Recent Photography

Touch Me, Right There - Beefcake

Oops, seem to have missed a month!  Well, listen to this and be happy (from 1999):

Some Music

I have recently been expanding the music section of the website and thought I'd post some songs here for you to listen to.  Visit the music page for three full pages of downloads and playable tunes.

Beefcake & Friends 1998
Obey

______________________
Reverend Goat Carson & Beefcake 1998

Captain Kirk and Custer

Song of Betheshazaar

That's Right

Hoofbeats (A Joyful Noise)

Mysterious Girl

All On

Whitehouse Toilet
(with Mysterious Girl Slight Return)

Why Deny

Chief Seattle

Some More Some Kind of Bat Car

Choir to Sing Genetic Codes

The New London Chamber Choir recently performed a musical piece written and arranged using the genomes of the 41 piece choir to define each singer's parts.  More and some audio here.  I'm hoping this will become available in a hi-fi version.  Very interesting concept.

From Technocar to Some Kind of Bat Car

Some Kind of Bat Car

Paul's Boutique - Beastie Boys

I was working at Sound Warehouse when Paul's Boutique came out.  This was right after college, 1989.  There were all kinds of amazing, new things happening with sampling and rap and dance music.  We were pretty much all of us fans of the entire Def Jam catalog so we were always playing License to Ill and all the other rap, punk, and rock hybrid stuff that was out so we were really looking forward to Paul's Boutique.  We played that album to death.  It came out just in time for Mardi Gras and became that year's album.  We had it in my boombox on autoreverse with all the EQ and the volume pushed up to the top all day.  The first song of the album popped up in random and I let the album play.  Man, it still makes me want to shake my butt. 

The RIAA has pretty much killed this kind of truly abandoned sampling.  That's one reason the Beastie Boys switched to playing the parts on instruments instead of building with samples.  I think something has been lost in the progress of music.  Snipping bits of people's audio memories and making something completely new of it is a path music should be allowed to pursue.

See this full set of pictures here.

The horror.

More Stuff!!!

Thanks to the untimely demise of Getafixx Hosting (thanks for the ride, Justin), psychicreform.com no longer has limits on its size or bandwidth. Also, thanks to the weekly political/cultural podcast I have been doing with a friend I found an easy source for a simple Flash player I can put on my pages. Check out the music page for free streaming audio and lots of new downloads including the first four discs of the new IFPR boxset spanning the last decade.  The site will be expanding slowly and the art page should improve dramatically.

Some Pictures

Music: RPM Challenge

So once again this year I sent a CD to Wired Magazine's RPM Challenge.  I had originally planned on creating an 8 song concept album which I planned out, recorded a draft of one song, and wrote and partially recorded the music for two more songs.  At the same time I was moving from one house to another and after about a week of 8 or more hours a day of moving stuff I realized I was going to have to ditch the concept album idea all together.  I can't remember how but I decided to do two pieces with mostly guitars that beat the 35 minute limit.  I got two nights to work on it and I managed to crank out something that fit the requirements.  It really does have its moments but a lot of those are countered by the other moments.  Give it a listen:  http://instituteforpsychicreform.rpmchallenge.com/

Sparklehorse

It's a Wonderful Life from Luis Ackerman on Vimeo.

You will be missed.

Nearly Frantic

"Nearly Frantic" - Institute for Psychic Reform 2010 from alan evil on Vimeo.

Bells & Whistles

Bells & Whistles - Institute for Psychic Reform from Alan Evil on Vimeo.

Some Pictures

Pine Mouth - Long Story Short: Stay Away from Chinese Pine Nuts

Friday a friend of mine made a pesto.  Yesterday (Sunday) I was tidying up the kitchen and went to put the pine nuts in the right cabinet.  Of course I popped some in my mouth and went about my business.  As I finished the beer I was drinking I noticed a distinct bitter flavor in the back of my mouth which I dismissed as some lingering aftertaste of the Abita Turbodog I had left over from the Superbowl.  By the time I went to bed it had gotten pervasive though the last Turbodog had been consumed four or five hours before.

Unfortunately today I am constantly tasting this bitter taste in the back of my mouth and tongue.  I complained about it to my better half earlier today and she asked if I had eaten any pine nuts.  It actually took me a few moments to realize I had snacked on them.  Turns out she had read on one of her food blogs about the phenomenon known as "pine mouth" that was being caused by certain pine nuts.  Sadly this effect would appear to persist for days and even weeks! Its onset may have been triggered by my snacking on the pine nuts and that effecting those I had eaten as pesto two days before, or the snacked pine nuts may have been coincidental

Here's a picture of the offending pine nuts:

If there was ever an argument against buying any "American" types of food from China, this is it. The closest thing to a scientific study of this (totally observational but observed by scientists self experimenting) is here, and a pretty good article about it is here.  Not much information out there (though what is has thousands of responses of people experiencing this) but one thing I can tell you is if this taste sticks around for a couple of weeks I'm going to be very unhappy.  Here's a quick synopsis of what I've found out:

1.  It would appear this is caused by Chinese pine nuts only.
2.  It is probably caused by the nuts being heated in transit (imagine containers full of them riding cargo ships across the ocean) and the heat altering certain triglycerides.
3.  This is not caused by contamination by heavy metals or pesticides.
4.  It seems onset is around two days after ingestion.
5.  The effects last from several days to over two weeks.
6.  It does not effect smell but wreaks havoc on your taste buds.

Driftwood

Lately I have been making pieces using milled wood with finished driftwood. Here is an animated picture of me working on a couple of pieces:

River Ice