| Electronic maestros craft new subculture
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - In the corner of Noah Fleischman's Kansas City basement sits a table with electronic toys, keyboards and guitar pedals, all gutted and rewired, circuitry spilling from the casings. But he's no gadget repairman. He's a musician. Fleischman manipulates the machines - toys, instruments, talking dolls even - to make strange, dissonant sounds. He is one of many experimental artists immersed in a blossoming, do-it-yourself subculture known as circuit bending. "I like the random chaos. No two devices are the same," Fleischman said. On Web sites like eBay, circuit-bent mutant machines are hot commodities. And festivals and workshops have sprouted worldwide. Many have turned to circuit-bending creator Reed Ghazala's anti-theory.com Web site for guidance.
Gibson rocking as pricey American icon in guitar-loving Japan
A visitor to the Tokyo Guitar Show tries out a classic Gibson as staff help tune an amplifier at a local Gibson shop's booth in Tokyo on Saturday, June 24, 2006. Gibson makes a range of guitars solely for the Japanese market, including rocker Tak Matsumoto's signature Les Paul in special guitar shades like canary yellow and sunburst. Although Gibson is making marketing pushes elsewhere where demand is expected to grow, such as China, Japan is still Gibson's biggest market outside the United States and twice as large as its biggest European market, Great Britain. (AP) .
Colin Meloy's Early Work to Be Released
These days, Colin Meloy fronts the Decemberists. But that wasn't always the case. During his college days, at the University of Montana in Missoula, Meloy was in a band called Tarkio. The band, which took its name from a small town in Western Montana, was comprised of Meloy, Gibson Hartwell (guitar), Louis Stein (bass), and Brian Collins (drums). There was a self-titled debut, followed by an LP, I Guess I Was Hoping For Something More (1998), and an EP, Sea Songs for Landlocked Sailors (1999). In an interview with Amplifier, Meloy said: "We [Tarkio] had aspirations of being able to base ourselves as a band out of Missoula, Montana, like Low is from Duluth and Modest Mouse is from Issaquah [Washington], but I think we pretty quickly discovered that the reason why those bands succeeded was that were within an hour's drive from a major metropolitan area." All of the band members weren't able to leave Missoula, and Meloy relocated to Portland, Oregon with hopes of starting another band.
Plug‘n’Rock: the BEHRINGER iAXE393 USB-Guitar
BEHRINGER, a leading global designer, manufacturer and distributor of professional audio and musical instrument products, today announced that the BEHRINGER iAXE393 USB-Guitar will be available immediately around the globe with an exclusive software package developed by Native Instruments.
Unveiled at the Frankfurter Musikmesse in April 2006, the BEHRINGER iAXE393 USB-Guitar connects directly to the computer (either PC or Mac) through its built-in USB port, allowing jamming and producing out-of-the-box. The guitar features a maple neck with three single-coil pickups, five-way switching and an integrated headphones jack. Alternatively, the iAXE393 USB-Guitar can also be played with any real amplifier. Additional software which comes bundled with the iAXE393 USB-Guitar gives the user enhanced editing and recording options.
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