music
Music is a necessity. Though I focus mostly on alternative/industrial/EBM/electronic styles, my tastes are eclectic and wide-ranging.
Have a couple hours to kill this Saturday before the evening revelries? Join my DJ alter-ego for Spüki Tünes with DJ Wüdi on Halloween Afternün!
1 p.m. (Pacific time) on my Twitch channel. Old classics, newer goofiness, and some stuff I just thought would fit in.
Happy May Day
You hear that sound, the rain is coming down
It says there’s a ripeness setting in
The children spin around ’til they crash into the ground
Singing “Welcome Home Forever Once Again”And when you hear the spirit’s call
There ain’t no use to fight
And if you want to reap tomorrow, you better sow your seed tonight
You better sow your seed tonightYou feel that fire lift your body higher
An old, old dance is growing here
Better kiss me soon while the blossoms are in bloom
Or you might just have to wait another yearAnd when you hear the spirit’s call
There ain’t no use to fight
And if you want to reap tomorrow, you better sow your seed tonight
You better sow your seed tonightYou feel that beet, come on, move your feet
Old man winter’s dead and gone
There’ll be wiggling of the toes, there’ll be taking off of clothes
There’ll be silly naked dancing on the lawnAnd when you hear the spirit’s call
There ain’t no use to fight
And if you want to reap tomorrow, you better sow your seed tonight
You better sow your seed tonight
— Jason Webley, “May Day”
Use Your Phone as a Webcam with EpocCam
Need a webcam? Want to hook up a second webcam for multi-cam streaming? EpocCam from Kinoni lets you connect your phone to your computer as a second video input!
It works either wirelessly over WiFi or with a direct USB cable connection for lower latency.
I’ve only played with the iPhone version, but there looks to be an Android version as well, and they should both work with either Mac or PC computers. It’s slightly fiddly to set up, but I got it working:
- Install the EpocCam app on your phone.
- Install the driver from Kinoni’s website on your computer.
- Reboot.
- Launch the EpocCam app on your phone. It’ll show a “connecting” screen.
- Launch whatever app you want to use the video input.
- Go into the video settings and choose EpocCam as a source.
- Magic!
There’s a non-zero probability that I may be using this setup as part of my weekly DJ livestreaming on Twitch on Saturday mornings. Just saying. :)
DJing on Twitch
I tried a little experiment this morning with DJing live to my Twitch channel, and I don’t think it went terribly badly…so I’m thinking I may do this on a semi-regular basis.
Background: Like many, many people…I used to be a DJ. ;) Lately I’ve been missing it, so this is a way for me to start practicing again. I have no visions of getting back into clubs or anything along those lines (though it’s always a fun fantasy), but this should at least help scratch the itch a little bit.
I’m using djay Pro 2 and a Pioneer DDJ-400 mixer, and figured out how to use OBS (with some assistance from Loopback to route the audio stream from djay to OBS so I wasn’t just broadcasting whatever my computer’s internal mic could pick up) to stream to Twitch. I’m also recording the video and audio output locally, and will upload those to my YouTube and MixCloud accounts within a few days after broadcasting.
Here’s the video for my first attempt (the audio kicks in at about 45 seconds).
And here’s the audio on MixCloud.
In the future, I’ll figure out how to keep the Twitch chat channel up on a second screen so I can take requests as well (on the off chance people actually stop by to watch and listen live).
It’s an experiment, and I’m not sure how long I’ll keep doing it, but for now, at least, it should be fun to play with.
The opening notes of the closing credits music for Enterprise are so similar to the Non Nobis, Domine from Henry V that I always get the latter running through my head after finishing an episode of Enterprise. 🖖
Ramones Time
As of the moment this post is published—12:00 a.m., December 31, 2019—it is officially Ramones Time: 2020, 24 hours to go.
An Old Music Meme Revisited
For no particular reason (and certainly no good reason), resurrecting a silly little meme from a few years ago…
Some silly pointless statistics on my iTunes music library:
- How many total tracks?
33,978: 109 days, 2 hours, 38 minutes, and eight seconds in total, taking up 228.35 GB of storage.
-
Sort by song title — first and last?
- First: A Drowning (Bonus Track), by How to Destroy Angels, from Welcome Oblivion
- Last: } . } @ } . @ . } @ } . @ . } @ } . @ . } @ } ., by The User, from Symphony #2 for Dot Matrix Printers, if you sort special characters and numbers after letters, as iTunes does, or Zyklon B Zombie, by MSBR, from In Formation–A Tribute to Throbbing Gristle if you just want the last one alphabetically
- Sort by time — shortest and longest?
- Shortest: 0:01 — g-and that’s all she talks about, a sample of a girl’s voice I pulled from somewhere for use in DJing
- Longest: 4:23:21 – Thor’s Day Night, a nearly four-and-a-half hour mix of me DJing at Norwescon 36
- Sort by Album — first and last?
- First: Abandon, by The User
- Last: Either 55578 by Wolfsheim, if you sort special characters and numbers after letters, as iTunes does, or Zoot Suit Riot by Cherry Poppin’ Daddies if you just want the last one alphabetically.
- Sort by Artist — first and last?
- Top five played songs?
- Wasted, by And One, from Virgin Superstar
- One World One Sky, by Covenant, from United States of Mind
- Kathy’s Song (Come Lie Next to Me), by Apoptygma Berzerk, from Welcome to Earth
- Afterhours, by Covenant, from United States of Mind
- Doubleplusgood, by Eurythmics, off of 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)
- Find the following words. How many songs show up?
- Sex: 279
- Death: 215
- Love: 1,853
- You: 3,014
- Home: 344
- Boy: 901
- Girl: 793