Links
I spent some time collecting interesting links... finding interesting sites... so check it out..
Teacher's of Matt --My Teachers.. Some interesting
stuff in here..
Music Resources for the Sound
Artist --If your a sound artist, these links are for you.
Sound Artists --Some of my fav. sound artist's
sites.
Cool Web Art --Web sites as art.. experience design...
Flash Stuff --Flash is... well a standard for web
based animation.. So... see some great animation, and great experience deign.
Politics -- If there is anything I'm critical of in
modern politics, it's that most people aren't really to informed as to what's
really going on in the would and the United States... and so it is that I provide
for you links so that, in the word of our hip-ity-hop-ity culture.. you might
know what time it is.
Friends of Matt Perhaps tangentially.. but one
way or another personally connected to me.
Teacher's of Matt...
Folks who actually taught me a thing or two along the way... who
also happen to have web sites and whom I hold in some degree of admiration.
John Holland A sound teacher of mine back in the S.I.M. days.
Curiousart.org aka the house that Dana Moser built.. S.I.M. Teacher
Tony Oursler My video teacher at the Massachusetts College of Art. Who knew he was like the most important video artist to come out of the united states?
Scott Dakota Well.. his band's page... whom I took guitar lessons from way back in high school. (It's probably worth mentioning that he is involved in Microtonalism.. and he himself read a good chunk of the Collected Works of Carl Jung when he was in high school.)
Ellen Band Another sound teacher of min in them days of S.I.M.
Mass Art Where I went to college.
Music Resources for the Sound Artists
Here are some links to sites for folks involved in music making...
KeyBoardOnline.com Keyboard Magazine's web site... lots of cool stuff.
Electronic Musician This is perhaps my favorite place to go to read up on the current state of things.. with respect to technology, tools, and practice.. for electronic music creation. It's Electronic Musician Monthly in online form... where you can search through old issues.... and even read the current issues... much of it's over my head.. so it's guaranteed to keep you challenged...
MusicOnTheMac.com It's not my favorite place to go.. as a Cubase user they don't really talk about Cubase... and so they loose a few brownie points from me.. but it is a Blog that's Mac Centric.. so there's a few brownie points for that.. even if I generally prefer the platform agnostic view of things.
Forum.Cubase.Net A message bored devoted to Cubase... which happens to be the music production environment I'm using these days. Incidentally... as with most message bored.. I go by the name of ZarMattAThustra. :)
Recording.Org A message board dedicated music production... a bit on the bizz side to, which is always a nice thing, right? (Yeah, just call me ZarMattAThustra here to.)
Sound On Sound Well.. This is my favorite magazine on music production.. in order to gain maximum benifit from this site you need to sign up for the online version of the magazine.. which is like $30 a year.. It's worth it if you ask me.. but um.. You can still check out a few things without spending the money...
Songwriter101.com On the business of song writing.
Sound Artists
Just a few of the sound artist's I dig.. If you can dig where I am coming from.. then these links might help to enrich your ear's sonic horizon's... to put it one way.
Frank Zappa Probably my favorite sound artist: 'Zappa's ideas are an extension of a western radical tradition that encompassed the Marquis de sade, the Surrealists, and beyond, from musique concrete to doowop, Theodor Adorno to Suzy Creamcheese, Plato to Punky Meadows, the Situationists to the PMRC. Zappa's politics, as well as his wit and relentless attempts to break standard forms, are integral to his music.' --I'm not sure who wrote this.. who ever wrote the sleeve notes to Ben Watson's book Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play... I thought it was a pretty good thing to quote to sort of illustrate a bit of what I love about Zappa. Anyway.. Zappa's site is a pretty good introduction to Frank Zappa. I definitely recommend a visit!
Plastickid.DK An electronic sound artist of some note.
Sun Ra Talk about as out there as you wanna be!!! A Jazz artist and band leader whom I think is pretty amazing... He claimed to be from Saturn. And you thought GWAR was 'different?'
Wendy Carlos Perhaps best known for her sound work on some of Stanley Kubrik's films... she worked.. if I am not mistaken.. on 2001 a Space Odyssey, Clockwork Orange, and The Shining.. she's also famous for creating Switched On Bach which is a mile stone in electronic music... using electronic music to create a realization of some of Bach's works that are better then what could other wise be realized.. from a musicologists' perspective. She is also a bit of a microntonalist, it is worth mentioning.
Duke Ellington Duke Ellington is a Jazz great, to put it mildly.
Charles Ives Charles Ives is like the first important American classical composer. He create his music on the side while his day job was inventing the insurance industry.. which at the time was a bit more of a humanitarian thing then what you would think of it now.. The starting of the insurance industry was like a way of saving one from a fate of debtor's prison.
John Zorn Fan Site Zorn rules. He's a saxophonist... composer.. makes some mad mad music.. Jazz on Acid I suppose you could say?
Harry Partch Harry Partch was a composer with some attitude. An important microntonalist... his music was largely performed on specially designed home made instruments.
Steve Reich And electronic music pioneer whom truly rocks. Err.. well its not rock music, but you know what I mean.
Tony Iommi Guitarist of Black Sabbath. All hail the mighty Sabbath! You know Iommi isn't your typical guitar hero. Go listen to some of the first few Sabbath albums... you'll hear some utterly amazing music... but not music where the guitarist screams out "I'm a guitar hero, I'm a guitar hero, look how fast my finger's move.. big whip-T-do."
Laurieanderson.com Laurie is an ultra groovy, pretty important, multi-media performance artist... plays an electronic violin and wonders about the day's when she was a candy bar in her daddies back pocket.
LaMonteYoung.com What would a Matt Searles link page be without links to Mr. La Monte Young? It's just unthinkable, isn't it? Dig that properly tuned piano!
StockHausen.org Karlheinz Stockhausen, Now that's what I call a real sound artist, ha?
PhilipGlass.com At some point during my time in S.I.M., I was showing some of my sound work.. and during the critique, it was suggested that I was the next step in a musical evolution of which Philip Glass was the step before me. But who the hell was Philip Glass? This was around the time I failed a class at the Berklee College of music because my music was pattern based and not melodically based? What the hell does that mean? Latter I went to an old guitar teacher to see what he had to say of Philip Glass.. I believe he called him a pussy.... if memory serves me right. Well.... the thing is he keeps turning up in films that I might watch, and I find myself digging his music. I don't really think of my self as the next step up from Philip Glass in any way... But I do confess to taking from him and Brian Eno certain notions...
marilynmanson.com Marilyn Manson makes me happy when I'm feeling blue. Also, I think it's worth mentioning that in the current linguistic battles, as a for instance, where conservatives battle to reduce liberal to a consumer demographic, it turns out that Marilyn is the poster child for modern liberalism. So perhaps Marilyn Manson is what Theodor Ardono would call a negative dialectic? Hmm.. sorta makes the politics of the future generations, whom are the dominant consumer's of Marilyn Manson, sound pretty interesting, ha? Who would-ah thunk it? Now that's what I call liberal out reach!!! (can you tell I'm a progressive?) (wouldn't it be nice if modern democrats where as aggressive as Marilyn?)
Joe Maneri 72 note microtonal Jazz... For when your bored by convention... Sort of a big influince.
Sonic Youth Sonic Youth is the punk band band to dig. An immature, self centered, and even self righteous homosexual punk rocker turned me on to them.. Jim may have had bad taste with a lot of things.. but he was right on with Sonic Youth..
John Holland He was my teacher at Mass Art, he's good.. take a look and a listen.
Cool Web Art
Entropy8Zuper.org As arty as you wanna be!
Flash Stuff
I'll tell you baby, I am the Flash Master of Disaster! Flash is the ultra groovy-est tool for rich media web application development on the internet. WTF does that mean? Well.. It's the best tool for animation on the web, it's an art from where in an artist might not only get involved in issues of design, illustration, animation... along with the issues of web design, information architecture, interface design, image optimization, even video.... web/business strategy... but also, he or she might find his or her self involved in computer programming.. it's an interface between art and science... so what are the creative possibilities of a medium like this? Many an art critic might talk about the internet as an immature art medium.. and while that might be true in some senses, I think perhaps its not true with respect to potential.. and so it is with this in mind that I offer some links to Flash artists, designs, and what have you.. that I think illustrates.. in some respect.. some of what I'm talking about.
Oohbitey.com Some incredible animation.... from a guy who works as a special effects animator for Disney (we'll try not to hold that against him) He is also quite proficient in the world of Flash animation.... You simply must go see this.
bluesuburbia.com An interesting experience to explore.
complexification.net Generative interactive design of a high order... wonderfully rich media gallery.. For those of you not in the know.. with respect to the ins and outs of Generative art work.. this is.... well lets call it 'algorithm art." Art that's generated via the magic of algorithms... lets program our computers to make art.... My former teacher John Holland.. did a bit with this.. Xenokis.. was into this sort of thing... in a certain way I suppose you could argue John Cage had a thing to say about this sort of thing..... I plan to integrate it into my thing one of these days....
goober.nu Yet more amazing Flash animation....
bit-101.com This is a bit different... umm.... kind of an interesting Flash interface Flash site thing.. I'll say that much.
designergokko.it 'An American interpretation of Japanese fun, games, and eroticism.'
presstube.com A favorite Flash Artist.
firstbornmultimedia.com An interesting bit of interface confusion... sometimes it's fun to be confused....
wackedUSA.com Now that's what I called wig-ity-wacked...
voxangelica.net Gotta love it
limmy.com A site with attitude!
Politics
C-Span C Span RULES!!!!! Ok.. just had to get that out of my system. Why, you ask? Well isn't it better to be informed? On there site they offer on demand video of whatever it is that's going on... get it unfiltered 'real deal' style... It's like a graduate course in political science. One of these day's I'll run for political office and scare the <creative bleeped out language> out of everybody... I'll be like Godzilla... And when people ask me how I grew so big and strong I'll tell them it was because I ate my C-Span!
naacp.org NAACP, do I really need to say more?
thomaspmbarnett.com This guy is really good... I saw his presentation on C-Span... He wrote a book called 'The Pentagon's New Map.' Nothing puts into perspective the war in Iraq, on Terrorism, and the modern issues of American Foreign policy as Barnett.. He gives a very powerfull presentation.. so buy his book and read his Blog!
Friends of Matt
Markhanser.com Mark is a co-conspiritore/collaborator/friend. Sort of a Mr. Rogers of S&M I like to say from time to time.. He's interesting, go check him out.
Rococo A while ago I did a goggle search on my name, Matt Searles, and I found that there was another Matt Searles out there. If that where not enough, he's involved in electronic music to!
Duncan Wilder Johnson I can't say as I know Duncan terribly well but I went to Mass Art with him.. Jammed with him on like one occasion.. he's a friend of at least one mutual friend.. so I thought I'd link him.. He's.... what's the best way to describe him? Kind of a Heavy Metal Poet of sorts.. He reminds of one of the more scary characters from Slacker or Waking life.. Kinda a heavy metal hell fire preacher only different..
June Cleaver and the Steak Knives This is an awesome group of sound artists from upstate NY. You can listen to there music on there myspace page here. The are influinced by folks like Zappa to Zorn to other interesting things.. deffinitly must be heard...