Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Alternating Current / Direct Current



Ah blog. Where have you been.

Let's not talk of our brief separation and just work on getting back to having some sort of friendship. Let's go to all the things we find and then tell everyone the story. We're always there together, but I can't have you acting too clingy because that doesn't make me want to write. Let's be relaxed about it so you can be important in my life, but I need to get out there and do different things too. I know I want to write a book, but I know it can't be with you, and you know that too. You love all the same music I do, but dare I say that I need to look at the other blogs? I'm a man afterall. I actually have another blog. I never told you but there it is. It read you one day and it didn't like the fact that I was posting, but that was to be expected; I would imagine you would have the same reaction. Towards the end there I was writing over there more and I realized that I couldn't keep both of you up forever. We had a long stint at Coachella, then Soundset, and I'll see you again at Pitchfork for sure, but I need to write for the other one. I'm sorry it had to be this way. Can we just listen to music like old times?

Speaking of dreaming, even though Cut Copy hasn't made an album in ages.. AGES I say, Dan Whitford (Cut Copy * 1/2) and Joel Dickson (Riot In Belgium) have come together like hydrogen and oxygen to explode into this fluid fantasy for my aural entertainment. How could you not play this at eleven? You can definitely hear the Cut Copy arpeggiation, the signature synths, and catchy chorus. Can't characterize too much of Dickson since I don't know too much about him other than RIB's "The Acid Never Lies" (fantastic) off of Azuli records. Clicky!

Voltage - All Night

Voltage - All Night (Azari & III Remix)

Riot in Belgium - The Acid Never Lies (3PM Rough Rave Version)

Little note behind AC & DC. After the advent of the electric lightbulb, cities were considering switching from their night light fuel from gas in favor of electricity. One region in particular was around Niagra Falls where a hydroelectric plant was beginning to be built. (side note: did you know that because of all the generators in the area, the falls actually used to pump out about 20x more water and were that much more awe-some?) There sprung a debate about how to carry the electricity from source to bulb over the huge distances of demand via cable. On one side was Nikola Tesla (of the Tesla Coil), proponent of the AC system and on the other was Thomas Edison with the DC system. DC was what Edison's lightbulbs used, batteries inherently have DC, no AC motors were around, not to mention all of Edison's patents were using DC. Unfortunately, AC had the super-advantage since transmission costs ($ per mile) for DC were much higher than AC since DC required additional generators ever couple of miles because the power lines would lose current and heat up if you tried to push it further than 2 miles. AC needed a similar station every ~15 miles so building sending electricity in rural areas was much more economical. Niagra was a done deal with AC and Edison ate his hat. More.
I love being a geek.

1 comment:

Larry N said...

Yeah, Edison is a bastard for taking all the glory in this "Current War". Tesla ended up an eccentric and receiving less credit for his overall contribution to science and electricity. His only consolation would end up being David Bowie handsomely portraying (a fictionalized version of) him in The Prestige.

Con, about the first part of this blog entry: it was really amusing but I think you're overreaching...