6.4.06

Last weekend OFarm rocked the party up on Patten Hill in Shelburne Falls. Beautiful outdoor setting, bonfires, and amazing people. Thanks to the energy of the folks, OFarm played a strong, devil-may-care set. Thanks Leah, Jessica, and NTT for hooking this one up.

OFarm is on the radio. Heard recently was Snow Keeps Falling on WMUA, UMass Amherst College radio.

And don't forget to check out the latest podcast. Episode 18, Part III of IV in the Basement Show series.

5.17.06

The OFarm rocked The Basement in Northampton, Ma. on April, 25th. We've got the podcast to prove it. Podcast Episode 16 features Part I of IV. Present and Accounted for: St Mix, Bion, NTT, Rus-t, MC Stash, Jana Bird.
Weve been working on our Myspace page recently. Check it out.

4.25.06

Last night was a fun gig on the Valley Homegrown show on Greenfield Cable TV. The setlist looked something like this:
ultimate high
rootsy g
desert rock/kung fu
tribal revival
vender offender
happy time
jackboot
life on the ostrich farm
my turn
grocery store
monkey callz
sweatin it
got the workflow

On hand were St Mix, Bion, N.T.T., MC Stash, and the late-inning defensive replacement Rus-T.
Many thanks to Travis, Jason, and the rest of the gang of Valley Homegrown! They deserve a lot of credit for carrying the torch for live music in the Upper Pioneer Valley.

This month at Café Koko the podcast team is St Mix, Bion, N.T.T., MC Stash, Rus-T, and Louie. Beware Stash's dreaded fast-food microphone of destiny!

Episode 12: The Supernatural Power Hour (Koko's 4.15.06)

We Must Rock

4.12.06

Ostrich Farm: Telecasts and Podcasts
The Pioneer Valley Outreach Project

Greenfield, Ma:
This Saturday April 15th, Ostrich Farm continues it's monthly Podcast show, The Supernatural Power Hour at Café KoKo (8 PM, 204 Main St., 774.2772). A Podcast is like a pre-recorded radio show that you can catch on any computer or iPod. The easiest way to find it is through the free software iTunes (Mac/PC). A link to the podcast is also provided at Ostrich Farm's website, birdwaves.com. Once you subscribe to the Podcast, new episodes are automatically updated. You can then listen whenever you want, on your computer, or on the road.
After the live, 2-hour show is taped, the first 1/2-hour segment will be available about three days later. Shows are released weekly.
The group now features St Mix (Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Ableton Live, Keyboard Percussion), Bion (Vocals, Ableton Live, Keyboards), Rus-T (Vocals, Acoustic Guitar), MC Stash (Vocals, Horns, Percussion), and The Entity (Vocals). The music is a rich blend of Hip-Hop, Art-Rock, and Rootsy Grooves. Also on board for the show is Lower-Case G's, Rus-T's Acoustic Hip-Hop Band.

Then on Monday April 24th, O-Farm appears on Homegrown once again (7 PM, Greenfield Community Television Studio, 393 Main St). Studio audiences are highly encouraged, so please note the new taping time: 7 PM.

Northampton, Ma:
The Basement, Tuesday, April 25th (8 PM, 21 Center St, Northampton, (413) 387-6345). This Podcast show marks our first return to Hamp since last November's Supernatural Power CD release party at The Elevens.

See you there!
- St Mix

Get Supernatural Power Hour Episode 11

4.3.06

Episodes 9 and 10 are up, continuing the Supernatural Power Hour from 3.18.06. In other O-Farm news, we've got another Homegrown show coming up on Greenfield Cable TV gig, on April 24th. This time the show airs live at 7 PM. The GCTV Studio is located on the 3rd floor of 393 Main Street in downtown Greenfield MA. All are invited. Also, we've got a podcast show coming up in Northampton, at The Basement ( the old Mulino's acroos from the Iron Horse) on April 25th. More details on that later.

3.18.06

Episode 8: The Supernatural Power Hour (or Two) is available. The O-Farm and the Lower-Case G's are back again. In this episode MC Stash returns, brandishing the brass.
Here's the full lineup: St Mix and Bion on Vocals and Live Mixes, Rus-t on Vox and Guitar, Tim on Guitar, Louie on Bass, Star on Drums. Live at Café Koko, Greenfield, Ma. March 18th, 2006. Part I of IV.

3.10.06

Episode 7: Live at Café Koko's Part III is available.

3.1.06

Episode 6: Live at Café Koko's 2.18.06 (Part II) is available.

2.24.06

Episode 5: Live at Café Koko's 2.18.06 (Part I) is available. We've got a whole new thing goin' on in the podcast now folks. In this episode, we've taped our latest gig at Café Koko in Greenfield, Ma. Ostrich Farm has an informal regular gig at Koko's every third Saturday of the month. This week's guest stars were The Lower-Case G's, Rus-T's group. That group features Rus on guitar and vocals, Tim on guitar, Louie on bass, and Star on drums.

This show also showcased St Mix's new live rig. I've been wanting to get more "live" with the track playback, and now I've got the pieces together. The rig centers around an old Mac laptop that I bought used for $50 (!), with an external firewire drive, and a cheap midi keyboard. For this show I bought a keyboard stand, and a Line 6 Toneport.

The Toneport is a pretty interesting piece of gear. For years Line 6 has been making stand-alone guitar amp modeling devices like the Pod XT. The Toneport is very similar to that, but it connects to a computer, and uses the computer for processing. It solves a couple things in my live rig. The primary one is that because it has two mic inputs with phantom power (as well as instrument and line inputs), I can use it to drive my SM 81 mics to record the room sound. It also has sp/dif digital output which is perfect for my DAT tape recorder. To conserve CPU, I bypassed any effects processing for the Toneport. In other words, the Toneport was used only to drive the room mics.

On the laptop I was using Ableton Live to trigger loops. In the past, we had Bion playing mixes on his CD turntable. We'll still use the turntables, but Live opens up so many possibilities for live improv. For this show I put together about five new tunes I've been working on in Live. Live allows you to not only trigger your pre-recorded loops with a keyboard, but you can also speed up or slow down the tempo, on-the-fly with no change in pitch (i.e. speeding up doesn't make the voices go "chipmunky") So we're not tied down to the same pre-recorded song every time we play. We can move on, or stay on a section if we're really riffing on it. Plus, Live has a built-in sampler that you can use to trigger sounds. You can hear me doing that on one of the G's tunes (the funny sped-up voice, which is a local Native-American woman pronouncing the word "kanawake".)

The show is divided up into 3 parts, in order to make downloading better. I'm going to release it weekly, so stay tuned!

2.12.06

Episode 4: OASIS podcast is out now.

1.26.06

Episode 3: This 'n That is available at iTunes. It's our third installment from the GCTV broadcast. There are some minor glitches in the audio, due to the aforementioned dub we got from the studio. We're running out of "good" sections of the tape, so unless they deliver a proper dub, we're nearing the end of those clips. But never fear, we got some plans in the works that are looking really cool. Stay tuned, we don't intend to let up now.

1.19.06

Ostrich Farm is making news again. In addition to our recent "Halo" in the December 29th Valley Advocate, we've got a write-up in the latest Advocate about our Podcasting efforts. Turns out we're one of the intrepid few (only?) bands in the area that are podcasting. Once again this group is on the crest of a wave. Now if we can just ride that sucker in to fame and glory...
Big ups to Advocate writer Gary Carra (Nightcrawler) for once again spreading the word about the brilliance that is the O-Farm.

1.17.06

Ostrich Farm's second video podcast, Hypenotists: Live on GCTV, is now available.
In addition to this iTunes link, if you wish to use another "podcatcher" program, you can copy and paste this RSS URL:

http://www.birdwaves.com/podcast/Birdwaves.xml

There are several other podcatcher programs too, such as Juice (formerly iPodder). These programs and others like it, are cross-platform, and many are free. Also, you don't need an iPod with video to check out podcasts. You don't even need an iPod or other MP3 player. You can check it all out with your computer.

1.11.06

Now we're cookin. The Ostrich Farm podcast is now live. You can get to it via iTunes Here:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=113666879&s=143441

Shortly I'll be adding it to other Podcast websites, but for now you can get it at iTunes. We're starting with selected live clips from the TV performance we did at Greenfield Cable TV in November. The dub we got wasn't so hot, but I managed to salvage a couple choice clips.
-St Mix
(Update: this iTunes link now works. Windows users, please make sure you've got iTunes downloaded and installed. If not, go to: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/. When you install iTunes, Quicktime also will be installed. This is a good thing. Mac users already have the iTunes. Use the same link, or check your Software Updates if you'd like to update your copy. Thanks to T & E for the heads up. -St Mix)

12.30.05

Testing is under way for the O-Farm podcast. I've posted a video clip of Sweatin It from our ill-fated GCTV broadcast. I say "ill fated" because we finally got a MiniDV tape of the show (performance and video = excellent, audio feed = not) and the tape was all munged in the beginning and the end. Somewhere in the middle was salvagable material. We're hoping to get another dub. And so it goes...
To check out the test feed, copy this URL: www.birdwaves.com/podcast/Birdwaves.xml and go to iTunes>Advanced> Subscribe to Podcast, and paste the URL. I know it's convoluted, but soon you'll be able to subscribe in the regular way. Make sure you have the latest iTunes.

12.1.05

Last Friday's gig at Paper City was one energy-charged show. Mostly because it was so damn cold. We really had to move around to keep warm. Holy Hell! Makes me glad I don't shlep my guitar to these shows. I wouldn't have been able to play. Luckily there were plenty of folks there. The Brewery's Friday Evening Happy Hour is one of the area's worst kept secrets. People turn out in droves for all the beer they can drink and great music (natch). Come and check out our next show there on December 9th. Don't miss it, cuz they're soon going to close down for the winter.
And don't forget to dress warm.

And about that guitar thing...
I'm often asked "Where's the guitar?". For the time being I'm playing guitar in the studio only. The guitar tracks you hear at the show were played by me in the studio (excluding Rus-T's live guitar playing, of course.) It just means I don't have to lug all that gear, and I can concentrate on the Vocals. Plus, it's Hip-Hop, we don't need no steenking Geetars.
But that doesn't mean I've given up on the live guitar thing...
-St Mix