Shpongloidia?

The music for this was done by some Outershpongolians , who make a very beautiful racket quite consistently. So far I havent been able to dig up much on James Post who is responsible for the visual component of this, but be assured this isnt the last youve heard from me!!

While Im at it, heres a couple sweet recent links:

Onbeyond Metamedia-NEW MEDIA FUTURE CULTURE WILL DEPEND ON THE QUALITY OF ITS DESIGN. ENGAGING AND INTELLIGENT IDEAS MIXED WITH INTUITIVE AND INSIGHTFUL CONSULTATION. FROM TOPSOIL TO TECHNOLOGY, MULTIMEDIA INTEGRATED WHOLE SYSTEMS WILL BE THE FUTURE SHAPE. FROM EMAIL TO ECOVILLAGES, COMMUNICATION NETWORKS TO PUBLISHING:
DESIGN IS LIFE.

Ode Magazine-interesting site that refers to itself as the online community for intelligent optimists! Which avoids being an oxymoron when looked at in the long-term evolutionary sense! =)

Phreax Unite!!

DF

My Favorite Turntablists!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have talked about turntablism in previous posts so if you want to see more then ya gotta dig a little!

Kid Koala-absolute all time favorite Dj! When I listened to his first album Carpal Tunnel Syndrome cuttin up records started to sound like something that would be fun to do!! His subliminal use of samples and plain old SKILLS are innovative to a degree few have approached.

Rob Swift-One of the most talented/influential turntablists of all time. Hes got the smooth mojo hand and as many tricks as anybody. An actual Scratch Professor at the famed Scratch Academy, he also has a nice site!

Kool Herc-Obvious choice! Father of Breakbeats, matrix of Hiphop culture, the man that truly makes the ground pound. While you have probably not heard his actual mixes you hear his influence every time a dj lowers his stylus and starts breaking down beats.

Grand Wizzard Theodore-Reclaiming that title from my ohso ignorant brothers at the KKK, Theodore is THE INVENTOR OF SCRATCHING, THE. Need I say more? This is the guy, that first made the taboo act of TOUCHING THE VINYL ok for all the rest of us audiophiles! Also an instructor at the afforementioned academy. Infinite respect sir!!

Dragonfish Killswitch-If this surprises you that means you havent been paying attention. Damn straight Im one of my own favorite turntablists, if I wasnt Id be wasting my time! Check my music out, give a listen to Nuwabu7-1, and then please tell me anybody that does what I do better than I do it, because I would sincerely LOVE to hear it!! FOR REAL


Thank you for reading this please leave a comment or Digg me!!
DF

Nate Harrisons a name youll be hearing again...

"The Amen break"

Nate Harrison is an interesting character, this film is only one part of the installation he created the rest you see during the course of this film. Click here to see more of his fascinating projects/installations. I have little more to say about this now that this 20 min shortfilm does not say more eloquently.

DF

Thanaton III Paul Laffoley

This blog is barely born so bear with me and please leave a comment!
FEAST your ocularities upon this crazy griot witch doctor and our plans to soothe all the five senses in a series of amazing art installations
Arovoro is the shizz but this blog cannot do justice to the might that is abztract synergy live!!!

Abstract Synergy is basically every amazing transcendant poet musician painter sound/light artist we can possibly gather (trust me we know many!!!) in one spot improvising in a harmonious and powerful zeitgeist.

The result?
Beautiful flowing waves of sweet healing cosmic energy

For Booking info contact he or I here or there!
Much Love
DF

Ooops I almost forgot my introduction!

My name is Dragonfish Killswitch, that is the name I use as a sound artist, both poetically and on my turntables. I tried making a living off of my poetry for a while but it was just too depressing!

Being a Dj/turntablist is both better pay and in general more uplifting than performing poetry for groups of people. I would be a starving artist but I got a job as a chef and a good woman so I dont exactly miss meals!

I am looking forward to moving forward to making a living from my craft and gaining enough exposure to get some regular giggage! I vow to tour at least the west coast this summer!! Here is a link to my profile!

myspace.com/dragonfishkillswitch

or if you are not a fan of myspace

or if you wanna join my tribe

Have a look and listen! Did I mention Im a proud member of the Cyberpiratefunk syndicate known as The Daily Dose of Funk?

So in order to introduce myself I will introduce you to my artform: sound sculpture via turntablism.

Turntablist, as far as I know, is not a name applied to Dj's until the 1990s. I have heard that Djs Grandmaster Flash, Babu, and Disk were all seperate creators of the term. This is part of a mythology which I personally enjoy, the basic essence of Hip-hop is about fusion/piracy, the beauty of the hustle, the flash of your wit, your hands and your mouth.

The assignation turntablist is used to say the person is devoted to blending, cutting, chopping and yes scratching of the frequency ranges which have been deemed "music" by the great jazz police on high. Nearly anyone can dj, get up up and play music at a party or on the radio, but few djs can truly call themselves turntablists. Hours upon hours must be spent in front of the decks before even the most basic skills can be mastered. If you havent seen anybody really tear up some tables recently check out Dj Woody, hes the most amazing dj youve probably never heard of. Check out some of his videos theyre utterly amazing even to veteran Djs.

The best turntablists work with a range of sounds in a pallette as a maestro leads his orchestra, combining and recontextualizing all frequencies and samples into one or many movements. A sample can be any sound from any recorded source. The art of sampling is best described by one Dj Spooky in his book and lecture series called Rhythm Science. Check out the podcast about halfway down the page, the first time I heard it I listened to it three times in a row its also downloadable, you know Im always on the hunt for new samples!

"Rhythm Science is not so much a new language as a new way of pronouncing the ancient syntaxes that we inherit from history and evolution, a new way of enunciating the basic primal languages that slip through the fabric of rational thought and infect our psyche at another, deeper level. Could this be the way of healing? Taking elements of our own alienated consciousness and recombining them to create new languages from the old"

Another great reference for this subject is "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life-the history of the disc jockey" an actual text by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton.

Here are some great quotes from them about real turntable skills.

" To really pull it off you need to understand records in terms of their precise effects upon an audience---you need to hear music in terms of its energy"

" The truth about djing is that it is an emotional, improvisational artform and here the the real scope for artistry lies. "

" Obviously the medium is music , but thats just a means to an end. In a very real sense the primary medium is emotion, the dj plays the feelings of a roomful of people."

Fun Fact: The cylinder phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison in 1877 but it was only loud enough for one person to hear it.

More fun next time!!!!!!

DF

The Frolitics of Evolution

Hello people of Earth...

And anyone else that might be reading this!! This is the first installment of my new cosmic rigor. This will be a place for insight and discussion on arts of sound and light and their relevance to the
(R)EVOLUTION of our minds and our hearts.

We as animals constantly respond in countless ways to the interplay of sound and light around us. Our brains hum with activity when we listen to Saul Williams New Album "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation Of Niggy Tardust" (download it here:saulwilliams.com ) or any other interesting sound pal;ettes around us. The patterns of complex tones and rhythms can be a neural massage to the beleagured stressed out mind of your average working stiff.

Is this the only effect of complex tones and rhythms on our mind/body/spirit triune or can experiencing enough great art over a long enough period magnify and mutate certain physiological processes?

To be completely straight with you my personal opinion is an emphatic YES!!!, that said I will not live in la-la land and talk about this subject as if everyone out there is surrounded by a utopic plethora of fantastic mind-bending art. The truth is there is a very dark side to the ability to manipulate sound and light and our culture is ground-zero for some of the most horrific experiments ever committed by one techno-ape upon another. The politics of this battle for the ability to create consensus reality play out in all of our daily lives.

In our culture, but this true for any megametropoli, everyone and everything is constantly trying to change your mind, either by something so quasi-benign as maintaining a certain appearance ie the curb you stand on is a commercial for the city council and their ability to "maintain order". Or parkbenches, buses, taxis, trucks, delivery vans with advertisements. Even our garbage is some sort of bizarro advertisement of where somebody ate or what kind of beer we drink.

Print, radio, television, and now the interweb are all extremely powerful mediums for the control of consensus reality, people are moved by the information behind these sounds and lights in ways which are holistic and total. I mean really try to think about anything that is not directly related or involved in a static information loop with any of those four medium.

Any luck?

DF