It's 6am. It's dark and cold outside. Perfect time to update the website!
Well, autumn of 2017 has nearly passed, and I can look behind me at a beautiful mountain of work. I mastered songs/EPs/albums by French artist Julia Palombe, The Tins, Professor Rhythm, Benjamin Lee / Bass Pair, and a new recording by Ethiopian synth genius Hailu Mergia, plus a stack of others I can't quite talk about yet.
I started teaching History of Music Production at SAE/Expression College, and love the intellectual and creative challenge of speaking with authority on everything from acoustical recording onto wax cylinder to the invention of the DAW, from the mania of Phil Spector productions to how Grimes makes a record, from Nashville in the 1950s to a house party on Sedgwick Ave in the Bronx in 1973.
In October, I traveled to NYC for the AES Convention. It was my first time back in my former hometown since I moved West in 2015. Oh, the heartstrings! I fell right back into the rhythm of the city and experienced intense sonic flashbacks - the sounds of stepping on cellar grates, the melodic whine of the subway rounding particular corners, the thrum of jackhammers, traffic, music seeping out of stores and restaurants. I walked along Crosby Street, now nearly unrecognizable to me, past the graffiti-covered heavy metal door to the Magic Shop, flashbacks of trying to lift that grate in the grips of winter, flashbacks of all the music made in that place.
I was so happy to reunite with my former boss, the Magic Shop's Steve Rosenthal, and get a tour of his new studios, MARS, in Dumbo. I got to hear Wally de Backer / Gotye perform the music of Jean-Jacques Perrey on a meticulously restored Ondioline, hang with my dear friend and mentor Sarah Register at the Tape Op booth, and record a pilot podcast episode with another good friend, Arbo Radiko's Jocelyn Arem.
And when the conference and social hangs ended, I slipped into the Union Square cinema and watched Blade Runner 2049 by myself, then retreated to the time capsule of a Tribeca loft where I was crashing and slept a few hours before my early morning flight back to California.
Ah, I miss you, New York City, but I'm a Californian now.
Up next, I actually spend a little time thinking about the musical moments that moved me most in 2017.