More info here

It all began with a little application called Sound Designer II. I don’t know if there was a Sound Designer I because it was already called SDII in 1993 when I arrived at the prospect of making music with a computer instead of an elaborate recording studio and/or outboard mixing console and/or sampling live performances with my 2 meg Emax II sampler for re sequencing into my tracks and singing the vocals live into the final mix — believe it or not I made many 12″ singles and two albums using the latter method. Sound Designer II was a miracle application. I could record a song to DAT tape, and then via SPDIF dump it into the macintosh and edit it with SDII. Once it was equalized, and edited to my satisfaction I then dumped it back to DAT tape again and delivered it to the mastering engineer who cut the tracks to a master lacquer for vinyl pressing or made the glass master for CD reproduction. It was extremely time consuming and very expensive.

One day a really fine fellow who worked for Digidesign offered to come over to “check out the studio.” I wasn’t immediately receptive to anyone I didn’t know coming to my completely private recording studio to “check it out.” I’ve never been a “jammer” or much of a lookie-loo, so I was suspicious at first. When he arrived he sat down and listened to some of the early Dubtribe tracks, and we talked about the challenges of moving from an analog studio to a computer based recording system. It turned out to be a very useful and compelling conversation. At the end of the talk the guy pulled a ProTools II box out of his bag and offered it to me as a gift. I was delighted and amazed. We set it up, installed the software and did some recording tests to see what actually sounded better – tape, dat, sampler, or protools. Believe it or not the answer was Protools – hands down. And so I soon saved up my royalties and bought myself a full Protools III system complete with what would eventually include the main card, many DSP farms, a sample cell II card, and an expansion chasis to hold all the dsp farms which no longer fit into my Quadra 950. But let me tell you I was in hog heaven. The tdm plugin scheme was fantastic, it sounded great, and worked beautifully. I have never been so happy with my studio — not before, and not since.

About a year later Digidesign announced that they were changing things. They were no longer going to support the nubus architecture of the old macintosh, but were going to go with the PCI cards that the new Mac G3 computers used. At the time I was both desperate for more processing power, the features of the new software, and a faster computer. In order to make this happen I was going to have to do a number of very expensive things: 1. Upgrade my computer (meaning replace it with a new one.) 2. Upgrade my protools system (meaning buy the new software, and upgrade the main card, the dsp farms, and the expansion chasis) and 3. Upgrade all of my plugins. This worked out to cost something more than $12,000. At that time my rent was $600 a month, and I barely earned that. So this was a substantial investment. But I was ambitious, and excited, and cracked out with full blown upgraditis, and so it had to be done. The trouble is that despite the new 24 bit quality, and all of the additions to the Protools software, this new system didn’t sound as good as the old Protools III rig had sounded. I was disappointed, and the law of diminishing returns had left me with fewer dsp farms, fewer plugins, and no sample cell card anymore. Things got worse, not better.

Regardless of my disappointments I recorded a couple of successful albums with the Protools 24 rig – Dubtribe’s Bryant Street album was recorded at this time and stands today as some of my best work. And then Digidesign announced ProTools HD. Apple launched OS X. The world had suddenly changed, and despite my new Mackie Control and my new studio monitors, the Urei compressors, and the beautiful Neumann microphones, I felt like I was working with a dinosaur now, and would never truly unleash the power of Protools until I could scrape up another $24,000 and not only go Protools HD, but also step up to the new and exciting world of Os X. I fumed about this for a while, and resonated more with the folks who were really capping on digidesign and the “in the box” sound of severely limited, sonically tragic popular music. I agreed mostly because I didn’t actually have $24,000 to spend on the dream system, and the dream macintosh. I had gone over to the dark side – and yet was warmly welcomed as having joined the light. They were confusing times.

Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I rallied my resources and priced out what my exchange program credit would get me — digidesign had always offered an “exchange program” for users who wanted to upgrade their systems. You bought the new stuff, and they then asked you to send back your old stuff and would credit you for your registered equipment. It worked out like this: I would have a Mac G4 quad with a huge cinema display, and a Protools HD core card in exchange for my very expensive Protools 24 system and $24,000. I was pissed. I had my darth vader helmet on and kept calculating the figures over and over and looking wildly around the studio for more things to sell in order to come up with more money to at least have one measly DSP farm. I squinted at the fine print and tried to see just how many more plugins I could instance per dsp chip with this new system vs. the old system and how I could feel that I was clean again, free of the old and enraptured by the brand new, and thrive in an endless world of limetless dsp processing on a flat screen display, all delivered beautifully by OS X. Ghaaa. I was so horny I could have sold my soul for this beautifully sexy audio equipment.

And then it occurred to me: What would it cost to get “out of the box?”

I calculated. If I sold my Protools 24 system, each of my plugins, and this whole G3 computer and monitor I would have a very tidy purse to score a sexy new mac, and a completely different audio card. It would be a whole new world. I would be free. Desperate for change, I went through with it. I sold everything and ended up with a first generation MacBook Pro and an Apogee audio interface. I no longer had the ability to use Protools — because the software was hardware dependent — but I didn’t care. I had Logic Audio, Os X, Audio Unit Plugins galore, and life was wonderful. I have been working this way for years now, and often laugh to myself that what once filled two rooms and two closets to create a recording studio is now one two space rack, a laptop, and a small bag with mics and cables in it. I have been absolutely liberated from the world of bulk, weight, and ever increasingly expensive upgrades. I’ve returned to the world of those who make music, actually produce music regularly, and departed the world of arguments regarding the quality of solder used to connect hard wired cables from the snake to the tty patch bay. I no longer care at all. I am liberated, mobile, and productive. What I always wanted to be.

Today I got an email from Avid. Avid is now the company who produce Protools. Digidesign was purchased and absorbed. They do not exist anymore. The email announced Protools 10. For a moment I remembered the joys of a secondary mixing experience. I remembered the pure pleasure of my artistic endeavors being one thing, and my fidelity and precision mixing, tracking, mastering, and editing being another thing entirely separate from my creative process. I sighed lustfully as I read the email. Avid have liberated Protools from the box. One need no longer own a pile of expensive dsp farms to use Protools. One need only shell out the $700 for the software and they can then record, edit, and mix down to their heart’s content. How wonderful!

I lost my head for a minute and went to go look at my last Protools registration information to see what it would cost me to upgrade from whatever version that was to this new version. “Yes!” I thought to myself. “I could totally work that way again. It would be amazing!”

I retrieved my registration information and began what would turn out to be a two hour long odyssey of looking for an email contact form, or link on Avid’s website so that I could ask “What would it cost to upgrade from my version of Protools to this new version?” I never found that link. Instead, I came to my senses and found myself with my face about an inch from the screen, my mouth completely dry, my fingers shaking, my back about to spasm from slouching forward. I saw myself trying desperately to climb back into the box. Thank god I snapped out it. The next thing to do is to return to the original email which I opened when it was light out — it is dark in here now and I have not yet turned on the lights — and go to the bottom of the message and click the blue link which simply says “unsubscribe.”

Today I actually had a chance to watch the video announcing the new Roland Jupiter-80, and indeed, theyve signed up old Howard Jones for the promotion. I will spare you the cynical rubbish, and just show it to you:

Disgusting isn’t it? Not an interesting patch, not an interesting feature, not a valuable comment in the entire thing. To be fair, Howard Jones is a pioneer, and an interesting musician, a lovely man, and I don’t disagree with him that the Jupiter 8 was a fantastic keyboard. But this new thing is a huge, middle of the bay miss.

If I were head of product development for the Roland Corporation things would be a bit different. First of all, I would take the guitar products (which have completely distracted them) and strip the Roland name from them. These would all become Boss products, and the product development would continue with a guitarist’s mentality free and apart from Roland.

Secondly, I would hire capable and competent GUI and software designers to create simple, clear, an truly usable interfaces for every single sequencer, drum machine, and synth produced. No more smiling little japanese faces while we wait for things to load, no more redefined terms. We would meet the world at the macintosh interface level of simplicity an clarity, and come forward from there. Nothing would be patronizing, nor overly complex for the end user. From Sequencers to patch editing the interface would be versatile, simple, and flexible. Designed for making sounds, step sequences, and tracks.

Third, and most importantly, rather than capitalizing off the look and feel and names of old products, I would completely and unilaterally scrap these terrible sounding, complex to use, expensive, an boring synthesizers and send every one of my engineers, designers, and every last member of the production team as far from Tokyo as I could send them and advise them not to return until they developed something truly new, modern, unique and interesting.

Meanwhile I would bring the Jupiter 8, the Jupiter 6, the Jupiter 4, the Juno 6, 60 and 106, the TR-909, TR-808, TR-606 and TB-303 back to the modern market. Not to mention the amazing array of CV, Din Sync, and Midi intermediary devices, as well as dedicated sequencers, and arrangers which would all include usb, midi, control voltage, and sync. Creating a line of products electronic musicians actually want, need, and would be excited to use.

I know that these vintage synths simply cannot be but back into production, and this doesn’t make sense. But the curtis chips which made them great can be studied, modeled, and reproduced in a modern, efficient, cost effective, and possibly even green manner which could bring these immortal and essential synthesizers back to the table of music creation.

And finally, I would join the world of VST, RTAS and AU development and produce comparable products which musicians who don’t care for physical devices to use in all modern sequencing and production platforms and stop letting other software developers use our great sounds, good name, and take all the glory from the mighty Roland Corporation.

Roland have already completely missed the most important opportunity in the 21st century – where all the DJ’s and Keyboard players bought guitars, and all the guitarists and drummers bought synthesizers and drum machines – but it’s not too late. It’s never too late to erase the horrible second half of the 1980′s Keyboard collapse from their modern thoughts. To kneel down before the truly inspired creation of the late 70′s and early 80′s and then, completely re inspired, come forward into the moment and beyond.

After digging out my old copy of the NME’s C81 and writing about it, I stumbled into something else completely… You see later that year Some Bizarre Records and Stevo Pearce released an art compilation called ‘Some Bizarre Album.’ A compilation featuring the very first Depeche Mode Release, and the second song I’d ever heard from Soft Cell, brand new The The, little baby Blancmange, B-Movie (who went on to produce a single called “Nowhere Girl” a year or two later which I absolutely loved, but like Durran Durran and so many other wonderful early electronic pop groups added guitar and sped the music up for the Los Angeles market and destroyed themselves and everything good about their sound,) some really crap German sounding songs as well, and it became clear to me that – despite my drooling punk rock visage – something really exciting was about to happen.

After a brief stop at my step-grandparent’s cottage in Somerset, I spent this summer in London. I went straight to Sloan Square and expected to find punk rock mecca there. Instead I found people who looked like punks, but they were wearing eyeshadow and disco dancing to some very curious music. I came back to the US with a black and red leather jacket I’d gotten for 45 pounds, wearing buckle boots, eyeshadow, a turban, and a new found love for electronic music and disco. After a week of being laughed at, I put my shishedo away for another couple of years, San Francisco really wasn’t ready for the new me, and neither was I.

I’m writing about this music, and feel it’s important to commemorate it because as dated and lame as it sounds to my ear now, this was a debut, a real change in music. Nothing sounded like this until this. Music was very much like it is now, lame, dated, vintage, and a constant revision of the past. A tiny part of why I can’t stand the Beatles is because — despite its genius — we’ve been listening to Yellow Submarine over and over and over for the last fifty years, and it’s irrelevant. In 1981 the exact same thing was happening. Bands were forming, moogs were being plugged in, drum machines were being connected via the awkward synch jones cables, and people were expressing something which hadn’t previously been said. This record, intended as an art piece, was the soft glove print of what would evolve over the next 30 years into everything we listen to today. I call it visionary, genius, heroic, and beautiful.

1. Sad Day – Blancmange
2. The Girl With The Patent Leather Face – Soft Cell
3. Lust of Berlin – Neu Electrikk
4. La Femme – Naked Lunch
5. King of the Rumbling Spires – The Fast Set
6. Observations – The Loved One
7. Tidal Flow – Illustration
8. Photographic – Depeche Mode
9. Untitled – The The
10. Moles – B-Movie
11. I Dare Say It Will Hurt A Little – Jell
12. Central Park – Blah Blah Blah

Download the album here

While many magazines of that era were including flexi discs (little plastic records taped to the front cover) and cassettes as a year in review type of promotion, the NME started looking forward, and including a cassette in the new year issue, a traditionally dead time for the music business, and exposing new artists for the year ahead. C81 was a cassette which fell into my hands, and got some serious repeat play. It formed my musical taste for decades to come.

I hadn’t thought about this in years, the demo versions of Scritti Politti’s first single, later day buzzcocks songs, my introduction to the Virgin Prunes, and one of my favorite Pere Ubu songs ever all passed from my conscious musical selection, and went the way of the cassette, and the cassette player. Gone.

Recently I was looking through a box of ancient history, looking for examples of magazines – because I would dearly love to start a magazine which covers music and art in the way the NME did for the UK in the late 70′s – and I dug this cassette up out of a dusty old box…

Here it is:

NME C81

Side One:
1. Scritti Politti – The Sweetest Girl
2. The Beat – Twist & Crawl Dub
3. Pere Ubu – Misery Goats
4. Wah! Heat – 7000 Names of Wah
5. Orange Juice – Blue Boy
6. Cabaret Voltaire – Raising the Count
7. D.A.F. – Kebab Traume Live
8. Furious Pork – Bare Pork
9. The Specials – Raquel
10. The Buzzcocks – I Look Alone
11. Essential Logic – Fanfare in the Garden
12. Robert Wyatt – Born Again Cretin

Side Two:
1. The Raincoats – Shouting Out Loud
2. Josef K – Endless Soul
3. Blue Orchids – Low Profile
4. Red Nettles – Virgin Prunes
5. We Could Send Letters – Aztec Camera
6. Milkmaid – Red Crayola
7. Don’t Get In My Way – Linx
8. The Day My Pad Went Mad – The Massed Carnaby St John Cooper Clarkes
9. Jazz Is The Teacher, Funk Is The Preacher – James Blood Ulmer
10. Close to Home – Ian Drury
11. Greener Grass – Gist
12. Parallel Lines – Subway Sect
13. 81 Minutes – John Cooper Clarke

Here is a link to the entire archive for your pleasure

Download

Enjoy the sound of the year I discovered something more important and interesting than anger…

love,
s.

I was challenged recently to describe the aspects of relationship which I want. What was curious was how quickly the things I don’t want came pouring out of me. It’s much too easy to be negative, and I know this, so I took another look and without removing anything, I turned them into positives. A short list of 17 qualities. There are other superficial things which mean something to me like stylish, modern, etc. but these don’t actually impact my personal relationships. It’s easy enough to befriend a deeply unstylish person, but in terms of communion and love that’s durable and precious to me, these 17 things are – at the moment – the essence of what I’m looking for in this world – from a lover, a friend, the queen of my heart or otherwise. They are also the qualities I am seeking to grow and nourish within myself.

Aspects of Relationship
have a look at the complete set of images, with definitions, and my own description
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fernando_graphicos/sets/72157626129142147/

What are the aspects of relationship which are most important to you?
What do you want, and what do those words actually mean?
Join me. Manifest your heart’s contents fearlessly.

I love you.

Everything Trying
Damien Jurado

Fill Up My Heart – Sunshine Jones
Tracklisting:
1. Fill up my heart – Original version
2. Fill up my heart – Instrumental
3. Fill up my heart – Acapella

This beloved secret weapon is out now in the treehouse muzique shop
in both 320 kbps mp3 format as well as WAV

Check it out here

I’m here

The Cafe

He said “I’m here” ? That might be the lamest thing I’ve ever heard. Deal breaker for sure. I couldn’t continue to fuck that.

What? No, Fool.

Well I’m really here at the cafe. Waiting for YOU. And I am not Ariadne.

Not at all.

Are you having feelings right now?

And where you at?

THEN SHE TURNED AROUND AND DISCOVERED I WAS STANDING BEHIND HER FOR THE ENTIRETY OF OUR EXCHANGE

Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) – Arcade Fire

For a a few pencils, perhaps a typewriter, some paper, and a pen. A little cabin in the wastelands of Wyoming, or eastern Oregon again. I would leave all of this senseless disconnection, all this wireless mind-numbing fun. In a moment. In an instant. If only you’d come.

Cinder and Smoke – Iron & Wine
from the album ‘Our Endless Numbered Days’

Give me your hand…

So let’s begin shall we? Below is a link to the 2011 Preview edition of the quiz which asks simply “Are you anything like me?”

Take the quiz

A word about results:
This should be fun. The questions should make you laugh, and think. They include politics, sex, and more… so this is not a quiz for the delicate or the desperate. Just try to reflect upon your own feelings, give your answers for yourself, and don’t worry about the results.

I do not get the results of the tests, and have no interest in tracking the people who take this quiz. What I would like is that you post your results here so we can talk about them.

Have fun!

Portugese -pr. sa.u’da.d(g)i – (sau-dadgi)

There is no real translation for the word into English. We are, perhaps, too pedantic or not poetic enough for the feeling which overcame the Portuguese when they were the light of the world, and ships packed with family, loves, and friends headed off into the sun soaked edge of the flat oceans. Something of an open-hearted version of nostalgia, reduced more often to simply missing. But not that — but also that — and more. So much more…

Saudade – Love and Rockets
from Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven

“G’wan woman!” I thought. “That’s what it takes.”

And then it occurred to me. I’ve been given many things in my life. There’s no denying the beauty of a moment, it’s true. Like when love walks in the door, when an unexpected check drops out of a birthday card into your lap, or when the light spreads out across a room and you are actually there — present in the moment to notice it. These things are beautiful, and they enrich the adjectives of my life in a way I am unwilling to part with, but they have contributed precious little to the man I actually want to be. The things which have truly become the building blocks of who I am have arrived slowly.

When we write a little every day, over time we become a writer. Writers write, right? It’s common sense. It’s easy to say, but for me this has not been easy to do. For example when we slowly and painstakingly acquire the ability to deposit 10% of everything we earn into a savings account — no matter what happens — we become so much more than financially secure. I have always planned my philanthropism for when I am rich and famous, and see myself as one of the finest heads of a benevolent organization that the world has ever known. I have not imagined the process by which this amassed fortune will manifest, but I have been a very heady dreamer with regards to how I might apportion the tax deductible interest revenue out into the world of deserving causes, worthy artists, and struggling organizations. Statistically most people who win the lottery or inherit a fortune fritter the proceeds of their windfall away within a few short years and are back at wall-mart before you know it trying to get their old job back.

Similarly I would say that while we would all love to be physically fit, thin, young and beautiful — and we are willing to spend billions each year on cosmetics, surgery, outpatient procedures, hair dye, exercise gizmos, workout systems, diet plans, gymnasium memberships, and low fat food from pyramid schemes, but we will not get up and run around the block and you couldn’t tear my pastel yellow snuggie out of cold dead hands if you tried. Running around the block sucks. It hurts, and even if I ever get up the gumption to actually do it I’m still a flabby-ass bag of bones when I’m done. I want it now, and I am unwilling to wait or work for it.

Sitting down at the piano for the very first time when I was five years old, I composed a song. It’s called ‘a little thing’ and I remember it. I can play it for you now. In this masterpiece, a slight variation on ‘chopsticks,’ I employed the same gimmicks I use to hide the fact that I can not actually play the piano as I do now — dramatic pauses, long sustain, thoughtful expressions, repetition. This composition came suddenly and easily to me. But sitting down at the keys, hands held correctly, and devoting myself to the craft of playing the piano day in and day out without any applause, or any more gratification than the discipline itself — my word kept with myself — has made me a piano player.

I want it now. At least I would like to be able to see it on the horizon. I think most of us do. While some of us appear to have expected it some time last week, and still others extract some perverse pleasure from delaying gratification until some other time, this is a crisis of existential proportion. A question of faith, entitlement, culture and values, a matter of discipline, ethics, and a real test of who we really are and what we are actually made of. It seems to me, as I reach the corner and the sun shines down on my face and all I can recall of the jogging woman is her freckles, that the only things which have any real lasting value or virtue are those which arrive slowly. Little by little, virtue, serenity, peace, beauty, prudence, stability, and abundance come to stay.

A man who clearly just got out of the hospital stopped the muni metro and boarded the train. He sat at the front and as soon as we lurched forward he began to shout,"I need to go to the hospital! Take me to San Francisco General Hospital!"

At the next stop the driver came out of her little driver’s box and investigated. It turned out that the man had indeed just been released from SF General, made his way to Church and Market, and needed to return to the hospital. He was filthy, crazy, unpleasant, but the driver took her time and listened while the man demanded that she drive the J Church – a light rail train – to a location which is neither on the route or possible for the train to arrive at. Once it was determined where the man needed to go, the driver assured him that she would deliver him to a second bus which actually could take him back to the hospital. He accepted this, and was then quiet for the rest of our journey together.

It occurred to me that this man with medial, mental, and emotional problems was a headache for all of us. Everyone was groaning while he was freaking out, and calling to the already occupied driver to open the back doors of the train so they could get off. A nuisance indeed.

However, why was a muni bus driver responsible for the care and direction of this man? How did this mismatch happen?

My first thought was that society has failed us. This dreadful man is a casualty of the system. Yeah – stick it to the man you homeless martyr! But before I could relax into self-righteous detachment, I looked around the train and was suddenly struck by how detached we really were. Everyone was looking down, looking away, or indignant about the delay. We want to go to work, do our work, get paid and go home to sit on our couches and watch more re runs on television. We don’t want to be involved, and we certainly don’t want to be delayed.

Well if this is how the individual behaves, then that explains a lot about why this is how the system behaves. We organize systems so that the individual isn’t left holding the bag, right? We gather into cubicles to work so that there is a place for someone in this man’s condition to go, a process by which he can receive care. So the system – a collection of debatably organized individuals – has failed this man. As the result of this failure here he is back in our laps, where the individual is forced to contend with our systems inability to care for him. The individual for the most part doesn’t rise to the occasion. We fail. And so the Muni driver is left to decipher his gibberish, determine his destination, and we are all delayed.

To me this was poetry. We fail, so we organize systems. The systems fail, and he is delivered back into our selfish, thoughtless, incapable hands where he came from. Time for a reconsideration of our culture and values. Time for a good crisp look at ourselves. Time for some revisions in our systematic refusal to take responsibility for ourselves and for our sweet brothers and sisters.

Erase – Milosh
from his as yet unreleased (but highly anticipated) fourth album

listen over and over and over,
until your beautiful heart
heals
and all the space between us
is gone

After a couple years of working hard to collect my thoughts, and gather inspiration I’m ready to get it on. I’ve proven with Sunday Soul that I can produce a deeply personal mosaic of electronic music, live performance, and improvisation every week for the last six years. I have a track record of breaking down boundaries, live performance, and stand the test of time as a pioneer in electronic arts.

I’ve really given my art a lot of thought lately, perhaps way too much thought, and the conclusion I’ve come to is that I want you to book me. I want to come to your city, your town, your club, your country and perform live bélle âme électronique for you and your crew. I don’t want to compromise anymore. I no longer want to place myself behind the “decks” at super clubs where people were hoping I would play some other sort of music. I want to show up prepared to be completely myself, open my heart, and challenge you to feel something, to give yourself to the music, and to trust me.

Maybe this looks like a Sunday Soul tour, maybe it’s afternoon events, maybe it’s beaches, fields, and renegades. Maybe it’s something to do in the very clubs I feel so uncomfortable in. I am as ready and willing to challenge myself as I am to challenge you. But none of this can happen if I’m sitting around my little treehouse waiting for the right moment in time. And that is why I want you to book me.

Listen to the Sunday Soul archives
Listen to my original music, and recent re edits

Download these long and lusty sets, add them to your iPod and travel with me, take me with you. Open your hearts and feel the love in me as it flows through you. And then email me and book me.

I wanna get down with you so baad.

Limitation

noun
1 a limiting rule or circumstance; a restriction
a condition of limited ability; a defect or failing
the action of limiting something
2 a legally specificed period beyond which an action may be defeated or a property right is not to continue

I have always applied limitations to myself as an electronic musician. Initially I felt opressed by my limitations because once I learned the basics of my first synthesizer, drum machine and sampler, I felt that if only I had more devices, more sound sources, more raw material for sampling I could make much better sounds, and thus better music. Since I couldn’t get more than I had, I had to get clever, and work hard to make the most of what I had. Years later I found myself sitting in a room or two chuck full of keyboards, rack mount synths, piles of drum machines, a big expensive mixxing desk, and all the time in the world to work on music. Guess what? I didn’t get anything done. I was overwhelmed and over supplied. I required some degree of structure in order to make simple decisions about what things to use, which devices to play, and so I imposed limitations upon myself. By limiting the number of devices whcih I could use in a particular project I Was able to turn my attention to those devices, and make the most of them. Once that was complete, I could then record an unlimited number of live tracks in addtion to the limited number of synthetic devices if that’s what I wanted to do. This really nourished my work. The limitations became a source of even deeper creativity and inspiration.

While I have always talked collaboration I have to admit that as a person more often possessed by a visual image, or complete work in his mind, the truth is that when inviting anyone to collaborate with me either they were really only there to play a single instrument, sing, or else they were sadly being invited into traitorous cooperation with the enemy. I’ve never been very patient as an engineer, nor as an art director, I’m a very good producer, but somehow that’s different because I’m in charge, and the task is not to collaborate, to agree, or to have a dialog, but rather to use the performer(s) to solicit the performance material required in order to go off on my own and complete the project. As an artist, I have such a meditative, and painterly process that I have not yet found a way to allow another person into it. But it’s what I’ve always wanted.

I would describe my relationship with my partner Moonbeam in dubtribe sound system as very very close. Certainly as a band we collaborated in the best sense of the word. We shared our duties and responsibilities, and then when it was time to perform we let loose and really let our heart’s show. Still, in the studio, it was like pulling teeth to get me to let go enough to play, to create in a non serious manner, to simply jam and patiently wait to see what we came up with. My head has always been so muddled with music, lyrics, sound, words, and pictures that for my nearly inhuman ability to continue talking long after people’s gnat-like attention span has long since passed, that I have never really been able to put my creative thoughts into words. Thus, it comes out as music. Perhaps if I were a more traditional musician – with an expert’s knowledge of any instrument – then I might better understand the rules of scale, key, signature, notes, and the language of the musician. I have collaborated with other drummers, and played bass and guitar with other musicians, but of a true collaboration, I’m not sure I’m there yet.

As a promise to myself for the coming year, I will open up my heart a little wider and invite every creative and talented person I meet into my studio for at the very least an afternoon of possibility. I want to collaborate. I want to discuss the rules, and then break them together. I want to go further than I’ve gone before. I need to mix down the last of these 22 tracks which have plagued me for more than three years now, and begin a free adventure with some of the amazing people in my life right now.

I needed to examine these words tonight. Typically I assume I am operating with the primary definiton of the words, but when I Really look at their possible meanings, I discover that I have been holding myself back, playing at being disabled, and absolutely conspiring with the enemy. Tonight I tear off my cast, and chuck the crutches aside, and stuff the enemy codes of “I can’t” and “I don’t know how” and “I’m scared” and “I won’t” into my mouth, chew them up wildly, and spit out the disgusting wad of useless paper into the recycling bin.

Problem:

I woke up this morning, prayed and meditated, and found myself sitting at my desk feeling the blues. I was so terribly sad I couldn’t contain my heart.

Method:

I printed a dozen copies of this love leaflet and spent the morning between 8:30 am and Noon putting them up, and documenting the response from a discrete distance.

Results:

For the most part, and I’m guessing more than 90% of the people who passed the flyers – regardless of location – tend to look down, or to be lost in thought, and did not notice.

Of the remaining 10%, some inspected the flyers and smiled, others took one (less than 1%) and the fate of 11 out of 12 flyers was in response to anger. The first 11 flyers met the hands of unhappiness, and were ripped from their posts, crumpled up, torn apart, and thrown either away, or on the ground.

Let’s start with a horoscope shall we? If you remember as far back as a year ago I was heartbroken, never to recover, and had lost my way. I got called out and given a thorough pantsing by notorious soothsayer Rob Brezsny in his I’m about to take my vacation year end horoscope for cancer (of which Mr. Brezsny is one too.) He said you’ve been sitting at your desk too long, hidden away from the world haven’t you? Indeed I had. He challenged me to go forth and collaborate, make a mess, fall in love again, and skin my knees and try my hand at the monkey bars. And that’s exactly what I did. I deleted my journal, wrote you my sweet goodbye note, and then I galloped off to live happily ever after.

In his 2009 edition I’m about to take my vacation horoscope for cancer, Mr. Brezsny has this to say:

At first I had to laugh at this silly horoscope. Does Brezsny just send people born in July out into the wild at the end of every year or what? Typically I might balk without consideration, considering we’re talking about astrology here, but in the last year I met an astrologer who has changed my mind about the stars and the celestial bodies’ effect on the human experience. If you haven’t met astrobarry yet, please visit his web site now — I’ll wait, and be here when you get back. Barry came to the debut of my three month residency at Space Gallery this year and was gracious enough to be my first speaker. We were all amazed, delighted, and impressed. I’m not going to try to paraphrase what he had to say about his own skepticism with regards to astrology, or any of the wonderful talk that followed, but what I hope is that you just followed that link and spent some time with him yourself. It’s time well spent if you like to read, and it’s even better in person.

Anyway, so now that I’m not laughing, I have to say that as the end of the year approaches I’ve spent some time reflecting on the last year’s activities and what I determined is this: 2009 was not the year of collaboration, experimentation, and endless love, rather, it was preparations for a journey. It’s not like I was going to suddenly spring forth from my cave a transformed being, ready for action, your reaction, and an interesting wig to wear along the way. No. But the year was not lost, not a moment was wasted. I spent every moment possible in the wild mixing music, writing songs, meeting people, dancing, kissing, making love, traveling, praying, meditating, teaching, learning, reading, doing yoga, teasing, poking, laughing, and smiling. I put a whole new look together, made a ton of new friends, re edited classic jams, and made a pile of progress in the studio. Still, my life feels somewhat small to me. Love walked in, pursued me wildly, and then walked out, then walked in, then walked out, and finally walked in and back out again (I am dizzy too) and what I learned (only last wednesday) is that the problem, whenever I am disturbed (even in my intimate relationships) is me. Ugh…

The world still feels so small to me. Restricted by very poor finances, distracted by amazing afternoon sex, delighted by the necks of women who don’t even like me, and inspired by my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, I feel as if I am about to burst with joy. I am, it turns out, a good deal happier and more resilient than I was a year ago. And so I will leave you again, just for tonight this time, with this thought:

Yes, this year I will travel into the cosmos. With two albums coming out, Dubtribe reunion concerts in full swing, solo bookings piling up, Sunday Soul transmissions at what feels like a creative zenith, not a soulmate in sight, but a dogpile of associates, and a magnetic force which seems to drive every woman I meet wild with desire for beautiful, amazing, poetic, sexy me, I feel my ruck sack is about as packed as it’s going to ever be. I’ve got my helmet on, and I’m ready to take flight… just clap your hands twice and say “yeah” and we’re outtahere.

Lately I’ve been watching the weather in Zanzibar. Whenever I’m traveling I set my weather application in my iPhone and on the dock of my laptop to display the weather of the city I am traveling to. I like to know what to expect. In my meanderings through the yahoo weather predictions for New York City, Atlanta, and Philadelphia lately I’ve been disgusted. middle thirties, rain, snow. It’s winter, what else do I expect — wait, is it winter yet? To warm my heart up a little I have taken to adding Zanzibar as my median example of what weather should be. In Zanzibar today it’s 86º. I lay back against my chilly white cabinets and sigh at the thought of warm, clear, blue water, wearing nothing but shorts, the smell of clove and nutmeg in the air, and the easy smile that only sun can bring…

I’m ready. Let’s go.

At first it didn’t seem special — at least not much more special than the amazing feeling of riding in the passenger seat of a 2010 Lexus convertible — and Bryan selected our destination in the onboard computer. The computer, like all the other navigation computers of modern cars, has a map, and a series of buttons, and when you push them a voice comes on over the stereo system speakers and tells you where to turn. The map changes as you drive, and if you’re available to watch, you can see where you’re going on the little screen. It’s neato the first couple times you do it, sometimes the experience of programming a destination is so daunting that one is immediately overwhelmed and bored at the same time. These navigation computers are a racket anyway, right? You pay for the service, or have to pay for upgrades every year so that the little maps can show you where the nearest Starbucks is. Handy, maybe, but it’s a racket. Why on earth wouldn’t you want to just look out the window? It seems like the real art of a road trip is lost when you’re hunched forward, looking into a little screen, and rather than listening to your guts about which exit might have a restroom, or a starbucks. What is lost is those priceless experiences where you make an error, and with fumes alone, and a growling tummy, you pull into the parking lot of a Flying-J truck stop and end up spending hours wandering around in the gun isle, wondering who in the world buys a gun accessory at 4 am along some strange highway in the darkest parts of the United States. If you’re really delirious you never have to wait long to find out.

One night, some twenty years ago I was driving across country with Jonathan and Paul. We were headed to Cleveland together for a conference. Paul didn’t tell us that he couldn’t legally drive until we were well past Sparks — much too late to turn back and deposit him on his stoop and resume our trip with a better qualified driver — and I had the driving thing down, but had never driven a stick shift before. Jonathan was disconcerted, but undaunted, and I managed my first clutch lessons on Highway 80 east quite well. We split the driving, and Paul slept the trip away in the way back of the VW. Somewhere around Clark, Kansas the following night it was time to get some gas. I pulled into a beacon of a truck stop. They had four pumps, and a little food mart, and it had just begun to rain. As we stretched our legs, I heard what sounded like a crying baby off in the dark. “Waaahhh!” Confused, I wandered over to the roadside and spotted a baby pig standing in the light rain crying. If you’ve never been to a petting zoo, then you’ve missed out on how completely adorable a baby pig is. They are the sweetest things. Nearby there was a lone candy machine — almost empty — which had some kind of mealy looking pellets inside. I fished out a quarter and filled the palm of my right hand with them. I walked back to the fence where the piglet was and made kissing sounds into the rain and held out my hand through the fence. The baby pig cried at me, “Waaahhh!” My heart broke.

“Come here sweetie.” I said softly.

“Waaahhh!” said the pig.

I reached my arm deeper through the hole in the fence, sticking it through as far as it would go. Some of the pellets fell out of the pile and sprinkled onto the dark mud below my wavering arm.

Suddenly I heard a deep snort. And something lunged up and out of the mud toward my hand. I felt a sharp gnashing along my fingers and a huge, rough, wetness cover my entire hand. The force was incredible and it pulled my arm all the way into the fence, and I lost my balance and fell to the ground shrieking like a little kid.

When I got my arm back It was muddy and covered in what looked like saliva. I was scraped, but not pierced. My heart was racing. I was breathless. I looked into the darkness and saw a huge pig, the mother I assumed, standing less than an inch from my face. I climbed to my feet and stared at it with bitterness. The baby pig cried and the mother pig, her face covered in the pellets I’d meant to comfort the crying little piglet, just stared me down in the darkness.

I ran back to the gas station and washed my hands, counting my fingers and toes to be sure everything was there still. I was fine. The pig had just scared the crap out of me. I felt more tricked and surprised by this duo’s flesh seeking racket than anything else. But a cup of horrific coffee and a couple of cigarettes later I was laughing, and everything was just fine. We were back on the road, and my farm adventure in Clark was behind me. The trip to Cleveland was fun, and a couple of life lessons were ahead of me as the result, but without the use of gut instinct, and old maps, we might never have pulled into that gas station, nor would I have ever made the acquaintance of a pair of pigs using youth and cliché to lure human flesh into their diet.

Back on the I-85 South, Bryan and I were roaring down the highway, admittedly hunched forward and peering into the navigation computer’s little screen. What’s different about the 2010 Lexus version is the link with XM radio they have. It is a satellite link between the car and the cartographic computer somewhere in space. The computer showed us the road ahead of us in real time, and a split screen view showed traffic conditions and offered us options to either choose the best route, or to simply trust the voice in the speakers to choose the best route for us.

Admittedly we were really not looking at the road. We were staring into the screen. A couple of times I had to hold onto my seat as we rapidly approached vehicles which were clearly not looking into the same computer we were. After a couple of these scares, we laughed because we both knew we weren’t paying any attention to the road. Laughter in the face of technological obsession and a very near brush with death is the only natural response I think. Don’t you?

“It’s only a matter of time before these computers can show us in real time the other cars on the road.” Said Bryan.

“How?” I asked.

Turns out, that since it’s a real time satellite relationship between the vehicle and the navigation system, it is not much of a leap at all to assume that soon we’ll be driving down the road on auto pilot. In fact, because the service is a subscription service, we may even be able to create a social network from it. So we can friend people, and know that the car three lanes over, fifteen cars ahead of us is our neighbor, or co worker, or maybe even our boss. We can choose car icons, and send instant messages to one another while we roar down the highway in the wee hours of the morning. This will make stalking and road rage so much more fun. It will also cause terrible accidents. But it’s coming. It is the future.

The thought occurred to me that when this comes, and it’s coming, the next thing will be regulated speeds, and downloadable applications for the computer in the car. We will be otherwise completely preoccupied as we travel. In essence, the art of driving will become a form of public transportation. So when you buy a new Lexus, you will be investing in your personal compartment on a vast network of public transportation administered, overseen, and controlled completely automatically via satellite.

It’s a beautifully horrible thought isn’t it? I’ve seen the future. It’s coming…

It was 1972 and I wasn’t even seven years old yet. I spent the better part of my time in those early days staring off into space, reading comic books, bouncing on my bed, and staring into the mirror mouthing the words to songs on the radio using my hair brush as the microphone. I loved Rocket Man, and Backstabbers, Ventura Highway, Why Can’t We Live Together, and Doctor My Eyes, Alone Again (Naturally), All The Young Dudes, and I didn’t understand what Mac Davis meant by “Baby, don’t get hooked on me…” My brother liked Donny Osmond and he had the coveted “Sweet and Innocent” 45, but I had Michael Jackson.

I swear to God when he sang it was myvoice coming out of those speakers. I learned all the words to Ben, Rockin’ Robin, ABC, Stop the love you save may be your own, and every single 45 I could get my hands on by Michael Jackson, or the Jackson 5. Michael’s voice somehow resonated within me in a way that I don’t even think I can explain today, some thirty seven years later. But I loved him, and he sang to me.

Soon I would forget all about Michael Jackson. I let go of my 45′s and forgot about the radio. The summer of 1977 was all about LP’s, Punk Rock, and fuck you. That was true on the outside, and I would have rather died than let anyone know just how much I loved disco and how little I actually liked rock music of any kind. Still, punk rock was a lifestyle, a beautiful way of giving the world of the Dorothy Hamil wedge, the polyester pant-suit, and the attitude of “if it feels good – do it,” the meaningless sex of swingers, and the fuzzy, filthy, long-haired world the middle finger. So I went with it.

By the end of the 70′s there was no holding back. Off The Wall was far and away one of the greatest albums ever produced. Michael’s voice had matured, and the sound was orchestrated, Quincy Jones had his hands all over this sound, and it was beautiful. Off The Wall was an album I played after the record store closed, when everyone was gone, I could get out my hair brush again, and dance in the mirror, letting that amazing voice sing from within me. I loved it. I loved him. Disco saved my life.

As the 80′s arrived, there was no denying that dancing was back in style. Disco was definitely dead, but something new had replaced it. Rock was stupid, overdone, insincere, and so was punk. The angry man-feelings of popular music was rote by then and I wasn’t paying any attention. Thriller was released and I listened to a promotional copy about a month before it was on the shelves of the stores. What an incredible album. Every single song on the record was amazing. No filler, no bullshit — it was fantastic. Then came the videos, the dance moves, and suddenly everyone was walking around with a fedora on, one white glove, and patent leather shoes with pleated trousers and a watch chain. The world had changed, and there was Michael Jackson’s beautiful voice again right out in front of it all.

From there I have to admit that he lost me. I didn’t follow along as he surgically removed his instrument, and made a spectacle of himself. I held onto that beautiful man from the inside of the album by the Jacksons where he was a radiant black man with beautiful eyes, and an amazing voice. I celebrated the story of a very young man, barley older than I was who had escaped poverty, abuse, and self destruction and rose to the top of the world.

Thank you Michael for your mirroring of my own inner voice. Thank you for letting me know it is ok to sing, to let it out, to step forward, and most of all, to dance.

Good night my beautiful brother. I will miss you until the end of my days.

Off The Wall – Michael Jackson

At the end of the nineteenth century, when Marcel Proust was still in his teens, he answered a questionnaire in an English-language Confession album belonging to his friend Antoinette, daughter of future President Felix Faure.

Recently I read Yyves Saint Laurent’s answers to these questions on the wall of a museum and wrote them down into my notebook for future use. So far it’s made intimate meetings in a whisper, groups out eating with laughter, and casual conversations much more interesting and a little more fun.

My answers:

1. What is your primary characteristic?
despite my love of words, and concepts, everything about me stems from my heart. i have to say that my primary characteristic is my emotions

2. What qualities do you love in a man?
vulnerability

3. What qualities do you love in a woman?
honesty

4. What do you appreciate most about your friends?
durability

5. What is your main fault?
Ha! my emotions. definitely.

6. What is your favorite occupation?
teacher

7. What is your idea of happiness?
to be truly and completely present

8. What is your idea of misery?
To be stuck in the past, or in fear of the future

9. If not yourself, then who would you be?
honestly, there was a time in my life when I would have been so grateful to have been absolutely anyone but me. today i believe myself to have come full circle, and wouldn’t choose to be anyone but me.

10. Where would you like to live?
by the sea… the sea!

11. What is your favorite color?
black

12. Who is your favorite author?
J.D. Salinger

13. Who is your favorite poet?
Different answers for different occasions. I would say Rilke for his bravery and honesty, Rumi for his devotion and all the fires he’s lit since time began to write things down, but day to day my answer is Frank O’Hara without even flinching.

14. Who is your favorite fictional hero?
Jean-Baptiste Clamence and maybe David Sedaris’ fictional persona as a distant runner up

15. Who is your favorite historical hero?
Karl Marx. Like Gandhi, Thomas Jefferson, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Marx had the audacity to believe that everyone, everyone, deserves something do do, somewhere to live, and something to eat. And while the dreamer himself, after many years of critical revision and mathematic assessment, walked away from the Paris commune — the only example to date of a Marxist experiment — with his hands in the air proclaiming it a failure, Marx’s ideas broke down barricades, and built new ones against them. A provocateur who, because he was right, continues to stir deep fear in the hearts of capitalists, and light bright fires in the hearts of idealists, socialists, and humanists everywhere.

16. Who is your favorite composer?
Chopin

17. Who are your heroes in real life?
The beautiful men and women I work with in recovery — my sponsees.

18. What is your favorite flower?
I have timeless loves, and I have superficial acquaintances with flowers. At the moment my heart sings for quince blossoms.

19. Who is your favorite painter?
Mark Rothko

20. What character in history do you most dislike?
while I would go so far as to say that I hate the likes of Tomas de Torquemada, Pol Pot, Hitler and Gilles de Rais, I am blessed to live in a world where these creatures are rarely given any thought or energy whatsoever.

21. Which is your favorite name?
I love classic names. Simple, and pure from the english language like Mary, Rachel, Karen and Audrey for women. For men I love more antique names like Silas, Theo, Jaffrey, and Walter. But I couldn’t pick a favorite. I love the absurd combination of names, faces, and personalities. It’s endless and so beautiful that it would be criminal to stop anywhere along the way.

22. What is your favorite food?
i love chocolate, bread and cheese… butter, cream, coffee, and apples which are still ever so slightly green inside.

23. Which is your favorite drink?
water

24. What do you hate the most?
cruelty

25. What talent do you wish you had been gifted with?
common sense

26. How do you wish to die?
without warning

27. What is your present state of mind?
Currently I am growing. I have been burst apart, literally flung wide open, and my lust for life has reawakened. I am curious, inspired, moody, reflective, loving, liberated, generous, and free.

28. For what fault have you the most toleration?
self centeredness.

29. Do you have a motto?
my family actually have a motto, but i don’t live by it. mine is ever changing. at the moment it’s ‘i love you, i love you, like the stars above you’ but it could be something else later tonight.

30. What would you like to do right now?
bite someone’s neck, kiss their lips, laugh with my son, dance until the sun comes up and then fling myself into the bay.

How about you?

I must have been thirteen or fourteen when I first saw the Cramps. It was 1979 and I had no idea who they were. This shaggy looking band came out on stage and played tight, and fast rockabilly songs. At first I didn’t like them. But as the set unravelled so did the singer. Lux Interior craned out on one leg, looming over the audience who were barely three feet below him, he swung the microphone around thoughtlessly, hitting people, hitting himself, and then yanked at the cord and stuffed the device into his mouth, shoved it into his leather pants, and then layed on the ground with his head in the bass drum making horrible noises. He pulled himself together and the fell apart completely again. He unzipped his pants and lingered on the toes of his boots, leering at the audience, howling into the mic. I didn’t remember the rest of the band, or anyone else who played that night. I just remember Lux, and the name of the band.

The next day I bought their first 12″ ep, and memorized it. Next to Sid Vicious, Darby Crash, and the Clash as a whole there was no one cooler, creepier, or more threatening at the time. While it was true I didn’t want to be Lux Interior when I grew up, I still wanted to be Sid Vicious, I learned a trick or two about what cool meant, and how it looked on a tall, black haired, very skinny singer.

I lost interest in the Cramps about as quickly as I had gained it. Seeing them a few more times over the next couple years I was inspired again and again every time I saw them. It seemed to me that they were a live thing, the snotty vitriol, the looming microphone, the pants undone, the wild, roaring crowd was something which never quite got captured on their albums. Their version of ‘Human Fly’ and ‘Surfin Bird’ are timeless, superior in every way to the original surf tunes. The Cramps, and Lux Interior personified, and made real what lurked behind the snarl of every rockabilly hero of my grandfather. In Elvis’ underbite, beihind James Dean’s wince, somewhere in the back of Little Richard’s throat was the Cramps… just waiting for the right moment to leap out and kiss you, lick your cheek, and drool all over your face.

Never a popular band commercially in the United States, because we like things that are normal, regular, and both easy to digest but hard to forget here, the Cramps were made fellows of the French Alliance, granted citizenship, charted throughout Europe, and considered pioneers of punk rock, and the godfathers of shockabilly. As the Mutants were locally, a band you loved, but hated, and didn’t really ever go see, the Cramps were to us nationally. We loved them, couldn’t live without them, but never really wanted to go see them. In the later days of punk, as the 80′s unfolded into a revivalist movement of angry Reagan youth, the Cramps enjoyed a second breath of life, producing many more albums than they had during the intial wave of punk from the mid seventies into the early eithties. They endured through times of sarcasm, famine, and the worst period in american history for the arts.

Erik Purkhiser, Lux Interior, died on Wednesday morning of a heart condition. Good night Lux. See you in hell!

Human Fly – The Cramps