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There's a father and daughter making tamales in the kitchen of a house off a canyon road on a clear day at the dulled edge of the decade. I'm waiting to jump in, somewhere in the process.

It's all a process. The last few years, the late nights, a great deal of laughs. All amid the stress of wanting to squeeze the hell out of a few bad people but failing to do so because arms were already wrapped in a bear hug around the good ones.

I've been collecting music, and conversations. It's a process I started around age seven. That was ninety game systems and a pope ago. We measure time in entertainment.

In this decade we discovered limitations. New roads. Learned to know and love the musty smell of car seats in a dead rain. Mountains where we used to climb trees. Otis Redding. Cigarettes. The cold stop of certain girls' progress. Boys who can't think to care for themselves. Starlight through a hot wind. Dramedy. Dogs. Bridges. Blood. The warm heart of whiskey.

I'll be on the couch at 12. I'll be watching for something. Maybe me. Maybe you. Maybe no song could fit the space. But you have to keep trying.

Here's a small list for the waiting face of next year:
+ A struck balance between truth and tact
+ A collection of produced works
+ Breakthroughs in the field of social grace
+ A path to career
+ A Post-season Dodgers
&
+ More and better homemade beer

In this we believe.
Bring on the dancing horses,
ready for the closeup
Mister Mix.

first impressions

We tripped the light rain fantastic Saturday last, in the first of many planned outdoor DJ settings. Special thanks goes out to George Olivos of Pico De Gallo Seasonings, for allowing us the use of his humble parking lot in the venture. The atmosphere was wet, dreary and shaped by the industrial grime. In other words, it was perfect. The set was pleasantly dark, driven by minor notes, all the while rain fell throughout the gig. A set list and video will be posted here soon.

Thank you to Red Ram & Kevin Binkley on video, and DJ Dave Share for the support. It was really a great experiment. One we hope to repeat as soon as the weather allows.

Currently, I am in the process of setting up the latest software/hardware additions to my DAW setup. In the New Year I will be bringing out a slew of remixes, and for the first time, originally produced work from Jon Paul Joe and friends.

Though I've ditched the stringent religious constraints of childhood, there's no proper way to say how lucky I've been to have all of this come together other than being blessed. But if you can't do anything with the gifts you're given, then WTF is the point anyway? : )

Now comes the hard part: integrating the workstation into some tangible sound. From my head, to your ears, and their feet. A digital age Walt Whitman might've said, "I hear America looping." And a green beauty on an eastern seaboard lifts a lighter as if to say,
"Give me your bored, your restless,
Your desensitized listeners yearning to dance..."

We be ready.

Launch Party / 30th Birthday / December 18th

In light of the early onset of freezing temps in SoCal, we've decided to move the venue from the middle of the Mojave Desert to someplace with easier access to power sources and heat lamps. Ladies and Gentlemen, we'll be kicking off the first ever Intros&Exits event in Glendale, CA.

In a heavily industrial side of town, off Western Avenue, sits the parking lot of Pico De Gallo Seasonings. Our good friend George has been gracious enough to lend us the site for the start of the project.

The time frame and concept remains the same: I will be DJ-ing a chill, relaxed set in the great outdoors starting promptly at sunset, and continuing until 8pm or so. Light food and drinks will be on hand, though feel free to bring anything else you'd like. Invitations will be going out by the weekend, so Fbook or text me your address asap.


1714 Standard Ave., Glendale
The directions are as follows:
FROM OC/DOWNTOWN
5North to Western Avenue east
left on San Fernando Road
left on Thompson
left on Standard

FROM Santa Clarita
5South to Western Avenue east
left on San Fernando Road
left on Thompson
left on Standard

FROM VENTURA
101 South to
134 East
to Victory Blvd, left
right on Western
left on San Fernando Road
left on Thompson
left on Standard

the Portside Sessions

With the project approaching, I figured it was time to get neck deep in the sound cave again. Elements of the I&E itinerary are falling into place. Sadly we will not have the ever-ready talents of DJ Sherlock John (aka DJ Abe Lincoln) on the journey after all... another victim of the failing economy. However, this is hardly a setback, for it gives extra weight to the dutiful creativity of our friend Red Ram, who will be playing a set or two along the highways as well as manning the camera and contributing sagely advice on all things metal & rock. Lucky to have him on board.

In the meantime, I'll be using the week of November 20th-28th as a testing ground for all the setlists, recording some new mix ideas, and generally staying in music mode when I'm not at work. Everyone is invited to come hang out here at my place throughout the week, as I'll be on my own tooling with the decks. There's a Wii and cable, jacuzzi, pool, billiards, table tennis, sauna, and gym on site. Oh and that Pacific Ocean thing.

The recordings out of this week will be a springboard for the Project; a sort of prologue to the journey to get me in the mood before midterms slag me down for the first two weeks of December. Collectively, I'm calling it the Portside Sessions.


Hit me up on fbook or text if you'd like to come out and hang.
In the meantime, keep the headphones handy and the hands raised high.

jump

9:26am Termite inspection, strange men in suits checking the corners. I explain different aspects of the construction. Jerry Lee Lewis plays in the bedroom.

11:54am Finish my law midterm, a stellar piece of mundane bullshit that will earn me an A. In the background ESPN analysts are combing the truth of a friend of the chick Favre sexted.

12:32pm Waiting for my sandwich to toast at Subway, Sarai looks at my newspaper and says, "You like to read, huh?" I want to go, "You like to breathe, huh?"

1:02pm I drop my ballot my ballot at the post office as Van Halen's "Jump" plays on the radio.

1:15pm Stuck behind a truck with letters faded, spelling Financial Express Worldwide. All but the capitals are nearly completely scratched and scorched. All you can read from a few cars back is FEW.

1:32pm Overhead in line at the Oxnard College Admissions Office, "So your purpose here today was to prove residency?" "Yes." "But you have no proof." "Well I have this mail." "It's not even addressed to you Miss." "Oh."

1:50pm A diamond winged jet blasts over Hueneme Road between me and the mountains, dips at the base and swings up and out over the water toward the islands.

2:15pm At a stop sign on CI campus, wait patiently while the ladies soccer team marches in cheer to a pep rally. A girl in the middle of the throng is texting. Maybe Favre.

3:45pm A basketball-sized wooden sculpture tumbles off the patio opposite me, crashing in two perfect pieces next to a palm tree, narrowly misses a dog taking a piss against it. Neither dog or owner seem to notice. I pick up my travel guitar and work on the strings

Intros/Exits: a CA Dj Project

For those who don't know, consider this the official announcement.
(See Sept. 17th entry for the promo video)

December 18th-22nd 2010
Intros/Exits: a California/Dj Project

What: we will be visiting different outdoor settings throughout the state, mixing music that fits each particular "venue".

Who: Dj Jon Paul Joe & Sherlock J on audio feed, RedRam on video feed

Where: we'll begin the mix at sundown on December 18th at El Mirage Dry Lake outside of Palmdale. All friends and family in the area who are willing and able to attend are welcome. (Think of a truly scaled down, chilled out version of Burning Man, and you have the vibe). Details and driving direction questions: nightdrives@aol.com

Our trip will include the Tehachapi Windfarm, random fields in the Central Valley, the James Dean crash site, Big Sur and Golden Gate Park. All our friends in each area of the state are welcome to join us. Video will be uploaded to the website over the holiday.


Are you ready to step outside?

are you

Drowning in October. Love this weather. Exceedingly beautiful today. Most days, even with cloud cover, I manage to find the sounds. I make it work. Radio brings all the light in. Don't even need it today, it's just a background. Seabirds dipping between buildings, rising on a slow breeze. The islands are calling. Out by the platforms, pleasureships and sharks. Tycho on the headset.

Are you working through it? I imagine you in the traffic of the city. Friday afternoon inside the cement river. The millions you pass who pass through you. Underneath the bridges, selling flowers. Somebody's cousin with a farm in Salinas. Far from the city and off the blacktop. I speak city, I eat the images you can't see. Infrared blips through October sunlight. Are they dancin' in Tokyo tonight? Pete has wrapped in Spain. Pau and Kobe coming back from Barcelona. My car has no name but it's Barcelona Red. Too long to title. I used to hate red. Baseball is over but the days of hoops and roses are coming. Are you passing over rivers? Basins of flood control. Departments of Water and Power. Controlled flows. Beside me is a bottle of Little Black Dress, Pinot from Hopland. Mendo status with the ocean shooting back the blue. It goes on forever here. I realized that looking out, if you headed straight from my patio, across the sand and out over the water that you wouldn't hit land until the ice shelves of Antarctica. Too many thousands of miles, but not a single freeway. Sounds enticing. Are you thinking about it? The other thing. When was the last time you danced out of a deep and binding joy? Tied into the socket. Pick up the headset. Pass through.

I'm working through the daydream.

smoke or sand

I am watching a Russian film called "Mermaid", because I'm tired of listening to Captain Beefheart. I lost him in the desert, where he went to high school with Frank Zappa, not far from where we dumped countless bottles of tragically cheap tequila into the underbrush.
The weather has been humid, the skies alternately filled with the usual seabirds crap crap crapping, caw-caw-cawing and the pounding of tandem rotor Navy copters on training missions. All the while I'm on the last pack and reading the Wall Street Journal for nuggets of information I don't even know I'm looking for.
In "Mermaids" the heroine is a 16yr old girl who constantly saves the pathetic life of a venture capitalist who sells property on the Moon. Fucking Muscovites. I usually hear nothing from that city but the sound of muffled women under the weight of a hundred years of smoke-stained tapestries, smoke-stained men and smoke-filled skies. I look at modern Moscow and I automatically choke. It's a bullshit response, of course, because I live in Los Angeles, and many images of this city would provoke a gasp. Namely our programming.
The "mermaid" is dreaming about her Moon salesman. She's put his goldfish in the bathtub, on account of it being "depressed". "You could've at least put some sand in there," he says.
That is one thing I have entirely too much of in my condominium. Sand. It's blowing constantly up the walls. The DVD player by the patio door is jammed with it. My toes are the only objects here that enjoy it. And it makes a pretty good holder for whatever drink I bring down to the beach. But otherwise it's everywhere. In the pockets, between the sheets... on the screen inside a Muscovite's bathtub...

I'm getting tired, which is better than confused. And somewhere in the woods, Don Van Vliet is crippled, walking in the desert of his head.

silence

the day was overcast throughout. I drove a friend on an errand to the Thousand Oaks mall. After a pizza lunch we stood in the parking lot under the freeway talking about the ghosts of Camarillo. Later I drove my father to the hospital where the nurses had a private, sterile room set up for him while they run some tests. After that I took my time heading toward school, where I did fair on a test of descending/ascending market trends.

Now I have the XX on the headset. Anton Corbijn's "Control" on the tv. I'm editing video of sand dunes and eucalyptus treetops. There are not enough slow, sad guitars to fill the space between these objects. I need to hear a Stratocaster on a slow burn, in amongst what I imagine to be very real ghosts. I won't be able to sleep yet. Slow electric hush, please.

The empty hallways of the mental hospital, the wail of strings. It's good to keep the drums quiet, every now and again.

December DJ Project Promo

Okay, so this is me getting excited about this December trip that's masquerading as a 30th birthday present to myself, but truly, let's get idealistic and say this is all about a Revolution in SOUND. Either way, it's going to be eye opening and lots of fun for those attending, so here's a really bitchin' promo on the fly that I think is worthwhile. Feel free to participate.


PS: We're not strictly limiting the DJ action to the great outdoors. What do you think, we're retarded? Details on actual venue dates in SLO, SF, Santa Rosa and Eureka will be coming in this fall. Stay Tuned Voodoo Chiles.

landscape #1

First in a series of test runs with the new editing software. These particular clips were shot on simple digital cameras, but we will have at least one digital camcorder for the December project. The footage is from:
Bicycle-taxi down Broadway, NY 8/08
Golden State Fwy, Panorama City 7/10
Apt of Jason Bradley, Burbank 11/07
Ventura Road, Gonzales Rd. to Channel Islands Blvd,7/10

The music is "10110" by James Holden

north

I've gotten into bed before 11 the past two nights. But my computer doesn't sleep, so I don't sleep. Between iTunes and YouTube I'm up bouncing sonic ideas off the brainplate until an hour before dawn. In the background is the television, arthouse movies, westerns, Classic Arts Showcase. In the headphones is the last ten years of music discovery, searching for the gems. Trying to leave the heart on the shelf and approach the noise with a clear head. But it doesn't work. Every track left a mark.
December...December. I don't even know how to approach track selection for the project. I don't even know if I can secure the funding. But I'm going. Even if I have to drag the boys around by the smoke rings, I am going. I sat on the sand tonight and reviewed the highway-to-highway list by the light of the International Paper Plant; 5-14-58-99-46-1-101. North North West North West North North. The cool part is there doesn't need to be a reason. And I am starting the process about not caring what anybody thinks. It's not the easiest thing, but it is the most practical. There are strange people in every carport, an asshole in every booth. If you stop caring they cease to exist. Somehow. Keep the music handy. Like pills. Pillars.

rain

Dark little snippets of sound coming in from the web. It's like 2002 in the headset. Back to the days of endless rain and Livingston wine by the jug. Black outs, spending all day in bed, coming out for class (sometimes) and eating sandwiches in the rain (because it seemed reasonable). Soggy bread and wet sweatshirts (the smell of pulling that soaked thing off of her). Nothing but hazy hellos and messy goodbyes. It was always so cold for most of the school year, and the streets were greased and poorly lit. And the music never went as loud as you wanted it.

Now dark progression comes up from makeshift studios in tiny bedrooms the world over. Things we could be doing.

This December will be an experiment in taking the bedroom outdoors. It will be cold in California. But hopefully, dry. More to come. Stay awake.

effect

There is no escaping the effect that people leave on you.
Social contract.
Everybody has a radio voice. Television face.
Wring that sponge dry.
Still smells.
How many times you pick up pieces.
Social contract.

Your handshake. Your nod. Your continuing to imagine
them
when you've left the rooms.
Your signature on the dotted line.