as the days go by i think less about music and more about the architecture of sound in a multidimensional space stretched over a period of time. when i look at sound as if it were a series of structures, modules, blocks, forms, then i begin to see more clearly how it all fits together and more importantly, why. for me now, making music sound beautiful is as important as making it look beautiful. as art should make you listen, music should make you see. that was just a thought i had recently come to, i thought i might share it with you all. have a good night.

A song for wretched times.

i have a new music page to go in tandem with this one. this site is for updates both personal and musical and my new virb account is strictly for musical output. if you would like you can find me here http://virb.com/270017783038247

i miss berlin already. all the friends i made all the times i had and things that i would have otherwise never seen, i miss. it was the last time i felt alive. i wish i never left...

was passiert?

"oh why dear god. thanks for asking."
where to start.
the last week has been a bit less tame than my last posts would have not so eloquently explained. it's not that watching drunken turkish men on the u bahn right next to you at 4.30 am, watching grown men making love on the sidewalk (one of them was homeless), seeing a congregation of prostitutes hang out right next to the most ritzy politicains cafe in berlin, watching more prostitutes smoke crack on the street corner in frankfurt, putting up with an even higher concentration of american pop music or getting tickets for things that i did not know about have marred my opinion of this place, but it has definetly opened my eyes. i still love this place, the people are top notch and i have met some very interesting and diverse people from around europe and the world alike. one thing that i have always been fearful of is a lack of stability and the fear of not knowing what will happen next. well here i am, in frankfurt, i just got dropped off by some french guys i met in the hostel i was staying at in berlin. the drive was cramped but enjoyable. going down the autobahn at 200+ km/h is a slightly unnerving experience but enjoyable the the inner speed demon none the less. anyways, when i got dropped off i was supposed to meet up with a friend i had met in berlin and stay at her place here in frankfurt for a few nights. that fell through as she had a last minute family responisbility to tend to. oh well. so i went on the search for a hostel. the interesting thing about the economic capital of germany is that although it is a city of only 700 hundred thousand it feels as if it is vastly more expansive than denver. another curious finding is that this place is home a vast strip mall, or shall i say section of the city, that houses an expanse
of strip clubs and porn video stores that rival the netflix catatlogue in the extent of their 'diverse' selection. this place is truly incredible, not in a sense that would keep me coming back for more but in the way that it is incredible to see how ruled people are by fulfilling sexual fantasy. in this way a german is no different from an american. as i walked around the corner, away from this human tragedy, i bumped into a woman. it took me a second to realize that she was the type that was 'for sale'. more interesting still were the circumstances which undoubtedly led her to this profession. after this realization there was a moment of reconciliation followed quickly by pity and quickly after that an interest in what circumstances a person must go through to end up with a 'job' like this. that was all before i looked down to one of the others that was with her. that 'other' was lighting up a fresh rock of crack in something that looked like it had been fahioned from all manners of things not originally intended for such use. undoubtedly the chemicals in this malfashioned pipe were enough to fuck one out of his/ her gord and lose a few brain cells while they were at it. it was sad really but i feel as if the city has already hardened me a bit and forced me into a different form of seclusion than i have previously experimented with. so my pity for her was one of a flighty nature and i thought nothing of it. 10 meters down the road from this debacle i saw another hostel, the one i now sit in consuming a conservative amount of sub par italian attempts at pilsner, i asked the concierge if there were any rooms available but as expected there were none. so here i sit. until morning when i can call benny to come and get me or at least give me directions to his place. in the mean time i am having a moral quandry. whether to cry or laugh. a drunk american girl across the room is speaking far above a volume that would be considered necessary in such a small and inhospitible room as this. she is speaking to some man of whatever nationality about american politics. she has been mentioning 'islamics' all night and how all americans think that 'islamics' are terrorists. i think that personally her lack of genetic diversity is the real terrorism here as it seems to be spawning and simultaneously spewing the most vile and unrationalized viewpoints i have witnessed since, well sadly enough, a week and a half ago in america. time for another beer. moment bitte. alright. i spoke earlier of a discomfort or dare i say fear i have of uncertainty. i do think that on some levels this trip has been good for me in that respect. i intentionally planned (ironically i planned nothing) to go with the flow. this was a struggle between the always quarreling 2 halves of my brain. one side says be careful play it safe and you will be ok. the other half says well, if you want to learn anything about yourself or the world around you then you must first put yourself in a position of discomfort in order to induce growth. i still feel uneasy, but also i feel more free than i can recollect ever having been in the entirety of my life. i think in this point in my life this is a more important thing for me to seek out. if i planned everything, going on guided tours, seeing all the 'great' things of these cities, i think that i would be missing an integral part of these places. for instance i found the best record shop of my life, ever, i mean it, down a dark alley way. it was filled with all minimalistic music. seeing a wall of subs there that would rival the valve sound system didn't hurt either. in these cities especially you must overcome your fears and go into places that do not look hospitible to find the best spots. the city is filled with them, and interesting people aswell. i believe that the anomaly of these people are nothing that one cannot find in a city at home but i do find something so much more alluring about finding these things in places where i feel more uprooted. in many ways it has created this subconcious sense of desperation for close connection. but this was needed aswell. enough of my senseless banter i think that you all may be more interested in the pictures anyways.












shooting this picture was the only time i have ever felt like i was going to get mugged in berlin.










i only have records 4 & 8 to go before i have the entire afx analord series. i even have the really rare picture disc that is #10 that you can see in the upper right of the photo. not to mention i also have almost if not 1/4 of the entire sahko collection. an incredible finnish record company that should have gotten more respect than it did while it was around.
tschus.

the second day.

i thought that this was an interesting piece of architecture to see in berlin especially for an enterance to an aquarium.

I took this pic after i left the kadewe yesterday. that place takes any mall or store you have ever been in and shows it up without lifting a finger. the place is pretty amazing.

As you can see the phenomena of shitty car decals on shitty cars has liberated itself from the confines of the western hemisphere. it has now spread its vile nature to western europe. i am sure the flames are there to show how speedy and masculine this car is. the tribal dragon is obviously to show that this car has superceded the confines of cylinders and has moved on to dragon power. oh yeah now who doesn't want some of that! i was supposed to go clubbing last night but i was so tired that i passed out before the night even began. i guess i must have stood up some of my new found aquaintances. it was probably not the most socially acceptable thing for me to do but necessary none the less. tonight though i will go out and see the night life, or experience it rather. oh yeah and i found a espresso shop that is completely me to a T. they roast and they pour shots the old way by actually pulling them manually. really good pastries too. it is under an s- bahn so it can get loud sometimes but the atmosphere is so cool that it doesn't matter. being out here has really rekindled my love for straight espresso, mostly because it is so good out here that i can't help but drink it. that is all for now. tschus.

first day in berlin.

wow. ok. ummm. well there are a lot of things to be said for this city. a lot of things. i went to bed at about 3 in the afternoon germany time and woke up at about 3 in the morning. the further and further through the night you go here in berlin the better and more interesting it gets. the new camera works great although i couldn't get a good shot from it tonight as it was raining and i couldn't get the settings right but i am coming to grips with it. so thanks to my mother, mark, mark and jen for that wonderful gift. i went to a record store yesterday. it sits right in the city's center, across the plaza from the kizer wilmhelm II kirche. a beautiful place. not just for the records but also for the view and the blatantcy of berlin's history, as a side note the church still has it's top half blown clean off from the war, but it still shines with it's own form of nostalgic beauty. i ate lunch at this croatian diner today that was exactly what i wish was in fort collins. it was a sort of upscale crown pub but smaller. the owner ended up chatting with me for a while and had me try their slivovica, i believe it was mostly because he was impressed that an american would know about it. that being said the lunch of sauteed green beans smothered in red vinegar with bread, pilsner and slivovica was a wonderful and muchly needed experience on my trip. more tomorrow.

i found a old mix, from a party at a friends house. hopefully james still has it. it is probably crap but the table was wobbly and drunk people don't know where they are going, and run into things. i will see if i can get it up for you all in a few days. i bought a machinedrum too. goodbye social life.

thanks to all that supported me at rock the decks. i fell short of the final round by 1/2 of a point. playing for a crowd with the occasional familiar face is truly a comforting thing for me. please don't cease to support me. thank you.

james (the best room mate ever)
jen (goes without saying)
ian d.
ian g.
rob
anna
johnathan
danae
rachel (the other woman in my life)
trevor
robert elderidge (for the inspiring words, god i hope you won it man.)
sam (for the pix)
nick (for helping me find the lowest of the low in dance music)
claire


i know i missed some of you. sorry.

thanks again.
grae.

fucking oversized images. sorry all.

thanks jenner. you are the best flyer maker ever! (and a damn good girlfriend too.)

note to self/ self affirmation...
never ever play top 40 again, under any circumstance, ever.

i am so proud of myself. i did my first live pa tonight. i fucked up a whole bunch but laughed it off for the most part. it was a blast. that is all...

well i don't know what to say but i will try to bring forth a few things that have been on my mind as of late. i stayed up until 5 in the morning last night working on the fibonacci sequence. i did get a few musical ideas from that, hopefully they work out... hopefully. while the room mates were off at play in the middle of the desert last week i was hard at work on some new music. i am not happy with it, but at least i was able to apply myself and get some more practice under my belt. i think that there are some elements and ideas that i may make good use of in future productions though, so maybe not quite so fruitless afterall. i am getting a nice shiny new audio interface here in a few weeks time. mmm. lovely motu ultralite. i will finally be able to start some live performance stuff, well attempt at least. ummm... i am lost for words now, its late i need to go to bed. thanks for listening.

i got comissioned to do a track for the foundry, a local artist commune that is just starting up. i think i know what i will do but i can't get it to work out properly. i seem to have an increasingly growing void in my brain between what i hear in my head and what actually comes out, i guess i just need a break. it would probably be a good thing since i havn't taken much of a break for the last few days. i have a lot to do these days. between work, music and a rapidly fading social life i have little time to sleep and eat or do anything that would aid in my health both mentally and physically. but with more work and music is comes a lot of improvement both in my pocket book and my abilities in the production realm. i decided that now would be a good time for me to start pushing my live performance down to denver. fort collins no longer holds what i am looking for. there is a lot more oppritunity for me down in the big city than here in town. winter will be back in full force here in a few months, a good thing, it will allow for more time to be dedicated to locking myself in the dungeon and focusing on music. the weather is always condusive to creativity for me anyways, so i look forward to the dead of winter. until then i shall milk what little of a social life i have for all it is worth.

just a check in here... wait a minute, let me change the music, shpongle makes me write really wierd... heh well i changed it to sheet one, not much better as far as getting points across in a more normal way. anyways. music is going well for me, i got another track on the way but as usual it takes me for fucking ever to get one finished. i usually wake up the morning after and feel like throwing the computer out the window because i can't believe that i spent my entire night working on something that i thought was so good only to listen to it again and realize what crap it really is. maybe i should start saving tracks or refusing to get mad at them and keep working with them until i am happy with them. it is probably better for my sanity and pocketbook since destroying a mac is a pricey endeavour. i am happy with this one though, i think that i may be onto something here, well i havn't gotten really mad at it yet and deleted it from my harddrive so i will take that as a blessing. i am moving the day after tomorrow into a new house that should be really condusive to me working more on music. this is good. it is wierd to be of one mind all day every day. i am always innondated with music in one way or another; making, listening, spinning, thinking, all about music, no time for anything else. it makes me feel like a confucianist sometimes. i do however continue to work dilligently as i realize that the only way for me to ever become less dissatisfied in what i make is to work more and more on it. it is slow progress, i guess that is good due to its steadiness but instant gratification is always nice. i guess i am not going to get that here. sorry that it has taken so long to get some music up on here for you all, i am a horrible procrastinator and forget things easily. i swear i will have some stuff as soon as i can. i have been undergoing gear lust lately. good for the fetish bad for rent money. i don't know where else to take this right now so i will cease here. ahoj.

Commandeering old town would be fun. i had this thought today while i was surfing the net. i saw some dutch dj's and producers just set up a stand with a big pa right in a park. i was thinking that it might not be too hard to get a slot for a saturday all day fest of dj's and maybe get algiers to set up a stand too. just a thought. i figured that i might want to post up another blog since i don't want to stop keeping you all up to date. what do you think? might be fun, eh?

hi.
expect a new mix to be up in the next week or so. just the usual minimal nonesuch...