Calling All Southwest Nerdcore...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
I don’t believe there are enough ’core types in the Pho-Sco / Tucson area to warrant a true AH-type meet-up, and also, I find that format to be somewhat stifling. “THOU SHALT HAVE PATCH CORDS!” But I thought it might be fun to have a Hard Core Gear Porn Get-Together type thing for the folks here on the surface of the sun in the Valley Of The Sun.
To that end, I’m attempting to gauge interest in same. If it’s just, like, 6 people or whatever and nobody is bringing a GX-1 or a full stack Plexi we can just do it here at my house, as I have plenty of room. However, if it’s more than that, some other plan would need to be come up with, and that plan would depend on the number of people attending, and what gear they would like to pimp.
So, if you’d like to attend a get-together tentatively scheduled for the 2nd Saturday in August (8/13/11) drop me a line and let me know what, if anything, you’d like to show off, and any what infrastructure you’d need for same. I’ll attempt to make some sort of spreadsheet or some shit and determine whether an external locale would be needed.
Also too, if you just post something in the comments but don’t write me, then you’re not counted. Email me so I can take advantage of the wonderful filtering technology of today’s advanced e-mail apps.
32 comments
I want hear that shit ! Record... and dont forget to turn off the loop button ! Someone better bring some foogers to run the cmu through ! Post some loops from that session... FMOF !!!!!!! baaarrghhhh!
please do this again in the spring or fall, i've got family in your neighborhood (relatively speaking), it would be a good excuse for a visit. but it's hot enough here that time of year, and hard to descend further into the furnace. (only 102 today compared to your 113)
Adaptation definitely plays a role; it's 87F here right now and it feels kind of hot (and IWB WRT AC). Then there are the stories of Alaskans stripping down to short trousers and T-shirts as soon as the temperature climbs above 40F. But yeah, Phoenix's temperatures are above and beyond what I think I could handle long-term, even though I do find the southwestern desert terrain attractive.
--Adam
113? One hundred and thirteen degrees?
My admiration for you hardy pioneer types, already high, has gone through the roof. Although I often wish for better weather here near Manchester, that sort of heat would melt my eyeballs and cause all my body hair to burst into flames.
My daughter was born near London on the hotttest day of the year in 2006-- 91 degrees.
You must all be made out of asbestos.
Seriously, is it at all possible to work on music (or anything else) without serious aircon?
air conditioner = mandatory
but a lot of people get used to the heat after a time.
Adaptation definitely plays a role; it's 87F here right now and it feels kind of hot (and IWB WRT AC). Then there are the stories of Alaskans stripping down to short trousers and T-shirts as soon as the temperature climbs above 40F. But yeah, Phoenix's temperatures are above and beyond what I think I could handle long-term, even though I do find the southwestern desert terrain attractive.
--Adam
A hot day in London, NYC, or Chicago and the normal summer temperatures here have almost nothing in common, and trying to fit our weather in to your paradigm is essentially impossible, for a number of reasons, in no particular order:
1. The humidity. A typical summer day in London, NYC, or Chicago (all cities built on swamps, near large bodies of water) idles at around 65% to 70% humidity, and can easily get to 100% or super-saturation. Right now, the relative humidity in Phoenix is 9%. While "it's a dry heat" is kind of a joke, that does make all the difference. 113F in 70% humidity is kill-you-dead weather.
2. The environment. Every building, conveyance, parking lot, patio, bus stop, and back yard is constructed with the weather here foremost in the designer's mind. While a rare day is 100F in London, an otherwise rather temperate city, it is _always_ over 100F here, every single day, from late May until mid September. There is no such thing as a house or store here that doesn't have air conditioning. Very few public places don't have a mister of some sort, and many parking lots have covers, like so:
http://www.dealusional.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/IMG_3068.jpg
...to keep your sunglasses from melting to your dashboard.
3. It's exciting! A hot summer day in Chicago or New York is, in my experience, quite oppressive. You can't do anything. Here, a super hot day (think 117F - 120F) is a hoot. The tires of planes melt to the runway! Cars left in the sun with their windows up pop due to the air expansion in the interior! Birds drop dead from the sky with an audible thump when they try to fly from one piece of shade to another! It is unpredictable and entertaining on many levels. In NYC, Chicago, and London, it's just "old people die, homeless people getting free water, everyone else miserable."
And finally...
4. The Winter. While you guys are all shoveling snow, I'm out in a t-shirt because it's 75F and sunny. I'll put up with some melting airplane tires for that shit.
-CR
I'm doing a synth meetup in a tent in Kuwait at the end of August. No AC but we'll have gumbo and a popcorn machine.
I'd like to point out since ive been in AZ for almost a total of 10 years that when it's hot, most people who have non-outdoor jobs do the following:
1. AC in house to
2. AC in car to
3. AC in building to
4. AC in car to
5. AC in house.
That's my day. I see the heat for a total of 4 mins tops (including my walk to the mailbox). It's really NOT that bad, though 'dry heat' tends to hurt sometimes. I dont think you get that feeling with humidity?
And like Chris said, the rest of the year is perfect weather-wise. 3 or so months of hot temps for 9 months of nice weather. I'll take that. We also dont get earthquakes or tornado/hurricane crap either.
even Seattle sucked when it was hot--we got A/C, public transportation=50/50, but even retailers would close. Just moved to Frisco hope it's better. I'm from New Mexico, that heat isn't so bad and places have AC so it's quite relative.
Well, my 'local' HOTspot, Palm Springs, is lovely right now @ 110. I come here in the summer to just hang and do some work away from my local environment, and the heat is one of the things I like the best about being here. Cannot wait until my next trip in late July and 120+. Also, it's great to able to go from 70 to 120 in two hours.
i've done more than my share of time in tropical taint sweating places. you can adapt to 90+ degrees with 90+ humidity but who wants to? it was great when i was a kid.. strangely perfect no matter what. the 'winter' was awesome but it soon became obvious that it also sucked giant dog balls and that i was envious of dogs balls because they could just hang out meanwhile the sun was focusing all its powers on the small patch of my personal skin between my scrotum and my anus to turn my underwear into some mini swamp.
living on the west coast spoiled me good. no AC year round and windows open and it was always pretty much perfect so long as a giant wild fire wasn't snowing ash down on everything. the desert could be just awesome as well. high elevation desert areas are magic.
i love the grey blanket of the NW though that only lifts briefly for a week or a day here or there and a winter that rarely goes below 30 and a summer that is short and will get 90+ and for brief periods 100+ and dry heat as well. no snow shoveling or ice scraping off windshields except maybe like once a year or once every 2 years.
i need rain, wind, some storms and all that. changes in the seasons etc. just so long as my spit doesn't freeze before it hits the ground i can deal.
@ Phil -
You'll have no problem with heat in San Francisco; I think it's hit 75F a couple times in its entire history. :)
When it *does* got warm: pure pure joy.
Then again, it may "get" warm. Oh, well.
"meanwhile the sun was focusing all its powers on the small patch of my personal skin between my scrotum and my anus to turn my underwear into some mini swamp."
???
Where's the "i'm creeped out by boobs" button?
lols. i guess me an Luis CK are alone in that one. it happens. haven't you ever seen a horse at the track?
@ CR
Not to come off as a dick.... but thats alot of analog... i would not be bringing that much strangers around my shit...
When I try to explain to people about summer in AZ;
It's like your winter. If you think about it like a southern hemisphere area where the seasons are reversed it makes more sense. You don't spend a lot of time outside, hanging out, you hole up inside. Like someone else said, you go from one climate controlled area to another of the same.
Then when winter finally comes you hang outside, hike, BBQ, and try to stay cool.
I'm with boobs with respect to changes in the seasons and weather. The phenomenon that ungeheier describes of spending all of the time in AC-tempered environments has never made much sense to me. Why not just live where it's less hot? But different strokes for different folks, as the saying goes. I grew up in the relatively mild Willamette Valley in OR but have come to enjoy the cold here in the Rockies, in somewhat the same way that CR describes the AZ heat as exciting. E.g. a blog post from last winter: http://studionebula.com/blog/2011/02/01/frozen-soap-bubbles
Incidentally, it's dry here also, and hence I can't particularly handle humid climates, either hot or cold.
--Adam
@studio nebula
Job dictated where I lived more than where I wanted to live. I grew up in so cal, but that's just a huge hell-hole to me.
A stable (at least when I was looking) job popped up on Phx, and I jumped on it. I was single with no kids, so it really didnt matter.
Again, it's only a few months that you're hopping from one AC controlled environment to another. *shrug*
Again though, my only living experiences have been Southern California, and Phoenix, so I only know what I've lived in.
I'm more or less with boobs. I haven't lived anywhere outside of the Northeast, unless you want 6 months in D.C. (which I don't really), so I'm not qualified to compare to much other than passing info and vacations. But other than mid-Feburary through late-March, I like the seasons. Well, and a good part of August can intermittently sucks, for the aforementioned humidity. (Here's what boobs was talking about: http://comedians.jokes.com/louis-c-k-/videos/louis-c-k----underwear-of-choice/ )
Actually, now that I think of it, there's weather elsewhere that would probably suit me better. But, inertia, money. But that kinda heat, could not handle it, dry or no. I much prefer my climate a little more mild.
Not that D.C. wasn't a fantastic place to live; I had a great time there and only moved because I had a chance to move to NYC. It's just wasn't that radically different weather-wise, at least in the when I was there, than what I was used to.
@ungeheier: no offense intended regarding your locale, how you got there, and the habits the weather imposes. I came to Boulder to go to college and took up residence mostly because a job presented itself, and, like you, I didn't particularly want to return to the area in which I grew up. I will say, though, that after living in Boulder's usually-sunny climate for a couple of years, I don't think I could happily return to the PNW's often-cloudy weather.
--Adam
I'd trade hot & humid for HOT and dry any day. So why do I still live in the midwest (I ask not for the last time)?
AZ is a pretty place...reminds me of a warmer version SoCal without the ocean, douchebags and smog.
I think everywhere has its ups and downs. I've lived for at least a year in Washington DC, Buffalo NY, Eastern Oregon (high desert, where I was 1/2 raised), Northern Idaho (up in the Bitteroot Mountains), New York City (where I was other 1/2 raised), Philadelphia, Boston, Tulsa, Chicago, the Willamette Valley, and here. So I have a pretty good slice of experience with pretty much all the environments this great nation can provide, other than the deep South's subtropical jungle vibe.
In my experience, both the winters and summers in the big NE cities (and Chicago) can be pretty rough, but spring in SoHo is the best place in the world, and fall in Central Park is the other best place in the world. In the Willamette Valley, the summers are so fucking gorgeous it's almost possible to believe in God, but the rest of the time is really tedious with the pissing rain and all. Tulsa's weather just fucking blows, as does Northern Idaho's.
Here, there's a couple months where you know you're fucking tough, because most people look at the numbers and weep, and the rest of the time it is just... nice, which is nice.
I think, only having visited San Diego, it has the nicest weather in America consistently, but I don't know if their mono-season would appeal to me. Couldn't say until I've lived there. At the rate we're going, it'll happen eventually.
But ideally, to get the best weather this nation has to offer, one would live here in the winter, NYC in the spring and fall, and PDX in the summer. Then you'd just have fucking awesome year round. All that moving would be a pain, though.
-CR
I'm a hater when it comes to L.A. but I always have to point out that smog counts as weather when people talk about how great it is. It really gets to you when you live there a while. People would say "it's beautiful outside" when they meant "it's not raining".
It also tends to be forgotten that it may be in the 80's at the beach in late summer, but it can quite often be over 100 in the Valley and surrounding areas, and air conditioning is not at all mandatory there like it is in AZ (they refuse to admit it gets hot, or cold, so I never lived in a house with a decent heater either). There's actually a weird form of denial that takes place there. I would have people tell me they could never live in AZ because of the heat, and how great the weather is in L.A. while we're sitting in 105 degrees with stifling smog.
After living most of my life in AZ and SoCal it was a bit of an adjustment to move to the deep south subtropical jungle, one thing being the idea that you'd have to make or change plans according to the weather. It just never occurred to me. My wife still can't get over it and watches the weather reports like a soap opera.
bb
@ungeheier: no offense intended regarding your locale, how you got there, and the habits the weather imposes. I came to Boulder to go to college and took up residence mostly because a job presented itself, and, like you, I didn't particularly want to return to the area in which I grew up. I will say, though, that after living in Boulder's usually-sunny climate for a couple of years, I don't think I could happily return to the PNW's often-cloudy weather.
--Adam
Jesus, what was I writing up there? Note to self: do not post before coffee. Also, stop being an idiot.
@Adam
None taken. Just explaining that I didn't really pick AZ as much as it picked me. I dread every time I go back to So Cal. Hell, I think next weekend my wife and I are heading back there for a few days. I'll take the heat over the crappy traffic any day. Plus we got a house for a steal just a year and a half ago. Couldnt afford a house that size in So Cal to save my life.
@bongo x_ Spot the fuck on on SoCal- I'm one of those unfortunate San Fernando Valley dwellers. With an apt full of loud and ineffective window A/C. I've spent a lot of time in Phoenix and Vegas (where I'm soon moving) and EVERYTHING is air conditioned here.
@CR
Did anyone bite on this? It seems all the comments just turned into a weather discussion.
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