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WRITTEN IN THE 90'S:Most of the 'ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC' music on this site I wrote over the
course of 38 years. Some of it, well maybe most of it, is laughable. That's ok.
Laughing is a good thing. So laugh, I can take it, I think. Laugh at my psycho-eclecticism and funny phases. They were for the most part, honest attempts at claiming the psychic sound nebuli in my mind heart and soul at the time. When I first started composition
in college I wrote a number of homages to Jimi Hendrix using my favorite themes
and rhythms of his. As I expanded and entered the realms of "serious art
music" I wrote pieces based on other sonic properties and tonalities, even
12 tone and quartal harmony combined. Most of my early songs were basically diatonic, sticking within a given key and
it's related major or minor.
When I moved out to the hi-desert I found, as you would expect, a pretty
conservative crowd who weren't really interested in the noiseicianship skills
I had developed from my years of living in LA. I did one coffeehouse show
with the Acoustisizer, tape loops, sythns etc. and people
got up and left. ok, alright, so much for Industrial Music (sob sob, one of my favorite genres). People in JT coffeehouses in the early 90's wanted their audio wall-paper simple, slow, low impact. Caffeine injestive friendly. So, I started playing a variety of Beatle, Jimi Hendrix, Blind Faith, and a host of other's songs for about a year until I couldn't take it any more! finally i started useing the Beatle songs etc. to vent my frustration by rewriting the words, adding a dissonant factor to the piano accompaniment and emphasizing the primal groove
factor repeated over and over Fill-up-Glassingly-trance-migrationally. The response was so-so. Now a new problem emerged. I had changed the words to address my environmental concerns mostly and the performance was kinda scarey-over-passionate at times, but worst of all i came off sorta
rubbing stinky doo-doo eco-selfrightiousness in the audience's face. So I added a humor component and self effacement, and laughed whenever possible at my pathetic self. People started reacting much more favorably. I figured out the balance between serious songs like: My Planets Wasted And I Can't Find My Way Home (Blind Faith treatment) with My Black Moles Gone (comical Sound Garden Black Hole Sun treatment). This was kind of a break through for me: humorous PSA songs and songs advertising Great Books and 'Rhinestone Kitty Collars to WARN Away The Birds'. I even adapted old songs to fit this idea. When I first wrote Destruction Has No Memory I hadn't intended for it to become a commercial for a great book In The Absence Of The Sacred, but it just
seemed to work. WRITTEN 2009: Recently i retired most of my ecomaniac
material since Al Gore's "Inconnvient Truth" came out. I think the human soul can only process and tolerate so much planet
saddness cramed in it's face. These days I spend most of my music time in the moment improvising with no goal, no ajenda, following a feeling trail, up and down, in and out, colors of self love, self hate, self doubt..in a snorkel and a mask in a gallery of under water colors. MARCH 2010: Recently I was given a BEAUTIFUL "Media Fusion" piece entitled: "BOBBY'S CD COVER" by a local artist and friend Robyn Goudy. The piece kinda woke me up to realize that if I carry on at the piano the way I have been for the last few months that soon all those songs that I've retired will be lost so thanks to Robyn I will be recording them soon and possilby making them available. Then I can get back to guilt free mindless improvisations (i hope). |