Beginnings have the potential to be the most difficult; beginning a sentence or a paragraph, beginning new friendships or sports. Parts of ourselves rest between who we are and what we experience. Going beyond our preconceptions of identity becomes easier as we become more comfortable with where we are, who we’re with and what we’re doing. Comfortability comes with preconceptions reaffirmed consistently over time. This is the experience of change.

It’s difficult to talk about change when it’s happening but even more so before it’s happened. As of my writing this I have spent exactly two weeks in Southern California minus a five day emergency trip back to Olympia. The process of journeying from point A to point B wether from the kitchen to the garage or Olympia to Los Angeles is an experience of consciousness to validate the ego’s continuity. Plotting the points between would be frustrating and useless. Let’s just say there is such thing as a large metal bus that flies and carries people all over the world in a period of hours, sometimes without any lapse in the passengers consciousness, and voila there they are.

Here I am.

Costa Mesa.

This place carries an air of “touch and go.”

The traffic is touch an go. The waves are touch and go. The food is touch and go. I am touch and go.

Away from the touching and going roars mighty metal buses miles high in the sky traveling to and fro. Jet engines swallow the keynote to trail off like distant thunder. Motorcycles feast across the distant expressways, yet youfeel as if you’re right near the beach. The traffic is easily mistaken for waves; birds singing sweet melodies between seagull belches.

Sirens.

No one shouts.

They’re all about their business. Each individual holds themselves responsible for their lives. They see themselves as storefronts, computers and machines. The imageability of this city is the refracted plastering of the inhabitants collected self-imageability. Los Angeles could only be as centralized and beautiful as the identities of 8.6 million people spread through the basin of a valley. I can’t imagine the diversity of artists, businessmen and tourists that frequent and depart on a daily basis. The technological level of the earth is too damn high. How is one supposed to study the living anthropology of a region if it’s changing too rapidly to be identified? I don’t intend to be defeatist but it’s akin to seeing an electron: by the time you see it, it’s gone.

Artists come from all over the world to pursue careers in music and some happen upon careers in music coming from a completely different field. Billions of records are recorded and distributed in Southern California but the artists don’t live in LA. Hell, most of the people who function in LA don’t live in LA; I’m not even in LA! The cultural identity is completely semantical and political. If they didn’t draw a line, LA would be a state of mind.

As for what I do in Costa Mesa: I’m not here to be a tourist. I am not here to listen to bands from other parts of the world and pass that off as a cultural study of Southern California. I am here to make music. I am here to unobtrusively observe, learn and reflect on a new environment. How will this affect the music that the artist composes?

Below I have included four very rough draft skeletons that I am producing and composing in collaboration with Eli, of course. The fact that these songs are in such primitive stages is partially who I am and partially the effect this region has had on me. Since waves (and therefore surfing) are inconsistent we frequently ride off to the beach at a moments notice. The friend we are staying with, Kory, is an artist as well and has no set schedule. The weather is almost perfect, almost all the time. Nothing is stopping you from riding a skateboard to the record store, taco bar or 7-eleven. Less sequential hours are spent on music than when Eli and I are were in Woodland Hills. I forgot my hard drive at the studio we were working in there and have been making music without it since (this also means the other complete instrumental from the first week is yet to be retrieved). Is this place affecting the music? It’s too soon to tell compositionally, although I have purchased a few records here that are LA based musicians. What I am sure of is that this place affects my process in music making, my approach to music and my views as my self as a business.

So finally, here’s some fucking music:

Created 4/27/2015. Logic Pro X, “A Taste of Honey” vinyl sample using Roland Sp-404SX, Steinway Studio Piano. There is another sample used as textured effect with delay and so on. The piano is way too loud especially for systems with high treble. You’ve been warned. The vinyl for this track was purchased at SecondSpin in Costa Mesa.

Created 4/26/2015. Logic Pro X, Massive, Vinyl sample from Jefferson Starship using Roland Sp-404SX. I use a bass synthesizer here that I became aware of working in Woodland Hills with Keaton. On smaller computers this synth sound will go unrecognized in the mix. Get a better sound system, ya kook. I have recently been playing with different 1/32 hi hats instead of 1/8 or 1/16. This change was made after creative conversations in LA with Eli as to what he enjoys to listen to in his music. The vinyl for this track was purchased at SecondSpin in Costa Mesa.

Created 4/21/2015. Logic Pro X, “As Tears Go By,” The Rolling Stones; sampled using Roland Sp-404SX. There is a vocal sample of my voice that was discarded in the process of creating my last album. The phrase is, “Everything’s fine.” We found the record in Kory’s collection.

Created 4/20/2015. Save the Best for Last. This track is the most developed of our second week. It was made prior to my departure back to Olympia on a very stoney day. It uses all the usual gadgets and tricks, however, the sample is one I have utilized before. At the time we didn’t have a turntable to rip new samples with so we delved into the graveyard. Reaktor 5 and Massive were both used in the synthesis as well as the Bass Synth derived from working with Keaton.