The Academ Ersatz

Lyrically, the song was inspired by the delay (and my ultimate disappointment) of Tool’s 2019 album Whatever It’s Called (I’m Too Lazy to Look It Up).

A little background: I frickin’ love Tool. Lateralus was one of THOSE albums, if you know what I mean. It changed me somehow. I know I’m not alone, because it basically created a sub-genre of prog rock/metal. I really liked the follow-up.

And then we waited 13 years. And what we got … well, I could have waited about 8 years less for that. It didn’t seem all that inspired or creative. I think I remember listening to it for the first time at a German airport en route to somewhere, and after the 2nd song, I started to lose interest.

I’m not actually sure I’ve listened to the whole album beginning to end in one sitting. It’s just … meh. More Tool. And that really bummed me out. So I wrote “13 Years” to express my disappointment and fanboi rage at a band making me wait over a decade and NOT GIVING ME EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED.

Anyway, over time, “13 Years” has become more of a metaphor for Zagarmatha. We spun our wheels for almost 4 years trying to record a 5 song EP. And I wish you could hear the final result. Unfortunately, we only got 3 of the songs recorded, and only 2 released. That third one will probably never see the light of day, which is a bummer. Because it's got the best lyrics I've ever written:

Fast cars, big tits Snakes ... with guns!

However … (stay tuned)

Let’s talk audio production. For this one, I used the Glyn Johns method (kick mic, and 2 silver dildo t.bone ribbon mics) on drums. I haven’t actually recorded this method before, and man … it really works great. For such a simple set-up, it catches EVERYTHING. Color me impressed.

On bass, I originally wanted to do something different. I tried my Epiphone Thunderbird and a Digitech Bass Driver, and it just sounded dull and flat and full of murky turds. So I grabbed my Mexican Fender P-bass and my Darkglass B7K, and it came out perfect. As always.

For guitars, I used my Gibson Les Paul, because come on … it’s a Tool-lite song. You gotta use a LP.

The worbly guitars come courtesy of my awesome Behringer Dual Phase pedal. If I could, I’d use that pedal on everything everywhere all at once. It’s just that awesome.

On vocals, I forgot an important thing that I learned when doing Zaga recordings. Always re-do the first lines of the song. I always regret how flat and lifeless the first lines are, and this song is no exception.

For mixing, I used the Scheps Omnichannel on a lot of tracks, and Andy's own presets. Just for a different flavor.

The original version of “Apollo” was probably written over 25 years ago, with appropriately melodramatic and angsty teenage lyrics. A few years ago, I updated both the music and the lyrics for Zagarmatha, reflecting my thoughts about the genocide in Gaza when it started.

From the river to the sea, friends.

Production-wise, I tried a different drum recording technique. This one had the kick drum sitting above and behind the kit, and then a pair of tom mics on a stereo bar about 2 meters away from the kick. This was always planned for some Zaga recording, but I could never get Elder Sami to commit to a “lo-fi” drum sound.

I think this drum setup sounds better than the previous one on “Somnor,” (Warm Audio WA-47jr mics as overheads) as the snare cuts through much better. It also cooks the room sound in a little more, so that can be better or worse. I perhaps cooked the overheads just a hair too much, but it gives it an appopriately crunchy, smushy feel, so I didn’t fix it.

Bass was basically the same, just my Japanese Squier P-bass through the Darkglass B7K pedal. I decided against running everything through the mic pre-amp this time.

The guitar sound is entirely the Marchis this time. (No LP love. Sorry, Vanilla Android.)

The basic setup is this: Marchis → cheap Chinese phaser → Honey Pot fuzz → Joyo Zombie

Sometimes I used the fuzz, and sometimes I used the Zombie’s own overdrive.

This time, I sang through a Shure SM58 for a bit more of a crunchy sound. Then I cranked the pre-amp through the roof. Nothing else in this song is hi-fi, so why not?

Mixing-wise, I used the same crap as last time, except this time I leaned heavily on the Black Rooster Audio VPRE-73, (Neve preamp clone plugin). It’s probably my favorite pre-amp and I use the Black Cock plugin everywhere all the time.

The b-side for this one is called “Selfish.”

“Selfish” was also based on something I probably wrote in my late teens. I vividly recall walking across Huntington to visit my father and basically singing the song to myself. It was appropriately moody and angsty. The surprising thing is that the song came out of me and basically didn’t need any changes. I just had to figure out how to play behind the lyrics and melody I had written.

Again, cut to 2020, and Zaga had an upcoming unplugged show. I thought it would be cool to do a few covers or something new, but we wound up sticking to re-worked originals instead. But “Selfish” had already been dusted off, and the lyrics were updated. Something about the original words recalled memory loss and loss of self, so I made it about Alzheimer’s.

My great-grandmother had Alzheimer’s, but she died in my early teens (maybe?). Also, my favorite author, Terry Pratchett, was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s and died, which absolutely broke my heart. The band name, CHELONAUT, is from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, so it was quite appropriate to put this song under its banner.

Production-wise, I have to fight through years of whiskey-soaked memories, because this was recorded and mixed four years ago? Five? I recorded the whole thing in my office at home, with a classical guitar, cajon, piccolo snare, hi-hat and rods. Oh, and an acoustic bass (thanks, Ma!). The organ sound was created with plugins, trying to recreate the chaos of my Zagarmatha bass organ sound (the end result of about a dozen pedals in a chain).

Oh, and one last little update. I lowered the master volume on Crystal Waters for the previous single, because there's some ear-splitting frequencies that were unintentionally boosted (by me not giving a shit.)

Listen. Enjoy. Share.

"Somnor" was originally an old Zagarmatha track, with music by ZagarJussi and the gang. After he left the band, we tried to do a version without him (and with his blessings), but it didn't quite capture that psychedelic spirit, so we abandoned the song.

However, I always loved the lyrics (about our boy, Bobby Kreuger), especially the chorus. So about a year later, I took a composition called "About a World" and applied the lyrics to it and voila!

"Somnor" (2019) was born.

Yes, it's that goddamn old. I made a demo with vocals, guitar and bass and put it on Google Drive. And it just sat there. One of my favorite unproduced demos, for a week, for a month, for a year ...

Well, I'd be damned to watch that clock tick over to six years.

At Studio Mummo, I set up a full drum kit for studio work. It's got Tama Silverstar shells, with cymbal stands courtesy of Asketia's Jari, and cymbals courtesy of Blunt Knife.

Last week, I sat down after farting around in the studio for a few hours and wanted to play ... something. "Somnor" was there in the Demos folder, begging.

I played it a couple times, and thought, "Why not record this and see how the room and the kit sounds?"

That's how it began.

Unfortuantely, I don't have the original Reaper project (a common theme for this single and its b-side), so I had to figure out how to play "Somnor." Which is easier said than done since I often wrote Zagarmatha songs as physical and intellectual punishments for our guitar player, Jukka. 😘

A few days later, I sat down and recorded the bass as I understood it.

I picked up a guitar and started playing along to the original demo ... only to realize that the bass was wrong.

The next day, I re-recorded the bass, and when it came to guitar, I realized ... I HAD STILL PLAYED IT FUCKING WRONG.

Well, it came out more interesting than the original, so I threw my hands up and gave into fate.

The rhythm guitar came pretty easily. The problem was the chorus lead and the 2nd verse lead. I had NO IDEA how to play this. And I had no original project file, no Guitar Pro, nothing but a muddy demo from the Covid-era.

I came home after recording the rhythm guitar with my Les Paul studio and tried to figure it out with my 70s Marchis (Japanese SG copy). I'm still not sure the chorus is right, but it sounds pretty cool. And the 2nd verse is all wrong, but I played something similar to the original, and you'll never know the difference.

Anyway, it was a quick mix and master, and it's ready for Bandcamp.

Have a listen. Enjoy. And if you dig it, share it. :)

Here are some details on the recording and processing ... uh, process.

Drums:

Tama Silverstar 22” kit, Sabian and Zultan cymbals

Audix D6 (kick), WA-47 jr (Overheads), Behringer C1 (Room)

C1 was run through my cranked up Art tube pre-amp during recording. The others were post-processed through the pre-amp.

Bass:

90s Squire P-bass (Japan)

Darkglass B7K mk1

Guitars:

Gibson LP Studio (Vanilla Android)

70s Marchis SG (Japan)

Bunch o’ pedals

All the guitars had modeled amps or cabs, as I couldn’t be arsed to mic my real amps and cabs. Both recorded/processed through the tube amp.

In addition, I recorded fake room reverb by blasting the guitars one at a time, and recording the C1 from another room in the studio. The only guitar not to receive this treatment is the telephone fuzz leads.

Vocals:

WA-87jr

Mixing:

As usual, I used Reaper and a bunch of plugins. Some common ones I love are the Waves CLA-76 compressor, IK Multimedia LA-2A compressor, NI Replika delay, Waves H-Verb, and the master was done with a Brainworx master plugin. Oh yeah, I also used the Waves NLS (Nevo) on all the channels after mixing.

The B-side "Crystal Waters” is an old classic Keiko’s Last Smile song, and at some point a few years ago, I made a strange unplugged version in a different key with different chords, and it came out pretty nice. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the original Reaper project, and the whole thing had been recorded as a demo through my computer microphone, so I just slapped on some cassette emulation and cranked up the noise to cover up all the weird high noises and nastiness in the demo version. Enjoy!

P.S. the “drums” are just me banging on the back of the classical guitar.

Before you begin, you’ll need a few things*. A high-speed internet connection and a webcam are the most essential, and for acoustic jams, singer-songwriter stuff, basically any lighter setup, this can get you started. A friend or three is also highly recommended. 

Set up your webcam to work with OBS Studio (free) and make sure you’ve got the video sized right, both in the inputs (1080p Full HD is always better than not) and outputs (Full HD if your internet can handle it, 720p if not.) Make sure you’re getting sound. OBS has been around for a while, and there are many tutorials and videos to help you get started there.

On the server side, you’ve got a bunch of options, too many to go into here. But YouTube Live is fairly straightforward to setup and test out. Facebook Live is a bit more complicated, in my opinion. However you want to stream, make sure understand the steps and requirements before you begin. Google, as always, is your best friend. And for the love of Saturn, test out everything multiple times before you dive in. 

*You could always just put your phone on a tripod, or gods forbid, just have someone hold it, but if you’re going to that little effort, why bother?

You can add additional webcams to OBS Studio. There’s probably some kind of limit, but as of this writing, it easily handles 3 or 4 points-of-view, as well as logo images, and placeholder images (for before and after the livestream begins and ends.) OBS can do a lot of cool things, and it’s worth exploring the possibilities, if/when you have the time.

From Veli-Rekka & Kitara

Note: Syncing cameras isn’t always so straightforward. Different cameras have different bitrates and encoders and yada yada. As you add cameras, you add complexity, and there’s a chance than when you switch to another camera, the audio from one source no longer perfectly matches the video. You can probably solve this, or you can throw up your horns and accept it as rock-n-roll.

This is probably the most controversial thing you’ve heard all day, but … webcam audio sucks. It gargles balls. It chews labia. Adding more complex and better-sounding audio is not terribly difficult, but it can impact the video/audio sync issues I mentioned above. Be aware of this. If you have time to do tests and figure out millisecond delays to sync your audio and video streams, do it. It will make your livestream look and feel more polished, more professional.

The easiest way to add better sound is a simple audio interface. Use something with XLR inputs and voila, you have real microphones at your disposal. I used a Alesis IO/2 to hook up a ribbon mic and a condenser mic for a recent livestream, and it worked fine. I tried adjusting the sound using VSTs and the built-in OBS Studio tools, but for some reason, I couldn’t get the program to give me monitoring. (This is apparently a common complaint, so be aware of it.) So I removed all that and just used the audio as it came in, riding the gain knob on the vocals as if it were a volume fader.

I realized about halfway through the livestream that I could have used a cheap Behringer USB mixer to give myself EQ, compressor, actual volume faders and a couple other bells and whistles in addition to the mics. This also means that if you have a bigger mixer, more outboard gear, whatever, you can always shape the sound outside the computer and then give it a finished product to stream. To me, at this point, that seems the most reliable way to get good audio.

The list, in the order read:

1. Twelve, Nick McDonnell

2. Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne

3. The Martian, Andy Weir

4. Mr. Mercedes, Stephen King

5. Rarity from the Hollow, Robert Eggleton

6. Atomic Bazaar, William Langewiesche

7. Stupid White Men, Michael Moore

8. It, Stephen King

9. Run to the Hills, Mick Wall

10. The Plot Against America, Philip Roth

11. No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Alexander McCall

12. Gentlemen of the Road, Michael Chabon

13. Rogues, edited by George R. R. Martin

14. Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs, Adrienne Mayor

15. Lisey’s Story, Stephen King

16. Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves

17. Elantris, Brandon Sanderson

18. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

I’d actually been reading Rogues while at my summer cabin over the past couple years, but I finally finished it this summer, so I threw it on the list.

I had been reading Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, at the end of 2016, fully planning on finishing it first this year. But I got bored and stopped reading it. I also gave up reading the Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy, edited by Mike Ashley, because while it was big, it wasn’t very funny. 

My favorites this year were probably, The Martian, Run to the Hills (an Iron Maiden biography), Gentlemen of the Road and Goodbye to All That. Goodbye was in fact fucking hilarious, and the writing was superb. Poets should just stop writing poetry and stick to Great War memoirs.

Disappointments, other than the abortions, were No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and Greek Fire. Greek Fire has an amazing name, amazing premise, and it fails so terribly at being amazing. It reads like a dry textbook, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ms. Mayor forces her students to buy a copy every year. It was also infuriatingly Eurocentric, only rarely venturing to China or India before fleeing back to the refuge of the Greeks. 

Stupid White Men should be required reading for anyone who blames Trump’s win on Jill Stein, Hillary Clinton or anyone else but Trump and Republicans. I eagerly await a sequel, which I assume will be called More Stupid White Men (and Some Stupid White Women as Well).

I read a lot of Stephen King this year, including the book with an underage orgy. #Cocaine But if you saw my picture from a couple years ago, you know I ordered like 17 Stephen Kings I hadn’t yet read, and I’m slowly working my way through them. I’m thinking maybe The Shining and Doctor Sleep next.

Journey was my first Jules Verne book, and I loved it. I even started planning out my Nanowrimo to write a parody called Journey to the Center of the Sun, but then I learned about Verne’s incredible racism and other failings, and it soured the whole idea for me. I wrote a book about time travel and dinosaurs instead.

I think a Facebook comment by Katja Heikkilä summed it up best: “It looks like you took a summer vacation to winter.”

Despite a bit of pessimism on account of the forecast, we headed to the Jostedalsbreen National Park in western Norway to start our hike. We somehow missed the giant conquistador helmet that is the glacier museum on our way in, leading to some confusion about whether we were on the correct road.

To get to the glacier itself, we took a small boat across the glacier lake, filled with milky blue waters. We had a short hike across craggy rocks and a million little glacier streams. We stopped at the foot of the glacier, and I think it was only then that I realized what a glacier is. It’s not snow. It’s not a lot of snow. It’s ice. Pure ice. A goddamn mountain of ice. It’s a little hard to accept based just on words or pictures, but it’s just hundreds and thousands of feet of ice (which translates to half a dozen meters, if my math is correct.)

We suited up with spiky things for our boots, ropey things for our crotches, and our guides (a young Norwegian who claimed to have learned English from video games and will thus be called DøngSlayer420 and a wizened Nepalese I will call Sherpa from now on) started off. Bill had some trouble getting his boot spikes tight initially, and about 35 steps in, I realized my boot spikes were also a bit loose. Luckily for us, a woman had a serious problem with her spikes, and we had the time to tighten up our own. 

Bill and I also wore WAY too much clothing, which for me included winter boots, hiking socks, long underwear, black silk underwear (ooh la la), gym pants, winter pants, a green long-sleeve turtleneck, a Captain America t-shirt, a ski jacket, fleece gloves and a ball cap. We drastically underestimated the temperature and weather vs. exertion ratio. Bill carried a huge backpack, so we almost immediately took off half our clothing and packed it up. It did rain the whole time, which kinda sucked, as we were immediately and constantly being assaulted by cold, stinging rain. This also prevented us from using our better cameras, so all the pictures came from my phone. “This is waterproof, right?” asked Bill.

“Nope.”

The first part of the hike was start-stop, as we climbed for a while, using carved ice stairs, and Sherpa would pause for us to turn and take pictures of the valley behind us and the “blue-ice” moments. 

Then it was a 30 minute slog, straight up the mountain of ice, every step a careful consideration of lifting your foot and slamming it down onto the ice. The path was punctuated with lines and occasional turds of black soil, and sometimes real turds from a bird called ripper or grouse (or blouse). Sherpa’s accent was just a little too much to catch the word, and I wasn’t going to stop the hike to ask him to spell it. 

We eventually reached the summit, a nice photo-op where we could no longer see the beach due to the ice. It was pretty epic. We could also see the wing of the Jostedalsbreen glacier that fed our glacier. As I sat on the ice (soaking the ass of my pants), eating lunch, Sherpa told us some factoids and stories about the glacier here, glaciers elsewhere in Norway, and his own life in Nepal.

I had a Mountain Dew bottle (official drink of my Norway trip) filled with water, so it had to make an appearance. #FookinExtreme

The glacier continued up and on, but we had reached the 2 hour mark of our 4 hour hike, so it was time to take a labyrinthine path back down the glacier. 

This hike down was actually the more exciting leg of the hike. DøngSlayer420 repeatedly had to carve out footholds for us. On the way down, we stopped and ogled some crevasses, listened to the roar--an actual goddamn ROAR--of the glaciermelt and passed more bird shit.

We each carried an ice pick, but for the most part, they were used as walking canes. At some point, we beat the hell out of some ice, just to get some use out of the gear we had rented.

Just before reaching the bottom of the glacier, our guides took us to a small ... ice grotto? It was a little enclosed hole, where ice-cold water dripped down, and every hiker had the opportunity to have their picture taken.

You might notice I forced myself further into the hole than Bill did. That’s why my shoes didn’t fill up with icewater.

Once we got off the ice, we took off our gear (my poor aching calves) and started heading back to the dock on the lake. Along the way, a woman slipped and broke something in her leg (probably her ankle.) Her husband was hysterical, and not in the funny sense. Sherpa called for a helicopter ambulance, and DøngSlayer420 took us back across the water. While I was in the bathroom changing out of my hiking clothes, the helicopter came and scooped up the woman. This gave rise to our secondmost popular refrain on the trip: Free Helicopter Ride! (usually just before doing something stupid and/or dangerous).

What was our most popular refrain, you ask? 

BLACK METAL WILL NEVER DIE!

Ew, gross, don’t dance on that. Thankfully, there’s no bloody blisters to report this time. I know, I know. Bodily injury is why you keep coming back to read about my exploits. If I’m not snapping, freezing, cutting or maiming something, it’s just not as funny.

Well, tough shit.

In a nice bit of parallel structure, I was invited back to Astana, Kazakhstan for the closing ceremony of Expo 2017. Like last time, I had three flights spread out over what would normally be my bed time, and I arrived incredibly tired. Unlike last time, I didn’t have 5 hours of free time to burn on a nap. After one hour of pretending to sleep, I was dragged out of bed and into the street and shot. (Just seeing if you’re still with me here.)

Much like Kazakhstan - Day the Best, I spent the first part of the day wandering around the expo. We started in Nur Alem, the giant glass testicle at the center of the expo park. But I had already seen it, and I was given leave to visit pavilions. 

Let’s talk Japan real quick, and compare it to the lazy American pavilion. Expos are corporate things--I know that. Japan’s expo was sponsored by car companies and wind turbine companies and other companies, all making things they want you and your government to buy. But Japan’s expo began with a video about how Japan has no traditional natural resources--none of that delicious oil that dictates much of American foreign policy. So instead of giving in and buying it from a neighbor such as Russia, Japan began MacGuyvering its way into the future. Their second video had an actual point! (The gall of those crafty Asians and their brain-thinking!) Hydrogen is the energy source of the future, and Japan wants to make and sell you the technology to make it the energy source of today. That’s it. No stock video of Japanese cities and cherry blossoms and waterfalls and that one painting everyone knows.

Instead, they crafted a fine video promoting hydrogen. 

The future’s gonna be ... interesting. 

The last part of the pavilion had something to do with VR, but there was a huge line, and I was getting hungry. I wandered down the sidewalk to the Korean pavilion, and there were hundreds of people in line to see it. As I walked away, I noticed a sign for a Korean restaurant, and suddenly I was a cartoon character.

I climbed the--frankly--too many goddamn stairs to get to the Korean restaurant above the pavilions, and I had kimchi kimbap and soup. 

The kimbap was a little plain (no carrots, no green slime, no brown things, no pickled stuff), just rice and kimchi, but it was genuine. The whole staff was made up of Koreans, so that probably helped.

After lunch, I had second lunch, yes, just like a bearded hobbit, but my experience last time in Kazakhstan had taught me to always eat whenever I had the opportunity, because I often didn’t have that opportunity. My official lunch was one of those times--the menu was about 75% meat. No exchanges, no substitutions. So Korea saved the day. Again. Kamsamnida, bitches! 

There were a couple boring press conferences, and I did my actual work, writing an article and embellishing what I had seen and experienced with things from my previous journey (fake news! fake news!), and then I rushed over to the awards ceremony. I really wanted to be there in case Finland, you know, the country that sent me here, won an award. But the award was so stuffed with pomp that they barely gave away anything, before I had to leave for dinner.

And Finland won a goddamn award. And not just any award, the goddamn gold goddamn medal. My article has two sentences about Finland, and one of them I cribbed from the pavilion designer’s website. Go Finland.

Dinner was another stand up smorgasbord, but this time, oh this time, I didn’t have a blister, didn’t have a fresh article to write, and I drank myself stupid. It didn’t take much, as I was already running on fumes. I remember ... pasta? And salad in tumbler glasses. And cognac. Lots of cognac. Or maybe bourbon. At that point, it was just whiskey-flavored sleepy drink.

The second (and last) day began with me semi-rested (I slept like the dead for at least 7 hours), going on a tour of the city. I thought it would be a repeat of last time, but it was entirely new places, with one exception. But I didn’t have to take all the pictures, so I’m actually in some of them this time.

We started at an ethnic fair, and I realized halway through that my lens hood was screwed on wrong.

This next one reminds me of something, but I can’t quite put my ... ah, finger on it. Our tour guide explained that hunters used it to store a warm, white fluid.

Horse milk. What were you thinking?

Inside a yert. Yurt. Jurt. Goddamn it, Finland, you’ve made me forget how to spell. It’s a fancy Jabba the Hut tent.

Hun. Whatever.

There were falcons. They were huge and terrifying. I haven’t actually felt afraid of an animal in a while, but Kazakhstan fixed that for me.

Next up, we went to the tree ball egg statue building in the center of Astana. I got a picture.

Look at that jolly motherfucker there. #SantaInTraining #AmishChic

Next we briefly visited the National Museum. We had less than an hour to visit allegedly one of the ten largest national museums in the world. Let’s begin. 

Who’s that? No idea. Probably a Kazakh.

Do you like modern art? Contemporary art? Too bad, no time.

Are these terra cotta warriors, like real ones? From China? Probably.

Who’s this asshole? Why is he covered in gold?

Are those metal-as-fuck horse bones? Possibly.

I cut the trip at the museum short by 5 minutes so I could check out the gift shop. But there was just handmade knick-knacks and what-not. No museum branded stuff, little Kazakhstan-branded stuff, and WAY too expensive for a poor bastard like me.

Onto the closing ceremony. And the free cola. So much free cola. My poor poor body. Hey, there’s your bodily harm. It may take a few decades, but it’ll get there. 

First, just a word about organisation. Zation! Dammit, Finland!

We arrived at 15.00 and were told that the ceremony began at 17. In a few minutes, that became 18. Then we were told in a Whatsapp blast, that it was now 20. Coffee at 18. Hey, do you want some coffee? Come on! (Time 17.20, literally two minutes after I received word of the coffee break at 18.)

A poor DJ began flipping tunes (that’s what DJs do, right?) at 18, but it started raining immediately, because God hates dubstep. Even traditional Kazakkh-inspired dubstep. The audience melted away, and I started reading Cracked. Or watching YouTube. Something. Anything to whittle away the time. See, I could have written my article, but I had no information. The livestream wouldn’t tell me who the DJ was. And the announcers spoke only Russian (or probably Kazakh, which sound the same to me.) The DJ became a pop girl group, then a live band with a rain-drenched female singer, then a jazzy pop band. It all stopped when the actual ceremony began. There was some interpretative dance bullshit, lazers, lots of people on wires pretending to do stuff like scuba dive and fly around on hoverboards, which was admittely awesome. Then some speeches by some guys, a flag got folded up and handed over, and the President of Kazakhstan, who probably approved banning tumblr from his country, forcing me to use a VPN, which has slowed my internet down so much that I can’t upload pictures of any of this crap until I get back home to the corpse-like embrace of my adoptive home Finland (gray, cold, clammy) ... uh ... what? Necrophili--

You might wonder why I don’t have pictures of any of this. This is because we were locked inside the media building with absolutely no way out, and even if we did get out, our badges had their access revoked, so we wouldn’t be allowed back in. We watched all of this on big TVs. 

Anyway, the show was pomp and ended with a sky-shattering display of fireworks. Again. Directly over the building (with skylights) that we were stationed in. You could hear the fireworks casings hit the roof after the last huge explosion, and the hall filled with the stink of sulfur. 

Finally, we were transferred back to the hotel, which required our driver to navigate the labyrinthine security cordons, and even then, he just told us all to get out and walk a couple blocks in the end. That Kazakh tradition of hospitality apparently doesn’t extend to bus drivers.

The next morning--the same night really--I had to leave for the airport at 4 am. Which turned into 5.30 am, because some other reporter was drunk or sleeping or something. My last moments in Kazakhstan were standing in line at the airport for over an hour, at our gate, while the sign above the gate claimed we were boarding. We were not. It was like Kazakhstan saying, “No, don’t go!” Or possibly Aeroflot saying, “Ha ha, fuck you and your sore feet!”

Probably the latter. 

Dasvidahnia, Kazakhstan!

Recording vocals for the upcoming Xerona Mistress EP took a few days. Let’s run you through the set-up. At my home, I built the Egg Room. This is a vocal booth that looks like a closet built by two drunken carpenters.

Kids, don’t ever let the authorities tell you that you can’t wallpaper your egg room with old sheets.

What the Egg Room lacks in aestethic beauty, however, it makes up for by being acoustically flat. Despite having a bit of a cold, Joel recorded the vocals for six of his seven songs before his voice started going scratchy. He uses a range of vocal styles from clean singing to black metal screeching, so it’s not surprising.

The next day, we finished the vocals for the last song, and triple-tracked some other vocals that I felt were lacking. The thinking behind the vocals for the EP is pretty basic: lead vocals in the center, and backup double-track vocals on the L/R, and only during the chorus. We also got a bit ambitious and did some harmonizing for the chorus of one song.

We recorded his vocals using an Shure SM58 running straight into my audio interface.

There were a couple of other things that the band wanted to record, snippets of instruments to be placed here or there. We used my Ensoniq SQ1 synthesizer to record some lush string sections for a couple songs’ C-parts. We put some acoustic guitar in one song to warm up the opening riffs. 

But the real fun came once we moved from my office and the Room of Eggs to my garage. The boys (V-V and Joel) brought along a bag full of kitchen hardware, and we proceeded to smash the loving hell out of all of it.

We recorded pot lids crashing, frying pans clicking, rocks in pots, smashing pots, screams, laughter, coffee mugs and claps, all for a 15 second segment of a single song: Brainspoon.

I no longer have any condenser mics (having sold them all so I could buy fun things like bass guitars), so I grabbed one of the overhead mics that Asketia uses on drums. It lent itself well to recording unorthodox percussive ‘instruments.’

Recording the bass guitar for Xerona Mistress’s upcoming EP was relatively easy. First, we DI’d the bass and slapped Amplitube on it. I have a very nice Orange AD200 model, and V-V, the bassist, uses an Orange Crush in the real world, so he was pretty happy with the sound.

He’s a pretty serious musician when it comes to his parts, and we had relatively few retakes or problems.

In between recording the bass guitar and electric guitars, Jukka, the lead guitarist from my death metal band Asketia, set up and recorded his guitars for our next EP in our practice space. 

A few months ago, he built an amp isolation box, and I recorded his rhythm guitars and we set up the lead guitar channel. The lead for Asketia’s new EP is basically an overdriven Orange Dark Terror amp and Orange 1x12. Why am I telling you all this? 

Because the Orange was still set up and ready to go when Joel from Xerona came in to record his guitars. 

He put a Marshall Jackhammer pedal in front of the Orange, dialed back the gain, and recorded his left channel guitar, starting with the easiest of the 7 songs to play and working toward the hardest. A few of his songs were recorded in one take. For the single guitar solo on the EP, we removed the Jackhammer and cranked the Orange to 11, for a very 80s rock, Guns N Roses-style sound. 

The next day, we recorded the right channel guitars. (If you haven’t guessed, we’re doing a very simple L/R guitars setup for the EP.) At home, I have a Roland GB-30 bass amp from the age of the dinosaurs that I use for practicing bass, and because I’m lazy, I often plug my six-string into it as well. I found that using a Boss DS-1 and the old bass amp produces a very warm, chillax rock sound, and I suggested it to Joel, who was game. So we recorded the right channel distorted guitars this way.

For clean guitars, we first recorded the Orange Dark Terror with all the knobs set to ‘wimpy.’ Joel and I decided it wasn’t an attractive sound, so I suggested he listen to how the bass amp sounded. (The natural roll off of a bass amp is just pretty pleasing to the ear all around.) He loved it, and we used the Roland for all the left channel clean guitars. For the right channel, Joel used his Peavey Bandit 112, which is what he usually uses. Compared to the bass amp, it’s bright and clear, creating a very nice contrast. 

There were two fjord ... bundles, heaps, flocks ... what do you call a bunch of fjords? Let’s go with flocks. There were two flocks of fjords I visited in Norway. The first was the Narrowfjord (to butcher both the spelling and the pronunciation), and I rode the ferry from Gudvangen solo through the fjords. My traveling partner Bill decided to take a more expensive roundtrip speedboat tour through the fjords from Flam, so he dropped me off and drove on.

The first five minutes were great, then it rained for about a third of the trip, and then the rain stopped, and the rest of the ride was amazeballs.

I will spare you, kind reader, the details of sitting inside a humid ferry with a bunch of disappointed Asians. I had brought a raincoat, but it wasn’t enough, especially if I wanted to stand outside and take pics. I stared at the epic cliffs and climbs and countless waterfalls through a small foggy window until the sun came out.

A few days later, we drove into Gerainger, a small village at the tip of the Geraingerfjord. We had first planned on camping at the grounds down near the harbor, but recent rains and a lack of sunlight had turned the grounds into mud. So we stayed higher up on the hill, where it was cooler. That night, Bill and I drank akevitt, which is kinda like Norwegian liquorice vodka. I put the foil blanket down on the floor of the tent to keep us warmer, but it had the side effect of allowing us both to gently slide toward the door of the tent, and since we were both wrapped up in sleeping bags, we had to worm our way back to position.

The next morning, we hopped the ferry for the Gerainger fjord tour. We were never asked for our tickets. The fjords were, and I’m quoting myself, “pretty goddamn majestic.”

Waterfalls were, of course, one of the main attractions, and because we caught the morning ferry, dawn spilled out across the peaks and caught the mist, creating rainbows. We captured many of these ‘gay waterfalls,’ cracking jokes that even the nature in Norway was pretty progressive. 

Oh, and because I promised I’d mock Bill’s attire that day, here’s a picture of Bill. What a dork. :P

My travels this July through Norway (and a little bit of Sweden on both ends) saw me wandering through a lot of art museums. As a rule, I tend to like modern and postmodern art, and specifically paintings. This post will mostly be a smattering of various pieces I saw and admired while chilling in Norway.

I had recently visited Stockholm and wasn’t super-pumped about spending another 3 days there at the beginning of my summer vacation, but one thing I had looked forward to was seeing Moderna Museet, the modern art museum. While my friend Bill (who will appear more in later posts) visited the awesome Vasa museum and other attractions on the island of Djurgarden, I drove to the island that housed Moderna. I parked, tried to pay for parking (alongside a family of confused foreigners), was rejected by the meter, and drove to another spot. It turns out that all the parking meters on the island were so old, they wouldn’t take my bank card. Eventually, I gave up. On the whole idea. I only had so much time to spend at Moderna before I needed to return to Djurgarden to pick up Bill, and I still wanted to go swimming. So I drove away from Moderna, cursing Stockholm and its ancient parking meters. #WhitePeopleProblems #amirite

Other than churches, which hardly count as contemporary, the first real modern art I saw was in Oslo at the Astrup Fearnley museum, which sits at the end of a wharf. The museum had two exhibits running (one more than the last time I visited with my wife 3 years prior): Chinese Summer, and The World is Made of Stories.

Are you strapped in? Good. Let’s begin with Chinese Summer.

N Kilometers towards the West, by Zhang Ding

Colosseum, by Huang Yong Ping

Love it, Bite it! by Liu Wei

Odyssey, by Ai Weiwei (on walls); and Tyres, by Dekk

And now onto some highlights from The World is Made of Stories.

Sick Skin, by Ivan Galuzin

Barren Landscape, by Anselm Kiefer

That evening, Bill and I decided to take a walk through Frogner Park, which features statues by Gustav Vigeland. I present some of those statues here with suggested titles.

THE WALL OF TESTICLES HAS JUST BEGUN

STOP TOUCHING MY FUCKING PENIS!

KAMA SUTRA, POSITION 79 - FAILURE

THE HERO WE NEED

The trip ventured west to Bergen, and while Bill walked around the back streets of the harbor, I visited the KODE art museum, which is actually 4 museums, each specializing in a couple different things. Not being very interested in kitchenware design or clothing fashion, I stuck to only two of the 4 buildings. Sorry for the shit quality, but I left my DSLR at the hostel and had to make due with my phone (OnePlus 3).

Vallauris, by Pablo Picasso

Falaise, by Anna-Eva Bergman

Cliffs, by Anna-Eva Bergman

Yony II, by Victor Vasarely

Winter II, by Bjorn Hegranes

I also learned about an art movement that rose up in opposition of the dream-like surrealists, Art Concret. Here’s a wall of some AC paintings.

Farther north, I visited the Kube museum in Alesund. This small contemporary art museum’s current exhibit is three floors dedicated to the life (so far) and works of Ørnulf Opdahl. I really liked his early work.

Untitled (1985)

Procession

Untitled (mid 1960s)

Evening

Hunter in the Snow

And finally, our trip wrapped up in Trondheim. Again, while Bill snapped pictures inside the huge cathedral in the city center, I went next door to the art museum. The first floor was made of selections from their collection, as well as some contemporary sculptures. Nothing to write home (or Tumblr) about, but when I climbed the stairs, I walked into this room.

And for the first time in my life, I literally thought YASSS! The second floor of the museum was devoted to Gruppe 5, or the Group 5, an art-gang from Trondheim that went around beating up other art-gangs and taking turf. They sold sketches on street corners and were eventually busted and sent to prison for conspiracy to enlighten. 

I may have some of that last paragraph wrong.

Die Brucke, by Lars Tiller

The works on display were great. Exactly what I wanted. The hero of the day was Roar Wold, whose every painting just seemed to jump out at me.

Landscape

Rad jord (I hope. The title card is a bit blurry in my photo.)

Untitled (1960s)

Broen

Last weekend, I attended, performed and shot footage of Tyrärock, a small rock festival held at the Suutarinkylä schoolhouse, a few kilometers outside of potato capital of the world, Tyrnävä, Finland.

my god, it’s full of potatoes

In addition to many photos of endless potato fields, I shot a lot of footage of the groups and bands and solo performers (including myself), and I edited it all together in a short 23 minute documentary to celebrate the festival’s 25th anniversary. The video is below, and if you’re interested in how I put it together, all that information follows. If not, enjoy the video and let me know what you think.

Video production notes:

The video was shot primarily with two cameras, a Sony HDR-SR11 Handycam and a Nikon D3300 DSLR. I also shot a little footage and took some photos with my OnePlus 3 (mainly because it can shoot in super HQ 4K). I recorded the second and third song of each performance with the Sony atop a tripod, trying to find a sweet spot to shoot the whole thing. Because the size of the bands changed, and people weren’t always standing in the same spot, I figured a “whole stage” video would be a nice baseline video, from which I could add in complementary footage shot from the Nikon and the OnePlus. 

Not an ideal camera placement

I showed up to the festival hours and hours early with all the gear necessary to record the whole night’s performances straight from the mixer to my computer. However, the sound engineer told me that was unnecessary as he was multitrack recording everything. The next morning, he told me he had been too busy to record. So the sound in this video comes from two sources: the Handycam onboard microphone (which produced a lot of noise when the wind was blowing), and a cheap dynamic microphone I used when shooting the interviews. 

The final song played in the video is not actually from Tyrärock, because all the songs played in the All-Night Jam Band were covers, and I didn’t want to step on any legal toes. I used a Creative Commons song by the Catnips that I found on Archive.org, and then I added in some reverb and processing to make it sound more like the live performances.

I cheated a little on my own performance. 

I couldn’t hear the guitar on stage, not well anyway, and I wasn’t super-confident that anyone in the audience was hearing my guitar either. The video shot of that performance confirmed my fears. My wife told me that you could hear the guitar, until I started caterwauling up there. So I dubbed a recording of me playing along with myself, just to make the guitar stand out more against my voice. But it’s not like I’m up there playing Yngwie Malmsteen; they’re mostly open chords.

I had a little trouble with the editing, because my performance was chopped up into a bunch of videos (I played early in the day, and my assistant wasn’t paying attention when I told him NOT to do that.) 

“Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

But also, I didn’t have time to man two cameras, so the Handycam was on full auto most of the time, and I’m not the world’s greatest cameraman, so I got some bad footage with the Nikon. The OnePlus, however, shot pretty great-looking video all the time. 

The biggest headache for me was the titles. I haven’t done many titles in the past, but the contrast of colors and movement of the video made any captions or titles really hard to see, and I didn’t want to spend 100 years figuring out how to do it beautifully on Premiere Pro, so I just blurred the background and put white text over it. It works here, but next time, I’m coming prepared.

A final note on the name of the production “company.” 

Like the poor bastards responsible for Boaty McBoatface, I appealed to the Internet for the best name, and once I read “Your Mom is a Space Hooker,” I couldn’t get it out of my head. I don’t know if I’ll make more videos under that production name, but I love it.

Monday marked the first day of production on the new Xerona Mistress EP. I was asked to help them to record their songs, after their singer/guitarist Joel overheard me talking about recording and mixing* at the now infamous 2017 Pizza Death and Doom Kebab show in Rovaniemi. 

* I’m sure, given the amount of Kentucky Gentleman I allegedly drank, that everyone within 20 kilometers heard me yelling about recording and mixing to some terrified international students. 

After I sat in on a practice session to familiarize myself with their alt-rock material, specifically the 7 songs they wanted to record, I asked if I could mix the songs as well. (I’m a much more experienced mixer than recorder anyway.) We hammered out the details, and the band got to work finalizing and practicing the songs for the EP.

First comes drums.

Jouni the drummer plays a pretty typical set-up, and I miked it in the standard way. Shure SM57s on the snare and hi-tom, a Thomann 57 knock-off on the mid-tom, and an Audio Technica MB6K on the floor tom. I used a Audix D6 in the kick porthole. Audio Technica MB4Ks on overhead duty. Jouni has a nice kit, and he spent the first hour or so tuning his drums.

Because my death metal band Asketia has the full Audio Technica MB kit, I had a few extra MB5Ks lying around. In recording my drummer Jari, I’ve learned the value of miking the hi-hat, the kick beater, and the bottom of the snare (though preferably with condenser mics). I do not fancy myself any kind of expert, but having those recordings can really do wonders in bringing clarity back to the mix after I’ve EQ’d the living hell out of it.

Specifically I’m talking about getting attack on the kick from the beater head, and recovering the high-end of the snare when I have to EQ out the hi-hat bleed. If you have enough mics, I recommending miking EVERYTHING. Even the guy sitting in the corner.

Day 3 started off the right way: with a vegetarian breakfast! Some kind of sweet rice porridge and a Kazakh quesadilla. (Look, I like food but I can't be expected to know or remember what these foods are actually called. I barely knew Kazakhstan was a country before being asked to fly there to cover the expo. Thanks, American education system!) We were bustled away (on foot--painful, painful foot) to the Congress Center just outside the Expo grounds. 

Where I was informed that I was not registered and could not attend the (allegedly) boring opening statements on the ... Jesus Christ, the name is so long and so boring. It doesn't matter. Just go to Daily Finland.

nstead, I went to the Expo with the intent of seeing more pavilions. Compared to the previous day, it was a ghost town. There were 10 volunteers for every guest. 

I went inside the Sphere (which if it has a name, I never heard it or saw it anywhere), and went to the top, an experience I had been denied for some reason the day before. If you read the article, you know about the Museum of Future Energy. But here's some pics I shot.

From the top (8th) floor, you could see down to the bottom floor.

There were a few exhibits that were more “basic science” than specific to Future Energy, but it was still fun. A planetarium that showed the birth of the universe all the way to the formation of Kazakhstan. And then, Earth projected onto this ball, with moving weather patterns and such. 

There were also a few interactive displays, like this bicycle race.

The museum took much longer than I anticipated. It's definitely the part of the Expo that got the most attention. When I finished, the ministerial blah blah blah had ended, and we were treated to lunch at an Uzbekistan restaurant. Noice!

Whoops, that’s not lunch. 

After lunch, our hosts gave us a guided tour of the city. (Exclusively "New Astana," none of that old Soviet crap where the nobodies live). We hit the big steel poplar tree and egg monument, from which you can see many important buildings like the Kazakhstan White House, the Ministry of Defence, and a high-rise shaped like a riffling book. 

From there, we visited the giant not-at-all Communist flag monument. It was a big flag. 

But from the mount, you can see the Miniatures Park. This park is shaped like all of Kazakhstan, including its water features. Fake ducks floated in the Caspian Sea, and a charming student guide let us through the underground mosques, a dozen Lenin-esque statues, and all around the Kazakhstan countryside. Our tour guide kept pushing us to go faster faster faster or we wouldn't have time for the last destination. Kazakhstan in miniature was pretty delightful, and I only thought of posing like Godzilla 34 times.

From the Miniatures Part, we visited the hugemongus Arabic-style mosque in the city center.

I could be mistaken, but I think this is the first mosque I've ever been in. We took off our shoes and the females done cloaks to hide their hideous temperature was figures, and in we went. It was large with beautiful walls, columns and giant chandeliers. The rug, however, was teal but stained throughout the mosque, as if it had suffered water damage. Inside, there was a Quran on silver plates gifted to the mosque by the president of Kazakhstan, as well as a giant centuries-old Quran, also gifted by the president. The men and women were separated by velvet ropes and decorative barriers. I took no pictures inside, a policy of respect I learned from Tim Milton. Just as we left, the call to prayer started up, blasting song from hidden speakers, possibly inside the minarets.

Religion in Kazakhstan seems very lax. Despite Ramadan, many of our assumed Muslim host and helpers partook in our meals. Women do not often wear headdresses, and when they do, they seem more culturally Kazakh than Muslim. The only thing religious-related that I experienced that bothered me was when a fellow touree asked the guide the president's religion. She scoffed and said, "He is Kazakh. Of course he is a Muslim." Conflating national identity with religion is just the worst. Be better than that, Kazakhstan.

We rushed away from the mosque toward the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, shaped like a pyramid, but it was closed due to decorations being put up for Edo, and Egyptian themed Opera. We had rushed through the Miniatures part for nothing, and no one had thought to check if the places we visited were available, including one interpreter whose brother was the artist in charge of the Egyptian decorations.

Dinner was a small meal accompanied by a ballpit's worth of greasy, fried bread balls. I couldn't stop eating them. Crack in carb form. Anna and I couldn't stand outside the restaurant very long due to an attack of tiny biting bugs, so we waited inside until the bus ride home. There was a cultural show, Symphony of the Steppes, that I really looked forward to, but due to the Junebug-sized blister on the ball of my foot, and the fact that we had to walk, I declined, staying in and working on my third day article. Everything seemed fine until about 6 a.m. when it turned out that one of our for Russian-speaking roommates had been out drinking all night and wish to continue drinking in our kitchen. He had an early flight, allowing us a couple more hours of uninterrupted sleep.

When I awoke to get breakfast, I found a mostly full bottle of vodka on the kitchen table. Screw the rice porridge; vodka is 100% vegan.

The second day of the tour went much more smoothlier, as the organizers kept a tighter leash on the group. We arrived to the Expo only to wade into the crowd trying to enter. Our status as journalists meant nothing, and the lady leading our group did not offer to wait by the gate to expedite our entry; she got inside and vanished. 

We eventually squeezed through the gate, where we were split up and assigned interpreters to help us. I got a pair of Kazakh ladies who had already visited many of the pavilions and were very helpful. 

Expo organizers had given us a schedule of national pavilion openings, but only about half of them actually followed the schedule. Good job, Poland and Vatican.

Shame, USA.

Okay, let's talk shit about my shity country and their lazy pavilion. It's an unnecessarily large pavilion comprised of three parts. The introduction hall is sparse, with some pictures hanging on the mono-blue walls and a black stage. (No cameras!) Above the stage, a video by Ambassador George Krol welcomes you to the show. Then, you move into a small theater with three screens and a laser grid show reminiscent of an 80s computer game. The video they show is a combination of stock footage, better suited to commercials for allergy medication and Chevrolet trucks, and has nothing to do with renewable energy. There's also interpretive dance shown Lady America and Mr. Kazakhstan angrily air fucking. The video elicited claps from the audience, but I have no idea why. The third part of the Pavilion is a model showing various technologies for renewable energy. It makes a third graders diorama on wind turbines look like shit.

 The pavilion's corporate sponsors include ExxonMobil, GE, and Citi--all names you trust when it comes to responsible management of our natural resources. Also, the logo is Obama's. Jesus Christ, America, get your head in the game.

Not that there weren't lazier pavilions. The Caribbean Hall was basically just promotion of tourism to lots of beautiful islands that won't exist in 100 years due to rising seas and furious hurricanes. It's good to know their governments have their heads in the right places.

Finland's exhibition was awesome. The pavilion was designed like an Arctic cave with uneven white floors, walls and ceilings.  You can read more about this pavilion as well as some other stuff at Daily Finland.

Lunch was a buffet, and it had so many good options. I overloaded, since breakfast was spicy shaved carrots and I was uncertain how dinner would unfold. I explored a bit more and then obeyed the schedule by attending a boring press conference. Hey, at least I was allowed inside the room with an important person this time!

I actually wanted to sit out the rest of the day and wait for dinner in peace. The media center was pretty barren, so I had planned to kick off my shoes and let my junebug blister breathe. My shoes smelled like something had died in them. But one of our hosts (or guides or interpreters or Expo organizers, I’m not sure. There were so freakin’ many of them, and I had no idea who was who or why they were there helping us.) What was I ... oh, yeah. One of our guides dragged me and a couple other suckers to some more pavilions. 

First up was the poorly named Best Practices Area pavilion. The basic idea was real modern technologies either already being used or being researched that helped alleviate the energy problem. There was a Smart Rail, an electric formula racecar, and some other genuinely interesting tech.

Following the Best Practices Area, we visited the contemporary art exhibition, which I had looked forward to (and had also paradoxically completely forgotten about.) The exhibits came from an art workshop in Moscow and from a museum or some such in France. The Moscovian art seemed cemented in Kazakhstan (not energy), and the French stuff was just technology-related. Overall, though, it was awesome. I enjoyed virtually every exhibit there.

These webcams were looking at the still-life objects and drawing them out.

This art was drawn by little robots with markets. Basically, if your Roomba sucks up a bunch of crayons.

These columns are made up of thousands of sheets of laser-cut papers and stacked by hand. The artist was there (because of the opening of the Expo), and he told us that he still hadn’t figured out a good way not to have to stack a hundred thousand pieces of paper to make a bunch of columns.

Dinner was hosted by the director of the Expo (though I don't think he actually attended, however that works) at the Rixan Hotel, and it was the nicest hotel I've ever been inside. Luxurious. The food on offer was another buffet, less veg-friendly than lunch, but it did include one horse dish. Score! My blister was killing me, and this meal was in a standing room. I would have happily drank myself stupid, but I still had to finish the Day 2 article. God damn responsibilities.

The trip started off great: I lost my passport! One of the airport workers in the Rovaniemi airport popped it in a separate bin without informing me, so right off the bat, I started sweating. (Sweat becomes very important later when I lose my luggage). Luckily, another traveler announced she had found it just after I realized I had lost it. While boarding the plane in Helsinki, my passport slipped out of my pocket. A flight attendant dutifully notified me. Luckily, that was the last time this trip that my passport attempted to leave me stranded at an airport. In Moscow, I arrived almost 45 minutes late, and had to run to my gate, which signs helpfully advised, was only 25 minutes away. The PA announced final boarding call from my flight about halfway through that. Eventually, I made it to Astana, incredibly tired (the 3 hour time difference meant it was still 3 a.m. by my internal clock), only to find that my luggage had vanished. A cheerful employee helped me fill out a reclamation form and sent me on my way.

The Press Tour program included breakfast and four hours of free time. I slept instead. My first order of business upon waking was to wash my socks. I had been wearing them all day, and anyone who knows me knows that that's a certified biohazard. I could smell the ammonia wafting up through the toes of my shoes even on the last flight. In retrospect, I should have done this before taking a 5 hour nap, but godsdamn I was tired. I checked out the apartment, one of many in the Expo City built especially for the Expo. It's like a college dorm before anyone moves in. Bare white walls, no iron, no hair dryer, no batteries in the remote. Everything is utterly new, but the workmanship is not inspiring. Paint on the floorboards and floor. Sockets sit crooked in the walls. Only one door actually locks, and the others require force to close. I can't imagine anyone wanting to stay here, save for the convenience of walking through a shopping mall to reach the Expo Gates "in only 10 minutes."

We had lunch at the Royal Hotel, but none of the organizers had remembered that I am a vegan (technically, I relax those standards when traveling because I'm lazy and don't want to struggle just to eat.) Google translate helped me relay the message to the wait staff. I was brought a plate of greasy white rice and a bowl of meat soup with the meat picked out. Nomnomnom. I sat at the table with the Iranian press, who spoke little English but were friendly to me for the rest of the trip.

After lunch, we headed to the Expo. Finally! 

But we weren't allowed inside. Because of security measures (many heads of state and other honchos were coming), Expo organizers instead ushered us into the media center, where there were a hundred computers on desks. No one gave us any guidance, so half the group just took a computer. I saw many, many instances of Facebook.  

Eventually, we were led to a room full of chairs, all facing the six or eight large televisions in the center. It was around 3 PM. The Expo organizers told us that the opening ceremony would begin at 8 p.m. "This is a room for relaxation," one of the many Expo volunteers told us.

I wandered outside and took pictures. But you couldn’t see much because of the security fence. Fellow journalist from the UK, Anna Franklin, treated me to a fried potato pastry. I drank my fill of disgusting carbonated water.

Finally the event started, and it was a pompous affair, which you can read about on the newspaper that sent me, Daily Finland. The media center was plagued with technical difficulties, though, resulting in many cameramen uprooting their tripods and glomming around the only working television. When the ceremony ended (well, kind of. It moved on to a concert and fireworks show), there was no organization about how to get back to the apartments. The press crowd dispersed, everyone taking their own way back to wherever they were going. But I had no idea where these apartments were, and so few police officers (of which there were hundreds) spoke English or were native to Astana. For a couple hours, I wandered around the outskirts of the Expo, searching for apartments that were only "10 minutes away."

Finally, a coalition of police officers, passers-by and Android maps apps succeeded and pointing me in the right direction. However, Expo City is comprised of six identical apartment complexes, each with seven 12-story buildings. Can you guess which one is mine? 

Me either. (Actually, I did go straight to the right one, but the gate security told me I had to go around to enter. There's not actually a way to enter except through that gate. #Goddammit) I found reception, who didn't have my name in their records, but by some miracle, one of the Expo organizers came in right behind me, offering to walk me back to my apartment. I even got my own key! Moving on up!

The two hours of walking around in soggy socks gave me a nasty blood blister on my left foot which would limit my movement for the rest of the Expo, which was great! The end!