Blog it Yourself

Book Your Own Fuckin’ Life #1

While cataloging zines at the Independent Publishing Resource Center recently, I came along a pristine copy of Book Your Own Fuckin’ Life #1, printed in 1992.  While punk culture and the DIY movement was solidly established by this time, the founding edition of BYOFL can be seen as an achievement that sealed their prominence.  It illustrated that the ethics of a counterculture movement had been fully formed and realized.  It was no longer just responding and resisting, but creating an alternative.

The collaboration between Maximum Rock and Roll and Profane Existence would provide a resource guide for touring bands and traveling folks for a generation to come, including myself.  The zine was the first thing recommended to me when I first began to roam across the country – it was a great guide for places to crash long before I ever discovered couchsufing.com or was aware of WWOOF.

The first page (or two) should go straight into the DIY history books.

A few quotes:

Over the last decade and a half the world has witnessed the blossoming of one of the largest underground countercultural movements in history.  Born out of youth anger (and probably just bordem), which created the original 1977 punk explosion, this self motivated and self created movement has spread throughout the furthest reaches of industrial society.  People grown tired of pre-packaged consumer entertainment and everywhere punk has spread its “Do-It-Yourself” attitude.  Punk is a new folk music, where anyone can take part who has the desire for expression and freedom.  Communication and interaction on a personal level is the foremost goal, with production, packaging, and marketing coming secondary.  The DIY movement is vibrant and as more people, ideas, thoughts, and actions interconnect all the various aspects making it an ever-changing and growing movement. Over these past years the DIY movement has grown at an unprecedented rate, in some cases fueled by profit-making trends, but for the most part on a real grass-roots level.  The national and international communication within the DIY movement is what has kept it strong over the years.  Through the efforts of certain individual and fanzines, people have been able to make concrete connections between people of similar interests and have created an entire underground economy based on the spreading of our own living culture and ideal.  Bands have been able to promote themselves, book tours, put out records without bowing down to the corporate music industry.  That is the essence of DIY.  People helping other people without an eye for profit, only for creating a better world and having some fun…
…We feel that by breaking free from the established capitalist system we are creating freedom in our own lives.  We need the kind of global interconnections that this magazine presents the possibilities of creating.  When we take control of our immediate interests this will set an example for creating a better world.  We hope that the people who use this magazine will realize that DIY goes further than just a music “scene” and directly translates into the liberation of everyday life… Continue Reading…

Oakland’s Art Murmur

The Art Murmur is Oakland’s version of Portland’s Last Thursday. Just as DIY, 90% smaller, but a great spectacle among the grittiness of downtown Oakland. It’s on a small street, with several art galleries, a neighborhood coffee shop called Mama Buzz, a bar off to the side, and one of the best volunteer run art collectives in the area, Rock Paper Scissors- which will let you use their many different kinds of sewing machines, teach you how to worm compost, and entertain you with movie nights.

The Art Murmur, named after “Heart Murmur” is a collection of artists, cyclists, burning man folks, freaks, musicians and bystanders, who together block off the street with performances, music, and tables that sell hand screened shirts, illustrations, and vegan cupcakes. Oakland is exceptionally into industrial arts: from metal spiders that roast hot dogs, to life size hamster balls, you’ll find it at the Art Murmur.

The First Friday of every month is art night in Oakland. All over the city art galleries open up to the public, introduce their artists personally, serve wine, and sell art. The Art Murmur is the most DIY component of first Friday and happens in a very specific location- 23rd and Telegraph for those of you who are planning a trip down to the Bay.

Amy Mosley, one of the founders of the Art Murmur says “the Art Murmur grew from the grassroots organizing of the multitude of non-commercial art spaces that thrive in Oakland, with the ‘murmur’ referring to the little known secret that is the Oakland arts scene.  Of course, the murmur has only gotten louder: originally we were 8 gallery spaces, and now we are nearly 20, all inside a small geographical zone.  At the heart is Rock Paper Scissors Collective, which has worked endlessly to invite community groups to participate, and really diversify the event.  Mostly, if it’s going on in Oakland, it might be happening at Art Murmur.”

Tender Loving Empire: 170 artists, a roster of musicians, and a screenprinting studio

Here in Portland there is a Tender Loving Empire. Now, this is for real. Meet Brianne and Jared Mees. A Portland couple who created Tender Loving Empire. It’s the sunshine embrace of creative power. It is all things. Are you an artist with something you absolutely must share with the world, right now? Are you a musician who wants to put your CD in a store? Are you looking for new music? Are you looking for affordable art? The perfect gift? The Tender Loving Empire just opened it’s heart to you.

Okay, but really folks. Brianne runs the retail shop. It’s a consignment store. Everything – and I mean down to the fimo robot – is handmade. Jared focuses on the record label, and he handles the screenprinting orders. The Tender Loving Empire store is in ActiviSpace on the corner of NW Lovejoy and 18th Street.

I stop by on a Monday evening at closing time. Jared is in the screenprinting studio working on a big order of orange bandannas for Oregon State University. He stacks them in a rack to dry and washes out the screen. He has band practice. His friends hang out waiting for him to finish. Brianne shows me the store. It’s full of artwork. It’s a little shop, but really, every imaginable handicraft is there. It’s all there in the Tender Loving Empire. Continue Reading…

Lightbar Begins Tonight

How to deal with the Portland winter?  Author and Portland resident Mykle Hansen has found one way to combat the darkness.

Lightbar is a yearly transformation of Hansen’s backyard into a creative space where he and his friends can inspire and “enlighten” each other, he says.  A few years back Hansen and his friends were sick and tired of the depression that residents of the Pacific Northwest must battle for the eight-plus overcast months out of the year. Hansen recently writes:

Words alone cannot fully capture the bleakness, the torpor, the world-weariness and soul-sapping ennui that is Seasonal Affective Disorder, or S.A.D. This desperate psychological condition runs rampant in Portland, Oregon during the dark, cruel midwinter months.

Instead of waiting around for a groundhog to decide, Lightbar was envisioned as a way for its participants to usher in Spring through creative performance and community gathering.  To make up for the missing sun, a dome-like structure is constructed to bream light out

Mykle and his friends are creating Lightbar by pulling together everyone’s skills and available materials.  He began last month by planing the structure: a 5/8 dome out of 170 sticks of bamboo and some duct tape. Bamboo can be harvested using a Forest Service permit to remove non-native species, he points out, but soon he realized he needed more and was able pick up a variety from the yards of friends. “Lightbar eats more bamboo than a giant panda” he remarks.
Continue Reading…

Beat Battles

What is a Beat Off?  Well maybe not what you think.

Recently, local joint Holocene hosted one of a series of these where electronic musicians are given a variety of short samples of music and are challenged to come up with some dope beats in one hour.  Wanna hear what it sounds like?

The challenge is open to the anyone who signs up (until capacity is filled – they cram as many people as they can onstage).

Those who participated include Techno Mike, Quiet Countries, Magnum PA, Dirty X Rated, Shrubbery, Demi Batard, Cutter Filtoff, Graintable, Demdranger / John Henry, Rude Boy, The DJ Nealie Neal, and Sedell Jones who was voted the winner of the battle.

Each contest seems to bring new musicians into the fold and inspire others.  Many use laptops with custom sampling software while others keep it old skool with MPCs – machines that run as a MIDI sequencer and drum machine.

Organizer Erik Beats has been setting the recent ones up and he came on to my music show to explain the process.  You can listen to that interview here with some samples of the performers music.

Tapatio: High-tech Protest Communications

The Republican National Convention set new standards for conventions and for protests.  Not only was it the largest operation for both the RNC and protestors alike, but it was the largest instance of police infiltration and pre-emptive raids in America’s recent memory.  Eight organizers of the “welcoming committee” (protest coordinators) are facing serious charges.  As the Friends of the RNC 8 website states, they were originally charged with conspiracy to riot in the 2nd degree in furtherance of terrorism, a felony which is the first ever use of Minnesota’s PATRIOT Act.

One of the stories to be overshadowed by the crackdown was the ingenious use of cell phones and social networking to coordinate the mobilizations.  A small collective of tech groups and individuals gathered before the convention to organize the Tin Can Collective.  Among their communications efforts is a program called Tapatio.  Tapatio is a collaboratively-developed, open source computer program described as a communications resource for the radical anti-authoritarian community that was made for the RNC.

Participating in the Tin Can Collective was Hackbloc, one of many hacktivist groups that use their technological expertise for social or environmental justice.  Hackbloc states their mission is “to research, create and disseminate information, tools, and tactics, empowering people to use technology in a way that is liberating, and facilitate building of affinity groups that will support and strengthen their local communities through education and action.”  Among their points of unity are autonomous organizing, security culture, and internet neutrality.

I spoke with eVoltec, a member of Hackbloc, about their efforts during the RNC and the role technology can play in autonomous organizing.

Continue Reading…

Chiptune Music

There’s electronic music.  And then there’s video game electronic music.

While electronic musicians are known for their inventiveness, those in the chiptune community have created something else entirely.

Air Fortress on KBOO

I was able to record the Mircropalooza music festival held at Portland’s Ground Kontrol.  The bar/music venue also houses a variety of old-school arcade games so it was all too fitting to see chiptune musicians from across the region perform amongst the blips and blinking lights.

8 Bit Weapon and ComputeHer traveled from Los Angeles for their performances, while MC Firedrill came from Olympia, Washington.

Air Fortress was another musician and I brought him on to my electronic music show, Plugged In, that airs on the the local community radio station, KBOO. You can listen to Air Fortress give a live demonstration of how he creates his sounds.