Dirty Heads (Huntington Beach)

Much of experience seems to be treading water. The LSD. The Psilocybin. DMT. Factories for mind management rotating motors, cogs combusting and moving wheels. Lennon once said,

“If the Beatles or the Sixties had a message, it was to learn to swim. Period. And once you learn to swim, swim. The people who are hung up on the Beatles’ and the Sixties’ dream missed the whole point when the Beatles’ and the Sixties’ dream became the point. Carrying the Beatles’ or the Sixties’ dream around all your life is like carrying the Second World War and Glenn Miller around. That’s not to say you can’t enjoy Glenn Miller or the Beatles, but to live in that dream is the twilight zone. It’s not living now. It’s an illusion.”

Yet we backpedal over The Beatles as individuals because only a few ever learn to swim. We idolize and enshrine those people when it is the music itself that is the product of swimming. You don’t swim for yourself or to reach a destination; there is none. You swim for the music, for the people, to show others how. We all drown in the end so swim now.

Frank Ocean

Some of the Los Angeles based musical influences I was surrounded with in her hazy twilight were Frank Ocean, Dirty Heads, Tyler the Creator, Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre. Producing hip hop for Eli has led me to examine a lot of popular Hip Hop and contrast it with a deeper understanding of older rap and Rn’B. I’m not sure which, if any, of these artists I’ll hear in our music when it is finished in the coming weeks but what I did notice is how much of an effect working with another producer had on my knowledge of production, audio quality and use of Logic Pro X. Perhaps if I were to specifically target an artists sound with the technical knowledge I have I can create similar sounding instrumentals. This means that if a grid were applied to learning how to compose music electronically the initial foundation that genre specific grooves are laid on is an abstract technical knowledge of “How to__.” You can always watch youtube videos and learn specific tricks that others use to produce sounds but I am engaged in discovering how exactly my experience sounds when given the same tools as professionals but with no avenue specific education. What elements of music do I hear and extract? Then, how do I implement those ideas into new compositions without knowing ‘how’ it was done initially? It is through my experience of other musicians I meet in the flesh that I learn how my individual consciousness distributes expectation and anticipation in my music. When someone I respect advises me on music I will always try it at least once. There are pieces of advice that have worked for me for years and others I used for years that turned out to be holding me back. By reading texts on the effect of music on the industry of music business and the effect of music on the brain I comprehend the methods of musicians around me with greater detail, perhaps discovering patterns that they didn’t intend to be exercising. As a producer, the capability to coach an artist to attain the desired effect of their musicianship is part of my job. Listening to the needs of others and, with an open mind, absorbing the process of those around me will bring me to a broader understanding of the grid of music. There is a time for examining the intricate details of ‘how – t0′ and a time for looking at music from beyond the atmosphere through the eyes of other dreamers.

Tyler the Creator

The sun influenced me. Hours I would spend laying in the grass turned to days and I believe, other than the people I met, I will always remember floating two feet high over Kory’s lawn as dusk settled into a warm night. Surrounded on all sides; walls of successful and expectant people crowd around. What do you have to offer? Dreams became part of my sleep again.

“Nothing.”

Drifting off in a White Suburban I remember my 4-cylinder. I think about the young kids living in Compton beating their fists against Hollywood Blvd. I think about Childish Gambino and how he is from Georgia and how that makes sense. The thread of thought moves into Drake’s Canadian heritage, his name is Aubrey, this all makes sense. Kendrick comes on.

Dre comes on. “People come from all over the world for the women weed and weather.”

I fell asleep with a blunt in my hand.

I dreamt of women I’d never met.

The sun lives in my skin.

“It ain’t my fault that it’s 82 degrees and my tops peeled off.”

I never left. Im always here.

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