I play, I listen. Below is a brief musical autobiography for those who care.

I have played bass since I was 10. I studied upright in public school. I play electric now, until I can find the time to take enough lessons to get my upright skills back together. I used to be able to sightread and since my early 20s had a backup plan of going to work as a session musician for Muzak if the academia thing didn’t work out (this was a better backup plan when they had a Seattle headquarters). I’m more about melody, feel and cool sounds than about speed or “chops.” I strum chords, tweak harmonics, routinely change my tunings, and run my bass through lots of signal processing equipment. At different times I’ve played fretted and fretless, and I keep an acoustic bass guitar (now tuned ADGC) for noodling around at home. I have a weak spot for distortion pedals. I also mess around with a pitch-only theremin, a tenor ukulele, an acoustic guitar, and a didgeridoo. I’m not very good at any of them, though I have recorded a theremin solo.

I was in bands continuously from age 16 to age 34, though I’ve been on hiatus since arriving in Montreal, a situation I intend to rectify as soon as practical. I have had a few other projects with friends in the meantime including an instructional audio tape for being born.

My “current” band is called lo-boy (no relation to the two rap acts of the same name; we had it first, though I’m sure someone had it before us). We released one album (now available online) and recorded a second one. We recorded ourselves, in my Pittsburgh basement. The second one has been “almost done” since 2006, and one day will be released, or at least posted online.

I joined the “home studio revolution” in 1998, purchasing a 1st generation MOTU 2408 audio interface and a Macintosh G3/300. While in grad school I took a night class in recording through Parkland College. Mark Rubel, who taught the course and runs Pogo Studio in Champaign, Illinois, was my recording mentor. Many hours of messing around later, I can get decent sounds and can legitimately call my setup a studio.

Of course I’m also into the intellectual side of recording culture, and have been an avid reader and occasional reviewer for Tape Op. I also conducted two interviews with the intent of publishing them in the ‘zine, but never cut them down enough to be included. They are now available in the left column, for history’s sake.

And of course I listen. I used to keep a list of bands I like here but I haven’t successfully updated it since 2002, so that’s a sign to try a simpler approach. I listen like a musician, which means that I rarely know the words to songs, even songs that I like, and do terribly at karaoke. Music trumps lyrics for me every time. I’m fond of good production, or at least creative use of the studio and take that over any attempt at “authenticity” any day.

Some genres I like:
indyrock and its million subgenres
trip-hop
instrumental hip hop and conceptual DJ music
ambient
dub and derivatives like dubstep
classic jazz (really the only “acoustic” music to which I regularly listen)
metal
electronica (or rather some subgenres thereof)