Four new(ish) hip-hop albums

Last year was loaded with epochal, state-of-the-nation hip-hop albums. Natch, this year is off to a somewhat less ambitious start. I won’t say slower necessarily, although I do realize that now that the novelty has worn off, both the new Kanye and Kendrick feel like leftovertures. Really good, entertaining leftovertures, but leftovertures nonetheless; they’re attempts […]

What I got

Lovin’. Lovin’ is what I got. Also I got a bunch of quasicompleted semirecorded tracks. More than I can shake a stick at; then again, I’ve never been one of those wide-arc stick shakers. I’ll leave that sort of thing to the medicine men. At the moment, the Glyph drive to my immediate left contains nine new […]

MS2000 is the tool

Some people like fancy sportscars and slick telephony devices. I like my synthesizer. And while I have had many synths over the years — including a brand spanking new Moog Sub 37 that you’ll be hearing from — there’s only one I could possibly call my true love. That’s the Korg MS2000 that I got […]

More

So I wrote some more songs. I didn’t stop with the bunch I came up with in 2015; I’ve continued on in 2016. More cities, more narrators, more observations about America. For instance, we went to spring training in Arizona and caught the Giants at Scottsdale Stadium, and a few days later I woke up with a […]

The cleanup hitter

Me ‘n’ Steven differ on many subjects, including cycling, otters, and the proper condimento to heap on top of a plate of linguine. Yet there is one thing on which we always agree, and that thing is: power ballads. We love them. Many are the mediocre albums we’ve sifted through just to locate the big, cheesy fist-pumper to play and replay. I […]

a.k.a. Pablo

As you probably know by now, Kanye West has a new project called The Life Of Pablo. Chances are good that you also know that the publication of The Life Of Pablo has been unorthodox. After months of delays, an initial version of Pablo was either leaked or released — it’s hard to tell — […]

a.k.a. Pablo, continued

In the early days of the Internet, nobody knew exactly how to write on these digital walls, so by and large we scribbled graffiti up here — sometimes of monstrous dimensions — and hoped for the best. This was wonderful, in my opinion: early Internet was wild, and irresponsible, and full of overwriting and formal […]

A few bits of community news

Patrick Hambrecht of Flaming Fire dropped me a line about an electronic music festival that’s happening this weekend over on West Side Avenue. Apparently Patrick and Michael Durek — who you might know as an ace theremin guy — have been doing these events for awhile now, and I guess I’ve been too busy playing […]

Almanac Page Two

“To write about one’s own country is the most problematic form of autobiography. The knowledge one accumulates of one’s homeland, like the knowledge of one’s self, is so varied and complex, so objective and subjective at every turn, that one interpretation soon gives way to another. In the end, for all the careful notes and no […]

Almanac Page One

If you are reading this, there’s a good chance that you already know most of what I’m about to write. But on this big Internet there is still a chance that a stranger will darken the digital doorway, and if that’s you, I’m happy to have you here. My name is Tris, and I am […]