So I got this kind of crazy comment on a post..  from John…  which I think I could safely characterize as “insensitive” in its criticism…. which I don’t totally understand, accept that sometimes when one interacts with folks online one can forget one is interacting with real humans. In any event.. I don’t think John’s criticism was exactly constructive.. none the less I find myself searching for grains of truth in it.. which is an instinct I find a little dubious….  but it is what it is.

So I thought I’d sorta address his comment in a blog post.. well sorta.

If you have discerning eyes, and you look at this blog, you’d probably come away with an impression that “this cat has no desire to be a social media rock star.” Or to put it another way.. ( picture spoken in a somewhat Frank Zappa esk tone ) “This blog has got no kinda game at all.” 

I’m not really sure why that is, to tell you the honest truth.  I feel as if it’s just sorta indicative of the state my life is in.. which is.. difficult. Somehow, one way or another, I need to ether work this out or just accept it. Maybe.. instead of all my obsessions and whatever.. I should just focus on healing.

The difficult feeling of an artist.

When you go to art school.. coming in the door you realize you’re kind of screwed.. well unless you’re a designer or something. The plight of the fine artist.. is a difficult one.. and often we toil our lives away for little to no material reward.. In fact, just getting your life in such a situation that you can seriously focus on your work.. That’s a pretty substantial accomplishment on its own.

I think its a kind of addiction actually.. an addiction to the state of ecstasy that art making can bring you to… That feeling that you and the Gods are one. For me, I suppose, I really make art more for God then living souls… Or more for that internal spiritual nourishment. I mean it’s just the one place in my life where I feel truly alive. So if there’s anyway that I can make my way through this life, via this art, then I will call my life a success. That’s really all I’m looking for, you know?

I imagine to be a whole human, however, one needs a bit more. How about starting a family? The only way I could ever see that working out is if I found one hell of a women.. cause God knows I can barely take care of my Dad!

I don’t really feel like I have a choice in what I is.  

 

So the deal is.. if you make art the way I do.. where you’re serious about exploring your own unique creative vision, regardless of what’s up with the market place.. well..  I don’t know.. What can you realistically expect?

I guess I’ll leave this at this — I’m kinda tired.

Haven’t been blogging so much lately..  bad Matt!  But how about a short little post? ( He says realizing short never happens for him )

So there’s basically 2 things worth talking about today.. or thoughts, or things I seem to be up to. #1 Is the music production stuff and #2 Is thinking about promotional efforts.

The Music Production Adventures

Though I didn’t post anything.. I have been writing about a new project I’ve started… inside of Ableton Live.. This project reached new hightes today.  So lets explore a little:

Of all the DAWs in my sonic arsenal, Ableton Live is the one I’m weakest with..  I have certain ways of working.. that I’ve been evolving for the past 15 or so years..  and I’m not sure how Live could fit into that way of working. Usually I think it has the potential to bring my work in new directions.. and so that’s some of what I find myself exploring…

The first stage in the current adventure has been creating loops.. I have a rather large library of audio.. music I’ve made, stuff I’ve recorded…  The process is one of loading up the audio files, and selecting loop points. Live will do the beat matching for you.. so whatever the tempo of the original work… Live will match it to the tempo..  

But the real fun comes from shaping looping envelops that control the parameters of whatever effect you might want to place on your loop.. Via various processing you “design loops” that are often unrecognizable.. from there original. This is, at least for me, a fun and unpredictable creative process… which yields results I wouldn’t other wise be able to achieve. 

Today, however, brought all this stuff to a crazy new level. As I began digging around my hard drives in search of audio files.. I started to find some interesting things….

A shape forms

Some of what I found were recordings made..  Well the podcast episode I recorded hours after my mom had passed… Left phone messages from my therapist and collection agencies.. There’s a collection of sounds that.. as I started putting together an arrangement of this stuff..

Well it was probably some of the most emotional sound art I’ve ever heard in my life.. It was powerful as hell..  It was also emotional draining, to the point that I felt on the verge of an emotional breakdown from going there.. but I think it was also therapeutic.. and I have this feeling that I really do need to go there.

So that’s basically that on the music production side of things..

Online Music Marketing

While running a few errins, I was seduced by the evil Barns and Nobel.. in to buying “Web Marketing for the Music Business” by a Mr. Tom Hutchison.. brought to us by Focal Press… 

Well I think this is about the best book on the subject I’ve come across. As a “social media peep” I’m hyper up on how marketing and communications are changing in this new media space.. Even if I’m not executing on it, I am an expert on social media strategy…  or something of one.. ( seeing as most of the people I look up to as mentors / experts in this area claim not to be experts these days )… In any event… this puts me in a unique place to evaluate such a book.. never mind all the music marketing type books I’ve read in the past.. and I’m here to tell you that this book is totally top notch.. from what I’ve been able to gather thus far.

So reading a book like this brings me to rethinking my strategy / shtick..  

So I’ll kinda leave this post short.. with just a couple finishing comments:

I’m feeling inspired by the promotional adventures ahead.. but also somewhat in awe of the challenges of it..  so wish me luck… 

So I guess it was thursday.. they had all gone out to eat some place when Melissa had an allergic reaction that lead to the UMass Medical Center in Worcester Mass..

in “critical but stable condition.” I didn’t actually hear about this till a phone message this past friday from Aunt Jackie.

[That’s a picture from our 2008 family reunion in upstate New York.]

So we arranged that we’d meet and see her this Sunday, aka today… And it was this morning’s call to confirm the let me know my sister was doing significantly better… which was nice.

Waking up dad is no easy feat.. especially not lately, and especially not this early… but somehow I got him up, and it was off to a late start.

It was about a 45 minute drive to the Hospital. There was only one catch.. the directions where wrong.. the address was wrong, Goggle Maps is a lier… but eventually we made it.

I haven’t seen very much of my sister since I was a kid: My sister has sever mental retardation and autism..  and was a kind of nightmare in terms of the amount of stress her condition put on my parents while I was growing up.. and was, by extension.. an issue for me. So sometime around.. well when I was in high school.. so late 80s, my Sister went off to live in a home in Western Mass. 

My mom died this past december.. It was a combination of lung problems.. related to cancer and cancer treatment.. as well as a bad heart condition.. which was first created in the stress-fest days before Melissa went to live at Archway. My mom had kind of set things up so my Aunt Jackie would take care of Melissa’s affairs, and what not, after she died.. though I now play some kind of a roll.. a roll I don’t do so well at, this and taking care of my Dad with Dementia…

In any event, I haven’t seen my Missy since Mom died… and this certainly wasn’t the best of circumstances.

She sure does look different, shockingly so to me.. My memory of her is.. well of her being both a good deal younger and having a good deal more weight.. as a result of all the medication she was always on.. and bouncing around through. She looked like a women.. and that somehow startled me a little.

But my Father tells me she didn’t look thin to him.. but that she seemed less responsive and less alert then usual… but then he hasn’t seen Missy for a long while ethier.

Because of the direction problems I wasn’t able to meet up with my Aunt Jackie.. but from talking to her on the phone since getting home.. it sounds like Melissa was really only responsive to the people from Archway.. and apparently at some point she had asked for Mom. I don’t know how well she understands that Mom died. 

In any event, I thought she looked pretty good considering… and sorta.. it’s hard to explain really. I felt like there was something going on behind her eyes.. wishing I could somehow connect to her. That’s the way with Autism though.. But I felt this more then I ever had in the past.. She just kind of sat there rocking.. oscillating between smiles, a kind of looking around thing.. and this far off look..  

I sorta tried to connect in a kind of non-verbal-ish way… I don’t know if it did anything.. but there you go, right? It was kind of awkward, as it always is for me, not really knowing quite how to act.. I’ve felt that way since I was a little kid.. going to the special needs camps and whatever.. just not knowing how to relate to that world.. So I let my father take the lead on this part of things.. and that seemed to work out well.

And a Closing Statement to my Social Media Friends 

Out side of all that.. I want to thank all my social media friends.. who’s kind words have been so helpful while these sorts of things have been going on.. and not knowing if my Sister would be ok, and all of that. You guys are why I love social media!  So thank you.

It’s almost 12 30 as I write this. This past Friday I was notified that my sister was in critical but stable condition, having had am allergic reaction to something.. It’s made for a bit of a difficult weekend.

My sister suffers from severe mental retardation and autism. She lives in a home in somewhat western-ish Mass. When my mom died last december.. it sorta fell on me to.. I’m not sure what.. but to make sure things were.. not so bad. But also I’ve been in the position of being in charge of taking care of my father who has dementia… Between this kind of thing and like.. sorta normal challenges of life of which my mom largely shielded me from… I’m greeted with a set of challenges I’m generally not feeling totally up to… That I must find a way to rise to…  And it surely doesn’t help that career wise I tend to be the starving artist type.

So now I’m waking up dad and getting ready to leave to go meet with my Aunt Jackie to visit my Sister in the hospital. The good news is my sisters condition has stabilized.. and she’s being moved out of the ICU.

Ok, so its not really morning.. But I wake up late so… 

I’m paying bills.. I have not been paying bills for a while.. not a good thing..

The bad news

1. My father almost lost his health insurance
2. I lost my life insurance.. the one that pays out when I die… 
3. One credit card has been declining.. this one not so much my fault.. haven’t seen a bill.
4. It seems that Comcast is still billing me.. never mind not giving me the check they were supposed to.. I had canceled all my comcast stuff.
5. If I don’t go to the DMV right now.. My license will be revoked for not paying a ticket, and it has grown in expense
6. Guitar Center’s card is screwing me…

I’m not sure what else.. but I am fearful.

I don’t know what my problem is.. save that my mom used to pay the bills.. Its one of those new responsibilities I’ve had since she passed away.. and the problems I’m having paying them seem to be, at least in part, related to morning..

Dreams 

I had a strange dream a week or so ago. In the dream my mom came home.. I grabbed her, gave her a big hug, told her how I missed her.. and then being like “Wait, you died, you can’t come back, you’re not really here.” Somehow by saying that she vanished.. and the dream ended.. only to be followed by another dream with her appearing again.. this time seeming all the more real.. more convincing that she was really there.. and I reacted the same way.. like “wait, no, your not really alive, are you?”

There’s details to the dreams that I can’t quite remember.. I don’t understand the dream, but its one I keep thinking about.. One way I’ve been thinking of it is… that a part of it is about my own denial of her death.. The way it still doesn’t feel totally real to me… Its as if the dream was an expression of this unbelief and my own attempt to confront it.

My mom has been a huge, and complex part of my life.. which I suppose we all could say.. assuming we had moms.. but I think think her roll was huger then the norm perhaps… in.. I guess how close we were, and whatever.. There is the whole.. how she fucked up, was fucking up, my life part of things.. I say this not to blame her so much as to try to understand it all myself.. to kinda move through it.. and of course there’s also the love part of it.

Fucking Up My Life

This seems worth talking about.. or trying to.. that normally I don’t feel very comfortable trying to blog about it.. if for no other reason then that I’m not sure if I’m totally being fair about it…

There was, for a long time.. this idea that my parents were abusive to me. This is what we call in the biz “a very difficult thing to deal with.” The first problem is.. you internalize it… you believe the problem is you.. and that you would accuse them of being the problem.. is more evidence of how fucked up you are. 

We are talking about my collage years here.. and it probably doesn’t help that everyone says there parents fucked up… and that’s the reason they are how they are. There’s a kind of pop psychology to there take on these things.. It often plays a roll of…  ”aren’t we the victim you should feel bad for.” As a result.. when you say “oh, yeah, my parents fucked up, that’s why I am the way I am,” from a superficial reading of it.. it doesn’t really matter what the reality of the situation is.. or the reality of its long term effects.. it can be seen as an expression of..  well looks like someone who’s being stupid.. and blaming there parents for what’s wrong with themselves…  and so.. if you really are dealing with some form of abuse.. you have this prejudice to try and get through.. on top of the actual thing.. and this prejudice is trying to tell you “hey, its you’re fault, get over it.”  

A happy story 

Well, then a ‘fortunate’ thing happened: My mom was diagnosed with cancer, the reality of which exacerbated my father’s alcoholism to such an extent that it was no longer hide-able.. and after being rushed in an ambulance to the hospital.. after he had slipped on his own urine.. not being able to control his bladder.. being so waisted.. crashing his forehead through the bathroom tiles, blood rushing out.. and the doctors talking about his blood alcohol level.. the clear evidence that he was a raging alcoholic.. that he need to go through AAA, see an addiction specialist..  the specialist saying he was lucky to be alive given all the drinking he was doing.. etc etc etc… well, my mom’s denial over the situation finally broke.. and now I had something real I could point to as.. having something to do with my damage..

The story of.. “how my parents fucked up my life,” is more complex then this… And it is something I’m still struggling to wake up to. Since she died I’ve had multiple moments of wishing she was alive so I could strangle her.. for this that or the other thing… wanting to scream “what the fuck is wrong with you that you would have done X?!!!” 

The struggle

The thing is.. that many of the stupidities and mistakes of my parents.. are still things I struggle to understand as being there fault… So this isn’t an easy task.. this is something you have to struggle through.. and it has to be ok to say “They really fucked up, didn’t they.” None of this is to say I don’t love them with all my heart.. Just that love isn’t something that seeks to white wash things…

This is not an uncommon thing at all.. but one of the mistakes of my mom was.. her getting in the way of my own growing up / maturing / adult becoming. Now that she’s died.. its as if I’m forced to go through the process to get to where I need to get to.. at a break neck speed.. or else the sky will no doubt fall.

This is something that is somehow internalized.. something I see as my fault.. for not being where I need to be.. It is something that I have huge levels of shame around… And this is the psychological dimension to my struggles at this point in my life.. The problems that go beyond simply loosing my mom…. which is not an easy thing to deal with on its own..

Paying the bills means walking through the fire of all that.. and that’s why I’m having trouble paying the bills.. 

There are huge mountains ahead of me… that I must climb.. less the sky really falls. In all of this I feel amazingly alone.. and full of fear.. A fear that gnaws at me regularly..  

Latter:

So I think the biggest part of the challenge is really an internal psychological one.

Latter that night:

I suppose this is a good a place as any to end as any. 

First I wake up.. out of smokes.. and can’t find the car keys to make my way to the gas station.. so.. eventually I break down and walk to the nearest gas station.. a round trip that takes a bit longer then an hour.

Latter that day there’s knocking on the door. “Who the hell could that be?” So I tare myself away from my computer… to find a police officer at the door. “Are you Matt?” What fun moments.. Turns out that my relatives thought I was dead or something.. because they were not able to get to me via phone..  Umm.. couldn’t they have tried an email before they turn to the police?

Next to the officers feet was a soaked box….  mail I hadn’t gotten..  Yup, that’s right, Digital Performer 6 had arrived. I’ve spent a good deal of the night trying to install it.. but somethings not working.. so that’s been a real pain.

So yeah, I think that constitutes a strange day, how about you? 

Oh.. and just about an hour ago I finally found the keys.. and um.. yesterday I couldn’t find the pen to go with my art tablet.. and it was right in front of me the whole time.. discovered it while looking for the keys, lol! 

I don’t have writers block, that doesn’t seem to be something I suffer from, but none the less.. It seems to be a challenge to bring blog entries to completion.. 

Latter:

Well I suppose some of my peeps seem to like my more random entries.. so maybe that is what this entry shall be.. I’m over tired as I write anyway…So.. I suppose why not return to the theme of the plot of the life of you’re truly? I mean what the hell, right?

My instinct is always to try and trust the natural processes of the psyche.. and if anything to just try and help facilitate those natural processes.. if you’re having an anxiety freak out.. well maybe that’s what you need to do, you know? That is maybe that’s one small part of a larger process.. I think a lot of times the way we look at our selves.. and our psychological realities.. we compartmentalize stuff.. put things in boxes.. we look at that box and say “this is a bad thing.” Sure.. its a bad thing.. but what is bad about it has more to do with the conceptual box we put it in then the thing its self!

So.. my advice is to try and see the larger order of things… lets not impose our will on our selves so much.. which is not quite to say I’m anti imposing will on thy self.. just that I want the wisdom to do it correctly.

My psychological reality.. subjective experience.. its as if I’m moving through a storm cloud.. and I can’t quite see properly or operate properly.. at least on some levels.

There are levels on which I seem to operate more or less perfectly no matter what. The are areas that are.. special areas.. I wont try to bother explaining why this is.. or how it all works.. cause it would take quite a long time to get through it all.. but these are areas that I’ve really dedicated myself.. sacrificed for..  gone to hell and back with.. and as we say in the cheesy hipster bizz.. these areas are “solid.”

Hmm… you know its as if there’s this huge part of myself that’s like.. damaged goods? Do you ever feel like that? Most people I know feel like that.. Is it what’s fucked up in our society.. the mistakes the generations that brought us up made? I have no idea.. all I can really tell you is that there’s a portion of my being that’s.. well, should never be put in charge of my destiny anyway, right?

When stress, pressure, and what not.. get going.. they can activate these damaged parts in ways that make them behave.. well lets say they make you behave like a none-fully integrated personality. Can you dig that?

So when I say I’m going through a storm.. in part what I’m saying.. the flight path of my life.. if I’m going to make it off that island I was talking about a blog entry or so back..  the part of this that has me worried is that.. in order for the things to work out.. I must depend on parts of me that are not totally 100% well integrated personality parts…. or it looks that way to me.. and that is really the basis of my fear… 

Now as I was saying before, there are parts of me that are “solid.” These solid parts of my being.. I’ve tried to cultivate to super hero status.. in part just to compensate for the other parts.. The dream I had, while cultivating them, was that they would help to carry me through the parts of my life when.. I would need those other parts in order to function..  let me give you an illustration of the theory.

The theory that goes into digression rathole

Say one day, you became a rock star. If you’re a rock star.. a lot of things are going to come easily for you.. that would not come easily for you if you were not a rock star. I mean.. you’re going to get laid.. by the pretty girls.. I mean if you’re into that sorta thing.. you don’t actually have to have a lot of social graces cause everyone wants to be your friend.. it’s ok if you’re no good at doing laundry…  umm… and blah blah blah..

Ok, so you think.. “yeah, ok.. but you know, being a rock star isn’t exactly a reasonable expectation for one to have about there life.” To this I would say “do you mean to say that that business about wishing upon stars is just a lot of hours shit?” Now listen, stop here for a second and contemplate what I’m trying to say to you.

1. If you wish upon a star, it apparently makes no difference where you are… blah blah blah.. you wish it, you dream it.. you put in the dedication, you can do anything.
2. Being a rock star isn’t not a realistic thing to wish on stars?

Do you get what I’m driving at? Is it wrong to dream too big? Is that a mistake? I mean to go and put everything you got into that one dream, and just go for it? I mean.. lets face it.. having a “back up” plan is not exactly how you climb the highest mountains! The highest mountains are climbed with “do or die.” 

Well maybe not, I don’t know.. haven’t actually seen any studies on the subject.. but it sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? 

Ok.. so I don’t mean to suggest that I’m trying to be a rock star and if this doesn’t work out I’m going to go blow my head open.. I mean I’m not exactly shooting for rock star-hood.. .or, I don’t know.. maybe I am.. but the point is more like.. say you cultivate within your self… stuff that’s really aiming that high.. or maybe even higher then that.. 

I mean lets get serious here.. Matt has issues. Matt would not be happy being a rock star unless… he cast a shadow bigger then Beethoven..  another words.. my ultimate sin is probably dreaming to big… Hmm.. I smell a music cue in here.

Ok, that was pretty unnecessary, ha? 

So this big dreaming started at an early early age..  From what my mom told me before she passed away, I more or less came out of the womb this way. So you know, what are you going to do?

A few latter:

I’m too freaking tired to finish this line of thought..  So let me summaries where I was going with all this: 

The summary 

So we all have our strong sides and week sides.. and it makes sense to live in a way where you maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses..  There is a question of.. what is critical.. and if the strong sides are strong enough.. can they make your weaknesses less critical?

Sure.. that’s all groovy and all.. but what I wanted to get to was this sense of an transformation going on inside me.. which is a very crazy thing indeed…  Transformations have to do with.. shifts in energy flow.. shifts in psychology.. shift in.. what’s getting cultivated.. and as near as I can tell.. somethings going on in me that just might help me cope.

Any who..  I think I’ll post it at right here… I’m just too tired to finish this sucker up as I’d like.. and given that I probably wont be blogging as much as I’d like coming up.. well.. we should get down to business, right?

 

I have a few post on the drawing board, of course last weekend was Boston Podcamp 3 and much of the week since has been recovery mode.. as I only had about 5 hours or so sleep as a result.. it was an amazing time.. I should add, but more on that latter. In any event, that’s reason why I haven’t been posting as frequently.

In other news.. stress and anxieties are up.. but I’m dealing..

This weekend I’ll be going to a cookout at my sister’s school in.. well more western-ish Mass then here. Have I spoken much of her? My sister has saver mental retardation and autism.. her and I are both adopted… from different parents. She’s older.. When my my parents adopted her they were not informed of her handy caps.. and um.. well not an easy scene.. anyway.. I’m not sure how long it’s been since I’ve seen her.. my father and I haven’t visited since mom passed away.. so it’s really important that we do.

The week coming up is looking to be.. well another one where I’m likely to slump off on the blog.. have a friend flying in.. one who’s helping me with my promotional efforts.. and we’ll perhaps do a bit of that while she’s here.. and maybe have her help me straighten out my life a bit.. which leads back to the stress and anxiety issues…

The long and the short of the anxiety issues.. well its broader then anxiety.. but basically I haven’t been coping well since my mom passed away..  Most of which has to do with new responsibilities that I wasn’t really prepared for.. I must say it’s an interesting plot. Ever hear the voice of God? Something about a merger between the unconscious and the unfolding of life.. or something.. who knows what it really is.. but the feeling like something is speaking to you from “the other side” so to speak. It seems to speak to me about the unfolding plot of my life. If I were to listen / trust in it.. I’d tell you everything is groovy.. which is a part of why I never quite know how I’m doing.

I can feel it and taste it.. opportunities… the chance to take flight.. for the time being my existence feels a little as if it were taking place on an island that was slowly falling into the sea.. one that if I don’t find my way off.. disaster strikes.. at least with respect to my dependancies..  which makes it quite a transition.. But the way the plot seems to be unfolding.. it looks as if disaster will be diverted..  and really, this feeling of impending doom.. it’s not likely doom at all..  or the sense of doom is just a construct of where my head is at at the moment.. It’s as if we took the whole of reality and magnified a portion of it.. and other parts sorta reseed.. and this image we have.. we took as the actual thing.. which it is.. but, its actuality is other then it’s image..  

None of that should be to diminish the reality of imposing doom.. It is “a psychological reality” which makes it, at least in my book, no less real then material reality.. It speaks to the psychological transformations needed to make it all happen.. and if this transformation doesn’t happen.. well.. then you have disaster.

Anxiety, as near as I can tell, is the voice of those parts of me that.. are dragging there feet.. and the question, the fear, it’s what roll do they play in the unfolding of the whole. Could the derail it all? I wouldn’t put it past them..   

I don’t mean to paint such a bleak painting of things.. but its not a good strategy to avoid these things ether.. so what the hell.. and with that I post. 

Ok, this is a somewhat long-ish story.. the story of Matt’s recent woes.. from anxiety, career, money, banks, and what not to.. well lets say stuff..  which will eventually lead us into my most recent trip to guitar center, the buying of the Liquid Mix 16, and then into the current music production project… 

It all started last Sunday. I was in a sleep deprived state, and as is my way, running late to the Boston Media Makers. The Boston Media Makers is now taking place at Doyle’s Cafe in JP.. (Boston).. so it’s new media plus breakfast…  and so I needed to go to the bank to get money to fill up my gas tank, buy an energy drink, smokes, and still have enough left over for breakfast.. and then things turned ugly! 

The bank tells me I put in the wrong pin number.. a few tries latter and the ATM won’t give me the time of day. WTF I think… but being sleep deprived.. in a somewhat LSD like consciousness.. made even more LSD-ish after watching a documentary on the Beats.. who knows, maybe I did get the pin wrong?

So long story short, got Gas, smokes, and my Monster on credit, breakfast on cash… but it was a stress feast combination of sleep deprivation, running late, and.. the ATM experience. All of which fueled a little extra anxiety over how I presented myself at the media makers..  but that’s another blog entry.

[Editor’s Note: This is a long, sometimes rambling entry.. so brace your self, you hardy souls whom might actually get through it.. also to note is a certain connection between this entry, and the recent social media cool-aid entry.] 

More problems:

1. I was actually planning on buying a computer monitor, at Micro Center in Boston, with cash after the meeting… It’s the closest “good” computer store I know… or at least see if they had the Dell I wanted, what there price was.. and that sorta thing.
2. The food supply in the house was running low.. so grocery shopping had to be done soon.
3. My dad had medication that needed to be picked up from the CVS

I should maybe break off from this and explain my anxiety paranoia at this point? When my mom died I was told, by a couple aunts, not to pay the credit card bills that were my mom’s bills. Someone had talked to a lawyer about this.. and something to do with Massachusetts state law.. trouble is, I never actually talked to a lawyer.. and am kind of vague about all this.

[Editors note: Matt wanted to insert this scene from the end of THX 1138, as it seems express of the psycho reality of his situation.

You’d perhaps have to see the full movie to really appreciate the significants of this clip.. and probably need to read the rest of the blog entry to, while you were at it.. but pay attention to a certain subtext of this blog entry.. its all sorta crystalized here..] 

In any event… there’s lots of credit card companies calling the house.. I have yet to talk to any of them as.. well until I get the iPhone.. I’m a very difficult person to get in touch with via the phone.

Now the LSD like consciousness of sleep deprivation does have… well you sometimes attribute causality to things that, in reality, don’t have a causal connection. These causal connections are truths of a kind of symbolic nature.. they have something to do what’s going on in you psyche.

So what’s going on in Matt’s psyche?

This is really a subject for another time, I mean to really dig into… I will tell you that since my mom passed things have not been real easy… and that most of the uneasiness of it is not something that expresses its self consciously.. It’s kind of a complicated thing.. and I feel like blogging about it might actually be helpful to me.. or at least talking about it.. but it’s somehow hard to talk about.

All these inward tension.. they expressed them selves in the paranoid dilution that.. well I think the bank might actually be one of the creditors… so the paranoid delusion.. was there was something more to my inability to get into the bank then.. some sorta pin number problem. And with this was the fear that I wouldn’t have access to money to pay bills.. so I shouldn’t write a check till I got to the bottom of this.

On top of all that.. another expression of anxiety is a procrastination of bill paying.. so the bills are.. now in the over due column.. and one expects one’s credit is getting dinged.

Crazy is as Crazy Does 

Ok.. so allow me to stop here and try and explain a little of this.. For one thing I’ve been behind on sleep for a little while now… for another I’m being a little operatic in how I’m talking about it.. which is to say I’m amplifying the story a little.. which is not quite to say I’m not crazy.. just that.. I’m turning up the gain of a certain sorta crazy.. or perhaps on the microscope through which we are looking at it… 

[editors note: Matt’s operatic-ness, at this point in the entry, is mainly expressed through with language like “paranoid delusions,” which sorta overstates things “a bit.” And what he’s talking about is the casual connections sleep deprivation is facilitating.] 

Matt’s Plot 

Ok, so lets pull back a little and take a look at my life’s plot, and where this moment fits in it all. I’m trying to do this “artist” shtick thing. I don’t know if you’ve heard the cliche about starving artists? Well.. I don’t believe that being an artist means you have to starve.. but the cliche is at least expressive of the fact that making a living as an artist is no easy feet.. more so when you’re as uncompromising as I am.

Though I march forward in a sorta heroic-ish way.. I don’t think anyone could walk this walk without there being a lot of really huge tension over what the future might bring.. It’s really that I’m crazy enough to not let that keep me from walking this way…  [Editors note: This would be part of the significance of the THX reference] but there is still that fear that it might all come to naught.. and that perhaps all my sacrifices are in vain..  and this is a very big tension.. particularly as it interacts in a larger ecology of tensions.

Now.. if you ask me about the “objective real reality” of the situation.. I’ll tell you.. things are probably “A-Ok.” Allow me to give you reasons why things are probably “A-Ok.”

1. I’m doing the social media shtick. Why would this make things A-Ok? Well.. I’m connected / networked in with a pretty substantial crowd of folks. If you’re reading this, you might be one of said substantial folks? There’s a humanness to.. many of these connections where.. to one degree or another, we really do care about each others well being.. and.. all of us are pretty well connected, one way or another.. and the long and the short of it is.. social media is a powerful tool for finding work.
2. It is not an infrequent thing that.. I get a job lead.. or some connection leads to something. Of course I don’t put a premium on following this stuff up.. because of how focused I am trying to be on trying to do my own thing.. but the point is there is stuff out there.
3. Very sweet and wonderful people have actually come out and asked me what they could do to help. Can you dig that? For me that’s down right mind blowing.. but its true.
4. What I’m doing.. in my own adventures.. has within it’s self the idea.. that I’m putting together a skill set for a job that does not yet exist. And believe it or not I’m actually networking with people who could us those services.. even if they don’t know it yet.

Latter:

There’s more to this story… lots more.. but for the purposes of this blog entry I only want to go so far as to say that tensions can obscure this reality.. so that it doesn’t feel like things are “A-Ok” in the big picture… even if they kinda sorta are. And we could talk about this more but…

Yeah.. so imagine the fear like.. you don’t know if you’re going to be able to take care of your father or your self, that the world could be crumbling down… This kind of stress inevitably leads me into pushing harder in my work.. and my self criticism gets much worse then it sometimes can be anyway.

None of this would have been a big deal if not for.. by that monday.. there was very little food in the house.. and if not for.. I had gotten to the bank that day prior to its closing.. I didn’t realize this.. but our bank likes to close at 4PM.. in order to get there I kinda have to fight my way through my tensions over it.. and so find myself there and.. the bank closed.. and I didn’t even know there hours! And so days passed with this hanging over my head.. all of it.

Add to all this that here I am gearing up on these music projects.. and I need to go out and buy more gear! I was also planning on getting an iPhone.. still needed to buy my Podcamp ticket.. I’m not sure what else.. and all of that was.. at least in my fears, looking like it might not work out.

And the dark clouds reseed.

Well finally I did get into the bank.. did make a with drawl so I have enough cash in my pocket to run for a few weeks.. somehow the pin number.. sorta fixed, accept it still wasn’t able to use it.. so maybe I’ve somehow miss remembered it.. anyway they are sending me the numbers so I’ll have them..

That dark cloud emphasized how fragile I can feel.. way out here in starving artist vill.. and it was a crazy rough week for me.. when the clouds finally did leave.. I finally decided that it was indeed time to make my trip to Guitar Center and pick up Liquid Mix 16. This was a long deliberation.. most of which is documented in this blog.. 

But wait, there’s more! 

I couldn’t find my car keys.. and not only that but I still had grocery shopping yet to do.. I had done a little after the with drawl…  but.. now without my keys, how could I do this? It wasn’t till sometime today when I finally found the keys.. and boy do I hate doing grocery shopping on the weekends, when the places are a crowded madness.. screw that!

So I made my way over to Guitar Center, finally. Was I really going to do it?

I wish I knew these guys names more.. I told the sales guy “I’m here for the Liquid Mix 16.” His eyes sorta widened.. “That’s a great little unit.” What? Every sales guy in the pro audio department didn’t even know what it was.. nor did they know much of anything of any of the mix engineer-ish tools I had been looking for.. but this guy new it.. and was thinking of getting one for him self.

I then rattled off a number of things I had been looking for..

Ok, let me explain. Guitar Center has a thing where you pay no interest for 3 months, 6 months, a year.. depending on what mood there marketing department is in.. what this means is you can buy stuff on credit without interest payments.. which is something you can’t easily do over the internet.. and credit card interests rates being what they are.. buying on credit will add a hell of a lot to your bill.. so going to Guitar Center for the big ticket items is what makes the most sense at this point..

So a number of pieces of gear.. gear that other sales folks had never even heard of.. stuff that you often can’t find on the Guitar Center website.. he could find in the computer.. stuff that the other sales folks didn’t think they carried.

So it was pretty awesome.. I mean he could actually answer some of my questions!

Onto the Liquid Mix 16

I had read where people had had problems with instillation.. particularly with Digital Performer.. and boy have I had software problems lately..  so I was a little nervous.. but the instillation was more or less as smooth as they come.. and before you knew it, I was up and running.

Liquid Mix is… well you get a library of 40 compressors and 20 EQs. I’ve explained this ad nauseam else where in this blog.. but basically you’re getting this library of the most high class EQs and Compressors on the planet.. each of which works in slightly different ways… is good for different sorts of applications.. colors sound differently.. etc. 

The first problem you run into is.. “which should I use?” To further complicate matters.. its sorta like a hockey video game where they can’t use the names of real NHL teams.. where they can’t give you the names of the real gear you’re using.. not that that would make too much of a difference as I don’t actually know the names of the real gear anyway.. but.. if you read interviews with various mix engineers.. telling you what they use for what.. or articles on these subjects..  you’d kind of like to know what you’re dealing with… Fortunately I found an old Sound On Sound review of Liquid Mix that included the names.

The light in my room is out.. so I couldn’t actually go digging through magazines to find that recent article on mix buss compression…  but upon doing the google.. I found this blog entry.. from of all people.. Charles Dye, which covered the subject.. and recommend an SSL compressor for my master buss. (Charles is quite the sophisticated fellow for this sorta thing).

And with that I jumped in

First, you must understand that I usually make crazy music like this (click on the little arrow to hear, and yes, it is a free download.. but it’ll stream for ya fine )

Matt Searles – Offering A Hand To The Ghost

This kind of electronic music has very different sorta mixing requirements from my new experimental electronic metal thing.. I mean.. now I have to try and be “a real” mix engineer. God save us!!! And I was fearful that.. well I hear a lot of stories of the struggles folks go through when they are first starting out..

But strangely.. I felt as if I had discovered that I had a real talent for this…  upon reflection

The Start of my Mix Engineering Training: “The JP Years.” 

After college I would hang out with.. the man we call “The Doctor” aka Diggity Dave.. and Ev-on, as he sometimes refers to him self in the comments of these blog entries.. Now.. these fine upstanding citizens..  well

1. They are artists to.. and were struggling to
2. There was more alcohol and Pot going on then…  lol, good times
3. Crazy adventures were the norm.. one could become quite a fine author with the material our of those times.
4. Diggity did indeed have a stereo system with the best speakers I had ever heard in my life.. at that point.

We’d throw CDs in there.. just to see what we had been missing all these years.. and I was forever analyzing the mixes. Mind you, at the time.. I wasn’t really all that sophisticated in my mix analytic abilities.. but it was surely something.. Dave and Evan’s music tastes had a whole lot of Hip Hop going on.. classic rock.. metal, electronic stuff..  even Curtis Mayfield.. quite the eclecticism.. and I with my Zappa and assorted strange stuff… and there was Jim whom would sometimes be there.. with his punk and indy rock.. and so.. though we were all rather poor.. we were wealthy in terms of the music we were all able to hear.. and it was quite an education.

I’d just listen to those records and dream of the day I could have a chance to put one together.. and could I ever make one as good as some of the stuff we were hearing? Oh my god, so much amazing stuff!!! Seems like these days I don’t get a chance to listen to too much.. but back then, oh wow!

The electronic music Mix training:  

Ok, how about another one of my tracks?

Matt Searles – Vasperian Blogocombat

The production in this track was a little rushed.. so there’s certainly things in there I’m not totally happy with.. but there’s also a lot in there that has me feeling very proud…. that I think is sorta amazing.. the marriage of the mix and the composition.. the experience.. the scenes.. the painting of it.. to put it a certain way.

When you listen to stuff like that.. you can kind of tell I’m really thinking about the mix… even if there are huge problems here and there.. and even the problems.. its sorta like a punk rock school of mixing or something.. where we kinda consider them in a different light.. or something.

So.. my music production is kinda all about the mix, on a certain level… but the mix isn’t static.. nothing stays still. In metal.. things stay still. The guitarist stays over there.. the bass player over there… no ones moving that drum set.. so my electronic music is all about a mix that has a virtual stage that is forever in flux. I regard it much more as being about “Mix Painting” then “Mix Engineering.”

Buckling down into Metal. My god, how am I going to handle this? I didn’t know.. but I knew investing in Liquid mix would be an important step along these lines.

First Impressions on the mix metal path

The first thing you realize is that what you’re really doing, as a mix engineer, is quite subtle. No wonder those guys seem so obsesses over so many little things that I don’t think I can even hear! Being subtle is the first thing you have to get used to… That you’re really thinking in terms of a lot of subtle colorations which, hopefully, eventually lead up to a whole that is more then the sum of the parts.. 

My recent obsession with effects has been one of… well a kind of obsession with with subtleties. 

Next morning (still not really awake):

The metal I have going on right now is.. incredible

The transition from my normal experimental production and composition style.. to a metal sorta song writing thing is a huge jump. In my electronic stuff there are no rules… there certainly isn’t anything like a traditional structure.. and In Metal.. I’m not sure how traditional my structures will turn out to be.. but at least from a starting point sorta perception of things.. I need to figure out how to make my music work inside of the limitations of a popular music format.

The funny thing is.. I’m kind of an amazing heavy metal guitarist from certain perspectives. As a guitarist I’ve never been too terribly big on playing other people’s music.. I’ve maybe learned 3 such songs in my life.. but I’ve certainly learned a lot of riffs.. and what not…   The point is that my guitar playing has really always centered around.. being more interested in making original music then replicating other folks stuff. 

I would say, generally speaking.. my style draws heavily from the riffs of Black Sabbath.. and a kinda speed-e metal of Metallica and Megadeth… and from there comes an original vision. That vision is largely about a strange interpretation of music theory… and a strange kind of aesthetic vision.

For me, a lot of what you of what you see, in say a John Coultrane.. is like.. just natural and obvious? Let me share with you two videos.. one with Coultrane playing, another with a critic talking about it.

In a certain sorta way you could kinda imagine critics talking about my work this way.. hope that doesn’t sound arrogant but..  

Now I’m not sure if Ben Ratliff totally gets it. See… composition is about “organization” of sound, and the framework for how we organize sound.. is the same sorta thing for how we organize facts into a conception of reality… and that’s sorta the implication of what Coltrane is doing… Thus a critics application of the terms of American Transcendentalism is… not really all that far fetched. [Editors note: The second critic quoted.. his “conversion story” has some relation to the earlier THX clip]

So if I tell you that I have a hard time thinking inside of conventual structure, that’s sorta what’s interesting in my work.. So here I am embarking on an adventure to.. think in conventional structure? I’m not totally sure about this, I think maybe its like.. that’s just the starting point.

So I’m obsessing on song writing.. thinking about song writing, or thinking about music making from a “song writers” perspective…..  

It’s so hard to know how to bring you in on this.

In a traditional structure there are lots of possibilities. (sub structural interest?)

Lets say you have a chord progression going on..  Now really, that chord progression could be anything.. but what we usually here is sorta limited… I mean were used to a fairly limited number of chord progressions. Once you have your chords progression, there is the question of how it gets voiced by the individual instruments… What’s guitar 1 play, what’s guitar 2 play, what’s the bass playing… Even if what we have going on is a simple riff… that riff can be interpreted different ways.. you could have two guitarists harmonizing the riff… or playing different parts of the chord.. and perhaps they don’t play it the same way twice.. 

Then you have the matter of how each instrument “interprets” the other instruments.. I mean screw the preconceived chord structure!  This where we are in some ways echoing Coultrane.. or Jazz..  This is especially doable in a metal context because… the guitars are generally not playing the 3rds.. So how is the vocal line to relate to the guitars?

Then you have.. well you have things like how one riff relates to the next… how the riffs are moving around.. In the particulars of how I’m working.. the consideration is generally.. where’s one riff starting and ending.. what’s the chord there.. and then if you look at that riff over all.. where is it hanging out most.. and how do these characteristics relate to the riff that came before? There’s also issues of how the energy works in a given riff.. contrasts in energy.. and a number of other things.

So all of this is kind of how I think about music generally.. when making it, but it’s different in that.. It’s like going from free verse poetry to poetry with a structure. What’s interesting about being forced to work inside a structure is.. you find your self spending more time refining things… as I write vocal lines I’m like “oh, no really, what’s the right word to put here?” 

There also is structural anarchy going on.. which in a certain way you could call the linguistic framework of the music. Or the anarchical aspects create the linguistic interest…

My Goal

My goal is to make something that is.. as good as anything I’ve ever heard before, at least. Good in the sense of.. how developed the details are, in the sense of the refinements of the song writing.. the composition… the mix. Beneath all of this there is the essential idea of what it is I’m doing.. the core of it.. and that… that I think is amazing.. and that’s one of the first things that hits me…. that’s one thing that is already in it.

I think it must be the anarchy speaking.. It must be my difficulty fitting in, in a certain way.. it must be how strange I am.. that that strangeness has been allowed to evolve for so long.. to have its own depths, its own maturity.. that it managed to escape the forces of socialization.. that we are seeing a kind of new animal before us.. one that lives within us all.. and it is like a call to becoming… a voice we have often heard before.. but perhaps did not have the courage to follow.

Creating the Mix and the Song at the same time:

The process is an experimental one.. one where the composition it’s self, at a certain point, is made to fit the mix, just as the mix is made to fit the music…. and the mix even is the music. So again.. I’m drawing from my experimental electronic music.

A we bit latter:

So let me wrap this up

For starters I’d say that I think this new direction in my music.. will correct certain problems I have with my work.. I’ll leave this at that.

Now I want to talk about Anxiety.

A little while ago I did a post entitled Death by Anxiety. It was a kind of strange post. It was strange in that it painted a picture of myself that was.. raw and naked and.. well what it was. After making that post, and the feedback I got on it.. I started to think of my self in different terms then I normally do. The people in the videos suffered from very bad anxiety.. and I both identified with them, and began to see the roll of anxiety in my life in a way that threatened my self concept. This then lead into a wrestling with the subject.. and it reached it’s worst point when I ran into my ATM trouble.

One of the things you run into thinking, or I did, was.. is anxiety an organic problem? Some sorta genetically inherited issue.. was it a mistake to blame my mom for it? Perhaps heavy metal is nothing but a kind of expression of anxiety? Or I mean about anxiety? What is anxiety?

Well you know I’m kind of a philosopher of the mind… and in my LSD like sleep deprived consciousness… I began to explore my mind in relationship to anxiety. Indeed the anxiety threatened to capsize me!

One of the things I notices was that anxiety seemed to be a “normal psychology” that relates to reality in “interesting ways.” Anxiety seemed to be a situation where the unconscious mind is participating in our organization of the details of life, of reality, and painting a picture for us. Reality is ALWAY this… as we experience it.. detached objectivity, though it is a modern ideal, is an illusion. Reality is ONLY experienced through the lens of consciousness. And so it is that anxiety is an adventure into our own depths.. with our depths expressing its self on the world around us, or through our experience of the world around us.

This is obvious enough stuff.. to any student of depth psychology… medication treatment is never about fundamentally changing the matter, its about living with it..  where as the natural way of the psyche is one of changing the matter. Indeed, it would seem that anxiety is actually a kind of advanced process of self evolution. We are confronted with the question of how do we relate to our own depths.. as this is projected in front of us. Our living in the world becomes about a psychological process / evolution.

I have a long held belief, a kind of presumption, that one’s psychological reality is always as it is for a reason. The existence of a psychological phenomenon is there to serve us, if we can just find the proper relationship to it.

As I stated earlier in this entry… there are things In my life that I’m having a hard time dealing with… It’s hard enough that I’m really only able to deal with so much of it at a time.. in a kind of direct experience. When the pressure of it builds up to a certain point.. it forces a confrontation. It can ether do this via a sorta psychological confrontation, or via reality.. by which I mean that the unfolding events of one’s life are direct manifestations of the inward realities, versus a projection onto our understanding of reality.. we are, after all, talking about the first stage here.

When I talk about composition as being about organizing factors that have a relationship to how we organize our understanding of reality.. and when I say my music is prophetic in the sense that I’m developing new organizational methods.. more advanced, I think, then what has come before.. my music, on a compositional level, is a way of dealing with all of this.

This is really deep and profound stuff.. 

Latter:

THX 1138 Revisted

THX 1138 is a dystopia… its is a kind of prophetic vision of our modern situation.. A few points

1. The power relationships relative to mental health, define what is a normal or not normal… and of course proscribe medication.. treatment that, as mentioned above.. is more about coping that dealing with the underlying problems. In THX it is law that we take medication, and when we stop taking it.. we become anxious
2. Consumption is the enforced behavioral norm in THX.. again leading to the behavior control.. the sense that everything is “A-Ok.” We see this in normative modes of being.. in our modern situation.

It’s really all about the power to define a thing. We are now used to –

Next day

I’m thinking this entry is long enough, and I ought to cut it short.. what I want to suggest is that there are connections between social control, anxiety, human potential, the structure of the psyche, collective evolution, and um.. so the symbolic significance of what I’m trying to do… has to do with how I’m relating to this complex of factors, and how my work does..  and we’ll leave this at this for now.

I’m in a crazy sleep deprived state, mind full of beats.. Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burrough’s beats… Passions and revolts drive madly through me.. I thought of a part to a poem earlier.. when I was less sleep deprived deranged… I wonder if I could remember it.

 

God is not man made

Not even  man is man made

perhaps this is why he is so miserable

in his modern world 

 

So what do you think? It’s just a fragment of something. There was other stuff I was thinking of putting with it, but those memories have faded.

I wonder what you could do with those words, can you imagine? You could have those lines repeating over and over again… drenched in effects; an ambient timber.. some sound painting.

Perhaps its just a fragment, just a couple riffs looking for more riffs, to be come a whole.

Perhaps these are words that should be surrounding by still silence.. little movement.

Perhaps these words are no good at all. 

My mind has gone off in so many tangents in this state… I’ve had so many dreams to write about.. reflections, attempts at self awareness… feeling like a moth who bangs his head upon the glass in search for the flame… Even if I and the fire are one.