Photo-set 21802814266:

The Tao of Poverty Row:

In the rush to “clean up” the images of classic cinema, to remove every speck and splice digitally, etc., are we not also losing something? What about the blurry, hazy artifact-ridden images of yesterday, the streaky bad-tracking VHS blurs and statics? Was there really no “point” to that “accidental” art you spent so much time looking at but never “seeing”? Before CGI there was something called imagination…and whiskey.

[…]

Consider the top picture[…] It’s from a scene in TOMORROW where people are walking around outside, doing something. What they are doing is impossible to tell, but the screen is a brilliant composition of white and dark squares, a gray market VHS Mondrian, ditto the checkered wallpaper in the second shot (below) which shows the results of a fire in the Ghost’s office. The smoke bleeds the whole right half of the frame a pure white, like the film is being forgotten by Jim Carrey in ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, or bleached by some experimental filmmaker like Stan Brakhage. Note too the vertical reflection at left, which indicates that these checkered walls are in fact shower curtains, or some other sort of wondrously flea-bitten 1940′s sound stage free-hanging wallpaper.

[…]

Oh ghost of Edgar G., forgive us our dread of the decay which so wants to set us free.

Link 20644698414:

What Makes Beatmaking Unique, and Why Its Given Rise to a New Kind of Musician ›

…

And while most traditional musicians will likely never study (or survey) the art of beatmaking or use any of its principles and nuances, most beatmakers routinely incorporate elements, principles, and processes of other music forms and traditions outside of hip hop/rap. In fact, for beatmakers, no music form is forbidden territory; wherever we find inspiration, we use the styles, techniques, methods, and practices of our tradition to convert such inspiration into hip hop/rap form. And thus, because beatmakers must move between the fundamental principles of hip hop/rap music and the fundamental principles of Western music in general, we’re not only unique, we also represent a new kind of musician[…]

Post 20604287416:

The defaults don’t work all the time.

iamyoursoundtech:

Especially if you are making art. 

Tweak and your wish of making something people will like will be granted. Spend lots and lots of time playing with knobs and settings. You’ll be surprised what comes out of fooling around with some piece of equipment. 

Make it so it is your sound. 

Oh, hell yes!

There’s a whole cosmos of amazing, unexpected, and gratifying places to explore within the options offered by well-designed, tweakable equipment that exposes meaningful controls.

The possibilities exponentially explode even further into uncountable dimensions when using multiple tools which interact with each other in interesting - and ideally non-linear - ways.

The outcome will often be unique and surprising and always be an intuitive, subconscious expression of your own personality, preferences, choices and whims.

Defaults are highly useful as a starting point, an example, and source of inspiration but to not go further and deeper, to consciously experiment and seek out the sweet spots*, to discover and expand your own intimate connection with your creative tools (collaborators!), seems like a real waste of potential if you ask me.

* Of course, the result does not necessarily have to be “sweet.”

Quote 20284089254:

Our lives are ruled by habitual behavior. Art can help break through that behavior to direct experience.
Meredith Monk (via futurevessel)