8 String R-458MN MultiScale Thoughts: The Other Things

 

Our 8 string.

I have always been a MAKER (to use the currently popular term), so modifying something to make it better/usable is normal to me. An engineering career, designing, fabricating and getting things to work is a more traditional way to say that too. That Eddy Van Halen was very DIY makes doing that even more valid for guitars.
I had to modify this Harley Benton to make it stay in tune. Still an incredible value though. Considered 3 times I should change the tuners too, but ordering specific GOTOH tuners is a special order that takes many weeks, and haven't bothered. Would have if they were off the shelf parts.
The article "Harley Benton R-458MN WH MultiScale: My Setup and Modifications" on our Blog goes into all the details.

https://art-and-technology.blogspot.com/.../harley-benton...

I say "encouraged" by guitar god Mattias IA Eklundh in the video, but inspired maybe a better word. I was very interested in getting his ULV8 until finding out it was ¥900,000 in Japan and not the class of instrument for little old grandfather me.
Turned out playing an 8 string wasn't as amazing as I had expected. Finding that out at a reasonable cost made the effort needed on this instrument worthwhile.  7 string guitar is the sweet spot for me. I have synthesizers as well, for really low sounds if arrangements call for it.
Have made a few video blogger-ish videos over the last weeks.  Learnt I really aren't into talking to camera much. It requires a mind trick to be "an actor" and pretend you are talking with a friend for the video to be watchable. Made a few that are really terrible. 

But doing things with video, rather than animation is a nice change:

Other Things

Anbaric is a Melodic Hard Rock/ Metal 3 piece that I know about as Mattias IA Eklund, Guitar God, is there drummer for like the last 4 or more years.

Their lyrics like Digital Depression, Clickbait, Keyboard Warrior are very much in the vein of Freak Kitchen's Freak Of The Week or Saving Up.   

Also similar to my own in songs like THE BOTS ARE AT IT AGAIN, BAIT AND SWITCH SUPREME and INTERNET-ing.  Catchy, straight forward tunes.

Known about them, but didn't gone and actually listen to all their material till this week.  I hope they do well.

Found out a guy I knew way back in the Fairlight days has passed away.  He was murdered leaving his Sydney studio. 75 years old. Just a few years my senior.  He was one of those guys that we chatted with over lunch and coffee at the Rushcutters Bay Fairlight Instrument offices every so often. Quite regularly at one point. I assumed he was in visiting Kim or Peter over something or other, I think he was an old school friend. He did talk about his video synthesizer studio, but I never saw it or anything he created there... remember, there was no YouTube or internet back then.

He apparently became an artist and SEVERED HEADS was quite well know. I remember him as a rather down kind of guy. Not a happy camper, but friendly enough to me. 

An acquaintance, not a friend. Makes me remember you don't know how much time any of us have. 

I have a few different interests/hobbies that I rotate through. My whole life I did one of them for awhile, then burnt out on it, and moved on to one of the others and repeated that cycle.  Am I done with writing and singing songs for the time being? 

I think I might be...    I really can't tell. Been spending time with our visiting daughter and that has been enough for me.

Ukraine bombs Russian Data centers in the last few days and  much of the far right supporters of social media go quiet. So it was proclaimed all over social media. Some of the biggest MAGA supporters. All Russian bot activity.  

And Americans couldn't tell they fell for Russian propaganda???

This wasn't a clue? Zero critical thinking skills... 

And then, America turned off Starlink so the Russians could retaliate.  And America and Russia coordinated their actions.  So why are the treasonous American(s) not being found for this? 

Guess...

Closed our website, even though still paying for the hosting for the next year, as they wouldn't give me a refund, despite the hosting mostly being down the last weeks of my service period, unusable, and them being unresponsive to support requests. Not in a position to do anything about that. Australia does have a within 30 day refund consumer law that may apply. The service from HostNetworks and their American owners of the last few years, Edge Centres. has been not good.

But, I think there is no point in having a website at all now in this age of no click though AI summary search.  I retired and don't need any of that any more.

Adrian Bruce ©2026 KYOTO, JAPAN
Blog: https://art-and-technology.blogspot.com/
Our Music: https://megacurve.bandcamp.com/
X: https://x.com/Megacurve
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/adrian.bruce.9
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@adriansbruce/
Zazzle: http://www.zazzle.com.au/artandtechnology
Pinterest: https://jp.pinterest.com/arttechdesign/
Our Comic Books: https://art-and-technology.blogspot.com/2026/09/our-free-to-download-comic-books.html

A Man With A Cat: Story Shaped Beats

 

A Man with a Cat: Story Shaped Beats, has word salad lyric about events of the first 5 months of 2026.  This is 45 seconds about part of that, with a clip of the song as the soundtrack.

AND our cat.

The Story Shaped Beats on Bandcamp.

The Original Story Shaped Beats COMIC SHORT.   

The Visualized Story Shaped Beats SHORT.

Other Things

Finally deleted that Facebook Art-Tech page had for ages. It had so little activity for years. I went to delete it a few years ago, and the activity dramatically picked up, so didn't delete it then. But all from none English speaking  "3rd world" countries  so all fake bot stuff. 

It has been a total waste of time even looking at it for all the years I had it. Surely Facebook will go the way of MySpace, with no humans left on it. Only bots posting, scrolling and trying to scam each other.

YouTube algorithm changes keep on making it worse for me as a viewer and creator. There isn't any competition so it isn't going to get better any time soon.  All seems like a scam. 

YouTube/Google  (same company, remember) is all focused on advertising. And there is a creepy grifter ecosystem based around that:

From that perspective, makes sense a grandfather creator like myself isn't worth anything to them.

I am just not part of the grifter economy

I get shown so many Westerner Takes On Japan videos on YouTube recently.  So I tried something that looks like that, but I'm not going to lecture anyone on Japanese Culture or language. Not what I am interested in. This was just a one off video. I should have walked much slower and not be puffing as much. As it is now it is in SHAKE-O-VISION.

My Collection Of Memories is as far as I want to go into the things I've done.  I like the comic format of images and text, rather than a talking head video. 

DIGGER started this week in Japan.  First session, very unusually, not till late afternoon. There were about 15 people in the session. A man with a cat applies to the protagonist in this too. 

Digger has 4 big moments or twists, that throw you, but it all comes together as the credits roll. Awesome movie. Extremely cleverly put together.  Saying much about it is a spoiler, so I will not. See it yourself.

Yes it has an environmental plot.  But what seems most bizarre to us not in the USA is that the new Hollywood Establishment after Paramount (owned by a pro TRUMP wealthy) took over Warner Brothers in the last week,  is very much in the  CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAK camp and it looks like they have tried to bury this fantastic movie with bad reviews and reports.   

"As a sticker designer, can you change the world with a particularly pithy bumper sticker?" is a rhetorical question I have thought to myself over many years. The answer is NO.

I thought the same thing about the ability of  political cartoons to cause change for the better too, no matter how fantastic and on point they are. I did some myself. 

They maybe an artistic expression of frustration, but contribute NOTHING to the change required.

I have two wonderful books of the Ron Cobb's politca1 cartoons, and feel the same about those too.

They aren't an effective way to bring about change.

Not sure DIGGER is saying the same thing directly though, as read some claim it is. It does help with the frustration though, and that is made clear in the movie itself. 

Adrian Bruce ©2026 KYOTO, JAPAN
Blog: https://art-and-technology.blogspot.com/
Our Music: https://megacurve.bandcamp.com/
X: https://x.com/Megacurve
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/adrian.bruce.9
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@adriansbruce/
Zazzle: http://www.zazzle.com.au/artandtechnology
Pinterest: https://jp.pinterest.com/arttechdesign/
Our Comic Books: https://art-and-technology.blogspot.com/2026/09/our-free-to-download-comic-books.html

A New Era, INTERNET, Notebooks

 

A few quiet words about INTERNET-ing and our song with that name in 45 seconds.

I am no YOUTUBER, but a few things like this talking to camera around the MUSIC VIDEO SHORTS I made couldn't be too bad, right? The sound of the DJI MIC MINI is way better than just using the camera.

Since recording this video I canceled our website hosting and DNS I had for 20 years and am now  just using this BLOG and X, mostly. On Facebook and others too. I was going to close our website sometime, but had our hand forced in the last week. 

The whole MUSIC VIDEO SHORT referred too:

The changed YouTube algorithm treats these differently now, thinking I should try long form content again.  The same videos on X and Facebook get 3+ times the views that YouTube gets.  

I expect YouTube does exactly the same thing UBER does to its drivers. Some get special treatment and rates, get huge channel growth, then talk about how great being a YouTuber is. But most get less promotion and payout if they are monetized, and this all changes over time. There is no transparency. When I started my channel in 2010, I was soon monetized and it was cool, but with changing requirements I moved down their ranks of promotion and payout worthy, to being almost invisible now. 

The Interneting-ing on Bandcamp.  Mostly there for my own entertainment.  Not a place ordinary music listeners visit at all, who always just stick to their Spotify.  You have to really be an  Independent music purists to care. To me, Spotify is a pay to maybe be played site and I am not playing that game.

I took some timelapse video at the Mall and made a very different HD video of the song too:

Other Things

Another great Billy Corgan guest with  Scott Ian of Anthrax. 

Have one Anthrax CD. Never played any of their stuff enough to know it well. More familiar with his  SOD ( STORMTROUPERS OF DEATH). Knew he was just a rhythm guitarist, but cool that he doesn't drink and has an interest in a variety of no-metal music. An interesting guy, and he married MEATLOAF's daughter!

Daughter showed me a large series of illustrated books on many subjects in the bookstore. This THE ANATOMY OF SUMO WRESTLING PICTURE BOOK looks interesting.

I enjoy Sumo, but no expert on all the goings on. Or what the refs fan like thing is called. I could get to learn the Japanese terms I don't know, or have missed in the commentary if I get this. A big job to read it for me though. I watch sumo with the Japanese commentary and follow most of what is said, but I couldn't put a number on it.  Depending on what they are talking about, it varies between 100% to maybe 75%.  Partly my hearing and partly sumo specific vocabulary.

But I find watching British Bake Off Season 12, I can't catch what some of the contestants say either,  And they are all speaking, nominally, English!  Many movies and shows are the same, and find English subtitles very useful.

Notebooks: To change things around, I thought I should carry a small A6 sized note book when out from now on. I have put Google Keep on my phone as well. Just jot down ideas and draw what ever comes into my head, so I don't forget anything. Something different from my home A5 spiral bound Diary.

I bought to try a few cheap A6 sized notebooks, but found most of them lacking in paper quality and durability. And the pages don't lay flat. MUJI has a series with an optional canvas cover, but not very nice, the cover means the writing surface has a step in it. The MUJI 0.5 ballpen makes a thicker wet line compared to my preferred UNI 0.5 JETSTREAM pen.  

On Amazon, the Chinese MOLESKIN copy at almost 1/3 the price of the real thing seems okay so far. Has a tree embossed in the leather hard cover and a pen holder. Yet to see how durable it is when carried around in my shoulder bag. 

But I also thought I should get a real MOLESKIN just to check. They do seem very nice. Expensive though!

I do like my A5 spiral bound notebooks I use for my diary. The pages lay flat, they have a heavy cover, paper is good and available in lined, doted and plain.  Only problem is the wire spiral gets mangled and doesn't open properly if you take it out and about in a shoulder bag.  

I didn't know that these A6 notebooks, the makes and way people use them for journaling, were such a big thing on YouTube till this week.  Part of it seems a reaction to smartphones and a way to get away from the world of doom scrolling.  I can understand that.

Yet to see if carrying a notebook and not having a traditional website anymore works for me. But A NEW ERA anyway.

Life without our own website is kind of like retirement. Something I haven't done before. In many ways it is a relief to not have to deal with it and the SPAM and bots any more.

With the changes to Internet use in the last 3 years in general, I don't think not having one will make any difference to me now. So few people looked at the webcomics or rock opera I had there, and other things I was most interested in now, that I may as well not have had a website.  

I was so busy in 2020/2021 with people wanting illustrations and graphics. The opposite now, and I expect into the future. I also don't want to spend my time in retirement doing illustrations for others anymore. 

Not being able to renew our 20 year old domain name as I was now retired with an expired registered business number was what forced the end.  Having moved our website to 2 previous domain names since 1995, I was very aware it took years to be findable in search engines, and with AI and no-click-through search now, it never would again if starting from scratch. There was no point in continuing with a new domain name.

A VIDEO BLOG on YouTube is probably more popular as a creative outlet for many recently, but I'm not really that personality type to enjoy doing that very often.  

We will see.

The statistics on this blog indicate it is mostly bots stealing the content of it by a very large margin. And me.

Australian Nepotism & Jobs for The Boys

I have no way of telling if Nepotism is far worse in Australia compared to other countries or not, or just that is the way much of the world works. Only looking back at my life now do I realize how much I saw of it around me, despite me being told often, it isn't what you know, but who you know. The 2017 book GAME OF MATES goes as far to say that Australia is much more like Columbia than America, Britain or Europe with its insiders in business and government. 

So it was a surprise to see the RAYGUN BREAK DANCE disaster wasn't that kind of insider opportunism.  

Does show another issue where THE BEST may not get to be involved in something in Australia due to arbitrary rules and timing.  

To even attend the selection events for the Australian Breakdance team, you had to already have a Passport. An expensive thing now, something like A$450. And the announcement of the selection events and them being held was very short.  

A good way to eliminate young, excellent break dancers, but not well off.  

But it is like a recent Rick Beato video where most artists that made it have rich families supporting them.  Taylor Swift and The Slash being in a long list proving the theory. 

Our Comic Books

Here is the link to download all our free .cbr formatted comic books.  I use the YACReader. Have considered making them PDFs too, but I find the ,cbr format more useful.

They all still have the now dead website .com.au url and watermark on them and it is just way too much trouble to change that.  But one comic in particular I will put here too:

Where The Smoke Comes Out

46 pages. Name is from the inscription musician Peter Gabriel put on an Album he gave me. Inspired by the Historical/Autobiographical work SHOWA, by Shigeru Mizuki, Has historical and personal memories of looking what influenced me to end up where I did. From Sydney Australia, to Japan, to Australia and back to Japan, with 20+ years in the electronic Musical Instrument development Industry, then not. Not an Autobiography at all, just a few memories.  Combines Narrative Captions, comics and Black & White photos mostly.

DOWNLOAD .cbr File.

The significant problem with most posts on Social Media, in the FOR YOU or RECOMENDED streams:

Adrian Bruce ©2026 KYOTO, JAPAN
(Previously of now defunct artandtechnology website)
Blog: https://art-and-technology.blogspot.com/
Our Music: https://megacurve.bandcamp.com/
X: https://x.com/Megacurve
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/adrian.bruce.9
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@adriansbruce/
Zazzle: http://www.zazzle.com.au/artandtechnology
Pinterest: https://jp.pinterest.com/arttechdesign/

Our Free To Download Comic Books

 

Here are the links to download all our free .cbr formatted comic books.  I use the YACReader.

These were on our website. They all still have the now dead website url and watermark on them and it is just way too much trouble to change that. 

Where The Smoke Comes Out

46 pages. Name is from the inscription musician Peter Gabriel put on an Album he gave me. Inspired by the Historical/Autobiographical work SHOWA, by Shigeru Mizuki, Has historical and personal memories of looking what influenced me to end up where I did. From Sydney Australia, to Japan, to Australia and back to Japan, with 20+ years in the electronic Musical Instrument development Industry, then not. Not an Autobiography, just a few memories.  Combines Narrative Captions, comics and Black & White photos

DOWNLOAD .cbr File.

IN THE NEXT DIMENSION

31 pages. Bright, colorful very simple vector graphic SF stories in the next dimension. Done in a style I have not used before so that the art is quick to do. Most of the Vector Illustration I get commissioned to do is very different and more time consuming than this to do. Kind of a fun break.

DOWNLOAD .cbr File.

Heavy Metal Garage

A 20 pages car based comic. Maybe inspired by old Topgear or The Grand Tour, just a little. Pen on Paper drawn cars and vector old guys. In glorious gray scale, black and white. Mostly.

DOWNLOAD .cbr File.

The Shadow

26 pages on the History of THE SHADOW car racing team started at the end of the 1960s by someone who may have been a CIA SPY. Black &White comic.

DOWNLOAD .cbr File.

My Music

14 page book.  8 pages on how I wrote and recorded 6 songs in 2021 in our studio, 2 pages on Headphone thoughts and 4 pages on the history of Listening To Music In Stereo. Black &White comic.

DOWNLOAD .cbr File.

Just Thinking

56 pages of the comic strips and comics I did over the 2 years mostly around living in the time of covid in the outer suburbs of  Kyoto Japan. Mostly off the cuff thoughts. Black &White comic. We moved back to Japan just before the Pandemic hit.

DOWNLOAD .cbr File.

Terraform1

17 pages. The first actual comic book I tried to write and draw in 2017, after many years of just doing single panel and strip joke cartoons. 

After reading all 40 years of the French SF graphic novel "Valerian and Lareline" by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude M zi res and the 6 volumes of the amazing "Orbital" by writer Sylvain Runberg and artist Serge Pell, I wanted to try something along those lines.  They mix world building, amazing SF tech and their world view, into something truly amazing

It is inspired by Japanese Manga and the French Album approaches, rather than Marvel or DC Comics. "A Contract with God" has also been a layout  influence.  I'm sure "Orbital" would have taken a month per page with his elaborate oil pastel artwork, so I cannot say I'm trying to be the equal of those works at all.

It was hard to do this quite traditionally. Took months working just with spare time on weekends. Just finishing it become the goal. I do like some of the ideas in it, even if things are more just stated rather than evolve as they should in a story.

DOWNLOAD .cbr File.

The Heavy Metal Garage Strip

We have yet to do a book collection of the 46 Heavy Metal Garage strips I did before stopping.

Here are a few:

Could release them all, but the reality is the AI skimmers were the only one downloading them so why bother? 

Adrian Bruce ©2026 KYOTO, JAPAN
(Previously of now defunct artandtechnology website)
Blog: https://art-and-technology.blogspot.com/
Our Music: https://megacurve.bandcamp.com/
X: https://x.com/Megacurve
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/adrian.bruce.9
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@adriansbruce/
Zazzle: http://www.zazzle.com.au/artandtechnology
Pinterest: https://jp.pinterest.com/arttechdesign/

TRAINS: Kyoto Japan Ambient

 

I use the trains around Kyoto a lot. So much more convenient than driving for me. Only a 7 minute walk to the local station, then not long to downtown Osaka or Kyoto.  Even if the next station in Osaka is as far as I usually go.

3 Years ago I used my ZOOM H1 recorder and was out recording environmental sounds I used in a few pieces of music, such as this TRAINS one: 

I had had the ZOOM recorder for quite a few years and hadn't had much success with any of the previous ambient stuff I had tried to make using it, but it all just clicked 3 years ago.

This 700yen Breakfast is a trip to and from my favorite cafe at the next train station for breakfast:

It was just something I wanted to do at the time, and they are kind of like diary entries for me. The way many into photography would relate to a photography trip they went on, when looking at photos years later.

But I have never been into photography and have never had a camera. Only ever borrowed one my father had or used the disposable FILM WITH LENS cameras I used to take on overseas business trips when I was at Roland Japan. 

First attempt using the radio mic with camera outside, but very conscience I don't want to be seen as a YouTuber talking into a selfie stick camera.  

This music used a lot of ZEBRATTE synth vst and a free ambient orientated library of pads and such sounds.

Other Things

I started this blog a long time ago now. August 2007. I had my final website www.artandtechnolog.com.au set up in 2006, which was all hand crafted HTML and php, and wanted a simply way to post random personal stuff, but didn't want that stuff on my own "professional" website. 

So started with Blogger, linked from our website. Reachable but not obvious. Then there was a period where Facebook was the thing to post your own random personal stuff to, and this blog was mostly ignored for years.

Then Facebook and social media all changed, not seeing friends posts any more, just PR and propaganda, and the Blog was useful again.  About the time Musk took over Twitter.

And now there is also Substack, a blogging site, where the newsletter are automatically emailed out, and a copy left on the website. You can also charge subscription fees. If you don't subscribe, it is just a blog. Have read there are a lot of  far-right and neo-Nazi there.

I see Joshua Heath Scott uses Substack, and publishes on Saturdays, the way I do here in recent months.  He only started in the recent past of 2025. Unlike my Mixed Media Missives here, each essay he writes is LLLOOONNNGG.  Substack is for writers. 

I have no interest in Substack, and have no idea if anyone actually reads this blog, despite the access numbers, and assume most accesses are just bots and AI Skimmers. 

I find it useful to myself to look back at stuff though. I just forget!  I also have handwritten notebooks that are part diary and just memos I write to my future self.  But I don't write essays. I HATED essays at school and university, the way I still HATE debating. Facts and truths are NOT required in essays or debating.

And to think I lost my Domain name of 20 years, artandtechnolog.com.au, this week. I don't qualify for the .com.au any more, so it can not be renewed.  Not a traumatic lose, as the last 3 years almost nothing but bots ever accessed the website and sent me SPAM email.  

Chinese and recently Singaporean AI Skimmers have been the biggest visitors. Now seemed like a good time to get rid of the on going expense and trouble, even though I hadn't planned it to be so this soon.  

Facebook  or X is probably the best way to contact me now, or leave a message on any of the social media I use to get our email address. But other than the few diehards still using the ancient Fairlight Instruments CMI systems,  or interested in some old articles I contributed to magazines, 

don't expect to get contacted any more. I am just another one of those old retired guys fading into obscurity. 

Joshua Heath Scott's other channel on creativity has shown up more interesting stuff:

JACK OF ALL TRADES MASTER OF NONE 
BUT OFTEN SOMETIMES BETTER THAN A MASTER OF ONE

Such as the way the original 18th Century expression got changed in the 19th Century. I prefer this  original, as that is actually true to my experience and Joshua thinks so too.  

I only just noticed he hasn't been doing the vblog for long. Just a month?  The first one talks about his use of notebooks and analog memo taking and his second brain to remove anxiety of having to remember thoughts and ideas. But he doesn't keep a diary, due to childhood trauma.

I keep notebooks as a diary/ memo.  Also artist diaries for drawings and ideas.   During the time I worked at Roland in the 80s and 90s I kept a daily diary in a SYSTEM NOTE.  Kept at it back in Oz too, till 2012, then stopped for a few years. Starting up a diary again in 2019 back in Japan.

Never liked the fixed format of a set space for a day in a diary though. I now just use bigger ruled/ not ruled notebooks and write the date. day, weather and as much as I want. Somedays don't write anything. Other days pages. 

My study of Japanese is in other notebooks and worksheets.  

And for some AI reasoning, now my YouTube feed is full of videos on analog journaling and what small notebooks and formats are the best.  I learnt of magnetic bookmarks, which may come in handy.

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has opened. The WSJ Fine Art critic panned it as "not art" and myself, and all the artist people I know think that is just so wrong. Illustrations and comics are art!  SYD MEAD had to deal with his awesome work not being taken seriously by the same fine art critics.  The Fine Art World those critics live in is a scam: 

This is my "Where The Smoke Comes Out" comic.  Inspired by the Historical/Autobiographical work SHOWA, by Shigeru Mizuki. Has historical and personal memories of art, tech and music in Australia & Japan.  It isn't an autobiography, just a few memories in 45 pages.

Download the .cbr format comic book from this link. You will need a .cbr Comic Reader. I use YACReader

Much of social media feels like a few parties and business events I attended over the years, where the only people I know there are the 2 hosts. Then I end up sitting on a couch for 2 hours hemmed in by 4 guests with never ending talk of their mobile phone collections or fandom conventions they attended...    

Adrian Bruce ©2026 KYOTO, JAPAN
(Previously of now defunct artandtechnology website)
Blog: https://art-and-technology.blogspot.com/
Our Music: https://megacurve.bandcamp.com/
X: https://x.com/Megacurve
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/adrian.bruce.9
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@adriansbruce/
Zazzle: http://www.zazzle.com.au/artandtechnology
Pinterest: https://jp.pinterest.com/arttechdesign/
Our Comic Book: https://art-and-technology.blogspot.com/2026/09/our-free-to-download-comic-books.html