A Simple First Post to Lower the Stakes
I dream of posting here consistently, and the only way that happens is if I lower the stakes.
I intend to use this blog as part of a homepage I'm developing where I'll document the projects I'm working on making music, or making tools to make music.
This week I played my first show as a member of Tank Man, a duo collaboration with my friend Ted. Ted's been using the Tank Man alias for years to make all manner of fractured folk music. I've joined the band on synth and electronics. My primary role so far is to live process what Ted is doing on guitar and voice and to create washes of noise, pulsing little loops, and so on. Our collaborations are all improvised all the way down to the "songs" themselves which Ted often makes up on the spot, changes, lyrics, and all (I have no idea how he does this).
It's been very exciting to collaborate and improvise with someone over the last few months. I feel like I've grown not only as a co-improviser, but also in my capacity to play my own instrument in a responsive way. That's not always easy to do using a Eurorack set up into a looper. It's a rig that sometimes feels like trying to steer a heavy truck with an unresponsive wheel, so getting closer and closer to a place where I can zip it around feels like an accomplishment.