so my computer is operational again. currently Russ Archer is laying down some SCIFI creatures for this month’s project which will feature 5-7 artists total. they will be captured in isolated sessios. and i will be making an arrangement of these sessions, layering and mixing them to create a multi-tracked piece roughly 30-45 minutes in length. as a tribute to tge future alien rapture, entitled The Return Of The Nephilim.
So. I didn’t lose any date, but I’ve been without a studio computer for a month. Kinda driving me nuts, but at the same time have been focusing on some other stuff. I’m not sure that my project will continue on within the same parameters I started it at, but fully intend to complete all the amazing ideas for projects I’ve come up with friends just as soon as the gear works it self out. I’ve had this PC for so long and it’s just finally had enough. It lated like 10 years. I kinda knew this was gonna happen in the back of my mind. Anyhow. I’m working on some pretty cool projects right now, and Doctor Moss is playing my friend Eli’s wedding, so I’ve been super busy. I plan to have some sort of compilation of the best of creatureguts at the end of the year. And if I can get the computer up before then I’ll be posting some new musics on here. Till then!
remember this one?
Very nice Dan.
I’ve battled with technology all of my life. When I was a teen my dad and I would build computers together. Before that, when I was just 3 or so, I was caught hooking up the Atari in the front room to get in a late night Qbert session on multiple occasions. I have an affinity for gadgets. Things that make life more fun, fast, interesting and explorative. As an adult I was headlong into a tech job and trying to be in a band at the same time. I felt a surge to do something with my life that didn’t come easily to me. And when I was 21 I quit a good paying job in San Diego (401k, benefits, free gadgets, and loads of job security) for a new life in Portland where I knew no one and where it seemed to be less “techy”. Since then I’ve always fought with what technology does to our souls. How we rely on this and how it has become an imperative center-piece to the way normal, and less tech savy people communicate. This month is sort of a tribute to that idea. The neurosis that develop from our reliance on technologies.
I’ve been obsessed with the idea of creating SCI FI music since I was a kid. But I’ve taken a long time circling around this trajectory which has involved me in a lot of other music experiences that I would otherwise not consider SCI FI sounding. But the wider my berth the more extensive SCI FI sounds to me. World music and psychedelia I now associates as future music. I’ve talked about this all before, actually. What is important is that we just create. And creating involves moving forward… into the future? I’ve got a love for many types of art, but the ones that really grab me and make me want to absorb them more are those that I at first do not understand. I’m slow on the uptake. I don’t take people’s word for it and this might make me a skeptic. But shit, I know way more cynical than me so I think I’m alright. I just wanna create something that pushes my own understanding of what I thought it might have been from initial ideas. That’s where beauty exists.
This month I’ve got 3 tracks completed with Uta Plotkin from Aranya and Witch Mountain lending her voice and viola along with David “Papi” Fimbres from paper/upper/cuts and O Bruxo playing drums; as well Gordon F Cady of the dubious Party Killer (and more recently drumming for Lunar Grave) playing some drums on the second track. Good friends, good vibes, good tunes. This month was great, but FUCKING hard. I just kept creating more work for myself layer after layer adding stuff. I just couldn’t help myself once these amazing musicians started making my little riffs sound like potential songs. And I wanted to create something other worldly sounding. Let me know what you think.
It’s half way through my project and I’ve set the bar high with this one I think. I’m mulling over the idea of putting out a record of the best tracks I complete this year. Not sure how I’ll work that yet. If you have any ideas about that OR would like to participate I’d love to hear from you. One thing that this project has done for me is help me to learn how to communicate with as many different types of musicians in completely different situations and roles each month. If anyone is out there reading this know that I really appreciate your attention and feedback is encouraged. Communion, collectiveness , consciousness, cooperation. Co team. That is all.
Currently taking creatureguts collaboration submission for this fall. please email at creatureguts@gmail.com
This month is going to be pretty great. Gangradio and I will be doing something and look out next month for M.A.R.C. to make an appearance all the way from Greece.
Orion Guimond tires for no man or thing. His light-switch-style energy system has no cool down or warm up time. He’s full on until he’s not on and that’s how this month’s weblum was made. Full on. Oh my god (thank you double rainbow guy). I have on multiple occasions peeled Orion up from my kitchen floor after a HEAVY night of partying. Dude just goes until there is no more going. He pushed all of us to make this month’s weblum something unique. And I think we got some pretty amazing sounds captured this time.
Orion approached me back in January when I was still figuring out the framework for the creatureguts project. He asked to book June , five months in advance, so that he could have enough time for his bandmate Sarrah Verdier (The Hand That Bleeds) and Gordon F Cady (Party Killer) to mess around with some loose song structures while he was trying to find the crassest dirty-hip-hop lyrics he could to accompany. When they came to me they had some real solid, but simple ideas, and I had some preconcieved notions of what the thing would sound like, but none of us knew that what would happen when we put all this junk down. It really turned into something all its own. They asked Melissa Greene to come in for extra vocals and we spliced and diced the whole thing up for a week.
I really wouldn’t call it hip-hop, even though that’s sort of how we initialized the whole thing. I mean, it’s got aspects of that; there is some rapping, but it’s not really machismo, chest pumpin shit; and there is a back beat sometimes, but it’s all live drum and bass tracks. Gutter Rap, Trash Hop, Shock Hop, Toilet Talk, Drug Hop, Mang’sta, Rub’n’Face, Spit. Spit. I like Spit. This music is Spit. Spit Hop. Spit-hop. What do you do when you don’t want this shit in your mouth no more? Spit. That’s what happened this month. It was in our heads.
Super Duper Fun Gun is:
Dan O’Hara – Orion Guimond – Gordon F Cady – Sarrah Verdier – Melissa Greene
just to let you all know…
Remember that doctor who got his license to practice taken away? Yeah he was a Dr. Moss. He kept moving around to different countries trying to practice even though he’d had a few mistakes in his past… he was probably a great doctor, but people just kept dying. Yup, he was a Dr. Moss. Ever heard of the Moss Doctor? Dude, there’s a gazzillion hits on the googler for it. “If you got moss we got the solution: Moss Doctor.” Best way to sell any product– Keep it clinical, bro. Do you remember Doctor Moss? Portland circa 2006? 2007? 2008, maybe? I wouldn’t expect anyone to, but they were a band that made music in a Southeast Portland basement. They didn’t serve a useful purpose like killing the moss from your roof. And they sure weren’t as infamous as Doctor Death. But four friends converged in this galaxy to make these musical poems for a few years and some people liked it, man.
What the hell does that name even mean? Well the whole band was an experiment. Complete democracy– I mean the whole thing worked by everyone writing together and it was so compelling at first because the ideas developed so quickly. A few weeks after playing through some riffs and loose structures appeared! And soon after that there was enough for a set. So I guess then that a show would be the next step (thank the Know for our first FOUR shows, chuckle…), but it’s this weird instrumental beast, what is it called? So it came pass that the beast be given a name.
Well it’s instrumental, but not post-rock or jammy, or progy or soundtracky or whatever…. and it’s heavy as fuck, but not metal… it’s mathy as shit, but you can totally bob yer head to it. What the fuck is this crap? We made mutt music; the musical stew! — who put the paprika in the soup? I was makin’ the soup and then this paprika totally spoiled the shit! — Anyhow, what do you call it? Man, I wish I could remember some of the stupid ass names we came up with. But as I recall John Roscoe Bischoff (drummer) had a dream one night that the band was called Doctor Moss (spelled out, naturally) and no matter who fought for something else, we just kept calling it that. It grew on us…
A true democracy is just a bunch of opinions with loud voices screaming away until inevitability beats them to silence with the hodge-podge stick. But we were doctors now so everything that we were doing was academic, man. Practicing took on a new meaning.And was it arguing or debating? Were we writing songs that were too long or testing the patience of a listener? See how a clinical light on the subject really lends an authority to the endeavor? We were full of intent, don’t get me wrong and I don’t want to lessen that, but just remember we’re fuckin’ kids, man.
Making noise is just noisy and sometimes it’s justly done, but only just sometimes. And all the other times, the ones where it was just noise for the sake of noise? Well shit… those were fun too. And it was fun feeling like we had some sort of grander meaning to the whole thing, purpose and all, but if you were to ask me then or now, I’d still not be able to tell you who the fuck the Doctor was.
Some weird shit aligned and made it possible for the four of us to exist long enough to make these songs. And it was hard. When making a song got longer than the seasons took to change, I’m pretty sure that’s when I started to lose it. It’s only been 3 years since we all sorta decided it was over, but just with that amount of time passing I really see that the only thing that gets in the way of productivity is yourself. But sometimes the only way to know you are being productive is to get in the way of its momentum, stop it, and look it over for a while. I don’t know how any band like Rollerball can do it for 15+ years and not lose interest enough to move on, but instead keep the growing up inside the family. It’s as rare as the right type of talent converging on time and space to make beautiful things out of nothing at all. And if I appreciated these things back then I might have just been able to cheat the death of Doctor Moss for just a little while longer.
So we were asked to play our friends’, Eli and Liz, wedding reception in September. We talked it over and decided it would definitely take a month of practice. But the only time Knate Carter (guitar) could make it back into Portland from all his many travels back and forth across the country would be May. And since we’d be well practiced by the end of the month we should play a show, right? And while we were at it, finish those damn songs you started 3 years ago, at least. Ok. Well the shows were great.
And here’s the link to this month’s creatureguts weblum:
Back Straight And Off-Axis: The Ramblings Of For Lost Moss
The first 4 tracks were recorded by Doctor Moss in the loft of a paint shop and finished up here at the creatureguts house. The Live track is from Langano Lounge recorded by Trent Hays. And the last 2 demo tracks are early version of a song called Rain Detailer on our LP, the Infant Terrible (available for download, if you want it email me @ creatureguts@gmail.com.).
Doctor Moss is: Dan O’Hara on baritone guitar, Knate Myles Carter on guitars and vibes, Brian Cummings on bass guitar, and John Roscoe Bischoff on the drums and cymbals.
You can download the zip file from here.
Half baked? Here’s the run down:
1)Booberamapalooza Fest ended up taking a lot of work. 2) The Man Dies plays KBOO 3) I purchased a new studio board that I’m learning on. 4) My computer hard drive runs out of space. and 5) the suns comes out.
Excuses, right?
But let me also say that this month was so full of learning and growing that its importance in the grand scheme of the cosmos should not be overlooked. I mean… The Muscle Beach set at Kenton Club for Booberarampalooza Fest (and the whole line-up for that matter) was a total success! The sounds and progressions of those ideas were monumental for us and for sure going to set me up on a new creative path. Thanks to all the people who made that night so badass. Monumental for me. And so much fun. John Boober did an amazing job of putting together a hodge-podge of Portland’s weirdest. It was a family event for sure. Or a field trip. Or a trip to the candy store.
FIRST: This month’s weblum features Muscle Beach (Ron Mason Gassaway, John Boober, Skeeterguts O’Hara, and M.A.R.C.). These are excerpts from basement session before Booberamapalooza Fest. Open-ended. Live. Compressed as fuck. And super weird. I kinda think this should be worked out more, but the rules of this project dictate that I’ve got to put up whatever is done, no matter where I’m at with it. And I’ve got to do this or else I’d never be able to live with myself. Finish shit. That’s rule number one. I wanna share this set of rules from a man that I truly respect:
John Cage’s “Some Rules for Teachers and Students” RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile. RULE TWO: General duties of a student – pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students. RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher – pull everything out of your students. RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment. RULE FIVE: Be self-disciplined – this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way. RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make. RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things. RULE EIGHT: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes. RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think. RULE TEN: We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities. HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything – it might come in handy later.SECOND: Sick Fuck is a monster from the ether that I attempted to capture in a digital cage this month. Connor Kirkwood and Jason Scragz have got a 14 minute piece with 3 movements that seriously sound huge and I can’t wait for them to do more of what they do. I played a little guitar on the last part of the recording and nailed something down on the second take, which was pretty awesome.
I had a song I’d been working on, but with the computer running out of space I put it into a defrag and scan (old PC… yeah it sucks) and it’s been griding away all morning. Seriously… like under 15% for like… 3 hours. I need to upgrade. Anyhow, the song I’m working on could sound a lot better with more time and more people working on it with me. I’ll have to put it on the back burner for now. And the recordings are sounding bigger, but I’m still learning my way around with having more space to maneuver within. It’s interesting how simple can be limiting, but limits aren’t as noticeable until they cast a shadow on progress. It’s all an in-the-moment sort of thing. Next month expect to see more… of everything.
Doom and gloom for my room last night. SickFuck recorded at the Plural Mural house. The stuff sounds just as much scary as it does comforting. Like jabba the hut/cookie monster tearing a hole through the fabric of space-time and screaming at you like “hey i just want a cookie, you nerf herder” but from your smaller, more human perspective it’s all like “dooooo saaaaaah cooooooooo keeeeeeee paaffff maaa gggrrrr”–death hell satan and shit… So good.
There’s this fine line in my brain where noise in music changes from ENGAGING to disengaging. And if I can disengage from music and listen to sound (ie. noise) then there’s this world of subconcious influence that really intrigues me. Sound is doing something to us on a subconscious level all the time. Last night I was wicked tired. But I endured a session because I was seriously stoked to push myself. I’ve been getting less sleep and my body hasn’t been a fan of my habits. But what is coming out of me (musically and perhaps habitually) has to be, in every way, influenced by the pressure from which I place upon myself… willingly, remember. I just hope I haven’t been a pain in the ass. Anyhow, there were some real great zone-out moments listening back to this session that’s given me that real sub’level influence, forsure. The guitars and keys from this recording are at moments indistinguishable and at others very much characters with their own individual voicings and personality. I really like this band. I can’t wait for you to hear it.
Earlier this week we had a few Muscle Beach and Friends sessions. John Boober has put together these motley-dudes in an effort to flesh out the quirky booty shakin’ future music he and Ron Masson Gassaway have been working diligently at for months and months and months. This incarnation features M.A.R.C. all the way from Witherspoon, Greece on drums/vocals. He’s been a pain in the horse ass to get to practice– with all the jerkin’ around: prior commitments, other american bands and cheese farm tours he’s been on since his visit to the states (“even when yer workin’ ya gotta find time to chill with yer dill havarti”), but M.A.R.C. shows up and busts out exactly what each song needs… what can I say… dude’s a professional.
I’ve been working on a few new ways to get some of the sounds I like out of my amps, but to not wear a guitar/bass/whatever. The results have been incredible! I’m using sampled guitar and bass sounds from a sample box and running these through an effects loop on a shitty Peavey mixer, from which I can also mix in M.A.R.C. and Boober’s vocals to sample and tripout with FX. Super big stuff for you mind mouth. Hungry? Well we’re gonna try this shit out on Saturday at the Kenton Club for Booberamapalooza Fest! Here’s a sample on SoundCloud below:
This month I’ll be putting out a few bands on the same weblum. Next month I’m thinking about doing more bands and maybe putting out a tape! Stay tuned! See you at Kenton Club Saturday with Valkyrie Rodeo, SWAMP BUCK, Stag Bitten, and the Chair Project!
February is a short month. And as it turns out… a perfect month to capture about 30 minutes of what Party Killer does at it’s best. I usually spend a lot of time adding sounds and making options for choosing later on dring mixing, but Party Killer is that one thing I do where I rely heavily on my first instincts. One of the reasons why it’s an extremely difficult band. Personalities clash and lines are often drawn. And somehow between all the friction created there are these singularities where everyone has a place and meaning, and it’s a beautiful thing, really. But when I say in between I mean… in between like HOURS of recorded music. Seriously hard to stay clear-minded when you sit for a listen back that’s gonna take up your whole night.
These little gems are what make being in a band worthwhile. Where the norm for most musicians is to practice, rehearse and attempt to communicate a musical idea from your head, heart whatever, Party Killer is different. Practice isn’t getting the idea down so that it can be represented live everytime the same way. Practice is getting to that spot where everything gels quicker than the last time we got there! We played a show first in the line up a few weeks back and it was kinda weird. Put us on the spot all up front before a couple of drinks, and the getting-stoked period while watching bands was not there. The set wasn’t bad, but the practice it took to even get a mediocre performance under these circumstances has been years in the making! It was actually pretty good (another thing that makes PK hard: we don’t always record and a lot of those really great moments that maybe define what we are doing are lost to the ether). We make little art pieces out of life, all of us. And sometimes we can capture them, but it’s the making that is important.
Here’s the full Weblum download
Personnel: Ron Mason Gassaway – Ben Hollenbaugh – Robert Bearak – Gordon F Cady – Dan O’Hara
And a soundcloud stream:
creatureguts 
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