September 2011
3 posts
“Bridges Burning”
– The new band has a name.
“But you have drunk with the idols
Their lies they consume you, they poison your...”
Thoughts on Guitar Amps
Back somewhere in the mid 90’s (not exactly sure which year anymore) I bought my first “real” guitar amp: a 40 watt Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Before that I had a couple of phenomenally crappy practice amps, including one creaky 10 watt solid state no-name craptone; covered in black indoor-outdoor carpet with knobs that all went up to “11”. I shit you not. Needless to...
July 2011
1 post
The Main Event
It struck me recently that I’m not waiting for my close-up anymore.
There is no more preparation needed. No more long period of dues paying. No more excuses that I can throw out: “oh I could pursue my dreams if only X were true”. X is true. All of the preconditions to accomplishment in my life have already been fulfilled. It’s time to man the fuck up.
Fascinatingly,...
June 2011
4 posts
SEIZE, my new album, on iTunes →
Finally Alive - preview from my upcoming album....
May 2011
5 posts
Album Update: It’s about 85% done....
I am no longer in denial.
I can tell because of how fucking angry I am.
Mystery
If there’s one thing in life I’m absolutely sure of, it’s how precious little we humans beings actually know. We can’t even quantify how little we know, but I’m willing to bet it’s somewhere between ridiculously little, and unbelievably cosmically little. Orders of magnitude of jack shit.
To me, this makes the unknown, a.k.a. mystery, the most central of all...
Gearhead - Reeves Custom 10HG
So I picked up the Reeves amp I could afford - the Custom 10HG. Reeves is named after Dave Reeves, the guy who made the original Hiwatts. Think of Pete Townsand. That’s what they’re about.
The Custom 10 HG (“High Gain”) is what’s called a single-ended Class A design. Class A amps include the aforementioned Hiwatts and Vox - so it’s a subspecies of the...
On Tuesday, I’ll be 41, which will pop me out the top of a lot of women’s accepted age ranges on OKCupid.
It’s okay, girls. I’ll just date your boss instead.
April 2011
1 post
Not What I Expected - Middle Aged Dating
Warning: this is one of those rare “Loren’s personal life” posts, so if you just want to think of me as a tech/music guy, you should skip this one. You’ve been warned.
So.
I recent-ish-ly became full-blown single (preceded by about a year of “it’s complicated”). For the first time in 10 years.
In two weeks I’ll be 41.
I’ve been very...
March 2011
5 posts
“Antimatter City”, from my upcoming...
Recording Rig (and a little history)
A couple of people have asked me about how my studio is set up. Generally speaking I’ve sort of thought this is the most boring stuff in the world (except to me) so I’ve never really gone into it, but for anyone who’s interested - here’s the thought processes behind my set up.
Background
First a quick bit of background: for what it’s worth, I am a trained audio...
This is “Before You” the first track...
Same song. Different mix. See if you can tell...
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever started a...
January 2011
2 posts
A Rumble in the Skin
Never with more certainty
Did I feel you lift my wings
This is the end of everything
That has passed before
I have spoke the tongues of man
But I’m no longer in your hands
And I have reason to demand
The fire that scorched clean
Never asked for anything
In my heart you'll never see
The secrets that I've kept here
All along
I’m a window to the past
I’m the future long...
Fast Forward
Would love to just jump ahead a couple of months. Where the hell is that fast forward button?
October 2010
1 post
The Unadulterated Awesomeness That is Vinyl
Seriously, some of the most transformative moments of my life have been just me and a record player. It’s like a mainline into the cosmic.
Soon it’s going to be just me and the record player. Yes, that’s intentionally ambiguous, but don’t worry: it’s all good. I’m looking forward to it.
I need to reduce the noise and increase the signal. Reduce to only...
September 2010
1 post
The moment
When did we turn the corner? It was a moment so small that it was difficult to see, and almost impossible to remember. There was simply the way things were before, and the way they were after: a hard phase-shift from one life to another. And when it’s over, it seems obvious and inevitable, as if no other outcome could have ever been a possibility.
August 2010
1 post
First release: "redshift" →
First stop in the Release Project, “redshift”. This music was originally written for what was intended to be a long distance collaboration with members of my band from the 90’s, Blue Shift. However, for various reasons it didn’t work out, so I was left with a pile of music.
After years of writing “simple”, I unabashedly turned the complexity dial up and down...
June 2010
3 posts
The Release Project
I suck at finishing things. I’m not sure if its because I get bored of the project I’m working on by the end of it (my mind leaping ahead to the next project), or if I’m afraid of being judged. In any case, I tend to take things to 99% and wind up not quite dealing with the last 1%. I really dislike the last 1%.
So in the case of music, where no one is compelling me to...
Kill My TV? It's Dead to Me Already.
It’s taking itself out.
BSG done. Lost done. The Tudors, done in one episode.
Doctor Who is the only show I remotely give a crap about, and the BBC decides to lag the US release of the shows. Gosh, I heard somewhere there’s a veritable army of UK citizens uploading it in almost real time to Bittorrent, but of course I wouldn’t know anything about that myself.
Honestly...
WatchSometimes it’s the little things.
May 2010
2 posts
Before You
Just wrote lyrics into an iPhone. First time for anything other than paper for me.
Here they are:
It’s come to the point where we can no longer paper over it.
Everyone stop and see: spilling out the molten core of it.
Changes always come when you can no longer stand yourself.
Strangely I’m now at ease. Lost in the stormy cathartic.
Might have been a sailor, lost across the...
March 2010
4 posts
I am summoning a shit storm, and I can’t seem to stop.
Self Image
(warning; half baked philosophy follows)
I’ve decided that a lot of what most people term “morality” comes down to self image for me. Not the cataclysmic level stuff (murder and such) but rather the mostly non-illegal transgressions against others and social norms. I do or do not do things not because I have some sense of an externally imposed sense of right or wrong, but rather because I...
1 tag
Installment
This is the time of year where the pollen starts to affect my brain, causing, amongst other more mundane effects, me to dream fantastic hallucinatory crazy shit.
Last night’s panorama was a piece of (terribly clever, it seemed at the time) installation art. Basically it was a circle of towering beige boxes that people would interact with, each machine cleverly designed to install...
Off The Grid
Guess what? I quit my job last week to start my own company. There’s now a very small distance between my ability to make stuff and sell it to folks, and me paying my mortgage.
About 3pm every day I start to freak out. The reality that I’ve blown away the (admittedly artificial) construct of the “job” and its illusion of stability and am now staring naked into the abyss...
February 2010
1 post
You've Already Made Your Decision. Now You're Just...
Over the last two weeks I lept into the void. It was amazing how binary the entire experience was - and I can’t be quite specific yet about what’s about to happen - but life will be marked by the “before” and “after” of this moment.
I’ve mentally rehearsed this moment for maybe a year or so, and wanted it for years before that. Now its up to me to make...
January 2010
1 post
“Roses are red, I made up the rest,
If you’ve got some big fucking secret,...”
– Perry Farrell
November 2009
1 post
Starting new track: “Collision...
October 2009
2 posts
Collision Avoidance
So on Friday I flew back from a beautiful day in San Francisco to a really crappy night here in New York. After holding pattern for 45 minutes off Long Island, we came in for a landing. The pilot announced that we were entering “final approach” and told the flight crew to be seated.
Then, at about 1500 feet, our engines suddenly rev’ed and the plane went into a sharp climb. ...
September 2009
1 post
Time
More than ever, I’ve come to regard time as my scarcest resource. This is new, because there was once a point where I had lots of time. In fact I was pretty good at amusing myself.
Having no time means that people want your time. And isn’t that the problem we want? Someone’s time is really a proxy for getting them to do something for another. As social animals we’re...
August 2009
8 posts
1 tag
Hopefully there will be no trace of this on Twitter.
There is a place where my mind goes where my capacity to put up with bullshit fails along with my desire to contain chaos. That is a dangerous place, indeed.
Santa Fe
By my count this is the fourth time I’ve been here, and I am starting to get a rough sense of where everything is now.
New Mexico, especially this part of it, is more complicated than many people know. It has all the collision of different folks that I require in order to associate with a place, but there is also an strange underlying calm here.
It’s not a calm that signifies an...
July 2009
2 posts
New Paltz
I got out of the city this weekend and made it up to New Paltz, which is a nice upstate town with a kind of hippyish undercurrent. (And a giant hunting lodge thing out of the 20’s called the Mohunk, but never mind about that…)
I’m increasingly concerned about how I’m seeing New York stereotypes play out on my own psyche: the neuroses, the aggression, the crazy,...
June 2009
1 post
More work on Singularity. I want to lay down...