More from the Mashpit!

When I was "In The Mood", I studied quite a bit about dcop (more precisely, in the context of python-amarok), I wrote a mini remote controller for amarok with wx and python for shits and giggles. Some months later, when I became a decent mobile snake wrangler, I decided to juice my Nokia N73 a bit more. So now I have this very small bluetooth-based amarok remote controller called "Ytsejam" (because that name is original and nobody else could have possibly thought about it \oo/ ). Ytsejam is based on PyS60s socket/appuifw API and has a server app (once the mini controller, stripped off its UI), which processes commands over bluetooth sent by a client (N73) and pushes them to amarok via dcop.

Here is the amarok server code.
And here is the client (on phone) provided you have the snake on there.
Need I mention that you have to have your python dcop bindings, and PyBluez in place? Also, you'll need to change your bt addr for the adapter on your computer in the client.

-Riffenstein

Whose Line is it Anyways?

As I write this I'm thinking (and listening to the music) of a band named after a phrase coined by Frederico Fellini. This band has a vocalist with a distinct high pitch voice who has a penchant for doing acrobatics on stage, a lead guitarist and band leader who with his curly hair and spectacles reminds me of the character Benny from the movie Cidade de Deus (City of Gods). Members of this band have titles such as "sound manipulator" and their music switches constantly between early Pink Floydish ambient themes, jazz, Latin music, Classical, metal and a lot of other music that I'm not sure I can classify. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking about the group that calls itself The Mars Volta.

You see, a friend introduced me to The Mars Volta with the words "If you give their music some time and understand what they are trying to do, you'll love their work." And it did take me time - close to a year - to start listening to them seriously. And strangely I started listening to them soon after a very intense ultra-long-distance telephonic discussion with Riff about so called "progressive" bands and the limits they go to. More specifically we were trying to come up with some kind of resolution to the question "where does one draw the line?" when it comes to pushing the envelop on unconventional music. How far can a band be allowed to go to let their music still be considered music and not simply noise. And Mars Volta comes really close... In fact I was the one that brought their name up. I was telling Riff about Mike Portnoy's statement in a recent interview that he thought that Dream Theater's music is more accessible to people than music of bands such as Tool and Mars Volta. I'd heard tracks by Mars Volta before, and while I liked some parts, a lot of it I couldn't comprehend. It felt like their music had unusual musical patterns (or no pattern at all) for the sake of coming up with something different. In fact Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Mars Volta's guitarist and leader freely admits that he might not like to create music for Mars Volta forever and he might get bored and try other things.

But soon after I put the phone down, I started listening to their music - mostly to still convince myself that I was right in categorizing their music in that gray area between music and noise. This time though, I was paying attention to the music unlike earlier times when I was listening to music while doing other things. And between the familiar parts in the tracks, I was slowly beginning to recognize those other sections that I had earlier felt were chaotic. While I could still not make any sense of their structure, etc., I started liking these for their improvisation and wierdness. Between some really nice melodic sections, these felt like a burst of inspiration - not very much unlike the improvisation a blues guitarist might come up with when he's in the moment. If you've seen any of the several Mars Volta videos available on You Tube, you can even get a glimpse of the band enjoying themselves.

What had changed now? Had I heard the music for too long? If you listen to any music long enough, however bad, you will start enjoying it. Was this happening to me with Mars Volta? The thing is I don't know. And more importantly now, I don't care! After that discussion with my friend, I started realizing something - I'd been trying too hard to analyze the music, and that was stopping me from just enjoying the music. And Mars Volta is just one band that I've trying to over-analyze. Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP) is another band. Whenever I heard their music, all I tried to do was try to figure out why their music is called progressive, and forgetting to pay attention to the music and the beautiful melodies they composed - From the Beginning from ELP's Trilogy album, or The Sheriff for instance. If I'd heard this music not knowing they were from a so called "progressive" band, I would have been tapping my foot to the music and trying to find out who the artist was.

But getting back to the main topic of this post, The Mars Volta. The band admits that they like to experiment - Cedric Bixler Zavala frequently mixes Spanish and English lyrics in his songs; he even claims that one of the ways he comes up with the lyrics is to first mumble and sing gibberish to arrive at a certain kind of sound/melody and then adds lyrics later that sound similar! Omar Rodriguez Lopez is known to ask his band members to compose their parts separately from one another so that each part sounds complete by itself. These are then arranged later. Don't ask me how! The bands influences are eclectic as much as they are unconventional (I haven't even heard about some of the bands they cite as their influence). But some of the ones I've heard before include Bjork, John Maclaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and interestingly movie directors such as Werner Herzog, David Lynch and David Cronenberg. Omar who has produced most of the albums for The Mars Volta and composes most of their tracks has said in interviews that he is not musically trained and a lot of the music he composes is what he hears in his mind. There is no music composition by the numbers here. He uses visual means at times to communicate his ideas to Cedric and the other band members.

If you are about to get into The Mars Volta, I will repeat the advise I got from my friend - give their music some time. Their music is filled with segments that sound totally random - filled with discordant notes. For a first time listener this can seem very intimidating. But in between these parts, you will get a tour of genres - foot-tapping latin music, jazzy themes, catchy riffs on both the guitar and the keyboards and awesome crescendoes. And often times you'll hear Pink Floyd-ish ambient sounds. The music always keeps you on the edge of your seat. Check out the intro to Son et Lumiere from the De-Loused in the Comatorium album. Or the serene intro to Cignus...Vismund Cygnus from Francis the Mute, before it makes a drastic transition to a fast paced riff. A lot of their music can be heard online for free on You Tube or last.fm. Check them out...I'm going to stop now... I don't want to analyze this too much...

Frequency: Drown

Check out Frequency's Drown on their MySpace page. Lalit Mehta's vocals on the track are among the better guttaral voices I've heard.

Cellular Snakes!

So I went out and got me a N Series Nokia recently (N73). I had not really planned this, but what else does a guy do when he accidentally drop his phone into the shit-pot?? No really ... I aint talking shit!! Luckily enough, I had flushed the bowl clean before it all happened. So my good old Nokia gave up and I couldnt transmit voice anymore. So I thought I should buy me a "cool" phone this time round. The N73 is a pretty neat instrument. Apart from being a music player (I know ... iPod still rulz!!), a camera, an office assistant, a web browser/email/blogger client, it also makes phone calls and sends SMS. So when I was considering a purchase, I had to go through about 2 millions different types of phone. And then I gave up and just bought something "popular". Of course, there were some other things that drew me to it. Guido's comments on the Python For Series 60 effort at MobiLenin.

First foray into Python on Symbian. And boy, is that a treat! Install the S60 Platform on the PC, write and test your Python scripts using an emulator, move them to the phone via Bluetooth/Data Cable, and the thing is a snake-pit!! Haven't done much in this yet. Just looking for some goodies that Ill need to start working with this. Here's some resources and screen-shots...

Resources:
1. Nokia Forums (Tools and SDKs)
2. A nice comparison between Python and other tools for Series 60.
3. Jurgen Scheible's tutorial for PyS60.
4. PED - A full-featured Python IDE for Nokia S60 platform.
Screen-shots taken from AllAboutSymbian.com and other resources ...

Python interpreter on Series 60 device ...




Snake (coincidence!) python script at werk!




PED - Neat python script editor built for editing python scripts on device directly ...





So finally, I did end up buying a *cool* phone. Now where do I buy the ideas from??

My god!! There's snakes everywhere!!!

Blog updated

I updated a few things on the blog today. A summary of the changes:

• Replaced the black background from the 'Minimal Black' template by Douglas Bowman with a shade of gray. Also changed color of a few other text elements.
  
• Removed two links to external blogs - Indian Band Stand and Heavy Rock Spectacular, either because they have been taken down (former) or have been turned into an invite-only blog (latter).
  

This of course is not the last of the changes. Riff has been working on changing the theme for the home site itself, and some of this may reflect in the blog as well or the other way round. Comments/feedback of course welcome!