Monday, February 1, 2016

Bag Raiders, Rec Centers & Fresh Guacamole

Weekly Update 2016-06: Listening to Bag Raiders through a bike company mixtape, thinking about how my new neighbourhood feels like Animal Crossing, and the amazing stop-motion mimickry videos by PES.

Music: Sole Fixtapes and Bag Raiders
I had been hemming and hawing about seeing Bag Raiders next month (especially because it falls on a Hebrew Tuesday), but a lovely new discovery changed my mind. I found this wonderful collection of mixes called fixtapes, each one created by a different artist (many of whom I love) for a Bicycle company! How interesting. I suppose the brand is trying to become a lifestyle more than just a simple bicycle retailer. Check out the other 44 fixtapes here.

Anyway, Bag Raiders are a funky two-piece from Australia (where else) that seem to do just about everything one can do with electronic music. Listen below.


Accomplishment:
This was a busy week. For one, through a bit of hardship and dumb luck, I finally found the information for the tribal drumming class I walked by the other week, and attended my first class yesterday! It was awesome. I am already four classes behind, but I am sure to catch up. Just gotta find those online practice videos somewhere...

I also managed to borrow some Arduinos and breadboards from a friend, and found some great online resources through Lynda and Skillshare. I signed up for a 3d Printing class at the library, and overcame my fear of Facebook groups by posting in all three of Toronto Rave Community, Young Urbanists League, and Simpsons Trivia. Trust me when I say that all three groups have a very specific sensibility and if you don't carry it, you'll be shunned. May I also say that my post in TRC earned me a grand total of 156 likes! Out of 50,000 group members, that's really not bad for a first-time poster. Now, what did I post, you may ask? You'll just have to join the group and look for yourself. I can't be giving everything away, now can I?

And what did I promise you? Was it possibly a business card and a beer typography graphic?


The business card is still a work in progress, I don't love the colours yet. But it's coming along.

As for this little baby, I still need to hand-vectorize the logo (why can't people keep vector versions of their logos?) and send it off to be cut. Exciting times!

Goal:
I have the basics to begin an Arduino project, but I need to figure out what projects I want to do and buy the peripherals for them. So I will be selecting three projects on Thursday, and attempting to make them on Saturday or Sunday.

I also have to practice drumming! Catching up on four weeks of classes in drumming is quite a bit harder than a whole semester of Hebrew, let's just say, so that's gonna have to happen at some point. I wonder if I can practice on the subway walls without bothering other people. Most likely not.

One other small goal for this weekend is to change the Behance link on my website to my SoundCloud profile. I never really got around to filling in my Behance page, and since I already have all my work on my website, it kind of makes no sense. So why not share something I care more about (and even mroeso as time goes on): my SoundCloud page. I don't actually have any original music, but I care a lot about the music I have curated and collected over the past six months and feel that it would be good to share. Unfortunately, people don't seem to access 'Likes' pages very much, so I am going to organize my Likes into playlists and go with the proverbial flow. Maybe I'll get some more followers in the process?

Random Thought:
I decided to take a stroll through Christie Pitts last Monday night on a whim. Without my brain really knowing, my feet brought me to one of my favourite spots in the park: the skating rink. And what did I find there? Nothing but a bunch of cute 20-something guys playing hockey! Such luck! It was wonderful to see such a community spirit. And as I turned around, I was delighted to see that someone was manning the tiny rec centre behind the rink. It gave me a strong feeling of playing Animal Crossing, when things like the town hall and the police station are only open at certain hours of the day, depicted by a warn yellow light emanating from the building. This was the same feeling. "Someone's inside, come on in!"


Except it wasn't raining. :)

Inspiration: PES
I found this crazy video online and I must share it with you:


This is awesome. I love the way the artist creates a realistic-looking 'guacamole' out of (decidedly inedible) household objects. The attention to detail is astounding, not to mention the use of stop-motion is impeccable. Check out more of PES's work here.


No comments:

Post a Comment