WAWEDH?

by | Dec 31, 2024 | Music | 223 comments

We’re all familiar with electronic music. If you’re a Boomer or early Gen Xer, you saw the birth of electronic music in everything from Pink Floyd to Brian Eno, and experienced it in movies like Forbidden Planet. If you’re a later Gen Xer, synthesizers and electronic music permeated through almost all of the music you grew up with from The Eurhythmics and A Flock Of Seagulls to New Order and Dead Or Alive. Entire albums have been sullied by the synthesizer throughout the 80s, even while they also helped create masterpieces, and Electronic Dance Music has been the heartbeat of dance floors for decades with its β€œfour-on-the-floor” aesthetic. It’s everywhere from soundtracks to raves, even if many of us primarily associate synthesizers and electronic music with flowered up pop music or boots and pants (and boots and pants and….).

In reality electronic music is, and always has been, the domain of nerds. The origins of modern synthesizers lay deep in the bowels of university science labs, trying to make old scientific test equipment useful for musical purposes. At opposite ends of the continent, Bob Moog, an electrical engineer with a PhD in Engineering Physics, and Don Buchla, a physicist and engineer who knew how to have a good time, were at work developing synthesizers at Cornell and Berkeley respectively throughout the 60s and 70s. From hitting wooden logs, to making flutes from the bones of animals, humans have always used the things around us as musical instruments. To enterprising nerds in the age of precise scientific testing equipment it was a natural human curiosity to experiment using those devices to make music. It’s what we’ve been doing as a species for tens of thousands of years. And while both of them were working contemporaneously, they ultimately created very different types of synthesizers, though they had one thing in common which revolutionized the platform: voltage controlled oscillators in order to precisely control pitch.

Moog’s designs are what most of us associate with synthesizers. He had the dream of making synths commercially viable, and made the genius decision to use the familiar keyboard with which to play them. His idea was that a musician would be more likely to try a synthesizer if it could be played like a piano, and he was right. Moog went on to be a powerhouse in the music industry, with tens of thousands of songs featuring his synths. He also designed the first fully modular synth in 1964, the Moog Synthesizer, though it, and most of his successive designs, used a traditional keyboard to play them. His company is still alive and making synthesizers, even if they’ve recently been purchased (read: saved from financial calamity due to shitty business practices) by a shitty conglomerate, InMusic, and moved from Asheville where everything was hand-built by skilled technicians, to Asia where they are…not.

Something sellable.

Buchla’s designs are in line with what one might expect from Berkeley during the height of the 60s counterculture. Part of his motivation was to use electronic instruments on their own terms to create unique music unbeholden to historical norms, and to use various novel inputs to control and play them. To use his instruments as a tool to challenge traditional forms of music, and how that music ought to be produced. So rather than traditional keyboards, we get touch-sensitive plates and sequencers. These sorts of input devices could send different streams of voltage to different places for different purposes. For instance, if I touch a plate, it can send pitch voltage to an oscillator, a separate voltage to some other parameter like volume using the amount of pressure applied to the plate, and a third voltage to yet another parameter based on precisely where I’m touching the plate. These plates also allowed for expressiveness like vibrato or crescendo that isn’t possible using a traditional piano keyboard. Though Buchla systems are relatively unknown outside of the synth community, they’re legendary within it. His design philosophies have been employed throughout Eurorack, a more modern modular synth platform developed by Dieter Doepfer in 1995, for instance, with multiple companies like Make Noise, Verbos, and Frap Tools adapting them in their circuits.

And it’s not just the physical design philosophies that were different between Moog and Buchla. So too were their methodologies for creating sound. Moog designed what we now call subtractive (or β€œEast Coast”) synthesis. A form of synthesis that starts with harmonically complex sound waves like saw or square waves, and uses a filter to remove upper harmonics and sculpt timbre. It’s the form of synthesis most of us are familiar with. Buchla developed what we now know as additive (or β€œWest Coast”) synthesis, which starts with harmonically simple sound waves like sine or triangle waves, and adds harmonic complexity to them via frequency/phase modulation or wave shaping in some form (or both). These very different approaches create very different results, even if the tools that create them, oscillators, VCAs, and envelopes, are nominally equivalent. In modern modular synthesis, it’s not uncommon for an artist to use a combination of both styles depending on the goal.

But it’s not the (only) point of this post to dredge through the geeky history of synthesizer development. Rather, it’s a short introduction to a series of indeterminate length which will feature electronic music. And not the sorts of electronic music that most of us might be accustomed to, like that of the boots and pants wing, or our beloved 80s music, but more towards long(er) form ambient(ish) compositions and performances composed for and played by synthesizers. Some of these posts, like today’s, a composition I’ve been making just for Glibtown, will contain original music.

This piece, titled What Are We Even Doing Here?, is my contribution of a small nicety for our island of sanity in a sea of whatever it is we want to call Modern Life. It’s a live recording that was improvised in a single take. The chord progression is lifted exactly from the Radiohead song Everything In Its Right Place. No, you will not hear the song even a little. On the surface, it’s a simple piece. But there is a universe of movement within every aspect of WAWEDH?. Nothing is static, yet much of that movement is largely unnoticeable on the surface. Like viewing a drop of pond water through a microscope, however, close examination will prove to be a reward. Though ambient music is often thought of as background music, it also strives to be something more. Modern ambient is a reaction to the background Muzak that exists only to fill space. Brian Eno wrote in the liner notes of his ground-breaking 1978 release Ambient 1: Music For Airports,

Whereas conventional background music is produced by stripping away all sense of doubt and uncertainty (and thus all genuine interest) from the music, Ambient Music retains these qualities. And whereas their intention is to `brighten’ the environment by adding stimulus to it (thus supposedly alleviating the tedium of routine tasks and leveling out the natural ups and downs of the body rhythms) Ambient Music is intended to induce calm and a space to think. Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

Ambient music isn’t just aural filler in a room, though it can be. It also helps create a space where one can relax and examine the day, while also being musically interesting. You can listen while eating dinner with family and friends, or use it as a portal for introspection and thoughtful examination of the world. It’s great at bedtime.

WAWEDH? uses a single foundational control module that drives most every part of the system from the volume of the chords, to the timing of the ornamental notes, and the modulation of various bits and pieces of equipment. It’s called Swell Physics and is an ocean wave simulator using the same Trochoidal or Gerstner Wave algorithms used in university labs for research and video game development houses to make games look pretty. The five waves generated by Swell Physics bring sounds in and out of audibility, controls when (or whether) other sounds happen, and changes parameters throughout. Almost everything in this piece is somehow dictated by the flow of the ocean.

If only we could send Tulpa away on these waves.

Other Processes:

Listening with headphones will pay major dividends.


About The Author

Muzzled Woodchipper

Muzzled Woodchipper

223 Comments

    • Nephilium

      ***clears throat***

      Geek.

      • UnCivilServant

        It’s twue – Ilium bites the heads off small animals to entertain the circus crowds.

    • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

      I am gonna send this to my son. He loves making music, mostly guitar and bass but will pick up anything. Of course, the rest of the site will scare the piss out of the little librel, but hopefully in a good way.

      Cheers!

    • rhywun

      Will check out.

      I have to admit that while I love electronic music, synth pop, and on and on –
      the nerdy details behind it just don’t interest me.

      I guess that’s why I don’t create it.

  1. Threedoor

    That’s pretty cool.

  2. groat scotum

    Happy New Years, glibs. I know we don’t see eye to eye on Trump, but I truly hope you all enjoy.

    • Don escaped Memphis

      I’m sure it will all get smoothed over some time in the next four years πŸ™‚

    • cavalier973

      Which Trump?

      β€˜Cause, if you’re talking about Barron Trump, ain’t nobody going to see eye-to-eye with that giant.

      • groat scotum

        You want to feel depressed, imagine the pussy that mf is pulling in college.

      • kinnath

        So, secret services is procuring them for him?

      • groat scotum

        You think a six foot eleven guy who’s the son of the President of the United States needs SS to procol Harum himself some clunge?

      • kinnath

        I think the son of the man who was subjected to two assassination attempts has very little privacy at this point.

      • groat scotum

        Exactly the reason why such a man should enjoy himself.

      • Q Continuum

        Dating myself perhaps, but I had exactly one general education class with Luke Walton. The guy couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting multiple women who wouldn’t have thought twice about letting him fuck them in the middle of lecture had he asked. It wasn’t depressing, just fascinating and eye-opening at the tender age of 18.

        Men are whores for T&A, women are whores for status and resources. We’re all basically the same; slaves to our genetic programming. No reason to stress about it.

      • groat scotum

        mY GOD Q LEAVE SOME PUSSY FOR THE REST OF US

  3. Muzzled Woodchipper

    For those who might be interested in a more detailed technical description of the processes in this patch (over 4000 words of it), go here.

    • creech

      We’re lucky if we even see eye to eye with the person in the mirror.

    • Fourscore

      I actually understood a few words of that, from my days as a tech. Not too many, however.

  4. Brochettaward

    FIRST

    FIRST

    FIRST IT ALL OUT

    THESE ARE THE FIRSTS THAT I DREAM ABOUT

    COME ON

    • Aloysious

      Tears for Fears or whatever might have done it first, but Disturbed did it better.

  5. Sensei

    Sweet! I enjoy analog synthesizers. Of we should be able to recreate this in the digital domain…

    And right now I’m not at all happy with electronics as my 3.5 year old Google Pixel 5a just shit the bed. Screen locked up, went black and won’t turn back on. Won’t reset or restart and won’t connect to ADB.

    New phone is ordered, but no two factor authentication by text or authenticator app. Won’t get here until Friday. Sigh…

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      It can absolutely be recreated in a DAW. But that shit is mind numbing. Piss on computers. I need the tactile touch of real things.

  6. Don escaped Memphis

    I like mechanical stuff, so my preference is for sounds that aren’t very advanced electronically…..basically nothing newer than a Hammond B3. There’s something about being literally in touch with the technology I’m enjoying: nothing I can’t wire up and solder up myself from barely post-war tech.

  7. cavalier973

    The electronic score of β€œLadyhawk” ruined that movie for me.

    The electronic music of β€œRaising Arizona” dates the movie, but the tunes are interesting and real music is mixed into the score.

    The electronic music of β€œFlight of the Navigator” fits the movie quite well.

    Here is a piece from the FotN score that didn’t make it into the movie: https://youtu.be/56c1UHWokvE?si=ZSKETQqIiTGWtnOb

    • Mojeaux

      Ladyhawke is unwatchable because of that soundtrack, which is a shame because it’s a beautiful film. Alan Parsons almost never drops a klunker, but that was one.

      • one true athena

        I really wish someone would re-score it, for an anniversary release or something like that. Hell, I’d buy it, if there was a second audio track you could select on bluray to dump the old score. Doesn’t have to be new – just use holst and mozart, or w/e. Just something else. Or even an option to remove the underscore – it would be a bit flat in spots, but still better.

      • KK, Plump & Unfiltered

        hi ota!!

    • cavalier973

      You could probably score it using royalty-free Kevin Macleod music.

  8. rhywun

    more likely to try a synthesizer if it could be played like a piano

    I bought a Casio last year for precisely this reason. I am not as talented as the soaring synths that often play in my head – usually in dreams – but maybe someday!

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      Yeah, Moog had good foresight on that. He was absolutely right.

      That said, I can’t make my way around a keyboard for anything more than mono lines, so sequencers and touch place works just as well.

      I really like Modular because it’s a puzzle. An algorithm that needs to be figured out and worked through. It’s that process which relaxes me.

  9. Don escaped Memphis

    is there a breakdown on the chippers?

    I also have trouble keeping up with all the potatoes around here

      • Sensei

        Too funny, that video has Japanese (only) subs. I use them frequently and had them turned on.

        I wasn’t as familiar with Ciani. I’ll take a listen.

        Something about analog sounds that warms the heart.

  10. Sean

    WTF. Comcast just cancelled the Fuse channel on me.

    No more Malcolm in the Middle. 🀬😑

      • Sensei

        I was not aware of that particular aggregator.

        Loved the rules for β€œadult” uploads.

        Adult Rules
        Absolutely no child porn, animal porn or midget porn.
        Please do not use image hosts that have too many popups and ads.
        You must have at least one visible screenshot or picture in the description.
        Have some class, don’t upload things that would make you feel embarrassed if someone caught you watching them.

      • Brochettaward

        Have pedos been using midget porn as a substitute, or is that some sort of discrimination?

      • Sensei

        That’s what made me read all the rules.

        I hadn’t thought of why, however.

    • R.J.

      It’s currently streaming on Hulu. Nowhere else. I sympathize with your loss.

  11. kinnath

    I have that Flock of Seagulls album. I rather enjoyed it back then.

    • Fourscore

      When I was still working a customer would come to the counter with some vinyl.

      Customer “Have you listened to this?”

      Me “No, I don’t think so”

      I’d actually not listened to any rock since the ’60s, but I wanted to sell that Flock of Seagulls album. Good thing there was some younger folks on the payroll that would bail me out.

    • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

      *imagines kinnath with “Flock of Seagulls” hair*
      *giggles to himself*
      *reminds himself that he used to rock a righteous golden mullet*

      • kinnath

        Never had that hair.

        My hairstyle has been remarkably unchanged for 50 years. Sometimes on the long side; sometimes short. But basically the same.

  12. R.J.

    Speaking of nerdery, I am watching some digitally cleaned version of Krull. Looks better than it did in the theater. What nerd sacrificed time to do that?

      • R.J.

        Me too.

      • R.J.

        It’s on TUBI. You can see every thread on every costume. Color is brighter too.

      • Sensei

        Just hit up wiki.

        Lysette Anthony as Lyssa. Her voice was re-dubbed (uncredited) by American actress Lindsay Crouse as the producers wanted the Princess to have a more mature-sounding voice.

      • R.J.

        Stahp it…

      • Sensei

        Because you know Krull needs? Lens flares!

  13. Tundra

    This is amazing.

    Obviously I’m a music guy but the tech completely escapes me.

    My daughter’s band has a really good keyboardist. I’ll share it with him and see if he can help me understand!

    Thanks, Mr. Woodchipper!

    • Common Tater

      Gordie Howe was still playing pro hockey at your age. Although, unless you are very into production, learning the tech won’t do much for music appreciation. I’ll try to answer anything you want to ask though.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        Very true. Ultimately, very few people care how music is made, and there’s little to be gained from an appreciative point of view by understanding it.

  14. Common Tater

    Thanks for the article πŸ™‚

    At one point in my life I think I had 15 synths and 7 drum machines.

    I had to take a shit, now I’m going back to finish watching The Apartment with my mom.

    HNY πŸ™‚

  15. rhywun

    Seems like the media are giving us hardly any “the year that was” this time around.

    It feels like people just want this year to end already.

    • Gender Traitor

      “Here’s how we lied to you most of the year until reality caught up with us (and we started lying a little less.”)

    • rhywun

      No fireworks even. WTF, neighbors?

  16. R.J.

    I bought a Theremin from Bob Moog a long time ago. I just called him up on the phone, sent him a check and he mailed it out when he built it.

    • Common Tater

      I called him once abut something. Forgot what it was about.

      Still have the theremin?

      HNY πŸ™‚

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        It’s kind of amazing how open he was to talking with regular schmoes at length. A very gracious dude.

      • R.J.

        The Theremin was in the hands of Mark Ridlen of Lithium Christmas, when he passed away this last month. It is now lost.

      • Common Tater

        “It is now lost.”

        Oh, well πŸ™

  17. UnCivilServant

    😣

    One of many projects I’ve been working on is a book with the working title of “Prince Arvid’s Periplus” (a travelogue for those who won’t follow the link). At 2 of 32 possible stops it’s at 23k words. At this pace, the book would threaten over 400k… 😳 That’s Mojo length territory, not my normal yarn length.

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      In the last year I’ve written about 50k words on my blog. Here’s to the next 50k! Keep writing!

      • UnCivilServant

        I was not very productive in 2024 in terms of getting stuff written. I’m debating embracing the doorstopper aspect of the work and giving a detailed tour of the setting.

        It’s kinda episodic too, with some longer plot arcs. (The basic premise is Arvid, Prince of Xaxitan and Snaerveldi is sent out on a diplomatic goodwill mission to learn more about the wider world so the reader gets a closer look at places that zipped past in other books)

      • rhywun

        embracing the doorstopper

        Do it! I love those.

    • Mojeaux

      The Proviso is 300k. Dunham is 280k.

      I just wind the story all the way out. If it takes 400k, it takes 400k. I’m not particular.

      • UnCivilServant

        Prince of the North Tower is my longest complete novel. It took 133k words to tell. Most of my plot ideas are more concise.

  18. KK, Plump & Unfiltered

    Straff is in here, with news of 2025!

    • Brochettaward

      Tell him I said he’s gay.

    • Aloysious

      Is he pregnant?

    • KK, Plump & Unfiltered

      Also Swiss’s voice twin is here

      • Chafed

        Steve Smith?

  19. Aloysious

    Ontopic, I am listening to Echoes on the radio, just like in the olden days of yore.

  20. rhywun

    Settled on the yearly Twilight Zone marathon once again…. I can’t believe that guy had three heart attacks by the age of 50 – the last one killed him during heart surgery.

    Stuff like that attract more attention in my own mid 50’s.

      • rhywun

        Aw, sorry.

        FWIW I got cancer this year so there’s that. πŸ™„

      • Common Tater

        Yikes and yikes!

      • Nephilium

        rhwyun:

        I hope it’s a treatable one, and that you beat it.

      • rhywun

        Thanks; so far so good. The drugs seem to be working wonders. I’m glad I don’t have to pay full price for them, the sticker shock is unbelievable.

      • Mojeaux

        Dafuq, @Rhy! Did you tell us this????!?!?

      • rhywun

        @Moj

        Nope.

      • slumbrew

        Shit, Rhy. Sorry to hear. Here’s to a healthier 2025.

      • Chafed

        Holy shit, Rhywun. I hope your treatment is a complete success.

      • Sean

        Damn, rhywun. Kick it’s ass,

      • rhywun

        Dayum.

        Amazing how many folks accomplished so much in their years.

      • Common Tater

        Kermit knew something about the Clintons.

    • Nephilium

      One of the things I’m very proud of in my collection of physical media is a full set of every Twilight Zone.

      • rhywun

        Jelly. It’s on TV so much I haven’t felt the need to collect it (yet).

        But wow it was hugely influential on my youthful television habit. My mom must have been drunk or something one year when she let me stay up till midnight every school night to watch it on channel 31 in the early 80s.

      • Nephilium

        rhywun:

        The only one to be really jealous of is the Definitive of the original series. They even included the ads as special features.

        The 80’s and 90’s attempts were pale imitations, although I do like Peele’s series. But I’ve also got a soft spot for anthology series.

      • rhywun

        Wait, you have all the series?

        I was only considering the original. I haven’t seen any of the Peele one.

      • Nephilium

        rhywun:

        Yep. All of them. I even have both Outer Limits, Ray Bradbury Theater, and Night Gallery.

    • UnCivilServant

      Serling was said to smoke three to four packs of cigarettes a day

      That might have been a contributing factor to his heart problems.

      • rhywun

        Another thing that gives me pause. I smoked a pack a day for thirty years and finally kicked it at around 50. A day hardly goes by that I don’t want one but I’m glad I stopped.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        I quite about 10 years ago, and still want one every day. And that is only, like you, one pack a day. My dad smoked two packs of Pall Malls a day, and one of my favorite travel writers (Patrick leigh Fermor) smoked 4 packs a day.

        Sorry to hear about your C. That sucks.

      • rhywun

        The amusing part is it’s not from smoking.

        More likely from Ground Zero, if I had to guess. Some blood or marrow shit.

  21. groat scotum

    A TERRIFIC NEW YEAR’S FILM: Four Rooms. Starring: Quentin Tarantino. Also: TIM FUCKING ROTH! Also: Antonio Bandares.

    • groat scotum

      …………….Did they misbehave??

      • groat scotum

        I forgot how excellent this movie is.

    • rhywun

      I love Tim Roth and I have a fondness for that movie since seeing it at the Angelika during a vacation to NYC a few years before I moved there.

      But damn it’s uneven. The bit with the witches is just terrible. The one with the two kids is great. The one with Tarantino is just another excuse for him to prove why he belongs behind the camera.

      • groat scotum

        It’s got, wait for it, Bruce effing Willis cameoing.

      • groat scotum

        Disagree. HARD disagree. Tarantino as some asshat hollywood star on screen is GREAT.

      • rhywun

        Disagree. HARD disagree. Tarantino as some asshat hollywood star on screen is GREAT.

        I might be thinking of Pulp Fiction and From Dusk Til Dawn among others.

        I will give that performance another chance – “asshat hollywood star” does sound like the part he was born to play.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        The part where Tim Roth (also one of my favorites) cuts the finger is totes awesome.

    • Common Tater

      I forgot that one. Not many NYE movies. Trading Places, Strange Days, not sure what else.

      • rhywun

        Oh man, I have Strange Days on DVD. I should put it in; I love that movie.

      • slumbrew

        Strange Days is phenomenal.

      • Atreides

        They say that there are no coincidences. ”Strange Days” by The Doors featured an early use of the Moog synthesizer in a rock song, and later provided the title for the 1995 movie of the same name.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZWB0VF2vDI

      • Ted S.

        The original Ocean’s 11.
        Cavalcade.
        The Poseidon Adventure.

    • Mojeaux

      I liked Antonio Banderas when he was still into Almodovar films.

    • Nephilium

      I’m watching Strange Days, which I loved when it was released, and really hated that they set themselves in the “far future” of NYE 1999.

  22. slumbrew

    Super cool, Chipper – thanks for this!

    Where are the samples from?

    Jumping way forward, it’s amazing what they can cram into a piece of equipment these days, e. g.,

    https://youtu.be/CFG5dk1GyRo

  23. Tundra

    Midnight, lol.

    Happy New Year’s people! I am expecting great things from each of you in 2025!

    • Brochettaward

      Well, I’ll live up to expectations. I don’t know about these seconding losers.

    • Chafed

      I’ll do my best I’m not making you a promise.

    • R C Dean

      β€œHumphlett received 88 vials of antivenom and is miraculously expected to survive.”

      That stuff is around $5K/vial.

    • rhywun

      “Kamala Harris becomes first female president after Biden passes away peacefully in his sleep underneath her pillow”

      One and done LOL

    • Gender Traitor

      “Kamala was forced on us so hard you’d think she was patented by Pfizer.”πŸ˜„

  24. groat scotum

    I might have pulled the pig out too soon, so: trichinosis?

    Anyway: trichinosis?

    One of the sympyopm s of trichinosis is you can’t stop saying trichinosis or mspelling words like trichinosis

    • Nephilium

      There’s been no cases of trichinosis traced back to commercial pork for 40 some years. Freezing also kills it. So unless you were cooking wild boar, you’ll be fine.

  25. groat scotum

    anyway happy new years my good friends, I am really, very drunk and I do wish you the best of friends

    I’ll be back in fifteen minutes when I’ve recouperated

  26. groat scotum

    And I’m back. Amazing what a dose of Jameson does for one. A stout drink for a stout bloke. Anyway, what are you lot up to?

    • groat scotum

      Been reading the entirety of Flashman this year. What a lad! What an adventure. Mostly in India, parts in American, mostly between there and there. I can’t help but love him, I introduced him to my parents. I’ve got both my parents reading the adventures of Flashman.

      • groat scotum

        American slavery or Indian savagery, you’ll find Flashman making a scoundrel of himself, you wot

      • groat scotum

        I went to visit my brother and his family in Arkansas and went out to a bar to drink and read Flashman and the Great Game, which is a goshdarn great yarn, and what do you know but I end up drinking at a table with the owner of an Indian cafe apparently Pashtun who was very shy about his origin. But I don’t care, Flashman was fucking his way through that entire subcontinent.

    • slumbrew

      Drinking, as one does.

      Will wake up the wife so she can watch the ball drop (giggity) in a moment…

      • rhywun

        Do people do that outside of NYC? I dunno since I left there.

        I guess I could flip over.

        And it’s a fucking commercial.

      • Nephilium

        rhywun:

        The girlfriend is watching the Times Square ball drop in the other room.

        Locally, there’s at least half a dozen festivities that involve dropping something (a walleye, a popcorn ball) or lifting something (fancy crystal glass ball).

      • rhywun

        Holy shit the drone clock is amazing.

        I hope they don’t kill anybody.

      • rhywun

        Some drunks are shouting outside, that’s nice!

      • Nephilium

        rhywun:

        Surprisingly, no fireworks going off around me. Off course, it’s been raining most of the day, with it shifting to freezing rain and potentially snow.

      • slumbrew

        I missed the actual drop and the drone clock?! since the wife wisely decided bed was better than seeing strangers in NYC and the dog needed to go out.

        Someone is going HAM with the fireworks down towards Boston proper, but surprisingly quiet out otherwise.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, it started raining here a couple hours ago.

        That drunk chick is still going at it out front. Maybe waiting for a bus or Uber.

      • rhywun

        They had this giant clock out over the Hudson (?) counting down the seconds. Very impressive.

      • Nephilium

        rhywun:

        I heard the next step of the woo girl a couple weeks back. We were in a cocktail bar that was doing a Christmas popup. At one point Mariah Carey came on, and the woo girls were all singing along to All I Want for Christmas is You.

        As amazingly as out of tune and loud as you can imagine.

      • Chafed

        Now would be a good time to take a whiz out the window.

      • slumbrew

        It’s always a good time to whiz out the window.

      • rhywun

        @Chafed

        Sadly, the only panes that open are at chest level and blocked by screens that I haven’t figured out how to remove yet.

      • Evan from Evansville

        It is *not* always a good time to whiz out the window. Ya can just keep driving. Just have an empty bottle, 20oz green-tinted bottle like Mountain Dew etc, and have good control. It’s really not that hard. Only real ’embarrassing’ moments were when I accidentally lit my car on fire as I was driving. I *may* have done that twice. Damn cherry’d catch something-or-other in the back. Not entirely sure what.

        Oh. You mean inside your house/apt? Just have an empty bottle, 20oz green-tinted bottle like Mountain Dew etc, and have good control. It’s really not that hard. Or you can pick your targets and aim for their neck.

      • Chafed

        @rhywun that is disappointing.

    • groat scotum

      Great link asshole

    • rhywun

      πŸ€˜πŸ»πŸ‘πŸ»

      Love them

      • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

        Moddy s/b Moody

      • Evan from Evansville

        Auto-correct is trying to FTFY. Muddy. Muddy. Muddy Waters.

      • rhywun

        That is a great one but my fave is probably The Voice. The first of theirs I was “aware” of as a kid. And therefore the best.

        Also, The Voice. A song from the same year but I didn’t discover it until college.

    • cavalier973

      That was the follow-up song to β€œIn Your Wildest Dreams”, which was a song based on the singer I real life looking up an old girlfriend and visiting her. He said it was an amazing experience that he recommends other people NOT do.

  27. Gender Traitor

    Happy New Year, Gliberati! πŸ˜ƒ

    • groat scotum

      not so happy it’s not even ten and hasn’t turned over

    • slumbrew

      πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰

      • Gender Traitor

        πŸ˜ƒπŸ‘

  28. Evan from Evansville

    Happy New Year from Indianapolis. I join the masses in thanks and appreciation for Glibspace, a bubble of sanity to let us know we’re not insane. Or perhaps, just as insane as we’d *like* them to *think* we are. I try to assure ’em I’m insane in just the way I *say* I am, and not those other ones, to no avail.

    With some reason, I believe this will be a more fruitful year in the saddle for me. I hope for the rest of ya, as well. Onward, upward, always. (Ensure the ceiling fan’s off first, but I only made that mistake a couple of times.)

  29. Atreides

    Happy New Year, Glibertarians!
    May the new year bring you all more liberty, peace and prosperity.

    My resolutions are to write at least one article for the site this year (if I can figure out how to submit it) and to declare myself the one true libertarian; not necessarily in that order.

    • Chafed

      Looks like you already accomplished the second one.

      • Atreides

        I’m planning to have a more formal presentation of the title at a DC cocktail party.

      • slumbrew

        It really calls for some sort of panoply.

    • groat scotum

      Nah fucked that one up too

      Happy new year, my friends

  30. Brochettaward

    Reason is running an article heaping praise on Jimmy Carter as “The Great Deregulator.”

    If only they weren’t funded by billionaires and could go bankrupt already.

  31. Threedoor

    Thanks for the zoom

    That was a lot of fun, I’ll try to hit you all up
    Again next go around.

    Happy new year!

  32. LCDR_Fish

    Happy New Years from Naples. My coworkers weren’t kidding when they mentioned the local fireworks. They started them up around sunset and you could hear them all evening – pretty good view from the base hotel too. Really nuts after midnight. Not sure where I’ll be watching from next year – probably a little closer to the action.

    Posting will probably be slower going forward…finally getting into the zone with the 12 hour shifts (eventually 4 days on, 4 days off once fully qualified). Nothing next week though – gotta get the local orientation done now that the holiday schedule is finally winding up – and hopefully I can start getting the house/car shopping started properly and get some of my gear delivered to the hotel.

  33. Gustave Lytton

    Happy New Year. More fireworks and gunfire than in a long time and close by. Pup went on a barking fit each time until too tired to give a shit.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Out in country adjacent it was the big ass mortars going off and echoing through the hills.

      I appreciate fireworks…the dogs, not so much

  34. Ownbestenemy

    I’ve achieved middle age. Hockey game, swung by NYE party to say hi and in bed by 10 with Mrs OBE.

    Happy New Years you filthy animals.

  35. PieInTheSky

    Happy News Ear glibbies

  36. PieInTheSky

    New Orleans started the new year poorly…

    • Gender Traitor

      That would be awesome! πŸ˜ƒ
      Happy New Year, Sean, Stinky, and Pie!

  37. KSuellington

    Awesome tune and article, thanks. It’s now a ded thread, but I’ll throw in a couple things that maybe you see later. I’m a huge electronic music fan and I’m sure you know these guys, but this is my favorite live set by them. I love the ambient and downtempo stuff from them and Boards of Canada and the like and also enjoy mid tempo stuff and more hard techno occasionally by Ben Klock and similar djs and artists.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgA7aF4w2mk&t=2416s

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