#boombox noises intensify

[boombox-propaganda]

thinking abt LL#24 again. specifically, ultra magnus and whirl.

thinking abt how of all the people who could have been paired up with ultra magnus to defend him, it was whirl. it could have been megatron. it could have been one of the scavengers who got split up trying to protect other crewmembers. it could have been chromedome and rewind.

but it wasn’t. it was whirl. chaotic, unpredictable whirl. whirl who started the war by beating up megatron, who has been arrested countless times by magnus and others, whose immediately previous conversation with magnus on mederi included no small amount of wariness on magnus’s end. that was the mech who was sent to guard magnus, who magnus allowed himself to be sent with.

and then magnus got hit with that rocket launcher. he was knocked out of his armour and rendered unconscious. he was the one who was supposed to open the matrix, because he was ‘decent’ and ‘one of the best’. but he couldn’t - he was unconscious. there wasn’t a backup plan.

it was whirl who opened the matrix. with his legs half blown off, with death on the doorstep and no chance of failure, it was whirl who crawled over to the matrix and made it open. whirl who spent the vast majority of the series embracing self-destruction, whirl who was alone and pushed people away, whirl who claimed his anger was an insulator and that he was broken beyond repair. it was whirl who opened it.

did they ever talk about that? did whirl let the rest of the crew believe it was magnus who opened it? did magnus let that lie persist? did he ever talk to whirl about it at all, the same way he once talked to cyclonus after he risked his life to save tailgate’s spark from cybercrosis, apologising or welcoming him aboard at the end of it all? did anyone else ever realise that whirl, for all the chaos that he had brought and continued to bring, was part of the reason their world remained intact, not because of his guns and defense of ultra magnus but because despite what he and everyone else believed, he was good enough in the end?

i think about it a lot.

[boombox-propaganda]

Skylynx has entered the chat.

i think uh. dragons built like large cargo planes can. get it

[pascalpanic]

Blood, Sweat, and Tears (Javier Peña x f!Reader)- Chapter One

Summary: You live in Bogotá in the ‘90s, and work odd hours. No, you’re not a DEA agent, but a nurse. These odd hours prompt odd habits, like working out at 2:03 A.M. after a shift. Odd hours attract odd people, and you have a chance encounter with one DEA agent by the name of Javier Peña. Warnings: language, blood and violence (both graphic), descriptions of death and gun violence Chapter 1 W/C: 2.3K A/N: you guys! I am so in love with this fic. I already have quite a bit more written and can’t wait for you to read it! I hope you love it as much as I do! Javi deserves some softness... but not too much. this can’t all be fluff when you’re Javier Peña. Okay, this is not super canon-fitting of Narcos, I’m just gonna be honest with y’all. This is between the time of Escobar’s escape from La Catedral and his final capture and death, but also… Connie’s still in Colombia. Additionally, I don’t really have a year in mind, it’s just somewhere in that period. Please note that this is not a very lighthearted story- it begins with a death, though not of a significant character. Javier and reader both have some trauma, so please check the warnings of each chapter before you start reading. If you’re continuing on, I hope you like it! For the most part, if I use italics here when someone is speaking, it’s indicating that it’s in Spanish. I’m okay at the language, but I don’t want to butcher anything, so… just imagine it. Otherwise, it’s just the way anyone would use italics I guess.

next chapter

Chapter One

You watched a woman you didn’t know die in your arms tonight.

 She was beautiful, all dressed up to go out and party, her makeup running down her face with tears. Her lips were the painted the color of the blood that trickled from the side of them, eyes glazing over as she coughed and coughed and ruined the beautiful dress she wore. The nurses had asked what happened, and she had told them, through gurgles of blood: she had slept with one of Escobar’s men. She got too close, learned too much, and they tracked her down. 

She flatlined not long after telling the nurses around you. You had stood in the corner, paralyzed at first. You were an experienced ER nurse, nothing was new. You had seen patients die, but something about her was different. Maybe it was the way she reached out to you right before her body went limp. You didn’t make it to her bedside in time to calm her, the panic holding you down, but you finally took her hand right as she took her last breath. 

After she passed, you threw up in the bathroom, shaking and clutching the toilet. The night air had grown unbearably hot and humid, causing your scrubs to cling to your skin, and the sweat from the heaving of your stomach didn’t make things easier on you. Lorena, a fellow nurse and your best friend at work, had found you and comforted you, rubbing your back and bringing you water. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t reverse what had happened. 

Now, you sit on a bench in the staff’s locker room, redoing the ponytail holding your hair from your damp face. Your shift ended a few minutes ago, but you don’t know what to do now. You don’t feel like drinking; that would only make the visions swimming in your head worse. You know you can’t go home, can’t attempt to find sleep tonight. You look up and spot a bag with tennis shoes and spare clothing and settle your mind on at least one thing: the gym could do you some good. You change into the clothes and put the blood-spattered scrubs in the laundry pile. 

As you leave, you give Lorena a little wave goodbye and exit the building. You’re hyper-aware of your surroundings tonight, and you groan as you look at your watch and notice that it’s precisely 2:09 A.M. here in Bogotá. The walk to your fitness club is short, but your step is slightly extra hurried and your hand is on your pepper spray the entire time, extra vigilant to the fact that a hit went down somewhere around here just a few hours earlier. Surprisingly enough, no one catcalls or bugs you tonight. 

The little gym is run-down and dilapidated, and there’s no working air conditioning, but it’s the only one near you. You paid the small monthly membership fee to gain access, and you were going to use it to get in shape, you’d decided. As you swipe in and enter, the tiny fitness center looks more depressing in the fluorescent lights, no daylight to sugarcoat the atrocities of the center. There are two of every machine, a punching bag and a speed bag, two weightlifting racks, and a couple of benches. 

It’s nice that you get to work out alone tonight, you tell yourself. Even better is the fact that you now get to control the music. Desperate for a taste of home, you flip the large boombox in the corner on and begin scanning the airwaves with the dial. There’s a station in town that plays American music, and you need it more than anything tonight. You listen carefully and nearly start sobbing again as you hear Billy Joel’s voice through the speakers. With a sigh of relief, you lock your bag in the rusty lockers in the corner and head to the treadmill. It’s a beat up old thing, but this is the one you always use. It provides a little bit of comfort tonight, the familiarity of it. You turn it on low and start walking. A few moments later, you up it to a jog, mouthing along to the words of the familiar song. 

As the song ends, you push the buttons enough to enter a running speed. Your feet slam into the treadmill harder than normal tonight, feeling as overwhelmed as when you left the hospital. Your body finally works up a sweat, the physical stress overwhelming the mental stress. 

As the events of tonight replay in your head to some other song from the late 80’s, your eyes start to water. Everything was so overwhelming, and your mind is just starting to process it. You finally allow the tears to fall, mixing with the sweat coating your cheeks. It’s hard to tell which is causing more of the mess, but you let yourself cry it out as you run for the next few minutes. 

The next song that comes on is Venus by Bananarama. You almost chuckle at the fact that it’s a few years old by now, but the song is comforting. It reminds you of home, of a time before you had issues like these. You slow down the treadmill a little, singing to the words aloud once you catch your breath enough. Daring to do a little spin on the rolling surface, you groove along to the music, chuckling a little

After the first chorus, you hear a creaking noise and whip around to find a man standing in the doorway. “Jesus fucking Christ!” You shout before you can stop yourself, hopping off the treadmill and onto the non-moving one before you get flung off. Your heart is pounding from the running, only intensifying the adrenaline rush from the scare. 

The man chuckles a little, but the smile on his face doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s tired- of course he is, it’s now 2:30 in the morning. “Lo siento,” you offer in Spanish, cringing at yourself and your reaction just now. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here this late,” you stutter, still panting from the running. He shakes his head lightly. “You’re American,” he says simply. In English, in a beautifully American accented voice.

Your sweaty brow furrows, a glimmer of hope sparking inside your chest as you notice that he speaks like an American himself. “So are you.”

He nods at that. “That I am,” he says as he puts his things in a locker, snapping it shut behind him. He looks at you for a moment. You’re not working at the Embassy, or he’d know you. It was rare to find an American down here that wasn’t working for the government somehow. He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair, looking at how tired he appears in the big mirrored wall. He’s curious, but he’s exhausted. 

You look at him for a moment. “You going to explain anything, like, tell me about yourself? Or do I have to go first?” You ask, hands on your waist as you hop back on the slowly moving treadmill, back into moving. He doesn’t respond. “Fine. I know you’re government. I’m not an idiot.”

He chuckles and tugs on his t-shirt, moving to the treadmill next to you and getting on. It’s been ages since you’ve held a conversation in English, and you missed this, missed how easily your first language flows from your mouth. “And you’re not.”

“Correct,” you nod, turning up the speed a little on the machine until you’re at a light jog. “My bigger concern was going to be why you’re here at 2-fucking-30, but I’m guessing I know the answer. You get called in around here for the hit?” He nods, starting the treadmill up and walking on it. 

“You don’t have to be so guarded, Jesus. I fucking hate Escobar, I’m on your side,” you scoff before turning up the machine until you’re running once more.

Javier shrugs. “Makes sense. How did you know-”

“She died,” you say quickly and firmly, keeping your eyes straight ahead and looking at the room around you. “Add that to your file.”

He nods, understanding a little more now. You knew her somehow. He doesn’t say a word either, cranking up the machine and heading into a jog too.

A few more minutes pass of the two of you silently running next to each other, the American music still playing throughout the gym. It’s a comfort to Javier too. Tonight was shit for the DEA- they had known Escobar’s men would be around here. They had the intel, they had everything ready, but the men somehow had escaped and left a victim in their wake. 

The frustration of everything, of the man being something close to home for you yet being a brick wall, threatens your eyes with welling tears again. “I just wanted to talk with an American,” you sigh and cross your arms, moving back into the walking stage of a treadmill. 

The man next to you gives a similar sigh, stopping his treadmill completely and offering you a hand. “Javier Peña.” You take it reluctantly, feeling the sweat of both of your hands mix, and tell him your name before retracting it and stopping the treadmill too. “So, what brings you to the gym at 2:30?” He asks, crossing his arms and leaning against the center part of the treadmill. 

“I’m a nurse. I work the graveyard shift. Bad night, a patient died because she got fucking shot for having a boyfriend and not knowing he was a narco, I need to get something out, I come here,” you shrug, unconsciously mimicking him by folding your arms as well. 

He nods at that. “I’m here for the same. Shitty stakeout, I’m pissed off, I come here.” He leaves out the part about his favorite call girl being taken, and how he needed another way to get the rage inside of him out. He walks off of the treadmill and to the weight rack, pulling a bench beneath the bar.

You turn again and turn the machine back on, slowly jogging. “I see. Odd hours to be here, that’s why I asked,” you say simply. “And to see another American at such a time. I haven’t interacted with one since I came here.”

Javier nods, adjusting the weights on the bar. “Yeah. Weird,” he nods. “And that you’re an American who isn’t working for the government and you’re down here. What, you got a husband who works for us?”

You shake your head, swallowing hard for a moment. “No, don’t have a husband in the first place,” you admit, adjusting the ponytail holding your hair up. “It’s a long story.”

“We got time,” he shrugs as he gets on the bench beneath the rack, looking at you in the mirrored wall. Even with the sweat and the stress of working out, he notices that you’re gorgeous. You have a nice body, and even your face is pretty while you’re working out.

You shake your head. “Fine, if you really want to hear it.”

“Might as well. It’s that or more of this fucking Wham! music, and I’m sick of George Michael.”

“First of all, first person here gets the music, so mind your manners.” This finally earns a chuckle from the man, and you want to smile but it just can’t come. “I came down here with a man. He’s a citizen here. We were going to get married, but he left me. That was a couple of months ago now,” you admit, the tears beading in the corner of your eye again. “My work visa was still valid, and I renewed it so I can keep working at the hospital. I don’t really have anyone down here except the girls I work with, but I like helping out. They need me.” He nods a little as he listens, breaking his focus as he starts his reps with the bar.

“And you’re government, so that explains everything I need to know about you,” you continue to babble. “One of the girls I work with has a husband who’s at the Embassy. Murphy,” you say offhandedly. 

Javier’s attention is caught, and he sets the bar on the rack. “Murphy?” He asks, and you turn your head to look at him and give him a nod. “No shit. That’s my partner.”

You chuckle slightly and look back at him, stopping the treadmill. “So you know Connie?”

Javi nods. “Yeah, great gal. She could do better than Steve,” he says, sitting up.

You laugh softly at that. “From what I’ve heard of him, I agree. She’s a really great girl, you’re right,” you nod in agreement, looking back at him. “She’s never mentioned you. She says her husband’s in janitorial, but we all know that’s not true. What, you guys CIA? DEA?”

Javier nods again. “DEA.”

“I see,” you say, folding your arms and leaning against the machine. “Can’t make you many friends around here. I learned pretty quickly to keep my mouth shut about being a gringa. They can usually tell though.”

“You’re right,” he chuckles and cracks his back.

You bite your lip as you look at him, your voice watery when you can finally speak again, suddenly overwhelmed by emotion again. “It’s nice to talk to someone in English again,” you admit with a forced smile. 

He can read your eyes easily. You’re a nurse, and you told him that the victim died. You saw it. “It is,” he nods, reading your pain and trying to show you he empathizes with it. Your eyes are beautiful, he notices as he looks into them. So much more hope and trust than anyone else he works with, but the pain in them is unbearable. He looks away, leaning back on the bench to lift again.

“So where you from in the States?” You finally ask when the silence is too long. 

“Laredo, Texas,” he chuckles. “Yourself?”

[awsugar]

Prompt 77, if you feel like it?

“Sorry…just the noise you just made was…really hot.”

1261 words | E

read on ao3

Frank’s sprawled out on the decrepit couch in the studio, one leg up on the opposite armrest and the other folded underneath him. He’s got a joint in one hand a warm beer in the other, listening to Gerard try out different vocal techniques. They’ve got a show the next day, but they’re also going to be taping some songs for the live DVD they’re trying to put out and Gerard thinks if it’s going to be remembered and listened to forever then he’s gotta put some extra flair in it. Obviously. Because that’s what Gerard is like.

Frank takes long pull from the joint and blow it into the air, watching the smoke swirl and dissipate as Gerard sings the bridge to Ghost of You. His voice carries in the small room, the sound familiar and yet new and intriguing to Frank every time he hears it.

If I fall…..If I fall

“Down,” Frank whispers with him. 

Maybe it’s a side effect of the weed and the alcohol but this song sounds so fucking good. He can’t believe they did it, they wrote an album this good, that he got to do it with his favorite people, his favorite band-

He’s pulled out of his reverie as soon as it happens. Gerard’s changed his whoas. It doesn’t sound the way it did on the album, the way Gerard sings it live every night. No, it’s a sound distinctly similar to the ones Frank’s managed to hear the handful of times he’s sucked Gerard off. Gerard is full on moaning to the instrumental track of the song Gerard’s got playing at a low volume from a boombox on the table next to him. And he keeps going, it builds up to a scream that’s somewhere between tortured and pornographic. It might be the hottest thing Frank’s heard in his entire life.

His dick actually starts to fill out in his pants, not all the way, but enough to wear Frank deems it necessary to stick a hand in and give it couple swift tugs.

He’s quickly lost in the sensation of the haze in his head and the sweet friction on his dick but he’s just as quickly pulled out of it, once again by Gerard.

“Are you touching your fucking dick, Frank?”

Frank’s hesitant. He’s still unsure of this thing between them, still unsure if it even exists at all outside of their random hookups. He hasn’t read the handbook for this type of situation and Gerard hasn’t offered up any explanation so he’s been happy to just be along for the ride. 

Up until now, it’s always been in a drunken fit of passion. But now it’s the middle of the day and Frank’s been caught rubbing one out while his best friend practices singing a song about fucking death. Come to think of it, he doesn’t think there’s a handbook for this at all, but that doesn’t make him any more sure of what’s about to happen and what is and isn’t okay in this little situation they’ve been navigating their way through.

“Sorry...just the noise you just made was...really hot,” Frank says.

"Keep it in your pants, Frankie, I’m getting somewhere with this!”

Gerard says it, but his eyes are keenly focused on where Frank’s had is still wrapped around his dick inside his sweats. Frank, because he’s a prick, starts moving his hand again. He’s seen that look on Gerard’s face a number of times now and he thinks if he keeps going, he might just get lucky enough to get Gerard to do it for him. 

The look on Gerard’s face is truly pained when he realizes Frank’s made up his mind on not stopping.

“Frankie, can we please do this later? We’ve only got like 45 minutes left in the studio.”

Frank shrugs. “No one said you had to stop, Gee.” 

Gerard groans and Frank giggles. He’s such a brat sometimes.

Gerard walks over and looks at Frank expectantly. When Frank rises one of his perfectly groomed eyebrows Gerard responds, “Well, come on, sit up.”

Frank scrambles up, quickly plucking the joint out of his mouth. He’s gonna need at least one hand totally free on account of the fact that he knows Gerard likes his hair pulled a little when he’s giving head. Just enough, not too much. It feels nice knowing that, knowing things like that about Gerard. 

Before he can get too in his head about it though he feels the hand on his dick replaced with Gerard’s as he tugs it out Frank’s sweats and gives it a couple of long strokes before spitting in his palm and doubling back with some added lubrication. Frank lets out an absolutely fucking contented sigh and settles back into the couch, boneless. 

After he’s teased the absolute minimal amount Gerard brings his hand down to the base and wraps his mouth around the tip, sucking lightly, just enough to get Frank to mumble “motherfucker” under his breath and thread his free hand through the greasy knotted strands atop Gerard’s head.

Frank lets it happen, lets himself feel the way the back of Gerard’s throat flutters against the head when he takes him down a little deeper. He feels the way Gee’s hand fondles his balls while licking a stripe from base to tip and swirling his tongue around, gathering up the precum that’s beaded there. The buzz in his body and head only intensifies it all. He knows he’s being a little selfish here but it all feels so good, it’s all he can do not to start humping up with Gerard’s bobs. He’s a nice guy, he’s not going to fuck Gerard’s mouth if he doesn’t want it, he knows not everyone likes the feeling of choking on a cock quite like he does. 

Frank feels himself riding the edge, getting closer with every minute, it’s a low, specific heat that starts somewhere behind his belly button and builds downward, strengthening with every bob of Gerard’s head and twist of his fist at the base. A few seconds later he feels Gerard’s other hand under his balls, moving swiftly down his taint and lower and Oh...that’s new. He’s never touched himself there and neither has anyone else but it feels...incredible. In the most deliciously filthy way he can imagine. 

He’d never considered it or entertained the idea that he’d be into this too and it’s something he’s going to have to go over and potentially compartmentalize later because as soon as Gerard’s finger starts rubbing over his hole he’s toast. He comes so hard and fast without warning in his inebriated state that he feels his consciousness shoot out through his dick and into Gerard’s mouth with his spunk. Later, when he can form enough words that aren’t “fuck” and “holy shit you’re amazing” he’s going to have to tell Gerard about it because that shit was crazy.

Gerard starts wiping off his hands on Frank’s pants and tucks him back in before standing up walking back over to the boom box and turning it on. He shoots Frank a look that Frank knows says ‘behave so I can finish’ which Frank nods in response to before drifting off into a quick but deep sleep.

They might talk about it later. They’ll talk about it eventually. But for now, it works. And it’s all secondary to his love for this fucking band. He sleeps knowing that whatever this all is, it’ll all work out in the end.

[boombox-propaganda]

okay but actually this is one of my favourite things to think about - the way the other cons (and bots) view soundwave’s dynamic with his cassettes/how the cassettes view it themselves.

i know lots of people (myself among them) like to mess with the fanon of dadwave and the idea that he’s the exhausted single father of way too many children. usually i see the emphasis being on rumble and frenzy as his ‘kids’ with the beastformer gang following up (ravage, laserbeak, buzzsaw - ratbat is an exception, given the circumstances of how soundwave acquired him.)

that said, i also think that cybertronians don’t have typical nuclear family units, and so the idea of soundwave really viewing himself as a dad or being viewed as such realistically seems unlikely to me within the context of canon. however, they do have a lot of ways of demonstrating closeness with people - amica and conjunx endura, for example - and they clearly form pretty strong familial bonds without the biological idea of rearing.

i think, more than anything, that soundwave and his cassettes fall into found family. in the case of ravage and laserbeak (i don’t recall if buzzsaw also falls into this category or if he just showed up somewhere along the way), they were the ones who found soundwave and saved him in the dead end from where he was going bonkers with all the telepathy and his inability to filter out things he didn’t want to hear. we know the story there with ravage and beaky becoming close with soundwave over the years because he didn’t shit on them for being beastformers, because he treated them as equals. i can’t remember if it’s shown on screen, but i’m guessing that when the time came to turn them into cassettes, it wasn’t much of an issue because they knew soundwave and trusted him and were devoted to the cause of equality, wherever that took them. they were determined to go for it together.

but what’s interesting to me is the deal with rumble and frenzy, who i think are the ones most commonly considered soundwave’s ‘children’ when fanon goes on about dadwave or whatever. i feel like there’s a lot of story we don’t get with them, but it makes for some fun headcanon/meta musing opportunities. (inserting a read more bc dear god i don’t shut up.)

here’s the thing: rumble and frenzy, being classed as ‘industrial equipment’, clearly would not have had a good time in the old days of the senate. they were miners. on top of that, they were mini-cons. and sure, they had a unique dynamic/connection that few cybertronians had because they were twins, but they also had a lot stacked against them. when megatron started the riot when the mine was getting automated, they weren’t bothered at all by him getting them all stuck on the prison shuttle. in fact, they were immediately invested in getting him to do it again, because they knew he could do it and could get them all out alive a second time whereas going to prison would be a death sentence at best. they joined right up with the gladiator business and followed everything with two thumbs up.

you know when they didn’t do that? when megatron reformatted them to be cassettes. soundwave was new to all of them at that time, rolling up out of the shadows with knowledge of megatron’s story and promises of fancy tech and no strings attached, all backed by senator ratbat who - realistically - none of them had any reason to trust. he also immediately proved himself to be dangerous in that first meeting - he helped interrogate fastback and bumper with his telepathy and laserbeak’s aid, but he also questioned megatron’s execution of them. then, an indeterminate but undoubtedly short amount of time later, rumble and frenzy are getting reformatted to be cassettes in the chest of this new, towering blue guy who is in some dodgy alliance with the senate, can read minds, can match megatron for blows in the arena, says very little, and overall is just incredibly ominous because he so clearly knows more about what’s going on than just about anyone. understandably, they’re pretty dubious about this, but one well placed wall smack from an annoyed megatron and “soundwave it is!”

but here’s the thing: despite that initial reluctance, despite the fact that soundwave is the espionage guy and both twins are inclined towards fighting, despite the fact that both twins are objectively useless for operations requiring subtlety of any sort, they stick around. and yeah surely some of that boils down to the whole thing where their altmodes aren’t great for quick escapes and soundwave tends to inspire enough respect or concern that being seen as under his care provides some level of protection and they probably also didn’t want to press too many buttons about getting their freedom back early in the war. i’m not saying there aren’t plenty of reasons why it was pragmatic to stick around, if not outright required.

but consider this also: rumble and frenzy were probably pretty used to sticking together and staying alive leading into everything. they knew better than to rely on anyone helping them out, they knew their people were other miners who often had nothing to give. they were street punks and fighters because that was what kept them going. and when megatron told them to reformat, they reformatted because even if soundwave was sketchy as hell due to how unknown he was, following megatron’s orders was how they stayed alive then too.

but being stuck with soundwave, they would have gotten to see a lot more of him than many other decepticons. they would know that he treats his other cassettes , all of them beastformers who would have been frowned upon by many cybertronians, as equals (with the obvious and valid exception of ratbat). he doesn’t ever send his cassettes willfully into situations beyond their capability. he learns what they’re capable of and works with them to get things done, gives them some degree of agency. he doesn’t take the tactic of ‘do this because i said so’ very frequently. his presence demands respect and soundwave has an undeniable amount of power in the decepticon ranks, but he never abuses it. he doesn’t treat others as disposable. he’s unendingly loyal, he’s incredibly difficult to read, but he’s not a traitor or a narcissist or a brute or unhinged or temperamental or prone to random bouts of killing people to flex on how strong he is.

meanwhile, there’s the rest of the decepticon ranks. the infighting is pretty much constant, everybody eventually wanders away from being there for the social justice into being there for the violence, there are some close friendships but by and large things are pretty cut-throat among the rank and file. hell, even among high command, loyalty is hard to come by. starscream is ready to stage a coup the second megatron trips down a flight of stairs, who the hell knows what shockwave is thinking, bludgeon has sacrificed his troops more than once, deadlock defected to the autobots....the list goes on. and that’s not to say that loyalty is impossible to come by in the ranks, because it isn’t, but good natured work relationships aren’t exactly common amongst the Decepticons.

amidst all of that, soundwave is an outlier. he’s a high ranking con who doesn’t throw his weight around, he’s unshakable, and he has several cassettes who all (again, with the exception of ratbat) act with undying loyalty toward him. they’re his ‘deranged children’ following his every command.

because that’s who the cassettes are to the rest of the cause: they’re extensions of soundwave. none of them are treated with particular respect by other members of the cause (with the exception of maybe ravage) and they are identified primarily by their ties to soundwave. they aren’t treated as independent fighters on their own, they’re treated as sentient weapons in soundwave’s arsenal whose only talent is going in whatever direction he points them. but to soundwave, his cassettes aren’t weapons. they’re allies with unique skillsets that can help him to help the cause. they’re friends who he wants to keep alive.

that is the reason why rumble and frenzy stick around. it’s not because soundwave is their dad or even their mentor type figure, and i don’t think it’s because of the protection he provides by association either. it’s because soundwave genuinely cares, full stop, and that’s a rarity. it’s always been a rarity for rumble and frenzy living as mini-bot industrial equipment, just like it’s always been a rarity for the beastformer cassettes. the rarity is what makes soundwave and his cassettes into a sort of community, and it’s why they care about him too. it’s why they follow him without question, why they get mad when soundwave is called ‘uncrassimatic’, why they continue to be cassettes millions of years after the point where it was a requirement.

soundwave and his cassettes all know that you stick by the people who have stuck by you. all four million years of the war, they’ve stuck by each other. so in the end, who cares if the other cons think of the cassettes as soundwave’s deranged children, loyal to him and subservient to him and tied to him by virtue of their mental instability? they got one part of that right - they’re loyal. and if the other cons think of them as just extensions of soundwave, or even worse as children with no minds of their own....well. it wouldn’t be the first time any of his cassettes have been underestimated. let the boltheads find out the hard way how bad an idea that is.

Throwing a fun wrench into things with the relationship between Soundwave and the cassettes is this quote from Starscream in All Hail Megatron #13. Don’t know if Starscream actually sees them as Soundwave’s children but

Yeah, I’m assuming Starscream was intending for that comment to be sarcastic and derogatory.

[talktoziertome]

Wonderful

He was a punk. He did ballet. What more can I say?

Eddie has a crush on his ballet partner’s boyfriend, Richie.

(I heard sk8er boi by Avril Lavigne and thought of reddie. So, here’s the product of that.)

Read it on AO3

Inhale. Exhale. You can do this. Eddie and his partner had been trying to perfect this one lift in their routine for what seemed like hours. He was sticky with sweat, needing to change his tights, and was getting a headache in the base of his neck.

“Go.” He said. She ran at him.

He stuck out his arms as she jumped. She landed bridal style. As soon as she was steady in his embrace, he threw her up, using his elbows and pushing as hard as she could so she flew. She spun, her hands grabbing for his shoulders. She was unsteady.

He cursed and brought her to the floor.

She huffed; her hands on her hips. “What the fuck, Eddie?”

“There’s something up with your spin. Your landing is off or something.” He ran his fingers through his damp hair.

She scoffed, taking her blonde hair out of her top knot. “My spin is fine. It’s not my fault that you’re not throwing me up high enough.” Angelica annoyed him more than any of the other girls at the studio, but she was the best dancer and they were an excellent team. They pushed each other. They were both the best and they knew it. Eddie couldn’t complain about being partnered with her when he saw all his medals and trophies before he went to bed every night.

“Well, it’s not my fault you have weak arms!”

Somehow they always ended up this way- in a screaming match.

“OH PLEASE! I have weak arms? You can barely even lift me, Kaspbrak!” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, poking her finger against his chest.

He shoved her finger away and rolled his eyes. “Let’s just get this over with, Monroe.”

She back stepped a few paces. She tossed her hair up again, the elastic twisting around her fingers before snapping against her bun. “Just make sure you can fucking throw me this time.”

“I’ll throw you into next Tuesday.” He said under his breath as she began to run forward.

He caught her. She spun in the air, bracing her arms on his shoulder when she flipped. With his hands on her hips, holding her high in the air, she split her legs. He held her up by one hand, then, a little longer than he’s supposed to just to show his strength. He smirked. Then, while turning his body, with both hands he slowly flipped her over before bringing her to the ground again in their final pose.

They jumped at the sound of clapping. In the reflection of the mirror in front of them, they saw across the studio was a Richie Tozier, clapping with a goofy grin on his face.

“You did so great, baby!”  Eddie’s heart skipped a beat, and he felt his face grow hotter. The pain in the back of his neck intensified as Angelica squealed and ran into Richie’s arms.

Baby. Eddie had heard Richie call him that a million times in his head. Sometimes when he sat in class and saw Richie picking at the neon-colored band-aids on his elbows. Sometimes when he saw Richie roll passed the library window, boombox on his shoulder, while Eddie studied. Eddie couldn’t even think of how many times he’d imagined being wrapped in those pale, lanky arms while Richie laughed lightly and whispered that word in his ear. Sometimes when he laid in bed at night, eyes closed, panting, his hand down his…

Eddie found himself staring, a chill running down his spine. He quickly grabbed his bag, hauling it over his shoulder and putting his water bottle to his lips. Hopefully, if he had enough water in his mouth as he walked passed them, he wouldn’t have to speak and make a fool of himself.

“Hey, Eds!” So close.

He swallowed the liquid. “Don’t call me that, Richard.”

Richie’s eye crinkled in the corner when he laughed, his lips stretching over crooked teeth. “I just wanted to know if you wanted to come to this shindig I’m throwing at the pipes? 10 o’clock?”

The pipes. It was an abandoned zoo on the outskirts of Derry. The teens of Derry got up to no good there. Bev told him that she saw Richie shredding up the old gorilla habitat on his board, a cigarette hanging from his lips. Bev was braver than Eddie. He was afraid of going to the pipes.

Eddie could feel the pain in his neck grow larger, into his shoulders as he gazed down at Angelica’s disgusted face. She lightly hit her boyfriend’s chest from where she was hooked under Richie’s arm. “He doesn’t skate, Rich.”

Eddie felt his mouth start to move.  “And I’m not a loser stoner either. So thanks but no thanks.”

Richie gripped his chest like he’d just been shot. His smile somehow seemed wider. “You wound me, Eds.”

Eddie pushed passed them. “Don’t call me that.”

As Eddie got into the shower later that day, feeling the sweat melt from his body, he made up his mind. He’d be at the pipes that night. Richie had asked him to go after all, and how could he say no to an old friend?

Warmth spread over him, not only from the water falling onto his shoulders and trailing down his body but the memories that flooded his thoughts. They had been friends when they were younger.

“Best friends,” Richie said, holding Eddie under his arm. His knuckles dug into Eddie’s scalp, messing up his carefully gelled hair.

“Stop it, Rich!” Eddie pushed him, his hands gripping the taller boy’s hip. “God, ya know, I hate it when you do that!” He straightened his bright colored polo shirt, flattening his hair with his casted arm.

“I can’t help it, Spaghetti!” He pinched his cheek, muttering ‘cute, cute, cute!’ and making kissy noises.

“Gross.” Eddie’s ears turned pink.

Eddie lathered the strawberry shampoo into his hair with both hands, massaging his headache away. The fruity scent made him think of summer. The sun making his skin burn. His lungs working harder than usual as he ran around the Denbrough’s backyard…

“You’ll never catch me, slowpoke!” Richie yelled over his shoulder as his Hawaiian shirt flapped under his arms. His laugh echoed in the backyard.

“You’re n-n-not being fair, T-trashmouth!” Bill yelled from the sidelines.

Eddie frowned, pumping his arms harder, moving his legs faster.

“Fuck,” Richie muttered as he fell behind Eddie by a few steps. Stan yelled praise to Eddie from where he stood next to Bill.

Eddie jumped up and hit the windchime on the fence they were running to. He won the race.

Richie jogged up and hit the windchime with his hand (without having to jump, much to Eddie’s annoyance). He huffed out a breath. “Damn. Good job, Spaghetti.”

“Don’t call me that.” Eddie wheezed.

“Boys! Strawberries!” They spun around to see Mrs. Denbrough coming out of the back door with a plate of fruit in her hand and Georgie on her hip.

They made eye contact then started running, shoving each other and laughing the whole way.

Eddie sighed, turning the porcelain knob. He stepped out of the shower and ran a towel over his hair. He wrapped the towel around his body and padded into his room. He picked up his gym bag, throwing it onto his bed.

Richie bounced up and down, the bed creaking noisily.

“Cut it out, Rich! You’re going to break the bed.” Eddie chastised from where he sat cross-legged on the floor, a comic book in his hands.

Richie landed on his stomach on the mattress, catching his chin in his hands. “You’re right. Can’t break two Kaspbrak beds. Since I destroyed your mom’s last night.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, not looking up from the comic pages. “You’re disgusting.”

Richie rolled on his back, laughing at the ceiling.

Eddie removed his dance shoes from the bag, throwing them on the hook next to his closet door. He emptied the rest of the bag out onto the bed. He threw his sweaty clothes in his hamper. He lifted the empty sandwich box he’d had since first grade; he ran his finger over the ‘EK’ and ‘RT’ scratched into the top.

Eddie blushed, picking the scab on his knee under the table. He pushed his green sandwich box across the lunch table toward Richie. Eddie felt bad for the other 7-year-old. He seemed to forget his lunch bag as he ran out the door every morning. Richie always sat with the rest of their classmates, tummy rumbling as he eyed their chicken nuggets and peanut butter sandwiches.

Richie looked up from staring at Bills lunch with a frantic gaze. Eddie had never seen someone look so crazy over baby carrots. Richie looked down at the sandwich in front of him. Eddie smiled at him. Richie smiled back, picking up half of the sandwich and shoving it in his mouth- jelly spilling on the front of his shirt.

Eddie threw the container back in his bag. He pulled on boxers and fell backward onto his bed, sighing up at his ceiling.

Everything had changed once high school had started. Eddie got more uptight, and serious about dancing. He spent most of his time in the library nervous about school. Richie got more laid back, and serious about making silly voices that made girls giggle. Eddie heard that he was always under the bleachers out by the football field, cracking jokes and smoking pot.

Eddie folded his hands on his stomach, getting lost in his thoughts of his faded friendship.

“That’s my boy right there!” Beverly whispered as Eddie straddled his second-floor windowsill.

Eddie put his finger to his lips, shushing his friend. “Bev! My mom will hear you!”

She took a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, watching him shimmy his way down the drain pipe next to his window. “Sorry. It’s just not every day that my hard-working nerd friend wants to party with me.” She lit the stick that was between her lips.

When his feet hit the ground, his let out a shaky breath. What was he doing? He looked up at his window, his curtains flowing out in the wind with the dark night sky as it’s background. He felt stupid.

“Bev…” He whispered.

“What?” She began to walk down his lawn, toward the street.

“Do you… Do you think I have a chance with a guy like Richie?” He crossed his arms over his chest as he walked beside her, his hands cradling his elbows. He felt comfort in the softness of his sweater.

She let out a breath of smoke before turning her head to him. She smiled. “’Course, Eddie. He’d be dumb not to want you.” She knocked shoulders with him. “Just because we’re all different people now doesn’t mean we’re not the losers club deep down.”

Eddie nodded. He bit his lip. “That’s the problem, though.” Bev cocked her head to the side, questioning. “He is dumb.”

She chuckled, shaking her head. “You got me there, Eddie.”

Eddie didn’t know what he expected the pipes to be like in all honesty. He was sure it wasn’t what he walked into with Bev though.

It was just a bunch of broken down habitats covered in dirt and terrible graffiti done by teenagers that think dick pictures are hilarious. There were skateboarders everywhere, shredding away on their colorfully painted boards. There were random groups of teens scattered around. Kids were screaming and laughing and tilting back liquor bottles. He felt suddenly overwhelmed when he saw Angelica.

She was on Richie’s back, his large hands cupping her thighs. They were surrounded by a cloud of smoke like they were in their own little bubble together. She slowly took the pipe down from her mouth and put it to Richie’s lips. He closed his eyes as she lit the end with the lighter in her hand. Richie inhaled, his chest rising. Eddie held his breath.

Richie’s lips were pink around the glass pipe pressed to them, the same soft, light pink of the girls’ outfits at the ballet. His lashes brushed against his freckled cheeks. Eddie remembered a time when he would count each freckle in the pillow forts in Richie’s living room during sleepovers.

“Eddie?” Beverly’s voice broke him away from the scene in front of him.

“Yeah?” He rolled up the sleeves of his sweater, his nerves getting the best of him.

“Are you okay?” She put a hand on his shoulder.

He nodded, eyes roaming the party in front of him again.  He noticed the large metal barrel full of ice, beer and soda cans next to where Richie and Angelica swayed together. “I- I think I’m just going to get something to drink.”

Beverly smiled. “Sounds good.” She split away from him, going on a search to find Ben and Mike.

Inhale. Exhale. You can do this. Eddie started walking toward the couple. He reached the barrel. He pushed the ice around digging through for a specific drink. Another arm joined his.

“Diet Cherry.” Richie pulled the soda from the bottom right away. “Your favorite.” He handed it to Eddie.

“Uh, thanks.” Eddie could feel his ears turning pink as he tapped the top of the can with his fingernail.

Richie smiled down at him, his eyes a bit puffy. He threw his arm around Eddie’s shoulders. “I’m glad you came tonight, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Me too, Trashmouth.” He said with a smile on his lips and butterflies in his stomach.

Eddie felt that maybe this was the start of something wonderful.

How is this even about the song? Who knows. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed it! I’m feeling BalletDancer!Eddie so this story might resurface with a different plot. Or if I get a lot of feedback (pls love me) I’ll continue this one! Thank you!

[flauntpage]

Thinks: Sound Artists Coppice Talk Visual

Noé Cuéllar and Joseph Kramer in conversation with Lise McKean

Coppice performing Pictures and Sounds, University of Chicago Film Studies Center, 2014. Photo by Julia Dratel

Coppice is interactions between the capture and generation of sound and music from custom designed and prepared instruments and devices. It draws from its glossary of study in bellows and electronics, and in digitally-seeded air from physical modeling and modular synthesis to form compositions for performance, recording, and moving image. Presentations include live performance for stage and installation settings, sound sculpture and objects, photography, video, and software.

Coppice was new when I met Noé Cuellar in December 2009. Since then, he and I have talked often and I’m a regular at Coppice performances. Joseph and Noé are artists’ artists. They’re inventive and insightful about their métier—and more. I’m grateful that they’ve agreed to continue our conversations as I research and write a book that explores visual thinking and objects in the work of sound artists.

Lise: Let’s get started by talking about visual thinking, the role of the visual in your work, and recent shifts to give more prominence to visual elements.

Noé: The photographs from 2009–2014 are based on specific objects and materials related to instruments from the live repertoire or installations. They’re partly documentation, partly abstracted extensions of the music. We think of the photographs as emblems, or as visual entries into the compositions, although recent compositions and their imagery have become parallel processes that cross.

Joseph: I think the connection is becoming more explicit. We’ll talk about a photographic process and then think about that action or that process in relation to the music directly, whereas before, they were running simultaneously, but maybe not necessarily speaking to each other directly, outside of putting it all together. I think an album like Cores/Eruct, there was a photograph that was taken for the inside of that had a lot to do with the way we wanted to put the music together and visually represent it.

Conceal from Vantage/Cordoned, 2014

Lise: In some ways, this is a retrospective conversation. Now you’re moving in a different direction with your new photographic works, but this exchange is about the previous ones so you’re thinking back on when you were composing the sound pieces, in terms of photography and images.

Noé: We can compare that approach to photography with the video Bypass. It opens on a black screen, then a little bit of visual noise from the camera being aimed at nothing. The visual noise and darkness go in and out. Then slowly, you start seeing an edge, and then more light information comes in, and then the edge becomes a circle. Then that circle becomes what you recognize as a funnel.  The light continues to change, and the edges change along with the light. It’s a very slow process of an image coming to light, and then burning, like a photograph in a darkroom.

We think of video photographically, more to do with stillness, objects, and light, than with action or movement. We’re interested in the capture and generation of sound and music, and capturing the source objects visually as well, to see how these physical objects exist in music and in images.

Ingrown from Cores/Eruct, 2014

Lise: When you say the object exists in the music and in the image, is it that the object is being used to create the sound?

Noé: Yes. The backside of the Cores/Eruct packaging is a photo of a funnel. The funnel is one of the first sounds you hear when you play the CD. So there’s the sound of air through the funnel, and then there’s the image of the funnel. The funnel’s perspective may not be immediately recognizable, but in that comes the sensation of a funnel in a void.

Joseph: It’s a very strange, circular image that seems like it could be referencing all sorts of things. The focus is all strange because the funnel’s so tall, and the photographic process sort of flattens that out. It’s just an unusual, uncanny thing to look at. You don’t look at that and think, “Oh, I bet that’s what I’m listening to on the record.” It’s not like an instrument glamor shot.

Noé: Although there is a metallic relationship, which may be perceived in the sound. That’s very hard to say, because air against an edge… you can’t tell what the material is, and yet, having seen the image before listening may emphasize a metallic quality in the sound.

Lise: Just so I can understand a little more clearly, the recent video making has intensified your interest and your inquiry into photography. At the moment, we’re talking specifically about photography. For our larger conversation about the visual in relation to your work, I’m thinking more generally. For example, the visual objects or forms that you imagine, construct, hear, and see in your sound practice—and the ways you conceptualize these visual and sonic objects before they are used in photographs or video, whether they’re made for documentary or other purposes.

Noé: I think it is in conversation with you that we’ll find a way to talk about that. We work primarily on sound and music, and the visual work has supported that focus. However working visually is increasingly becoming part of the process of composition, presentation, and representation

Open On Occluding Devices, 2017 (screen Coppice’s new work)

Joseph: It has mattered for us in the past as well. We’ve been playing on a wooden table because the way things look is important, and so playing on a plastic foldout table is not something that supported the music well, or the experience.

Noé: There’s something about the surface where the instruments are placed.

Joseph: We performed facing each other for specific compositions, always sort of locked together, facing one another, in the middle of something. That kind of visual presentation was very intentional and important to the music.

Noé: Performing Compound Form in that orientation was partly visual and partly technical regarding microphones and processing. However it was a technical specification that was very inflexible, leaning towards installation even if we performed it on stage settings.  Those performances had a visual identity of symmetry, like a close-up duel between an 1890’s portable pump organ and a modified dual deck boombox. The music emerges from the relationships between the conditions of the instrument and the device.

© Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2011. Photo by Nathan Keay.

Lise: Let’s unpack that.

Noé: It’s the bringing together of pump organ and tapes. In that pairing comes a music that is archival, in a way. Even though it’s happening now, it comes from instruments of altered conditions with relationships to age. To place the tape machine on a folding wooden table is to form a relationship to the wood of the folding organ. It’s an environment.

The back photograph of Vantage/Cordoned is light through foam. Foam isn’t an instrument, but it’s what we use when transporting the pump organ around. What’s around the instrument is important, and that’s how some materials from the photographs were selected. We think of them as “peripheral materials.” The sound sculpture exhibition Vinculum (Passes) was the first instance of, what if we bring these materials together into sculptures, rather than instruments? What if sounds from our instruments are induced into these materials, as to extend their identity?

Lise: As I listen, I’m thinking about the materials Noé described, the wood, metal, foam and the different modes of perceiving and thinking about them individually and together. And about your shift  from looking at them as instruments to considering them as potential sculptures. So here’s the question, Joseph. What about all the electronic stuff?

Transformer from Vinculum (Passes), 2012

Joseph: The gizmos. The table of stuff.

Lise: The gizmos and their appearance. The knobs, the wires. I’ll just call them electronics. Whatever forms they take, which are probably going to be supplanted and archival before long.

Noé: Just to put an asterisk on that, we’re already thinking of air being archival, so we’re faking it. Fake air! The theme of archive came up very early into the collaboration with Vinculum.

Lise: So if we think about threads that have continued throughout your collaboration, then archive is important.

Noé: It would be a major one. We ask ourselves, is this an archival photo, or is this an artistic photo? Some of the photographs have a scientific feel because they’re objects in sterilized or blank spaces.

Lise: You said archival as opposed to an artistic photo. Are you using it in the sense of documentary? Artistic things can be archived too. To me, an archive is something you keep.

Joseph: Archives are not necessarily neutral or bland, they’re just collections.

Noé: I think they’re at that edge. Lighting can create mood and guide the viewing more towards aesthetic or abstract viewing rather than neutral viewing, which is how I tend to think of the perspective of archiving or documenting. These are boundaries we’re exploring now.

Droopy, 2013

Lise: It seems you have interesting Duchampian questions here. He was asking similar questions, for example, to what extent does context drive and define perception?

Noé:  What is it to take it out, to see an object in a vacuum? It is what it is. You hear it and you see it. It exists in multiple realms.

Lise: When you make those photos, are you thinking of a sonic experience? What the sound was and the experience, the quality of the sound itself.

Noé: Not so much representing specific things, but just the mood.

Lise: So how hearing it might make someone feel—the experience of listening. And in a way, you’re translating the sensibility. You can’t have a visual experience that’s a one to one equivalency with a sonic experience, but there can be resonance between the feeling associated with the  two experiences.

Joseph: It’s an interesting question, because I don’t think the images are particularly sonic, in terms of how they end up looking. They don’t make me think of the way the music sounds, but they make me think of the way the music feels. The impact of the sound and the sound itself are very different from each other.

If you were going to represent the raw sound of the album, these images would have to be much more complicated. But if you’re trying to represent some aspect of the impact of the music, then you are of course reacting to the sound, but you’re not representing the sound. You’re representing your internalizing of that. I think it’s a very weird thing to think about representing a sound by showing an object, just like I think it’s a weird thing to think you’re representing a sound by creating a recording with a microphone or even with two microphones. I think that’s a big part of archive being our work, and what I keep saying about the funnel as an object, and then the funnel a second time as an image, and then the funnel again in the sound world. We have an archival recording of the funnel, but it’s being activated by air being blown across the edge.

Noé: And neither make sound on their own.

Shruti box in Memory of Whisper Room, 2014

Joseph: Neither of those two things would make a sound, but we put them together, we framed it, we gave it time. Why did we do that? I’m not sure the question, is it an art piece or an archive is really the question, as much as how are we thinking about what it is we’re capturing. Whether it’s a photo or an object, thinking about this funnel is unlocking a lot of thoughts that I have.

Noé:     I think the question is important, because we’re not choosing a funnel only because of the way it looks, but its relationship to age, material, and the instruments. That funnel and other objects might not have been around if it weren’t for the instruments. The instruments cast an environment of objects.

Lise:     In environment, you’re talking about the relationships, the context, and again, the sensibility. It’s not just the materiality, of course. It’s the connotations of the objects themselves, being historical and antiquated. A funnel that size, one thinks of equipment, mechanics.

Joseph: A car, or larger.

Lise: It’s not like my kitchen funnel that I tried yesterday, in vain, to make coffee. I put one of those paper coffee filters in it. All the water rushed through that one point and ripped a hole in the paper filter.

Noé:     The functions and processes that belong to these objects, right? Even when we go back to saying, why foam? Foam may seem an unimportant material, but it points to the protection for the instrument.

Lise:     What’s foam? It’s a lot of air.

Joseph: Yeah, it’s aerated plastic.

Noé:  It’s porous. The through-ness of funnels, and the foam, too. The air through the object.

Lise: And the foam makes it possible to move the organ to get it to the performance. It’s this spongy structure. It’s sort of a contradiction.

Noé: Copper mesh, or even this ring, air goes through it. The fire bellows over there on the wall, or these, that, the mesh.

Joseph: For any of the raw things and any of the mechanically powered things. For the electronics, things change a little bit, but it’s still about pushing through. It’s just not air anymore. It’s air that’s been captured and has to change domain.

Lise: With the electronics, it’s electrical impulses.

Joseph: Changing air pressure comes in as a varying voltage. Then, if it gets recorded to the tape, it has to be converted into a magnetic field that then becomes orientations of mineral on the strip of plastic. And then, of course, back to voltage again, until finally it gets back into the air somewhere. Maybe through a speaker, or maybe it gets passed through some copper as mechanical vibrations in a solid material.

Lise: When you said that, about how it gets back to air again, because that’s how we hear it, right? The sound waves come back to us through the air. Thanks Joseph for that sonic lesson. As an anthropologist, I shift perspectives too. Like what you described you’re doing with the funnel. We’ll return to this in later conversations, so this is a preliminary: How do you place sound art within the larger field of contemporary art.

Noé: I was recently in Arcana, an art bookstore in LA. I couldn’t believe it had a sound art section!

Joseph: A bookstore had a sound art section? That’s great. I’ve heard it said that sound art people get pretty defensive in art contexts, and I don’t feel like that’s true. But I do feel like we still have to be a little bit insistent that there’s a lot of art made with sound, and that there are some assumptions made about contemporary art that seem to fully ignore the history of sonic practice.

Noé: Visuals are not unrelated to the other senses, especially the sense of listening in our case.

Coppice in performance at Silent Funny, Chicago, 2016. Photo by Nathan Keay.

    Catholic Craft

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Thinks: Sound Artists Coppice Talk Visual published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[nofomoartworld]

Thinks: Sound Artists Coppice Talk Visual

Noé Cuéllar and Joseph Kramer in conversation with Lise McKean

Coppice performing Pictures and Sounds, University of Chicago Film Studies Center, 2014. Photo by Julia Dratel

Coppice is interactions between the capture and generation of sound and music from custom designed and prepared instruments and devices. It draws from its glossary of study in bellows and electronics, and in digitally-seeded air from physical modeling and modular synthesis to form compositions for performance, recording, and moving image. Presentations include live performance for stage and installation settings, sound sculpture and objects, photography, video, and software.

Coppice was new when I met Noé Cuellar in December 2009. Since then, he and I have talked often and I’m a regular at Coppice performances. Joseph and Noé are artists’ artists. They’re inventive and insightful about their métier—and more. I’m grateful that they’ve agreed to continue our conversations as I research and write a book that explores visual thinking and objects in the work of sound artists.

Lise: Let’s get started by talking about visual thinking, the role of the visual in your work, and recent shifts to give more prominence to visual elements.

Noé: The photographs from 2009–2014 are based on specific objects and materials related to instruments from the live repertoire or installations. They’re partly documentation, partly abstracted extensions of the music. We think of the photographs as emblems, or as visual entries into the compositions, although recent compositions and their imagery have become parallel processes that cross.

Joseph: I think the connection is becoming more explicit. We’ll talk about a photographic process and then think about that action or that process in relation to the music directly, whereas before, they were running simultaneously, but maybe not necessarily speaking to each other directly, outside of putting it all together. I think an album like Cores/Eruct, there was a photograph that was taken for the inside of that had a lot to do with the way we wanted to put the music together and visually represent it.

Conceal from Vantage/Cordoned, 2014

Lise: In some ways, this is a retrospective conversation. Now you’re moving in a different direction with your new photographic works, but this exchange is about the previous ones so you’re thinking back on when you were composing the sound pieces, in terms of photography and images.

Noé: We can compare that approach to photography with the video Bypass. It opens on a black screen, then a little bit of visual noise from the camera being aimed at nothing. The visual noise and darkness go in and out. Then slowly, you start seeing an edge, and then more light information comes in, and then the edge becomes a circle. Then that circle becomes what you recognize as a funnel.  The light continues to change, and the edges change along with the light. It’s a very slow process of an image coming to light, and then burning, like a photograph in a darkroom.

We think of video photographically, more to do with stillness, objects, and light, than with action or movement. We’re interested in the capture and generation of sound and music, and capturing the source objects visually as well, to see how these physical objects exist in music and in images.

Ingrown from Cores/Eruct, 2014

Lise: When you say the object exists in the music and in the image, is it that the object is being used to create the sound?

Noé: Yes. The backside of the Cores/Eruct packaging is a photo of a funnel. The funnel is one of the first sounds you hear when you play the CD. So there’s the sound of air through the funnel, and then there’s the image of the funnel. The funnel’s perspective may not be immediately recognizable, but in that comes the sensation of a funnel in a void.

Joseph: It’s a very strange, circular image that seems like it could be referencing all sorts of things. The focus is all strange because the funnel’s so tall, and the photographic process sort of flattens that out. It’s just an unusual, uncanny thing to look at. You don’t look at that and think, “Oh, I bet that’s what I’m listening to on the record.” It’s not like an instrument glamor shot.

Noé: Although there is a metallic relationship, which may be perceived in the sound. That’s very hard to say, because air against an edge… you can’t tell what the material is, and yet, having seen the image before listening may emphasize a metallic quality in the sound.

Lise: Just so I can understand a little more clearly, the recent video making has intensified your interest and your inquiry into photography. At the moment, we’re talking specifically about photography. For our larger conversation about the visual in relation to your work, I’m thinking more generally. For example, the visual objects or forms that you imagine, construct, hear, and see in your sound practice—and the ways you conceptualize these visual and sonic objects before they are used in photographs or video, whether they’re made for documentary or other purposes.

Noé: I think it is in conversation with you that we’ll find a way to talk about that. We work primarily on sound and music, and the visual work has supported that focus. However working visually is increasingly becoming part of the process of composition, presentation, and representation

Open On Occluding Devices, 2017 (screen Coppice’s new work)

Joseph: It has mattered for us in the past as well. We’ve been playing on a wooden table because the way things look is important, and so playing on a plastic foldout table is not something that supported the music well, or the experience.

Noé: There’s something about the surface where the instruments are placed.

Joseph: We performed facing each other for specific compositions, always sort of locked together, facing one another, in the middle of something. That kind of visual presentation was very intentional and important to the music.

Noé: Performing Compound Form in that orientation was partly visual and partly technical regarding microphones and processing. However it was a technical specification that was very inflexible, leaning towards installation even if we performed it on stage settings.  Those performances had a visual identity of symmetry, like a close-up duel between an 1890’s portable pump organ and a modified dual deck boombox. The music emerges from the relationships between the conditions of the instrument and the device.

© Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2011. Photo by Nathan Keay.

Lise: Let’s unpack that.

Noé: It’s the bringing together of pump organ and tapes. In that pairing comes a music that is archival, in a way. Even though it’s happening now, it comes from instruments of altered conditions with relationships to age. To place the tape machine on a folding wooden table is to form a relationship to the wood of the folding organ. It’s an environment.

The back photograph of Vantage/Cordoned is light through foam. Foam isn’t an instrument, but it’s what we use when transporting the pump organ around. What’s around the instrument is important, and that’s how some materials from the photographs were selected. We think of them as “peripheral materials.” The sound sculpture exhibition Vinculum (Passes) was the first instance of, what if we bring these materials together into sculptures, rather than instruments? What if sounds from our instruments are induced into these materials, as to extend their identity?

Lise: As I listen, I’m thinking about the materials Noé described, the wood, metal, foam and the different modes of perceiving and thinking about them individually and together. And about your shift  from looking at them as instruments to considering them as potential sculptures. So here’s the question, Joseph. What about all the electronic stuff?

Transformer from Vinculum (Passes), 2012

Joseph: The gizmos. The table of stuff.

Lise: The gizmos and their appearance. The knobs, the wires. I’ll just call them electronics. Whatever forms they take, which are probably going to be supplanted and archival before long.

Noé: Just to put an asterisk on that, we’re already thinking of air being archival, so we’re faking it. Fake air! The theme of archive came up very early into the collaboration with Vinculum.

Lise: So if we think about threads that have continued throughout your collaboration, then archive is important.

Noé: It would be a major one. We ask ourselves, is this an archival photo, or is this an artistic photo? Some of the photographs have a scientific feel because they’re objects in sterilized or blank spaces.

Lise: You said archival as opposed to an artistic photo. Are you using it in the sense of documentary? Artistic things can be archived too. To me, an archive is something you keep.

Joseph: Archives are not necessarily neutral or bland, they’re just collections.

Noé: I think they’re at that edge. Lighting can create mood and guide the viewing more towards aesthetic or abstract viewing rather than neutral viewing, which is how I tend to think of the perspective of archiving or documenting. These are boundaries we’re exploring now.

Droopy, 2013

Lise: It seems you have interesting Duchampian questions here. He was asking similar questions, for example, to what extent does context drive and define perception?

Noé:  What is it to take it out, to see an object in a vacuum? It is what it is. You hear it and you see it. It exists in multiple realms.

Lise: When you make those photos, are you thinking of a sonic experience? What the sound was and the experience, the quality of the sound itself.

Noé: Not so much representing specific things, but just the mood.

Lise: So how hearing it might make someone feel—the experience of listening. And in a way, you’re translating the sensibility. You can’t have a visual experience that’s a one to one equivalency with a sonic experience, but there can be resonance between the feeling associated with the  two experiences.

Joseph: It’s an interesting question, because I don’t think the images are particularly sonic, in terms of how they end up looking. They don’t make me think of the way the music sounds, but they make me think of the way the music feels. The impact of the sound and the sound itself are very different from each other.

If you were going to represent the raw sound of the album, these images would have to be much more complicated. But if you’re trying to represent some aspect of the impact of the music, then you are of course reacting to the sound, but you’re not representing the sound. You’re representing your internalizing of that. I think it’s a very weird thing to think about representing a sound by showing an object, just like I think it’s a weird thing to think you’re representing a sound by creating a recording with a microphone or even with two microphones. I think that’s a big part of archive being our work, and what I keep saying about the funnel as an object, and then the funnel a second time as an image, and then the funnel again in the sound world. We have an archival recording of the funnel, but it’s being activated by air being blown across the edge.

Noé: And neither make sound on their own.

Shruti box in Memory of Whisper Room, 2014

Joseph: Neither of those two things would make a sound, but we put them together, we framed it, we gave it time. Why did we do that? I’m not sure the question, is it an art piece or an archive is really the question, as much as how are we thinking about what it is we’re capturing. Whether it’s a photo or an object, thinking about this funnel is unlocking a lot of thoughts that I have.

Noé:     I think the question is important, because we’re not choosing a funnel only because of the way it looks, but its relationship to age, material, and the instruments. That funnel and other objects might not have been around if it weren’t for the instruments. The instruments cast an environment of objects.

Lise:     In environment, you’re talking about the relationships, the context, and again, the sensibility. It’s not just the materiality, of course. It’s the connotations of the objects themselves, being historical and antiquated. A funnel that size, one thinks of equipment, mechanics.

Joseph: A car, or larger.

Lise: It’s not like my kitchen funnel that I tried yesterday, in vain, to make coffee. I put one of those paper coffee filters in it. All the water rushed through that one point and ripped a hole in the paper filter.

Noé:     The functions and processes that belong to these objects, right? Even when we go back to saying, why foam? Foam may seem an unimportant material, but it points to the protection for the instrument.

Lise:     What’s foam? It’s a lot of air.

Joseph: Yeah, it’s aerated plastic.

Noé:  It’s porous. The through-ness of funnels, and the foam, too. The air through the object.

Lise: And the foam makes it possible to move the organ to get it to the performance. It’s this spongy structure. It’s sort of a contradiction.

Noé: Copper mesh, or even this ring, air goes through it. The fire bellows over there on the wall, or these, that, the mesh.

Joseph: For any of the raw things and any of the mechanically powered things. For the electronics, things change a little bit, but it’s still about pushing through. It’s just not air anymore. It’s air that’s been captured and has to change domain.

Lise: With the electronics, it’s electrical impulses.

Joseph: Changing air pressure comes in as a varying voltage. Then, if it gets recorded to the tape, it has to be converted into a magnetic field that then becomes orientations of mineral on the strip of plastic. And then, of course, back to voltage again, until finally it gets back into the air somewhere. Maybe through a speaker, or maybe it gets passed through some copper as mechanical vibrations in a solid material.

Lise: When you said that, about how it gets back to air again, because that’s how we hear it, right? The sound waves come back to us through the air. Thanks Joseph for that sonic lesson. As an anthropologist, I shift perspectives too. Like what you described you’re doing with the funnel. We’ll return to this in later conversations, so this is a preliminary: How do you place sound art within the larger field of contemporary art.

Noé: I was recently in Arcana, an art bookstore in LA. I couldn’t believe it had a sound art section!

Joseph: A bookstore had a sound art section? That’s great. I’ve heard it said that sound art people get pretty defensive in art contexts, and I don’t feel like that’s true. But I do feel like we still have to be a little bit insistent that there’s a lot of art made with sound, and that there are some assumptions made about contemporary art that seem to fully ignore the history of sonic practice.

Noé: Visuals are not unrelated to the other senses, especially the sense of listening in our case.

Coppice in performance at Silent Funny, Chicago, 2016. Photo by Nathan Keay.

    Wednesday Clips for 8/19/09

Art:21 blog on Kerry James Marshall’s First Solo Exhibition in Canada

Episode 418: Amy Spiers-Open Engagement 2013

The Hounds of Love

The Rematerialization of the Art Object: Stone, Soil, Words, and Wood; A reflection on Chicago artists participating in documenta13

from Bad at Sports http://ift.tt/2q3dBLk via IFTTT

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ShockOp for ship bingo!

MANNNN you picked a good one. i have so many thoughts on these two. i think they should have been canon. i think they could have been if the world had been nicer. i think that's what makes them saddest is that their entire story is an unending 'what could have been.'

i think they both really aligned before the war with their goals and what they wanted. i also think they were both too far into trying to get things accomplished in the sociopolitical climate of the time for either of them to have really had time/energy to throw towards a relationship. and i think that they had the sort of synergy that would have led to them both getting a lot done, but maybe not being the best romantic partners because of their devotion to getting things accomplished.

ironically, i think they might have worked better after the war. by that point they're better foils for each other (both with and without shockwave's shadowplay - ik some fic writers like the idea of that getting undone and him having to reconcile with millions of years of logic-driven war crimes.) i think both op and shockwave have both been drastically changed by forces outside of their control - the matrix and the senate respectively - and they know the reality of war and how sometimes you can't talk things through and the kind of prices you can pay for trying. they've both also done awful shit!! and i think by the time the war is done, they both would have been helped immensely by having someone to 'remember each other as they were'.

anyway i have a lot of thoughts and feelings abt how optimus and the war could have gone so differently if shockwave was an autobot or hadn't been ahadowplayed or just in general had been able to be there for optimus. shockwave was the one who saw the potential for orion pax to be a prime and i think it would have been nice for op to have had literally anyone to confide in at all at any point during the war.

(i also think it's interesting to consider the repercussions of their actions on each other. like how if he hadn't had the matrix compartment shockwave had fitted him with, pax might never have been a prime and had to lead the autobots based on a crumbling legacy of increasingly corrupt leadership. and how the debacle w the bomb matrix and roller's capture led to shadowplay. these two had so much impact on each other's lives and i wish fandom explored it more.)

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3. A song you associate with this character (IDW Ratchet)

19. Name one trait that you WISH you shared with this character (IDW Ravage)

21. What book do you think this character would like? (IDW Soundwave)

3. A song you associate with this character (IDW Ratchet)

My default is to say 'Two Minutes' by The Amazing Devil but since I already shared that one with you, I think that might be cheating. So!! Dead Hearts by Stars. (yt | spotify) I like the repetition of the song and how it echoes a lot - that structure just makes me think of the lonely aspects of Ratchet's character where between his age and his job and his pride I think of him as very isolated. Also like, given how many soldiers and civilians he's seen and known over the years and how much of Cybertron and its inhabitants had died by the end of the war... 'dead hearts' just feels appropriate.

(As a bonus, because I know you like IDW Drift - if you like Dratchet, listen to 'Goodbye John Smith' by Barns Courtney. One of my favourite songs for them.)

19. Name one trait that you WISH you shared with this character (IDW Ravage)

Physically, I wish that I had his mobility. I miss being able to like. Move around freely and having functional legs. As a character trait, however, I wish I had Ravage's composure. I think he's very good at separating what he's thinking/feeling from what needs to be done or what is important in the moment and I am...not really like that. I do have his sarcasm though.

21. What book do you think this character would like? (IDW Soundwave)

This one stumped me, largely because I don't think Soundwave and I have at all similar reading tastes and so there's very few books I've read that I think he might entertain. That said, my best guess is maybe Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, because given that he's been carrying the Decepticon cause on his back for the last four million years he might find some amusement or catharsis in the book satirising military stupidity. (I also like to think he would maybe enjoy satire as a genre - I see him as someone who would like things that are layered/that say one thing on the surface but mean something entirely different.)

Thank you as always for the tag!!! I love doing these so much and this one definitely challenged me haha

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finally got around to watching ep 1 of earthspark and wow, i was not expecting to love it this much?? the animation is so fun and i love the bonding between twitch and thrash and the malto siblings. my only question is this: is it just me or do megan and op (especially megan) sound vaguely scottish?

(also. catch me having too many thoughts and theories about why megatron and dot make a great duo and why dot isn’t nearly so fond of OP. can’t wait to see if any of them get confirmed or denied - making red string conspiracy boards is one of my favourite parts of fandom.)

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Vibe check:

Yellow, Brown, and Pink ;)

Aw shucks! Congratulations on being entirely accurate abt the duality of pink and brown in that I'm generally friendly but would also kill god in a Denny's parking lot. : D

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Yup, Megatron's VA is Scottish! Optimus Prime's is not, though.

thank you wise anon for your assistance!! that certainly explains it haha

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Character ask:

IDW Whirl

WHIRL MY BELOVED!!!

Three things we have in common:

Disability rep!! (Whirl and I both have complicated relationships with the capability of our bodies compared to what they used to be able to do and alternate between resignation and saltiness over the subject)

Real low tolerance for people being obtuse. (I definitely vibe with Whirl's bluntness with this stuff and have definitely adopted the 'let's play something called the making-sense-game' line from LL into my mental vernacular.)

Sarcasm/dark sense of humour. (What can I say, it was one of the first things that drew me to his character.)

Three things we don't have in common:

Fondness for guns. (Sorry Whirl, but I'm a sword gay.)

Tendency to mock emotions (I'll mock my own, but nobody else's.)

Skill/patience for delicate work. (My attempts to paint miniatures or make those metal earth figures have all ended....poorly.)

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For the ask game:

7, 19, 21, 29, and 40 :D

Hi again!!! It always makes me smile when you toss one of these in my inbox, ty!

7. Favourite show(s)

Oh man, this one is actually hard bc I haven't seen a lot of shows in their entirety since I was little. I know when I was a kid, my faves were Beast Wars and Armada, and I've still enjoyed rewatching Armada (Beast Wars is harder because of how corny it is, unfortunately). As for favourite shows that I've seen more recently than 15 years ago, I'm actually really fond of Cyberverse bc I enjoy how it includes lesser known characters (also the idea of Soundwave as a memelord is hysterical to me.) I haven't seen a ton of Prime, but I also love what I've seen there since I think the animation style is cool and they actually redesigned Soundwave in a cool way for once.

19. A character you love that no one else seems to

Any of the Scavengers! Not that anyone really seems to dislike them, just feels like everyone except Misfire gets overlooked a lot. Spinister in particular is constantly rotating in my head like a rotisserie chicken and I have wayyyy too many random headcanons about him because I think he's super interesting.

21. A pairing you love that no one else seems to

Two answers - ShockOp (specifically IDW) and Nautiskids. For ShockOp, I think about their dynamic in a vastly different way to how I see a lot of fandom interpreting it and wish there was more fic examining it in AUs or with the nuance canon had and not just smacking them together like barbie dolls. Nautiskids just owns my entire heart but I don't see a ton of fic for it. Not necessarily that people don't like the pairing, guess it just isn't as popular as a lot of the main ships like Cygate and CDRW, alas.

29. A bot you could consider a mortal enemy

There's a few that could go on this list, but IDW Prowl probably wins. I fully recognise that a lot of his nonsense is probably because he needs therapy, but I have a real hard time with the whole 'I'm gonna feel guilty abt being terrible and then continue to manipulate ppl and be terrible and also nothing is my fault ever and history will prove me right' mindset.

(Second answer is probably Starscream. I love him so much and I think he's a fascinating character, but lying is a pet peeve of mine so I think I'd constantly want to kick his teeth in if I actually had to deal with him in person and not as a fictional character.)

40. What would you do if the Autobots landed on Earth right now and asked for your help?

Probably freak out in utter glee and become useless for twenty minutes, first and foremost, followed shortly by confusing everyone by asking a million questions in an attempt to figure out which continuity we're in and how scared I should be of someone shooting me or turning me into toejam.

Once I calmed down from the initial rush, I think I'd largely be annoying the hell out of the local archivist/information source trying to learn all I could about Cybertronians and the current situation re: Decepticons and such but ultimately, I would want to help in whatever way I could. I like to think I'm pretty okay at research and conflict resolution, so maybe I could sit on someone's shoulder and play Jiminy Cricket or help them get some information or something. (Also, first order of business is introducing Wheeljack to mythbusters. I just think it would be funny.)

Thank you so much for the ask!!!

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alright, i finally caved and made a tf sideblog. if anyone wants to continue receiving the unending barrage of tf content (that im sure will bleed over to my main on occasion anyway) come follow me at @boombox-propaganda :)