Our First Album is Online!

Here it is freaks and human monsters, the debut effort from MBO: "Idiot Jones Will Have His Day". Please go ahead and download and spread the MBO hype.

No, we dont expect you to pay us, but we do use the "Doesn't Suck Pricing" guideline which states that you can pay us if you don't think we suck. The way we look at it is we are a new band and YOU'RE doing us a huge favor by spreading this thing around. We think it's a shame that more bands don't think this way, but fuck em, we do!

DRM's are stupid. We don't use them. Read why they suck here.

OK. We expect to add some unmixed B-Sides from the album in the future and a online "Tryptamine Package" is coming soon for this record (containing lyric and notes on each song.)

We hope you like the record.

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Gear!

We are gearing up to buy one of these bad boys! The thing that sucks about using computers on stage is that they tend to crap out, so the Receptor, a dedicated VST engine, should solve our VST lag issues once and for all. If you don't have gear lust then you're not a musician.

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Doctorow's DRM Lecture

Check out Cory Doctorow's now widely distributed DRM lecture to Microsoft.

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All Work. No Play

Rehearsals continue. Looks like "Machine Elves" is going into the "maybe later" pile. Hopefully we will tackle Nerve Pill this week.
Overall things are coming together for the MBO live circus. It would be nice to find a person dedicated to the visual aspect of the show, kinda like what I did for Primus' last tour, but on a smaller scale of course.

Looks like we are sending out a few packages to some labels that we like this week. Taking our time with this aspect of the band...

Visual

The site is slowly mutating. Will have the album up within a week.

I Heart Katie

Katie Rice fucking rules!

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Bush Vetos Stem Cell Bill

While many Republicans would love for the Christian Morality crusade of their party to return to the fringes of lunatic thought, the simple truth is either your with the far right moral police or against them. The middle ground has been flooded. Being a Republican now means that your party has an exclusive right on the definitions of the words "morality", "truth" and "Good/Evil" (as Im sure you've heard Ann Coulter state over and over again..and she sure gets allot of attention for someone who bemoans the liberally controlled media doesn't she? ) The real damage that these fundamentalists have unleashed on the world is not the war in Iraq (while reprehensible), it's their aching desire to create a government that's infused with their brand of religion. Their is no middle ground, no moderate stance for socially inclined Republicans anymore. Their party is forever the Taliban.Bush,in all of his folly, at least admits this, as this Veto clearly indicates.

Sigh..I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.

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Rehearsals v2

Rehearsals coming along splendidly!

Stuff we need to do.

01. Develop a system to start the song sequences and keyboard program changes with just one foot pedal push.
02. Get the Mellotrons/ keys working on the bass pedals
03. Figure out the sounds for the MIDI bass pickup
04. Try out "Nerve Pill"
05. Get Jeff's samples in order
06. Photo shoot!
07. Get our gear"live ready".
08. Get some shows.
09. Play shows and dont suck ass.

MBO's Books You Must Read. v1

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
This sprawling masterwork of a novel is so filled with rich invention and engaging characters I find myself re-reading it once a year. Their are many ways to attack Infinite Jest as Wallace has interlaced enough contextual language to keep the attentive reader busy for years. Man it's good!

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Free Time

Keeping People "Honest"

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation via Boing Boing:

"The RIAA and MPAA trot out their spokespeople at conferences and public events all over the country, repeating their misleading talking points. Innovators are pirates, fair use is theft, the sky is falling, up is down, and so on. Their rhetoric shouldn't be given a free pass.

To that end, EFF has prepared a sample list of tough questions for times when you hear entertainment industry representatives speaking and want to challenge their positions. Asking hard questions is a way of "keeping honest people honest" and revealing when they're actually being deceptive.

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Syd Barrett is Dead

He wrote "Bike", "Arnold Layne", and "ASTRONOMY DOMINY" among others, and now the original Madcap is dead. Syd perhaps represented the sad side of drug use but he also stood for it's wonderful creative excess. One thing that was cool is that he did not play the tortured rock star in public, but lead a reclusive and quiet life outside of the bullshit expectations of Floyd fans. One has to respect him for that.

I say put on "The Piper at the Gates Of Dawn" to celebrate this passing. Somewhere he must be laughing. Maybe not.
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The Chopping Block

Chances are these songs wont be played live

Spaceman Time To Go
The Chopping Song
Take The Long Way Home
MBO (still gonna give it a shot, but it hasn't been working very well)

Machine Elves fate is still unknown.

We are finding these tunes don't translate very well to the live setting.

Ableton Live continues to behave strangely as I cant set a tempo map that syncs with our external devices. Works fine on one part of the sequence, doesn't work on the other. Stupid shit.

This Is Good With a Bong

Build stuff. Look at stuff. Smoke stuff

http://chir.ag/stuff/sand/

Boomerang Phrase Sampler

I sent in my Boomerang Phrase Sampler to be fixed this week (I have the distinct pleasure of stating that the Tom Waits tour I worked on wrecked mine) and get the much need upgrade. The Boomerang is one of the coolest music effects of the last 10 years. Nothing comes close to the playability of the Boomerang as you can really pound on the thing, creating various real time rhythmic effects. I also love how you "cant" store loops in it, forcing the user to change up the loop texture after every reboot, and I love (LOVE) the "once" button.

Boomerang Phrase Sampler

Look At The Pretty Colors!

This holiday has always annoyed me. Im not annoyed because we desire to show appreciation for our country, but more for how we demonstrate our patriotism. Lighting of little bombs, clapping our hands, scaring the shit out of animals and jumping up and down doesn't mean much to me. Nor does the BBQ's and overt consumption. Seems we can find a better way of expressing our pride yes?

I have an idea. How about stopping a genocide in another country? So this 4th why don't you donate 20 bucks to savedarfur.org.

We are happy and fat. Most of the world is not. Here's a good book to read that sure as hell opened my eyes...

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

savedarfur.org

That seems patriotic to me.

Rehearsal (Beta)

We had a great rehearsal on Sunday and It's coming together..We are very close to having these songs nailed for performance...

1. Drowning Now Waving
2. Idiot Jones..
3. Kicking The Can
4. Occam's Razor

Still working on:

Better Grow Some Eyes In The Back Of Your Head (new)
Spaceman
Machine Elves
God Could Use a Hole In His Head (New)
The Majestic 12 (New..some Electric Apricot fans may recognize bit here)

Among others..

And I hope to have the "official" online release of the album up in the next few weeks...

Onward!

The Knife

Ok,the sound sucks but this clips shows the old Gabriel era Genesis pounding out one of my all time favorite songs "The Knife". This band was just plain weird and God do I love them. It seems that most musicians are far to concerned with demographics these days to give themselves inverse mohawks and write songs about mutant weeds that consume England.