Montana & McDeviltoast (and friends!)

this blog is now in the past

2006-07-26T16:46:00.000-04:00

Well, it's fairly obvious that McDeviltoast has abandoned this blog for his myspace blog, and, since the whole QEG site is in the process of being rebuilt, there's a new blog.

So, this blog (the Montana & McDeviltoast blog) is now dead, though you will obviously still be able to read back on everything, if you're inclined. To keep up with everything now, you can go to:

McDeviltoast: McDeviltoast's MySpace Blog
Montana: The QEG Blog

This last (the QEG one) is actually not just for Montana, but for all of QEG, so you'll see information there from/about Montana, DJ Empirical, Quahogs, The Black Fives, schädel, orNot!, and everyone else. Be careful browsing around using the sidebar on the new blog; technically the site's not quite live yet, so stuff may not be as you'd expect it....

venomous valdez birthday show

2006-07-19T16:28:00.000-04:00

tomorrow:

Impeach My Bush

2006-07-12T12:12:00.000-04:00

my review of the new Peaches record is up at I See Sound.

check it:

weird firefox display issue

2006-06-12T16:57:00.000-04:00

ok, at work, my firefox (which i'm not even supposed to have installed) has a weird display issue.

check this screenshot:

it looks like it's displaying images in the wrong place, like getting someone's profile pic (in this example) mixed up with the rounded end-of-bar image.

clearing the cache helps, but it comes back, sometimes with the very next page view.

specs: windows xp, and Firefox/1.5.0.4

annoying. i actually have to view some things in IE to read them. dumb.

UPDATE: Rick kindly directed me here, which seems to be the issue i'm having.

minor leagues recording session pics

2006-06-04T18:09:00.000-04:00

one more image set for today:

these are images from a recording session for the Minor Leagues' new cd "The Pestilence Is Coming".

present were Ben (from the Minor Leagues), Jane and January Fairy (from Meteoric Demise), McDeviltoast, DJ Empirical, and Tom Willis (ex-Paperback).

good times.

electric six photos

2006-06-04T17:29:00.000-04:00

now on flickr: my photos of electric six.

yay for flickr!

2006-06-03T14:18:00.000-04:00

so, i finally got a flickr.com account, and i paid the subscription fee. it is totally worth it, especially if you download their upload utility. sweet.

below is some of what i've upload from my hard drive. some of you have seen some of these pics, but many of these haven't been seen by anyone. oh, and many are from when i had a really shitty digital camera, so any sets dated before last summer are likely to be of a not-so-good quality.

(oh, and if you have pics that come from any of the same nights as these, let me know, and i'll add them to the sets if you can send them to me.)

anyway, check it:

party in columbus, 2004-01-30

party in columbus, 2004-01-31

Cex, live at the Southgate House, 2005-01-15

Hogscraper at the Southgate House, 2005-06-24

Infinite Number of Sounds and To Box with Man, Cleveland, 2005-07-16

Buckethead at the Southgate House, 2006-04-01

so, yeah. some of these sets only have a few pics, and there are more pics than just these. feel free to click around, and stay tuned for more old pics from my hard drive! ;)

nice sign.

2006-05-30T17:07:00.000-04:00

big surprise

2006-05-18T11:25:00.000-04:00

You are a
Social Liberal
(78% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(15% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Socialist

Link: The Politics Test

not new but still good: bunny bread

2006-05-11T10:43:00.000-04:00

who doesn't like a bunny with baked goods balanced on his head?

you got change?

2006-05-11T01:28:00.000-04:00

Grime

2006-05-08T16:17:00.000-04:00

yes.

my obsession with grime is in full gear.

i'm eagerly awaiting the debut full-length from Lady Sovereign, i just got full-length efforts from JME (good), Tinchy Stryder (ok), Wiley (really good)... and countless 12" singles and white labels. good times.

oh, and i found a halfway decent grime (and related) blog written by chantelle fiddy. she also writes music columns for a few mags and whatnot. if nothing else, she's naming names so i know what to look for.

yeah.

also, DJ Empirical has a new weekly night at Boca, a restaurant in cinci. i've heard word it's the #1 restaurant here, but of course i can't say. i can say that it's the best place to be on thursday nights if you want to hear dj empirical play records. yeah. it's mostly hip-hop based, but with loads of mashups and quite a bit of grime.

yikes!

2006-05-08T16:08:00.000-04:00

too much blog inactivity. mcdeviltoast has been posting on his myspace blog, and i must confess to a bit of activity there as well.

no more though! i'm back here! i promise!

email test

2006-04-05T14:16:00.000-04:00

i'm just checking to see whether the email update thing is still turned on.

i have nerd superpowers

2006-03-24T13:09:00.000-05:00

or at least i should, after buying this:

yes, that is a 7" record from Bob Saget.

i am the winner.

i sure do like Bit Shifter

2006-03-24T13:06:00.000-05:00

so a lot of you know that i've been getting into grime lately, but i thought i'd mention that i've also been getting into 8-Bit music, which is music made with 8-bit chips, like the old Nintendo systems used to use.

i just thought i'd mention a new e.p. by a dude called Bit Shifter, "Information Chase":

(click the image above to download it for free from the label.)

it's on 8bitpeoples, a swell label that specializes in this stuff. yummy. and it's all available for download!

sweet.

Gawker Stalker

2006-03-14T16:19:00.000-05:00

This, my friends, is what the internet is for. Forget about connecting with long-lost relatives and friends and keeping in touch with loved ones away from home.

No, the internet was made for this:

Yes, Gawker Stalker tracks the whereabouts of celebrities, sometimes within 15 minutes.

Wednesday: DJ Empirical / 1000 Arms

2006-02-21T11:25:00.000-05:00

DJ Empirical has been the Artist-in-Residence at the Southgate House, in the Lounge, on Wednesdays for the month of February. Tomorrow, 02/22, is his last installment, and his guest act is the soon-to-be-legendary 1000 Arms.

1000 Arms will be doing two sets, separated by a DJ Empirical set of experimental records. DJ E's usual fare of mashups etc will bookened the whole thing.

Come out -- it's free. And good.

Lazy Muncie

2006-02-20T19:06:00.000-05:00

Lazy Muncie

no mention of all those noise shows, though. ;)

update: stAllio! posted this bit about NBC being dicks about the original Lazy Sunday video. them folks is dumb.

Recording Artists' Safety Guide to the Beach

2006-02-17T19:44:00.000-05:00

the sex-in-public singlet

2006-02-08T13:14:00.000-05:00

For my latest foray into art:

I need a fashion designer to develop for me a black, opaque aerobic singlet, built for two(meaning four arms, four legs, two head holes) with an all important umbilical between the two, so that sex in public could occur with no nudity shown. Then I want to videotape the proceedings. The point is to try and get arrested to see what charge they could claim. Indecent exposure? Everything's covered. An act of lewdness? It's all under wraps, how can they prove penetration occured? Being too happy in public? Disturbing the peace? Let's see if we can prod the litigious community in the eye.

I'm accepting applications for designers and willing couples. It's all in the name of art.

distraction as lifestyle

2006-02-07T10:06:00.000-05:00

Seems I have all the necessary cables and microphone to start recording....Almost. I need an input device a la Firewire to start monkeying around on Garageband. What happened to just plugging something in to the headphone jack? This week I will obtain the rest of the requirements or my creative blue balls will explode.

Also on the music front, I have a Soul in the Shade show at Baba Budan's on March 1st. Should be a much better environment for my sound than Sudsy's.

I'm still chipping away at the behemoth that is the Rice Papers. A funny comment I had forgotten from the chapters of my own life: I showed Angela it was 3:30 in the morning and she replied, "Oh it is very night."

Desperately need to detox. I'm throwing myself into oblivion too willingly. The distraction is becoming the lifestyle.

back on the air...

2006-01-26T12:30:00.000-05:00

January has traditionally been my least favorite month and I've been doing a decent job of keeping myself busy or in a stupor for most of it. Now that it's almost through, I can emerge however slightly and fill in the blanks from the baby roots of 2006.

First: I bought a new computer. I worked my ass off and saved a wad o' cash and plunked it down on the barrelhead for a Mac Mini. It's been a joy, although I still lack certain cables to begin recording my music and alleviating my indigo balls creatively speaking. I have been working on "The Rice Papers," realizing the stumbling at the beginning was due to pieces of writing, which although entertaining, don't move the story forward, and I've had to flense some choice bits for flow's sake. Part of writing is killing your babies.

Also on the writing front, I'm on the iseesound.com staff, and I've been doing CD reviews and such. It's a throwback to my News Record days, although I have a lot more freedom to pepper my critiques with toastisms. Most recently I skewered "She Wants Revenge," a band so confined by its own ethos, they've run out of ideas before the formal release of their debut.

At work, I've been given free rein to invent a venue for the warehouse in back which will be redubbed the Bier Hall. In the coming months, I hope to have a week lined up thusly:

Tuesday: salsa dancing (this was brought to us with its own built-in crowd)
Wednesday: Naked Music night (this will be a forum for bands or band members to experiment with different versions of their established tunes, or test out new songs in a stripped-down format: say a guitarist would do an all-keyboard set, or acoustic versions. the point would be to bare the song in a new way, take it down to its basics in front of an audience)
Thursday: karaoke with Sean (who has the best selection in town period.)
Friday: Neopolitan Night: Three different bands (say one electronic, one rock, one hip hop) so as to give variety to the evening rather than having to sit through three samey-same garage acts. And so no one is given more importance than another, construction paper cards will be drawn to determine the order: brown goes first, then white, then pink.
Saturday: Club Bristol Night: sometimes you want to go out and be social but don't want to have to shout all night. I propose a DJ night where they spin trip-hop, lounge/exotica and all around chillout. This night would sometimes showcase art openings as well.

I've been put in charge of it all and when it takes off, this could be a breath of fresh air for Cincinnati's music scene. I'd appreciate any feedback from people who want to see this happen, and from those who want to perform. I'd like to have a backlog of acts before I begin.

I've seen King Kong three times and might catch it a fourth before it leaves the big screen. See it, you fools!

I've been acting MC for the Baryard Burlesque and this weekend we're going on the road for a couple shows with Hogscraper. I'll blog the details upon my return.

Schizo weather is making my allergies go haywire. It needs to stay filthy or stay beautiful. Now time for coffee. Apologies for the lengthy silence...

Ben Franklin's birthday

2006-01-17T12:56:00.000-05:00

a great american, even though he died of syphillis. :)

and here's this piece on dailykos comparing ben to w.

The Great Franklin-Bush debate...in 6 rounds:

Bush: America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
Franklin: All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. In my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace. When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?

-

Bush Health care reform must begin with Medicare; Medicare is the binding commitment of a caring society. We must renew that commitment by giving seniors access to preventive medicine and new drugs that are transforming health care in America.
Franklin: Well done is better than well said.

-

Bush: There is no "trust fund," just IOUs that I saw firsthand, that future generations will pay---will pay for either in higher taxes, or reduced benefits, or cuts to other critical government programs. The office here in Parkersburg stores those IOUs. They're stacked in a filing cabinet. Imagine---the retirement security for future generations is sitting in a filing cabinet. It's time to strengthen and modernize Social Security for future generations with growing assets that you can control, that you call your own---assets that the government cannot take away.
Franklin: Half a truth is often a great lie.

-

Bush: The fact that somebody leaked this program [of illegally spying on Americans without a warrant] causes great harm to the United States. There's an enemy out there.
Franklin: Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

-

Bush: I'm a uniter, not a divider. I refuse to play the politics of putting people into groups and pitting one group against another.
Franklin: Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.

-

Bush: I'm not going to change my mind.
Franklin: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise. ... When you're finished changing, you're finished.

Final score: Bush 0 Franklin 6

That's right---the guy with the cardiovascular system of a teenager just got his clock cleaned by a 300 year-old man.

good times.

i have too many cds

2006-01-05T09:42:00.000-05:00

yes, i do. probably 3500, or maybe more. yes. i got many of them for less than $1.00, and while many of those were good, many of them were... shall we say... not as good.

so, in order to pare the collection down, i've decided that each week i'll go through seven or so (one per day on average) and evaluate whether i'll keep them. i think i'll even do them in roughly alphabetical order. good times.