3-2-1 contact microphone

somehow a couple of weeks ago after i finished playing music with a friend and after consuming several mesmerizing solo percussion performances online i started thinking about ways to expand the sounds i could make when drumming. So i started making contact microphones and attaching them to things .i will make a video once i finish with all my modified percussion instruments and set them up with my full kit and figure out how to play it all at once.
I have here my new electric tambourine, and ribbon crasher, and on top of the drum sticks is my single tambourine hand shaker(i used the lid off a frappucino bottle to secure the contact mic in place, it was a perfect fit)
oh and somewhere along the week i found all these frame corners, it's weird cause now i have a bunch of frame scraps and i don't even like frames that much...go figure
i started by balancing a corner against the other and then kept going. I had to restart several times because when one falls several go with it.

just having fun with one of my favorite coffee mugs from our coffee mug collection
so this is my work desk, i have been attaching a contact mic to everything testing the results, and yes i have miked the vibrating coffee cup and used it as a sort of tone generating device.

this is my old dj mixer i bought like 8 years ago,(during that whole second wave dj craze, i got it real cheap because a month after it stopped being hip this things showed in pawn shops in droves) the cross fader broke a while ago, and i just never fixed it. when i started to make the contact mics i decided this would come in handy, so i went ahead and removed the cross fader and hacked into all the channels and then made patch cables to run the signal to my bass amp...translation this makes the noise from the contact mics controllable allowing me to control the volume without standing in front of the amp.

i found this giant illy coffee bean container in the recycling bin behind a coffee shop, and i was using it as a hand drum in the studio but it was too quiet, so it became the first contact mic enabled instrument in the studio, it has a great sound somewhere between a djembe drum and a bucket.
I don't know what direction this contact mic marathon will take , but i do know that this would be a perfect project to do anywhere, since all the parts to make these are readily available at radio shack or any other equivalent electronics and wiring supply place. I keep working on applications trying to get things out there. i did hear from the present group that i am one of their finalists for their next cycle of editions,unfortunately only subscribers to their service can vote but check them out I was honored to among the finalist.

new developments for me and for starbucks

so s-bux rolled out a new temporary package re-design in an attempt to re-brand starbucks as a place you go to get good coffee...good luck with that. But i will say i like the new color scheme emphasizing the brown of the original starbucks, and returning to the cruder hand drawn logo and not the saul bass like iconic corporate logo.

in this picture i am holding another one of starbucks new toys, which i want everyone to get and send me more of, it is a special plastic stir stick that also plugs the drink hole in the sippy lid. It is really weird because it has a stylized mermaid as the top most element of it. I also worked on some logo re-designs of my own and when i get them cleaned up and ready i will load them up here the day before starbucks released their re-designs i had already painted these plaster coffee cups based on the color scheme of the old cup. So i immediately began work on a new cycle of coffee cup inspired pieces and drawings based on the new logo.
A week ago i found and hauled back to the studio all of the old furniture from a subway that was being remodeled.

I took one of the single benches and threw it on top of an old crate in order to create my very own eating seating in the studio
I then proceeded to disassemble the two double seats to see what I could do with them
the first permutation of the double seat endless loop was held together with the hardware salvaged off of the seats.

but it turns out that the hardware was not strong enough, and much to my delight i came the next day to discover a new variable sculpture arrangement involving the collapse of the seats which crashed into the picture frames.

needless to say after i re-installed the frames and played around the subway seats as room dividers I moved on to execute my original vision for the seat parts.

here is an image from afar of the seat parts held together with a set of double re-enforced hardware seems to be working.

vibrating coffee cup

A couple of years ago i became obsessed with the idea of making a series of vibrating coffee cup, and had all but abandoned the idea until now.

found some frame scraps, in between water bottle production

I found all these frame samples and scraps on the street the other day so ibrought them back to the studio to play with for awhile

i've started by organizing the frames into a cluster, and i have been looking at this for the last couple of days, deciding if i like it or not

so this is my production painting area, formerly the rust print table, it is the same one i built i last summer when i was working outside on the rust prints,and it has served me well

it takes a village, or in this case and army of water bottles.
here they are pre-paint

so i got in such a production routine that it got uncomfortable to be working on the floor, so i built a standing level casting station, and as you see in front of it my collection of plaster debris is growing. Secretly I am just as excited about the plaster debris and chip offs from the molds as i am about the castings being produced.