Wednesday, October 30, 2013

you lost me at "proggy workout"

sometimes i read record reviews online. actually i do it almost every day. i like discovering new music i might be into. you never know, today could be the day that you discover the song that will change your life forever or at least get you pumped when you walk the dog. there are days, weeks, months and years that go by when i feel like i can't relate to anything. nothing sounds good and i never get past the opening blurb. after a while, it's funny rather than a bummer.
for a couple weeks i collected some phrases from a popular music website that i thought illustrated the exact moment where i lose interest. is this too negative? let's just concentrate on the funny part.
here you go. you're welcome?
-aching funeral doom to arching classic thrash, from acid-washed electric jazz to acrobatic prog-rock, from ambling stoner rumble to assailant death metal.
-proggy synth-pop record that wants to get treated like a sculpture
 -harp-heavy post-rock
-development of a more nuanced soft side
-a unique take on European funeral doom
-dismantling jazz with the tools that built it
-collects every songs they ever made
-Drum and bass pioneer
-demonstrates a fondness for sparse, repeating figures
-conceptional electro-pop project
-a thematic focus on questions of gender, identity, and power structures
-Prodigy and producer the Alchemist team up
-as raw as you’d expect from an artist just starting to find himself
-If you like cerebral rap music
-document of the band's style-sampling present
-a sound that’s uniquely American in conception but European in execution
-concentrate solely on his murderous bark
-retro-funk bullseye
-a batch of accessible, confident indie rock
-a veteran of many rock sounds
-proggy workout
-lush, warm reverb and palpable bass frequencies.
-teaser
-London dance-pop quartet
-fourth full-length release of 2013
-perfectly situated at the leading edge of rock tastes
-vocal-oriented album from dark ambient pioneer

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Trio

months ago i was invited to do a performance at TEDx Indianapolis, an independently organized TED event that happens here in town. lots of emails and a few months later here we are. the theme of this year's talk was "mix it up" and collaboration was encouraged. i did a song that i wrote a couple years ago called 'nitewalker' accompanied by Time For Three, a trio that has been in residence at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for the past 5 years. the symphony played, then time for three played with the symphony and then the symphony bailed and TF3 played with me. we had maybe 5 minutes of rehearsal time but these guys are real professionals (as well as being just really nice people). we talked about just playing around an E all the way through and it felt good. you know in the movie Back To The Future when Marty McFLy turns to the band and is like "it's a blues in E, follow me for the changes..." and then lets it rip? it was like that in a very mellow one-chord non-ego kind of way. i felt like we were able to ride the vibe and discover the vibe as we went and i am thankful for that. playing music feels really good lately.  i will say it was trippy seeing a thousand people in front of me and knowing my parents were out there watching, but luckily i forgot about all that in the moment. the TED event was at the circle theater in downtown indianapolis, a place i've been going to since  i was about 8 years old for the occasional symphony concert with my folks. i am very thankful to all involved for being given this incredible experience and to be able to play this song. and i am also happy to display this bootleg video as filmed by the wonderful katie coles. what a thing!

Friday, October 18, 2013

it's alright


still on the mollusk jamboree comedown three weeks out....
dogs, buds, babies: what could be better?
here's hoping your weekend is a mellow fellow

Monday, October 14, 2013

cut-out catalog

plywood & paint. 
now in the garden of Service Center, Indianapolis, Indiana. 
let me tell you, there are few things as satisfying as cutting a bunch of things out of heavy wood and painting them and dragging them around. it is like being a shape lumberjack. i want to make a lot more of these until i am dead. 


















Wednesday, October 9, 2013

newd fruits


i am in a bunch of art shows this week in indianapolis, chicago and new york. these drawings are going to new york to the house of vans and i think the opening is tomorrow. i keep wanting to draw the same things over and over. is that wrong? i don't think so. i think it's about digging and digging deeper until you bump into something else or squeeze what you can out of it until you have to move onto something else you would not have come across unless you did all that digging. like those people that paint fruit all the time. nude beach is my fruit bowl.


Thursday, October 3, 2013

Feel Your Space


wow what a week. and now i am home and sick as a dirty dog.
but not too sick to offer up this parking lot shirt i made for the mollusk jamboree, where the spirit of jerry and van grilled cheese hung heavy in the airs. i have some left over, so if so inclined get on over to the SHOP.


i'll be back soon with memories and things  i swear.
but right now i need to lay on the couch and watch a documentary about a monkey.