Lost Boyz

Well, I haven't blogged in a while.

Its because my computer kinda broke, and then I went kinda insane for a few weeks, then I left town for another week. I guess I'll start at about the beginning of march?

That's the crap my computer got. ^ Don't know how, never dropped it, it ain't old, it just did. Anywaysss I took it some to d-bag computer genius on the island and he told me that I was totally screwed. Said that my 'motherboard' was messed up and might as well just go buy a new mac; said that with labor, installing that part would cost him like $900 (He was wrong).

So that freaked me out. (Thought I lost errrrrrrything!)

Then I went to Disney with the school band. That was cool. Went on some rides. Went backstage (CRAZY). Stole some souvenirs. Stole an arm off a mannequin. Went on a bus home.

Then the next week I went to Columbus, OH + Chicago, IL. That was probably 10 times cooler. I went to an NHL game, had a birthday, went to some thrift stores, got some clothes, got to see my sisters, got to see some gay people, got to touch some dogs. Missed a Toro y Moi show. I read the entirety of A Clockwork Orange in a car. I watched Rupaul's Drag Race for the first time. Also saw the master film that is 'Ghost Dog - Way of the Samurai.' I bought some CD's, including the new TL/Rx, That Nigerian Afrobeat Special everyone's been talking about, the old A Place to Bury Strangers, A Herbie Hancock disc, and the new Oh No Ono, Eggs.

Also, while in Ohio, I took my dead computer to an apple store there (You have to make appointments... that's so weird). Anyways, apparently shit like that happens all the time. They replaced the 'hard drive' not the 'motherboard' for $132 and even my keyboard area on the laptop for free. It works as good as new now. Soooo yeah.

Do yourself a favor and DON'T go to that guy for help. He's either a con man or an idiot.

A few more things to blog about:

TYLERs

My buddy, TYLER G, has a hardcore band called "From Ashes To Empires." They made a CD, and its pretty stellar (I think they spent a lot of money making it, so go ahead and buy one for yourself). The recording quality is top notch!

My other buddy, TYLER W, has got a totally rad solo thing going on called "Phillip Oskar Augustine." He recorded this whole deal in his house! Right on! (Hey man, thanks for the note! When I get all my stuff organized again, I wanna send you some trax...)

Uhm, I gotta play in a play now. (I'm filling in for a dude at the theater this week (The play's FAME) and I still haven't really heard the music... bad thing?)

phanny pack

Here's something funny: *

* = The prospective theory of interplanetary sound is actually an idea that somehow sound and weight are interrelated and that sounds sound different on different planets and that there is possibly one key of the universe that all songs must be written in. This idea is transferred into this 12 tone composition.

Check this out:

All ya'll who like art and want to buy some and put it on their wall:

"YARD SALE"

This is my sister's shop where she sells a lot of her stuff. Go buy some of her designs! They are fit for any budding apt. or bachelor pad or even grandma-condo!

Check out my pal Tyler, a.k.a, "PHILLIP OSKAR AUGUSTINE."

His track "Internal Combustion," is killing the whole internet right now. And he's got a cd coming out too! Cool!

And here's my pal Joel, and his blog. He always posts / twwwts sites and videos and whatnot, but I had to mention it today because he said some really nice things about me! Thanks!

I've been recording so much lately. Bound to post one of those things one of these days...

Pizza What? Pizza Hut!

Every time we go to pizza hut (I don't know why we go there, its awful), we have the same server and its this awfully CREEPY LADY. She's like at least 40 something, but dresses like a teenager and always mentions how we're the "most handsome youngest boys to ever walk in." And she gets all the food wrong. And the food tastes like soap. And it makes me want to puke. I freaking hate Pizza Hut (sorry meg).

Yesterday we spent the afternoon in Brady's new empty house. We recorded a series of awkward songs in one track thing. I'll post pictures later (of the bathroom-studio). So here is the long awaited "I LIKE TOUCHIN' DOGS." Also featured in this medley is a song called "Little Children," and a special guest appearance (Charlie) reciting his "The Story of the Ched 'R' Pepper." The mix is awful and you'll be weirded out. Its also like ten minutes long.

I Like Touchin' Dogs/Little Children/The Story of the Ched 'R' Pepper by G N 8

Oh hey! It snowed here yesterday! Weird! That's never happens! It was a lot fun! It kind of sucked!

Oh here's something cool: I torrented a version of Sibelius 5 yesterday! For free!

Now I can be just like Tyler Dunn!

of Montreal's set list for 2/5/10 Asheville, NC

Requiem for OMM2
Id Engager
For Our Elegant Caste
Lysergic Bliss
Beware Our Nubile Miscreants
Du Og Meg
Cato as a Pun
Suffer for Fashion
Mingusings
Teenage Unicorn Fisting
And I've Seen A Bloody Shadow
Plastis Wafers
St. Exquisite's Confessions
Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse
Oslo In The Summertime
A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger

Encore 1:

Wraith Pinned to The Mist and Other Games
She's a Rejector

Encore 2:

I Want You Back

Weekend Wallabee

I saw of Montreal in Asheville yesterday. I wish I (or any of us) took some pictures. It was totally magical. I've seen a lot of shows but that one was definitely one of the craziest. They had a live video behind them and flashed green lights that worked as a green screen, staged a priest molesting a kid, and also crucified Kevin Barnes.

Asheville's a totally cool city. I saw ads at the venue for Yeasayer being there on a monday in April, and then Vampire Weekend and Abe Vigoda there the tuesday right afterwards. Planned on skipping school and going but... one's 18+ and Vampire Weekends already sold out, obviously.

Realized what the scariest things in fast food were this weekend... CHED 'R' PEPPERS.

I had an old 16" crash cymbal from an old CB drumset. Brady and I buried it under a pile of bricks in Chapin, SC like 6 months ago, and we just dug it up yesterday. Its kind of cool, it sounds darker, and has a lot more discoloration.

We renamed it the "GN8 special custom dark big splash," and will sell it on eBay for at least $900.

My omnichord's currently being fixed. Yay.

There was a football game on today; I guess it was a big one. Fun weekend nonetheless.

No one learns kung fu around here!

My goodness! haven't blooged in over a week or two.

I've been reading this book:

Its super good. But seeing as I don't read that much, I'm bound to like it. However, sometimes I feel like its directed specifically to the "confused young black man," which I don't happen to be.

Watched this movie:

"The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin," circa 1983. It starred the Nick Cannon of kung fu. I liked it a lot. The grammar mistakes in the subtitles might have been the most exciting part of though.

Found this CD:

Gawsh, 'Attitude is Everything!' with Keith Harrell! Don't we all love/never heard of Keith Harrell? Anyways, I'm going to sample it like 1,000 times.

My Omnichord had an accident. Here's its guts, after I took it apart:

Yikes. I'm going to leave out details, because... its pretty stupid. But, alas! It will be fixed - do not worry!

I'm hope you're enjoying the stellar camera phone pictures I've posted thus far.

I think I'm able to record drums pretty well now: 2 condensers + 2 dynamics. Here's an old song, a lot of you have probably heard. But I re-did a few parts, and its less annoyingly loud overall. "The Saddest Tree On Earth pt. 1."

The Saddest Tree On Earth pt. 1 by G N 8

This will be found on a tape (Brady and) I are putting together. But less news about that.

LOOK AT THIS!

Omnichord + Distortion pedal + Drums

Here's another jam brady and I decided to record. We were just kind of amazed to hear how cool the omnichord hooked up through the GRUNGE pedal we stole from Billy's house sounded, so we recorded a little bit of it to share. I'm also overusing a Zildjian oriental 14" china cymbal that I stole from Julius' house. Its kind of long.

MURDER by G N 8

How about Jay Reatard?! That sucks! Its just too sad! And pitchfork was talking about how they were investigating to see if it was homicide. I don't want to hear that. This is a really cool documentary. It shows how nice of a guy he was.

Waiting For Something - a short documentary about Jay Reatard

Jay Reatard | MySpace Music Videos

My pal TYLER W (aka Phillip Oskar Augustine) got reviewed on Pitchfork!? Woah! He drove my sister and I up to p4k in chicago this summer and its totally crazy that he's on their site now. Good for him!

Oh god... who thought of the jazz harp?

Auditions and Gnu Toyz

So yesterday was my audition for the South Carolina region band. I didn't do so bad. My etude was alright (the one in the last blog). My rudiments were ok, just those were the first thing I played, so I was still kinda shakin'. I got all the terms right. But the sightreading, sounded like puke. I'll find out if I made callbacks tomorrow morning... so... don't want to put any words in my mouth till then.

The basement is becoming the messiest it has ever been... so many instruments... Sorry mom and dad...

Yes, there's a glockenspiel with a few microphones hovering over it...

Brady and I (G N 8) will have some things for you listeners in the future. He recently traded a broken first act drum set for a working bass guitar. Yay for us.

I recently made a purchase on eBay. Probably the best online purchase I've made. I present, straight from 1981: The Suzuki Omnichord OM-27.

Its mega cool. And here's a video I did to prove it:

My new Omnichord OM-27 from Garrett Burke on Vimeo.

So how about that Vampire Weekend? I feel like they've been the biggest winners of 2010 so far, just because they're able to surprise everyone with music no one expected. You should assume that, myself being the music snob that I am, I should hate Vampire Weekend, but I really can't get enough of Cousins (though that and Horchata are the only songs I've hear off their new record). I say keep it up, Vampire Weekend, even if they are still doing pointless shows like MTV unplugged, I can't really say anything bad about them when they write good music.

I listened to Toro Y Moi's "Causers of This" 3 times yesterday. A very good record. Besides that I feel like I'm very behind right now. I haven't done any downloading in forever, because my hard drive is full and I haven't really gotten the time to figure out my new external (its 1.5 TB HOLY SHIT).

Thanks!

Gross

I had an accident this weekend. We were all at YMC practice, and my pal, Gage, and I were having a conversation. All of the sudden, the strap on his bass snapped, thus propelling his inconveniently placed bass guitar to plummet down on top of my foot. To make a long story short, my toe is broken. It was really gross the first few days and kind of looked like a zombie. Well, I'm not going to go out without shoes for a while now, and dad says it probably won't be 100% healed until the summer or sometime... so here's what it looks like:

HA! I drew it!

In other news, this coming weekend is my audition for South Carolina's region/state band in Summerville. I'm pretty prepared, so here's a video of my solo piece:

Its actually TOTALLY sloppy, but after one take, I figured anyone watching this would not know the difference. The music itself is just stupid.

I had a pretty good jam with my pal, Kieran, last week. He had some really cool tunes to share with us. Not much to blog about though.

Toro Y Moi's album was released today, I think I shall buy it.

Milk chug is friday...

misc.

Here's two new tracks:

#1. "Elbow Grease"

A purely electronic song I collaborated with Brady on. I wouldn't call it collaborating though, because we do everything together actually. Anyways, he made the original beat and e-mailed the live set to me, where I took it, changed it and rearranged it. It starts pretty clean then turns around and sounds kind of 8-bitty. Ended up with this:

Elbow Grease by G N 8

#2. "Minimalistmas pt. 1"

I had this idea when the holiday season came around, that I'd mix awful christmas music and minimalist music. It began as a joke, then I started to think that it was actually really cool and wanted to make a full disc of it, but never got around to making any until this weekend. And its not even any good - its two tracks of a music box and a cymbal roll - nothing happens. Anyways, if you can, enjoy:

Minimalistmas pt. 1 by G N 8

There's one more tune I've been working on this week. Its a much fuller song, and I'll probably finish recording it tomorrow. Thanks for listening.