The Bombay Sweets

love this song/vid by The Bombay Sweets (aka Nathan "Rog" Roger Grumdahl).
we spent many a year playing together in Arm. Nice work my brutha!!

UFO Club

11/3 UFO Club, Tokyo

yesterday

Thanks to the organizers, and all who came to yesterday's show at New Port.Had a great time. After seeing She Talks Silence's setup (ipod mini, mini Marshall amp, gtr, mic) I realized that i suffer from GAS. Gonna work on downsizing my "rig".

Mute Era

Minneapolis Minnesota's own, Mute Era. Coming to Japan Dec 2009- Jan 2010. Stay tuned for details*

Haphazard 10 Mixtape Vol. 1

"The Lady With the Crying Eyes" (painting by Joe Meek)
Haphazard 10 Mixtape Vol. 1



1.Pierre Henry - Psyche Rock
2.Amon Düül - Marcus Leid
3.Chick Lewis - North Wind
4.Kraftwerk - Mitternacht
5.Little Anthony & The Imperials - Tears On My Pillow
6.Sun Ra and His Arkestra - The Conversion of JP
7.Joe Meek - I Hear A New World
8.Art Attacks - Punk Rock Stars
9.Mike Oldfield - Sentinel
10.Edgar Froese - Marouba Bay

Download

New Guitar

Got a newbie...JAG!

Rad!

Nic Barbeln > Towards Forward Futures

Check out the free download of Nic Barbeln (a.k.a. Dead Ghost)> Towards Forward Futures from ID FIXE Nic's solo project away from Clipd Beaks is a stellar journey into the realm of tape manipulation and effected loops.7 songs recorded in one night to 4-track tape it's a one take wonder with lyrics that have hints of Syd Barret and Tom Yorke swirling behind acoustic guitar.It'll make your hair stand on end.

go beaks go!

Check out the amazing song/vid from my buds Clipd Beaks. Lets hope they come enlighten us all here is Japan soon!!

I.D. FIXE

Have decided to incorporate I.D. FIXE (music distro/label based in Tokyo Japan) into this blog. Have an online shop with lots of great releases here. Current catalog includes > 1000s of Cats, Arm, Artifact Shore, Bell Hollow, Bellmer Dolls, Canyons of Static, Caw! Caw!, Chromatics, Clipd Beaks, Coyote Bones, For Against, Glass Candy, Health, In Corridors, Mary St John, Meho Plaza, Mute Era, Shock Cinema, Sixteens, Star, The Bad Sects, The Holy Kiss, The Lucy Show, The Meeting Places, The Prids, Treiops Treyfid, Vanishing Kids, We Acediasts, Pat Graham (photos), Naomi Lemon (illustrations).

Penguin House Live

Got some pics from my friend Emi from last weeks solo show at Penguin House in Koenji. Thanks to all for coming! Next solo show is coming up in June....more details soon.

MRI

True story. Had one today at 13:40.

CARRY

Here's what "Mr. Carry" is helping me with today.

1 Sony AM Reciever RE-3230 (purchaced less than 3 hours ago at one of my favorite used furniture shops in Shimokitazawa),1 Siddhalepa Herbal Inhaler (Sri Lanka),1 Kiwi shaker,1 In Corridors Silouette Pin (one of the last few remaining in the limited batch that i made a few years ago),1 bike key & 1 broken yellow Maneki Neko keychain (on my to do list to fix), 1 yellow tik-tik (snapping tool), 2 Michio Kurihara Mole Picks (my current good ole do all ichiban fav pick), 2 Jun Hieda (CBMD) signature bass picks (illustration/Naomi Lemon), 1 capo, 2 1/4" to 1" input adapters, 1 guts of musicbox, 2 slide whistles, and last but not least....1 red fake ruby ring in plastic case. (つづく)

Recording, testing, recording

Starting to do some preliminary test recording for my solo work (name tba). Working now on just finding the right sounds, how i wanna track the songs and all, so I'm testing using my Tascam 4-Track, as well as my laptop recording system. Think I have narrowed it down to my (top secret) old 4-track analog mixer which i'm running into my Mac and hitting onto Logic. Am really into the sounds i'm getting with this old (top secret) 4 trk amp mixer thang. Anyhow....I hope to record a group of 5-10 songs, and release them on CD within the year. (Now if i can only get my studio organized, things might just start flowing out)*

Collections of Colonies of Bees

Miliwaukee Wisconson's wizards of dips, swings, hooks, beeps, breaks, taps, smacks, crashes, and blips, "Collections of Colonies of Bees" will be dropping by Japan once again to twist the minds of all who dare to listen. In Corridors will play with them, their final show Feb. 10th (Tues.) at Shibuya O-Nest. More info HERE

A Picture of Nao

I ran across this unexpectedly on the web today! A Finnish painter named Heikki Peltola did a portrait of Nao from her Seagull days. Check it out!!

Peace Demo Download

Here is a downloadable version of our 2007 Peace Demo CDR. The Last Ray & Rocketship Run were recorded at Peace Music Studio with Engineer Souichiro Nakamura (Guitar Wolf, Boris, Yura Yura Teikoku...) and Producer You Ishihara (White Heaven, The Stars...). Twilight In the Pyramid House was recorded in the summer of 2006 with Steve Revitte in Brooklyn, NY. Running At Night was self recorded in our rehearsal studio. Hard copies (CDRs) of are available from i.d. fixe distro.

download Peace Demo

A New Line

About a year ago, a good friend and I were chating online from opposite sides of Tokyo, and he hit me with an interesting challenge....
Make a collaborative song, by sending tracks back and forth online, within a one hour time span. Here's what we produced. "A New Line".

download

Credits > M. Sorvari- Vo, Lead Gtr, Theramin, Contact Mic
D. Gatchell- Drms, Rhy Gtr

Hard Puncher

A few weeks ago, Nao's Gibson Explorer went kaput in the first 20 min of our 3 hour practice. We opened it up and dug around, and found a wire that had come loose. Didn't have our souldering gear with us, so we borrowed the rehearsal studio's bass. It was a Tokai Hard Puncher (which is their copy version of a Fender Precission Bass). Ran through our set, and when we finished, we were all mystified by how smooth and solid all our songs had suddenly become. Just felt easier to play all around. Thus being said, Nao took a sudden interest into the Tokai bass.
Since they are made here in Japan, and relatively cheap, we thought we could get one in no time.
So, we set out searching- online, and at all the local music shops......but no go....With a show creeping up around the corner, time was running out, so I decided to take a shot in the dark, and called up the rehearsal studio. I knew that the bass in question was the studio manager's bass, and told him how we were searching all over town for one. I asked him if he would be interested in a trade.....a Fender Jazz bass (Nao had lying around for 10+ years) for the Hard Puncher. He agreed to take a look, and we brought it in the next day. His eyes lit up when he saw the Jazz bass....and after checking it out, agreed to the trade.So, here is a pic of the new axe.....Hard Puncher!
Btw....through all of this, I found out that Nao's long running bread and butter bass, the Gibson Explorer, was originally a piezzo bass (a bass without pickups, but rather contact mics on the bridge). Nao had installed regular pickups soon after she bought it, so i never knew about this. I am a BIG fan of contact mics (have been building and experimenting with them for several years now), but had never seen a bass with piezzos built into the bridge!
So, now I am curious to know if the big difference in the sounds between the Tokai and the Explorer was due to the fact that the Explorer was this different type of bass to begin with.Just goes to show.....u learn something new everyday.....

New Blog

Decided to start a blog about the music i'm creating these days with the band In Corridors.
More to come soon.....