#ThrowbackThursday: New Waves
Whether you’re 15 or 50, New Wave is always about adolescence. Adolescence in its most raw, awkward, and optimistic state. New Wave is also a moving target (otherwise it wouldn’t be new). It’s the transitional moment before a band goes ‘pop,’ the shiny day before you graduate from high school, college, your job… and the […]
statik 1
[1989] “I’m dead” proclaimed my old friend Brian Johnston aka Ireverend Brainskan. It was the summer of 1988 after one of his last…
Seoul Report: Musicians as Global Curators
Although the independent music scene in Seoul is relatively new, it seems to be proliferating into new creative forms that we have yet to imagine. Like what my architect alter-ego discusses in his book Convergent Flux, similarly in music there is no organic progression that parallels the North American development of blues to jazz to […]
tired of strawberry leaves
And as Wept fell apart as all bands do, this song became a metaphor for distance – for that mad and meditative commute between two vastly different…
going dry
Many failed attempts at writing a ‘dry’ song on guitar and voice revealed my bad technique. So I turned my back on the gilded god of reverb, bowed and gazed at my shoes like any…
wept
Before I move on to the 2000’s I have to mention the goth-rock-avante-jazz band that I helped found in 1986 and played in until 1993…
the blind piano tuner
jack sprinkle was a talented, blind piano technician that for years would tune our family’s small upright and make it sound like a grand. one day i played him thelonious monk’s ‘straight no chaser’ and asked him to help me get that thick smashing of chords while keeping the clarity of the high solo runs. […]
Backwards and Forwards
My architect alter-ego shared an interesting story with me recently: Usually during the holidays he receives bajillions of effusive cards from colleagues claiming how amazing the last year was and how the next year will be even better. This year the cards were a mere handful, literally a 10th of what usually arrives. Most sneaking […]
shadow men
just when i was about to step forward into 1989, a lost recording from 1986 emerges… ‘shadow men’ was recorded live with myra pearson who performed the sensual voice and wrote the mysterious poetry. myra was just beginning her jazz career in dc and we all thought she was super cool playing smoky clubs that […]
resonance
[1987] Resonance extends the direction of Animus with improvisation-based compositions that explore external themes of nature and industrialization…
Infrastructure to Nowhere
“He’s a real nowhere man…” Admittedly there’s not much content on this site (at least until the new music gets posted beyond the work from 25 years ago)… But the scaffolding behind the scenes is now pretty much there. As I was creating the pages, it was clear that this would be another ‘wallflower’ site, […]
being judged
Ever been in a relationship where you constantly felt like you were being judged? The great thing about 90’s new wave is that it can get all emo and go there! Although the vignette captured in this little tune could very well be about one’s boy/girlfriend it’s actually a scene I witnessed between mother and […]