Aubrey de Grey of SENS Foundation
I got the chance to ask Aubrey de Grey of SENS Foundation the questions for his Reddit AMA — we got some excellent answers coming you way very soon!
http://www.1077theend.com/Premiere–Glowbug—-Heatwave-/12082781?pid=241364
Daniel Anderson is no stranger to churning out dense, 8-bit tinged, genre-splitting records, like it’s no big deal. After 2 albums w/ Bellingham born Idiot Pilot, several EP’s and last years full length Glowbug debut, (not to mention a full time guitar spot in Hyro Da Hero which features members of Seattles own Blood Brothers). The dude is a music making machine. Today after a trail of teasers, we unveil the first single from Glowbug’s latest LP offering, Suit Of Swords (out on bandcamp tonight at midnight). The track, “Heatwave” trades pop melodies with lyrical introspection “I used to run with the idiots/cut my teeth in one resentful tribe” gluing itself together on 8-bit bounce like your nintendo after your friend accidentally kicked the thing over for the 10,000th time. Infectiously fun and made for a summer day, the track and album come to us just shy of Seattles sun streak, but I’ll tip you off that there’s some trademark dan in here made for the rainy ones too. Enjoy Heatwave below and look for the album to go live here at midnight.
A word from Dan:
Hello! It’s Glowbug.
I am writing to inform you that our sophomore LP “Suit of Swords” is out at Midnight on Tuesday, May 22nd as a digital download. Even more exciting, it is completely free with a suggested donation (preferably the cost of an album, around 10$) to the Cancer Research Fund or the Cure Search for Childrens Cancer. With or without a donation, it’s just a few clicks away and I would love for you to check it out.
Glowbug is the ambient/dance/pop project of Daniel Anderson (Ex-Idiot Pilot, current guitarist for Hyro Da Hero), hailing from the sunny coast of Los Angeles, California. “Suit of Swords” is a 14 track album written, preformed and recorded entirely by Anderson.
Glowbug on Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/GlowbugOfficial
It’s What’s For Dinner.
A bunch of girls got naked, covered themselves in blood, and wrapped themselves up in meat packaging at the 3rd St. Promenade in protest of eating meat for PETA.
I’d Still Eat It
Ancient Lasers is the project of multi-instrumentalist producer and lead vocalist Daniel Finfer. In 2010, Finfer sought out Daniel Anderson (Glowbug, Idiot Pilot, Hyro Da Hero) to produce a full-length LP. Songs from the LP are featured on the debut, self-titled EP, including two remixes.
“Science Rules. It will help you heal.” — Bill Nye
To help her out, go here: http://www.operationjacque.com/
On Sunday, April 29, 2012, Jacque Saladino was the victim of a deliberate hit and run. She is currently in a medically induced coma and undergoing treatment for brain trauma and bone fractures at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Hollywood, California. Her injuries include a shattered pelvis, almost all of her ribs are broken, and a brain that is trying very hard to come to terms with the amount of trauma it has sustained. She may have an utterly broken body but her spirit remains strong and every day of care and recovery brings new hope and challenges.
Hope and challenges are nothing new to Jacque. Since first experiencing the movie E.T., Jacque fell in love with space, hoping to one day travel to the stars and knowing that there would be many challenges to that dream. Jacque, a political science major and fashion stylist, woke up one day and realized that she had muted her passion for space long enough and she was now ready to change the world for the better while orchestrating her roundtrip ticket to the cosmos. Jacque has spent the better part of the last few months working with two friends in the space industry on finding ways to integrate space and science into the general public in a way that is fun, interesting, and compelling. Her work has allowed her to become an integral part of the New Space community in LA and has helped form a movement to recalibrate general perceptions on how cool and important space actually is. While Jacque is a fighter, her journey ahead is long, intense, and expensive.
There is uncertainty as to what the extent of the medical bills will be, and given the nature of her injuries, it’s not yet known if insurance maximum coverages will be met. And further, beyond what insurance covers of Jacque’s medical bills and rehabilitation, she has a life to rebuild once she’s recovered. We are looking at many months of recovery– somewhere in a six months to a year time frame.
The good news is you can help fuel Jacque’s road to recovery by making a financial contribution — any amount of relief is sincerely appreciated. Together we can be Jacque’s Social Engineers as we raise funds to solve problems that she doesn’t even know she has coming. Please embrace your role in supporting Jacque’s road to physical and financial recovery by clicking the 
button on the right side of this page and giving what you can. The fund is set up to go directly into Jacque’s boyfriend, Chris Peterson’s account (the most readily available, accessible, and verified account in the circumstances), to provide for Jacque’s future.
There has been an amazing outpouring of support from people in Jacque’s life. We have filled her room, and the waiting room, with people and things that Jacque loves — pictures of galaxies, nebulae, stars, hand-drawn pictures of E.T., and photos of Jacque with her friends and family. Thank you, everyone, for your love and support.
http://www.operationjacque.com/
I recently stumbled across Swedish artist Kilian Eng, who creates stunning retro-futuristic art. Check it out below!
More available here.
Presenting PROJECT JELLYPUSS: A floating LED-midi-controlled visual instrument that my good friend Michael Clive is building us forEphemerisle 2012. This is one Ancient Lasers show you don’t want to miss.
The following is a theory I have devised over the years. It’s not even really a theory, just an idea I joke around with and don’t take too seriously. It’s fun to think about, and when I tell people, most of them haven’t really thought of it before, so what the hell. Here goes.
Bear with me here.
Throughout the pages in our history books, our ancestors were visited by what they believed to be Gods, Angels, Demons, and the like. These divine visitors usually came to them in “chariots of fire”, descending from the heavens and imparting wisdom and guidance to the native inhabitants. Some made the people write down rules, commandments, teachings, and other “tips” on how to behave and develop their civilizations. We followed these rules without question; with an unblinking faith that until only very recently we never thought to re-examine.
For some reason, during the time period from 5,000 B.C. to the year 200 A.D., these visitors appeared in their initial incarnations to the masses. Yet, as time ticked on, the visitations stopped, the miracles abated, and the Holy Voices grew fainter. The religious still claim to hear these voices, but by and large, we have not seen any of these “miracles” happen since the Bible, Torah, Koran, and other Holy Scriptures were written.
Why? Many people wonder where God went. Has He left us alone to ponder his deafening absence?
So it would seem.
Now, let me now change subjects dramatically to the dubious subject of UFO’s and “aliens”. They come, they watch, and they disappear. They too, like our ancient visitors, appear to descend from the heavens in “chariots of fire”, though they do not (to our knowledge) impart wisdom to us. It seems that instead, they (supposedly) abduct us, probe us, mutilate our cattle, and then disappear at rapid velocities. Many people wonder why they travel such vast distances across the universe, which even at the speed of light would take years if not generations, just to lurk around in the clouds.
Another question – isn’t it a little strange that of all the possible combinations of evolution, they just so happen to have two arms, two legs, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth? According to some abduction stories, the aliens are even stunningly human-like.
Let us now move to the third act of the theory.
Time travel.
Stephen Hawking once asked “If time travel were possible, wouldn’t we see time tourists from the future, visiting us now?” My response to the professor is that we do, and that we have since the dawn of time.
You see, the ancient visitors that demanded we scribble down their teachings, and the so called “aliens” that we have come to know as of quite recently are one and the same. They are time travelers from the future.
Jesus, Muhammed, Buddha, the Gods of the Greeks, the Romans, and the Egyptians…all time travelers.
Think about it.
If you had a time machine, and truly wanted to make a difference in history, wouldn’t you go back in time thousands of years and give your ancestors clues and hints about what pitfalls to avoid? Wouldn’t you yourself be tempted to write a “better version of the Bible?” One that included instructions for inventing electricity sooner, information about preventing diseases, and even a warning about the fall of civilization?
Throughout history, these visitors appeared at crucial points – they helped the Egyptians build beautiful pyramids that, even by today’s standards, are technologically impressive. They helped the Greeks contemplate democracy and law, and they helped the inhabitants of Mesopotamia develop agriculture and currency. All over the world we find artifacts that couldn’t have been created with the technology available at the time.
Also, consider this: Throughout history, there have been people that are startlingly ahead of their time. Nostradamus, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Nikola Tesla may have also been from the future.
For some reason, we first began seeing Flying Saucers right after the atomic bomb detonation. Perhaps these time travelers were visiting us and changing history, because in their timeline the world had been destroyed by a nuclear war. And maybe these so called “abductions” were actually instances of time travelers taking crucial people “out of time” for a day or two – maybe a potential Hitler or Stalin – so that they would not go on to commit their horrendous crimes against humanity.
As for the appearance of the typical “alien” – big head, frail bodies: isn’t this the direction we are heading towards? As we use computers and automobiles more and more, evolution will deem our physical bodies less reliant on strength; and that our brains be larger to accommodate our increasing intelligence. This would also explain why they never communicate with us – perhaps they want us to think that they are aliens, because if we realized that they were time travelers, we might rest on our laurels and never get around to inventing the time machine “because its going to get invented anyway, right?”. That, and the whole paradox-destroying-the-space-time-continuum thing.
If you built a time machine, it would need to be a spacecraft. If you go back in time, say, 1,000 years into the past, you would be going back in time to where and when the Earth was – a completely different part of the galaxy – dead space.
You would need a spacecraft that could effectively “follow” the Earth back through time on its orbit in reverse. I believe the time machine will involve the manipulation of gravity – it would “lock onto” the Earth’s gravity path in time.
To sum it all up, I believe that history is a temporary phase, like a caterpillar in a cocoon. Soon, we transcend to the next level of existence: the Post Human Era. We will not only become God, but we will become the Universe, and whatever lies beyond it.
Maybe this has all happened before; maybe an earlier precursor of Jesus went back in time to warn us about our impending doom and failed.
Let us all wait and see.
This theory will not be proven true until we ourselves build the first time machine,
and try our hand at being God for awhile.
Listen: Ancient Lasers — The Wheel Of Time
The Wheel Of Time is a song I wrote in 2009 while I was renting out a studio by LAX, underneath the flight path of landing 747’s. The studio was your standard 12x10 concrete cell that we outfitted with some tacky green carpet, a couch, and a makeshift desk for my recording gear. It was a great place to escape from everything, and sink into my music.
The Good Ol’ Days
I soon fell into a very productive routine. I usually got to the studio around 8pm to jam with my band or chat with my friend GG for a bit. His brother is Drew Goddard, writer for Lost and Cabin In The Woods — so I usually nagged him about the ending of Lost most of the time. But GG is also an amazing producer and sound engineer with replicas of every piece of gear Pink Floyd used…ever. (He even once flew to Italy to buy the actual rotary delay David Gilmour used in Live at Pompeii). I learned alot from GG about mixing — which frequencies go where, how to make the perfect kick drum sound, why taking the 500Hz frequency out of a guitar magically makes it sound better, etc. I owe him big time for that.
After social time was over, I would get to work — often moving from instrument to instrument recording ideas. I usually started with a programmed beat and a chord progression and built from there. Once the music was done, I would walk through the vacant streets brainstorming lyrics, and would often record the entire song before sunrise — to avoid the thundering sound of landing aircraft. At around 10am I would lay down on the couch and drift off to sleep, listening to an entirely new song I had just created.
Ancient Lasers — The Wheel Of Time (ft. Fuck You)
I should probably take a moment to explain something people have been asking me about regarding the name change from Post Human Era to Ancient Lasers. In April of 2010, I had just finished an entire album that was to be the second chapter of a trilogy by Post Human Era. The album was called Echo Corridor, and I was literally days away from releasing it. I had sent the single, Building The Machine, to Daniel Anderson of Idiot Pilot — one of my favorite bands of all time. He decided to remix it, and after I heard the possibilities of what we could both do as a team, I asked if he wanted to do an entire album. We used songs from both To Build A Fire and Echo Corridor as starting points, but ended up with a much more visceral sound. Together, we decided it was too different from Post Human Era to label it as such, and thus, Ancient Lasers was born. Post Human Era, however, is far from dead — I am currently working on something that takes it into very different terrain.
This song in particular, The Wheel Of Time, deals with the insanity of religion. I grew up with a mother that had started out with a Catholic family, but then converted to Judaism; and a Jewish father, so I went to both Church and Synagogue. I remember dreading wednesday night Hebrew school, where I practiced writing an ancient language that was both extremely confusing and downright hard to learn. Yet, there was something mystical about it. When I walked into Beth Israel Synagogue in Bellingham every Wednesday and Sunday, it felt like I was instantly transported to some sacred, distant past. My rabbi was both a Star Trek fan and paleontologist, which was pretty damn awesome to a 10 year old boy — but hilariously ridiculous if you think about it. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the early years I spent learning about Israel, having Seder for Passover, and lighting the candles for Hanukkah.
TL;DR
My mother’s side of the family was pretty faithful about getting together every Easter, Christmas (when we got the ‘good’ presents, as opposed to a book or something for Hannukah), and Thanksgiving (which I consider a Christian holiday). Those holidays, along with the Church experience, felt more commercialized — more ‘American’. They were alot of fun, and I wouldn’t trade those memories for the world.
(Spoiler Alert) He dies in the end
Yet up until this point, I hadn’t really questioned either religion. Since I was learning about two separate schools of thought, I hadn’t fully submitted myself to one particular ideology. Everything was going as planned, until the moment arrived that would ultimately open my eyes to the world behind the world.
I was about to turn 13, and it was time for me to start practicing for my Bar Mitzvah. My father opened the study guide, which contained the Hebrew I would need to recite for the ceremony. We both sat down on the couch in the living room, and started to practice. After about twenty minutes, I remember looking up at him and asking why we were doing this. Why are we memorizing words that were written thousands of years ago to recite at a ceremony, just to prove that I was entering adulthood? And most importantly, what if I decided I simply didn’t want to?
In one life-changing sentence, he confessed: “We are doing this because my father wanted me to when I was your age.” We both realized that we were doing something simply because our ancestors before us had. Without questioning why; without deciding for ourselves if it was right — what we truly believed in our hearts. He let me decide for myself, and ultimately I decided that I didn’t believe in what we were doing. And I am eternally grateful for his decision.
The next sunday, instead of going to Synagogue, we went fishing together and experienced real life in nature, unfiltered by antiquated dogma and human ideologies. It was liberating for our entire family, and though we haven’t really talked about it since, I think they are thankful I spoke up — because everyone else was afraid to.
PopeMobile
This is why we have Holy Wars, racism, and hate. People sometimes get scared to raise their hand in class when something doesn’t make sense. “Keep your head down. Do as you are told. Follow the leader. Memorize this. Don’t ask why.” When something doesn’t make sense, scream at the top of your lungs so everyone can hear you. We can’t change the world if we keep ourselves planted in the sands of the past. Refuse to believe what people tell you — until you know it to be true from your own personal experiences. No one knows anything more than you do, and that will never change.
The Wheel Of Time is about the continual habit of recursion we can’t seem to escape from. But I came here to throw a wrench in its gears. And every day thousands of people are waking up, as I did, from the peaceful sleep of herded sheep.
Lyrics
Ancient Lasers — The Wheel Of Time
The wheel of time repeats itself, it turns you into someone else
You’ll fight a war you’ll never win, you’ll make the same mistakes again
And now you finally see so many reasons behind the great confusion
You know the voices of the dead are really voices in your head
You wonder if you’ve lost your mind, you hope you get it back this time
They tell you what you want to hear, you wish they’d all just disappear
And now you finally see so many reasons behind the great confusion
You know the voices of the dead, are really voices in your head
Maybe we are doomed to repeat this, maybe we still haven’t found the way
But no matter what they say, the pattern’s here to stay
And every time you think you’ve reached the end, you watch it start itself again
Every time it repeats itself, it repeats itself, it repeats itself again
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