Los Angeles readers, Surya Buchwald aka Momo the Monster writes to let us know he’s taking on the Circuit Bending Challenge live and in person, with a workshop. So if you were feeling squeamish about the challenge and want some assistance, this good be a great opportunity. Please help spread the word, wonderful Californians!

Join us for our Next Share.LA!
October 28th is the Circuit Bending challenge, as posted on Create Digital Music. The challenge is to buy a lo-tech music toy, hack it and document it, and upload the results all in one day! Tell you what - I won’t penalize you for buying your toy early or using one you already have. Never circuit-bent anything before? Don’t know anything about electronics? Great! I’m quite an amateur myself, but I know enough to help you get bending - and I’ve got the tools and parts you need. Directions on the Basswerks site.

Share.LA

If any other municipalities want to organize similar events, even informal ones, let me know and I’ll update here. But events aren’t strictly needed, nor is even more than one person: you are your own event. (That’s what I keep telling myself, for sure.) We’ll all be sending good bendy vibes for the next few days.

Posting to Flickr

Got photos? Upload to Flickr under the tag circuitbendingchallenge. (Don’t forget to add them to the CDMu group, too.) Evil Paul is already up there with some items he scored for a mere US 50 cents to $2.00. And that’s the idea: not just making something cheap, but actually salvaging something fairly worthless to others and making it art / something you’d want to keep.

Ed.: Social networking, online sites (this being one of them), Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace … sometimes it seems like all the connections are being done online. Naturally, the Web’s real power is when you can meet all those virtual personalities you’ve gotten to know offline. Far better than getting demo CDs in the mail or listening to someone’s tracks on MySpace: meeting them at a party over a drink and getting their music from them directly.

Such is the genius of Chicago’s Demo Swap. Co-organizer Liz has this wrap-up of what July’s party was like. Non-Chicagoans (heck, fellow New Yorkians), clearly this is a model to be replicated elsewhere. A huge thanks to all of the CDMers who showed up. It was fantastic to meet you, and I hope to see you again soon — ideally with more leisure time to hang out! (I’m in Chicagoland regularly.) I was especially impressed by Karl, who was in Chicago from Austria and was embarking on a cross-country drive across the entire length of Route 66 the following morning. Why is that foreigners appreciate America better than most Americans do?

Here’s how the demo swap went; read closely for some nice music tips and perhaps insight into how to get a demo swap going in your neck of the woods. -PK

I’m in Meatspace largely at the moment, with a weekend packed with events at the Maker Faire. There are plenty of DIY music and motion projects here, and they’ll all be within spitting distance of my booth. Add to that performance events Friday and Saturday, and it’s looking like a great weekend. If you’re not in the Bay Area (which, yes, 99% of you aren’t), expect to see the virtual translation of all this meaty goodness soon. Some of these projects are also suggesting some how-to tutorials, so I’ll be working on that, as well. If you are here, note that the Friday and Saturday night events have no cover, a trend I hope to continue whenever CDM World Tour happens.

Here’s the quick summary of events:

Friday Night: Robotspeak 8 PM - 11 PM, 589.5 Haight Street at Steiner, music/visual lineup with discussion (flyer after the jump)

Saturday Night: CDM + Make team up for the Chips + Music + Fish party
Chips + Music + Fish details @ Makezine.com
Confirmed lineup: Pineresin, Starpause, Chachi Jones, Steve&Derek, Zaxxon Spacecase, Barney the Theremin Wizard, myself, and live visuals!

(The as-always-fantastic design comes to us by way of our graphic maker Nat.)

All weekend long, Maker Faire!
Maker Faire page, San Mateo County Event Center

Real posts should pick up again once I return, so thanks for your patience.