Nerdcore For Life: (Hopefully) Final Redux

Posted on September 7th, 2010

Filed under: General,Music News,Reviews — Karl Olson @ 11:08 pm

So, my belated trip to Seattle yielded many things (including a very expensive power supply I’d like to get off my hands as I have no use for it,) but perhaps most interestingly it yielded the final DVD version of Nerdcore For Life, the documentary I was in many years ago. Now, I’d seen the film before both at STIFF2008 and PAX2008, but this was my first time seeing the final version, and I have to say, it’s a lot snappier. It’s more of a genre primer and capsule of the scene rather than capsules of the various artists, and result seems much more brisk and lively, or at least it feels that way in the first few minutes.

Alas, I still get to be the first artist to drag the film to a halt with my artist spotlight section, where I look fatter, nerdier and younger than I do now. As always, I don’t belong on TV, though really, either the documentary got a lot of spit and polish on it, or I forgot a lot of little bits that even made my section of the film somewhat faster feeling (this is a very good thing.) The other artists sections also feel a lot faster paced as well. I think some of that is that there is footage shot even after the docs originally did the festival circuit now in the film, allowing for some faster cuts and more visual info to complement the narrative. The narrative also feels, well more complete. It feels like there is a lot more performance footage in it, especially for MC Frontalot, and even without an explicit interview of him in the film, it feels like he is, as is proper, fully depicted as the godfather of the genre now. Maybe the chance to go back and tweak the film after letting that era of nerdcore fall into the background was a good thing. Oddly enough, just as all of us in the film have honed our skills and flows, some how the film has become more sharp yet smooth as well. It’s a much, much better film than what was screened at STIFF and PAX, and I also have to say, I can’t help but smile whenever I see Nursehella and I on the screen at the same time in the documentary. I will show this film to our future children.

Still, watching this film for what I would like to be the last time for a very long while, I can’t help but feel as though I’m looking back on a past life. There was this bizarre time when I was a young otaku rapper/producer, and I had suddenly had many friends and acquaintances who were on a similar track. My recent trip to this year’s PAX reminded me that I clearly still have all those friends (well, at the very least, they don’t mind humoring me,) but yet, the era where I was really on the same path as them might as well be as distant as elementary school. while I’m sure the life I’m leading now (computer science student) will ultimately feel similarly distant to me once I graduate and work for a few years, Nerdcore For Life (and to a lesser extent Nerdcore Rising,) are the only external documentation of my life, and it only feels weirder to look back on the farther away I get from it. Don’t get me wrong, NC4L is a great documentary, and you should atleast NetFlix if you’re the kind of person who reads my blog and you’ve not seen it already. For everyone who still does it and love it, you should watch it and remember your roots. For everyone who wants to do it, you should watch it and know who built the bridge you now stand upon.

For people like me, who can’t even sell an mp3 when it’s half off, well, your time is better spent studying probably. Or producing for other people. I try to do both. Except for rewatching the right bits. 😉

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Hurry Up and Wait

Posted on August 25th, 2010

Filed under: General,Music News — Karl Olson @ 1:35 am

Bad news: Stuck in Vancouver thanks to school. I must make sure the grades are good enough to let me get to take the courses I’m registered for. I need to harass the profs if not as it’s actually their problem for the most part (or their TAs.) Apologies to friends who expected me down sooner; smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast.

Good news: Have a rough (probably finished really) rap over a Childish Gambino track from me. Lyrics after the break.

(more…)

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Welcome to the NHK.

Posted on July 20th, 2010

Filed under: General — Karl Olson @ 1:56 am

For everyone who wanted me to have a forum.

Well, you have one. You don’t even need to register.

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owning up to the worst music ever

Posted on July 10th, 2010

Filed under: Music News — Karl Olson @ 7:38 pm

EDIT – Living Link Again:cuo2duo – comp1337

1. Yes, that was me.
2. Yes, it is horrible, offensive and stupid, but it’s a satire of image board culture, so it can’t be anything but those things. Think of it more through a Mark Twain perspective if you put any thought it into it. I didn’t.
2a. The instrumentals are nice though. very different for me.
3. Yes, it does mean last year I put out 119 songs.
3a. If you count writing the backings for and producing rai’s album.
3b. More than 119 if you count the c2d instrumentals separate from the album.
4. Yes, that means about half of everything I put out last year was freely available, and the rest was easily piratable.

So, you can see why I can take some time off to finish university. Not many musicians in general have ever been that prolific in that time frame, and I did so with plenty of generosity in the process. Thing a week? Try 2+.

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podcasts, performances and other stuff

Posted on June 8th, 2010

Filed under: General,Music News — Karl Olson @ 2:56 am

So, like a manufacture with an early model android phone, I’ve been bad about updating in a timely fashion. Recently, I opened for Death Star at their CD release party at the Blue Moon Tavern. I had a fun time, Death Star put on a great show, and the Seattle Geekly noted that I “effortlessly kicked out a set that I imagine most performers would happily trade a major internal organ to be able to pull off.”

Speaking of the Geekly, they also did a podcast featuring an interview with myself amongst other awesome nerd musicians.

As to the other stuff? Well, I’m taking summer courses, so I’m staying quite busy. The secondary agenda to school will be helping Nursehella do vocals for her debut record. Considering how quickly Rai’s record went once it had a similar foreground priority, I think it’s gonna go well, and go fast.

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Facebook is the Hedgehog’s Dilemma

Posted on May 12th, 2010

Filed under: General — Karl Olson @ 9:04 pm

My aggressive aversion to facebook apps that want personal data assuredly obscures a section of reality from my vision. However, this section surely contains information about how others perceive me, and thus, in that sense, I am forbidden from knowing a part of myself as I am unwilling to share information about myself.

More pressingly, regardless of which path of action is taken, I will feel some sense of loss. Either I am to relinquish my privacy to a stranger, so that I may know what my friends and acquaintances think of me, or I am forbidden from knowing information about myself. Some might argue I could always ask my friends what they said in a given, but on facebook, such connections are not always as strong as friendship, and even that still requires some exchange on my part. It reveals more directly to those people that I want to know what they think of me.

And well, I do want to know; such concerns are natural to human beings. However, I don’t wish to sacrifice anything personal to know such things. See blog title.

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Built In A Day

Posted on May 6th, 2010

Filed under: Music News — Karl Olson @ 10:30 pm

A little 9 song mixtape that I made today:


mix cloud
datpiff flash player
megaupload
easy share
badongo
deposit files
dat piff
upload bro

Beats featured should be familiar to many HipHop fans. Subject matter? The usual: myself, anime girls, playa haters, semiotics, etc.

Expect Ultraklystron stuff like this when I’m on break unless I’m doing work with one of my collaborators. Also, I recorded it on my netbook with dollar store earbuds. Expect the roughest mix ever.

Also, have a music “video”.

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Success!(?)

Posted on April 29th, 2010

Filed under: General — Karl Olson @ 12:01 pm

So, I squeaked through my first quarter at SFU with good enough grades (Discrete Math, B-, Comp Sci C+, English B+, Philosophy A-) to continue on my degree track. I’ve moved into my own place in Burnaby off-campus. I am underway properly now as a student. The biggest debate for me should be whether I want to spend the 45-100 something bucks a month to have a parking pass, or whether I should lose a 20+ minutes a day to the bus.

Yet, meanwhile, I have friends without degrees working for Microsoft and Google. To be fair, they are contract or orange badge or some other code word for temporary and hourly, but they are working, now. Doing jobs I could also do, now. Putting the best companies in the world on their resumes now.

I hope the $60K+ of my parents dough I’m about to plow into getting a degree is the right long term play. I really, really do. I really hope it means a salary, a house and all that other American Dream stuff. The grass better end up greener on my side, otherwise why am I gardening, and stressing ’til my arteries are hardening?

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Success is my only option; Failure’s not.

Posted on April 23rd, 2010

Filed under: General — Karl Olson @ 3:21 pm

So, I’m over in Victoria, visiting Danielle, and clearly things must be chill as we’ve had time to go out for a couple meals, went swimming and we even yet again fed the seals (video eventually uploaded and linked to this parentheses’d text,) but pretty every other waking moment has been spent cramming on Discrete Math, which quite plainly I need to do well on, at least if I intend to continue my pursuit of Comp Sci. I haven’t even browsed my philosophy notes yet, both because I only need a D, and because I doubt I’d get anything less than a B- even going into the exam cold.

Ah, the liberal arts, I’m so good at you, but it’s ever so difficult to eat off you, and you’re boring compared to programming.

Beyond that, I’m taking Danielle back to her mom’s in Castlegar before looping through SpoKant to get back to Seattle. It seems there are tons of shows I’d love to see in my short break between semesters (well, w00tstock and MC Frontalot.) Perhaps it’s a reward for trying so darned hard to get through all this stuff, but in truth, it’s sort of a reminder that I have to get through this. I’m not touring with Damien Hess nor Adam Savage, so I better make sure I am educated such that I have good work, and thus can afford to see them when they are in my locality.

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“I’m about my bus[y]ness” – Drake

Posted on April 7th, 2010

Filed under: General — Karl Olson @ 2:08 pm

So, in the past week(ish) I:

Yet, on the plate for the month is:

I would say I’m super busy, but rationally I know I’ve had plenty of leisure time too. I’ve been able to watch what I want on TV (well, I’ve not been keeping up with Top Gear how I’d like, but it’s rerun constantly on BCC America, so I’ll catch it eventually,) incessantly call Danielle, incessantly call home and even do much more visiting than I expected to have time for. For what seemed to me to be a questionable and uneven start, I’ve managed to do okay here. Perhaps until I see the benefits of getting a Comp-Sci degree over the more remedial, but less expensive and closer to home Computer And Software System degree, I may always be a little tense as education is the most expensive endeavor I’ve taken on to date. One year of university costs me more than all the anime and comic book conventions I’ve attended since I first went to Sakuracon in 2003, and I’ve gone to a lot of conventions since then.

Back on leisure, I suppose there is even busyness there. Last Easter weekend was Sakuracon2010, and Danielle and I were not there. For me, that was the first time I’d missed the con since I first started attending it in 2003. In that sense, even time off now comes with some checks and balances I didn’t have before, but truthfully, I had a lot more fun in Victoria. We went shopping, we had an advance birthday dinner and we went swimming. At the pool, I went down a water slide for the first time. It was surprisingly fun, especially in comparison to going into a steam room for the first time, which I also did.

Beyond that, it was nice to not have to inflate a lack of news into a 500-word news post on top of writing a big paper. I suppose I’d have had to review the new Trigun movie, which would’ve been another 800 or more words. I also can’t be disappointed in a dealer’s room I didn’t see (as I have been in the past few years with most convention dealer’s rooms.) Yeah, there are some old industry friends I could’ve said hello too, and with the new CD out I could have hustled at least a half-dozen albums. I mean, there almost isn’t a convention I’ve attended in the past 4-or-5 years somebody hasn’t been “hey, you’re that guy!” Well, except for Google I/O in 2009.

However, I think I’ve realized that while “making my way in the world today takes everything I’ve got,” I guess I’ve grown up enough to know that it’s not about going “where everybody knows your name” but rather where the right person or people knows your name. For a long time I guess that was the cons, but not as much now.

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