the modern town hardly knows silence
...a line from The Books' song Be Good To Them Always.

Anyway, this kind of stuck out on a recent listen to Lost and Safe, in part because I recently moved to Uptown, off one of the busiest local streets in the area. There's a constant rumble of traffic, occasionally punctuated by thumping bass from a passing car, car horns, etc. Being rather sensitive to background nosie levels (they decrease the dynamic range and noise floor of my monitoring environment) I kind of wonder how I failed to notice this when we were shown the place...

side note - I really enjoy The Books, though I haven't met anyone else who really likes them. Granted, they use a lot of nonstandard song structures and instrumentation, and it can be abrasive at times, but it's significantly less so than your average noise band (i.e. lightning bolt, boris, etc. give them a listen, if you haven't (or haven't given them enough of a chance).

Complaint #two about my new place: the electrical system. Being a turn of the century building, there are nowhere near enough outlets around, and most of the wiring is two-conductor (modern systems are 3- or 4-conductor). Everyone's suggested getting 2- to 3-prong adapters, but audio and computer equipment depends upon the ground connection for rejection of electrical and RF noise.

In other words, I don't think this will be at all suitable for recording, and only marginally so for editing work... I guess I'll be using closed heaphones more often. Maybe I should look into getting an actual studio somwhere. The problem there is the cost, though... I don't make anywhere near enough to pay for a fledgling(*ahem* unprofitable) studio...

While I'm complaining, I might mention that we were late to turn in the keys for the old apartment, and were fined something ridiculous per hour ($20-30 or something) we were late - but the night before, my sister decided she would go hang out at the terminal bar for four hours, instead of packing/cleaning. I was fucking thrilled about that. yeah. fucking thrilled.

anyway. now instead of living with my sister, I'm living with my cousin, who is at least semi-responsible. it remains to be seen to what extent.


The Books' Smells Like Content ends with the following sound clip:
"Expectation...leads to disappointment. If you don't expect something big, huge, and exciting, usually...uh...."


- posted by vcmc @  4/01/2006 05:52:00 PM