Colab got its website up!

http://colab-arts.org/

fiffe created it and its looks amazing, so go check it out if your wandering around the world wide interweb anytime soon.

Eel on Hold

because it is so hard to hold on.

reel to reel stereo tape recorder archeology

or sketches with a tape recorder
or tape recorder reconfiguration remix
or How To Remix A Tape Recorder

start out frustrated (see previous post)
get archaeological
take apart tape recorder
save every screw, washer, nut, plastic, metal piece possible
salvage as many electronic components as possible
think about all the other metal parts in the machine
wonder what you can do with them
think about tim hawkinson, tom friedman, and dieter roth
try to dissasemble entire apparatus and cataloge each part
or reconstruct the entire tape machine inside out
get frustrated again with metal dust, stripped screws, grease, and cuts
drop that idea and salvage what metal pieces you can
layout all metal pieces, screws, and assorted gears
take parts and reconfigure them, using only parts from the machine, into new things
tiny sculpture thoughts, three dimensional drawings, purely aesthetic/design oriented thinking
document
take apart sculptures and re-reconfigure them to make new ones
add rare earth magnets for extra fun
put in box
clean up
blog
go to sleep


in the beginning


looks like a face


guts in a box


guts out of the box


magnet and screws


again, magnet and screws


the last one, magnet and screw person


random reconfiguration


random reconfiguration


random reconfiguration

there are a few more but im really tired and my camera sucks so i will post them later. i really like playing with the rare earth magnets and the screws. i really do enjoy making small things, robots, objects, whatever. and using magnets could be a lot of fun.

car ant lee and a quest john

currently



and seriously, WHOS GONNA MAKE THIS HAPPEN????

colins last bend in the brunz - syn(th)ister

this was a keyboard colin was holding on to for a while. as is the nature of so many of the weird objects lying around our old apartment, we dont know where it came from. maybe we found it, or maybe it found us. in the last few days we were in new brunswick colin bent it into a crazy howling monster of a keyboard. there wasnt much to find in terms of glitch but after experimenting with the amplification circuit, colin hit feedback gold. the thing sounds absolutely sinister with a distortion/overdrive pot, and a harshasfuck feedback switch. there is also a glitch button but that ended up being as useful as an appendix. the video is of colin playing a lil ditty on our ol'back porch.

assholes

why do people throw out awesome old electronics like this stero tape recorder and tape deck and CUT OFF THE POWER CHORDS??!?!! this is the third time this has happened to me. the feeling undeniable joy from a great find during a midnight bulk waste run, and the subsequent crushed hopes and dreams of a cut power chord. makes me want to throw this tape deck through their frickin window! is there some sort of unwritten rule of homeowner assholes that says before you throw out tvs, vcrs, audio equipment, or anything else of potential value, that you have to ruin it and make sure no one else can use it??? so selfish! so frustrating! is there a way to fix this without electrocuting myself or creating a fire hazard? how can we raise public awareness about the importance and simple joys of trash picking. so many questions...i must make a psa.

SLURRKIT BLENT UNSTROWMUNTS

the workshop last night went pretty well. it was a small group of 5 so everyone got a toy from my stash to bend and it kept the group to a manageable size for me. everyone got to go home with a finished bentstrument toy. except olchar (sorry!) who experienced the dark half of the glamorous life of circuit bending - failure and frustration. although it was totally not his fault, crappy keyboards and stripped screws are the bane of any bender. last night was when i acutely realized no one else knows circuits like colin LBJ challender (the LBJ stands for Lyndon B. Johnson {the B stands for Baines}). **cue violins** and not only is his friendship dearly missed but his technically expertise and enthusiasm for the art of circuit bending. damn you south korea! anyways here are some photos


the set up - soldering irons, solder, wire strippers, wire, strippers, safety glasses, glasses, alligator clips, alligators, assorted screw drivers, glitch hikers guide the galaxy #1, and electric animals go sleepy bye-byes and other byoots


all hands hard at work


warren added a photocell to this dollar store keyboard that i seriously must have been holding onto for 2 years. it comes with a fan and im glad it has finally been put to good use.



jen took the toy i wanted to bend, but because she did such a good job ill let her keep it....for now. she added a pitch pot to the drum toy, bringing its total octave range from shrill headache to mechanical whale.

not pictured was lnys awesome bend of a pink glittery cell phone toy i got from a cvs a while ago, and philippes bending of the pink beeper that came with it.


this is warren and lenny making some noise with their bent toys

vvvvorkshop

ill be giving a vvvvorkshop on circuit bending today at space ii iiii iv (234 raritan ave highland park nj). bring toys, instruments, and cassette tape players if you want help hacking them. ill be giving out copies of a zine colin and i made about circuit bending basics and will try to hit up a good will or tuesday morning before the workshop so i can provide some toys for people. see you there.

h i t e c h l o w t e c h ! ! ! 1 ! 1 1

all this weekend check the up to date awesomeness

Mass Ive Up Date

In the world right now:
El Colin in El Korea (SOUTH Korea)
Being awesome by the Pacific
Check his blog--> KoreanColin.blogspot.com

I am residing at home in Montclair NJ
Here is a cheapanorama of my room turned studio.

It used to be covered in magazine pictures and other angst ridden teenage memorabilia and is now a nice white so I can start to put new crap on it.

I am working for a public access television station Montclair34 and will hopefully soon be assistant station manager for South Orange Maple Wood TV as well.
In a month or so I will be making a TV SHOW which will air locally. If you have any video that would like to see on TV...well technically you can only see it on TV if you live in Montclair, so more realistically, if you have any video that you want to tell people was on TV, send me an email and I will send you the details.

Earlier this month Co-Lab threw Resonate, which had to be one of the biggest, most legit, and fun events in recent memory. Visual art, poetry, 2 bands (Tin Kitchen and The Assistant Principals), 2 kegs, CAKE!!!!, and 250+ plus people all in the beautifully lit backyard scenery of New Brunswick.

Me and Doug did live projections for the bands as a warm up for our gig for Natural Breakdowns record release party at the Cross Roads theater. That show was amazing and given that we had one weeks notice, went down without a hitch. The two main photos on their site show our work in the background. Will have some clips of that up on the interweb shortly. Doug is a VJ genius working video alchemy on the constant, so were going to start doing projection gigs as much as we can. If you want something beautiful psychedelic and smart behind your band or at your event please contact Invisible Visuals by emailing me or Doug O'Neil.

This Thursday check out the opening of a show LNY is curating at Sarah Wellingtons gallery Space II III IV called
High Tech Low Tech.

Thats it for now. Massive change is happening all around. Adjustments are being made and updates will be on the regular now.

A Goldenchild in Troubled Times

A composition for the first bend I finished on a keyboard.
The Casio SA-35 was my first musical instrument when I was young. I didn't really get any other instruments, aside from toy drums. I kept it with me all through my life and then I met Reid, who taught me how to make things awesome. The first SA-35 died in the basement of 88-B in a tragic short circuiting, but not before showing us the glorious potential locked inside. Lovechild was made weeks later after a lucky Ebay find. Lovechild went down after an outdoor performance at Demarest but its guts were transfered to what is now, the near-invincible Goldenchild, half machine, half god. Later, me and reid discovered that the way we bent this thing should have killed it for good, but it lives on, like a phoenix out of the ashes, it will never die... we love it too much to give it up.

Meet "My Maker"

This is the "My Maker" guitar. The minimal aesthetic and sonic changes to it have ascended it from the realm of mere mortals into the hallowed halls of the gods.

The extended pot knob remains bare to create a whammy bar effect through body contact. Its main purpose is a pitch bend that can turn this tiny toy guitar into a powerful bass guitar or slide guitar in on simple turn. There are three other body contacts extending out of the guitar, near the pot for playability purposes, that create a number of effects from simple pitch bends, to crunchy sound mods and even some weird screaming that sounds like the soul of an electric dog burning in a sea of flaming cats.



You can here one of its many godly choruses in "The New Shoes Song" here

This guitar was one of the first truly amazing instruments we finished and it inspired some of the pieces shown earlier in the blog.

CCuurreenntt EEvveennttss

It is always important to keep your workspace clean and organized.

New Release

Electric Animals Go Sleepy Bye-Byes and Other Byoots
This is the new release from All Over the Where. 9 beauties (byoots) totaling 31 minutes and 21 seconds. The disc includes some new material and old recordings that fate brought together. The idea for this release was to be completely free! Spread the Love. The discs are CD-R's I received for X-mas, the photocopies for the booklet/casing were done at an unnamed place of someone's employment. The rest is just a big idea. Instead of charging for the CD I started a log of thoughts. I was actually charging 'a penny or your thoughts' but either people were cheap asses or didn't have a penny on them. In reality, one thought is as priceless as any, so I am happy to trade a disc of the new release to get an idea of what is on someone's mind. Below is a crappy scan of the cover art that is folded around the CD to create the booklet, and the casing.

It tried to scan some of the thoughts but my scanner sucks so I gave up. Here are some of them:







number 1:

THOUGHTS:
Jaime was some

the shock of corruption
in a utopian system of

i don' t think I've ever
been as

working toward a point
which

what happened to suburban
values?

my mom told me about
tina turner on VH1
and I was dancing

the lady on the beach
had no clothing on
so I covered her with
rags
and ran to the smoking
man to tell him dont
hurt yourself by my
(con't)
mom told me "no!" at
the Garden State Mall.

number 2:

I wonder everyday
if everyone is hungry
when they wake up
in the morning.
-JACOB

number 3:
(i think some of them have to be scanned)


number 4:


number 5:


number 6:


number 7:
(i wasn't planning to put these on the blog, but somehow lny knew)


number 8:


number 9:



I would put more thought into this but i have work now. Till next time...

DayByoozing

These pictures are from the debut of the Fill-in-the-Blank-o-nator on June 2, 2007. The Man in Gray record release party at Union Hall, Brooklyn, was a lot of fun and reeeeally rockin'.
Man in Gray was awesome and asked me to sing with them on on of there last songs of the evening with the new instrument.

Also that night, Screaming Females rocked the rock back to the stone age. Their record release show will be at The Parlor on June 22nd.

O it was so good. I must make more... I must show them to the world.

Pictures Doth Not Do Justice

There are no words that can describe the feeling that came over me when this little monster was debuted in Brooklyn, NY on June 2, 2007. I have been working on this over the past month and it is finally here to change the face of music... forever.

While it does not have an official name yet, (there will be many different names for it used throughout this post; i.e:) The Kick-Assonator is the most awesome thing imaginable in the mind of a musician. Part delay pedal, part keyboard, part vocorder, part noise maker, part smile generator, part theremin, part overdrive pedal, part chorus, part god, etc...

On one side of The Awesomeanator, 
there are two body contacts, 
a high-cut filter knob, 
a delay frequency knob, 
the crazy switch, 
and a perma-pause on switch.











On the other side, The Greaternator has
a tempa-sert on switch,
photo-there on switch,
the delayed-delay-fuzz switch,
a delay sustain knob,
an overdrive knob,
and two body contacts.










The back of The Sweetenerator features
a bypass switch,
a 1/4 inch output,
and a 1/4 inch input. 













To top of The Colinator, there is
a photoresistor,
and a resistor keyboard.

There was a lot of planning and preparation that went into The Delayerator. It all started with the "My Maker" guitar, which has not been featured on the blog yet. After creating "My Maker," there were a series of toy guitars purchased through various outlets. One of them was the radical rhythm turned "HERO" (featured earlier in the blog) and another, what was once a Barbie Guitar, by accident and with a stroke of luck, transformed over(22)night(s) into the most amazing musical instrument/supplementer ever. The Supplementerator is the most awesome piece to come out of All Over the Where yet, and who knows where it will lead.

Here are some pictures of its guts:

The new delay petal/instrument was unleashed during one of the last songs
played by Man in Gray during their record release party. MiG was kind enough
to invite me to sing and play along with them. (I thought i would just end up
debuting it on the streets of New York and probably get arrested for terrorism
or something.)

All Over the Where will be releasing the first wave of the new invention over the
summer. Six limited edition, customized, Real-Name-a-Lators!

Audio samples, as well as video demonstrations, pictures of the performance, and hopefully video of the performance will be posted shortly.