(Trading banner blinkies? Let me know if you link back to this page & I'll add yours.)
Click these handy candy-colored weblink buttons to take you to various sections on this internet homestead of mine.
But before you explore too far on the page here, please take a minute to look at these links to my other NeoCities sites. I made them just for you.
I'm having a blast being here on NeoCities and getting to meet other folks who are making all these amazing websites I see. Here on Netizen's Homepage I'm featuring maximum dorkitude including my analog art, writing for table top games, and the music I write and record. In the process of putting together this digital home I am re-learning how to do HTML, teaching myself obsolete HTML tricks, and building hundreds of obnoxious custom animated GIFs. It's been fun seeing folks have fun surfing the site. What a creatively fun and slightly dumb project this all has been (my favorite kind)! Sign the Guest Book and leave your NeoCities site, I'll be sure to feature a link to your page.
- James
Enjoy this selection of drawings and logos that I've done for fun and for various personal projects. Some of this art I haven't shown anyone in a couple decades. Click the images to see the full drawings and for more details & info on the art mediums used.
Here are some writings I've done. A couple articles from an analog zine of obsessive dork-culture, INTO THE WORMHOLE, that I'll be releasing in 2022. My design document from my aborted DECAYING ORBIT project (a Nintendo NES videogame / spacerock album / comic book project). And a few behind-the-scenes pages for table-top role playing games that I ran and/or played in. And the WUVABLE OAF comic we wrote (thanks to Ed Luce for letting me reprint it here). Click on the images to read.
I am always working on various musical projects. I like left-of-center music and weird bands that are heavily themed. I primarily play vintage analog synthesizers. But also dabble in old drum machines, caveman bass and electric guitar, my great grandfather's violin from 1889, and also some turn-of-the-century acid house software on a 1999 G3 iMac. So if you think you'd like to hear my music in the genres of "space rock" or "sleazy 90s industrial" or 'synth-glam" or "Belgian New Beat" or "orgone noise" or other audio hallucinogenres click on the images / links to hear these projects.
BE AWARE: As audio files tend to be quite large, you'll definitely want a 56K modem (or better) paired with a fast internet connection of at least 280kbps (or better) to listen to this music.
LEATHER NOT PLEATHER, sleazy 90's industrial just the way you like it, baby. Featuring blistering vocals by Portland crustpunk / grindcore legend August Alston.
11-song debut album out on Compact Disc, Cassette and digitally.
Plus 2-song "Strip!" EP on 3" CD Single + 4-song "The Raw Mixes" EP on 3" CD Single + 2-song "Dance Sexy" EP of Ravaged Audio Mixes on 3.5" Floppy Disk. November 17th 2021.
Listen to more LEATHER NOT PLEATHER here.
Dead Like Me
From the LP "It's a Sick World But Someone's Gotta Love It"
Sex Target Sex
From the LP "It's a Sick World But Someone's Gotta Love It"
Body Hard
From the LP "It's a Sick World But Someone's Gotta Love It"
Gets You Off
From the LP "It's a Sick World But Someone's Gotta Love It"
Strip!
From the EP "Strip"
SPACE MONSTERS, a minimal / hypnotic space rock instrumental duo from a parallel-Earth's 1997. Featuring Josh Krause (drummer) and myself (synths) of SPACE STATION.
The third SPACE MONSTERS release, "Out of the Atomfire" arrives X-Day 2022 July 5th at 7am Malmo, Sweden time. With bonus tracks at 7am in London, New York, Madison and San Francisco.
Listen to more SPACE MONSTERS here.
I, Automata
From the EP "It Happened Tomorrow"
By The Light of a Dying Star
From the EP "Raiders of the Solar Frontier"
The Pleasure Saucers
From the album "Out of the Atomfire" released July 5th 2022.
Spaceway
From the album "Out of the Atomfire" released July 5th 2022.
DEADTECH, fresh new New Beat tunes and video toaster hallucinogenics, hand crafted in the traditional manner, for your 1988-1989 Belgian nightclub. The Belgian experience, as filtered through the 80's American midwest, and crash-landing 30 years later in San Francisco, California. Featuring Chuck Nicklow on VHS video orgasmica. (Not actually remixes)
Listen to more DEADTECH here.
High Density Disk - New Beat Never Sleeps (DEADTECH Mix)
From the LP "Another New Beat Day In Paradise" released December 31st 2022.
Bass Dvice - In A Moment (DEADTECH mix)
From the LP "Everything Old Is New Beat Again" released December 31st 2021.
Caitel & Ronkko - Music Machines (DEADTECH Mix)
From the LP "Another New Beat Day In Paradise" released December 31st 2022.
A1 Skyraider - Area 88 (DEADTECH Mix)
From the LP "Another New Beat Day In Paradise" released December 31st 2022.
The Wisdom Alliance - Mai The Psychic Girl (DEADTECH Mix)
From the LP "Everything Old Is New Beat Again" released December 31st 2021.
CASUALTIES OF PSYCHIC DISASTERS, experimental electronic noise damage to attune Orgone Particle Conversion. Recorded live inside a quantum well, 2012. Released in a perpendicular nildimensional space.
Listen to more here.
Influence of the Pyramidic Field
From the LP "DOR -> POR"
Flight of the Extrasensorite
From the LP "DOR -> POR"
(Updates from the Webmaster)
The Weblog Has Moved To A Dedicated Page
Click Here For Weblog
Musical Collaborators: Got Minimal Synth?
Fellow Musicians / Noiseicians: Inspired by French coldwave / minimal synth bands like JACNO and Guerre Froide I recorded a couple stripped-down demo songs for a minimal synth project in that style. Ultimately that project stalled out before it got very far (the other folks just don't have the time for it, that stuff happens, no harm no foul). But I'd still like to do something collaborative with these songs! So... if you are a musician / noiseician and want to work with my minimal synth / coldwave / synthwave alter ego Jacques le Shoc let me know! (Also I'm not married to these song titles, so let me know what you think we should call them) Here's three demos for you to check out: Get On Your Tron Bike And Ride + Cybercrime Syndicate + This Robot (This Robot features Kae Ray of HOLOGLAM on bass). A nerdy gear list for these songs can be found here.
Hi, I'm James.
When I was a kid my dad was constantly bringing home old crap he got from Goodwill and saying stuff like, "These were the best downhill ski boots you could buy in 1962" and outfitting my young self with trashy and decades out of style relics of yesteryear. My weird clothes, home haircuts done with a straight-razor - I got a lot of grief from the "cool kids" at school for all that stuff. Especially those damn 1962 downhill ski boots that were made of ice cold, barely-insulated red leather and had shoe laces that would freeze and trap you inside them. And which also stuck out like a sore thumb on those school ski trips and get you accosted by the rich kids for wearing ancient garbage like that.
But my dad was right.
Not only was sticking out like a sore thumb always going to be my lot in life, and there was simply no hiding from it (trying to blend in with other kids sucked anyway)... but old stuff, especially that built-to-last old stuff that you can fix with your hands or old technology that has limited but sexy functionality, is awesome.
I write and record a bunch of music in my free time. I play old, kind of unloved, synthesizers (Roland SH-09, Roland SH-2, Korg Prophecy, etc) and pair them with other old, slightly unpopular, gear (Roland CSQ-600, Drumatix 606, Apple G3 iMac, etc) to make music that I enjoy (space rock, industrial, synth-glam, and various forms of electronic and EBM derivatives). I gather a bunch of dorky old things to display in my home. From antique ray guns (1930s Buck Rogers XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol, 1950s Futuristic Productions' Strato Gun, etc), to vintage comic books (2000ad, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, etc), to old video games (Genesis, PS1, PSP, etc), to mugs from Tiki Bars I've visited (Caribbean Zone in SF, Aku Aku in Oslo, Okolemaluna in Hawaii, etc), and old table top RPG box sets (Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Psi-World, etc). Recently I've been restoring 8-Track tapes and eBaying 1960s 4-Track Muntz Tape Carts to listen to in my car. Speaking of old stuff I recently had a one-in-a-billion lucky break and actually found my old skateboard on eBay that I gave away 32 years ago. Pretty amazing.
I don't like labels very much so I don't tend to use them when talking about myself. But do often refer to myself as a "creative weirdo" and also an "optimist" - so I guess I'm cool with those labels. I also proudly wear my hard-won "dork" label. Cos man, I earned that over a lifetime of social misfit-hood. Unfortunately, "geek" and "nerd" have been co-opted by marketing agencies to sell stuff, so those terms are 86ed in my world. Folks don't seem to like dorks very much, so I'll gladly be one of those instead.
Twenty one years ago I opened up the comic store of my dreams in San Francisco with Kirsten Baldock, and we're still running it today, Isotope - the Comic Book Lounge. It truly is a dream job. I had this crazy vision of what I wished comic stores could be like and just had to see it come to life. My comic book store takes a lot of work and a lot of love and a lot of creativity. It's a fun place where I get to host all sorts of unique and unusal events. And putting comic books in people's hands is the best job I could ever hope to have. Things went so well with the comic store, and I had that probably slightly insane itch to spread my creative wings even further, so ten years ago I decided to risk it all to throw the greatest party / comic convention I could dream up, called MorrisonCon, with 10 of our most favorite comic book creators at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas. Just in time for the end of the Mayan Calendar and just before the coming of Ragnarök. The party of the millennium! Thanks to the hard work and brilliance of Kirsten and our friend Ron, and the creators and the guests, we did just that. A huge success and a truly legendary event in the comics industry. And thankfully it didn't destroy my beloved comic store or our relationships in the process. I am truly blessed to have been able to bring those parallel-Earth visions of comic stores and comic conventions to life.
I have several band projects I am actively writing and recording music for. Space Monsters, a cinematic instrumental space rock synth-and-drums band with drummer Josh Krause who now lives outside of Malmo, Sweden. Leather Not Pleather, a sleazy 90s-style industrial band with legendary Portland crustpunk singer August Alston. The synth-glam band Hologlam, a dragtastic San Francisco-based SF glitter rock trio starring otherwoldly rockstars Jimmi Nova, Kae Ray, and superstar lead singer Cherry Cosmic. Deadtech, a Belgian New Beat audio + Video Toaster visual hypnosis project with VJ Convex (Chuck Nicklow). I just got a collaboration track back for Psychovore, a new hallucinogenre for me of pure Psy-Trance with my lifelong friend André Buckles. That's some hot stuff! Am hoping to craft some rave-tastic tunes with my flying trapeze / DJ friend Andrew Nilsen in the New Year. And am excited about a potential avant-garde / synth-punk venture with multi-instrumentalist and famed Minneapolis interactive art-guerrilla Heavy Pennington. And just in case that's not enough projects already, former members and I have also been cooking up a mad plan to revive two of my favorite old bands, one which was active in the early 2000s and another which left an indelible scar on the American Midwest with more shows than I can remember over half a decade in the mid 1990s.
A few years ago I restored my dad's 1965 Mustang and drive it every weekend now. That was another life-long dream. I have known that car my entire life, rode in it as a baby with my sisters along the Wisconsin River, and also watched it sit dead in my childhood driveway for more years than I can count. I'll never forget telling a neighbor kid as he was kicking my ass in my own driveway that someday I'd fix that car up and drive far away from all the bullshit. He didn't believe me, and neither did most other people throughout my life. But I knew they were wrong. After moving to California, and then spending all my savings to open my comic book store, the Mustang sat outside for 16 years before I could finally get her running again. We spent six long winter months in a cold garage wrenching under that hood, cleaning the interior, and endlessly hand-sanding the destroyed paint to reveal beautiful layers hidden beneath the surface. Hard work but it was worth it.
Recently I've been re-teaching myself 20-year-dormant HTML skills, plus a lot of things I never knew how to do, in order to make this NeoCities page. Another art project using the medium of old technology that has limited but sexy functionality. And that you can fix with your hands, in a sense. And in the process, learning the art of creating animated GIFs in order to create this Homepage website, the Orange Krush site (based on a character I play at the 1995 Hackers themed quadrennial party that I host with Terminal Velocity), and the marginally-not-safe-for-work Leather Not Pleather site. I have always found creative limitations and archaic tools to be fertile ground for driving creativity. So it's been particularly creatively potent to be delving back into this ancient web tech. Also I think it's funny. And that gets the creative juices flowing too.
Doing this project has inspired me to learn and create more primitive art projects using obsolete software. Up next I'm teaching myself HyperCard, which is a pre-internet hypermedia application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers, to make a modern DiskZine about the current industrial music scene to be released on 3.5" Floppy Disk and also via the web on the Internet Archive (click here for a sneak peek).
Let's see... what else should I tell you about myself? I live with two adorable cats, Asgard and Avalon. I built them a Tiki Bar for Cats under some wicker lawn furniture just before I started on this site. If you like cats you can see my old school Macintosh-Dithered photos of them on the left hand side of this page and also in a larger format at the 1-Bit Mac Dither Kitten Theater. I love them very much.
Oh... and I still cut my hair at home. Fuck blending in.
Thanks again for stopping by.