Here’s a cool little EP from Canadian Punk band, Honest Injun. I don’t think it’s been available on the internet before this, so here’s a nice clean rip. Download below.

Had a difficult time finding a nice copy of this cover so I made one myself.

Hello everyone! Today, rather than writing some nonsense about The Outhere Brothers (which I will do soon, don’t panic), I’m moonlighting as an investigative journalist.

A few years ago I watched Jesse Michels YouTube channel. He’s a young go-getter, whippersnapper with seemingly endless money and contacts. I was fascinated in his focus on utter-nonsense and bullshit, and I generally found it quite entertaining to watch – not having a vested interest in the alien / UFO / conspiracy theory rubbish he pedals. It was like seeing people converse from an alternate universe.

He’d spin tails of alien visitors, all while interviewing curly-haired men who could speak for three hours without solidifying a single concept or observation, rambled on endlessly, all while Jesse encouragingly nodded along and interjected with congratulatory phrases and “supporting” information.

It was utter bullshit – but I know what I like.

In one episode, breaking from the norm, he interviewed yet another curly-haired rambling gentleman called Sam Bankman-Fried. Jesse regaled us of tails about growing up with Sam Bankman-Fried, how their fathers went to law school together and had been friends ever since. It stuck in my mind because Sam Bankman-Fried was such a strange, unpleasant man (“man”) who was making money seemingly from thin air (at his peak he was worth $16 Billion, with a ‘B’).

Ah, it was crypto currency. He’s a scam artist then.

I moved on, as did Jesse. Years passed, and I remained subscribed to his channel lapping up as much nonsense as anyone could reasonably stand. Aliens this, Government conspiracy that.

Then it happened. All over the news, Sam Bankman-Fried was going to jail for running what was the largest Ponzi scam of my life time. It was everywhere. An international scandal of massive scale. It wasn’t perpetrated by some evil genius with grand illusion, it was simple – unchecked lies by a fat, smelly, greedy little man. He’d taken peoples money, pretended it had magically shot up in quantity, all while secretly having no such mechanism in his business. It also didn’t help that Sam had been spending like a drunken sailor.

His messy hair and dirty clothes had fooled everyone. He wasn’t a crypto investor genius, he was a greedy, dirty little man who had stolen a lot of peoples life savings, investments, and likely ruined a huge number of lives. All helped by his family and friends.

But I remembered… I remembered how Jesse had gleefully told us about his relationship with Sam. About how is family were involved with his. Little buddies, all caught up in a hustle.

So I went looking on Youtube for the video, wondering what Jesse’s reaction would be in the comments. Would he be distancing himself from Sam? Would he be supporting his life long friend? How would he back peddle this whole relationship?

He’d deleted the video. He’d deleted the podcast. He’d deleted the TikTok promos. It was all gone. Thrown into a black hole (or beamed up by the Aliens, huh, Jesse?)

Well me, I’m not a man who easily forgets. And I’m not a man who calls it quits so easily. Everyone, say it with me –

When you put something on the Internet, it is there FOREVER.

Here is the long deleted podcast that ties Jesse Michels to Sam Bankman-Fried. Please download this and distribute it as you wish.

Why am I doing this? Because I’m sick of weasels helping others steal money. I’m sick of horrible little people like Jesse thinking he can do as he pleases, even to the detriment of thousands of others. Fuck him and Sam Bankman-Fried. Fuck Sam’s parents who helped him, fuck Jesse’s parents who think they can distance themselves from this whole scandal.

These people disgust me, and I host this video as evidence of their involvement in the theft of Billions of dollars.

Jesse – the only conspiracy theory you should be interested in is what did your parents do with the SBF money?

They kick ass. I’ll write more when not drunk

I had the opportunity recently to have some tracks cut on a modern lathe process. I thought it would be fun to do a track that’s already pressed to vinyl as a comparison.

I could rabbit on about the differences, but here’s a few direct recordings.

Original Digital Master

Vinyl Pressing

Vinyl Lathe Cut

Summary, lathe losses some high end in comparison to the vinyl pressing, but it fairs better than expected. It would likely fit some styles of music were you to plan ahead.

There’s unfortunately a bit of a channel balance issue with the lathe, that I’ll speak to the cutter about addressing.

I have remastered the cover image for this album that I love very much. I think it came out well, so thought I would share it with you all.

That’s all.

edit: Did the single version too…

MPC4000 and some samples. It’s difficult to break new ground in hip-hop without doing some weird avant-guard nonsense (see the new Beans album “ZWAARD” – which isn’t bad, but it knows what it is).

I like this one, I think it works well. I like the change in tone during verses. And as in cohesive as it is, it seems to find some sort of harmony. Drums fall where they may, but it’s not as self-indulgent as it sounds.

I long for some more Roc Marcy production with Stove, but I don’t think we’ll see that any time soon.

Also, I’m running out of variations of the “Tuck ya Chain” sample 😐

In celebration of Vybz Kartel’s possible release from prison, I felt like putting together some dancehall tunes. Well, riddims really, but then lazily pasting some AI separated vocals overtop.

For the record, Vybz totally killed that guy but, what you going to do?

The first one is a remix of Spice “Under Fire” and it’s probably the most successful of the bunch. Modern, poppy, dancehall beats. Lots of fake drum rolls and gun cocking samples. Bassline is a Behringer Model D (I love this thing man, go buy one!), drums are… I can’t quite remember. I know the kick is a Jomox MBase01 processed through a Waldorf 2-pole filter. Other than that I can’t remember Lots of Eventide H9 in the background which makes a basic mix sound quite big. I should have compressed the bass on this a little more, it’s a bit ‘big’ sounding for my tastes now but there’s worse things to have in a mix than a big wobbly analogue bass.

Second tune is Irah “Program”. More of a classic riddim this one. Draws heavily from the classic Cough & Spit riddim by Rythm Tracks. Heavily filtered Korg Polysix bassline and chunk box guitar sample processed with a few guitar pedals and bit of spring reverb from the Vermona DSR-3. I think the vocal is amazing, but it’s doesn’t quite sit right for me. The riddim is good and solid though. Lots of folly percussion for atmosphere – gotta get my money out of that spring box.

Last tune is the weakest. It’s the first one I made, but I guess I didn’t quite have my ear in. Too busy and messy. Initially I was riding the effects on the snare and tweaking as we went, but it was just too big so I gated the tail quite aggressively and it’s removed a lot of the effect. Some nice harmonising in the chorus on the outro though. riddim works well on it’s own, although you can hear there’s too much going on in the background.

Anyway, there they are. If nothing else, it may interest some people to go checkout the originals.

Peace to Vybz Kartel (don’t shoot me!)

There’s a gulf of under appreciated work in Bowie’s career, somewhere between ’93 to 2000. To me this is some of the most experimental and nostalgia-less work Bowie ever did. It’s certainly some of my favourite, and I think it is very successful in decoupling Bowie for his earlier endeavours (for better or worse).

With the development of new AI tools (Jesus Christ, have I really become a blogger who harps on about this AI bullshit now? Is that what this is?), we can, and reasonably cleanly, separate the vocals from these session. Or indeed any session or recording.

I wanted to build something from the 1. Outside album. Not traditional remixes, but sort of sound scapes that encompass the tone and atmosphere of the original recordings (I’ve completely disappeared up my own arse). Harsh and unforgiving. Experimental and inaccessible, but interesting. I want them to be challenging and unique. The acid test for this is to have a casual listener say the words “is this even music?!”

With that in mind, here is my remix (I hate that word) of “Hearts Filthy Lesson”. It’s unfinished, unpolished, unmastered, and that’s how it’s staying. I think if I work any more it’ll lose its uniqueness.

This was made with a Waldorf Microwave XT, some percussion instruments, some guitar pedals, a Mackie mixing desk and a Vermona DRM1. Oh, and some effects, like the TC Electronic Firework and Jomox T-Resonator and an Eventide H9. I think that’s it. The kick is sampled from my Jomox Base 01. Not that the gear is particularly interesting, as most of the sound comes from the editing.

I don’t know how I feel about this. It’s noisy and aggressive, it’s really a very difficult listen. But I’ll be damned if I don’t say there’s something about it I like it a lot. It’s the type of stupid, intentionally weird and challenging thing I’m proud of making. It’s horribly self indulgent and I expect almost no one else to like it.

And actually, that’s fine with me because even I’m not sure if this really is music.