The other day when referring a friend to The Internet Archive, I decided to check up on something from my past. When I lived in Toronto, I was part of an experimental music duo called Van Eck Phreaking. My friend Daniel Verbin (who I’m no longer in contact with) was the main creative force. To my complete surprise, our album “Van Eck Phreaking Live At The Infinite Club May 3, 2001” which we released on the Internet Archive has had over 20,000 downloads. I find this hard to believe — but you can see this for yourself on the albums page on the archive. The title of this album is a bit of a joke. When I was an undergraduate student at York University, I spent most of my time between classes in the room occupied by Club Infinity, the University’s undergraduate mathematics club. On top of this, there was a rundown dance club out in the middle of nowhere about 30 minutes North from my house in Mount Albert called something like “Club Infinite” or “Club Infinity” — we never dared go there….
Our other album, “Dr. Strangephreak or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Eck ” by comparison has been downloaded just under 400 times. My mark is more evident on this album — my initials appear (M.E.B.), the town where I spent many years living is mentioned (Mount Albert). I love the review that Archive user PanamaFredd wrote on December 18, 2006 about this album — it’s worth repeating here:
Subject: Yowzas!
I can’t believe nobodie’s written a review yet! This is some twisted shit man! Could only get through about song 8 before the centipedes started bursting out of my skin !! Whoo
On both albums the influence of my math geekery can be seen with song titles like “Zorn’s Lemma” or “DeathByInduction” (i.e., mathematical induction).
Since Daniel is the contact for the postings on the archive, I hope the large number of downloads has brought him some good fortune. I’ll likely never know though.
For those who are interested in the meaning of the name of the duo, check out Wikipedia’s entry on Van Eck Phreaking and for an impressive implementation of Van Eck Phreaking by the folks at the Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
