Last minute 2007 lists

Favorite movies we've rented
Medium Cool
Clifford
Midnight Madness
The Passenger
Coup de torchon
Hopscotch
Phantasm
Commando
Talk Radio
The King of Comedy

Worst movie we rented
The Long Riders

Favorite entire seasons of TV we watched on DVD in marathon-format
Twin Peaks
Arrested Development
The Wire
30 Rock
The Office

Best shows on WFMU that are not "The Best Show on WFMU"
Music to Spazz By
The Dusty Show
Sinner's Crossroads
The Long Rally
Brian Turner's Show
anything where Toddophonic Todd guest DJs
Fool's Paradise
Teenage Wasteland
Downtown Soulville
DIY Or Die

Number One Shamblers Show from this past year
Jess: Knitting Factory - 12/17/07 or Goodbye Blue Monday - 8/24/07
Pete: Loft Party - 4/19/07
Ben: EDIT: Knitting Factory - 12/17/07

Shamblers releases in 2007
The Shamblers "First Album" CD-R
The Shamblers "New Year's Songs" lathe cut 7"
The Shamblers "First Year Music" 98-track MP3 CD

Happy new year!

Billy Childish interview on Soft Focus

Billy Childish is a bit of a hero around these parts, and I was thrilled to find this recent (less than two months old?) five-part interview with him yesterday. Set aside a half hour and click the link above. It's better than whatever else you were going to do.

It's part of Ian Svenonius' decent interview show, The Soft Focus, which is also worth scanning through.

Stitch for Senate

So it took me a year to finish it, for no real good reason, but I've finally finished my helmet for Cat Mazza's excellent Stitch for Senate project. I highly recommend participating. There are still many senators available to stitch for, and you don't necessarily have to stitch for your state's senator. I stitched my helmet for Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico), because I was so proud of my home-state senator for stepping up to the plate and voting a big NAY to war in 2002.

De/Evolution

For a bigger, better version, head over to[ Yonkis.com ]

Our awesome new paperweight

The Humanatone

Jess' mom was nice enough to send us a bag of noseflutes (or Humanatones, as they're professionally known) in our Christmas stocking. Here's a little video of Jess and our best friend Terry Duvall trying them out:



Terry, on the other hand, brought over a new Frostwave pedal, which we immediately stole from him. Look for a demo video soon. In the meantime, here's a photo:

Happy belated holidays!

Things have been a little quiet around these parts and probably will be still for the next couple of days while we catch our yuletide breath (and obsess over our new Twin Peaks boxset).

In the meantime, here are some nice songs from Les Paul and Mary Ford:





And this gem of theirs from 1953:

The taking of Shamblers 1/23

We're playing again on 1/23/08 at Union Hall in Park Slope with The Fourelles and another group still to be announced. It might be The Rolling Stones. You never know.

No word yet on what it'll cost or what time we go on, but a safe bet would be to start camping out now and just wait for us to show. Plus, they've got a bocce league and a packed calendar there, so you can find ways to pass the time until we arrive.

See you on the 23rd!

EDIT: the third band is Twin Thousands. Also, we're listed on the Union Hall calendar as "The Shambles." Don't let the typo fool you. It's really us.

60s French studio porn

Console shot at 1:10
Outboard shots at 1:16 and 1:24

The talkback mic is probably a Reslo ribbon, and Serge's vocal mic looks like a U47/U48, but I'm stumped on the control room equipment. Any ideas, dear readers?

Another "Best of 2007" with The Shamblers!

Scott McDowell, formerly of The McDowells, played our cover of "Winter Wonderland" on the "Best of 2007" edition of "The Long Rally" on WFMU last night/early this morning. How's that for an excited run on sentence?

Thanks Scott! "The Long Rally" is on our list of "Best Shows on WFMU that are not The Best Show," which we'll be posting a little bit closer to the New Year.

Oh, Knitting Factory

Big thanks to Bryan for setting up the show, and to Hot Pipes for being sweet and offering us a place to stay in Nashville, and to everyone who showed up, and to our mothers.

Barney Bubbles

Barney Bubbles not only made amazing psychedelic covers, he was also in The Imperial Pompadours (see below).

ebay of the day

Too bad it's already sold. I can't seem to find this album anywhere. Here's a great review from the very reliable Head Heritage.
UPDATE: I just wasn't looking hard enough. It's so good.

We made a "Best of 2007" list!

For real. That's us alongside Chamillionaire and Blonde Redhead.

Thanks Metromix!

Nice drawing of The Shamblers

Bryan, of Dracula Zombie USA, put together tonight's show at The Knitting Factory, and had some nice things to say about our little group on his site. Here's a drawing he made of us:


From this photo:



Thanks Bryan!

Pedal #2: built!

Our second BYOC pedal, the "Mighty Mouse," has been built and is working like a charm! I'm hooked. No video or clips this time (it's getting late), but I'll be using it at The Shamblers show on Monday. Yet another reason to get there.

Other reasons:

1. It's The Shamblers
2. It's a free show
3. 4 bands
4. Again, free

Knitting Factory, this Monday, 9pm. Scroll down to see the flier.

In any case, here are a couple of photos of our new toy:

Suggestion for "I'm Not There, pt. II"

Please cover this stage of his career, too:



Maybe with Judge Reinhold as a character called "Meltdown." Just a suggestion.

Down with BYOC

I built my first BYOC pedal last night, the Boss DM-2 sounding "Digital Delay."

This was made immediately after putting a battery in it for the first time:



If you're even remotely interested in building a pedal from a kit, be sure to check these guys out. This was the first thing I've ever put together from scratch, and it was significantly less difficult than I'd come to imagine these things to be. Granted, I made a ton of mistakes, but if their forums are any indication, that's par for the course.

Custom Ring Tone question

Does anyone know how to make a ring tone from an MP3? Is there an easy way to do it? Just curious.

The Nord Modular G2 demo

I've been flirting with the idea of selling everything I own and finally building that modular synthesizer I've been talking about since starting and abandoning construction on a Paia Dual VCA some ten years ago. It's better for everyone that I gave that project up, by the way, as the only thing I was really constructing was a voltage controlled fire hazard. (Pause for laughter) Thank you, thank you.

In any case, I'm excited once again about getting my feet wet in the world of modulars. Aside from not having any money-- which, admittedly, is a pretty big stumbling block-- the problem I'm running up against is that I don't actually know the first thing about how modular synthesizers work. I know how to pull sounds out of a pre-patched synth, (let's say a Rogue), and generally get the gist of what's going on in a strictly left-to-right way (the oscillator goes into the filter, the filter goes into the envelope generator, the envelope generator goes into the amplifier), but if I had to build the instrument from its components, I'd be in trouble.

So a couple of weeks ago I started looking around for a good "Intro to Modular Synthesizers" book/website/fanzine/etc., and kept coming up empty handed. What I did find, and what was really helpful, was this You Tube channel, and, by extension, its blog, Felix Inferious. I wrote to the guy behind it for advice and he recommended I download and start using the Nord Modular G2 software demo as a home-school tutorial, at least until I got a better idea of just what I was getting myself into and felt comfortable actually buying something, which was awesome.

You can download the G2 demo (legally) for free here.

Needless to say, it's a lot of fun and has taken over my free time completely. I strongly recommend everyone reading this check it out if you haven't already and, if you feel up to it, share the patches you come up with in the comments section of this post.

If making sounds out of synthesizer modules is as foreign to you as it was to me, don't worry: the program comes with a little PDF tutorial that'll give you the basics. After that, go crazy. I don't own a Midi keyboard, so everything I'm making with the demo has to self-oscillate. My patches all sound like a room full of dying sirens, underwater. Again, lots of fun. I hope you have as good a time with it as I've been having. Thanks again, James!

(P.S. If you can point me towards a decent "Intro to Modular Synthesizers" book/website/fanzine/etc., please do)

EDIT: Here's a bass and drums, Euro-discotheque patch I came up with a few minutes ago. I can almost feel the fake gold rash now...

Knitting Factory Dec. 17

This will probably be our best show ever, just like all the rest. More info here.

I can't live without my radio

Our mini-boombox from Troika USA arrived today, and it sure is tiny! 5.25" x 5.25" x just over 2".

If you're picking one of these up, there are a few things to note:

1. It ships with a pair of AA batteries, but does not ship with a wall wart. If you're looking to buy one beforehand, get something that'll give you 4.5v and 300mA, with the same sort of connection you'd use for a Boss pedal. Should be easy to find.

2. Once it arrives, open the battery compartment and look for a flimsy, clear piece of plastic tucked away on the side. Yank it out. The LCD screen won't work unless you do this, which sucks, because it isn't mentioned in the manual.

3. To set the alarm, turn the On/Off switch to "BUZZ - ALM" before pressing and holding the "ALM SET" button. I don't know why you have to do this, but the alarm time will not change if the On/Off control is set to either "RADIO ON" or "RADIO OFF/ALM." Again, not in the manual.

That's it. The reception is better than you might think with the antenna raised (we can get WFMU in our place without any trouble), and the single 3" speaker could be worse. $75 well spent!


EDIT: Just to be clear-- we like it! It's loud enough for whatever you'd practically use a mini-boombox for (and it's got a headphone-out, if you wanted to connect it to something with a little more oomph for some reason), the reception is fine, it's superlight and it looks great. So long as you're not expecting it to sound like a portable McIntosh system (which is to say, this), it doesn't disappoint.

Pixelator!

On a related note, if you're running Firefox and you haven't adopted the AdBlock Plus extension yet, you don't know what you're missing, rather you don't realize how much you could be missing.

Kitty on Knitty

The pattern for the hand puppet in this totally unbelievable shot is available in the Winter issue of Knitty. I'm not sure where you get wood paneling like that, but I'm on the hunt.

Peter Heyneman meets Chuck Brown

Peter Heyneman, drummer for Thee Iran-Contras, recently interviewed DC go-go legend Chuck Brown for the Brightest Young Things website. You can read all about it by clicking here.

eBay pick of the day: Wobulator knock-off

"D.H." dual tremolo pedal


A rarity indeed! Apparently, this is a prototype edition (no serial number) of a Lovetone Wobulator knock-off pedal produced by a man/company known only as "D. H." Mysterious, eh?

It doesn't have the trigger input of the original (and I can only assume the "Pedal In" controls the first LFO rate, but who knows), but the graphics are pretty close, and the price is right. Also, it's nice to see something a little more ambitious than a "new" Rangemaster in the boutique clone market.

Snow Day!

B. R. Wallers telling some jokes in Dallas

The Country Teasers were the last band we saw play at Tonic.

Question: what was the last band you saw play at your favorite club before your favorite club closed? Or, more generally, what was the best show you saw at a club that has since shut its doors?