brothers on the side: infinitestatemachine
December 14, 2007
The Brothers On The Side series continues now with the excellent and informed infinitestatemachine. Thomas and co-contributors have a heap of knowledge to share and the spirit of their space online, and the community it fosters, was inspirational for me and this blog. So now you know…
BACK TO BASICS
BLOG NAME:
infinitestatemachine (no capital letters and no spaces!)
CONTRIBUTORS:
That have posted thus far:
Aidan O’Doherty: He and I met online on some forum or another and we just hit it off. He is a family man and has a more detatched view of dance music that isn’t based on what is trendy. His roots are in soul music and he sees that connection with techno, house, and electro, which is essential if you’re gonna be down with ISM. Plus he is actually an editor for a newspaper in Dublin which means he brings some actual writing ability to the table, which is nice.
Wojciech Kawalek: aka Wojtek, he is from San Francisco. We talked online a bunch after meeting on the 313@hyperreal.org email list, but we met in real life at about 4am in the middle of Woodward Ave. in downtown Detroit over DEMF weekend in ‘06. I was driving home from the late night White Castle run bumping the 3 Chairs CD very loudly in my ride when some cat pulls up next to me and says “Is that Omar-S?” to which I replied “No, it’s the 3 Chairs.” He then said “Are you Tom Cox?” Hahaha. So yeah, ever since then we’ve been super cool, he’s a big fan of the real techno music.
Jwan Allen: My best friend and a huge musical influence on me. That guy’s techno collection is crazy deep, he has been representing minimal techno since it first came out. I first met him when he worked at the Pittsburgh techno vinyl mecca of the late 90’s, Hypervinyl Records. I have spent so many hours with this dude just getting blazed and listening to record after record, at least 50% of my techno and house selections are jacked straight from his collection. To this day he pulls out records that have just been sitting on some random shelf in his house for years and blows my mind with them. He was the best man at my wedding, what more can really be said?
Jonny 5: Our cosmic specialist, he is obsessed with all things disco and electronic, though he also gets down with many other styles as well (check his dub and jazz mixes posted on ISM). He is also down with the electrical engineering steelo, which possibly explains his robot fixation!
DATE OF FIRST POST?
August 5th, 2007. I made two posts that night to make sure things were looking right before the big unveiling on the 6th.
HOW OFTEN DO YOU POST?
We’ve had 43 posts in almost exactly four months, that averages out to about 2.5 posts a week. Things have been a little slow recently as myself and many of the contributors are in school nearing the end of the semester, we’ve had lots of schoolwork!
WHAT WOULD MAKE YOU STOP THE BLOG?
Probably nothing at this point. It’s only set up to be a fun thing, talking about music is what I like to do!
HYPE MACHINE OR EL.BOWS?
I had to Google those to find out what they were, so the answer is neither. We don’t even have that Technorati link on our blog. We’re indie like that.
BLOGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE
WHAT IS BEHIND YOUR BLOG NAME?
A Finite State Machine is an electrical engineering concept of an electrical system that stores the previous states of the system as well as any new inputs and performs actions based on that information. A finite state machine has a definite number of states that it can cycle through. I feel like music is an infinite state machine, something that constantly remembers all of its history and input from artists and it uses those to create an unlimited number of new states. This ties in with my complaint that dance music is not covered with any historical perspective in most publications. Despite what some techno nerds might say, the music is not independant of what happened before. It is all in there! We like to examine the different kinds of influences that have entered the dance music realm and see where they came from and how they still have an effect today.
THE BLOG IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN?
Clipping your toenails.
THE BLOG IS LESS IMPORTANT THAN?
Family, art, life.
A POST YOU ARE DAMN PROUD OF?
The two interviews we have done so far are probably my personal favorites. The Omar-S interview was his first published interview in English, it was cool to get to get his personality out there as he is a really interesting younger guy who is right on the verge of blowing up. And of course talking to Shake was awesome, he is a living legend in my opinion. I think our interview with him (of which we have a good bit still to be published when I get a new tapedeck!) brings out his essence better than the other ones I’ve read with him.
WHY MP3S, AND WHY NOW?
We actually don’t post MP3s aside from mixes! One of the things we want from ISM is to foster discussion amongst a group of people who think about music in a similar manner to us. We may talk about a specific tune here and there, but we try to deal with big issues as much as we do individual tracks or artists. I’m also very interested in keeping a critical tone to what we do. I think most dance music publications end up being afraid to criticize anyone because they fear losing advertising revenue in an area of music that already isn’t easy to make money in. Why would someone say something negative about mp3jaying or Beatport in a magazine when they take out so many ads? We are not swayed by any commercial interest, our love for vinyl is based on the culture that it posesses that cannot be replaced by downloading MP3s, no matter how cool the blog you get them from is! I still work at a vinyl record shop, and we keep it real: we don’t sell CDJs, Serato, Ableton, any of that stuff. Records are more than just a medium, it’s a whole different way of life! We think that there is a benefit to keeping that alive and well. We hope that when we post a mix or talk about an artist that people go to their local independent record shop to find out more.
WHAT BAND OR PRODUCER IS REALLY DOING IT FOR YOU RIGHT NOW?
I’ve been listening to a lot of Mizell Brothers productions recently, especially Gary Bartz’ “Music is My Sanctuary” and the Donald Byrd albums they did. Just a few weeks ago, I also picked up Johnny Hammond’s “Gambler’s Life” LP which is fantastic. The sound those guys had was so epic and funky, they could make already good music sound even better.
As for newer stuff, this year I’ve been impressed by two contingents: the Irish techno/house cats (especially Lerosa, Chymera, TR-One, etc) who are just really cool guys and who are making some really great music, and of course the FXHE label which had some of its best releases this year (Oasis 13, Omar-s + Theo Parrish 12″, the EPs by new recruits J Fine and Luke Hess, plus that crazy Kyle Hall joint). People who say house music is dead are just listening to the wrong records!
OTHER THAN LIKING THEIR TRACK WHAT WOULD A BAND OR LABEL HAVE TO GIVE YOU TO MAKE YOU POST ON THEM?
Haha, nothing! Though it makes it alot easier for us to review records in a timely manner if we have them before they come out. Pittsburgh is not exactly a hotbed of electronic music in the shops, so it usually takes an extra week or two after something comes out for us to get it here. We can’t just roll down to shop X and pick up everything and then review it that night like someone in London could. We don’t ever take anything into consideration other than “Do we want to write about this?” when we post something. Also, we will give negative coverage to things that are especially stupid/ridiculous/asinine, etc., but I’m guessing that’s not something a band or a label would strive for. 
IF YOU COULD GET ANY WRITER OR MUSIC EVENT EXCLUSIVE FOR YOUR BLOG, WHAT WOULD IT BE:?
It won’t be exclusive, but I am very excited to cover DEMF ‘08! I have been dissatisfied with the quality of coverage from basically every media outlet out there, so much awesome stuff happens during that weekend that you never get to hear about because all the journalists go to the Ghostly and M_nus parties instead of the good events. I think we will be able to give a more Detroit music centric view of the festival, which is what it is all about for me.
THREE IS THE MAGIC NUMBER
3 BLOGS THAT YOU RECOMMEND / INSPIRED YOU TO START:
These are my inspirations, if you want reccomendations check the links on ISM, they are all excellent resources for music!
http://www.1115.org/ - This was started by my ace Matt Cohen, he was the first person I knew who had a really successful blog. I have written a few political themed posts for him here and there, and he will be doing the photography for our coverage of DEMF ‘08 (check out his flickr link on 1115, he has some really nice stuff on there!).
http://kdiddy.org/ - My wife’s blog, it was her idea for us to get some webspace to start some kind of site about a year and a half ago. She had been blogging on Live Journal for a couple years and was ready to move on to her own thing and I was thinking about doing a 90’s style music related webzine. Of course that ended up changing to a blog once I realised how much less coding and crap I would have to do, but she got the WordPress stuff installed for me and whatnot.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/ - This was the first blog I ever read back in ‘01, and it is still one of the most excellent out there. I may not agree with the politics exactly (my ideas are way more liberal than theirs) but their original reporting and very independent stance were hugely inspirational in showing me what was possible with a little blog.
3 DESERT ISLAND BOOKS:
Labryinths by Jorge Luis Borges - I only discovered this one this summer and I now love everything by him. This one is a good collection of stories and prose that deals with mazes (both literal and not), repetition, and things like that. His writing reminds me of dreams.
Illuminatus! by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea - Essential craziness, these guys connect everything from conspiracy theory to relativity to psychedelics to James Joyce. Absolutely brilliant and twisted, this is a start of a whole education in countercultural thought.
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut - Vonnegut is one of my all time favorites, and this collection of short stories does an excellent job of showcasing all the different styles of story that he told from political sci-fi to heartbreaking love stories. I can read this again anytime.
3 DESERT ISLAND RECORDS:
J Dilla “Donuts” - This is such a simple and emotional record, it really grabs people when they hear it. Dilla was basically about everything I like in music: atmosphere, experimentation, funk, electronics, and soul. And this one is his greatest work (though “Welcome 2 Detroit” and “Fantastic Vol. 1″ kill as well!). Every time I listen to this, I hear new things. It is typical for people wake up to artists only after they are dead, but I think Dilla is going to have a crazy legacy now in both hip-hop and electronic music.
Rhythm & Sound “Rhythm & Sound” - I’m picking things that work well as albums, and amazingly this compilation of R&S’ 12″s works better as an album than most “real” albums. Any time I am at the beach, I rock this constantly, regardless of whether it is the summer or the winter. Their sound is very nautical and goes very well with cloud watching, which I assume is a good way to spend time on a desert island. The whole Basic Channel related catalogue is some of the best music ever created, I listen to it so much that I can’t imagine living without it. This album in particular is so deep, it completely engages you everytime you listen to it, no matter how many times you’ve listened to it before.
Miles Davis “Bitches Brew” - I love everything about this album, the way they pieced together such excellent jams with electronics and wild effects is so perfect. It seems like melding technology and humanity together is a tough thing to do since so few do it well, but this album (and really the other two listed here as well) does it so flawlessly and it shows the power of what can be done beyond the usual scope of “live” music. I feel like a new trend is to get into ultra-obscure music, and that does have its place, but the classics are classics for a reason!
3 PEOPLE YOU REALLY HOPE WILL READ YOUR BLOG:
More than any particular person, the intended audiences are people who might just be getting into dance music and are interested in a viewpoint that ties together the good new stuff and all the good older music that came before it, techno and house nerds, and crate diggers of all sorts.
3 PEOPLE YOU HOPE WILL NEVER READ YOUR BLOG:
Richard Florida, Ayn Rand, and Rupert Murdoch. I know Ayn Rand is dead, but she isn’t dead enough for my tastes!
AND FINALLY
A TRACK FOR THE READERS OF INNERSOUNDS…
Reginald Dokes “Spiritual Blue” Psychostasia Recordings
Reggie Dokes is a favorite of ours at ISM, his music really takes “deep house” places that most house purists are not interested in going. This one is off of the pretty rare and obscure third release “The Unknown Artist EP” on his own label, Psychostasia. When I think of the kind of music that isn’t getting much love that really deserves it, Reggie is right at the top of that list. Though he recently moved to Atlanta, Reggie’s music is pure Detroit: soulful, electronic, experimental, and insane.
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