s the song Scarecrow, my fave track off the debut album by Red State Soundsystem, Ghosts In A Burning City.
In continuing our investigation of being an artist in the future-present, I organised an interview with the man behind the moniker, Dr Joshua Ellis.
I’ve been listening to some of these songs for many years now, as you’ve uploaded works in progress to your personal blog. In fact, I’m not sure when you first adopted the moniker Red State Soundsystem. Let’s start with talking about why you chose that name:
Originally I was just doing stuff under my own name. But I wanted an identity that could be me, other people — pretentiously, a collective.
At the time, Cansei de Ser Sexy was just coming up, and I liked their acronym (CSS). I wanted something that was also a Web acronym, so I thought about it - HTML, PHP, RSS… hmm. And then it just hit me — Red State Soundsystem.
I also like it because I dig the idea of African/Jamaican soundsystems, those big mobile DJ rigs on flatbed pickup trucks. I liked the idea of a middle American version of that. Of course, to everyone outside of America, “red state” sounds Communist, and that’s cool too.
I guess, ultimately, I just liked it once I’d come up with it.
So you don’t know this, but several years ago you provided the soundtrack to a weekend my then-girlfriend (now wife!) spent in a country bed’n’breakfast. Your music was the only thing on my iPod she liked. Have you had any other stories like this? Does it seem strange that even though you’re only just now releasing the album, some of us have had a long relationship with your songs?
It does seem strange, mainly because my goofy model of releasing music couldn’t have really existed before, say, 1998. I’ve kind of treated this music like software - dropping unfinished “alpha” versions here and there, refining it, and finally putting out definitive versions. I don’t plan on doing 2.0 versions, though. This is the final product.
I mean, hell, it seems odd to me that people have relationships with this music. I’m the sort of person that assumes that nobody’s really paying attention to what I do. Which is what’s cool about releasing this album - the response has been really great from long-standing fans and new fans alike.
I note with much interest that you’re selling digital copies directly over PayPal, and via iTunes and Amazon. Do you think CDs are now a ‘fetish item’?
I think CDs are the last vestige of 20th century ideas about media. They’ll never be fetish items the way vinyl records are, but there are still going to be people a decade from now grousing because they can’t buy new records on CD. But fuck those people, right?
In previous incarnations, such as writing for Mondo 2000, you were part of the team behind Mperia, an online music service that was pro-artist, but ultimately before it’s time. Watching the rise of iTunes, which disproved all the naysayers that said no one would ever pay for music online, must be a bit rough.
Your interviewon the RU Sirius show is something I’ve made several aspirant musicians listen to. What’s it like reflecting upon that period now? What lessons have you learnt that you can apply today?
You know, the day after Bitpass’s CEO called me and told me Bitpass and Mperia were shutting down, I went down to the store late at night to buy cigarettes and Diet Coke and the new issue of WIRED was on the stands, with Beck on the cover: THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL MUSIC. I wanted to knock the newsstand over and storm out of the place and turn my life to Jesus. But I didn’t; I bought the magazine, cut the cover off, and wrote on it with a Sharpie: DO BETTER NEXT TIME.
Mperia was a great idea that was two or three years ahead of its time. And yeah, it kind of sucks to see people getting rich parroting stuff I said at the beginning of the decade, and I was bitter for a long time. But I learned a hell of a lot about business over there. First and foremost: never, ever, ever put anything creative or exciting or dangerous in the hands of accountants and middle managers. They will find a way to fuck it up and file the edges down to nothing.
Micropatronage is something you’ve explored before with your writing. Have you considered trying something similar with your music, a themed EP perhaps? What do you think this might look like?
Funny you mention that — the other day I was kicking around the idea of using Kickstarter to fund a trip to Africa to record with local musicians. I’d love to do that. Aside from weird stuff like that, though… I don’t really need patronage to record/release music. I own my own gear, so it doesn’t cost me anything anymore. New gear would be nice, though.
While we’re throwing out naughties-era ‘net buzzwords.. CROWDSOURCING! You’ve been looking for people to help film a clip for “Scatterlings + Refugees”. Tell our glorious readers here how they can get involved.. Wait, here’s the link to your post on the subject.. anything more you want to add?
Yes! I’d very much like to do this, and I’d like to do it on the first of February. So wherever you are in the world on February 1st, go outside and film yourself lip-syncing to my song and send me the video and I’ll edit it into the official video for the track.
Let’s talk online presence.. Does MySpace still matter? What about 8Track? Or is it just about Facebook? (People, join the Fan Group here). Can the kids follow the band on Twitter? And will you be releasing any remixes of your songs as ring tones?
I don’t think MySpace matters much anymore…except to musicians. If MySpace just admitted it — said ‘Hey, Facebook’s won, let’s focus on MySpace Music and get rid of everything else’ — they might do well. But they won’t.
Social networks matter, but only by default; you have to be on Facebook and MySpace, but I’m not entirely convinced that simply maintaining a presence there is enough. Twitter, absolutely. Twitter is great for keeping yourself out in the world, and I mean that both in the cynical marketing sense and also to keep you connected with the people who are, at least in theory, your audience.
And yeah, I’m probably going to be releasing ringtones, but not remixes — original ringtones. I have a weird fascination with microcompositions, like Eno doing the Windows theme.
You call Vegas home. How has living in one of the stranger cities on Earth informed your song writing?
Oh, God. Yeah, Vegas has been home for a while, even though I’m not from here - I grew up primarily in north Texas, and I’ve lived all over America and even in Turkey for a year when I was a kid. It’s funny, because a few of the reviews I’ve gotten so far on the album think that the “burning city” in the title refers to Vegas, which it doesn’t. (It’s a line from a Stephen Vincent Benet poem.) The “burning city” is, I think, the globalist world - the endless cityscape of the 21st century.
Vegas is a bizarre place to live if you’re not involved with the casinos, which I’m not at all. It’s like Flint, Michigan without all the bohemian charm. :-) I guess it informs my songwriting because there’s so much weird fucking human drama playing out here all the time, on every street corner.
If I’ve been stalking you right, you’ve got something similar to the Gorillaz in the works. What’s the deal there?
Well, a while back I was playing around with the idea of having Red State Soundsystem be a virtual band like the Gorillaz - never showing my real face, doing narrative animated videos, etc. But I kind of gave that up. Damon Albarn has Jamie Hewlett. I don’t.
You’ve publicly criticized Cory Doctorow’s pushing of Creative Commons, but do you think Bono’s stance of late has been even more annoying/stupefying?
Well, first let me say that I’m massively in favor of the Creative Commons. I’ve released work through the CC licenses and I was actually there for their launch party in SF. I think that Creative Commons licensing is a great choice. But there’s the key word: choice.
What bothers me about Cory’s stance — and the stance of “copyfighters” in general — is that they talk an awful lot about the rights of consumers, and very little about the rights of artists.
Look: it took me around three years to record this album, not counting the almost twenty years before that of learning to play and writing songs and all that. I think that if people enjoy my work, it’s absolutely fair for me to ask them to pay me ten measly bucks for it. I’m not gouging anybody. Nor am I going around suing anybody for “stealing” my music. But I’d very much like you to pay for it if you enjoy it.
I’ve never understood why copyfighters don’t follow the example of the Free Software movement. Open source geeks refuse to use software that has licenses they don’t agree with. And most open source geeks don’t go around trumpeting that you should steal commercial software, right?
So why don’t copyfighters stop bitching at record labels and bands and just listen exclusively to the wide range of Creative Commons-licensed or copyright-free music out there? It’s free, easy to find, and unlike open software, you don’t usually have to hunt down dependent software packages to rock out with it.
Now, Bono: I happen to really like Bono. I think he’s a remarkable and very clever man who has done a great deal of good in the world - not just through his activism, but by simply making music that makes a whole lot of people very happy. People fall in love to U2 songs, and listen to them to deal with the pain of falling out of love; they play U2 songs at their funerals; they crank The Joshua Tree at full volume when they’re driving and it makes them feel alive.
Bono (and his band-mates) did that. Their job is to make music. And I think they’ve gotten deservedly rich doing that job, whether you like them or not. I don’t begrudge Bono one cent of his fortune, and I don’t think he has any moral obligation to not want to make any more money from his work… any more than, say, Adobe ought to give Photoshop away for free now because they’ve already gotten rich selling it. I wish we lived in a world where that made sense, but I don’t.
So I think the argument that Bono’s a jerk-off because rich rock stars shouldn’t care about copyrights is ludicrous.
Having said that: I think his solutions to these issues are also ludicrous. He’s a smart, informed guy, but he’s wrong here. I’d love to sit and drink a Guinness with the man and talk to him about it sometime, because at this point I think I’m as much of an expert on these matters as anybody else in the world. Bono, call me!
Now, I’m just going to throw these out there..
Who points closer to the future - Amanda Palmer or Lady Gaga?
God, I hope it’s Amanda Palmer. Lady Gaga is a famous person who also happens to make completely unremarkable house music. She’s not bad musically, but she’s not interesting, and I’m really bored with people who exist just to be famous and be icons and fabulous and all that Andy Warhol bullshit.
Amanda, on the other hand, is an incredibly gifted musician and songwriter who is building a model for DIY musicians simply by doing her thing and existing, and I love her for that. (I’m also a fan of her music.) So I hope more people follow her lead.
Do you think we will ever, or indeed should, get off-world?
Yes, but not until we figure out how to offload a human mind into an artificial storage/consciousness unit. The math is all wrong for any other kind of space travel, except to maybe Mars and the Moon. (Did you know I went to Space Camp? I totally did. And I’m obsessed with transhumanism and posthumanism and all that Eric Drexler / Ray Kurzweil stuff.)
In conclusion, paint me a picture of the most perfect gig you could ever possibly play:
