I’ve been using the TomTom app for iPhone as my GPS. It really does the job and it makes me feel safe especially when I am traveling for my day job. At CES Garmin added a feature to GPS units that I haven’t seen before that allows you to record your own voice for the Nav system. I know you can get celebrity voices on some GPS units already but being a DIY guy when it comes to audio the “Voice Studio” feature looks cool. It’s a novelty I know and I can already imagine being picked up at the airport by a promoter and on the way to an event every time he needs to make a left turn the intro to Nitzer Ebb’s Violent Playground plays (the song starts with Douglas McCarthy screaming “To the Left!”. Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJS847sh9RU. One can dream.
“Basically, it’s a PC-based app that lets you record your own nav instructions (which we’re guessing is going to result in some extraordinarily NC17-rated Nuvis). The company is saying it’ll take about 20 minutes to complete a set of commands.” – engadget.com
For more info: garmin.com
This entry was written by , posted on January 6, 2010 at 5:58 am, filed under Uncategorized, hardware and tagged automobile, car, CES, driving, Garmin, GPS, Nitzer Ebb. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Ever wonder how popular a band or artist really is? Head over to http://google.com/insights/search/ and find out. Today I have three popularity wars set up (click to enlarge screenshots). First I go old school EBM (of course) and throw VNV Nation into the mix with Nitzer Ebb, Front 242 and Skinny Puppy. Surprisingly Nitzer Ebb looses big time. Next up on stage is MGMT vs Willie Nelson vs The Prodigy. The surprise to me here is that the Prodigy manages to stay on the chart at all. The final contest I go for some big bands: NIN vs Depeche Mode vs Kraftwerk. I knew DM would win but if you look carefully there were a few moments in time NIN over took them.
Of course popularity doesn’t always equal great tunes but this is a fun way to see who’s “the biggest”. Do you think any of these results are surprising?
Related post: Using Google Trends to compare sequencers.
This entry was written by , posted on July 31, 2009 at 7:32 am, filed under business, music and tagged data, Depeche Mode, Front 242, Kraftwerk, music sales, NIN, Nitzer Ebb, Skinny Puppy, The Prodigy, trends, VNV Nation, Willie Nelson. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The always busy James Bernard from Propellerhead Software went to LA to interview Bon Harris one of the founding members of Nitzer Ebb. It doesn’t surprise me to hear he’s using Reason to create the music for the upcoming all new NE album. Reason seems to be a center piece in a lot of EBM bands today. It was a happy surprise to hear the bassline Mr. Harris let us have a sneak peak of because it had an old school Nitzer Ebb feel to it. If Douglas McCarthy can get angry enough to put proper vocals on this remains to be seen. I for one really hope the magic returns.
Keep up with NE here: www.nitzer-ebb.de and myspace.com/nitzerebbmusic
This entry was written by , posted on November 21, 2008 at 4:08 pm, filed under Propellerhead Reason, interviews, music, song writing, video and tagged interview, James Bernard, Nitzer Ebb, Propellerhead, Reason, video. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
In keeping with a new tradition on Wire to the Ear called “Sunday Sounds” where I post a music playlist each week here’s the next installment: Electronic Body Music. This is my personal favorite music genre. EBM is creative, powerful and mostly electronic music. You can find some sophisticated song arrangements and vocals in a lot of EBM. The genre almost disappeared in the early 90s but it’s back with new blood. Even the old guys are back on the show circuit.
I created this playlist using Imeem. You can find me there at
http://www.imeem.com/thehorrorist
Are you an EBM fan?
This entry was written by , posted on November 9, 2008 at 11:51 am, filed under music and tagged DAF, EBM, electronic body music, Front 242, Front Line Assemby, imeem, Laibach, Nitzer Ebb, Orange Sector, Severed Heads, Sturm Cafe, The Klinik, Vomito Negro. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
An Interview with Ionic Vision. from thingstocome on Vimeo.
One of the best ways to promote a band on your record label is to create a video interview with them. It really doesn’t take much skill, time or money. In fact, the video above was shot using the video mode on a single point and shoot cheapo camera. I used iMovie08 which uses Core Video so any image adjustments, transitions and titles all happen in real time, no rendering! This makes the entire process actually a lot of fun. Sure the video would be better if I was using a better camera, external mic and some lights but you 
know what? If I had to lug all that stuff to the club I probably would not have bothered. Showing up and creating something is the most important thing. I actually own quite a lot of video equipment including Final Cut Pro but workflow always wins in my book so I went for the fastest way to the finish line. I mentioned before on this blog I love Creative Commons and here’s why: See the images I cut during the interview? They are all CC licensed so I’m not stealing anyone’s art to create my own.
The style was characterized by hard and often sparse danceable electronic beats, clear undistorted vocals, shouts or growls with reverberation and echo effects, and repetitive sequencer lines. At this time important synthesizers were Korg MS-20, Emulator II, Oberheim Matrix or the Yamaha DX7. Typical EBM rhythms are based on 4/4 beats, mainly with some minor syncopation to suggest a rock music rhythm structure. – wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_body_music
Sven Lauwers and Andy de Decker are great live which is extremely important for an EBM band. Be sure to check out Ionic Vision’s release on Things to Come Records: Beatport, Junodownload, Things to Come Records
For more info about the event they played:
www.myspace.com/crossingtheparallel
This entry was written by , posted on July 28, 2008 at 3:10 am, filed under interviews, live performance, video and tagged Alfa Matrix, Andy de Decker, Berlin, Club Isolation, Club Maria, Crossing the Parallel, EBM, electronic body music, electronic music, Front 242, Germany, Ionic Vision, Maria am Ostbahnhof, My Cell, Nitzer Ebb, Oberheim, Orange Sector, Propellerheads Reason, Scapa Flow, Sven Lauwers, Terrence Fixmer, The Hacker, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The first night Festival Kinetik was great. We sound checked at the same time as Ascii Disko (photo above). He forgot his audio interface so I lent him my M-Audio Firewire 410. I have to mention the 410 because that interface has worked flawlessly for my live show over the past several years. Daniel (Ascii) jumped online without leaving the stage, downloaded the drivers and it worked without a glitch. It only takes a minute to set up the 410 to control the on stage monitors using the M-audio control/system preference panel We had dinner and Sake together and had a chance to catch up with Matt (Satronica) who was one of my best friends when I lived in NYC.
The Montreal Mirror interview I did was out around town and it’s also available online now too. You can read it by: clicking here. I also did a video podcast for Vergel Evans great show LX7.ca. Be sure to keep an eye out on his site for that. Lastly, I did a video interview for noisescape.tv based out of San Fransisco. I was in a strange good mood when I did that interview and told some interesting stories. I will be ashamed when I see it!
There will be a plenty of photos and videos from all the live shows. You can already see one from Nitzer Ebb’s set on YouTube: Join in the Chant
I skipped the after party fun and got enough sleep to pick up the rental car at 9:00AM. We ended up with a Kia Sedona. I wanted something with some power but it rained most of the drive back so in the end the Kia was a good choice.
I arrived in NY and happy me the box from Curious Inventor.com was waiting. So far no audio tests but here’s a photo of my new toys…
This entry was written by , posted on May 16, 2008 at 3:07 pm, filed under live performance and tagged Ascii Disko, Curious Inventor, Kinetik Festival, lx7.ca, Montreal Mirror, Nitzer Ebb, noisescape.tv, The Horrorist, Voice of Saturn. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Tonight I perform in Montreal, Canada at a Festival Kinetik. It’s a three day event with over 50 electronic bands and DJs. Tonights show is Nitzer Ebb, Ascii Disko and myself (The Horrorist).
We flew here last night with Air France; layover in Paris. For the transatlantic leg we were on a huge Boeing 777-200. A small city can fit on these planes. It was boring as ever. I can’t believe when I lived in NYC I used to fly over the Atlantic 2-3 times a month. I don’t think I could go back to doing that. To pass the time I listened to a few podcasts. For readers of this blog the podcast of note you should check out is Sonic Talk from Nick Batts and his crew over and SonicState.com. This week they discussed the Moog Guitar, Turnkey going out of business and in ear headphones. I also had the mispleasure of watching the movie Jumper staring Hayden Christensen and Samuel L. Jackson.
I think it’s funny that the Canadian border is by far the hardest to get through. I’ve been to places like the Ukraine but Canada holds the top spot for always being a major pain in the ass. I always have a proper work permit but it’s never good enough. Every time it’s first a stop at the immigration office and then Customs. This time Customs was extra nasty throwing my underwear all over the table. It took me twenty minutes to fold those neatly! Anyway, we made it though and met the promoters and Nitzer Ebb. I’ve played Montreal a bunch of times before and know the promoters well so we caught up a bit then drove to the hotel.
The hotel is decent, a place called Candlewood Suites. Each room has a kitchen and free wifi. Free internet makes me happy and the kitchen is useful because it’s stocked with coffee. I’m going to need that tonight because I’m typing this to you at 6:30 AM. Luckily jet lag usually doesn’t effect me too much.
They are shooting a DVD of the festival and I know the director Larry Kraman so there will be some wicked footage. They will have six nice cameras rolling tonight. I also did an interview for the Montreal Mirror yesterday. Of course I’ll post whatever media I can grab.
Back in Berlin Miro Pajic is using my studio and feeding the dog. As long as he doesn’t put in the wrong alarm system code again (that was a disaster) he should make some good music this week. By the way he has a full length album that just came out on my label called Everything is Nothing.
After Montreal we head to NYC by car. I will be doing a few music related things like visiting the studio of Mark Ephraim (The Shorebirds). He has some nice API gear. Oh I also have a Voice of Saturn Synth and Sequencer being delivered to my mothers house!
This entry was written by , posted on May 15, 2008 at 4:33 am, filed under live performance and tagged Ascii Disko, live performance, Montreal, Nitzer Ebb, travel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
There is a new magazine that just launched in Germany which covers alternative music and style called Storm. For the debut issue they asked me to write my top five albums of all time and a blurb on why I think each album is so great. I posted this on my record label’s blog too but I thought it would be interesting to you guys here also.
To read the article: click here
This entry was written by , posted on May 6, 2008 at 9:17 am, filed under music and tagged Depeche Mode, Front 242, Granddady, Nitzer Ebb, Storm Magazine, Willie Nelson. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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