It’s just a sketch, just an idea. I get them. Sometimes I write them down and get them out of my head. No expectations, just exercising the brain.

I came up with this idea while thinking about a way to make sure I brush my teeth long enough. I tend to be in a rush while I brush – especially when it happens while I’m on my way to some appointment or something.

I sketched this out with my tablet, and I think it could actually work. It’s a little on the ugly side, but it’s just a first draft. The idea is that you fill the upper reservoir of the cup with a strong flow from the faucet. The holes in the bottom of the reservoir are specially constructed to permit all the water to flow into the larger chamber only after two minutes (or however long that Dentist Association recommends). Then, you can use the water that’s dripped through to rinse.

This invention would also ostensibly prevent people from just running the water down the drain the whole time they’re brushing.

New series: Twelfths.

Twelve months in a year, these are collections of songs that have been moving me for the month at hand.
Here’s where it gets nerdy: I combined January and February into one mix, so this one is actually 2/12, which is also one sixth. One Sixth.

Nod to this. Art work below.

Software and Technology I used on this project:

It’s a strange name, but makes more sense when you realize that this is an electronic version of another mix I made called Earlobe Nibbles. A romantic, quite, jazz mix. This is the same: quiet, grooving, jazzy, but electronic. Thus, Electronic Nibbles.

Whether you’re focusing on squashing some bugs in your code, trying to get just the right color on that canvas, or telling your loved or lovely ones how your day went during the wind-down, this mix tends to fit in nicely.

TRACKLISTING

1. Marc Carey – Turning 2000
2. Meat Katie – Black and Blue
3. Max & Harvey – Big Amoeba Sound
4. The Cinematic Orchestra – Channel 1 Suite
5. Bebel Gilberto – Lonely
6. Soulstice – Wind
7. Marc Carey – Take Me Higher
8. Orbient – Boarding
9. Rithma – Builder
10. The Irresistible Force – Nepalese Bliss
11. Love T.K.O. – Lost in the Amazon
12. Andrew Cope – Anything That Flies
13. Marc Carey – Making Love Making Music
14. Clifford Gilberto – Restless
15. Funki Porcini – Dubble (Organ Swell)

[As a kid] I used drawing as a primary language for capturing thoughts, exploring ideas, and then sharing those ideas. Teachers and mentors encouraged me, helping to sustain sketching as a key skill throughout school and into my professional career. Good fortune has ignited my passion to become a sketch advocate, helping others rediscover sketching as a powerful problem-solving and communication tool.

Not that I’m much of a sketch advocate – I don’t travel around preaching the gospel of sketching, but I know deep down that it’s the best way to start any creative project. In his article, Mike rhetorically asks, why bother sketching, and offers up three great points:

1. [To produce] a variety of ideas, quickly
2. [To easily] explore the alternatives
3. To Foster Better Discussions

The insight that backs up and elaborates upon each of those points is concise but so on point! Especially now when we commercial artists are so tied to our electronic tools of creation, it’s helpful to be frequently reminded that a plastic and inquisitive mind is the actual thing that needs to be booted up first.

This article made me think of a book I’m currently reading: Dan Roam’s The Back of the Napkin – Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures. Let me put that more accurately; this article reminded me that I need to finish reading that book.

Jazz, then back again.
Jazz then, back again.
Jazz then back. Again.

Recently got the bug to return to studying my first musical love: jazz music. This is the first of a series of jazz mixes I’ll be putting up.

This one’s mellow and funky, a bunch of folks in a room, finding a groove and just riding it out.

Nod to this. Art work and tracklisting below. (Art work inspired by the Brass Company’s LP “Colors.”)

I’m a lover, I’m a fighter
I’m a saint, I’m a sinner
I’m a loser, I’m a winner
But I’m just a beginner
I’m a chief and indian … buddhist, egyptian
I’m the future, I’m the power, I’m the help, I’m the problem, I’m the father, I’m a husband, I’m a son
I’m a … lover, I’m a … I’m just a lover, I’m a … I’m a lover … I’m a … I’m a
I’m a muslim, christian, hindu, musician, jewish, heathen child of the funk
I’m a freak I’m a munk, I’m a anything you want, I’m a
I’m a lover, I’m a fighter, I’m a saint, I’m a sinner, I’m a …
Basically, I’m just a human being yeah … be what I want to be.
That’s who I am.
Spiritually, yeah. Spiritually, yeah.

~ Bilal, “Who Are You,” from the Airtight’s Revenge album.

Most significantly are the Beats, the beats, and the beats. Not sure why a driving baseline is creative fuel for me while I’m stringing together code, layout out graphical elements, or sketching my newest worse drawing ever . but it is. Very much so.

Consequently, as an homage to the grand ol Internet, I am here listing the BANGINEST (read: should not be missed) radio shows and mixes on the Internet.

These shows exist ONLY on the Internet. Sadly, no radio station in the US market is brave enough to play even 1% of the great music that you’ll likely hear in any of the shows below. So with that said, listen, enjoy, and in turn put me onto great shows that you like and have found online. I will update this list into perpetuity (either that or until I next decide not to update my blog for 4 months).

NOTE: some of these are direct links to RSS feeds, others to webpages.

Benji B’s Deviation on BBC’s 1xtra (not sure how to properly big up this show. Let’s just say, if I [still] had a radio show, I would do my best to make it flow like this one. It’s at the top of the list for a good reason. You. Must. Listen).
Benji B on 1xtra

Soulsearching by Michael Ruetten (this show has been the source of great, new music to my ears way too many times to count. German).
Soulsearching Radio Show

Nu Wave Radio (don’t sleep on these British brothers! Hip Hop, Broken/Nu Jazz/Housey/Nu Soul styles – the whole cornucopia. Constant inspiration).
Nu Wave Radio Show

Beyondjazz.net Radio Show (great mixtures of styles, always fresh, always new with a STRONG archive of past worldwide jammies. I think this comes out of Amsterdam. Don’t quote me on that one).
Beyond Jazz Radio Show

Broken Beat Radio (from a crew out of Philly, not so regularly updated, but when it is, it’s golden. Check out the archives for more excellence).
Broken Beat Radio

HVW8 Sessions (this is an LA crew. Don’t know too much about them other than the incredible LIVE artwork installations that they do / have done. When checking out their site, I came across their live mix recordings. Nice).
HVW8 Mixes

MondayJazz Mixtapes (strictly beats blended and strung by various people known and unknown. I think it was an Eric Lau mix that lead me to this site once, or maybe Dorian Concept. Not sure. Either way, haven’t turned back since. My favorite episode so far is #39 Blackjack Beats).
Monday Jazz Mixes

Deeper Shades of House (if you need that soulful house fix. Nuff said. Well, I’ll say a little more, because this show won’t be for everyone – and sometimes it’s not even for me. The DJ, Lars Behrenroth, does tend to go sorta deep deep with it. But it’s only 1 out of every 10 shows that I can’t listen to all the way thru).
Deeper Shades of House

Offtrack with Dirk Rumpff (I used to listen to this show a lot more than I do now. For a period Dirk was playing a lot of left field stuff and had these long interviews with artists that weren’t so compelling to me. But I think it’s time to revisit – this week’s playlist looks pretty tight).
Offtrack Radio Show

TRIVIA: I initially put this list together for Cy who is stuck in Dominican Republic with wack radio but good broadband. These were my solutions to her malaise. Big up Cy for being the motivating factor.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Food of Paradise in rhyme,
A story that transcends time.
Although it dates back to a period some would call medieval,
In this story there are no sieges, no plagues, no monarchs, no cathedrals.
This is a story about truth and what it means to search for such,
How truth is illusive and always seems to vanish once in our clutch.

The entire story is available as a PDF download here:

What do you think of the story? Be kind, be mean. Be it in the comments.

Delving a little bit further into the Last.fm community, I followed a path from Pursuit Grooves (through the wilds of myspace -yikes) that led to the Coopr8 crew of folks. CoOp is London party / venue where they make it a point to play only the right tunes. This is how Time Out London described a CoOp event from May:

The future soul, jazz, broken beat and funky breaks specialists’ nights are always chocker-blocked, so expect an intimate night with DJs IG Culture, Afronaught, Domu and Daz I Kue plus spesh guests Phil Asher (Restless Soul) and Seiji (Bugz In The Attic).

Exactly.

So, come to find out that the cats that make the music that fuels the scene and the movement have started a decidedly un-myspace like social networking thing at i.coopr8.net. Technically, the network is based in the customizable Ning platform. Jumping right in (something I’m not so keen to do with online social networks) I saw all sorts of cats in there whose records I spin and admire … well, more like covet … ok, actually sweat. Whose records I sweat. I am inspired by great art.

So i.coopr8.net is was a good find. In addition to being full of seemingly cool and creative people who vibe to the same tunes I do, the networking aspect may come in handy for the next large scale project that’s currently in the cooker to be launched in ’08 – ain’t it great. (More to come on that!) A few heads in the network are brooklyn based, which is fly, though mostly it’s populated with overseas folks. Ah, the internet. So I don’t want to be the one leech in the network just bothering my favorite producers with silly comments; I feel like I have to contribute to the community as well, which brings us to the topic at hand. Since damn near everyone up in that network is a DJ or music maker of some sort, mixes go back and forth, exclusive tracks are streamed, and collaborations born. Music to make folks move is at the heart of it all. So I reached back to the year 2002 when I made a mix that itself reached back to 1990-something. Like 1992 or 1993. (Those numbers are starting to look more and more historical, aren’t they?)

The mix is titled Mortgage Music – as if I was peering years into the future and predicting the need for some healing because of the predatory loaning that has been hatched on the people. I wasn’t though. I just remember getting inspired one day back in the lab on Jeff Ave around 2002 to rock a little house from the High School days. It came off ok – a few hiccups here and there, sound a little too hot in a couple of spots, but overall, you can nod your head to it. I plugged the Numark directly into the desktop PC with some Radioshack RCA to mini-stereo plugs strung together with Radioshack connectors, so don’t be surprised at the hum you’ll hear in the tender moments. It probably wouldn’t be noticeable if I hadn’t mentioned it. Sorry. I had to do a little bit of re-constructive work to reproduce this track as a single file to be streamed. Although I originally recorded it as one big .WAV file, I had since chopped it up into single tracks so that when burning it to CD with gap-less playback, the songs could be navigated one by one. However, the original WAV file is i-don’t-know-where. So using Sony’s Acid Pro, I took the songs one by one and strung em back together into a continuous stream, which I now present to you and the heads at iCoOpr8.net that care to listen.

1. Wall of Sound – I Need Your Love
2. Madonna – Erotica (Rmx)
3. Trey Lorenz – Photography of Mary
4. Little Louie Vega and Tony Humphries – Just Believe
5. MAW and Cajmere – Brighter Days
6. House of Gypsies – Samba
7. Hayden Andre Project – Tribal Life
8. CM Toni – Still Aint Over
9. Spring – No Time For Crying
10. Kathy Sledge – Take Me Back To Love
11. MAW and Marth Walsh – Carry On
12. Chez Damier – Can You Feel It
13. Track and Feel Events – Yes He Is
14. Loni Clark – Rushing
15. DDS – You Can’t Go Wrong
16. James Howard – Feeling Good
17. Station Q – That Special Melody
18. Mass Order – Take Me Away
19. MAW and Indai – I Cant Get No Sleep
20. Gypsymen – Hear The Music