Introducing: "d.J"

Those that know me well will know that I've long reserved a special place in my musical archive for electronic music, particularly of the "progressive house" and "IDM" genres. Ironically, it is the primal nature of this music that resonates so well with me, seducing my mind into a comfortable interregnum somewhere between hypnosis and concentration. Maybe it's the organic melodies juxtaposed to mathematical pulses, or the way in which a good deejay cajoles this music into a story complete with characters, plots, climaxes, and resolutions...

or maybe I just kinda like this music for some reason, whether I'm writing grants, dropping out of school, darting down 21st Street, biking, or falling asleep (and let's not forget the time when this girl was over and she thought I was trying to get some sort of "dance party" ploy going on with her or something...really? I honestly just listen to this stuff!).

Anyway, after years of mentally composing bad-ass mixes in my head, I finally acquired some deejay software, Ableton Live, that will allow the tangible emergence of an alter ego: "d.J" -- the "Batman" to my guitar-strumming Bruce Wayne. Together with the wave analysis program, Audacity, i have clumsily completed my first bona fide deejay mix, aptly titled Rain+Shadows (yes, the title is a pun, hence the "+"). The tracks and the track order were tediously selected to reflect the pensive, yet fecund mood of Portland, Oregon in early spring...and perhaps one too many late-night walkabouts along Skyline Drive. Rain+Shadows begins in the gloss of 12:00 AM moonlight and finales with the punch of a 7:00 AM sunrise. Further, I'm a sucker for sexy bass lines, and, well, this mix flatters that fancy. There are, however, some problems with the mix, namely that it's too quiet. I haven't yet figured out how to increase the volume without clipping, despite trying compression of all sorts and sizes. That said, there are a few mixouts that I'm very pleased with given my neophyte attempt, such as the transition between "Wuthering Heights" and "Itajai Vibes"...fun with the high pass filter!

Rain+Shadows (...which almost sounds like a deodorant or something...) is free for you to download by clicking below; all the tracks were properly purchased. And in case you're unfamiliar with the protocol, the tracks are to be played successively without interruption, so make sure you set iTunes (if that's what you use) to "Gapless Album" in the info settings for the album. The files are in AAC format; the artwork, including my "I can't believe that turned out with my shitty camera" photo of a lunar elcipse, is JPEG files.

You can download Rain+Shadows Part I HERE --> You have to click the arrow to the right to download properly!

Post Script: if you happen to like Rain+Shadows (Part I), Part II will be out soon.

For A Friend

"For" a friend more so than "to" a friend:

Of Ones & Heroes

As technology advances, so do the expectations from those technologies. A wheel is invented, and soon the expectations advance from moving a cart to lifting heavy objects through a pulley system; an automobile is invented and soon the expectations advance from pragmatism to luxury; MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, or “MP3,” compression format is invented and soon the expectation advances from playing music on the computer to playing music on the mobile listener. It is the latter example that is germane, as I have finally accepted the digital format with my first purchase of a downloaded album. Yes, my expectations have advanced.

Format changes are nothing new to our ever-advancing technological toolbox. We have been witness to numerous formatting advents and extinctions, all driven by our evolving demands for increased fidelity, mobility, capacity, or simple absurdity. Format changes have typically been a phenomenon for film and music media, although it may not be long before even the ink-blotted newspaper becomes a perception of memories past. Being an audiophile with a born-on date of 1980, I have come to love the compact disc. While it couldn’t match the 120 minutes of playtime showcased by its father, “The Tape,” the compact disc pushed the limits of human hearing fidelity, was more durable the tape, allowed for instant track skipping, and, obviously, was compact. The compact discs that I currently own approach seven hundred, making me a most neurotic curator of an alphabetically organized auditory gallery. Each disc is complete not only with the music in which it encodes, but also an art booklet that compliments the musical recording, thereby amalgamating a feat of synesthesic expressionism. Furthermore, the music and art booklet document memories like a storybook, reminding me of near-forgotten experiences, people, or places that surrounded my initial exposure to a particular album. The compact disc is indeed a vital canvass upon which I’ve encoded much of my life...until last week.

The invention of MP3 compression in the early 1990’s has become the bellwether of a revolution. The on-demand music experience is no longer relegated to the nearest 120-volt AC outlet; rather, a nearly unlimited playlist is available to your eighth cranial nerve at any location, at any time, and -- most importantly -- you are the deejay. Save for some hiccups while compact memory capacity catches up to allow for the preservation of high quality sound, the digital, intangible format is superior and it is here to stay; the tangible digital format is, well, like...soooo 2007. Why 2007? Because that is when the compact disc received its final knockout punch from five English blokes known as “Radiohead”.

Radiohead were the first major band to release an album, In Rainbows, solely as a download without contemporaneously releasing a tangible compact disc or vinyl format. And it has been reported to have been downloaded by the millions (not to mention the probable million(s) that downloaded from peers). Radiohead wasn’t necessarily looking to be innovative mavericks, rather, the move made marketing sense. With a digital album, there is minimal production and distribution costs, thereby obviating numerous middlemen and even reducing their carbon footprint -- something more sacred to the British industrial psyche. Furthermore, this digital release allowed another unprecedented maneuver: pay what you want for the music. “Buyers” of In Rainbows literally entered online what they wanted to pay for the music, be it $50 or $0 (well, technically it had to be at least $0.01). This not only empowered Radiohead, but empowered music listeners to demand better music and live shows from the industry. And all the while, happy listeners can mosey about our blue planet, enjoying every pensive note of In Rainbows via a discarnate digital terrain. The expectations have indeed advanced.

Consequently, I’ve recently been pondering how long I would keep alphabetizing corporeal music discs among my picturesque musical gallery. The answer, I knew, was not much longer. I had one lingering caveat though, which was to surrender the art booklet. Buying digital music, at least as far as I know, usually does not come with a digital version of the art booklet. The days of shaking off that cellophane static and smelling the sterile vapors of freshly pressed art would be over (as would the DNA damage in my lung epithelial cells, I suppose). But alas, the art booklet was usually viewed upon the initial listens to the accompanying music, and then shelved until some random moment when I had to know if that really is Maynard James Keenan singing the backup vocals on Rage Against The Machine’s “Know Your Enemy”. My ultimate acceptance of the digital download format came with my recent and enthusiastic discovery of the dubstep artist and British recluse, “Burial”. This somewhat obscure, yet brilliant artist released an album late last year titled Untrue, and after obsessing over this masterpiece I wanted more. I knew the first, even less-known self-titled album would be hard to find. So I could scurry about Portland’s local record stores, lock my bike up in the rain, discover that they don’t have it, have them order it, return to the store (probably also in the rain) a week later, and pay $16 for it....or I could push a couple buttons on Amazon.com, pay $8, and have it in about 60 seconds. Done.

Since this decision, I haven’t, and probably won’t, look back; in fact, I’ve looked forward. After tolerating the clinical schizophrenia of my aging car CD player, as well as the lengthy process of deciding which discs to bring along for my war-powered automobile adventures, I have upgraded to an “iPOD-ready” car stereo deck. Wow. Why did I wait so long?! All week I’ve actually been looking for ways to support Saudi Arabia and drive around listening to anything, all the while controlling my iPOD vicariously through my dashboard -- the iPOD itself reclines invisibly in the glove compartment.

So as I sit among the dancing shadows of Bink’s fireplace in Northeast Portland and type this blog entry, a coincidence has just occurred. A familiar song that I haven’t heard in a while just blessed the house jukebox. The song is “No Surprises” from Radiohead’s magnum opus, OK Computer. The memories this song stirs are of a cherished summer trip in 1997 to the Black Hills of South Dakota. I was new to Radiohead at the time and picked up their latest release, OK Computer, to provide a soundtrack for my camping vacation. The trip, for reasons inapposite here, will never be forgotten. Over 10 years later from a rain-shadowed pub on NE Alberta Street in Portland, Oregon, I muse upon how the sunset looked after that mountain storm, and how from that jettisoned boulder in Custer State Park the stars looked like God’s thoughts revealed across the sky... ”KLDU#E*EJKdjds9!!!!?!!!!?????”...and now some thrash punk song just started playing. At Bink’s, I’m not the deejay; but as soon as I step outside these doors, I am the deejay. And I just happen to have OK Computer nestled in my glove compartment for the ride home.

In Bloom

After nearly 15 months of songs that make even the night sky seem bright, I've finally attempted to make a brighter "happy" song. Not that I'm a morose person, sulking about melancholy mood swings day after day, but there's an organic duende in minor chords that just isn't captured elsewhere. And such is my penchant for musicians like Ryan Adams, Elliott Smith, and Tori Amos, among others, that seem to publicly bleed themselves of all human vulnerability. Nonetheless, even I need a space bar among my woeful run-on sentences -- there's only so much I can tolerate, not to mention an audience.

And so cheesy lyrics aside, which this song certainly celebrates, I'm happy with my first (and possibly last) "happy" song.

...but after all, it is spring time!

The Aeon of Ignorance

The "Truth." It is the most exotic of strangers; a stranger that, like all pariahs to our social-bound human DNA, invoke fear and, most importantly, rejection as a result of a potent insult to our most tenacious evolutionary baggage, the feeling of comfort. However, it's not my right to impeach comfort as a human traitor -- I savor the feeling as much as anyone else. But when presented with a conscious choice, I would rather take comfort in the Truth than find the Truth in comfort. Hence, Zeitgeist (embedded below) provides a rare, albeit small glimpse of the truth's ugly physique. While the film should not be mistaken as an unequivocal dossier of the "Truth," it certainly isn't any more fiction than the "reality" in which our societal ignorance embraces day after day. Now THAT is a conspiracy.

Something From Nothing

There's nothing like reclaiming the most depressing song I've ever made with a little overdrive. And so I present, Nothing From Something, the "Oasis vs. Opus Dei version".

...now if I could just find those leather pants...

Merry "Rest"mas

Ah, the Christmas season. While this is the first year since I was born that I will not be with my family for Christmas (save for my brother who now lives in Portland), all is not surrendered to longing and loneliness. Already I feel a quiescence that I may not if I was about to pinball through America's airport system, as well as through a labyrinth of friend and family "Hello, how are you?"s. Every year since I've moved to Portland the Christmas season is both too short and too long. I embark home in anticipation of noshing about Mom's cooking, imbibing about friends' deleterious habits, and lounging about Nintendo games and bad movies I've seen sixteen times before. Yet, it never quite happens like that. Even with a ten day sojourn, which I greedily hoarded last year, I still don't get to see everyone and do everything I planned...in South Dakota no less, a place where one wouldn't think there would be too much to do, especially in December. At the same rate, I contemporaneously develop ennui after about five days, feeling like I've slipped behind in my research, music writing, or whatever "n" number of endeavors I entertain. The result is always a pleasant Christmas experience, yet somehow an incomplete experience nonetheless.

Alas, this year is different. I have erected a hideous Christmas "tree" in my apartment that is decorated with fallout from a recent holiday party; I have plastic-wrapped Christmas treats slowly evaporating their Mom-made savory in my barren refrigerator; I have USPS-delivered presents littered about my wooden floor; and the only frost on my window sills is that from my humble sigh hoping for snow. Yes, maudlin, but not melancholy. I'm truly excited for a "Portland Christmas" this year if for nothing else, for its simplicity. I'll be relaxed, playing guitar, actually reading something that is not a scientific journal article, and slowly sipping tepid totties among the winter aire. This Christmas will most certainly be a "holiday" in every right.

As for specifics, my brother and I have modest plans, including a "South Dakota Christmas Eve" with other SD transplants, as well as a Christmas morning feast (and probably binge) at a good friend's house. After that, we may just park my Saudi-powered sleigh and walk about Portland's living room in Pioneer Square -- which I should add is aptly equipped with a forty foot decorated Douglas Fir. Yes, I will be "home" for Christmas after all. In this regard, I realize I now have two homes: one in South Dakota that my family and friends built, and one right here in Portland that I'm currently building. So there is really no need for longing after all. Many people on our lonely planet live and die without a single home, while I have the luxury of two. And that is certainly a gift worth unwrapping.

(...yeah...maybe that was a little cheesy. sorry.)

Heterosexonomics

No, I’m not gay. Really. No really, I’m just not. Even though I may be an iconoclastic challenge to our culture’s rigid stereotypical social corrals, that doesn’t equate to “therefore I must be gay”. Importantly, I have absolutely no problem with homosexuality. In fact, sometimes I wish I was gay so at least I’d be able to appease the social anxiety and downright threats I seem to pose to the general populace; plus, I evidently would have no shortage of dates if I was gay. But alas, just as I’m not Yugoslavian or Muslim, I’m not gay. Yup, I know, unbelievable:

I notice when a guy purchases new boots that compliment his aesthetic: gay! I bought my last pair of jeans because I liked the unique, coruscating sheen of the fabric weave: gay! I use articulate vocabulary in bars: gay! I’m not interested in the untouchably hot girl at the bar because she’s actually an idiot: gay! But I do think that the guy talking to that untouchably hot girl has nice eyes: gay! I don’t want to go home with the girl grabbing my arm and practically licking my ear because she’s drunk and gross: gay! I don’t gaze at flat-screened athletics flickering above the bar while I’m in the middle of a conversation: gay! I notice when a girl comes back from the bathroom wearing new lipstick that accentuates her hair color: gay! I’m sensitive and write songs about my feelings: gay! I enjoy refining my palate with 72% cacao dark chocolate, French-pressed Panama Estate Stumptown coffee, and microbrewed India Pale Ales with moderate I.B.U.s: gay! I critique my palate with qualifiers like “72%,” “Panama Estate,” and “I.B.U.s”: gay! My apartment has more candles than light bulbs: gay! The light bulbs I do use in my apartment are C7 bulbs with installed dimmer control: gay! My haircut is “artsy,” I get my haircut in the Pearl District, and my haircut LOOKS like I smear a tablespoon of product through it (even though I don’t use any): gay! I am secure about my identity, including all of the above mentioned traits, and continue to walk about my life with an unapologetic gait: gay!

But alas, I’m exclusively sexually attracted to women: NOT gay! Clearly this is an issue that has been simmering deep within the cauldron of my psyche for some time. At first it was flattering since most gay men (yes, I’m being a tad stereotypically here) are rumored to be the quintessential desired “man” by many women: well-dressed, sensitive, and secure (see above!). But when women themselves are confused about my sexual preference, I’m left with surmounting frustration. Some have argued that I ask for it by being the way that I am. Yes, my “problem” would immediately end with a buzz cut, a basketball jersey, some shitty hip-hop music in my iPod, and adding the word “tits” to my social vernacular. But that is the same obtuse logic that would suggest reducing racism by asking Spanish-speaking people to...stop being so Mexican. Hence, my knack for being tagged as gay lies with our xenophobic culture, not with me. And, interestingly, the culpable may not be solely heterosexual men, but also the women that submit to chauvinism and insipid personalities. To be completely phlegmatic, there is a microeconomic sexual analogy where price and quality are determined by supply (men) and demand (women) in this case -- and I think it’s about time the market advantage is leveraged towards the demand.

All too often I see “Dude” play the dating game like he plays his fantasy football league to ‘win” the girl. But what shocks me is how often the girl metaphorically shrugs and follows suit, thereby reinforcing the “supply” status quo. His identity is manifested through a projected image of her, not his own projection, which is likely so absconded that he wouldn’t recognize it if it was a ticker tape along the bottom of his flat-screened facade. But to be fair, she probably wouldn’t recognize her own beautiful projection because she’s never been invited for a viewing. And so we are left with two insecure cyclones vortexing into one perfect storm of social stagnancy, all the while relegating me as the “gay” satellite to capture images from afar.

I understand and appreciate that there is a plethora of interesting, engaging, and attractive women that object to such linear economics -- many of which I have as friends; and I’m not boasting that I’m some investment boon either, as I have plenty of my own insecurities and undesirable traits like everyone else. But when I get passed as gay by men (which is an interesting topic all in its own) and women greater than 50% of the time, and I’m not gay, then there is clearly a problem with our culture’s expectation of what defines a heterosexual man.

The real issue, I think, is confidence. I can’t speak much for gay men (since I’m not one), but I can imagine that it takes a great deal of confidence to be publicly gay in our society, even in Portland, Oregon 2007 A.D. The personal, familial, and social scrutiny, ridicule, and risk accompanying gay expression demands admirable commitments to self confidence. Musing upon this point, I can’t recall meeting many flaky, disingenuous gay guys. While I’ve met plenty of ridiculous and annoying gay guys, at least they’re usually unapologetic and sincere about their attitudes, no matter how undesirable. This certainly isn’t to suggest that any actions are excusable as long as they’re genuine, I just wouldn’t place insecurity at the top of the character traits for outwardly gay men, whereas i hesitate to do the same for the greater heterosexual male population.

I’ve had 27 years to refine my personality into the eccentric, neurotic, but hopefully charming anomaly it is today. Paging back through my rather dense volume of life chronicles, my personal traits listed above have been conspiring since my childhood in -- important to mention -- South Dakota. I started greasing my hair into strange shapes in first grade; I gave up all forms of sugar when I was eight years old because it was “bad” for me; I fashioned Airwalk shoes and Goodwill shopping at the age of eleven; I was a vegan in high school (again, in South Dakota); I decorated our house for Christmas one year by plastering abstract shapes of lights about the outside siding instead of tracing the gutter and window lines; I chose to bring Guiness to college parties because, unlike Bud Light, it actually tastes good (not common in 1998, let alone South Dakota); I still tell my best friend, Josh, that I love him because I do; and so on... I don’t deserve accolades for these things, rather, I’m simply illustrating that I’ve always been one to require adept security among a hostile environment, and that this sense of security may be what is unfortunately confused as “gay”. Sure, I may be emotionally volatile, self-centered, and needy at times, but I’m comfortable in my neutral shroud of negatives and positives. ...Therefore, I’m clearly gay? I think this is absurd, as would most people that take the time to ponder these circumstances. Yet, I continuously -- and I do mean continuously -- am assumed gay, when I am not. Consequently, my frustration has peaked. And so I propose a challenge to our current economic recession: “demand,” get with it! Seriously. If there is one thing the “supply” certainly deserves to be insecure about, it’s their worth without demand.

Renege

Sorry...consider it a three-part series or something. San Diego was great, and I hope to post something about it soon "in between" my grant writing (no, it never stops), but evidently I just keep writing songs that I feel like I need to share -- not that I should or anything, but damn this moody loneliness of mine! Seriously though, this time I mean it: last song post for a while.

A Letter Home

I realize that the past three entries have been completely self-absorbed, personal, musical B.S., and I promise I'll get back to more important topics like Macroverses and ...beer, but first I feel the need to post one more melodic creation of mine. It seems my music has (thankfully) taken a bit of a new course since Songs For Ghosts, yet evidently I can't help but sing about a girl; although this girl didn't break me, rather, I broke her. As autumn wanes, the chill of winter rears a home-longing I didn't realize I had, possibly because I know this holiday season I won't be seeing my girl, "Miss Midwest". And while she can be a moody gal, she can also be summer sweet. Alas, from the Murph Studios (yes, I'll try to figure out how to decrease that hiss sound), I present my song for those that understand the love-hate relationship that is the inescapable gravity of their existence: home.

And while you listen in enjoyment, indifference, or disgust, I'll be basking in that ultraviolet Southern inferno known as San Diego, California. I realize that tens of thousands of neurosceintists in one place may not seem like much of a party, but it will at its least be a story -- one for The Astrosite, perhaps? ...sigh...the pun...