Ben McAllister - Latest Posts

From August 21, 2025: I get so grounded playing Michael Hedges' music.

From August 20, 2025: Tape 15 again - 1995 4 tracking again.

From August 19, 2025: Tape 15 again - 1995 4 tracking.

From August 18, 2025: A bunch of textures on this tape - Tape 15.

From August 17, 2025: A lot of pieces like this where I abused varispeed to get to a tempo I couldn't quite reach.

From August 16, 2025: 1995 4 tracking again, and again I have no recollection of where/why for this one.

From August 15, 2025: 1995 4 tracking with a little help from Ableton.

From August 14, 2025: More 4 tracking - this is from 1995.

From August 13, 2024: Some exploration with Thuja and Csound.

From August 12, 2024: How close were these fellas last night?

From August 11, 2024: Owls last night having a call-and-response - one on an E, one on a G#, pretty well in tune!

From August 10, 2024: Set my recorder out to catch some coyotes, but caught this distant singing.

From August 9, 2024: The only thing I really spent time with this Olympics was the breakdancing.

From August 8, 2024: Got to meet Dweezil and listen the band rehearse for their show at the Moore.

From August 7, 2024: Still learning this instrument called Ableton Live - here messing around with one of our Chiwas tunes.

From August 6, 2024: A little busy this week - didn't get much practice time, but didn't want to forget about this little simple thing on acoustic, and what you can do with it in Ableton.

From August 5, 2024: A little Teenage Engineering and piano always works.

From August 4, 2024: This is the gesture I build the C4T to play: a kind of strum with the slider that glitches the beginning of a note and feels like an articulation.

From August 3, 2024: My musical practice felt so good from 2017-2020.

From August 2, 2024: This popped in my head - I hear Stereolab arrangements every once in a while and this is one, though I'm wrestling with getting the right sounds from Ableton.

From August 1, 2025: I'm transferring all of my 4 track cassettes from 30 years ago.

From July 31, 2025: More 4 track things from 30 years ago.

From July 30, 2025: More 4 track things from 30 years ago.

From July 29, 2025: 1995, four tracks on a cassette.

From July 28, 2025: Medicine Hat practice tonight - the groove in Empty is coming together.

Litho week for Caudal Peduncle.

Mike's dreams are dashed in the studio.

From July 25, 2025: "Better Taos".

From July 24, 2025: Bola Sete Triads vs the preacher.

We are working dilligently to tighen up bits and pieces of our Caudal Peduncle set before we record w/Kurt at Litho next week.

Late night moog noodle.

This is a very fun slidey thing to play with, from January of this year.

This is a fun little exercise that forces me to start slow and work my way up to speed.

The worst night of insomnia in a while.

Am I keeping the pulse on this guy?

C'mon C'mon in the studio at Eric Eagle's, a marathon day recording... 11 songs I think.

C'mon C'mon finally playing again for people.

Jacqui and Wyatt rockin it at the Bilstad's backyard summer concert.

Finally playing Theme again.

Sean's tune Dirty Little Secrets - everyone thought this was super-proggy, and the proginess was solely my doing.

Office Song - 1st time in 15 years or so.

Starting the C'mon C'mon reunion practices.

For the first two weeks of July, we're getting my beloved band C'mon C'mon back together, prompted by brother Robert making the trek out west from Ashville.

Fireworks.

Civil disobedience in Pioneer Square - a demonstration against Hilton.

Reposted from June 29, 2024: As we're moving houses and I'm uprooted from my studio space etc, I'm listening to recordings made around my last two Chapel shows, working out tracks for a record.

Leesa was listening to this while we were having morning coffee and it scared the shit out of me.

Next month C'mon C'mon gets back together, and I'm listening to old rehearsals and demos.

Next month C'mon C'mon gets back together, and I'm listening to old rehearsals and demos.