The Republic of Thoronia

In honorarium of myself, I shall now direct you to the new thing in which me and my good pal Mojiferous have launched, a digital magazine/journal/multi-media explosion called 60 Seconds. Submit your stuff! Win fame and gold stars! If you have any questions just refer to this video:

Simply because I don’t have enough shit already on my plate, I’ve decided to undertake the RPM Challenge for the month of February as a means to light a fire under my ass to make some music again. The album already has a title: Space Pilgrim. It’s a concept album that follows a Space Pilgrim as he travels through the universe spreading the gospel of God to alien beings.

UPDATE (FEB 20): It looks like my I/O interface, an Omega Lexicon Pro has officially bit the dust, making recording live an impossibility. Before anyone tells me to record track by track, be forewarned, I don’t roll like that. Live or not at all. This doesn’t mean Space Pilgrim isn’t going to be recorded soon, it most certainly will be, as I’m really happy with the songs and the words and story are totally stupid and absurd. I’ll make it happen eventually, but not by February 28. Insert obligatory sad-face.

On top of that I’m also kicking jams and ideas out for Mojiferous’ “Increase Speed, Drop Down, Reverse Direction,” (video below).

2010 is going to be an awesome, productive year for the Republic. Keep your eyes on the prize.

Dear King Thor,

I’ve been reading your blog for several yrs. Like, how much effort would it take to update more often?

Waitin’ Wally

Dear Waitin’ Wally,

It is not within the realm of the Good King’s Knowledge to answer this question, which appears to be a rude comment, which is not okay and not worthy of being commented upon for the sake of the talk of the one and True and Good King. For now then we wait.

Always Yours,

King Thor

Dear Thorin,

Hey man, what’s up? I’ve been listening to Episode 1 and I’m a bit curious of something. In “Here is Where We Are” you say that the King is “Watching over you” but on page 13 of the Second Book of Thoronia, you say “The King neither sees nor cares what happens in your world.” So, which is it?

Utterly Confused

Dear Utterly Confused,

I can see your confusion. However, I think that you’re forgetting about the Adventures of the Good King: the graphic novel. On page 56, when speaking to Athanasius Kircher and William Tell, the Good King mentions that although he watches the people that he has created, he doesn’t really pay attention to what they are doing.

Dear King Thor,

Why don’t you include instrument lists, or band members or anything with your albums?

WTF

Dear WTF,

In Thoronia, we prefer to remain anonymous. But, I suppose that since you asked, we can share a few things. Here are the band members that were involved with the recording of Simoebic Dysentery:   ______________   – Roland SH-201. On Episode 1, the instruments included: Accordion, Keyboard, Drums, vocals, spoons, whistling and a computer. Thanks for asking!

King Thor

Dear Thorin,

Why won’t you sing in your real voice? You some kind of pussy?

Sincerely,

Pussy Puncher

What makes you think that I don’t sing in my own voice? For all you know I don’t even exist, and this whole thing is just a complex algorithm that was recorded hundreds of years ago and is playing out on this blog and webpage. The voice is not the voice of a human, or a god, but of a computer. This all exists purely so that you, Pussy Puncher, would have an excuse to live, and now that this wall has been broken, the wizard exposed, you no longer have a purpose.

So, we here in Thoronia are busy busy with school projects, one of these projects was to combine a new medium to an old audibiographical text. Never to be outdone I created this bizarre… thing… volume isn’t great as it was never mastered, nor really even recorded properly, but, well, there you go. “The Hall of the Old Ladies Recorder” as “performed” by a highly caffeinated King Thor.

“The machine was open. No kidding, just sitting there, wide open on a Sunday, a hundred quarters just sitting there.” My pulse was beating hard when I spoke these words to my friend Andy over the phone, “And I got a free issue of the Sunday Rocky Mountain News.”

“Enough of the Rocky,” he said to me, “how much did you get?”

It was a wide-open change box of the Rocky Mountain News newspaper box that enabled me to purchase my first Sonic Youth album, 1995’s Washing Machine. Living in a small town the box probably wasn’t cleaned out too often; in fact, it seems like we only received the Sunday edition of the Rocky, they never bothered bringing us the news during the week. In this open box was 140 quarters, probably all from that day alone.  So there I was, $35 right in front me, faced with a decision that, I’ll be honest, wasn’t too difficult to make. I packed the quarters into my backpack and biked home. My parents were gone for the day, so I dumped the money out all over the bed and began to count. That’s when I called my friend Andy. He’d just picked up Washing Machine and was listening to it while I talked to him.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s Sonic Youth. It’s amazing,” he said.

I was hearing, I found out later, the last track “Diamond Sea,” a 19-minute freakout that would later blow my mind with face-melting noise riffs that I can honestly say I never thought I’d hear in my life.

So I went out with my quarters and bought the album. The clerk, a face that I’d learn to know over the next few years, congratulated me on purchase, but looked at me with a distinct air of annoyance as I plopped down the $15 worth of quarters.

“You give up collecting them or something?” the clerk said to me.

Startled at someone questioning the origin of the quarters, I muttered something about a crazy aunt or uncle and ran out of the store.

I popped it in my Aiwa CD player when I got home. “Becuz” kicked in and my brain felt like it was about to hemorrhage. “What is this?” I thought to myself. “This can’t be music, this is, this is something else all together.”

Then the nine-minute title track hit me in the face. My eyes opened wide, the feeling of panic hit me, and for whatever reason, I began to feel guilty about my recent treasure hunt. Thurston Moore seemed to be yelling at me, Kim Gordon slapped me in the face, Gordon sang, “it’s a woman’s face/ and she threw a quarter down at me and she said / ‘honey, here’s a quarter go put it in the washing machine.’” The rock continued to pummel me in the face, and the words echoed over and over in my head, “here’s a quarter.” They knew. I don’t know how, but Sonic Youth knew I bought their album with quarters that weren’t rightfully mine.

I took the CD off, sat down on my bed and stared at the backpack filled with quarters. I never mentioned it again, I never bought anything larger than a soda or some candy with Blackbeard’s stolen change. I even bought a few copies of the Rocky each week to pay them back. As far as I was concerned, I owed them the $35 that I stole. I think I still owe them about $25, but after they went out of business I realized it probably doesn’t matter much anymore.