#these r just ones i marked and labeled for easy access too i also have a bunch that r just highlighted but not marked 😭😭😭

[brechtian]

btw if u ever wonder why im insane its bc my complete poems of emily dickinson looks like this.

#these r just ones i marked and labeled for easy access too i also have a bunch that r just highlighted but not marked 😭😭😭 #dickinson #emily dickinson

[caps-lockdown]

Operation: Man Flu

Alright guys here it is the first part of my new series! I thought of this awhile ago but my life has been absolutely bonkers lately and I didn’t have a chance to get started on it til now! I hope ya’ll enjoy this insane and (hopefully funny) romp I’ve come up with.

Tagging @kaytizzle and @cuffski for now, let me know in the comments if you would like to be tagged for future parts!

Summary: As a hacker nobody agent of S.H.I.E.L.D you get roped into what might possibly be your worst nightmare come to life. Will you survive the long weekend? Will you have a chance to get closer to a certain reserved Captain during this extremely stressful (and hilarious) situation?

Pairings: Steve x Shield Agent Female Reader!

Words: 3,397

Ratings/Warnings: I’m going to put hard R here for the whole thing because there’s going to be cussing, mentions of sickness, alcohol consumption, physical fights, mental breakdowns. Jealousy, love triangles (sort of), angst, drama, and lots of crude humor. Just strap in.

Also no Beta so my mistakes are my only thing to claim, I don’t own any characters either, with the exception of the reader, a doctor, and some random characters here and there.

It is in Y/N (Your Name) L/N (Last Name) format. Enjoy!

 Part One

“Y/N I need more water!”

“Y/N my eyes hurt!”

“Y/N can you tell Bucky and Tony to shut the hell up? I’m trying to sleep off this headache!”

“Shut up Wilson!”

Pinching the bridge of your nose, nostrils flaring, you released a slow and irritated breath. The shouting was coming from the makeshift quarantine section in the Tower. Never in a million years would you be able to guess that this was going to be your job at some point. In fact, you would have laughed in anyone’s face if they told you that at some point in your life you would be stuck in Stark Tower taking care of a bunch of sick and over dramatic man children. This was supposed to be your weekend in. You were supposed to be comfy and cozy surrounded by happy things, not a bunch of sick cry babies. You were so getting a raise when all of this was over.

You looked to the ceiling praying to anyone upstairs for just a small moment of peace. The moment of peace could come in the form of a giant mallet to knock all of the whiny men in the next room unconscious. Perhaps a dart gun with Nyquil loaded ammunition? Anything to help you cope with being stuck with this lot of ill idiots for the next 48 hours. Why of all people did it have to be you? You were not someone that saw The Avengers in close quarters, you were sort of work friends, but you never thought your friendship would be put to the test quite like this. Who were they to ask this of you anyway? It’s not like you have any medical experience. Hell you get squeamish just thinking about blood. You rarely got sick. You cried watching Grey’s anatomy for cripes’ sake! You must have been cursed by some otherworldly power. Loki was messing with you. That had to be it. You were sure that had to be the reason behind this cruel and unusual punishment.

“Y/N BUCKY KEEPS STARING AT ME!”

“Well you keep sounding like you’re gonna puke Stark! And if you puke I puke! So don’t puke!”

“Damn I need a drink.” You uttered before squaring your shoulders and heading back into the fray. When did it all go to hell in a hand basket?

~~Friday Morning~~

0600

The crisp early autumn air made its way into your room from your half opened window. The birds chirping slowly woke you from your slumber as your eyes opened to take in the leaves changing colors on the trees outside. The smell of coffee starting to brew at your small desk invaded your senses and you smiled out to the rising sun in a good mood.

Your alarm clock went off which caused you to scream and nearly throw it out the window, groaning as you heard the rumble of the Quinjet touching down a few floors up. So much for a quiet, easy day. They were back early.

Dragging yourself out of bed, you hastily threw on your uniform and secured your hair up, reaching for your travel mug to hold your life juice as you sloshed it into the container and headed out the door.

Life hadn’t always been this fast paced for you. You were never a morning person, and even though it had been years that you have been with S.H.I.E.L.D, these caffeine fuelled mornings were something that never got easier with time. Being an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D just wasn’t a picnic for you most days, but you certainly had it better than some of the others in your line of work. You weren’t one of the people willing to put their life on the line out in the field. In fact it was the complete opposite. You were behind the scenes, knee deep in technology. Hacking files, constantly bypassing security, you name it. You never had to leave the comfort of your own country. It was hard work, but it was also your calling. It had been since you were a teenager in high school. It was a habit that got you caught several times breaking into the school security systems, changing when the bell would ring so you and your friends could get out a few minutes early. Especially during Geometry with Miss. Wilkins.

You had been given a scholarship to New York City College of Technology after you graduated high school and you packed your bags and moved from your small town in Ohio to the beautiful state of New York. After graduating in record time with high marks you were recruited by Agent Coulson to join S.H.I.E.L.D. You accepted without any hesitation (Along with constant reassurance to your always worried mother that you would not actually be in the field. Ever.)

After a few years, and more importantly the battle of New York, Nick Fury created a small unit specifically trained to work alongside The Avengers. It was truly amazing getting to move into the Tower, always being there in case of emergencies. Which there often were plenty of. You were under the command of Agent Keaton, your unit possessing a mere ten agents total. No one knew who you were, or what you did, except The Avengers and a small number of others. You were shadows, able to breach the toughest security, get what you needed, and get out without a trace. Or in most cases, get Earth’s Mightiest Heroes into places they previously didn’t have access to. Everyone called you “The Ghosts of Stark Tower”. The hours were sometimes long, missions often stressful, but it suited you just fine. One of the many upsides was knowing that you were making a difference in this messed up world.

The down side was these way too early mornings. At least it was Friday and you could look forward to the three day holiday weekend ahead of you. It was Labor Day weekend which meant that after today you wouldn’t have to return to work until the following Tuesday, unless an earth shattering catastrophe happened. Trudging your way down the hallways your mind drifted to the future that awaited you at 1800 hours. All you had planned was a giant fort of blankets and pillows to call sanctuary as you caught up on the six books that sat unloved in a box by your bed. They were feeling extremely neglected since you had gotten most of them as birthday gifts, which had been some time ago now.

Stepping into the elevator you let out a wistful sigh as it began to climb the few floors leading to the floor that held the landing pad for the Quinjet. Smiling to yourself as you day dreamed about being nestled in a blanket cocoon and not seeing a soul for 72 hours, you couldn’t stop in time and ran smack into Sam Wilson as you exited the elevator and took a sharp turn. His back of toned muscles acted as a wall as it threw you backwards and onto the floor with a loud and ungraceful oomfph.

“Shit. Sorry Y/N. My head isn’t on straight today.” He offered a hand to help you up which you gladly took, pulling yourself up and pretending to brush yourself off.

“It’s fine Sam. Ya miss Bucky that much?”

“Ha. Ha. Ya I missed him like a hole in the head.” You snickered as the two of you made your way down the hall together.

Sam Wilson and you went way back. Back to before you were working (usually) with the Avengers. Back when you were just starting out and he wasn’t cleared for all the “fun” missions, as he called it. Those were the days when you trained together, ate together. Hell you even shared a bed together. It was only once, and nothing romantic happened, but you two only got closer because of it. You didn’t know where you would be without him in your life. He always seemed to know what to say to make you feel better after a hard day, and he always had you laughing. It usually bummed you out when he went along for missions, so you were extra thankful he opted to stay behind this past week when they announced a new mission would take place. It had been nice spending time with each other outside of work hours, catching up, shooting the breeze.

He was one of the only people here that seemed to see you for everything that you were. With the exception of today of course.

“Any issues with the mission? Why are they back two days early?”

Sam raised an eyebrow as you reached the double doors that lead outside to the landing pad.

“Now how did you know they were supposed to be back in two days? That was classified information L/N.” You quickly shot your eyes to the ground, releasing a heavy sigh.

“I…I may have hacked into the mission details…”

The look Sam gave you made you bite your lower lip in embarrassment before he merely shook his head in response.

“Damn Y/N, you should have come with a warning label. If you missed Steve that much you could have just called him.” You swatted his arm as he pushed the door open for you, the fresh air hitting you in the face and causing your eyes to water.

Sam had known about your small crush on Steve Rogers, otherwise known to many as Captain America, since the first time you had met the larger than life super soldier. He pegged you as a giddy school girl from the gate and you found yourself threatening his life on a weekly basis to keep his mouth shut about the whole thing. Steve and you had a professional work related friendship, nothing more. It’s not like what you and Sam had, and you had come to accept that it never would be that. Or more, no matter how often you caught yourself thinking about it.

“Why would I miss Steve Rogers when Sam Wilson has been here to keep me company?” You batted your eyelashes at him, causing the man to chuckle as you neared the group of fellow agents that were gathered around the jet.

“Nice try slick, but I’m still telling Tony you broke into the mission files. Again.”

You pouted at him but he only clicked his tongue at you.

“I swear Tony just needs to give you a raise already and put you in charge of that tech stuff here. His old ass mind is clearly slipping.”

“You suck Wilson. I was only worried.”

“Worried ol’ Blue eyes was gonna take a dirt nap? Come on Y/N,  he’s stronger than that.”

“Actually I was worried for Tony and his,” you made air quotations “Old ass mind”

You and Sam’s laughter was quickly silenced as the jet ramp lowered and you watched Steve Rogers exit, a deathly pale Tony leaning on him as they disembarked.

“Shit. He looks worse than normal. Pepper is gonna pitch a fit when she sees him.” Sam remarked, the team headed towards you.

Your eyes couldn’t help but dance across the Team’s faces. They all looked beat. Thor and Bruce seemed deep in conversation, their hushed voices angrily biting at each other. Clint kept quiet, focusing his vision forward and not looking at anyone. You noticed Nat and Wanda were missing, only for a moment before you realized they were on a separate mission elsewhere. They were slated to come back sometime next week.

Your vision drifted over to Tony, taking in his sickly appearance. The color was drained from his face, the area around his eyes dark and his body too weak to walk very far. Bucky walked to his left, his worried expression evident as they neared you and Sam through the crowd.

You quickly snapped your line of sight to Captain Rogers, your pulse picking up just a little at the sight of him. His uniform was still in really good shape considering how ragged he was looking. Apparently he had forgotten his razor or something because his facial hair had grown a considerable amount since they had been gone. His strong jaw was set tightly, his lips in a thin line while his large intimidating frame effortlessly helped the injured billionaire along.

“Why do I have a feeling my weekend plans just got cancelled?” You grumbled, clearing a path for the Captain as the rest of the team followed behind him, none of them sparing you a look. You were used to it by now.

“Wilson, debrief. Now.” Rogers’ voice boomed with authority and you couldn’t help but grimace in Wilson’s direction.

“Sorry Sam, tough luck.”

“L/N you too.”

Jumping at the acknowledgement you cast a worried glance to Sam who merely shrugged before picking up his pace to catch up to the group headed into the building. That could not be good at all. You followed after him, struggling to keep your mind calm with all the questions currently swimming in it. It didn’t take you long to reach the small conference room, paramedics cutting off your journey about halfway to take Tony into the medical bay to run tests.

You quickly took a seat next to Sam, everyone at the table looking to Steve for answers you were fairly certain he didn’t have. It didn’t mean you couldn’t admire his tall, gorgeous body though as he stood in front of all of you. Nope, you’d drink in the sight of him any day and any time you could. It wasn’t illegal to look after all, even if most of the time he saw right through you. Just like a ghost.

“Look L/N, I’m going to give you the extremely short version,” Steve started, blue eyes staring into yours and you could only bring yourself to nod. His voice was hard, short, he was clearly on edge with worry.

“Might as well shorten it even more Rogers, L/N here already hacked the mission files. She knows the mission.”

You could only give Sam a “What the hell?” look, trying not to let the disappointed sigh that came from Steve’s lips sink into your stomach like a boulder of guilt.

“As much as I want to be angry with you L/N, I need to know how much you know. It might help speed things up so we can get to work faster.”

All eyes seemed to shift to you as you began to fidget with the edge of the table, training your eyes to stay focused on the smooth wood surface as you recalled the details you briefly scanned last week.

“You were all sent to Tal-q’eiek to retrieve an energy source for another planet…Mon…mon something..who’s current environmental health is unstable. The planet’s self defense measures made most of the planet toxic to keep predators from other neighboring worlds away.” You started, looking up at the people around the table as they all nodded in agreement.

“ You were made special suits and would split up into teams to search the planet for the energy source. You were sent out of your element considering Danvers was unavailable to join you, as well as Quill and his team being currently MIA as well.” Taking a deep breath you couldn’t help but notice the smallest of smiles on Steve’s face as you finished divulging what you knew.

“Correct L/W, I’m always impressed by your sharp memory.” Steve complimented you and you had to grasp the chair to make sure you wouldn’t fall out of it. It was the first and so far only time Captain Rogers had made a positive comment in your direction. Usually he was far too busy to pay you or any of the other Ghosts of Stark Tower any mind. Not that you could blame him. If you were being honest, you didn’t even think he knew your first name for the first two years you worked together.

“So based on your knowledge, what conclusion can you come to on your own?” Thor pried, your gaze moving to catch his.

“ My assumption is that Tony was simply  in the wrong place at the wrong time and managed to inhale some of the toxic air of the planet, and that’s why you had to come back early. Because he’s showing symptoms of a sickness and you didn’t know what to do.”

“Two for two L/W, well done.”You felt a swell of undeserving pride at Steve’s words, wondering if this was to be your Christmas gift or something. Two compliments in one day? Within minutes of each other? You most certainly weren’t complaining but it did make you a bit nervous, especially when those beautiful blue eyes weren’t leaving yours.

“So now what? We just wait for the doctors to come back and tell us Tony is going to be ok?” Sam’s voice broke you out of your trance, Steve clearing his throat and Thor nodding in agreement.

“Unfortunate, but until we know more there isn’t anything to be done.” The other blonde’s deep voice boomed and you couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of dread.

“I don’t understand why I was needed here…” You trailed off, Bruce chuckling at your statement causing you to blush with embarrassment.

“You never know when we may need a Ghost on our side Y/N.” Bucky smiled at you, giving you a small wink.

“Yea besides,” Clint continued, “We actually like you. You’re not some stuck up, loud mouthed, cocky know it all like some of the others.”

“You shouldn’t talk about Tony like that, after all he’s the one sick right now.”

Your comment earned you a chorus of laughter.

“I’m gonna put that in Stark’s Christmas card this year.” Sam got out in between laughs, patting you on the back.

“That’s my Y/N, always one with the fast quips.”

His statement caused you to beam in response, allowing yourself to be grabbed in a small side hug. The expression on Steve’s face was a bit puzzling to you as you looked at him, but no sooner had it appeared, it was gone.

What seemed to be hours passed, but your eyes shot up at the sound of one of the doctors on standby walking into the conference room, her HASMAT suit creating a hideous scratching noise against the floor as she moved. You recognized her as Doctor Kelly Hooper, she had been working for Stark for years. She was a short and stout woman, with dark blonde hair that was always up in a tight bun on top of her head.

“What’s the diagnosis Doctor?” Clint tried, his voice humorless despite the poor attempt at a joke.

“Firstly, you should know that Mister Stark is going to be alright.”

The entire table collectively sighed in relief at the Doctor’s news, a huge weight seemingly being lifted off of everyone’s shoulders. You and Tony didn’t always see eye to eye on things, but you still respected the hell out him, and definitely didn’t want him dying anytime soon.

“However, there is some bad news.” The older woman continued, turning her attention to Steve.

“He’s going to be sick the next forty eight to seventy two hours, and will need constant care. He’s going to experience the worst equivalent of the flu we’ve seen in years. Fever, vomiting, dehydration, chills, extreme pain, and maybe even hallucinations. What’s also troublesome is we don’t have the proper staff to take care of him, as most of the day and night crew have left for holiday, and we can’t risk taking him to a hospital where it might spread.”

“Got it, can it get any worse than babysitting a sick Tony?” Bucky groaned out, his head hitting the table.

“Actually it can Mister Barnes. I’m afraid the illness he has contracted from the foreign planet is very peculiar in the fact that it only seems to attack beings with the combination of XY chromosomes.”

“Doc, are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Bucky suddenly looked up at Doctor Hooper, who had now locked eyes with the winter solider before nodding her head.

“That’s right Mister Barnes, any male who has come within contact with Mister Stark within the last twenty four hours has a seventy five to eighty five percent chance of falling ill as well.”

#steve rogers x reader #the avengers #captain america #fanfic

[hybrasilmusic]

Studio Talk with JGarrett

One I did for the blog a while back.

Millhouse and Diarmaid O’Maera’s Gobsmacked has long been a proponent of rough and ready techno. With its roots in Ireland, the now Berlin-based label has endeared itself to fans of a harder edged sound over the years courtesy of its unrelenting desire to push things forward whilst consistently adhering to a quality-fuelled ethos.

The label’s latest signing is a fitting one in that regard. U.S. / Canadian DJ/producer JGarrett has been involved in the scene for some time now and is chiefly renowned for his work at his own label, Subspec. A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the producer is currently living in Vancouver, Canada and this latest release marks his first since a recent appearance on Perc’s inimitable Perc Trax.

With this in mind, we put a few pertinent studio Questions his way recently. Here’s what he had to say…

How did you first get into the technical side of music production and where/how did you learn your craft?

I started getting into the technical side pretty early on when I started making my own tracks. At the time it was about collecting up gear and learning about mixing with a variety sources with a very limited palette… and finding ways to make the tracks compelling. Early on, I picked up techniques and best practices from my peers in the Ann Arbor / Detroit techno community that I was involved with when I started approaching it more seriously. Sometimes, jumping into the deep end is one of the best ways to learn.

I learned the importance of reliable monitors and a high-quality, neutral mixdown when I had the privilege to witness the legendary  Ron Murphy cut my first 12”. It was like getting a bucket of cold water dumped on me… I could hear everything wrong with my setup and my monitoring. I went out and bought new monitors the next day. Since then, I’ve worked with a number of people who have strong technical skills and more or less developed my technique by working with them, as well as keeping up with articles and using reference books like ‘Mixing Audio’ by Roey Izhaki. I’m very much a learn by doing type.

What would you say were the biggest challenges you faced when you started making music?

Back when I started, which was in the mid-90s, the challenges were two-prong… the first was assembling a decent set of gear with my limited resources. The second was understanding how to get it all to play together and developing a workflow with it to do what I wanted. I had a few boxes, and limited effects and processing units.

Occasionally, friends would loan me some pieces of kit for a while. That was hard too, because I wanted the flexibility to come back to tracks… so I really wanted to own all my stuff and not rely on other folks giving me access to equipment. I had friends who were great at finding deals on used gear and would sell or trade gear at reasonable prices. I built up my studio over time that way until I transitioned to more software-based production.

Things are different now, and people getting into music production these days have DAWs that come packed with amazing toolkits and the number of instances of compressors, for example, within a setup is only limited by their computer’s resources. When I bought my Aphex 108, I had two channels of compression and had to be very judicious about how I used it, because I recorded live to DAT as opposed to multitracking.

What was your first studio set up?

The studio that my first releases came out of, circa 1995-1997, was based around Opcode Vision running on a Mac 7600/120 in the studio and a PowerBook 5300cs when I’d play live. For monitoring in the studio, I had a pair of Alesis Monitor 2’s, and I recorded to a Sony consumer DAT. I had a pair of Roland Alpha Junos with a PG-300 that I could route to either one or both. My MIDI interface was an Opcode Studio 4, which was a fantastic piece of gear and provided a lot of routing options.

Other items in that rig were: Novation BassStation Rack, Roland R-8 (with Dance card), Roland S-550 sampler, Sequential Circuits DrumTraks, Simmons SDS9, Yamaha DX7, Korg 05r/w, Lexicon LXP5, Lexicon Alex, DigiTech StudioTwin, Roland TR-707, Aphex 104, Aphex 108, Mackie CR1604, and a Radio Shack mix mixer that I used as a really raw distortion unit. Eventually, I would incorporate a Roland JP-8000 and an Akai S3000xl into the mix along with a bunch of different effects units. The Akai is what really opened up sampling for me and taught me that I could love samplers.

What is your current studio set up?

My current studio setup is very streamlined. I use a MacBook Pro with an RME Babyface Pro driving a pair of Dynaudio BM6A Mk2 monitors. I know a lot of people swear by the original BM6A, but I went with the BM6A Mk2 because when I did an A/B test between them, the detail in the mids and lower highs were much clearer in the Mk2. I can see why people would find the originals to be more comfortable, but I really like how the Mk2’s illuminate the part of the mix that so much of the energy comes from and can be difficult to mix correctly… it does mean that I have to sometimes drive that part of the spectrum a little harder in the studio in order to get a more neutral mix that will play nicely across various playback scenarios. These days, my outboard gear is pared down to a couple analog TB-303 emulators. I use a Push 2 and a pair of MIDI Fighter Twisters as controllers in the studio… I’ve become very comfortable playing the Push 2 as a keyboard and find it at least as expressive as a traditional keyboard.

What is your DAW of choice?

I’m an Ableton Live guy. I’m also an Ableton Certified Trainer and I’ve been using it since I picked up version 3 in 2004… it’s become second nature to me now. When I first moved off of Opcode Vision, I went to Steinberg Cubase SL for production and Ableton Live for performing. I gradually shifted to Live as they improved the MIDI features and the rendering engine.

What are your favorite plugins?

One of my go-to synths is Rob Papen’s Predator 2. I used Predator a lot, but moved to the newer version when it came out. It’s a really solid, very useful, all-purpose synth. It’s very easy to program… it can do punchy and deep and can also cut through a mix quite well. It’s got some almost analog character to it. It’s got some really interesting effects and poly settings that give it a lot of character too.

On a less glamorous note, I’ve been really enjoying Waves F6 lately. You can do some really cool stuff with the gain thresholds to create emphasis or keep frequencies under control. I’ve been using it in mastering lately when some aspects of the premaster mixdowns don’t provide the contrast between the body of a kick and a running bass, or taming screaming frequencies in the upper mids. Plus, it’s fun to watch the EQ respond like a rubber band.

Another of my favorite plugins is the D16 Devastor. That’s one that you’re likely to hear at least one instance of in all of my tracks. It’s a good digital distortion unit and is very versatile.

I’ve been checking out a bunch of new ones as well lately. In particular, there’s HoRNet. They provide a bunch of very reasonably priced utility type plugins that often focus on narrow functionality, but performing it really well. My events crew did a show with Claude Young a few weeks back and he clued me into a bunch of plugins I wasn’t aware of before

What is your approach to sound design/sampling?

Sometimes, I’d like to be the kind of producer who spends time developing a palette of cool patches and then works on making tracks out of them later… but that’s just not my workflow. I tend to build my tracks and my patches together. I’m also really into resampling… so I may start with a synth sound or a percussion element, and then take it a sampling plugin, like Live’s Sampler, Simpler, or NI’s Kontakt and play around with filters and envelopes and layering and build sounds up that way.

I don’t spend a lot of time with audio clips until I’m fairly far into the process. MIDI is still central to how I approach my sound design. That can be a challenge, because using a sampler can lead to things sounding cheap — like early 90s happy hardcore rave tracks. It can take extra effort to work nuance into sampler patches and instruments. Often what I do is, I’ll have an idea for a sound I want, and I’ll work it up in a synth, and then record that into an audio track, and then use that clip as a source within a sampling instrument and kind of layer and build from there.

Since I make techno, I also spend a lot of time on effects, which are the secret sauce to this music. They help create the forward momentum and sense of movement you need to produce a compelling track. I’ll use effects heavily when doing resampling. I’ll often use different effects in left and right channels on the same sound source, or pan layers apart to create a much wider soundscape.

What advice would you give to the modern electronic musician?

Try creating limitations for yourself. Do exercises like: “Can I finish an entire track just using one drum rack in Live?” Try to pare things down to focus on a small set of elements and get them to tell the same story… pay more attention to how your track sounds and how it moves than to how you’re making it. I shouldn’t have to know your process in order to know if your track is compelling. It’s about what’s coming out of the speakers, not how you got there.

What is your current live/club set up?

My live setup backline is essentially identical to my studio setup. I perform with Ableton Live, using my Push 2 for clip launching, mixing, some device control, step sequencing drums, etc…. I also use one or two MIDI Fighter Twisters, that are configured identically, so I can use any combination of 2 of the four banks each has. I have brought out my TT-303 for live sets from time to time. My live set is always evolving and incorporating new tracks. I could probably perform live for 6 or more hours without repeating material. I often play 3 hour live sets at Gorg-O-Mish afterhours here in Vancouver. My set mostly consists of short audio loops, except where I need to be able to modulate synths in a way that audio clips won’t allow… for example, tweaking synth with a filter that also has an envelope applied. I’m a sucker for tweaking acid lines and basses and filters, so I try to keep as much of that at my fingertips as I can in order to keep more of the sound spontaneous. I never plan my sets… I generally only know the track I’m going to start with and from there I can mash up and rearrange my tracks on the fly.

What have been your highlights of the past 12 months?

The biggest thing for me this year was releasing a track, ‘Rushing to Singularity,’ on the digital edition of the Perc Trax compilation ‘Forever 1.’ That was amazing. We went through a number of iterations of the track that Perc was road testing for a number of months starting in mid-2017, as we came up to the version that would eventually be released. Ali is known for being very discerning in what he chooses to release; and it’s been a massive honor to appear on such an esteemed label. Dense and Pika played ‘Rushing to Singularity’ in their set at Ultra Europe, which was a bit of a cherry on top.

The Bassment hosted a Subspec (my label) showcase in Detroit during Movement this year. That was a lot of fun. Rustal and Mick Finucan came over from Dublin and JAK from SubSensory played as well. I’ve got huge respect for what Body Mechanic and The Butcher are doing with the Bassment. I also had a remix of Sean Tate’s ‘A Matter of Creation’ 12” on his RWYS label. The track ‘A Matter of Creation (Sunlight Lane Mix)’ is mine. Really nice to have something out on vinyl again and to work with guys who are really doing things from the heart and for the right reasons.

I had several EPs on Irregular Synth’s Dirty Minds label this year that have gotten a bunch of love. A couple tracks from my Recombinant EP on Advanced (Black) have shown up in mixes from DJs I have a great deal of respect for. Overall, it’s been a great year for me in terms of my music. It’s been great to have the support of so many artists who I truly look up to and whose music I’ve admired for some time. Just generally connecting with a wider international community has been great. I’m very excited to be releasing the Proximity EP on Gobsmacked shortly here too.

What are your upcoming releases?

On October 15, my third EP of heavy industrial techno on Dirty Minds comes out, the EP and title track are listed as ‘Sleeping Poison,’ but the cover art shows ‘Seeping Poison.’ The cover got it right, but I’m OK with it. It’s a similar idea anyway.

On November 5th, my debut EP on Berlin’s Gobsmacked, entitled ‘Proximity,’ comes out. I think of this EP as kind of a fusion of industrial techno and jacking techno. It’s got some noise, but it’s got something for the speaker jackers too.

https://hybrasil-music.com/

#hybrasil #live techno #techno #live act #studio #studio talk #dj #music #electronic music

[tweefunk]

2017 Local & EP Roundup

Title says it all. Here are my favorite local MN area releases and various other EPs of 2017. List is in alphabetical order. Sorry I can’t write an essay about everything, but all y’all’s stuff is sicc.

Blacc.KLagoon x w e s t k o r e a: Baby Boy EP This collab EP showcases one of the more interesting new projects to come from the MN DIY scene. This EP owes its influence rrespectively to the jazz-rap of the early 90′s, the vibed-out party jams of early Outkast, and the staunchly political lyricism of Kendrick Lamar. I’m very interested to see where this duo goes from here, especially as they continue to hone their sound and become true innovators upon the precedent of those who came before them. This is one to watch.

Boy Pablo: Roy Pablo EP This sub-20-minute indie pop masterpiece is one of the most slept-on of the year. Boy Pablo is an 18-year old from Norway with sense of melody and composition that would the envy of people half his age. Roy Pablo finds the sweet spot between Mac DeMarco and The War on Drugs, losing the affected apathy of the former, and the inescapable pretension of the latter. Don’t sleep.

Double Grave: New Year’s Daydream Formerly known as Ego Death, Double Grave put out an excellent mini-album this year which seamlessly meshes the amplifier worship of Starflyer 59 with the prettier moments of post-punk, resulting in a noisy, but nonetheless beautiful project. 

Since learning of this band, Jeremy Warden has become one of my favorite guitarists in the scene, and his melodic lines steal the show here. In many cases, his warped, glide-stummed leads provide the real hooks. It’s easy to lose yourself in the sonic wormhole, but it’s a trip well-worth taking. Shoegaze meets immediacy.

Hippo Campus: Warm Glow EP Minnesota’s favorite exports followed up this year’s full-length Landmark with a far more progressive digital-only release. Their boyish pop charm remains intact, but this time they put their considerable instrumental chops to use and create something really special. If a twinkle band went pop, this is what you might get, and I’m all about it.

Inconsistent: Acting Cool EP This one has had a permanent place in my CD changer (shut up, I’m old) since its release. I probably jam it at least once a week in the morning when I’m getting dressed for work. 

Isaac Luedtke gives a lyrical masterclass in radical honesty in his graphic tales of depression and anxiety. As I said before, I’m old, but not so old that I don’t remember vividly what felt like to be 17 and have no idea where you belong or what you’re going to do with your life. It’s a specific type of suburban angst, but one that never really leaves. The causes of existential consternation may change, but the effects always linger. Acting Cool is frankly the most concentrated dose of whup-ass I’ve seen from a local band in a while. If this were a full-length effort, it would likely have made my AOTY list.

Look for these cats to blow up in 2018.

Less Than Jake: Sound The Alarm EP Ska rules and I’ll fight you on that. LTJ has always had strong EP releases and this one is no exception. You might not expect a third-wave ska band in its 25th year of existence to have any particularly profound thoughts on aging, but here we are.

“Welcome to my Life” seems like a direct response to their 2003 hit “The Science of Selling Yourself Short,” right down to its white-boy reggae lilt. Roger Lima’s decade-older narrator finds himself in far more apologetic mood. Years of binging, worrying too much about the future, and taking the people who love you for granted can leave you with a lifetime of missed memories, failed relationships, and self-inflicted loneliness. Instead of defiance and an acceptance of mediocrity, we’re trying to save whatever’s left.

Another song that seems unfortunately timely is “Bomb Drop.” While the band likely meant it as an allegory for the inevitability of age and irrelevance, in Trump’s America it seems all too literal. We’re just watching the clock, waiting for the bomb to drop. 

Naive Sense: [Self-Titled] EP RIP. They were too good for this world. Hands down the best hardcore band I’ve ever seen in my life. Their shows will be the stuff of legend. I shit-talk hardcore as a genre quite a bit, but Naive Sense proved that the medium can still be powerfully sublime when combined with a timely, vital message and musicians with a desire to push sonic boundaries.

I have no words. Listen for yourself and weep if you never got to witness it. They were more than a band, they were the pure voice of light and hope in human form. 

Oftener: Lavender EP The solo project of Nate Gurrola, vocalist of the now-defunct Ridgewood, Lavender marks a return after nearly two years of silence. What we have here is a collection acoustic ballads that feature some of his strongest vocal work and arrangements that refuse to be pigeonholed. Describing Lavender as acoustic shoegaze seems like a cop-out, and labeling it emo seems like an insult. There’s a lot more going on here than sad-boy whining.

Oftener has recently expanded to a full band, and will be releasing another EP as such next month. Having seen this configuration live, I’m confident that this will bring another layer to the sound and make them a band to watch moving forward.

Township: Impact Bliss Another band leaving us too soon, Township announced their impending breakup this spring, so make sure you catch a show if they make it to your area one more time.

Impact Bliss is a beautiful, textured homage to shoegaze. While Double Grave resides in the poppier, more accessible end of the spectrum, Township aren’t afraid to take their audience down long swirling rabbit holes with massive dynamic shifts to throw the listener off-balance. 

This record is best enjoyed in a dark room, slightly high at 2am, and loud. Township have shot for the ethereal majesty of Souvlaki and Loveless, and come damn close to their mark. It’s that good.

VIN: S/T EP Debut release by a new band with former member of Infinite Me and Familiar Theme features some of the most deceptively straight forward rock you’ll find in the local DIY scene. But make no mistake, this is prog all the way.

Bassist Nicholas Culliton and drummer Jacob Scully are particular standouts here. Culliton creates arpeggiated, harmonized lines where a lesser musician would just be happy to drone a root note, or just mirror the bass drum. By playing like a third guitarist, he gives the band a far thicker sound without overpowering the primary melodic elements. Scully on the other hand is a rudimental monster with the musical sense to use his chops as a complement to the music, rather than an excuse to show off.

Weathered: Misnomer EP These guys have made massive improvements to both their production and compositions since their last time out. Arrangements are fussed over and far more intricate than the emo genre is usually blessed with. In particular, the rhythm section of Christian Rassmussen and Alec Panchyshyn are a two-man wrecking crew from the moment “Better For Me” kicks into second gear, and the latter subtle touch with the sticks and some lovely color to the proceedings.

The production is also a big star here in that it imbues the music with enough clarity to be a pleasant listen, but leaves the edges just rough enough to leave some nervous intensity around the band. This newfound clarity and crispness suits Weathered well.

With another album on the way in 2018, Weathered is poised to be the Minnesota DIY scene’s next big export. Misnomer isn’t just good for a local band, it’s good for anybody.

Wretch: BANGERZ  It’s kinda like if DFA1979 weren’t edgelords and ripped way harder. This is another great local that we lost in their prime. RIP.

If you couldn’t infer from the quip above, Wretch is (was?) a drum and bass combo but with a wicked front-person whose lyrics manage to speak incisive truth to the scourge of modern beauty standards (among other subjects) while still being darkly hilarious. It doesn’t read like a sermon, but rather a brilliantly dance-able stand-up routine that would George Carlin proud. 

No, none of that is intended as a backhanded compliment. Comedy is one of the most powerful tools we have for expression. BANGERZ is one the most fun releases of the year, and also one of the most thought-provoking.

[jscottscales]

Once eyed as a tool for fighting Obamacare, state waivers hit limitations

A provision of Obamacare that opponents once saw as a potential loophole allowing a Republican president to unravel the law by executive order is now being used by some states to steady their shaky Obamacare markets.

Since the inception of Obamacare, "state innovation waivers," which ostensibly provide states with some flexibility to experiment with different ways to provide healthcare for their residents, were eyed by those seeking to repeal the law. During the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, Mitt Romney repeatedly vowed that if elected, "On Day One I would issue an executive order paving the way for Obamacare waivers to all 50 states." Early in the Trump administration, officials saw the waivers as a backup plan to ease Obamacare regulations if congressional repeal efforts were unsuccessful.

In reality, the mechanism, also known as a "1332 waiver" due to the relevant section of the law, comes with significant limitations that prevent presidents from issuing broad orders allowing states to get around Obamacare's regulations wholesale. Instead, applications have to meet specific criteria to be approved. The changes states ask for cannot increase the federal deficit, and they cannot cause more people to become uninsured, increase the cost of coverage, or reduce benefits. They can be approved for up to five years, but must be renewed later.

“The idea is to give states more flexibility, but it’s flexibility in service of the goals of the Affordable Care Act,” said Justin Giovannelli, project director at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University.

Last year, as states faced rising premiums and uncertainty over Obamacare's future, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price cast the waivers as a way to help “alleviate the burdens of the Affordable Care Act” that could “lower premiums for consumers, improve market stability, and increase consumer choice.”

He singled out waivers on reinsurance or high-risk pools, which allow government dollars to pay for high medical costs so premiums can go down.

At least 35 states have considered bills to start applications, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. State officials haven't always been sure about what type of applications the Trump administration would greenlight, but so far, four waivers have been accepted, three of which were for reinsurance. Three more states have applied for similar programs, which are bipartisan and aimed at lowering premiums.

But efforts to overhaul Obamacare through these waivers, whether sliding the law to the right or left, have proved elusive. This is partially because some states tried to apply for waivers without following the rules, whether trying to move too quickly or not meeting the law's requirements.

“Finding a balance that falls into those guardrails and allows states to meet their policy goals is not as easy as states would have thought,” said Daniel Meuse, deputy director for State Health and Value Strategies.

While the GOPhas for years framed waivers as a way for states to get out of Obamacare, Democrats say waivers can protect against actions Republicans have taken to unravel the law.

But officials on both sides of the political spectrum are running into the realities of how limited the waivers are. That’s attributablein part tothe intent of the tool: It was never supposed to be an exit route from Obamacare, indicates its author, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

“I created state innovation waivers to give pioneering states the opportunity to go above and beyond the strong consumer protections in the ACA — some have already taken advantage to blunt the impact of the Trump administration’s relentless campaign of sabotage against Americans’ healthcare,” Wyden said. “This law gives states a chance to do better, not worse.”

The waivers must follow a specific process that starts with lawmakers passing a bill that then receives feedback and hearings with the public. States assemble reports on spending, the anticipated outcome, and how the plan will be put into place. They then put the information together in an application that goes to the federal government, which holds another public comment period, before rejecting or signing off on the idea.

The process has been a roadblock to approval. The Trump administration told Ohio that it had not met requirements earlier this year and determined the application was incomplete. In rejecting the Massachusetts plan last year, federal officials noted the application wasn’t submitted enough in advance as stipulated in the rules.

Jason Lefferts, spokesman for the Massachusetts Health Connector, said the commonwealth was “always considering ways to use state flexibility to best implement an exchange that provides the broadest access to affordable coverage” but wasn’t looking at seeking another waiver now.

The application process is part of the problem, believes Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He asked the Trump administration in a recent letter to toss certain application rules, set by the Obama administration, noting state officials have labeled the process "too cumbersome, inflexible, and expensive."

The administration should create a "fast-track" approval for states facing an emergency, and should move quicker when states want to copy others, Alexander said. Along with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Alexander tried to pass a bill that would have provided more flexibility in creating waivers, but the efforts are at an impasse because lawmakers disagree over abortion funding.

Certain states view the waivers as an opportunity to take the law into their own hands in the face of Washington inaction that has contributed to higher premiums. Wisconsin, for instance, cites this reason behind its reinsurance application.

“Wisconsin is stepping up to add stability to a healthcare mess left after Obamacare that Washington has not fixed,” said Amy Hasenberg, press secretary for GOP Gov. Scott Walker.

Iowa’s waiver tested the limits of what could be allowed. The state tried to set up a reinsurance fund but also wanted to create cheaper health plans that fell outside of Obamacare to entice young people. Legal experts said the application couldn’t pass because it didn’t follow the correct process or meet the requirements that say coverage must be as extensive as Obamacare.

Doug Ommen, Iowa's insurance commissioner, acknowledged certain older adults would have paid more but that the status quowas leaving too many young people uninsured.

The state ultimately determined the waiver rules were inflexible for what they planned and withdrew the idea. Ommen, a Republican, said Iowa may take another shot, but that reinsurance alone was inadequate.

"Reinsurance doesn't solve the underlying problem," he said. "The structure is bad ... States shouldn’t pay for something to prop up the ACA when the structure itself isn’t working."

Adding to the complications with Iowa was that President Trump intervened against the waiver, the Washington Post reported. Still, there had long been doubts about its legality.

"I would agree that out of Washington there has been a fair amount of starts and stops," Ommen said. "But ultimately the law has to be changed. It’s not going to be fixed by waivers."

Similar confusion happened elsewhere. Oklahoma pulled its reinsurance plan in September after the Trump administration passed its deadline. Wyden sent a letter to HHS accusing the agency of not following through on helping states as promised. In reply, the administration said the timing to meet all the requirements had been “challenging.”

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, told the Trump administration that the experience of applying for reinsurance was “nightmarish.” He noted Minnesota followed all instructions, but waited longer than expected only to discover funding for another healthcare program would be cut.

“The program is certainly not designed to be a quick fix to what one might describe as an emergency situation,” Giovannelli said. “That’s just not the way it’s set up.”

Still, some signs show the applications are moving faster. Andrew Ratner, chief of staff for the Maryland Health Benefits Exchange, said the state faced no troubles with its reinsurance application.

“I don’t think it was laborious,” he said of the process, which was carried out over roughly six weeks from the time a bill was signed to filing the application. “We have good communication with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.”

Blue states that have tried to use waivers to expand on Obamacare are hitting barriers, too. Vermont, for instance, tried to set up a single-payer system, but officials abandoned the effort after they realized they couldn’t find a way to pay for it. Because of the waiver’s specifications, Vermont officials couldn’t ask the federal government to kick in more funding.

“It’s a combination of the deficit guardrail and the realities of the healthcare system,” Meuse said. “Making changes with a large but limited number of federal dollars often requires state investment.”

Other states, including New Mexico, are considering using waivers to create a “public option” that would allow people to buy into Medicaid.

Though politics are another factor at play. California had filed a plan under the Obama administration to allow immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally to join the exchange, but not receive subsidies. State officials withdrew the waiver when Trump was elected, out of concern the data would be used for deportations.

“It’s a resource-intensive application process,” Meuse said of the waivers. “For a state to be willing to go through with it, they will have to look at all factors, the policy factors and the political factors.”

Source

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/healthcare/once-eyed-as-a-tool-for-fighting-obamacare-state-waivers-hit-limitations

[projectalbum]

R U Talkin’ I.R.S. R.E.M. RE: ME? 183. “Murmur - Deluxe Edition,” 184. “Reckoning,” 185. “Fables of the Reconstruction,” 186. “Lifes Rich Pageant,” 187. “Dead Letter Office," 188. “Document” by R.E.M.

If you’ve been following this blog with any regularity, you may have noticed how often references to R.E.M. weave their way into my appraisals of other artists. That’s because the band has become a bit of a Rosetta Stone for my musical taste: eclectic, ever-evolving, beautifully melodic, with evocative (or downright inscrutable) lyrics. I delved into their decades-long catalogue- piecemeal and out of chronology in the pre-Spotify days- at the exact point in my adolescence when I was forming what that taste would be. And now I must ask the question that has so ignited the public's curiosity: When did I first hear of the band R.E.M.?

My answer, at long last, is… "Hmm, not sure." As recounted in my entry on Barenaked Ladies (or “BNL,” as befitting such an essential band): during a high school trip through Europe, a bus ride from Ireland to Wales was scored by an all-over-the-map mixtape.* I was definitely already familiar with “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” when it popped up. And I remember, sitting there as misty green hills moved past the window, that it sparked a web of associations: I likely thought of “Losing My Religion,” probably “The One I Love.” After watching a Comedy Central documentary on Andy Kaufman, I became briefly obsessed, and my mom helpfully told me that there was a song written about him, titled “Man on the Moon.” She pulled Automatic for the People, the only R.E.M. release she owned, off the shelf and played that track for me. I think I liked it, but I didn’t go further than that.

So, sitting on that tour bus, I figured that when we reached the London leg of our whirlwind trip, I would use my personal pilgrimage to Virgin Megastore (remember those?) to pick up a greatest hits collection. And I did, getting the recently released In Time: The Best of R.E.M. I loved it so much, I barely noticed that half the songs I knew, including the one that had inspired the purchase, were nowhere to be found.

As I later learned, that compilation was put out by Warner Bros Records, and as such was solely focused on the songs the band recorded while under contract to that label. And it’s true, several of their biggest hits came out of those first few WB releases. But wither “The One I Love?” Well, before they signed that lucrative deal, R.E.M. made their bones putting out arty, jangly, pastorally pretty rock music under the banner of I.R.S. Records.  

It’s been awhile since I first heard their debut full-length Murmur (#183), but after the slicker, weirder, string-flavored tunes I was used to, hearing the upfront immediacy of the young-and-hungry band, playing as a tight group over a chasm of reverb, was a bit revelatory. Recorded at the now-defunct Reflection Sound Studios in Charlotte, NC (a liner note discovery that filled me with no small amount of regional pride), Don Dixon and Mitch Easter's production makes the jangle rock dreamy and beguiling while avoiding cheesy 80’s pitfalls. It’s all killer, no filler (I even love “We Walk,” all bouncy repetition and ever-climbing arpeggios)— right now, I’d say the earnest “Talk About The Passion” and the almost hiccupy hook of “Catapult” rank as my favorite moments, but that changes and shifts unpredictably.

The sonic muscle of Reckoning (#184) is cleaner, with opener “Harborcoat” immediately shaking loose the spooky cobwebs of Murmur. Again, the immediacy surprised me when I first heard it: I was hearing the version of the band that tore the roof off of tiny venues in sleepy college towns throughout the South. For a time, it was the comparative lack of the fussy arrangements and earnest, soaring melodies I’d come to expect from my R.E.M. that dismissed this album to a dusty gray corner in my mind. But the mark of a Favorite Band means that you can return to their work at different times in your life and find that while the music stayed the same, you’re hearing it with different ears. There’s not a weak link in 10 tracks, and songs that I’d once had trouble even recalling became new favorites: "So. Central Rain,” with its ringing Rickenbacker guitar line, melodic bass, and keening chorus (“I’m sorry”) is a fan favorite for a reason, and “Camera,” which recalls a departed friend of the band’s, builds to a shattering chorus. And of course, the one straight-up, tear-in-your-beer country rocker in their catalogue, “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville."

I remember driving to night classes in my first year of community college, listening to my newly-purchased disc of Fables of the Reconstruction (#185). Now this was immediately my speed, with the spooky, menacing, string quartet-inflected “Feeling Gravity’s Pull” and incantatory “Maps and Legends" leading the pack. The band had a lousy experience recording it, and they badmouth the way the songs were mixed, but to me the thick-as-kudzu production is a big part of this album’s hallucinatory power. I love the surreal, umber and burnished gold and chartreuse cover art as well: though the layout looks a little too cluttered on the CD, I bought the vinyl record from a second-hand store just to frame it, with the “Reconstruction of the Fables” ear-box side facing out from my wall.

Not every track does it for me. “Can’t Get There from Here” is fun but a little too affected in its whimsy, and “Auctioneer (Another Engine),” already a bit monotone, is the track most hampered by sludgy sound. But sandwiched in-between are “Green Grow the Rushes” and “Kohoutek,” glimpses of the environmentally-conscious, culturally-sensitive side of Michael Stripe and Co that led directly into their follow-up, Lifes Rich Pageant (#186). They expand the promise of those two tracks with “Fall On Me” and “Cuyahoga,” to devastatingly pretty effect.

Where Fables was a nighttime drive down an inky-dark American highway, Pageant is a wide-eyed survey of virgin prairie, a longing to return to unspoiled harmonic existence. “Let’s put our heads together / Let’s start a new country up,” the natives of “Cuyahoga” resolve over the ashy remains of the river bend. "What you want and what you need, there's the key / Your adventure for today, what do you do / Between the horns of the day?” Stipe exhorts his listeners in “I Believe,” and the Southern beach rock behind the words pushes you to make your move. “We are young despite the years / We are concern / We are hope despite the times,” he belts out over furious riffs and annihilated drums in “These Days," Mike Mills calling out affirmation in his backup vocal.

Right down to the absurdist sea shanty “Swan Swan H” and infectiously fun cover “Superman” that close it out, it’s hard to find a more consistent document of the band’s strengths. And now, damn, I want that to be a crackerjack segue to discussion of their next studio album, but months before that final I.R.S. release, there was Dead Letter Office (#187). A collection of occasionally rather sloppy outtakes and covers of varying reverence, the main draw here is the inclusion of their debut EP Chronic Town (on the CD, anyway. I notice that Spotify separates those songs from the DLO tracks). The angular menace of “Wolves, Lower” and the subtle, melodic magic of “Gardening At Night” (Stripe’s almost unintelligible lyrics are Exhibit A for his early-years shyness) are justifiable fan favorites to this day— not bad for the first batch of songs from such a prolific group. A must.

Buying Document (#188) finally gave me easy access to “It’s The End of the World...” and “The One I Love” (rather than, you know, waiting to hear one or the other on the radio). It also meant first experiencing one of my favorite opening salvos on record: “Finest Worksong.” It sounds HUGE, to borrow an oft-accurate phrase from notable actor/R.E.M. podcaster Adam Scott. Bill Berry’s thundercrack drums echo as if recorded in a cavernous factory where the overlords have been overthrown, while Peter Buck’s guitar chugs and drones, a dramatic change from the nimble arpeggios that made up previous records. It, and the songs that follow— “Welcome to the Occupation” ("Listen to the buyer still / Listen to the Congress / Where we propagate confusion”), “Exhuming McCarthy” ("Vested interest, united ties / Landed gentry, rationalize / Look who bought the myth / By Jingo, buy America”), “Disturbance at the Heron House”— make the album, at 31 years old, feel like a queasy reflection of our current milieu. No one feels fine right now.

Luckily, the music is still driving, fun, singable, varied in its grooves and moods. “Fireplace,” coming right after the twofer of the most famous singles, provided me such an unexpected thrill with a rare appearance by sinuous be-bop saxophone, such a different color for this band. Sax in 80’s songs is usually an utterly cheeseball affair, but this is a dark, weird tune, and is nowhere near that register of power balladry. “Lightnin’ Hopkins” is just as unique, with a metalhead rolling drum beat and Stipe acting like a throat-shredded street preacher over echoey chain-gang backup howls.

This band takes up a whole shelf in my house, so hold on tight for several more comprehensive and encyclopedic write-ups. 

*It’s been over a year since I wrote that entry, and I recently realized my memory is jumbled up. I now have a clear recollection that the songs from BNL’s Everything For Everyone were repeating in my head ON THAT VERY TRIP! So I was already a fan.

#michael stipe #peter buck #mike mills #bill berry #murmur #the one i love #lifes rich pageant #rock #music blog #album art #album cover #cd cover #cd collection #cd #document #r.e.m.

[soniaasell]

REVIEW ROUND UP – ROWING MACHINES UNDER £300 – LEVEL UP YOUR FITNESS AT HOME

Are you looking for Rowing machines under £300? Then my review round up is for you!

I love using rowing machines, they’re just super convenient. Not only do they give a great workout but you can quickly fold them up and slide them under the bed or store them in a cupboard when you’re done. Perfect if you live in a small apartment or in my case have no room thanks to the mountains of kids stuff filling every spare bit of storage space. For the ultimate exercise at home – the rowing machine has always been a solid go-to option as it offers a genuine full body workout.

Amazing for weight loss, boosting your stamina as well as toning and building muscles – the rowing machine is the perfect work out and makes the ideal compact substitute for a multi-gym. Rowing machines really get your heart and lungs pumping and will give you a great cardio-vascular workout that is super low impact (so they’re gentle on your joints and will not mess up your knees like jogging will).

Not only great for cardio, rowing machines will build muscle mass or to tone and you can do either simply by changing the resistance and intensity of your workout.

I thought I’d test and give my opinion on which I (and others) believe is the best affordable and compact rowing machines of 2018.

In addition to my reviews be sure to scroll down for the Top 10 reasons why you should add a rowing machine to your work out regimen.

So, which are the best rowing machines for under £300?

The Body Sculpter BR1000 Rowing Machine

The ideal introduction to rowing at home – this no-frills model was surprising easy to assemble and setup. One thing that struck me was how “naturalistic” it felt – it was just how I imagine rowing a boat would be and very much unlike the rope pull rowing machines you normally find in the gym. Don’t get me wrong this is a very cheap rowing machine and it shows in the build quality, however it does work and it is very compact so should easily fold up and disappear under most beds.

The only criticism, besides flimsy build, is the monitor – it’s a bit unreliable and it jumps occasionally loosing track of the number of strokes you’ve done. For the price of well under £100 though you can’t really complain!

Check out more reviews for the BR1000 over on Amazon

  ROW X – We R Sports Premium Foldable Rowing Machine

Labelled as “premium” – this is one of  a sea of chinese brands making waves in the UK home exercise scene (no pun intended). A definite step up in specification from the BR1000 but at only £30 more – this rowing machine uses the rope pulley method which I actually prefer over the fixed hydraulic arms used on the cheaper model.

There was one major flaw with this rowing machine, it’s really unstable and the mid section flexes when you pull on it – to the point where it almost lifts the front of the machine off of the floor! It’s due to this that I cannot recommend this rower to anyone which is a shame as I really love the design and the LCD is great.

Check out more reviews for the ROWX here

  V-fit Tornado Air Rower

This is the only rower in the budget range that uses air resistance, but it’s also the most expensive at £250!

The assembly was a painful process – there’s lots to put together, which may go some way to explain the comparatively low price point for an air resistance rower, but I got there in the end. I recommend getting a matt for this rower as based on other reviews it seems to have a tendency to slip slightly when in use. This rowing machine gave good resistance when in use and it also felt very stable (despite others saying it slips). It also folds up into a smaller foot print so requires less storage space than other pulley type rowers.

You’d have thought that with it’s higher price point, air resistance pulley system and overall better technology this rowing machine would win hands down – but it didn’t! Which leads me nicely on to my next review…

Read more independent reviews on the V-fit Tornado Air Rowing Machine here.

  JLL® R200 Luxury Home rowing machine

The JLL R200 felt solid and very well-made. Assembly was pretty easy if you take your time and it’s a one person job.

The only very minor negatives are the max resistance isn’t as difficult as other rowing machines and it’s still pretty bulky when folded up, but that’s pretty standard for this kind of compact rowing machine. Just reading the positive reviews online will give you an idea of how great this rower is, especially at it’s current price point.

I actually love this rowing machine, the price has been reduced down to well under £200 on Amazon so recommend you grab a bargain. You will not find a better quality rowing machine for under £200.

  I hope the above helps you on your search to find the best budget rowing machines for under £300 – if you have any suggestions please leave me a comment below.

Top 10 reasons why you should add a rowing machine to your work out regimen

Rowing machines are ideal for improving your overall health – they’re super low-impact, easy to use for all ages and make the perfect introduction to exercise. Rowing machines offer a genuine full body work out and are great for improving cardiovascular stamina and core strength and stability.

  1 Rowing machines strengthen the upper body

Rowing machines are great for working out large muscle groups in the shoulders, upper and low back – this helps strengthen and condition large big groups like the rhomboids, trapezius and lats. This helps by improving your posture and will have a positive effect on reducing back pain. In addition to working out your back using a rowing machine will also provide a decent workout for your abs, pecs and biceps – which in combination really helps strengthen your core. You’ll also develop and tone your forearms – it’s a great exercise for strengthening your grip, which means it’s a great exercise if your into rock climbing or stability exercises and martial arts such as yoga and taekwondo.

2 Provide a great lower body workout

Rowing machines provide a solid lower body workout, the main leg muscles such as the quads, calves and glutes really feel the burn when on the rowing machine. Did you know lower body exercise actually burns calories at a faster rate? Which means that lower body exercise is the fastest way to lose weight – which is due to the lower body containing the largest muscles which do the most work overall. So don’t skip leg day if you want to burn calories! Strengthening your lower body will improve muscle tone and help you maintain excellent stability and flexibility. Also as it’s low impact you won’t have to worry about damaging your joints or injuring yourself.

3 It’s the ultimate low impact cardio exercise

I cant stress how important this is – high impact exercise is known to lead to premature joint ageing, you risk straining your back, damaging your knees, ankles twisted and bones cracked by running, jogging and the myriad of other high impact exercises that are out there. If you’re overweight or having existing joint problems the risks can outweigh the benefits. The rowing motion is natural, uses a good range of movement without over extending and puts minimal stress on the joints whilst giving a full body work out. Similar to exercise bikes seen at your local spin class. There is a risk of back strain on rowing machines but you can circumvent that risk by using the correct rowing form.

4 Convenient Aerobic exercise for all age groups

Partaking in regular aerobic exercise will give you a stronger immune system, you’ll lose weight and get a marked increase in your overall fitness and stamina. Not only that you’ll sleep and feel better too! As exercising on a rowing machine uses so many muscle groups your heart will have to pump harder to feed a steady stream of oxygen to keep them all working effectively.

5 It’s the easiest exercise to help you lose weight fast

As it’s an all-over work out that uses so many different muscle groups and offers a great aerobic exercise as well as being low impact it really does cover all the bases needed to lose weight. If you’re overweight, worried about damaging your joints or have weight related health concerns that are preventing you from exercising effectively it may well be worth taking a serious look into rowing machines. Rowing machines are also a great exercise for people with hyper-mobility disorders such as Ehlers Danlos as it’s low impact and doesn’t force you to over-extend your joints which might potentially damage them in the long run.

6 Increased stamina

Given what we’ve spoken about above, you’d expect a marked increase in stamina and overall fitness levels. The beauty of a rowing machine is it’s just so easy to use, regardless of your fitness levels – simply adjust the resistance levels or decrease the intensity of your workout and just increase your effort and resistance as your endurance level increases.

7 It’s affordable

As you’ve seen above, you can buy Rowing machines under £300 – that’s quality budget rowing machines that will offer you an effective full body work out day in day out. Of course you can easily spend several 1000’s on a top-of-the line rowing machine but it’s an easily accessible form of exercise for virtually all levels of budget.

8 Rowing machines are easy to use

Rowing machines are deceptively easy to use, but care has to be taken to ensure you use the correct form otherwise you may not be getting the full benefit of the exercise, or at worst you may hurt yourself in the long term. I’ve included a video below that demonstrates the correct technique needed.

9 Rowing machines are convenient

As demonstrated above, unlike a multi gym, weights bench or exercise bike – rowing machines can be stowed away inside a cupboard or folder down and placed under the bed (if they’re the hydraulic compact rowing machines). They’re usually really quick and easy to setup and you can use them whilst watching your favourite TV show!

10 They’re good for your heart

I’ve saved the best for last – using rowing machines raises your heart rate and provides an excellent overall aerobic workout. It is known that you should be doing at least 150 minutes of medium intensity exercise per week as a minimum – rowing machines enable you to achieve that level of exercise in just 3 x 20 minute high intensity sessions (1). As the rowing machine works out almost all of the biggest muscle groups in your body your heart and lungs need to work harder to supply enough oxygen to feed this big muscles – which leads to a stronger healthier heart in the long term.

The post REVIEW ROUND UP – ROWING MACHINES UNDER £300 – LEVEL UP YOUR FITNESS AT HOME appeared first on Kale and Hearty Kitchen.

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Cogmind recently made it through a second whole year of its pre-Steam early access program, and as this period comes to an end I'd like to take the opportunity to, like the first year, share some data and pretty graphs :)

This is an interesting milestone because it more or less coincides with the completion of Cogmind's primary content, represented by the Beta release just last month, meaning it took around two years of work to bring the game from Alpha 1 to Beta 1. And it's still amazing that support has been sufficient to maintain full-time development for this long--Cogmind's lifetime revenue passed the $100k mark in April :D. So a big thanks to everyone who has helped it reach this stage!

@'s celebrate the Beta :)

For a more general summary of late-alpha progress you can check out the data in my 2016 annual review, whereas this article will instead be mostly looking at revenue and pricing. And while the first year of sales data was neat simply because it was seemingly the first time anyone in this genre has provided so much open data, the second year is much more interesting due to tier and pricing changes.

Let's jump right in: Cogmind made US$ 40,325 in its second year. Looking purely at the numbers, that's only two-thirds of what it made the year before, but it's important to note that a $25k chunk of year 1 revenue was earned in the first month of alpha alone, the result of pent up interest from two years of open pre-alpha development prior to that. In that light, the second year has technically been a little better than the first in terms of revenue, an 8% increase from $37k to $40k.

Cogmind Year 2 daily gross revenue, annotated (Year 1 graph here). (Click on any image in this article to see at full size.)

Year 2 started with a minimum price drop, from $30 to $24.99 (albeit by adding a new lower tier without any perks, and keeping the old price as an option). This naturally sparked a good number of sales in the short term, which eventually died off as player growth returned to normal once those who'd been waiting for that to happen got their hands on it. At this point the price change didn't seem to have any long-term impact, but we'll get to data on that later.

The next noticeable bump coincides with the Roguelike Celebration, an awesome event at which I gave a talk and news about Cogmind subsequently made the rounds. The effects of that alone lasted for a good couple weeks.

Then the obvious spike is obvious :P. RPS has been following Cogmind since pre-alpha and I hadn't expected to see anything more until after alpha, but it was a nice surprise to have a sudden article about my work arrive the following month.

Starting mid-November, buyers in the EU could finally get Cogmind "VAT-free," which basically boils down to a loss for me though it's technically the industry norm to include VAT in the list price. Considering I was still losing money throughout development it took me a year and a half to reach a point where I was willing to eat a 20% cut in revenue from those regions. Since I made that change, between November 15 and June 6th $5,085 of actual revenue received originated from EU countries, meaning $1,271 went to extra taxes (a low estimate). That's all money I could've kept for development if Cogmind was available before 2015 when the EU introduced VAT for online purchases!

For New Year's day I made an ASCII fireworks gif (actually the first iteration of the one shown at the top of this post) and that garnered some attention, which pretty much always translates to more sales. That's not why I made it--it was just a fun side project to see if it was possible with the engine, but it's nice that it had that side effect :)

Valve pre-announced the end of Greenlight in February, and since I 1) wasn't sure whether I'd like what would replace it, 2) know that having a little Greenlight campaign is itself at least worth some exposure, and 3) already had all the required media on my own website anyway, I decided to put Cogmind up for voting. There was literally only two days between the time of this decision and hitting Publish :P. It was greenlit not long afterward, but that wasn't really the point--notice that nice little spike in the graph... it's nice to have some free exposure from Steam when people who'd rather not wait can already buy from my site! Putting Cogmind on Greenlight clearly contributed an instant $750 or so to revenue :D

In April I again lowered the price, to its current and final base price and the level at which I've always planned to sell Cogmind once the main game reached completion. In that sense the price change came a little earlier than expected, since the Beta release wasn't to happen until early the following month, but sales had been flagging over the previous six weeks and I couldn't let revenue fall too much since I'm relying on it to get by before bringing a mostly complete Cogmind to Steam. (Other reasons: It was also a good excuse/opportunity to do a little advertising that didn't overlap with the upcoming Beta release, and I also wanted a longer buffer between the price change and Cogmind's upcoming Steam debut.) I actually silently lowered the price a week before even announcing the change, just to see what kind of impact it would have on random visitors. It seems to have been beneficial, though one week is too short a period and there are too many other factors at play to really draw any conclusions. (I'll share more data below to shed light on conversion rates.)

The most recent mini-surge surrounded the Beta release, a pretty big milestone considering it allowed me to declare Cogmind essentially complete by multiple metrics. A number of people were waiting to hear that, and the price had already been lowered the previous month, factors that combined to generate a decent amount of revenue for May.

Another factor that I find valuable in examining daily revenue graphs, but that you might not immediately notice above, are "zero days." Any day during which there are no sales at all is a zero day, and too many of these, especially in a row, can honestly start to get demotivating. On the other hand, ongoing streaks of anything-but-zero days are quite motivational--even if just one or two sales. I always keep an eye on that sales number (it's easy to follow because I receive an email for every purchase, and I don't look at them but each one increments a label-based counter in my inbox :P), and if I start to see zeroes it means I'm not quite doing enough outward-facing development, like sharing my progress across social media. I always work harder when there are continued sales every day, so getting into a routine of posting updates is a nice long-term self-reinforcing cycle--especially when I wake up in the morning and get to see how many there were overnight! That's been a ritual wake-up habit for the past two years now...

The all-important Order counter :P

Throughout Year 2 I made a more concerted effort to ensure there was always something to show at least once every week, and I believe this is reflected in the relative number of zero days: Year 1 was 9.8% (36) zero days, compared to 4.9% (18) in Year 2. In fact, the improvement is technically even better than that: notice a third of Year 2's zero days occurred close together over summer 2016--that was during my one-month vacation. No work, no pay xD

Cogmind Year 2 revenue zero days.

Looking at revenue on a monthly basis, there's been a clear positive trend over the past year. (May passed $3k with its Beta release, though isn't shown here as it technically extends into the third year.)

Cogmind monthly gross revenue, annotated.

I've labeled a few of the larger effects already discussed earlier, though I can find no reasonable explanation for March. The graph includes Year 1 for comparison, though I didn't annotate those months--that stuff was covered with the first year's data.

Cogmind Year 2 monthly gross revenue by country.

By country the revenue data doesn't hold many surprises. Comparing to Year 1's country revenue graph, the only notable difference is that Germany overtook Australia, somewhat interesting because as an English-only game Cogmind is assumed to mostly sell in native English countries. Of course, Germany does have plenty of English speakers as well as three times the population of Australia, and (perhaps more key here) more than one German LP'er picked up Cogmind over the past year. (Plus there was the mentioned VAT change in November!)

That graph would be far more interesting if there were localization, but at least this gives you an idea of what an English-only fairly text-heavy game can achieve in an international sense. Localization is a great idea for any game that can manage it, but sadly it's simply not possible with Cogmind.

But we do have some extra interesting data to analyze for Cogmind's second year of sales, now that we've been through multiple tier and pricing adjustments!

At the beginning of the year I wrote a lot about Cogmind's first price change in 2016, including some common and not-so-common variables factored into my pricing decisions. Here I'll add to that discussion with some final results of that change and the most recent third phase.

As a reminder, Cogmind's base price was $30 for the first 12 months, $24.99 for the 11 months following that, then $19.88 for the last month of the second year (and on through today). In the context of daily revenue above I already talked about some of the more immediate effects of those price changes, but the bigger picture holds a few more details. One element I finally have enough data to explore is Cogmind's conversion rate.

Cogmind lifetime conversion rate (2015.5 ~ 2017.5) based on buy.html visitors.

I wouldn't read too much into that graph because there are a lot of factors at play here, so many that this data is not quite as meaningful as it appears, but it's fun so I wanted to talk about it anyway :P

First of all, notice that it's specifically the buy page! Unlike most other indie developers, I don't put a buy link on Cogmind's main web page. In fact, I also don't even put it front and center at the top of the buy page itself! I prefer to 1) avoid generating impulse buys and 2) manage potential player expectations. Thus I intentionally force visitors to wade through other stuff before finding a link to actually buy the game :). Yes, it's counterproductive from a marketing standpoint, but I don't care, I'm here to build a good game and foster a healthy community, not rake dollars from random people on the internet.

Thus this source data definitely skews the conversion rate higher, because anyone arriving on that page already has a somewhat higher interest in purchasing than the average visitor. (Note that based on general industry data, those rates are high.) For comparison I did the same with /cogmind/index.html.

Cogmind lifetime conversion rate (2015.5 ~ 2017.5) based on index.html visitors.

Part of the problem with sourcing stats from main page hits is that they're filled with referral spam which can't always be completely distinguished from real visits (which, like incessant referral spam, may simply leave without visiting other pages :P). This is why using the buy page provides nicer metrics, because it doesn't get referral spam--we just have to remember all the additional factors that feed into the buy.html stats.

Getting back to those factors, Cogmind's exposure comes primarily via roguelike-focused channels, so new visitors coming to the buy page are already going to be of a rogueliking disposition and even more likely to buy :)

Also specific to the fact that I prefer basing data on the buy page, there are a lot of people who have followed development for a long time, even years, who eventually make the decision to buy when it's right for them, whether due to a lower price, the right timing, or a combination of other personal factors. I believe there's a fairly steady stream of people who fall under this category, and they'll naturally just go to the buy page and... buy. This is often after having mostly obtained information about the game through one of the other channels I frequently use,  like Twitter, r/Cogmind, the forums, the dev blog, TIGS, Bay 12, Facebook, etc...

Regarding what appears to be an upward trend in the conversion rate, while it makes some sense when paired with the fact that the price comes down for each period, I think that trend is much less meaningful on breaking down the average number of daily visitors and thinking about where those numbers are coming from. For example in its first year of release Cogmind had the greatest exposure on a number of major websites, so naturally visitors from those sites were less likely to be among the target audience. That was the highest average at 71.8 visitors per day. The second period, during which there was much less general exposure, saw a significantly lower 47.5 visitors/day. And the most recent period with the lowest price, albeit shorter, recorded only 43.5 visitors/day, yet had the highest conversion rate.

Of course, knowing this doesn't negate the fact that Cogmind's website and my frequent (if minimal) outreach efforts are fairly effective at selling the game to those who are interested. And on the reverse side, supporting the likelihood of an improving conversion rate, obviously during each consecutive period Cogmind was closer and closer to completion with a longer and longer history of steady releases. That helps convince anyone just discovering the game that it's both a substantial and promising project.

One of the buyer behaviors I've really been looking forward to quantifying is the percentage of those opting to pay more than the minimum price, and how that changed along with the tier adjustments.

Percent of Cogmind buyers opting to pay more. (This data just looks at the two lowest tiers for a given period, since the higher tiers are more complicated and aimed at group buys. The Prime tier and each respective basic tier are more directly comparable.)

After Cogmind's first year, during which $30 ("Prime Tier") was the lowest price, I added a new perk-less Alpha Tier for $24.99. For the next 11 months, buyers could decide whether they just wanted the game, or if they could afford and would like to contribute a little extra in return for having their name in the credits. Surprisingly 13.8% of individual buyers still chose the Prime tier!

Part of the equation here would be the relatively low difference in price, percentage-wise. Only 20% more for some extra perks and to support a project they like? Why not? Compare to the rate after the price was lowered to $19.88, which means a 50% (!) increase for Prime, and the ratio of buyers choosing that option was basically halved. Many of the long-time fans interested in paying more to back the project will have already done so anyway. (Though also note that data for the latter period was only collected for about a month, because the Prime tier was removed as of the Beta release. That said, I don't suspect we'd see much of a difference if I continued to sell that tier--it was removed primarily because development was entering a new phase, and keeping the "early supporters" tier active for much longer didn't seem right.)

In the end I'm very glad I chose to handle tiers and pricing the way I did, because otherwise Cogmind wouldn't have gotten nearly as much pre-Steam development as it has! Lowering to $19.88 sooner also probably would've been a bad move based on what I'm seeing now, since over the long term there's been no noticeable increase in the raw number of buyers. Anything in the $19-$30 range really falls into the "too expensive" category for a lot of people, even more so if it's not on Steam where the convenience of purchases can take some of the edge off a price, or where there's more likely to be some sort of discount to provide additional impetus. (I'm still not working at getting more exposure to make up for the loss in revenue per player--it's just the same old social media channels--but that's why I chose April/May to do this, around when it's time to transition to Steam.)

However, I certainly wouldn't claim that sticking with $24.99 would continue to generate a proportionally higher revenue. Conversion rates would likely drop if the price remained unchanged. Each time I've reduced the price over the past two years, I was already feeling that sales were starting to flag and would likely continue to do so if I didn't take action. Even if that may not have come to pass, I also knew that there was already pent up interest in a lower price, and it was about time to lower the gates a bit further and let more fresh players in.

So where does this funding go? Well, as a solo dev with relatively low asset costs, much of it naturally goes to pay my meager salary, and my job is to both create and sell Cogmind :)

As always I've been maintaining my detailed records of development time, which show that compared to 3,065 hours of pre-alpha development and 2,177 hours for the first year of alpha, Year 2 continued at a stable 2,192 hours of work. These numbers aren't too pretty, because it shows that this is a lot of work for the amount of revenue coming in--certainly not worth it in an economic sense, but that's okay for now as long as it's been sustainable.

Cogmind development time, July 2013 ~ April 2017 (excludes 2012 7DRL work).

There's always more coding to do along with any new features, so that has of course continued its long-term upward drive, and community-related efforts are finally starting to catch up to it as I spend a little more time on promotional stuff as the core game approached completion. Content-focused development accelerated significantly over the past year, which is what ate into coding time.

Comparing only the major development categories of Year 1 and Year 2 more directly, the shift from code to content is clear, while other areas stayed more or less constant.

Cogmind Alpha development time breakdown by major categories.

Because "what's a good percentage of time to spend on outward-facing efforts?" is a common question among newer gamedevs, let's also look at the major category breakdown for the project as a whole so far.

Percentage of Cogmind development time invested in each major area, July 2013 ~ April 2017 (excludes 2012 7DRL work).

So altogether it's 66.7% game stuff vs. 33.3% community/marketing. This is really a bare minimum, which I can get away with because the traditional roguelike community is pretty tight knit with a small number of key places to stay in touch with players, making that part of the job easier. Other experienced devs will say literally half or more of your effort needs to be some kind work that helps get your game noticed (or in my opinion just as valuable: serves as time spent interacting with the existing player base).

I have much more behind-the-scenes dev stats and dedicated analysis to share once Cogmind is complete, though wanted to share a little of it in this article to give the revenue more context. (There's also a month-wise breakdown of development hours in the latest annual review.)

Aside from dev time there have been a number of other expenses, but they account for less than 6% of the total budget (which doesn't really have room for anything more xD). Music is something I've been thinking about, but how much money can be budgeted there is still an unknown for something that may not be entirely necessary and for which there are multiple valid approaches at different cost levels.

Cogmind still hasn't broken even, but the hope is that it will as soon as it's launched on Steam.

It's been a good two-year run of alpha releases (see history), and the ability to extend pre-Steam EA development has been wonderful for fleshing out the original vision--some of the stuff I've been adding, even entire maps, was totally not planned from the beginning! And as a result of sufficient support despite the previously higher prices, the player base could be kept from growing too large and distracting (as mentioned in my pricing article) while still getting constant feedback on new features and mechanics.

Now that the Beta is out and further development is mostly optional fun stuff, it's time to seek out more exposure and put Cogmind on Steam :D. Performance there will be extremely important for the future of Grid Sage Games... so hopefully it can make a splash.

Making a splash.

(This article was originally published here, on the Grid Sage Games dev blog.)

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SEO: How to Migrate an Ecommerce Site to HTTPS

Google began encouraging websites to move to encrypted SSL connections, which carry the HTTPS reference in the URL, as early as 2014. Google promised a ranking boost to sites that made the move.

I have helped clients move to HTTPS since then. Most moves have produced little-to-no ranking benefit. The process of moving to HTTPS is similar to an overall platform migration. The effort is similar, as are the risks to organic search traffic.

Your online store already has an SSL certificate for the checkout and payment process. But moving an entire site to HTTPS will likely result in much angst — as well as development and consulting costs. So, if the potential ranking boost is minimal, why make the move?

HTTPS: Pros and Cons

Google, in its “Online Security Blog,” published the following update in December 2016:

To help users browse the web safely, Chrome indicates connection security with an icon in the address bar. Historically, Chrome has not explicitly labeled HTTP connections as non-secure. Beginning in January 2017 (Chrome 56), we’ll mark HTTP pages that collect passwords or credit cards as non-secure, as part of a long-term plan to mark all HTTP sites as non-secure.

Chrome now “marks” HTTP pages that collect passwords or credit cards as non-secure.

I typically advise clients to not implement changes for a potential rankings gain. But, in the case of HTTPS, there is a potential to lose rankings and organic search traffic, especially since Chrome now accounts for roughly 60 percent of the browser market share. That may be reason enough to implement HTTPS.

There is a myth that if you move to HTTPS, your site will slow down because of the encryption process. That might have been the case several years ago, but today the opposite is true. Today’s servers are orders of magnitude faster, and many contain advanced features — such as HTTP/2 — that are available only to browsers with HTTPS connections.

You can compare the speed difference between secure and non-secure connections using HttpVsHttps.com. In my test, an HTTPS connection was 88 percent faster than HTTP.

You can easily compare HTTP vs. HTTPS speed using accessible tools.

Most of my clients that have migrated to HTTPS have not experienced losses in organic-search traffic. But, in two recent cases, with large sites, there were drops in traffic after the move, even though we now treat HTTPS moves with the same rigor as a site migration.

What follows are steps to move your ecommerce site from partial HTTPS use to complete HTTPS, for the entire site. Implement these steps first on the staging version of your site, then move to production.

Implementing HTTPS

Redirect maps. You don’t really need to map URLs individually to move to HTTPS, because the URLs are, essentially, the same. You need to update your existing redirect rules to point to HTTPS, or create new redirects.

Redo forced HTTP. Some ecommerce platforms are set up so that the checkout funnel is forced to be HTTPS, and every other page is forced to be HTTP. Remove the rule that forces HTTP.

RewriteEngine On # This will enable the Rewrite capabilities RewriteCond %HTTPS ==on # This checks to make sure the connection is HTTPS #RewriteRule !(^/?order/.*) http://%SERVER_NAME/$1 [R,L] # This rule will redirect all users who are not using any part of /order/ to the same location but using HTTP. # i.e. https://www.webstore.com/category1/ to http://www.webstore.com/category1/

  Broaden the forced HTTPS rule. If your platform is on a subdomain or third-party site, you will need to start the entire SSL setup from scratch. Google’s guide can help with this.

Assuming your checkout funnel is using HTTPS by default, these are the changes (for Apache servers) to force the entire site to HTTPS.

RewriteEngine On # This will enable the Rewrite capabilities RewriteCond %HTTPS !=on # This checks to make sure the connection is not already HTTPS RewriteRule ^/?(.*) https://%SERVER_NAME/$1 [R,L] # This rule will redirect users from their original location, to the same location but using HTTPS. # i.e. http://www.webstore.com/category1/ to https://www.webstore.com/category1/ # The leading slash is made optional so that this will work either in httpd.conf # or .htaccess context

  Use protocol-relative page resources. Next, make sure all page resources — such as images, JavaScript, CSS, fonts, third party scripts — are using HTTPS. This is critically important because if any resource is using HTTP, the browsers will display ugly warnings.

Make sure all page resources — such as images, JavaScript, CSS, fonts, third party scripts — are using HTTPS. On this example, Jared.com is linking to an image via a HTTP connection.

An easy way to do this is to mass replace URLs from http:// to https://. The problem with this, however, is that third-party resources that are not available as https:// can break the pages. A clever shortcut is to mass replace page resources using protocol-relative URLs, which look like //webstore.imagecdn.com/logo.png. Note that I removed the protocol and colon. This causes the browser to load the page with whatever the site is using — HTTPS or HTTP.

This mass replace work needs to be done at the database level. Some ecommerce systems can handle this for you automatically.

Check for mixed content. When an HTTPS page includes resources that are linked using HTTP, browsers consider this a security exception, and display warnings to end users. You can identify these using my company’s free site crawler, or via a desktop crawler, such as ScreamingFrog.

Identify mixed content with a crawl tool, such as Screaming Frog.

With a page open that is displaying browser warnings, use this shortcut in Google’s Chrome Developer Tools, in the main menu, under More Tools > Developer Tools. Click on the Network tab, and type mixed-content:displayed in the filter search box.

Using Google’s Chrome Developer Tools, type mixed-content:displayed in the filter search box to check for secure or non-secure resources — mixed content — depending on the page.

Check for temporary redirects and redirect chains. Make sure your redirects do only one hop, and are 301 permanent redirects. Temporary redirects can delay indexing the new URLs, and redirect chains introduce extra latency and otherwise waste Googlebot’s crawl budget.

Update internal links. Updating all absolute internal links to use their HTTPS version is an optional but important step. While the redirect rules will land users on the right version of the pages, the redirects will introduce some additional time to each request.

These steps, above, should complete the move to full HTTPS. I’ll now address the extra steps needed to preserve your search engine rankings and traffic.

Preserving Search Engine Rankings

Use absolute canonicals. I often see retailers using relative canonical tags. This is an incorrect practice. If a page is available as http:// and https://, the canonical should be clear about which one is the preferred version. In this tutorial, we are moving to HTTPS. Thus the canonical should start with https://. When you use a relative canonical, you really have two canonicals, one for the https:// page and one for http://.

Update pagination tags, hreflang tags, alternate media tags. Similar to canonicals, update all URL-based SEO tags so they use https://. Don’t forget to update HTTP header tags.

Create a duplicate Google Analytics view to monitor the HTTP to HTTPS migration. It is important to update the Google Analytics default URL to HTTPS. I also like to create a separate view to review the traffic in both versions as the migration progresses.

Create a duplicate view in Google Analytics to monitor both HTTP and HTTPS.

Register Search Console profiles for HTTPS — desktop and mobile. Google tracks each URL path separately. It is not uncommon for site owners to panic — when their search analytics stats tank — because they are looking at the HTTP profile. Fortunately, Google introduced a feature last year to combine the profiles using sets.

Update URL parameters and disavow files. If you have URL parameters or disavow files in your HTTP profile, make sure to replicate them with new HTTPS version. This applies, too, if your mobile site is in a subdomain — replicate the HTTP configuration.

Create a separate XML sitemap and track both. Instead of just updating your XML sitemaps URLs to use https://, create a full copy of all sitemaps, and register two sets: one with http:// URLs and one with https://.

Registering duplicate XML sitemaps won’t create duplicate content. Sitemaps are primarily used for discovery and reporting. They don’t directly control indexing.

The main benefit of leaving both sets of XML sitemaps live is that you should be able to see as all HTTP pages removed from the index, and the corresponding HTTPS ones indexed.

Remove any HTTPS blocks in robots.txt. It is possible to have one robots.txt for the HTTPS version of your site, and one for the HTTP one.

Years ago, I incorrectly advised clients to block all pages on the HTTPS robots.txt. My thinking was that it would avoid duplicate content. Over time I realized that blocking pages via robots.txt is the worst possible solution to duplicate content problems. That is because pages blocked by robots.txt accumulate links and page reputation. You can confirm this by checking if pages you blocked are still getting indexed. In other words, crawling (which robots.txt blocks) and indexing are two separate processes.

The correct solution is to use absolute canonicals, which consolidate it instead.

Delay implementing HSTS, HSTS preloading. Many articles and guides about moving to HTTPS recommend activating HSTS, which is a fantastic security feature that forces browsers to always load the HTTPS version of your site, regardless of redirects. It can also prevent other sites from impersonating your site.

But I prefer to wait until after the move to HTTPS is complete and the site is functioning as intended, so that there are no traffic issues that might call for a rollback. An alternative is to roll out HSTS gradually by incrementing the max-age value in the HSTS header.

Consider rolling out HSTS gradually by incrementing the max-age value in the HSTS header.

Finally, consider adding your site to the Chrome’s HSTS preload list.

Content delivery networks. If you are stuck in an ecommerce platform that won’t allow the move to full HTTPS, you can use a CDN, which will increase speed and most CDNs will handle the full HTTPS conversion for you.

Consider a gradual move. If your store takes more than 2-4 weeks to fully crawl, or if the store is responsible for high-volume sales, consider a gradual move. This involves removing forced redirects from sections of the site at a time, and updating the canonicals to get the HTTPS pages indexed. Monitor the traffic progress using the two Google Analytics views I recommended earlier, and continue the migration. Or, roll back if there are problems.

Test that HTTPS pages can be crawled and indexed. Using Google Search Console’s Fetch as Googlebot, make sure that Google can crawl and index the HTTPS pages. Check a sample product page, a category page, and other pages and sections. Also, check that Googlebot is picking up the redirects from HTTP correctly. Note that the Fetch as Googlebot tool won’t follow multiple redirects. So if there is a redirect chain, you will need to send multiple requests.

Publish your staging site to production. The details for this will vary based on your setup.

Monitor Progress in SERPs

In addition to tracking progress in Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and your web server traffic logs (if you can get them), it is important to track indexing progress directly in the search results using the site: command.

I prefer Chrome Developer Tools to follow the redirects, starting from the search result and clicking to the destination page on the site. I’ve found redirects that don’t work as expected, or worked one way in staging and another once released to production.

Have you switched your site to HTTPS? Please share your experiences and tips in the comments, below.

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