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hollowtreesinhollowwoods · 4 years ago

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Cryptid (pt.2)

(TW! Mentions of injuries, violence, bruises, conditioning. As with most things I write, I try to keep it from being too gory or dark, but I want to warn readers just in case they are bothered by it.)

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Loralai didn't remember much from the rest of the ride. The man, Henry, had kept talking to her about things, but she didn't understand much. What did he want with her? He didn't seem like he would be mean to her like Hansen had been. But why was he helping her? She hadn't done anything to earn him saving her life. In fact, she had deserved to die.

That was why Hansen had left her out there, anyways.

She'd failed him, and so he left her out there as a punishment. Sure, some teenage humans had come along and kicked her in the stomach until she dry-heaved, but it was her fault for not being able to defend herself.

As she lay in the backseat of Henry's car, Loralai's better instinct fought with her urge to fall asleep. She'd only just met this man. However, the pattering of rain on the roof of the car and the soft warmth of the blanket dismissed that instinct. It felt wrong to be so relaxed. She hadn't felt that way since she'd been very little. Hansen had told her that when you got older, you never felt peaceful anymore. Was she wrong for feeling that way?

Her mind puzzling on that question, she soon found herself drifting off to the lullaby of the rain on the roof.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Drifting out of sleep felt wrong to her, too. She normally woke to angry shouting or banging of a pan; now it was completely silent. Loralai's eyes flitted around to observe her surroundings. She was in a large bed in a small room. Light bled through the closed curtains of a window, and there was a strange sort of desk with a mirror attached. A vanity, maybe. Next to her was the man from before. Henry sat next to her in a wooden chair. He had been staring at a small rectangular device, tapping it a couple times on different spots on the screen. A strange little click emitted from it whenever he tapped. Then at the very end, it made a strange sound instead of a click. He pressed a button on the side of the device and set it down, realizing Loralai was awake.

He spoke a few words to her. Sleep was one of them. She started to sit up, worried that he was cross with her for sleeping in.

"Shhhh," Henry placed a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back down into the pillow. "It's okay," he soothed her. He said something about being hungry and eating. Was he going to starve her?

Loralai's heart fell. She mustered all her strength to plead to him. "Sorryyy... sorry..." she started. His face softened. He spoke again, in words she didn't understand, and got up to leave. Loralai reached out in one last attempt. Henry stopped, bending over and placing a hand on her face. A gentle, loving hand.

"It's okay. Don't worry," he stared into her with his eyes, eyes that told her he was not going to let her go hungry. He said don't worry a lot, but she didn't know what worry meant.

She tilted her head.

Henry thought for a moment. "’Sorry, sorry, sorry’, that is worry. That is apologizing. Don't worry. Don't apologize," he brushed her hair back again, smiling and left the room.

Loralai pondered, committing the new word to her memory. Apologize? Why shouldn’t she apologize? She’d been lazy and selfish and slept in. He wasn’t even going to punish her for it? Loralai's stomach growled loudly, and she sighed. She should be starved for this.

She knew her horns had already shifted to orange without needing to look. They changed whenever her feelings did. Right now, she felt agonizingly hungry. That happened with all of her people, though it wasn’t the strangest thing about her. They could sing special songs. Sometimes Loralai would sing to herself--the soft, mournful songs she sang whenever she was sad— at least until Hansen got cross with her. The only song he liked was the one that made creatures dance and dance until their exhaustion claimed them. He would make her sing it to bugs until they fell on their backs and curled up and didn’t move anymore.

Loralai hated that song. Hansen loved it, though, so shouldn’t she? It brought him happiness, after all. Even knowing that, she realized she was never happy when she had to sing it. Would Henry ask him to sing it?

Loralai opened her mouth, softly humming an old tune. It was the one her parents used to sing to her. She hadn't sung it in a while, but the melody was engrained into her mind. It was one of the only good ones she had.

When Henry came in holding a plate of food, Loralai went silent, partially from fear, and partially from embarrassment. He asked a question with the word 'singing' in it. She looked up at Henry in curiosity. He smiled fondly. Did he like it? Should she sing more? Would that make him happy?

Before she could make any sort of offering, he said something else, and then mentioned eating again, holding the tray out. There were two pieces of toast and a cup with a dark brown liquid in it.

"Eat," he nodded towards the food softly.

Loralai hesitated before reaching towards the first piece of toast. She flinched away in surprise. It was warm. Was this supposed to be hers? Hansen had never given her warm food. What if it was his, and this was a test of obedience? Respect? Henry observed her in curiosity. Loralai pulled her hand back, even as her eyes watched the food longingly. She swallowed, her stomach growling loudly again, pleading for her to take it, but she remained steadfast.

Henry spoke again, leaning down to get to her level. His expression was confused, but his eyes held no malice. “Eat,” he urged again, nodding to the tray and giving her a reassuring smile. Maybe Loralai’s singing had pleased him and this was a gift? But it was hardly an entertaining song. What had she done to deserve hot food? She reached towards it, watching him for a sign of disapproval, ready to tear back her arm if he became cross. He didn't seem to mind, though, so Loralai took the bread, lifting it to her mouth and having a bite.

It had been ages since she'd eaten real food.

Before she knew it, Loralai had gobbled down all the toast. She eyed the cup with cautious curiosity. Henry nodded when she looked up to him, and she reached for it, her shaky fingers dancing around the side until she found a handle. She lifted it to her mouth and took a slow sip.

Sweet warmth spread through her body, flowing through her blood and aching bones. She felt as if a massive blanket had been wrapped around her to keep her safe from the cold that had been her life. Taking another sip, the soft, milky sweetness danced around her taste buds. The stale bread she was used to was laughable compared to this! It was almost overwhelming but in the best kind of way. Loralai didn't even realize she had gulped it all down until she lifted the cup and found it empty. The heat of the drink made her drowsy, and she closed her eyes in satisfaction.

Henry took the cup from her, chuckling. "Was that good, kid?" He asked.

Loralai opened her eyes, wondering for a small moment why he was worried about it meeting her approval, and not the other way around. He must want a favor, then, but what--

Before Henry could speak again or Loralai could finish her thoughts, a knocking came from somewhere else in the house. He perked up, and stood, walking out of the room. Loralai watched him leave, sinking into her covers as if the blankets would protect her from whatever had arrived.

She heard two voices in the other room. Henry's was one, but the other was unfamiliar. It was female. The voices became louder, and Loralai became more nervous. Then the source of the female voice appeared in the doorway. Standing beside Henry was a woman who Loralai would say resembled a squirrel, if her memories of squirrels were correct. Her bushy hair was pulled into a frizzy ponytail, and her light blue eyes stuck out against her peanut complexion.

Loralai squirmed and sank further into the covers when the lady approached, holding a strange red bag.

The squirrelish lady smiled softly, but her eyes were sad as she examined Loralai. "Hi, sweetheart," She said gently, reaching out and stroking her hair before feeling her horn. "My name is Ellie."

Loralai watched her warily in response. Henry didn't seem concerned, so this woman must be of trust. Or perhaps she was here to punish Loralai for something?

"Can you speak English?" She asked, examining Loralai's broken horn, which had been damaged when she had been left alone.

Loralai blinked at the question, remaining silent. Hansen had always praised her for silence, so she hesitantly tilted her head as way of response.

Ellie nodded and turned to Henry, asking him something. He responded, glancing at Loralai. Something he said made Ellie perk up. She turned back to Loralai and attempted to pull the covers up. Loralai's heart thudded loudly against her chest as her arms shot down and held the covers tightly. She held her arm over the spot where her stomach was, her abdomen throbbing with pain.

Ellie got down on her knees beside the bed and said something she didn’t understand, placing her hand on Loralai’s. Why did they speak to her with so many strange words? She didn’t know what they were trying to say.

Loralai shook her head slightly. No no no no! Please, I’m sorry... please don’t hurt me... I know I deserve it, but... “Sorry..so-sorry sorry... sorr-ry!” She uttered, her face pleading for mercy. Her stomach screamed in pain as she clutched it tighter, but it was better than a beating. Her body shivered at the new contact, and as Ellie lifted one arm, the girl flailed her other out, wrenching it away to protect her stomach. She kicked, though her blankets held her legs conveniently out of the lady’s way. Lori wriggling in her grip, weak, but still giving Ellie a hard time, it seemed. The lady finally caught her arms and pinned them to the bed, enlisting Henry’s help to hold the girl still.

“Sweetheart, it’s okay. I promise. You’re okay,” The lady’s expression wasn’t angry, like Hansen’s was when he punished her. She looked a bit worried. Worried? Why worried? Loralai squirmed, whimpering in fear.

“Shhh...” The lady’s grip loosened slightly. “I need to look. Please?”

Maybe... if Loralai didn’t resist, the punishment would be milder? The girl went limp in Ellie’s grip, bracing herself for the worst.

Ellie gently lifted up the covers, then her tunic, revealing a stomach that was bruised black. Turning Loralai over as carefully as possible, Ellie's face darkened as she took in the ugly sight. She propped Loralai up on some cushions.

Ellie's fingers brushed her bruised skin, and Loralai failed to supress a whimper of pain.

"Shhh, I'm sorry. I need to look," Ellie soothed. Her fingers were gentle and cautious, careful not to press too hard anywhere. Loralai waited for the moment. A some point, she’d strike. When? Her hands explored her bruises with the delicacy of feathers. She had no doubt done this before. She examined Loralai with her eyes once more before turning to her bag and grabbing something. A syringe.

Loralai tensed as she brought it over. What would the toxin do? Would it poison her? Paralyze her? Loralai squirmed, pushing away even as Henry held her down, hushing her and seemingly trying to calm her down.

“...Nuh... Please...” Loralai uttered, shaking her head. Ellie brushed her face, looking up at her with an unreadable expression. Disappointment? Sadness? Why? She brought the needle closer even as Loralai trembled and wriggled to get away. Ellie carefully inserted it into her side, prompting a stifled yelp of pain from Loralai as her eyes watered and she shivered. Ellie pushed the piston down, and in another moment, the pain disappeared. The room warped when Loralai stared too long at any one spot, and her head spun.

“There... see?” Ellie stroked her face again, her eyes hopeful.

Was that it? Surely that wasn’t a good enough punishment, was it? Loralai remained limp on the pillow, nodding submissively. Maybe the toxin would give her terrible nightmares. She wouldn’t know, though. Her nightmares were already terrible enough.

Then, Ellie reaches down to her stomach again and prodded at it gently. Loralai whimpered and closed her eyes to brace for the pain, her heart speeding up again, but she felt none. She opened her eyes. Ellie was still prodding, but she couldn't feel it at all. After a moment, Ellie stopped, nodding to herself. She turned and spoke to Henry again for a while, using many odd words that Loralai didn't know.

After a moment, Ellie turned back to Loralai, combing through her hair and lifting her tunic to see the scars. She examined her hand and shook her head. "She needs a bath," she told Henry. Turning back to her, she asked, "Think you can stand, sweetheart?" She stood up.

Loralai perked up at the command. Stand? She slipped out of bed, kneeling at the lady’s side. Was this what they meant? She’d never been asked to stand on her feet before. Pets were meant to kneel, weren’t they?

Ellie’s expression changed partly to surprise, partly to worry. Disappointment? Should Lori get down lower? She bent herself down, bowing herself to the floor.

Ellie’s voice spoke, but Loralai wasn’t sure who to. Then, two arms scooped her up off of the floor with surprising gentleness. Henry lifted her in his arms, eyeing her with what seemed like disappointment. Loralai opened her mouth to apologize again, but Ellie spoke to him, and he nodded.

“It’s okay, kid,” Henry said to her, smiling sadly. “You’re okay.”

What did he mean?

Ellie left again, and Lori watched her go, confused.

"...wh..." Loralai tried, mustering the courage to speak to him.

"Shhh, don’t worry. She’ll be back soon.”

Loralai did as he said, and they walked through the house together to a room with a large window—covered by the blinds— and porcelain furniture. There was a large mirror on the opposite side of the window, and a large counter sat in front of it with two small divots in it accompanied by faucets standing over them. There was another door in the room and a small glass room beside that— which held a rather huge faucet inside with an odd cover. Beside the glass room was a large porcelain bowl that could likely fit three of her comfortably. It had a faucet as well. Instead of the floors being wooden or carpeted like the rest of the house, they were made of cold tile.

Loralai blinked, her eyes drifting around the strange room. Henry set her gently down for a moment and went to the large bowl, turning two knobs beside the faucet, resulting in a jet of water spraying out of it. Loralai knelt on the ground obediently. Was he going to burn her? She still couldn’t feel her stomach. He adjusted the knobs a couple of times, feeling the water occasionally. Then he reached down, fiddling with something at the bottom. Loralai heard a clunk and then noticed steam rising from the bowl. She hesitantly got up, her curiosity getting the better of her. The water was filling up in the bowl. Henry squirted an odd, thick liquid in, and the smell of flowers assaulted Loralai's nose, causing her to sniffle as it made her head spin even more. Bubbles and foam began forming in the water, churning near the jet of water. Loralai reached to feel it, and a chill ran up her body at it's warmth. It wasn’t burning, just pleasantly warm and enveloping.

"Just a moment until Ellie gets back, ok?" Henry said, going out of the room for a moment again. When he returned, he was carrying the wooden chair he'd been sitting in before. He disappeared again after setting it by the porcelain bowl. Loralai watched him go in curious silence. She heard voices outside the room again but worried that if she tried to walk over to investigate, she would trip and fall— her legs were shaking more than she had thought they would, only steadied by the porcelain bowl. It had been a while since she'd stood. These people, Ellie and Henry, were strange. This place was strange, too. Loralai felt as if she weren’t allowed here, even though Henry didn’t seem to think so. It was too nice. She’d only ever been used to a cold, dark, grimy basement. Were they just giving her a taste of what she could never hope to have? Lori stuck her finger back into the water. Perhaps they’d give her this once, a nice soft bed, a warm bath, a good meal, and then they’d take it away. That would be the punishment. So Lori decided to enjoy this as long as it lasted. Maybe if she payed close attention to these moments she could revisit them when they did lock her away in the basement. Pretend she was still there.

Or maybe... this is just how things will be from now on, whispered a hopeful voice in her head. Maybe...

Loralai snapped out of her thoughts when Ellie walked back in carrying a towel and something else in her hand. “Alright. Let’s clean you up,” she spoke again and smiled, walking over and turning off the faucet. “What do you think of these clothes?”

#conditioned whumpee #caretaker #oc fic #whump

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angstyryguy · 4 years ago

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A Digital Fever

no pairings

no spoilers for anything in the series, it’s just somewhere during season 1

themes: whump, sickfic

words: 3668

Summary:

Ryan is a Walker and Walkers do not get sick. So when Ryan goes to school with a high fever and his powers in turmoil, what else can happen than something bad?

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A common cold was not something the Ryan Walker could have. He didn’t get sick. That was his whole thing.

...Apart from the whole “controlling technology with his mind" of course. That was still an important thing.

Oh, and the fact that he was one of the pilots of Mech X4…

Yeah, he actually had a couple of things, but that was beside the point. The point was, he didn’t get sick, so now that his nose was a little runny and his brain was a little slow as he woke up from the infuriatingly loud blaring of his alarm clock, he was fine. It didn’t matter that he swayed a bit as he stood from his bed, or that he didn’t feel like eating his mom’s newest experimental breakfast food. Everything was totally–

“Hey, you okay Ry-guy?”

“Fine.”

Ryan and Mark were seated at the kitchen table as their mom was preparing the batter for her food truck's famous pancakes. She eyed Ryan with her scanning motherly eyes as her spatula was frozen mid-spin in the bowl. She didn’t look convinced in the slightest.

Ryan quickly grabbed his fork to stuff his mouth with eggs. He looked her in the eyes as he chewed. See? he tried to show his mom, I’m totally fine.

She sighed and set about mixing her batter again, seemingly content enough that he was at least eating now. He was glad her motherly instincts didn’t mean she could actually read minds. He really didn't want her to know just how hard it was to swallow even the smallest bite. His stomach turned even as he thought about it.

He shuffled his food around on his plate with his fork for a bit, making it seem as if he had touched more of it than just that one bite, and then quickly left the kitchen table. He grabbed his bag just as Mark scraped his plate clean. Show off.

“Come on, we’re going to be late,” Ryan said, already heading out of the door. He couldn’t actually go to school without Mark, since he was his ride, but acting like he was leaving without him helped with the pressure to get Mark to follow. He wanted this day to be over as quickly as possible. Mark gave a quick goodbye smile to mom and dashed off after Ryan, his own bag sloppily thrown over one shoulder.

“Hey wait up!”

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School was dreaded for a reason, but when you were definitely not sick, it was even worse. The first half of the day went by slow, like really slow, but manageable. Lessons were boring, teachers were not too terrible and the low buzz of the school board, the computers, smartphones and lamps were not too distracting.

No, if only lessons had been his school day, he would have survived it.

But he hadn’t thought about lunch time. The canteen was filled with chaos and noise. His mind felt like it was being crushed little by little with every yell and every time someone laughed. All the phones of all the students were buzzing and ringing and going off at the same time, or at least it felt like it. Nails tapped on screens and batteries hummed in disharmony. The constant noises pained his ear drums and filled his head with a hundred stabbing needles.

He was so overwhelmed from the sound, he couldn’t help but flinch a little when suddenly a hand patted him on his shoulder.

Spyder appeared before him. “Are you gonna stand in the doorway the whole time?" A mischievous grin spread on his face. "Because I will gladly take your sandwiches if you aren’t up for it you know? Maybe then I can finally build a tower of cheese. Man, I have always wanted to do that.”

Harris punched Spyder in his side. “No one’s taking Ryan’s sandwiches, dude. Now, are we gonna go to our table or what? I want to finish up on my project before the next term starts.”

Ryan softly shook his head to get rid of the slowly creeping nausea and to try and shake away all the sounds, but he wasn’t successful at all. No matter, he could hold on until he could be home and safely in his bed again. Just half a day left.

“Yeah, yeah let’s go, I’m starving.”

The trio sat at their usual table and as always, Spyder and Harris lost themselves in a debate over something incredibly stupid. This time it was about the best kind of sandwich to ever exist. Spyder insisted that his abomination of a sandwich, with salmon, cheese, peanut butter and chocolate spread, topped off with a little bit of mashed potatoes, was the most delicious thing in the world. Meanwhile Harris was sure that combination of flavors shouldn't even be legal.

Ryan sighed as he tuned out the voices of his friends and instead took out his phone. Maybe some dumb video's would help him ignore his throbbing headache for a while. He clicked on one of Cassie's reports on the school's kickbox team. Of course, his brother was the big star of the video, and normally he didn't like watching Mark get so much praise, but he couldn't care less right now. He just had to watch something. Anything to distract himself.

Just as Cassie went over the most recent victory of the team, a loud voice broke through it.

"Hi sweetie, how's your first day?" The voice was loud, but Ryan was sure it came from the other side of the canteen, where a freshman was calling with his mom. Why would he set the call on speaker?

Ryan turned back and ignored it, but soon another sound interrupted his video. The annoying 8-bit soundtrack of a mobile game echoed through his mind, the sound of clashing swords and yelling characters making it even more annoying. What stupid kid let his sound on extra loud when he was gaming during school break? A drop of sweat slid down his temple. Cheering rang in his ears as the kid cleared his level and it hurt. It was loud and awful and his head was swimming and throbbing and pulsing with every beat.

Ryan shivered in his thick hoodie.

"No dad, you don't have to pick me up," another student said as he was calling from a few tables away.

Ryan huffed and kept staring at his phone, even though the he didn't register anything Cassis said in her video. He still kept trying.

Tap, tap, tap. In the row for the food, someone was texting their friends, every tap with their thumb banging against his skull.

Ryan looked to his left. A teacher was checking his news feed, sirens wailing, people screaming, shouting - some video about the most recent monster attack. To his right, a girl was filming a video with her friends, laughing, playing music, typing a caption and then laughing again. They were so loud.

More videos, more games, more typing, more voices. Every second it got louder, every second it seemed to penetrate further and further into his mind.

Tap Tap Tap.

Screaming.

Laughing.

Sirens.

Cheering.

Tap Tap Tap.

Ryan clutched his phone tighter and shut his eyes, willing for the ever growing buzzing of the lamps and phones and laptops and screens to stop.

It all had to stoppleasestopit'stoomuchtooloudMAKEITSTOP-

The sizzling of something burning made his mind snap out of it. Ryan quickly looked down where his phone lay in his hands, broken and blackened, a small trail of smoke coming from it.

Oops.

His eyes darted up to look if anyone had seen that - and to his relief no one did - so he quickly hid his phone under the table and let it slide into his bag. He would deal with that later.

Since he had no way of distracting himself anymore, and the sounds around him were now even making his vision grow wobbly as they pounded against his brain, Ryan knew he had to make a run for it. It was not like he had actually wanted to eat school food anyway, so no loss there.

"Hey guys?" He said, his left arm smoothly disappearing under the table. "I think I left my mech-link in the classroom. I'll go get it. See you later okay?"

Before the other two could answer, Ryan stood up and turned around, tucking his left arm in the pocket of his hoodie so they couldn't see his mech-link still nicely around his wrist. Briskly, he walked away, ignoring how his eyes couldn't focus or how he could throw up any second. He was fine.

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Okay, maybe, just maybe, Ryan was not fine. After the small incident with his phone, he had accidentally also fried the teacher's smartwatch during PE when the teacher had blown his whistle right next to Ryan's ear out of nowhere. On top of that, he had also derailed someone's electronic car when he had been waiting on Mark outside of the school and the speakers had blasted the ringing bell right above his head. So you could say he was a little bit jumpy and a lot bit nauseous, and maybe not totally fine, but he would manage. He was Ryan Walker and Walkers didn't get sick.

Whatever. It didn’t matter if he finally admitted to himself that something was wrong, because as soon as school was out, he and Mark had headed straight to Mech X4 when they had gotten a monster alert.

Sick or not, Ryan was the only one who could stop it, so he had to power through. He could do this. Probably. Maybe.

As the gang made their way out of the awful elevator and to their stations, Ryan had to physically swallow down the urge to puke. That elevator hadn't helped in the slightest.

Ryan clicked the belt around his middle and the robot rose from its hiding spot. A rough cough came from him as he tried to move the robot into kneeling position, but he played it off as an awkward cough instead of the start of bile rising in his throat. He had to concentrate or otherwise he'd short-circuit the robot.

However, the miserable attempt didn't go unnoticed.

"Hey man, you okay?" Spyder asked from behind him.

Ryan nodded, but regretted immediately as his head spun with the sudden motion.

"Yeah, of course, I'm fine," he said and readied his feet to jump. Spyder seemed to want to ask something else, but Ryan cut him off.

"Mech, Execute!" he yelled and jumped away. Now was not the time to worry about himself. They had people to save.

"The monster just popped up next to the river at the other side of the city, what would it want there?" Harris asked out loud. He was furiously typing and checking the screens as he followed the beast's movements on his maps. "Wait, where is it – oh. Oh no."

Mark bent over the rails to look at the screens. "What? What is it dingus?"

"The monster! It's heading straight for us! How is it so fast?!"

Ryan's head shot up when he noticed the beast flying straight at them at a rapid speed. "Guys, it's here!"

He barely had enough time to raise his arms in front of his head before the monster crashed right into them, hitting Mech X4 with such devastating force that Ryan was shot into the air, a couple of cables exploding behind him from the rough impact.

"Ryan are you okay?!" Mark yelled.

Ryan swallowed and lifted his head from the cold floor. "Yeah I'm good," he said as he carefully stood up again. The giant monster in front of them was already readying itself for the next attack.

Ryan rolled his shoulders and raised his fists in fighting position. He ignored the cold sweat building on his forehead. "Let's finish this quick. Spyder?"

"One plasma punch coming right up." Spyder slid his chair back from the desk and grabbed a hold of his weapon arm.

"Ready?"

"Ready!"

Ryan and Spyder simultaneously drew back their arms and swung them back as Mech X4 did the same with his glowing fist. The monster had been distracted, working up the power to hit again, but was instead swept off his feet when the fist hit full force. It fell to the ground with a large growl, but was still moving.

"Again!" Ryan yelled, already jumping up again to do it.

"Wait dude, it needs to recharge first, we need to buy some time!" Spyder frantically punched his buttons as he read from the screen. "If we do it now, it will be like a grandma punch!" He stopped mid-punching his buttons as he thought about something. "Wait. Nevermind, my grandma would punch this dude into tomorrow. Okay what about, if we used it right now it would be like if Harris punched it!"

Harris spun in his chair with a "not cool, son," before he got back to his scanning and getting up the shields. Mark and Ryan silently grinned. It was an accurate comparison.

"Okay, Harris, how are we with the shields?"

"Almost done and… now they're up!"

And just in time too, because as soon as Ryan turned back to the large window, he saw the monster getting back to his feet again. It let out a low growl as its wings spread out in warning.

"Get ready, he's coming back!"

The robot stepped back as Ryan raised his fists and braced for the next attack. The monster darted forward, its claws barely missing the chest of the robot as Ryan ducked out of the way. Then, it lifted itself on his back legs and rose into the sky, its wings harshly pushing away the wind. As the gang was too distracted by the strong winds that almost pushed the robot off his feet, they didn't see the tip of the monster's tail, heading straight for the head. It clashed against the shield and bounced back, while in the process it successfully pushed Ryan and the robot out of balance, both failing to the ground with a thud.

Ryan grunted his way through the pain as he got back up. They were almost done with this and then he could hide himself in his blankets for the rest of the day. Almost there, almost done.

The beast lashed out again as it clawed against the shield. It seemed to try to rip it open.

"The shields won't hold this for long! Spyder is the plasma punch ready?"

"Almost…" Spyder tapped impatiently against his desk, his eyes glued to his screen.

"Ryan watch out!" Mark yelled. Ryan lifted his arms in front of his head just as the monster ripped away the shield, the pixels giving way as the energy ran out. The monster flew forward and extended its claws as it headed for the head. Without the shields, all Ryan could do was hold his ground and cover himself, not even finding an opening to strike back.

"Spyder?!"

"Almost…"

The beast struck out with a right hook and got around Ryan's defenses, punching the robot hard against his head. Ryan whipped back from the impact and clutched his jaw. That hurt. His eyes watered and refused to focus anymore. A shiver ran down his spine, even if he himself felt like he was burning from the inside.

"Spyder?!"

"I'll say when it's ready!"

The monster hit again and again, sparks flying around the control center as Ryan bounced around in his harness. He was literally being beaten to a pulp and all his strength failed him. He was too weak.

He was… not fine at all.

Mark was pacing across the deck, checking his screens and performing quick damage control. "Spyder, we can't take much more!"

Spyder spun in his chair and pulled back his attack handle. "It's ready!"

Immediately, Ryan stumbled to his feet and raised his fists. Please let this be the final attack, he wished desperately. His mind screamed at him to never move again and just give up, but he just had to do one more thing. Just this one thing. He could survive that. Ryan jumped into the air and brought his fist down with so much force that his knuckles burned. The hit landed, the robot's fist piercing straight through the monster's chest as it de-transformed into ooze and splashed to the ground.

For a moment it was quiet, and then the team of Mech X4 burst out in cheers. They had finished it! Ryan smiled weakly as he sighed. His muscles burned, his vision swum, but they had done it. Finally. He wiped his sweat of his brow and roughly dropped to the floor, his legs giving out from under him. Now on his knees, he unbuckled his belt and let the harness fly up into its storage. When his hand returned from the motion however, something caught his eye. There was red on his hand. His eyes widened. There was blood on his hand. he was bleeding. That monster must have done more damage than he thought.

“Hey guys…” he said, his voice weak and barely audible. No one heard as the rest of the team congratulated each other with their victory. Ryan shivered.

“Guys…” was the final thing he said before he crashed down onto the floor, his vision and mind going blank as he did not even notice how all the lights and screens in the robot flickered and died out with him.

--------------

“...Ryan.”

“Ryan!”

“RYAN!”

Ryan jolted awake and immediately regretted it as he bend over and lost his diner from the day before. Someone patted him on the back as he retched, but his eyes were too blurry with tears to see who it was. Lights flickered around them.

The same hands placed him back down on the bed when he was done, wiping his forehead with a cold towel. Ryan sighed and closed his eyes again, already worn out from keeping his head upright.

“Get well soon…” Someone said and then he fell asleep once more.

---------------

The next time he woke, he didn’t get the urge to puke as soon as he opened his eyes. That was good news at least. A little dazed, he looked around the room. The Medbay. Of course.

“Guys! Guys, he’s awake!” Spyder’s voice yelled from too close next to him. In reflex, Ryan shut his eyes tight and groaned, his head not happy with the loud noise.

Two sets of footsteps entered the Medbay as the door slid open.

“Bro, are you okay?!” Ryan opened his eyes and saw Mark rushing towards him, sitting down next to the bed and placing a warm hand on his shoulder. On the older shoulder came Harris’ hand as his best friend shot a worried look at him.

“You scared us buddy,” he said and slightly squeezed his shoulder.

Ryan smiled weakly as he closed his eyes and sighed. “Sorry about that…”

“Do you wanna tell us what happened?” Harris said, his attention already going to the screens next to the bed to check on Ryan’s vitals.

Ryan slowly opened his eyes. “Guess that monster was stronger than I thought.”

“Nah man, that was like a level 5 monster. It wasn’t even made of the red ooze, just the orange,” Spyder said with a shrug, “You normally beat down level 10 monsters with ease.”

“Where did you come up with this rating system?” Harris asked confused.

“It’s just what the collector’s cards say, I didn’t make it.”

“We have collector's cards?” Mark asked eagerly.

Harris shot them both an incredulous look before he turned his attention back to Ryan with an eye roll.

“The scanners are picking up a high temperature, on top of signs of dehydration and not enough nutritions to give your body the energy to heal as fast. Ryan, did you eat at all yesterday?”

Ryan averted his eyes to stare at the scanner beside him. “I didn’t.”

Mark furrowed his eyebrows. “Dude, why wouldn’t you eat anything and still go to fight? Are you stupid? You could have die–”

Ryan flinched as Harris stopped Mark with a gesture of his hand. He shook his head at the older one of the Walker brothers.

“Ryan,” he said, his tone far more calm than Mark’s, “why didn’t you just say you were sick? We could’ve found another way to defeat the monster.”

“No we wouldn’t!” Ryan snapped, his eyes widening as soon as the words left his mouth. he hadn't meant to say it in that tone. He sighed. “Look, just, we all know that we need the robot to defeat the monsters and that we can do nothing with the robot without my powers. I had to fight. It was the only option. And honestly?” Ryan slowly pushed himself in sitting position with his arms. “I was fine doing it. Just got a nasty wound, that’s all.”

Harris shook his head. “This wasn’t just a nasty wound Ryan. On top of your fever, you have several bruised ribs and a large wound to your head. You’re lucky it was mostly superficial or it could have done serious damage to your brain.”

Mark nodded and patted Ryan’s head while Ryan weakly tried to push him off. “You hear that Dingus? No more fighting when you have a fever alright?”

Ryan successfully swatted away Mark’s hand. “Yeah, yeah.”

“You have to promise.”

“I promise Mark, I promise.” Ryan smiled softly and looked at his team. “Thank you though.”

“For what?” Spyder asked.

“For caring about me like this,” Ryan said and lay back down. He was tired. “I really don’t know what I could’ve done without any of you guys…” His voice got quieter as his eyelids closed, but before he fell asleep he still heard the “awww’s” around him. Yeah, he would definitely get teased about this later.

For now though, he meant it.

He loved his team.

#mech x4 #ryan walker #mark walker #harris harris jr #spyder #whump #fan fiction #sick fic #happy ending #angst #fluff #best friends #season 1 #a digital fever

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jedivoodoochile · 4 years ago

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Release date : 12th May 1972

The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street

First manager Andrew Loog Oldham said in the sleeve notes to the Stones’ first album: ‘The Rolling Stones are more than a group, they are a way of life’, and of no album is that truer than Exile On Main Street. The legend persists that it was all created in the dank basement of the former Nazi headquarters in Villefranche-Sur-Mer in the Summer of 1971, although a large portion was overdubbed in sessions in Los Angeles, where other songs were created from scratch. Some of the other recordings predated the trip to France, having been recorded in the UK, at Olympic Studios in Barnes.

However, the SPIRIT of the basement prevails throughout and it is the murky swampiness of the whole endeavour, extending to Mick Jagger’s all but indecipherable vocals, that have seen it acclaimed as the Stones’ most complete statement and possibly the most rock album the band ever made.

The guitar sound is largely due to Ry Cooder, whose involvement in the sessions of 1969’s Performance soundtrack, showed the possibilities of the ‘open G’ tuning on the guitar. Crucially, the guitar is tuned to a chord, but in Keith Richards’ book Life, he describes how he discarded the 6th (lowest) string, giving the lowest string (now a G) the role of a drone, quite appropriate to the blues. It also allowed the mega-riffs of the Mark 2 Stones’ biggest hits: Honky Tonk Women and Brown Sugar, which underpinned new member Mick Taylor’s melodic country/blues lines, melding to create a whole new style. Even now, the first chords of either of the above will pack a dance floor anywhere in the UK. With reference to Exile, the most prominent use of the 5-string open-tuned guitar is on Rocks Off, Happy, Ventilator Blues, Tumbling Dice and All Down The Line.

The Stones had recruited the sensitive 20-year old Mick Taylor in 1969 from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, where he became the third stellar lead guitarist to play the blues in Mayall’s band, following Eric Clapton and Peter Green. His first sessions were for the Let It Bleed album, overdubbing guitar on Country Honk and Live With Me plus some pivotal parts for the Honky Tonk Women single on the 1st June session that ended at 3:15AM.

Honky Tonk Women went to #1 in the UK and the US in July 1969, followed by the Let It Bleed album in December, another triumph. Any doubts created by the subsequent 18-month gap in releases were dispelled by the release of Brown Sugar in April 1971 (another US #1), followed in May by Sticky Fingers, possibly the strongest Stones album to date, and one that showcased the guitar interplay between Keith Richards and Mick Taylor, alongside some great songs, including Sway, Wild Horses and Bitch.

Having recorded sessions at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London, which included tracks like Stop Breaking Down and Sweet Virginia, The Stones had continued recording and writing in the Summer of 1970 at Stargroves, Jagger’s English country house, with the Stones’ own mobile recording studio, a move that became standard operating procedure for other UK bands, including Led Zeppelin. The mobile came in handy when the Stones discovered that in signing with US manager Allen Klein, their copyrights had reverted to him, so when they severed their connection with him in 1970, their income came under threat. They were also in a cash flow crisis, at a time when the UK taxman took 93% of high earners’ income, so they felt that the only thing to do was to get out of town, planning to spend at least 21 months outside the UK from 1971 onwards.

According to Bill Wyman, the band had at least working versions of seven tracks to take with them, including Tumbling Dice (original title: Good Time Women), Black Angel (which became Sweet Black Angel), Stop Breaking Down and Shine A Light.

In early April 1971, the band decamped to France, Mick Jagger marrying Bianca in St. Tropez on May 12th and honeymooning on the Riviera, before settling in Paris with his new bride. Keith Richards rented a villa, Nellcôte, in Villefranche-Sur-Mer, near Nice, while the other band members rented houses further to the west. The basement at Nellcôte became a makeshift studio to record using the band’s mobile recording studio.

In interviews with Ian Fortnam for the 2010 reissue of Exile, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts gave their contemporary perspectives on what went down: ‘They couldn’t get you in jail, so they put the economics on you, the old double whammy,’ said Keith. ‘So the feeling within the band was we’ve got to show them we’re made of sterner stuff and prove you couldn’t break the Stones just by kicking them out of England.’

The band again called on the services of their mobile studio and parked it outside Keith’s villa in order to carry on the recordings for the next album, the second on their own Rolling Stones records label, although according to Keith Richards, that wasn’t their first intention. They had been planning to look for studios in Nice or Cannes, but in the event, the band came to Keith, with the Stones mobile in residence from June 7th.

American producer Jimmy Miller had supervised the two previous albums, but the Nellcôte sessions were much more difficult to coordinate, partly because not all the band were around at the same time. Recording continued sporadically for some months until the French authorities began to apply pressure to rid themselves of the Stones and their entourage, who by then were engaged in various levels of illegal behaviour.

Drummer Charlie Watts was about three hours away, in Thoiras, west of Avignon, and bassist Bill Wyman and guitarist Mick Taylor were ensconced near Grasse, so at least one of the songs on Exile was made without them, although the album credits have never been clear about who actually did what. In the case of one of the most Stones-sounding recordings, very few of the Stones were initially on it. Happy, a showcase for Keith Richards’ vocals and guitar, has producer Jimmy Miller on drums and Keith doubling on bass. The basics were laid down between noon and 4PM one afternoon, with just Miller on drums, Bobby Keys on baritone saxophone, and Richards on the rest, including the lyrics and lead vocal.

Charlie Watts loved Jimmy Miller. ‘I thought he was the best producer we ever had. Jimmy was a hands-on type of guy. When we played he could never keep still, so he’d always be banging something; a drum or a cowbell’ [check out the start of Honky Tonk Women]. Miller insisted that Charlie‘s drums be tested in as many of the basement’s labyrinth of rooms as possible, before settling on one that had the right balance of natural ambience and proximity to the guitar players to maintain the vibe. It took a week or two to get the setup right, but after that, things apparently settled down.

The schedule did become a bit strange, as recalled by Keith Richards. ‘It became known as Keith Time, which in Bill Wyman’s case made him a little cranky. Not that he said anything. At first, we were going to start at two PM [every day], but that never happened. So we said we’d start at 6PM, which usually meant around 1 AM. Charlie didn’t seem to mind.’

But when Keith was on form, he would deliver, as with Rocks Off, which, according to engineer Andy Johns, involved a playback to Keith at 4 or 5AM. Keith went to sleep in mid-track, so Johns took that as the cue to get his own head down, driving the necessary half-hour home. He was just nodding off when the phone rang – it was Keith, asking where he’d got to. So Johns drove back to Nellcote – another half hour – at which point Keith picked up his Telecaster and played the second guitar part on Rocks Off, straight through.

The sessions were at least the backbone of the album. Said Keith: ‘A lot of the songs started off with an idea. Mick’s playing harp, you join in and before you knew it you had a track in the making and an idea working. It might not be the finished track; you’re not trying to force it.’

There was also much space for the interplay between Richards and lead guitarist Mick Taylor. Keith: ‘Brian [Jones] and I would swap roles. There was no defined line between lead and rhythm guitar, but with Mick’s style I had to readjust the shape of the band and it was beautifully lyrical. He was a lovely lead player. I loved playing with Mick Taylor.’

Some of the songs were collaborations, like All Down The Line, which, according to Keith Richards, he started with the basic idea of ‘I hear it coming, all down the line’ and handed it over to Mick Jagger to develop. Richards was extremely prolific and came up with many songs which didn’t eventually make on to the final release, including Head In The Toilet Blues, Leather Jackets (although Bill Wyman lists it as having been recorded at Olympic), Windmill, I Was Just A Country Boy, Dancing In The Light,(noted as possibly being one of Mick Jagger’s), Bent Green Needles, Labour Pains and Pommes de Terre.

Richards described the self-imposed pressure that he and Jagger felt when requiring themselves to come up with song ideas in anticipation of the arrival of the other musicians. Casino Boogie came about when inspiration was lacking and they decided to follow the William Burroughs ‘cut up’ technique (also used occasionally by David Bowie), whereby a book or newspaper is disassembled into component words, which are then re-assembled to create a new lyrical direction.

So, contrary to popular belief, the whole album wasn’t recorded in the South Of France, although most of the backing tracks were. As Keith Richards notes in his book Life: ‘What we brought to LA from France was only raw material for Exile. The real bare bones, no overdubs. On almost every song we’d said, we’ve got to put a chorus on here, we’ve got to put some chicks in there, we need extra percussion on that. So LA was basically to put the flesh on. For four or five months in LA in early 1972, we mixed and overdubbed Exile On Main Street. According to Bill Wyman, most of the Stones flew to LA on November 29th, 1971, followed later by the Wymans, for sessions that went on til February 1972.

It seems to have been planned as a double from an early stage, Richards mentioning ‘all business advice’ that warned against it. Which, to be fair to whoever was dishing out the advice (probably Ahmet Ertegun and Atlantic Records), was usually correct – double LPs had to be competitively priced, but they cost twice as much to manufacture, were heavier to ship, and their length and quantity of material meant they were harder for the public to assimilate, more difficult to review objectively, and took longer to get on the airwaves, at a time when multiple singles releases off an album was not the norm.

At Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, the basic tracks of at least Rip This Joint, Shake Your Hips, Casino Boogie, Happy, Rocks Off, Turd On The Run and Ventilator Blues were given numerous overdubs, including all the piano and keyboard parts, all lead and backing vocals, plus more overdubs of guitar and bass. The sessions included new recordings of Torn And Frayed and Loving Cup and saw Mick Jagger coming into his own, finishing off the vocals and bringing in other contributors.

A host of other musicians assisted the Stones on the LA overdubs, including Nicky Hopkins and Ian ‘Stu’ Stewart on pianos, and a mass of backing vocalists including Gram Parsons, Clydie King, Joe Green, Venetta Fields, Tamiya Lynn, Shirley Goodman, Dr. John, Kathi McDonald and Jess Kirkland. Jazz sessioneer Bill Plummer added upright bass to Rip This Joint and Turd On The Run, Al Perkins from Manassas played pedal steel guitar on Torn And Frayed, Billy Preston contributed keyboards to Shine A Light, and Richard Washington played marimba on Sweet Black Angel. Stalwart Bobby Keys played sax, with Jim Price on trumpet and organ on Torn And Frayed, while producer Jimmy Miller played drums and percussion where necessary.

The first hearing that the public and broadcasters had of Exile was the single, Tumbling Dice, one of the most multi-layered, murky, uneven recordings any band has ever released, and yet it is probably one of the Stones’ five finest records. There is something to listen at every turn, the rhythm is insistent, the lyrics are compelling, there’s rollicking piano, sweet Mick Taylor licks, (and his bass playing, the loudest thing on the track, is exactly wrong, but exactly right). Mick Jagger’s lyrics are almost indecipherable and mixed so far back they’re practically only a texture, but the whole thing is the Stones personified – far from perfect, but still fantastic.

As Keith Richards said in 2010: ‘Mick’s always seemed to have something of an ambivalent attitude to Exile… ‘, and here indeed are Jagger’s comments from 2003: ‘Exile is not one of my favourite albums, although I think the record does have a particular feeling. I’m not too sure how great the songs are, but put together it’s a nice piece. However, when I listen to Exile it has some of the worst mixes I’ve ever heard. I’d love to remix the record, not just because of the vocals, but because generally, I think it sounds lousy.’ Well, it could certainly be mixed with more clarity, but to do that would be to lose its essential Stones-ness, which would upset the millions to have bought it thus far.

Preceded by the UK and US Top 10 hit Tumbling Dice, Exile On Main St. was released in May 1972. It was an immediate commercial success, reaching #1 worldwide just as the band embarked on their celebrated 1972 American Tour, their first for three years. The second, and only other, single from the album, Happy, got to #22 in the US in July.

Many critics judged Exile On Main St. to be a ragged and impenetrable record at the time of its release, but the UK’s Richard Williams, writing in Melody Maker, praised the album in a review entitled ‘The Stones: Quite Simply the Best’. He said the album ‘is definitely going to take its place in history’ and ‘it’s the best album they’ve ever made. This is an album which utterly repulses the sneers and arrows of outraged put-down artists. Once and for all, it answers any questions about their ability as rock ‘n’ rollers.’

Keith Richards has the last word: ‘We didn’t start off intending to make a double album; we just went down to the south of France to make an album and by the time we’d finished we said, ‘We want to put it all out.’ I was no longer interested in hitting Number One in the charts every time. What I want to do is good shit – if it’s good they’ll get it some time down the road.’

#the rolling stones #exile on main street

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dustedmagazine · 6 years ago

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Dust Vol. 4, Number 11

Blink and 2018 is just about over, at least in terms of music releases, at least if you don’t follow best ofs, mainstream hip hop or holiday music. As we close in on another year of amazing music—but what year isn’t, really?— Dusted takes a moment to dig through the piles and write some short, mostly positive reviews of albums that might have gotten slept on. As usual, writers follow their interests through expansive drone, transcendental folk, incendiary free-jazz, metal, punk and gospel-tinged Americana. Contributors this time included Ethan Covey, Justin Cober-Lake, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer and Jonathan Shaw.

Bitchin Bajas — Rebajas (Drag City)

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Bitchin Bajas are a band made for deep exploration. Their hallucinatory, drone-based excursions are like an old couch — sink in, stretch out and stay a while. Rebajas, released this fall by Drag City, makes that task simple. The seven CD set features most everything the band has released since their debut in 2010: eight full albums and their contribution to various split albums. If you’re dipped into Bitchin Bajas previously, you’ll know what you’re getting. (And if you haven’t there’s little chance this package, or this review of it, is where you’d start.) That said, for those with a long drive, or a monk-like attention span, settling in and tracking the territory of the band’s evolution is rewarding. While the themes — of drone, calm, repeating bass and synth figures — remain constant, the band isn’t a one trick (or one note?) pony. Deep listening uncovers the variety between shorter, bloop-and-hum pieces from Tones/Zones (Disc 1) and the meditative, cycling layers of “2303” from last year’s Bajas Fresh (Disc 7). And there are moments that peek up from the soup: “Bajas Ragas” adds hand percussion and a loping bass line for one of their most engaging concoctions—fit for a slow-motion dance floor in a submerged city of the future. Missing, unfortunately, is their 2016 collaborative album with Bonnie “Prince” Billy, the excellently-titled Epic Jammers And Fortunate Little Ditties. As is this intriguing gem of Rolling Stones covers. Yet, with just shy of seven hours of music, I doubt many will sweat their absence. There’s more than enough to disappear into. And, if this review hasn’t spelled it simply enough, this is quite possibly the trippiest music out there. So, set your intentions and bon voyage.

Ethan Covey

Nathan Bowles—Plainly Mistaken (Paradise of Bachelors)

Plainly Mistaken by Nathan Bowles

Nathan Bowles, banjoist, percussionist and citizen of New Weird America, departs from his plain-spoken directness in this fourth album and makes a welcome detour into open-ended psychedelia. Right from the dreamy, drifty “Now If You Remember,” you sense a soft-focus open-ness to otherworldly experience. The cut, written by the seven-year-old Jessica Constable and included on Julie Tippett’s 1976 Sunset Glow, shifts and shimmers in ways that Bowles percussive banjo ditties have rarely done. Yet the album’s transcendental heart comes in “The Road Reversed,” where a pounding, dancing rhythm kicks among long, velvety bowed tones, and banjo notes bend into raga-like half-tones. Folk Americana frolics amid deep-toned Eastern meditation, and where one begins and the other ends is hard to say and, also, beside the point. There are, for sure, some traditional touchpoints—“Elk River Blues” (a tune by Ernie Carpenter that Bowles revisits here), “Fresh and Fairly So” and “Stump Sprout” will all satisfy fans of the twang and the twitch. Yet what lingers, for me, are the ones that stray from past experience, the slow, solo ambiguities of “Umbra,” the shadowy flurries and shifting dissonances of “Girih Tiles.” What Bowles’ well-turned work has lacked till now is mystery, and here it is at last.

Jennifer Kelly

Mike Farris — Silver & Stone (Compass)

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Mike Farris's long, strange career flamed briefly with the alt-rockers Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies in the 1990s. After that, Farris rejected his rock 'n' roll lifestyle and grungy sound in a move toward gospel and soul. The surprise of the transition wasn't the partier-to-Christian story but the discovery of how strong Farris's vocals are. On Silver & Stone, he has less of a gospel focus, but down in some swampy soul music (with bits of brighter pop), he shows off that voice. He's willing to take on Bill Withers (“Hope She'll Be Happier”) and Sam Cooke (“I'll Coming Running Back to You”) — not tasks usually recommended — and he comes out of it just fine.

The album fits a sort of arc for his solo career. It lacks the new-convert punch and joy of Salvation in Lights, but it shifts into more thoughtful reflection. Where he had been celebrating, now he's considering how to live. The explicit religion has mostly disappeared, but Farris's songs still run on hope and a big heart. The sorts of ideas at work on Silver & Stone synthesize on “When Mavis Sings,” a tribute to Mavis Staples and serves as a sort of musical and personal model. Farris, whether in rock or soul, the church or the club, presents a focused vision with enough groove to carry it through.

Justin Cober-Lake

Tim Feeney — Burrow (Marginal Frequency)

MFCS K | Tim Feeney - Burrow by Marginal Frequency

Burrow can be read as both an explanation and an instruction. Percussionist Tim Feeney begins each of this tape’s four pieces (two per side, and if you purchase a download you’ll get a file of each side, not each piece) in similar fashion, beating out a pattern with minimal variation. As the performance progresses monotony gives way to fascination as Feeney slowly reveals a beat’s potential variations. At a certain point things change. Are you hearing more because he threw something on the drum skin, or because your concentration is unlocking that drum-strike’s secrets, or maybe both? Treat this tape like a meditation guide, one that helps you to dig into the sound and see what treasures you find.

Bill Meyer

Forever House — Eaves (Infrequent Seams)

Eaves by Forever House

Forever House makes wildly complicated songs whose improvisatory flights and furies are held together, barely, by Meaghan Burke’s keening, swooping melodies. A lurid aura hangs over these difficult, jarring compositions, witchy incantations invoking freaks, body doubles and spiders. Burke’s voice is velvety dark, draping over odd-shaped rhythms, jutting stabs of violent sound. The drumming is particularly good in an off-putting, against-expectations manner; along with throbs of cello and throes of feedbacked dissonance, it constructs a weird fun house architecture where everything tips and distorts and unsettles.

Forever House’s oddities work because they’re powered by formidable skills – this is a band with a serious NY downtown pedigree. Burke, a cellist and composer, commutes between classical orchestra work and solo material that skitters along the boundary between archaic pop and free-wheeling art song. Both guitarist James Moore and bassist James Illgenfritz have played with John Zorn, as well as other downtown luminaries (in Illgenfritz’s case Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Elliott Sharp and Pauline Oliveros and others, in Moore’s with the electric guitar quartet Dither). Drummer Pete Wise has left less of an internet trail but seems to have Bang on a Can connections. You get the sense that Forever House is their spooky busman’s holiday, a chance to play against type and raise some unruly ghosts. Boo!

Jennifer Kelly

German Army — Kowloon Walled City = (Null Zone)

Kowloon Walled City by German Army

German Army is neither an established military entity nor some reenactment clique, but a low-flying, California-based combo that (according to their Facebook page) “uses art to document disappearing cultures and wildlife while critiquing imperialism in all forms.” Kowloon Walled City certainly qualifies as a disappearing culture, since most of the semi-autonomous, mob-run neighborhood that sat at the edge of Hong Kong’s airport has been cleaned up or knocked down. Since there’s nothing particularly Chinese-sounding about this tape’s perky synth/drum jams and the rare spoken vocals are in distinctly American-accented English, the proclaimed mission may be a failure or just a red herring. But if you need some catchy tunes limned with coded mystery to jam in your old jalopy (if you have tried to get a car stereo with a tape deck in the last ten years, you know what I’m talking about), German Army is at your service.

Bill Meyer

Gong Gong Gong—Siren (Wharf Cat)

Siren 追逐劇 by Gong Gong Gong 工工工

Two songs from the duo of Joshua Frank and Tom Ng make a case for an intriguing Beijing punk-noise underground. The a-side, “Siren” abstracts the electric blues into a single clattering guitar riff, a zooming, looming roar of bass and a searing call (no response) vocal from Ng, in sing-song-y Chinese. “Something’s Happening” is meatier and more conventionally rock, still built on sharp, stinging guitar clamor, but buzzing with Hendrix-y solo-ry (if Hendrix played the bass). Both tracks employ the minimum number of parts to maximal impact, the construction loose enough for friction, sparks and gnashing aggression.

Jennifer Kelly

Gerrit Hatcher / Peter Maunu / Julian Kirschner — The Raven and the Dove (JAKI)

The Raven and the Dove by Hatcher/Maunu/Kirshner

Chicago’s built on drained swampland, so when the next wave of free jazz rolls up, it can travel. Certainly this trio, which comprises two younger musicians and one more who seems to be doing exactly what he wants with his retirement, covers a lot of ground. Gerrit Hatcher is an extroverted tenor saxophonist with a raw tone and a willingness to depart from his default setting of muscular tune-grinding into passages of tentative flutter and delicate counterpoint. Good drummers never lack for work, so it’s saying something that you can find Julian Kirschner on a Chicago stage pretty much every week of the year. He comes from a post-free jazz conception of his instrument that favors color, space and movement over pulse or swing. Joining these youngsters is Peter Maunu, whose past life playing fusion and new age music seems quite irrelevant to the unpredictable stream of savage scraping, subliminal humming, and acidic rocking that issues from his guitar, violin and mandolin. This group is brand new, but it won’t be for long; they’ve been touring around the Midwest this fall, so you can expect them to add seasoned rapport to band new promises before long. Catch them if you can, and catch this promising debut if you can’t.

Bill Meyer

Kidd Jordan / Alvin Fielder / Joel Futterman / Steve Swell — Masters of Improvisation (Valid Records)

Masters of Improvisation by Kidd Jordan, Alvin Fielder, Joel Futterman & Steve Swell

It takes a particular orneriness to be a musician in a musical city and stake your claim to a style that the city has never embraced. You can say a lot of things about New Orleans, but it’s never really been a free jazz town. But that hasn’t stopped tenor saxophonist Kidd Jordan, who has made his crust playing and teaching every style that a jobbing musician must play, from playing a particularly uncompromising variety of free jazz. Two of his accompanists here are long-time partners. Drummer Alvin Fielder, who like Jordan is in his 80s, has likewise carried the free jazz torch in southern environs where the muggy air of indifference would douse a fainter spirit. Pianist Joel Futterman is a decade younger and his darting technique and forays inside the piano imply that his roots are sunk in different turf than his mates, but he’s been playing with them long enough to be able to bring empathy as well as energy to the table. New York-based trombonist Steve Swell is the newcomer, and his ability to shift effortlessly between sere exhalations and brash attacks allows him to complicate the combo’s late-Coltrane vibe without betraying it, and then be equally persuasive when they turn around and wring the last blue drops out of Doc Pomus’ “Lonely Avenue.” This concert recording lingers long on the stormy side; go on, stick your face into the wind, you won’t be sorry.

Bill Meyer

No Love — Choke on It (Sorry State)

Choke On It by No Love

No Love, from Raleigh, NC, play punk rock that conjures the ragged toughness of the mid-1970s NYC downtown scene and the pace of early-1980s Southern Cali hardcore. It’s a potent mix, and when guitarists Seth Beard and Daniel Lupton make a bit of space for vocalist Elizabeth Lynch, the record really kills it. The record’s title track and “Dogs//Wolves” — released back in 2015 as the A-side of a terrific single — are frantic punk burners that scrap and sizzle, teetering on the brink of perilous chaos. The band manages to channel the energy without disciplining it, like the Heartbreakers in those magical months in 1975. “Back Taxes & Anaphylaxis” is even better, mostly because Lynch takes an aggressive lead on the song, showing what she can do. On “Drama Fever,” she manages to keep pace with the guitars’ slashing intensity, but on some of the other tracks, she’s drowned out by all the frenzied riffage. The raw sound of the record gives it a low-grade charm, but the noise sometimes obscures the tunes, which are pretty great. Still, the band’s vigor and verve are undeniable. More, please.

Jonathan Shaw

One Tail, One Head — Worlds Open, Worlds Collide (Terratur Possessions)

Worlds Open, Worlds Collide by One Tail, One Head

Norway’s One Tail, One Head have been playing black metal since 2006, but this year’s Worlds Open, Worlds Collide is the first full-length record the band has ever released. They’ve made a career on their reputation as a live act, pairing their orthodox blackened sound and songs with a stage show only slightly less theatrical than Watain’s (that’s all stage blood, right guys?). It seems that this first LP will be their last, as One Tail, One Head have announced their intent to call it quits after a tour supporting the record. That sense of finality may have prompted the band to round the stylistic bases, pairing truculent, muscular songs reminiscent of the early demos (“Firebirds” is a good example) with more chaotic, swirling work typical of the recent EPs. Songs in the former mode are more successful here, especially the record’s title track, which thunders and crackles with convincing menace. But One Tail, One Head could have given themselves a better sendoff. Few of these tunes feel fully realized, and none is near the equal of the band’s intense performing presence. It’s too bad — but a wise (or wise-ass) kid from Chicago once observed that “breaking up is an idea that has occurred to far too few groups, sometimes the wrong ones.” Via con Satàn, fellas.

Jonathan Shaw

Vanessa Peters — Foxhole Prayers (Idol)

Foxhole Prayers by Vanessa Peters

Singer-songwriter Vanessa Peters could have settled for the smart folk-rock she’s been doing for almost two decades, but on Foxhole Prayers she stretches herself, looking at the cultural landscape without relinquishing her personal lyrics. “Carnival Barker” offers her most direct political track, but “Trolls” is more effective, capturing the patience and perseverance needed to defeat the title characters. The song has personal and political resonances, and it's that dual thinking that drives much of the album. “Fight” takes on extra meaning in the context of the album. Peters unveils her own fears and her own need to press on, but with enough space in the lyrics that she could be speaking to herself, a young artist, or someone afraid of venturing into the public eye in any sense; calls to bravery aren't limited to those on stage and Peters situates her song as someone who knows that.

As her view expands, so does her music, particularly as she incorporates electronic elements into her sound. The dance-pop influences of “Before it Falls Apart” surprise, but Peters' tasteful use of the new sounds allows everything to fit in naturally with what she does. The album, inspired in part by comparing the world of The Greaty Gatsby with today's political climate, has its roots in crisis, hence the title track, and Peters uses her art to search for something better.

Justin Cober-Lake

Shells—Shells 2 (Gingko)

Shells 2 by Shells

The evidence suggests that Shelley Salant is not a loner. She’s been booking shows in Southeast Michigan for a decade. She’s the sort of record store clerk who greets you with a recommendation that you’d best consider. She’s played guitar in Tyvek and Swimsuit. She’s the sort of person who makes communities happen by doing what she does.

But she also has pretty strong instincts about what makes a guitar worth hearing — liquid tone, phrases that are concise unless they need to wander, pithy hooks, gritty noise and reverb for days. She’s got some things to say on her own, and that’s where Shells comes in. Shells 2 contains 14 tracks, each a brief and lucid lesson about one or more of the aforementioned virtues. Some of them comprise layers of loops, some follow a single snaking line, and a couple have been overdubbed into an approximation of a band. Similarity spotters may point out the bits that sound like Link Wray or Roy Montgomery or the Feelies, but that would require looking past all the bits that sound like Shelley Salant rocking essentially.

Bill Meyer

Various Artists — Chebran Volume 2: French Boogie 1979-1982 (Born Bad)

This superlative collection of funk, disco and proto-rap documents the cross-hybridization of bootleg tapes of Grandmaster Flash, Eurovision-style dance music and sounds from the African and Arabic colonies that bubbled up in working class neighborhoods at the dawn of the 1980s all over France. Here on cuts like Ethnie’s “De Chagrin En Chagrin” synths take up the serpentine non-western melodies, while Bootsy-style funksters slap and pop out the boogie. Likewise, the ponderous stomp of bass and percussion anchors Ganawa’s “Yamna” in present day disco, but its wheeling woodwinds and haunting call and response transport you to sand swept deserts in North Africa. Ettika, both the track name and the artist name for a one-hitter from the early 1980s, nudges a disco synth into twisty arabesques and flits from French to Arabic in its emphatic, female-powered raps. Forget the melting pot, these cuts bubble like sour dough starter, when errant spores of yeast find a home in a dull white flour soup and create something marvelous.

Jennifer Kelly

Otomo Yoshihide / Paal Nilssen-Love — 19th of May 2016 (PNL)

19th of May 2016 by Otomo Yoshihide & Paal Nilssen-Love

Conventional wisdom holds that when Paal Nilssen-Love gets on stage with an electric guitarist, fillings will loosen. That certainly holds true when he pairs up with Terrie Ex, his preferred six-string slinger of recent years, and there are parts of this encounter with Japanese guitarist Otomo Yoshihide that could be cited as supporting evidence. Otomo brings plenty of volume, distortion and ferocity; there are passages where it sounds like he’s demolishing some metallic structure while Nilssen-Love erects an impregnable surrounding whirlwind. But neither man stays in one gear, and some of the most involving moments come when they drop to a scrape and a shimmer.

Bill Meyer

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kansascityhappenings · 5 years ago

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Joe’s Weather Blog: Winter storm now likely for KC with ice/sleet and snow (THU-1/9)

It’s Thursday and today will be the 22nd straight day with temperatures above average…and because of quirks in the timing of the colder air arrival into KC…tomorrow will be the 23rd straight day. Realistically though…tomorrow is the transition to winter heading into the night…and through the night.

This will be a VERY dynamic storm…severe weather including tornadoes in areas of the south…colder air plunging into the Plains…a developing snowstorm with ice to start in the MO/KS region…and possibly flash flooding as well for areas especially SE of KC towards the I-44 corridor region and the Lakes area.

Everything is on the table with this storm…including near blizzard conditions IF we get stronger winds again on Saturday with the heavy snow combination. I talked about this with Alex and Karli yesterday…as you know on the air and here in the blog I’ve been banging the snowstorm potential for a few days now…and there is no reason to change that tune at this point.

Forecast:

Today: Variable clouds with more sunshine this afternoon. VEin /RY windy with gusts to over 40 MPH…and warm Highs in the mid>upper 60s. Record today is 64° set back in 1902. I thought last night we could tie that record…IF we get enough sunshine this afternoon we should break it!

Tonight: Mostly cloudy…a few showers are possible but most may remain dry. Winds start to fade a bit as well. Lows gradually dropping into the 40° range after daybreak tomorrow.

Friday: Rain develops later in the AM into the afternoon. Some thunderstorms are possible SE of KC. The front that comes through and slowly sends temperatures down will be somewhere close to KC. Areas SE of the Metro may still end up in the 60s! For KC we continue to slowly fall off into the low>mid 30s in the evening. I think the evening rush will be OK

Friday night: We transition to freezing rain and sleet. This will lay a layer of ice down. Temperatures tumble to around 20-25° be daybreak.

Saturday: Moderate to heavy snow develops…3-6″ is a 1st guess for snow totals which may be influenced by whether or not we have sleet cutting into the potential snow amounts…plus the winds will blow the snow around quite a bit. Temperatures 20-25°. Areas that have more ice may end up with less snow. That may be just SE of the Metro towards Sedalia and Clinton and westwards into KS.

Sunday: Partly cloudy and cold…single digit lows and highs only around 30° or so.

Discussion:

Buckle up…this storm has it all and there ARE going to be curve balls thrown at us that alter the outcome…some of these curve balls start tomorrow…the bulk of the curve balls come Friday night into Saturday. There is bust potential to some aspects of this forecast. It won’t be right for all areas…I just envision this outcome. There could be a shift of the storm track…that cuts or increases the snow amounts…there will be some snow jackpots and some snow disappointments from this.

This storm is more typical of what we used to get in the winter and what I mean by that is this, last year every snowstorm showed it’s game plan early and mostly followed it’s plan…hence the forecast accuracy. This storm hasn’t really revealed it game plan yet. I think there are surprises ahead and possible frustrations coming…that may require alterations to the forecast even later Friday night and Saturday. Consider yourself forewarned. I’m still NOT comfortable with this storm at all and the timing of all the transitions isn’t going to be pretty.

So with all that said…here goes…

Good thing the football game is on Sunday and not Saturday!

There is a lot happening and IF we can get this right…from a timing and ice/snow totals perspective this will be trick for sure.

1st the storm…

You can see it diving through CA this morning…

That is the storm…you have to look at it carefully to see it.

That storm will cut into the SW part of the country and then move into TX and come sharply NE into the Plains on Saturday. Let’s go up to about 18,000 feet and track the “U” shape…that is the storm.

Notice how a little circle develops…that means the storm is “closing off” and intensifying. When the circle “opens up” that means the storm is weakening to some degree. You can see how it goes through various phases here in the Plains especially.

That is what we try and track and talk about the storm track…because towards the north and northwest of that there is a comma head or wrap around part of the storm…and during this time of the year…moisture “wraps around” and into cold air. That creates snow…and potentially heavy snow at that.

Wobbles in that storm track takes heavy snow areas and shifts them NW or SE…also how well the comma head comes together is vital to getting heavy snow. We’ll be relying on this comma head to get the bulk of our accumulating snow. The timing on that is sometime Saturday into Saturday late afternoon.

Should there be a wobble southwards…the snow forecast is going to heavily bust. ALL data last night indicates that the storm is taking a favorable track for snow in the KC area. Again though…wobbles and a malformed comma-head means glitches in the snow potential/amounts.

I just don’t have the greatest feeling (confidence) about this storm yet in terms of 100% guaranteeing heavy snow in KC. Hopefully that comes tomorrow…but we need to prepare for at least 2″ to as much as 8″ of snow from this storm on top of ice.

As far as the ice impact goes. Temperatures tomorrow will gradually get colder as the day moves along. Whatever we are at 12AM tonight…mid 40s+ will be the high Friday I think. When you wake up tomorrow though we may still be in the 40-45° range! It should gradually drop to the mid 30s by the evening rush…so whatever falls here locally tomorrow will be liquid.

Tomorrow night as the lower part of the atmosphere here gets colder and falls below freezing…the rain will convert to freezing rain. In a sense the atmosphere will be getting colder from the ground upwards through about 7,000 feet. What I mean by that is there is going to be about 6-9 hours tomorrow night into early Saturday where there is a layer of above freezing air above us…this layer will likely prevent snow for reaching the ground…but that then means some sort of freezing rain/sleet scenario develops…after about 9PM Friday night and lingering to about daybreak Saturday. Below that layer the air is getting colder. When you wake up Saturday we should be near 25° with at least a glaze of ice out there from what has fallen and frozen on the surface. This will lead to icy roads to start the weekend.

So a layer of ice will be put down. This isn’t power outage ice amounts I don’t think.

The trick to the whole storm is the snow situation and how well the “comma head” part of the storm comes together. After daybreak the layer of above freezing air above us will be removed That means that what falls will now be snow.

IF the comma head is somewhat malformed we won’t get more than 3-4″…IF it come together the potential for over 4″ increases. Then you add in the wind especially early in the afternoon and you add the colder air developing which means a more fluffy snow…and that creates better snow ratios. When the air is colder…it allows the snow to pile up more…

Conventionally we look at 1/2″ of moisture equate to about 5-6″ of snow…when the air is colder…that same amount of moisture will mean 6-8″ of snow. When the air is very cold it could mean 10″ of snow.

So that is another thing that we watch for as everything comes together.

The morning NAM has indeed thrown a few curveballs out…including having that malformed comma head snow production part of the storm move through the KC Metro…it sort of becomes more formed east of the Metro. It has widespread 1-4″ of snow in the KC area with heavy amounts across northern MO in excess of 4-6″ towards the IA border and higher amounts to the east of KC towards central MO. Again…no need to commit to that outcome(s) either…it just throws up yellow flags to me. Then again the NAM model though today was going to be cloudy all day and around 55° so that isn’t going to work out too well. The new hi-res NAM model nails us with snow…3-8″ worth.

Other data overnight is still bullish on the snow potential. Again like yesterday…looking at an ensemble approach, which isn’t used as much as it should be used by others out there talking about the weather…this is where we stand…(see yesterday’s blog for what the “ensemble” approach is)

The potential of at least 2″ of snow…is showing up in 65% of all the models…that’s 96 model outputs that I looked at. The EURO especially is the most bullish with 35 of the 52 runs overnight showing at least 2″ worth. In terms of amounts the Canadian is the most bullish.

As far as today goes…and noteworthy in it’s own right I think…record high temperatures are possible>likely. at 9AM we’re in the mid 50s. There are clouds out there but there is also sunshine breaking through. We’ve seen high winds overnight…gusts to 50 MPH and as I type this we’re still getting 40 MPH winds…the record high is 64° set back in 1902. The key is getting enough breaks in the clouds…but as of 9AM we’re 6° away from tying the record and 7° away from breaking the record. This satellite picture should update through the day for you.

Oh and to top things off a nasty severe weather outbreak is forecast down to the south of the region…for tomorrow into tomorrow night…

and Saturday into Saturday night…

There may be strong tornadoes with this outbreak(s) in the southern US over the next few days.

Like I said at the start of the blog…this storm is going to be nasty for many areas of the country east of the Rockies.

OK that’s about it for now…I may get a brief update out this afternoon time permitting but things start to get a bit hairy at work now that all this is coming together…so some long days are coming up.

Our feature photo is from Michael Legel‎ out in Lees Summit yesterday. Oh. My. Goodness.

Joe

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2020/01/09/joes-weather-blog-winter-storm-now-likely-for-kc-with-ice-sleet-and-snow-thu-1-9/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2020/01/09/joes-weather-blog-winter-storm-now-likely-for-kc-with-ice-sleet-and-snow-thu-1-9/

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flushthethrone · 7 years ago

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Episode 135 - Southern Vangard Radio

BANG! @southernvangard #radio Ep 135! That cool, fall crisp is in the air here in the A folks, and it means we have quite the pep in our step this week! Of course we have a plethora of new joints this week on Ep135, and we have a great interview session on Thursday with West Charlotte’s LUTE, who just dropped his Dreamville debut, “West, 1996 Pt II” last week! Check out snippets of the interview at the end of this weeks mix, and stay tuned for the full interview on Thursday. Yeah yeah you know it - its nothing but that #smithsonian #grade #twiceaweek // southernvangard.com // @southernvangard on #itunes #podcast #stitcherradio #soundcloud #mixcloud // #hiphop #rap #undergroundhiphop #DJ #mix #interview #podcasts #ATL #WORLDWIDE

Recorded live October 01, 2017 @ Dirty Blanket Studios, Marietta, GA / southernvangard.com / @southernvangard on #itunes #podcast #stitcherradio #soundcloud #mixcloud / twitter/IG: @jondoeatl @southernvangard @cappuccinomeeks /// Inst. beds prod. Kuartz / “Morning Shift" - Lute / "Juggin'" - Lute / "Ambitions" - Lute / “Livin' Life" - Lute feat. Hi I'm Ry / "Birds & Bees" - Lute / "Exodus" - Nolan The Ninja feat. Jaye Prime / "Down With Me" - Masta Killa feat. Sean Price / "Hot Shit" - Rah Digga feat. Flipmode Squad (prod. Hi-Tek) / "Galvanometer 1st" - Opio / "People, Places, and Things (Remix)" - Prince Paul feat. Chubb Rock, Wordsworth, and DOOM / "Confetti" - Big K.R.I.T. / "Just Rap" - Rock / "More than Money" - Big Twins & DJ Skizz feat. Fashawn / "Valhalla Doctrine" - The Council feat. Tha God Fahim / "Black & Ugly" - Rapsody feat. BJ The Chicago Kid / Interview Snippets - Lute

ITUNES

https://itun.es/us/QyyX9.c

SOUNDCLOUD

https://soundcloud.com/southernvangard/episode-135-southern-vangard-radio

MIXCLOUD

https://www.mixcloud.com/southernvangard/episode-135-southern-vangard-radio

(Southern Vangard)

#SoundCloud #music #Southern Vangard #Hip-Hop/Rap #DJJonDoe #EddieMeeks #Lute

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dantelaw21 · 4 years ago

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 292

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 292 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Hey, we’re live. Hey everybody. Welcome to Hump Day hangouts where we talk about how close we are to Episode 300. But we’re not there yet. We’re at Episode 292. Today is the 17th of June 2020. We got everybody here. We got a bunch of questions to go through. And we got a couple of quick announcements real quick. As usual, we’re going to take a minute Say hello to everybody and then we’ll jump into it. So if you are here to get your digital marketing SEO questions answered, you’re in the right place. And we’re going to get to that in just a second. So I’m going to start

we’ll go counterclockwise today, Bradley, how are you doing? What’s uh, how’s life going for you in Virginia today? Good. It’s gonna be a monsoon for like the next five days though. And I just had my daughter this was supposed to be our vacation week, like family vacation week, but because everything you know COVID-19 our travel plans to meet up with family and everything were canceled. So it’s kind of a staycation. So I had my daughter from Friday until today and it was nice having her around and

Fortunately, she’s gone now. So it’s like, you know, I’m going to experience empty nest syndrome for the next few days. But it was nice man. It was a good five days to spend with her. And so I’m refreshed and ready to ready to bang out some work now. So sounds good. Well, hopefully, you’re ready to answer some questions. But before we get to dive into that, Hernan, how are you doing today?

Whoops, I was doing I’m doing good, man. I’m just wondering about that thing that you have on the back. That little shiny metal thing? I don’t know.

Man, can you show me? Yeah, let me Gosh, I just it’s just been sitting back there in the back collecting me. Let’s see, what do we got? We got my name and her dog’s name and I think it says Semantic Mastery and something about click funnels and the two comma club award So yeah, I thought Whoo. Good job, guys. It’s like a million bro.

Yeah. So I’m good, man. I’m excited. I’m excited.

Good, sounds really good. Yeah. Marco. How about yourself besides the flexing? Are you blinded by the light? Nice?

blind. I can’t help it. I can’t help it. I can’t help it. I just have so to get my arms to stretch Marco’s doing the 100 pushups a day challenge and I’m also feeling that so I need to do some stretching.

I actually I felt bad yesterday so I’m not that an extra 50 because I couldn’t do the hundred in one shot because I tried the 5050 and then to punish myself I did another 50, for not being it so I’m going to get to 100 quicker than I would otherwise and I just keep punishing myself I’ll go and do

four sets of 50 today oh my goodness keep punishing myself. Well does anyone not with this post on?

Oh God, because if I can do this shit cuz I got a bone spur my neck

and I got three compressed this in my lower back

So the pain that I go through just to do that, I don’t. I don’t even want to think about it because I’ve never dropped again. Right? But if I can do it, guys, come on, do the challenge. Tell them I don’t tell them what it is. Yeah, for those of you who aren’t friends with me on Facebook, that’s probably good for you, but you might not see my post. So actually, my wife was like, I’m gonna do 100 squats a day and I’m gonna see if people want to, you know, join me I was like, Alright, like, tag me in that. I’ll do 100 pushups a day if you do 100 squats a day. So we got a handful of people I know Marco is doing it. Rob’s doing it. We got some other people doing I think Scott Walker, who was a hump day Hangout, enthusiastic, Semantic Mastery subscriber is doing was it crutches or some sort of ab workout? We got people doing all sorts of stuff. So you’re not too late. We just started if you want to make it up or start the 30 days now just pick something and do it. So yeah.

Good stuff. Well, Chris, how are you doing today? Yeah, doing good. I will not join your 30 Day Challenge. I prefer to hit the gym and as well as bulk up on cherries, raspberries strawberries, because like it’s harvesting season for all those things here. Gotcha. Yeah. Jerry, so I was like, bulk up like Yeah, but that’s like the bulking up you usually do.

That’s too sweet for me. Like it wasn’t like the calories and one of those beneficiaries like, Man, you can eat a really good steak instead. Fair enough. Well or drink a really good beer.

That’s what I prefer. That’s a really good beer to be equal to A Ben and Jerry’s. And Jerry’s packs a punch man that’s got some calories, maybe like a triple IPA or something. Oh, yeah. Imperial IPA, something like that. Yeah. Well, while we’re on the subject of beer for those of you who are interested or have heard about kofu Live, just wanted to put this out there tickets. The new tickets are not for sale yet. They will be going up shortly and there will be an opportunity for you to join us for a happy hour, as well as an opportunity to do a virtual beer tasting with real beer shipped directly to your door.

Apparently my door didn’t like being caught like that. So keep your eyes and ears tuned for that one. As soon as we get that setup, we’re working with a company that’s going to do a virtual tour for VIP ticket holders as well as shipping beer and some snacks directly to your door. So it’s gonna be some good stuff.

When we were discussing what to do for the VIP event, Adam put on the list. No virtual beer tasting and I was like you had me at that was like, it’s decided I had a pretty weak follow-up. The next one was like a virtual museum tour and, like booths.

Stage, we’re gonna have some more information about that, you guys, but we’re really excited. We’re going to be able to continue with poker live, obviously, it’s gonna be Boku virtual live. We’re still gonna have time for q&a. We’re still gonna have some personal interaction in there, as well as case studies and we’re lining up the guests.

Right now, and we’re getting really excited about telling you guys some more about that. So keep your eyes and ears open for that. mg y v.co. If you haven’t been there yet, right after Hump Day Hangouts, go over to empty y v.co. Check out all the done for you services available. There are waves, drive stacks, SEO, shield, syndication, networks, link building all sorts of good stuff. And speaking of the SEO shield, we have a real short flash sale going on. Let me pull it up, I’ll put it on the page for everyone. But there’s a 25% off sale going on all the SEO shield versions you can get and you just have to use the coupon code vegies 25. Because today is eat your veggies day. So we figured we’d be nice and instead of giving you or veggies or making eat your veggies worse, they give you a discount on the ICF scope. So other than that, I think that’s about it for today, guys, is there anything else we need to let them know about?

I don’t think so. I’m good. All right. Let’s do it. Alright, grab the screen and we’ll get right into it. We got a bunch of good questions already. So

Let’s do it.

Is There A Fast Way of Removing 404 Pages From Google’s Index?

Okay, you guys are seeing my screen, correct? Yeah. All right. So it looks like we’re gonna start with Chef. He says, Is there a way to speed up Google removing 404 pages from his index? The only way I know how to do it is to run the URLs, the four or four URLs through an indexer or to submit the through and I haven’t tried that in a while. But to submit them to search console, it just gets Google to come to crawl them again. Well, the four or four error URLs, you mean if they’re indexed? I don’t know. Actually, I don’t know that. If you were trying to reach set up redirects and things like that instead, then you have been crawled the old URL if it’s redirected. So for example, if you’ve got a WordPress site, it’s through a bunch of four or four errors for some reason or another. And use something like you know, a redirect plugin that redirects all four or four pages back to like the home page, for example, then you could submit a list of those four or four URLs to have to recrawl or send them through a link indexer and if gets the Googlebot to come to crawl them. And it redirects back to, you know, a target URL. So it basically tells Google This is no longer a 404 error. That makes sense. But that was if you were using some sort of redirect plugin, does anybody have any idea how to get the Google cache to update faster? No, it’s gonna clear whenever it clears. I mean, that’s just the way it is. Yeah, there are things that you could do to get Google to crawl your website or try to recrawl the website. But I mean that you do that through search console.

Should We Send Links To The ID Page Loop Page?

So the next question, should we send links to our ID page loop page? So yes, your ID page? Absolutely. Uh, we, you know, I certainly do, you can use embeds and or link building to that.

Do You Have Plan Of Combining SEO Power Shield With The RYS + Twitter SEO Profile + Multitier Tier Syndication Network?

So next is number one, do you plan to have an SEO power shield ultimate that combines the 347 packages of RYS Twitter SEO profile plus the 276 multi-tier syndication network? Not that I’m aware of. I mean, you could piece those together if you wanted to, you could order a to a two-tiered syndication network and then just add that into your build your when you submit your target URL list for the SEO PowerShell build. So you could do it that way. I don’t, I don’t know if there’s enough of a demand for that, because you’re the first person that’s asked for it. For us to create a separate package for it. Maybe if we had enough demand for it. What do you think?

No, I think I mean, we usually take care of people’s right to support and ask what you want, and maybe, you know, we’ll include a coupon or something. Yeah.

I mean, we already do. Yeah, it’s a lesson but we’re not going to create an entirely new product for one person. But we can’t work with this one of requests, and see if we can put it together for how or how we would put it together or if even, but we can take a look.

What Is The Team Building Service In The Dashboard?

So the second part or second question is what’s the team-building service that I saw on the dashboard occasionally when we go into hiring, you know when we have to hire a virtual assistant for a new position or to add to our existing team or whatever. Then we go through our hiring process where we use hiring funnels in the same process that we teach in outsource kingpin that, you know, it’s the same process that we teach in that product on how to set up hiring funnels and all that kind of stuff. for hiring virtual assistants, it kind of automates about 90% of the hiring process. And only at you end up with only the candidates that at the to the interview process, only candidates that are highly qualified, right, that have proven to have to be able to follow directions and to do everything that you instructed them to do. So it works really, really well. So when we have to hire, we run the same exact system and we usually end up with multiple qualified candidates for the position, but we usually only end up needing one or two at a time. So we have additional qualified cameras that are available for others to hire, since they already went through our application process, and proved to be worthy if that makes sense. So sometimes when we have an overflow, we offer that, you know, the pre-qualified or screen pre-screen candidates for others to hire. But it’s not all that it just depends on you know, whether we have that available or not. So sometimes it’s available sometimes it’s not. It’s a good question. It’s, it’s not available right now. That’s correct.

Is It Safe To Use The Link Building Service To A Bunch Of MGYB Shortened Links That Redirect To The Money Site?

Okay, so Matthews up, he says, Is it safe to order mgyb link building to a bunch of mgyb.co shortened links, which redirect to the money site pages. Now, what is the best g site instead? that yes, you if you’re linking if you’re building links to redirect URLs that link to your money site, that just redirect to your money site, you’re essentially building links directly to your money site. That’s not what we teach. So that’s what the drive stack in the to shield for is for the G site, the syndication network, all your tier one, entity assets, your ID, ID, page, looper, your ID page, all of those things are stuff that you can use as targets, but not your money site directly. A redirect is still if the destination of the redirect is your money site, then it’s essentially building links directly to your money site. And we do not recommend that. We build all those for you in the dry second t site. we shorten everything with our shortener. And we will include that in the spreadsheet, right that gets that also gets iframe By the way, on the G site. So you’ll have all that you don’t even have to do all that you can just get all that from us. Like I don’t know why you’d go through all that trouble unless you have the redirect, right that the monthly redirect service which we do offer, in which case you would go and use all those redirects, but you still point them to something other than your money site because under no circumstances that we recommend link building to your money site right.

What Is The Ideal Number of Posts To The GMB Post Per Week?

Okay, so Jeff is up. Jeff says, Hey guys, thanks as always for delivering great information on a regular basis. You’re welcome, Jeff. He says, with regards to GMB posting, what are the numbers shown with regards to the number of posts per week as posting daily shown to increase views, calls, etc versus posting once or twice a week? Thanks and have a great week. It depends on the industry. And its short answer is yes, more equals better, typically, and almost every project or campaign that manages more GMB posts leads to better results. So but you know, there I guess there can be a point of diminishing return. Right? And that I don’t know what that is, because I know that more equals better to the extent that I’ve tried it. For most clients, you know, if they’re open seven days a week, then we do we post at least once a day, so you know, one post per day, seven days a week. Some clients are only open Monday through Friday, so we just post Monday through Friday, but some clients we post to twice a day, Monday through Friday, you know, so it just it really depends on what the client is paying for how aggressive they want to be what their budget is. But I found that more equals better. But that’s probably not always the case in every situation. But you know, what do you say Marco? And this is really interesting. And it’s totally it depends. Because I have a client who just like I can’t produce the content because it’s legal. And the client is like, it’s almost like pulling teeth to get them to give me like the content the for the post. So they only do so we only ended up doing like two or three per month. Now, that one has almost 700 posts views, like as of today, even though we’re only doing like two or three per month, which is ridiculous.

You shouldn’t get you shouldn’t be getting that kind of action in the legal niche. And I have another one in the luxury niche who posts regularly and I mean, sometimes during the weekend two or three times because that’s the busiest time. And that one is that like 1000 views for the posts for the week, I’m talking about the week. So it’s interesting how old posts if you set this up correctly if you silo them if you do everything that we teach you to do, even the old posts will get views because I’m seeing thousands of views on the attorneys post the old ones. And I’m also seeing thousands of views on this other client in this luxury niche, and they’re not related, the posting is in no way related. The only thing that’s related in any of this is the way that we do it the way that we stack them and loop them. And then the way that we shoot press releases into them, but that that again, that’s a local GMB pro method right? where we teach, we teach the stack, we teach the PR stacking, we teach the link building into all of this, how to do the videos and then the images and make sure that they’re relevant. Make sure that they come from the place that and I have a client that’s really good about posting images from

They’re and about the product that he does. I’ll go back to this luxury niche. He’s really good about all that. And it gets just tons of action. But here you go, one guy’s barely posting, the other guy’s posting as often as possible. And they’re both getting fantastic results. And the only thing that I can attribute that to is the fact that they’re silo, and the fact that they’re stacked, and the fact that they’re looped, and so is everything behind it.

There you go.

Will It Be Easy To Create A Silo Using Deep Keyword Package?

So the next question is from Ben jam, or Benjamin or, Ben, I’m gonna call him Ben. He says, Hey, guys, for some reason, I have always been baffled by siloing a site. After watching a few tutorial videos, you created Bradley in the SM YouTube channel. It seems breathtakingly simple. Already, yeah, you know, silos can be overcomplicated very easily, especially using the complex silo structure and that’s what you know, I’ve talked about many times, it’s why I prefer to try to use the simple silo structure, which is just a category and post hierarchy, so there are only two levels of depth to any type of, you know, to the category structure that within the site. You know, a complex silo structure has three levels, right, because you have a parent page, parent category, child page subcategory, then you have posted, and it can, it can create some very tricky situations, especially with local projects where you are trying to duplicate locations for like, for example for like a service area business, okay, so a service area business that has, you know, the same two services, but they cover multiple locations to try to build the location silos into topical silos is difficult if you’re using the traditional silo method, you know, with categories and the complex silo structure or vice versa building topical silos or service-based silos within location silos. Again, it creates some very tricky things that happened with the URL structure was slugs, because of dupa. You know, having duplicate slugs, it’s so anyways, my point in telling you all of that is that I prefer to use the simple silo method as much as possible. Because it is much again, just as the name connotes. It’s, it’s simple, it’s a lot easier to manage, it’s easier to build and it’s easier to manage. So it subsequently when you add additional silos, or what you call like a bolt-on silo, it’s, it’s also a lot easier to manage when you have a simple silo structure. So yes, it can be incredibly complicated, or it can be incredibly simple. It really depends on how you lay it out up front, which I think is very important. So to carry on, he says, so to us, he says, I ordered a deep keyword package, as I mentioned, it had keywords listed in the report by silo Yeah, they’re suggested silos.

So to use that to create content for my authority site with silo architecture is it now simply a matter of creating the category pages for the silo keywords and posts for the solution keywords in each silo then linking them all together as described in the video. I think I may have been over complicating this, is it that simple? Yes, it really is, uh, you know, the suggested silos again, you could still go through there and clean out things that aren’t 100% relevant to your project, there’s going to be stuff in there. Because we, you know, we cast kind of a wide net with all the tools that are used and everything to create those keyword reports for you. So obviously, you’re gonna have to go through there and really clean it down and narrow it down to just your most relevant keyword phrases, as well as you know, the long tails and everything else. But really comes down to that if you understand how to set up the structure, and then how to link so remember a silo, you’re going to be adding depth to it, right? So the more supporting articles you post within a particular silo, that’s more depth to it with would be additional categories, right? So there’s width and depth. So a solid site can be as little as one silo, with a ton of depth to it, right? You just keep adding content to whatever

Your top-level market keyword is you keep adding supporting content, right writing content that’s relevant, that has long targeting longer tail phrases. Or you can even combine and target multiple types of similarly related phrases per supporting article, you can do it that way as well. But then linking them together with proper internal linking, which, again, we talked a lot about that kind of stuff in the mastermind, as well as our ys Academy. But it’s very important to understand how to also link properly internal linking from within the silos so that you’re not creating dead points or points where you have a loss of link equity or loss of link juice. And that happens if you don’t know how to do it correctly. But the short answer is yes. It’s as simple as that create your top-level categories, your top-level keywords, then start taking the supporting keywords and start adding content within those categories. You place the post within those categories, then you daisy chain them together or whatever your internal linking strategy is going to be within that silo. And that’s pretty much it for the on-page part of it. Any comments, guys? Yeah, this guy has seen the light Benjamin Thank you It is that simple if you want to make it that simple, or it can get really complicated if you want to make it complicated, nobody knows your niche, or nobody should know your niche better than you. What we’re giving you is what we suggest you do. And then we also give you other apps like categories, subcategories, and then supporting keywords. But you have to go in there go into the questions in essence and see what we did in there, what we gave you back, look into power suggest pro look into a SEMrush and see what was done in there because there may be some things in there that you can use for supporting for or just to add additional as Bradley mentioned depth and breadth to your silo if that’s what you want. There’s so much information in there like that. I don’t think there’s any way that you can use it all or you have years of information actually when you get that back how you set that up is up to you and just so you don’t go back and reuse any of the long tails, just mark it off in red because it’s given to you in a spreadsheet when you use it, kill it right it’s in red Oh strike through it so that you can just go back through all of the others and pick out what you want your people to write about. Tell them you should have ah, by the way, doing all of this or hire someone, you tell them what it is that you want them to write about to focus on that on that keyword and all of those keywords under that but make it all conversational so that it all flows and so that the bot comes in and gets a better understanding of your data use the ultimate SEO, ultimate SEO Pro Plugin. If sorry, SEO ultimate pro plugin to do all the interlinking we showed not we but Jeffrey Smith did a fantastic job of coming in into the first heavy hitter club webinar and showing how you actually do all of that how you create the semantic relationships and how you tie it all together in your unstructured data so that you give your unstructured data, some kind of structure for the back because you creating all of these semantic relationships. So it’s not only in the content that you’re producing, but you’re relating them to one another through your interlinking, which is really, really important so that it all flows. Now, another thing about this is and I’ll just give a quick example, guys, those of you in the personal injury attorney niche, what you should be targeting is civil law. That’s the market level category, because any anything that’s a personal injury, divorce, bankruptcy, you name it, it’s all civil law. And so personal injury is part of civil law. If you go after the top, then it makes it easier to rank for personal injury. Now, of course, it’s hyper-competitive. But if you’re going one, one, market above everyone else, it makes it easier for the long tails to come up.

I’m hoping that that makes sense to everyone, you’re going to do all of your research for criminal law, you’re going to fill a website with all of that information. Now, yes, it’s a lot of work. But when you do all of that, and you create the semantic relationships, you’re interlinking, you’re using the plugin the way that you’re supposed to, you’re using that deep-link jargon, not the way that it’s supposed to be used the tags, and everything else that Jeffrey Smith teaches, because he has extensive teaching for that plugin, guys, it makes it dead simple to start ranking, but like I’m not gonna say immediately, but much, much more quickly than you would otherwise. Then then you bring in the rest of the teaching, then you bring in that SEO power shield to add all of the relevance into it, then you do your structured data. So now what you’re getting is a two for one, you’re getting your unstructured data, giving it some structure, and then you’re bringing in the structured data to like seal it for about on exactly what it is that your website is about. Now, I just found it really complicated.

But it all goes back to how you set up your initial structure. And if you keep it simple, then everything else is going to flow much more, much more simply than it would otherwise because you can really confuse yourself once you start branching out into the structure data and how to create the parent and child relationships, organization, location and all of the different things that you can do when it comes to structured data. But I think this is great and thank you. Yes, the keyword research in mg y v.to. Go pick it up because I don’t think there’s anyone doing anything better than we are.

What Are Your Recommendations For Link Indexing Services?

Sweet. That was a great question. By the way, so Jackson’s up he says, Hey guys, currently looking to purchase an indexing service for all link building and found a couple so far link pipe pipeline, it looks good, but can’t find much information about it. Everything seems out of date. What do you guys recommend for indexing? I recommend Dedia from India. Yeah. There is a bit of an issue that it’s on our list for MGYB’s Link indexing services limited in that you can only submit 300 URLs at a time it is something that will be updated at some point. It’s not at the top of our priority list though. So as much as I want to tell you guys to go by link indexing credits from MGB, it is a bit of a pain in the ass because you have to own it, you can only submit 300 at a time. Just being 100% transparent with you guys. Okay, that is the service that I would recommend. And why because Dedia runs all the link building like the link indexing services if we submit links to him, he runs them through multiple link indexing services, so much so that he gets a really high rate 50 to 60% indexing rate, which is hard to do. But he uses multiple indexing services. So the short answer if you’re going to get your own subscriptions, so that you don’t have to submit 300 batches of 300 URLs at a time, which I don’t even I don’t do because it’s just too time-consuming and to manual would be to in the free group on Facebook is posted post that same question. And we’ll get ready to chime in. And he can recommend which one or two services he recommends is the best for link indexing. Because he’s the go-to guy for that kind of stuff. Anytime I have anything that needs to be done, I can just send it to him or ask him a question regarding something like that. And he’ll have the best answer because that is his business. So anybody else wants to comment on that? No, I wouldn’t recommend anything else. Other than the link indexing service and MDB because that’s what I use. Yeah, I go, I go to daddy. I mean, I don’t go anywhere else because he gets the results that we need.

I haven’t used a link indexing service in years because we have a dead Yeah. Yeah.

I agree. So but again, you know, as if you’re submitting, you know, thousands and thousands of URLs then until we have it to where you can submit a spreadsheet or a text file or something like that. Then I could understand wanting to have your own indexing subscription, it’s likely that you’re going to need a couple of them because no one service does an incredibly good job. But Daddy, I can tell you in the group, which, which he suggests are the best services to use if you’re going to have your own subscription. So I would recommend posting in there and I’m sure he will be happy to share that.

Is There A Way To Make A Google Drive Folder Public?

Okay, next question is Hey, guys, the option to make this comes up almost every week. We probably need an FAQ for these guys. We’re knowledge base something for this also. Anyways, Hey, guys, the option to make public folder has been removed from the G Suite accounts. I tried from two different domains with G Suite accounts and the option is not there anymore. Is there any other way to make folders public? Marco, you want to comment on that?

Yeah, there are other ways that we’ve shared in the heavy hitter club and I’m the way I’m not going to it. We made that webinar public. It now went into the heavy hitter club archives. It’s not going to be public knowledge and then the other way that we do it is through MGYB because we have a proprietary way in which we can make them public. I mean, then that’s all I’m going to add about that. Yes, Google has been taking away the ability to make, has taken away the public selection in the folders, the way that it’s taught, in our way as Academy reloaded. But there are other ways and we’re actually testing out another way. I was just talking to Justin, the is VA, the original ISP yesterday, on something new that we’re going to try. And if that works, well, then we’ll make that public because Google makes it.

cool. And just saying guys, no, again, full transparency, I’m actually testing with Microsoft OneDrive, which is like its version of Google Drive. Because you can still make things public there. And you can grab the embed code for sheets and, you know, different files. And so I just literally started testing that last week. So I don’t have any results yet but just an alternative. And also just another potential asset is to use Microsoft OneDrive because you’re still getting high authority. You’re getting files and, you know, file types on a high authority domain, Microsoft domain, right? Essentially, it’s Microsoft owned in that domain. So I’m testing with that, too. That might be something again, I don’t have any results. I just started testing with the last week, but I figured it was worth a shot. So yeah, we’ve tested that also, it has a whole lot of limitations. And it’s getting out of the Google ecosystem. That’s true.

Does The Exceed Maximum Execution Error In Google Apps Script Matter?

Unknown Speaker 30:33 So the next question is from DC SEO, he says, Thanks for clearing out my short links question last week. Appreciate it. I’ve noticed that I’m getting failures for Google X Apps Script with the exceeded maximum execution time error message does this matter? That’s a question for you Marco. Yes, of course, it doesn’t matter. You should set the script to run at longer intervals. I have it set for eight hours. Try to set it for every three days.

Something like that you don’t need the script to build every two, three, or four hours, because it rebuilt the entire website that and that’s why it times out.

Yeah, especially if you’ve got I mentioned this, I think last week, but I had one of the more recent drive stacks that I had built, I had submitted a because it was my client gave me a Google Photos folder with a bunch of original photos that they had taken from job sites. So I just submitted that with the order. And so the builders because I submitted it, built, you know, brought all those photos into the Google Photos folder for the drive stack build. And so when the ever whenever the script would run to rebuild the site, it would try to rebuild all of those image files, too. And so it was constantly timing out. And I realized then it was, you know, it was just it was one of the things that I discovered by submitting too many images that that’s very resource-heavy. And so it was timing out so I don’t you know, I just don’t submit as many images but as Marco said, you go in and change the interval from when it runs. So

Does Having A Truncated URL An Issue With Ranking Service Pages?

wills up. Well, what’s up? Well, he says, Hey, gents, I have a site structure question you may be able to help me with. I have a local site that has its own sub-menu pages have a parent menu. So services, okay, not showing the full URL path. See, let me read that, again. I have a local site that has its sub-menu pages off a parent menu, okay. not showing the full URL path. In fact, it removes the services part and only shows the truncated path instead of showing the full path. Okay. Is that an issue with ranking services pages? No, not at all.

Because again, we’ll you know, you can even go back to the two videos that one of the earlier questions was talking about where I was explaining silo structure, simple and complex silo structure. And that’s just the difference between a physical and a virtual silo is what you see in the URL. Okay? So like if you’re, if we’re talking WordPress terms, if in WordPress, you look at your permalink structure, and you have category slash post name, right, that would show what we call a physical silo structure. Because every URL like for example, if you’re at the post level, if you’re in a simple silo, you’re going to have domain comm slash whatever the category slug is slash, the post URL, right, the post slug. So that’s going to show the actual hierarchy or the silo structure within the URL, that’s physical silo structure. But if you change the permalink structure to just post name, the hierarchy still exists, right? The silo structure still exists is still part of the taxonomy. Google can see all of that, but the URL itself would just be domain comm slash post slug, does that make sense? And even on a complex silo structure, which has, again, parent category or top-level category, subcategory, so that would be domain.com/category/subcategory/post, right? You see all that if you have it is with the category slash post name permalink structure. That’s a physical silo. But you can accomplish the same sort of benefit from a virtual silo still has the same hierarchy, the same silo structure, but you just use the permalink or excuse me, the post name permalink structure, which way that I prefer it. Now I used to always use the full physical silo. I used to like that because I like to see it in the URL, but I actually prefer a shorter more succinct URL now. And it also masks some of those strange things that happen when you’re using a complex silo structure and you have some odd slug issues from categories being duplicated in other silos and that kind of stuff. So I like to use just the permalink or excuse me, the post name permalink structure, which is a virtual silo structure. Another thing you could do, just because this is an old article, I think it was published in what 2010 What is it Bruce clay silo architecture right? architecture can I spell that right? Let’s see if I got it right

is that it there? I think it is the marbles, no I don’t yeah that’s it right there. So go look at Bruce clay comm slash SEO slash silo or go search Bruce clay silo architecture and it’ll be the very first link and take a look and read this I think this article was published in I don’t know 2010 or something like that there might be a date in here somewhere it looks like it’s he’s got it on an updated site now from the last time I looked at it, but the interface looks different. But read through this article, it’ll really be explained to you and drive home. what the difference is between virtual and physical silos, it really makes no difference. They’re all effective. It’s just a matter of how you stack the content, right? You set silos and your keyword themes within the silos, add build relevancy, and then what we teach inside the mastermind is heavy hitter club which is the interlinking the way that you properly interlink within a silo to squeeze the most power out of it. Okay, that’s a really good question. Any comments on that?

No, that was fine. That’s fine. That’s a great article guy takes the time to read through it. This is something that you know, we kind of was one of the foundations for what we learned for silo architecture was right here in this article here. Okay, he has a couple of those, by the way.

When you do a search for it, yeah, it looks like there’s several of them. Yeah, yeah, you read all of those because they’ll give you insight into what a proper silence should look like. And go to semantic mastery comm slash camp, SEO boot camp, right so semantic mastery comm SEO boot camp and, and you’ll see, you know, for four, you’ll get the half price on Jeffrey Smith SEO Bootcamp, which is the best silo architecture, training, and such On-page training that we’ve we’ve come across like it’s just amazing what he’s able to do with zero or little to no backlinks at all with just on-page structure. It’s amazing what he’s able to do. So if you really want to do a deep dive in it besides reading through all these articles is go check out SEO Bootcamp from Jeffrey Smith.

Does The SEO Power Shield Include The Creation Of The RYS And Syndication Package?

Alright, so next question is Hey, guys, thanks for your time. As always a few questions I’m interested in buying the SEO power shield from one of my main money sites don’t include the creation of the RYS and syndication packages. And that’s why I brought this up. Because here’s the SEO shield page on the MGYB store and I just scroll down to the bottom and it says SEO power shield and this is what it includes the syndication network, our ys stack with G site and the IDX page loop. So yes, it does include those as it shows right here on the order page. Just go check it out at MGYB.co store, click through to the SEO shields, product page and you can scroll down and see what each different level includes okay?

Just so people know, or just to remind them, we’re currently running a 25% off coupon. Adam posted the coupon, it’s bedsheets 25 to get you 25% off and SEO. So there you go. And that is a perfect segway to the second question he has, which says, may I buy it now using a special discount and submit all the info. So you can start in two to three weeks? Yes. Make sure that you submit the information within 30 days, or else we will refund the money, refund your account. Because if what happens is people buy a bunch of stuff. And then they don’t submit for months at a time and it just clogs up everything because we don’t know when those orders are going to come through. It’s hard for our building, Build Team to plan. So I believe we have a policy that you have to submit the order details within 30 days or it’s automatically refunded, am I correct in that? Absolutely. up to 30 days you get it refunded and you have to buy again you miss out on the coupon code. So there you go. But yes, if within two to three weeks, you’re good

Does It Affect Your Delivery If The Site’s Content Is In Spanish?

Okay, number three, does it affect your delivery if the site’s content is in another language? Spanish? No, we won’t build it in another the drive stack g site, you know, all of that is going to be in English. So but it doesn’t it that’s not going to affect our build. Um, and I know Hernan were you about to comment looks like you’re about to comment. Yeah, and I was about to say that pretty simply if the drive stack is in English, but your money site is in Spanish, you should be good. Like we have had good results with people buying stuff from MGB with you know, and with the content on their websites in another language, not only Spanish, but some other languages and the tier-one are the stuff that we point links to and the brand new properties and everything is in English and still helps you to rank so so yeah.

I would add all that if if he’s planning to do a lot of marketing in social media, for example.

I don’t know, let’s say any of the ones that were a Blogger or anything like that, and he’s syndicating and the content is going to be in Spanish, then he should take the time to go in there. And like, do the description and everything else in Spanish just for the people that he’s expecting to come in. Because people who are coming into reading Spanish, and the contents in English, you’re missing out on potential customers, clients, or whatever it is, maybe traffic to your website. So you don’t want to confuse the people that way. It will not confuse the bot. Right. Google, Google Translate is getting really, really good at translation. So that’s not a problem.

Yeah, that’s come a long way over the years. Oh, it’s getting really good. Yeah, it’s come a long way. That’s for sure.

All right, bb’s up and bb. I guess I saw that this was posted seven days ago, too. So this must have been at the tail end of last week’s webinar. So I’m glad you re-posted this. So the questions are first

Should You Separate A Full-Text Feed And A Summary Or Excerpt Feed?

The first one is I syndicated the blog RSS feed with full-text posts to the brand new properties. But if I want to create a super feed, which will syndicate to RSS directories, should I use separate additional feed which contains summary expert items instead of the full text. So there will be two RSS feeds. Essentially one that’s a full-text feed on one’s an excerpt feed. I don’t think it matters for directories and aggregators, because typically they don’t publish the content anyways, like in other words, you can submit an RSS feed. And if it goes into like an RSS directory, which could be like essentially found by people that we’re searching for particular feeds and things like that, it’s usually just a link to the feed. Right? What it does also is usually it just grabs the URLs out of the feed, and that’s what like it keeps in its database, essentially not the full-text post of the feed. So and again, I don’t work for all the different directories so I don’t know but I know in the past, looking at aggregators and directories that had like search databases for feeds and things like that, it would just link to the feeds. If you click through to the feed on their platform, because it usually creates a new Feed URL from that, you know, part of their domain, then it usually is just like a, like a feed index page. In other words, it just shows the titles, which the titles of the posts are the anchor texts that link to the link of the post, it doesn’t useless. So in other words, it usually truncates or strips any of the text from the pages or the posts that were syndicated or part of the feed itself. That makes sense, however, that said, yeah, if you wanted to do that, if you had that option to be able to create separate feeds, one being full text and one being an episode feed, just submit the XRP that’s really all that matters. But again, if you don’t have that ability to create two different types of feeds, I don’t think it matters for aggregators or directories. Okay. Number two, does the attribution links, should we do follow or nofollow?

You got to think about that, which is what we talked about at the beginning of I did about a 10 minute tutorial at the beginning of last week’s Hump Day hangout specifically about attribution links for with it for RSS feeds for when you’re syndicating content. So think about how what it is that you’re trying to accomplish and what you have in your attribution links. So for example, if you’re just linking back to the post URL, and not always linking within the attribution link back to the blog or the root domain, like in other words, there were two different types of attribution, like codes that, you know, can be varied in multiple ways. But there are really two types of categories, two main categories of attribution links, one that only links back to the post itself, right, so the syndicated post itself, and then the other one where you can include a link that that’s always going to be linked back to say, for example, the root domain of the blog or to the blog page, so domain slash domain.com, slash blog, or if it’s on a subdomain, blog.domain.com, whatever, you understand what I’m saying.

Here’s the thing if you’re syndicating like, let’s just keep it simple.

Right, if the concept is going to be the same at scale, too, but what I’m saying is to keep it simple is boil it down to just a single tier branded syndication network. And let’s just think about three blog properties that we consistently syndicate to. So blogger, Tumblr, WordPress, right? If you are linking syndicating to a branded syndication network, every post from your blog that contains a link back typically, it’s going to be the title of the post is going to be the anchor text that links to the post URL as the ad and the attribution text. Right. So but if you’re also including, so the post title was originally published on your blog, right, whatever that brand name is, and now you’re linking that your blog, right is like, let’s say that was the title is the brand name your blog, right? If you’re linking back with that as the anchor text, always back to the homepage, then I would recommend that you would nofollow that part of it. Right because that is going to be duplicate.

With every single post that you publish, so I wouldn’t recommend that that be followed the post title being the anchor text linking back to the post URL. In this instance, in this example that I’m explaining, you’re only going to have three anchor text URLs per post, because that post is going to be syndicated one time to the network, and it’s going to get three anchor texts you are, uh, you know, anchor text links with the post name or title, if you code it that way as the anchor text linking back to that post. But each one of those posts would if you have the second type, which includes a link back to like the domain name, for example, you could do a naked URL, you could do a brand name, I typically just do naked URL or brand anchors if linking back to the homepage or to the blog page, for example. But remember, every single post that you do is going to contain the link back with that same anchor text. So in that case, I would recommend no following that link, but keeping the post URL and title as the anchor text as follow. Does that make sense? So you just got to think about what you’re syndicating to, and what is going to be, if there’s going to be something that’s going to be repeated over and over and over and over again, I would recommend no following that so that you don’t over-optimize a particular keyword, an anchor text. But for something that’s only one time it gets syndicated, it’s gonna have that one batch of anchor texts for the primary target URL, which is typically the post URL, then that should be okay to be the default. Does that make sense? Anybody want to try to explain that and maybe a different, different way.

I would say be careful with the anchor text, right? You know you don’t want to over-optimize, especially with links. You’re linking back to wherever it is that you’re linking on that post. Or you can add, you know, attribution to if it’s coming into your index page, wherever it is that it’s going. If you’re getting a ton of links within an exact match, then you can incur a penalty. Because it’s coming back exactly to the website, dude, you don’t want to do that. So you nofollow. You tell Google don’t penalize me because look, I’m nofollow.

Now to avoid all of this, if you’re going to that extreme, then you can do generic stick with generic more info read more here, more naked URL, that kind of thing. They’ll do exactly the naked URL. And you won’t get into that type of problem.

And so just to point this out again, remember guys, you can go to our channel. And you can go to videos. In fact, actually six days ago right there, let’s just go back to the home screen. So just go to our channel page guys. And right there was last week’s Hump Day Hangout, and we probably I believe, we should have chopped that I didn’t look to see which, you know, clips were made from last week’s episode, but that one should have in one of them, which is the attribution link cut out from that from the hump day hangout last week so that’s last week something hanging out right there click through to that watch that the first 15 minutes or so, where I go over very specifically attribution links in RSS feeds. Okay, because that’ll give you a much better understanding of why you know when to use what and why. Okay.

Right next. soon as this stupid zoom menu bar clears Okay, there we go. Alright, so next is Joe. He says will we see some proper push-ups from you all at POFU? Well, it’s gonna be virtual this time because we’re not going to be alive in a room but yeah, that would be fun with it. Yeah, this is good. If it’s virtual, I can probably crank out someone’s arm push-ups. Yeah, here you go. There you go.

Is It Still Safe To Use Full Brand’s Keyword Names With The SEO Shield?

Okay, Austin dawn. What’s up Austin, he says are Austin dawn I should say. Bradley. As you know I work in the We Buy Houses niche and have several clients across the country, many of them have partial or fully MDS example cash for house when branding with SEO power shields, is it still safe to use these types of cool brand keyword names? With the shields? Yeah, and here’s the only reason why. I would say yeah, only because, you know, if that’s why I assume that they have the exact match keyword domains, right, but they have a brand, right? So typically, there’s going to be a brand behind that they’re just using that because it’s, you know, easy to remember. And there’s used to be some significant SEO benefit from it, they’re likely still is but it can also cause some problems. So with the SEO power shield, remember, we’re going to create the keyword plus brand Association. That’s the primary objective of the tier one branded drive step, right, which is to create that whatever the top-level keyword is to start to create that brand associated with that keyword. So having that as part of the stack build plus whatever the company name is I don’t think would be a problem. I mean, I’ve done it with my own, you know, alpha land Realty. I, you know, again, I’m using a branded domain alpha land dot realty as opposed to a, you know, exact match keyword domain. But I don’t think that would be a problem. I haven’t tested that specifically, but I don’t think that would be a problem. Marco, should that be okay? It’s okay. And where we run into problems is when they ask us for the inner stats, right? So the add on a stack so that you have buy houses Maryland, Maryland we buy houses we get that type of thing. That’s when we can run into a whole lot of problems. So you’re going to have to look at this from the start. Don, maybe we can talk more about this in the webinar. We don’t really have that much time to delve into this one question right now, but it’s just a thing of how but ugly, do you want that URL, that’s probably going to because I mean that that’s the idea when you get that inner page, and that inner staff, you want to be able to bless that so that it provides so much power that it ranks the inner page, the companion, or mirror theme or inner page on the website. But it also ranks the the the G site inner page, how butt ugly. Do you want that to look to people? And when your client goes to look, I mean, you get that how Why is it Why in the world would you do this? It’s really ugly to see that. So that’s why we try to focus on people brand.

I know that exact match domains still work. But Google is busy at killing that. And you guys know when Google gets anal about something, they usually accomplish it PBN. Like they did away with TV, I was a massacre. Now people are still calling PBS. But what they’re now calling PBN and what PBS used to be. It’s two different things. So you got a whole bunch of idiots saying PBS still work? Well, no, the fuck they don’t. What you’re doing now with expired domains still works. But a traditional PBN will get picked up by Google. And it’ll get it they get the index. Remember when they did when we did the XYZ domains and we did the mass paid bills on the XYZ, how many of those got killed? It was really simple to pick them out, right? So that’s what we tell people if Google is busy out there with exact match domains and trying to pick them out and trying to pick up the spamming, especially in local those that try to step keywords into the titles into the descriptions into the URL, why would you do that? Why would you not focus on something up? Now I understand you have clients that have exact match domains. So you’re going to have to find a way to work this into the structure that we’re teaching and how you do this again, as I said,

Maybe during the next heavy-hitter club webinar, you asked this question and we can get deeper into it and we can give suggestions on how you would do this. It’ll give me time to think this out because you know we are in like an in a similar niche with Sunland, Virginia, and

Bradley’s Alpha Land Realty and my last solutions network. And so you gotta find a way to fit all of this in well tell me people get a brand, get the soul on the idea of branding of brand and creating a brand that’s going to last because if Google comes up and they start targeting end, especially spammy ones that really stuck keywords in there. I mean, it’s a done deal. It’s over.

yeah, and so that I just brought this up to just kind of demonstrate what I was talking about. So like for this was the keyword that I started optimizing for first with my brand for alpha land realty was selling fast and turns out that wasn’t the optimal keyword. It’s not the keyword that drives the most traffic to my site. And I discovered that when I started running search ads, over time, it clearly came that that wasn’t the primary keyword to be targeting. But that’s the one I started with. And But you see, I built a brand around it, right? So alpha land, Realty, alpha land Realty. So the drive stack and everything was built for alpha land realty sell land fast in Virginia. But all so you know, I didn’t. And I’ve never seen mirrored I don’t have a siloed site. This is a single page landing page, guys. But I have a, you know, FAQ schema, which by the way, that’s how you get this additional real estate here. Because that’s those are FAQs that are on it’s just FAQ schema. So I just have questions and answers on the landing page. But then I added those in structured data, FAQ structured data, and added that in HTML, this site header right. And so that now has it was funny when Google first started to crawl it. It was popping up in the press advantage. You know, propping up underneath oppressive managed PR, then it started popping up onto the G site. And now it’s ultimately it’s found its way to the landing page itself, which is good because it’s right at the top now and it’s all that additional real estate. What I’m trying to get at was I started targeting this keyword, so that there’s not like an expansion in the drive stack. None of that I never had to do that. It’s a single-page website. So, but all I did was the target, we buy land and some of the copy on the site. And you can see we buy land Virginia, even though that and it was also in the title tag as a secondary keyword in the title tag. And now I’m number one for that as well. Right even though I really never did any additional SEO on that. And then there are some other keywords in there, for example, sell my land, Virginia that I’ve never really done any optimization for at all. But there’s been some Association made through searches, you know, again, I’m paying for ads, by the way, I pay for ads and people click through those ads for a keyword like this and it creates relevancy between that search and my dumb my

My landing page. So my landing page even though I sell my land, Virginia is not a keyword that I’m actually targeting on the page. It’s still ranking organically and what number three, even though I’ve never really done any optimization for that keyword specifically, my point is it starts that’s why I think it’s important and we’ve been teaching this for years is to focus more on brand than on a particular keyword and then build start to create that association with your primary keyword in the brand. And then from there, once that association has been made, it becomes so much easier to start associations, associating route related keywords to the brand as well. So that’s why we always recommend with this SEO shield, the primary objective is to create whatever your top-level keyword is determine what your very most important keyword is, and build the drive stack or you know, to have it built with the brand plus that keyword. Once you’ve started to create that association, then you can start going after the other related keywords in your industry. And it will become that much easier to associate them because the primary keywords already been made. And it’s relevant. It’s related. Does that make sense? And sometimes, again, just naturally over time, you’ll start to rank for additional keywords that you may not even intentionally optimize for. Because Google understands the relationships between those queries. So search queries, that make sense. So was that a pretty decent explanation? Marco? That was fine.

All right, guys. Ah, that was perfect timing because we just wrapped up with the last question. So thanks, everybody, for being here. We will see you guys next week. Thanks, guys. Bye, everyone. Hey, guys.

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 292 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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graciousdragon · 10 months ago

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i found this poor attempt of a song mashup while going through my old projects in capcut the other night. believe me when i tell you it sounded way worse when i found it. here it is, finished and edited so it only sounds slightly off-timing. i will now inflict you all with this cursed ass audio. enjoy!! :D

#rys.txt #rys banging out the tunes #<- yeah i'm making myself a music tag. i will likely hardly ever use this but shhh. its ok #i came up with this idea like. 2 years ago i think. i only got like two lines into it before i gave up on it originally #i managed to make it work kind of?? i made this in capcut and you should not us capcut to make mashups please use an actual audio software #honestly just don't use capcut in general. its really slow and laggy and there's way too much ai shit. i need to switch editing softwares #i think i was actually kind of cooking with this idea tho. i think it would work if i had any idea what i was doing #this goes out to my mutual bitchboy who heard two trucks for the first time today. sorry dude lol #two trucks #lemon demon #montero #montero (call me by your name)#lil nas x

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beyondvapepage · 4 years ago