Scrapyard guitars workshop on YouTube

The now sounds. The past and the future. New noise out of old stuff.

scrapyard guitars workshop Durham

The workshop was a blast. Everyone built some fun diddley bows and crazy sound machines.

progress in Durham

I've got the basic circuit and programming working for my Candy Computing ver. .01 project.



And a new candy mold! It's made with Smooth-On products.



I'm already working on the Scrapyard Guitars , workshop gathering stuff to make one and two string guitars with. I hope lots of people show up.

on my bench

Whoa... I was sick this weekend past but in a feverish blast of creativity and hacking I built a custom feedback sound machine for use in the Shadow Machine performances in Vancouver. Inspired by a bench top lathe, the hand wound electromagnetic coils I've been working with, one string scrapyard guitars and the ideas behind the performance project, I was able to create something fun and new. The tool box acts as a frame and a resonator. The depth of the feedback is controlled by a potentiometer on the front and the harmonics are controlled by a worm gear driven coil transducer above the guitar string. Another coil is an audio pickup and there is a small amplifier circuit to help induce the feedback.



The aftermath.

The ghost, the dredge, Dawson City and me.

Back in January while I was in Dawson City Yukon, Dan Sokolowski director of the Dawson City Film Festival and part of KIAC challenged me to participate in the One Minute Film Challenge. A project where participants shoot a one minute film with the Super 8 film format with no editing or just in-camera editing. I pointed out that I'm more of any audio artist and that I could record a one minute track in an audio format while I was still there. I also said he could bill it as a movie without a picture. Everyone at the screening would be sitting in the dark anyway so they could conjure up images in their head based on what they were hearing. Dan was cool with all that.

I went back to the residency house studio and started improvising with a jaw harp, my voice and the scrap yard guitar I built to show the 3D lab students at SOVA. Then hit record on the H2 and laid out some tracks live to tape as they used to say. Actually I recorded several versions of the same thing as I tried to squeeze it down to one minute long. When I got home I lifted out a choice but rough track and shipped it via the long wires to Dan.

After listening to it, I titled it The Dredge. I usually let my intuition guide what I do as an artist and sort of think that after spending two weeks immersed in Dawson City in the dead cold of winter, reading about the Gold Rush there, visiting the #4 Dredge preserved up on Bonanza Creek, experiencing a visit from the ghost of Macaulay Residence amongst other things, I captured what was going on inside me with my recording.

The screening of all these one minute productions is on May 1 at the ODD Fellows Hall at 8 pm in Dawson City.

Scrapyard guitars workshop at SOVA

I gave a workshop at School of Visual Art in Dawson City with the folks from the first year 3D class. The basic idea is to get the students to make guitars(or something like that) out of discarded materials. In three hours I introduced acoustic coupling, some basic mechanics and musical ideas to the group. It was really fun. Everyone finished their project. There was some great visual ideas, unusual juxtapositions and noise.

Scrapyard guitars workshop

The workshop I gave at the Graffiti Gallery as part of the send and receive festival was a lot of fun. I demonstrated my One String Bass Slide Guitar made with a hockey stick, my washtub bass and several other one and two string guitars. Ten Diddley Bows were made and decorated by 6 kids, 2 teenagers and a couple of adults. At the end we jammed and ate pizza. Good times.