Well, this is strange... It seems like everyone is always looking for an opportunity to talk about themselves, and yet here I am faced with filling out an 'About Me' section when it dawns on me how weird it is to try to condense who I am into a few paragraphs. Doesn't it take a lifetime to figure out who you really are? I do NOT want to spend that long on writing my MySpace page.
So OK, lets start with the basics. I design hot air balloons for the government..... OK, no I don't. I don't think anyone does, not since the 1850's.
So lets do this for real. I am a musician. Music, playing it, listening to it, overanalyzing it (sometimes to the point of destroying it for myself), arguing about it and so on has pretty much been my main interest since I was a kid. However music isn't my day job. Perhaps that's a testament to my unwillingness to compromise my musical integrity and creative vision, but more likely its just cause I'm not willing to sacrifice having a comfy lifestyle :) So during my work week I actually head up operations for a small US branch of a large European company. I like my job, but think of it as just a job. I do have something of an entrepreneurial spirit though, so I'm also working on a business of my own. But that's in the real early stages at this point.
Enough of the boring stuff, lets get back to music....
I'm obsessed with sound. I think that may be the best way of putting it. I can spend hours working out the details of a certain guitar tone. The more organic the better. I feel that the quality of actual sound (even if its just noise) plays a great part in creating atmosphere, and atmosphere may really be my chief music interest. You know how sometimes a piece of music can just draw you in and sort of create a mood of its own, a sort of musical landscape to the point where it feels like the music has colors and shapes? The word atmosphere may even be a little misleading because some people associate it with a mellow atmosphere, when indeed it times it can mean pure sonic aggression. The full range of atmosphere really peeks my interests, though my style seems to often have a nod towards the eerie. However I don't like to get too abstract because its very easy to get self-indulgent with this sort of thing. The trick is balance and subtlety. Injecting atmosphere into a more accessible musical context. I grew up on punk rock and can really appreciate that sort of musical simplicity as well. I like contradictions, finding middle ground in them, balancing them and creating something new. I've never had much interest in just playing the same old thing.
I have a pretty well equipped 'project studio'. This is where I spend most of my time. This is where most of my toys live. I'm a huge music gear junkie so I have tons of guitars, amps and all sorts of other fun things. Its pretty easy for me to lose myself in there and at times weeks will go by with me just tweaking out some guitar effects settings and creating a few new noises. Still I find this a lot of fun so I don't mind it at all.
CycleThory, a work in progress