The title of this post is a very valid and frequent question I get when someone sees my studio filled with synths and wires and steps over piles of power supplies, drum machines, stomp boxes and more. The answer is a big more complex but could be simplified into the short answer, "I make music with it". You can blame my Jr High School music teacher, Charles Terry, for introducing me to the very first synthesizer I saw in real life (an Arp Odysessy) and defining music as "Any Meaningfully Organized Pattern of Sound". Seriously, he was THAT cool and it just goes to show some things from your school days do stick with you. I recently had the opportunity to attend the annual Musicology conference which was held in Philadelphia (my hometown) this year. One of the speakers played a clip of an interview she did with one of the pioneers of Detroit techno where he stated rather than worry or think about genres or types of music (House, Acid, Techno, etc) he just "made music" and put it out adding, "I leave the labeling to others". My musical background both in appreciation and in training is diverse. I suppose that combined with seeing artists from all media who have always made their own path influenced me to never really do the same thing twice and to not pay much attention to where it would "fit". A short list of such artists would include Charles Ives, Chuck Close, Brian Eno, Controlled Bleeding, Hal Hartley, Joe Jackson, Louis Armstrong, and Reed Ghazala.
I founded HelpWantedProductions.com in the early 90s as a vehicle to put out cassettes and do shows of my then new interest in electronic music. I released tapes, CDs, and eventually downloads and played hundreds of shows of everything from Ambient, Industrial, Power Electronics, Dark Synth, Techno, Handheld and 8bit, Indie Rock, and about a dozen other genres all of which really don't convey what the music is. Some is played with guitar and bass, other has DIY soldered noise boxes, analog or digital synths, drum machines, and theremins. All of it, as diverse as it is, comes from the same place. I have music on other labels and compilation CDs as well as various online sites and have collaborated with other artists, festivals, and frequently play as a band member in a few friend's projects doing everything from keyboards and bass to vocals and Omnichord. All the piles'o'gear come in handy but when it comes down to it I grab a few pieces and just go with them either solo or with others and make music.
As you may have noticed this post is liberally sprinkled with links to streaming and downloadable files. This year I decided to come into the 21st century and create a page with much of the HelpWantedProductions.com back catalog. Not everything is up but more will be added. For now there are XOXBOX live sets, Modular synth sets (including This One of my large ModcanA system which has been written about on this blog), Guitar Synth and ACID music
albums, and more.
All tracks are free to stream and most are a name-your-own-price system. It's not the full picture and as you can tell by this blog hardly the end of all this. But to answer those that wonder "what do you DO with all that gear?" it will do for now.
Listen On!
No comments:
Post a Comment