Hey everyone, this week we have some milestones to discuss.

First, I am proud to bring you the 20th Painful Leg Injuries Podcast Series. I started the Painful Leg Injuries Podcast in April 2005, just thinking that it would be a cool idea and a good way for me to get my music out there. Now, a little over two years later, I'm very excited to keep this going.

So for my 20th series I decided to do a series devoted to a practice in experimental music that has been growing in popularity and has definitely become one of my personal favorite pastimes, circuit-bending. I first heard about circuit bending around 99-00 in a article in the Village Voice about this up and coming scene of musicians who make noise out of old and reconfigured electronics (introduced me to this band who at that point had already been around a while, Wolf Eyes). I loved the idea and kind of forgot about until mid-late 06 when I read somewhere that really easy to build your own contact mics, and I needed some, so I did it.

I loved the idea for a couple reasons, first, the do-it-yourself idea. Also, it keeps a least a little plastic out of landfills and that got my wife's endorsement. Also, it's fun to explore something and make slight tweaks until you discover a profound new noise. It's geek-ecstasy.

After that contact-mic project, I was no longer afraid of soldering irons, wire and heat shrink tubing. I was important to me to integrate circuit bent sounds into my digitally oriented practice, to keep it from being predictable. Now, as I've done quite a few projects, read Reed Ghazala's book, grown to hate Radio Shack as every self-respecting bender does (you should see my "no-I-do- not-want-your-help" look a flash at these kids who come hassle me at the drawers), I decided to put together a series of performances and compositions of my circuit-bent projects called Open Up and Say ZZZT!

The first one A Collection of Fruity Loops is a composition of random phrases from fairly straight forward bend of the Casio SA-5 keyboard. I've refined it from the stage it was at when I took the above picture, which shows a slavish following of the tutorial in the Ghazala book. I've now removed the body contacts, and replace them with one button. I've found that I avoid frequent freezing and crashing that way. When had gotten some loop I really liked, I edited them into a piece that's full strange twists and turns. Enjoy.

Another milestone is that Enlightenment and Handball is El Plan De Aguavodka's 70th podcast. John amazes me every week just about and this one is no exception. It's a field recording that generates some nicely musical feedback. Little Ricky's House of Chankletas' latest podcast is an electro-acoustic prank call from a pervert, Falist, totally bizarre. Alex Spalding's space-y beat track Inaction is anything but, well you know where I am going with this.

More milestones - we're listed in the top sellers on CD Baby! The Painful Leg Injuries' If the Devil's In The Details Then How Many Details Can You Fit Upon A Match is the top 20 in the Noise section, Marco Oppedisano's Electroacoustic Compositions For Electric Guitar is in the top 20 of the Electroacoustic section, The Painful Leg Injuries' Interpreting Codes Into Robust Details is the top ten of the Sound Art and Sound Collage sections, The Painful Leg Injuries' Backwards, Broken and Incorrectly is in the top ten of the Musique Concrete section. And lastly, our comp, Men in White Coats is in the top top 40 of the Sound Art section. Alright, granted, Kanye West has nothing to worry about from us, but come on, give us our little victory.

My hands hurt, late.