2004 my year in review...

[rndmprsn]

2004 my year in review...

hello good people...here i am again at the akron public library, i have helen who is a 75 year old born again senior to my right and geoffrey a 62 year old vietnam vet who is damn proud of it as his mesh-cap screams so to my left...how do i know these things, becuase i said hi and got caught in one hell of a conversation with these two characters...anyhow.

well 2004 started off in columbus OH and will end tonight in akron OH...with a ton of places, people, experiences, good and bad in between...

while the year was very young ric and i hit the road and went on tour to that oasis of sanity and progressivism...the EU, or as donny rumsfeld liked to call it...old europe. i could almost say this was the highpoint...almost.

months were spent in projects for sony, but the payoff was pretty damn good...now if i can just convince them to sponsor me for some of their new music software rollouts...adverts etc...that would be devine, 2005 will ultimately tell...also i've been trying to finagle my way into their motion pictures dept...becuase i want to write and score music for films, this is perhaps my greatest aspiration for 2005, well among others.

i amassed an obscene mp3 collection and my vinyl collection is just going to be that much heavier whenever i move...i bought mostly old soul 45's, jazz rarities and dub and dub-techno...electro kind of lost its fun for me in '04, every good thing must come to an end i guess and for me lektro def ran its course.

i also got back into rock in a major was this year...re-discovering my old faves, from sonic youth, the smiths, modern lovers and MBV to some of the newer dance punk NYC style and otherwise. gang of four was in my player for months on end...good shit fo sho.

labels of the year for me:

kranky
ghostly int...yeah i know.
tomlab
touch and go
basic channel/chain reaction
morr
federated
matador...this must be year 5 in a row for them.
kompakt


haha...IDM whats that? and where did it go...maybe 2005 will be the year of its re-birth into something more substantial...this scene needs new blood, but these eyes have seen a narrowing of the playing field as the guardians of the gates (labels) have become more conservative and cautious...this is not without reason either as a lot of labels folded under the weight of low sales and even lower standards and expectations in '03 and '04...and mostly went for safer established artists. the hyper-feedback loop of musical hybridization in "electronica" (man that term still makes me shiver) finally reached a creative plateau...click-hip-micro-dub-house only will appeal to so many heads ya know...come on people we need new ideas and ways to express not regurgitated old ones...hmmm, i guess i should talk...i'm not an eletist, i'm not an eletist...repeat 10 times and then take a swig of gin, then sit down and shut up.

eastern europe was fun...or as rummy would say...new europe, ladies there are way hot and i saw and heard some of the best music there in years...keep an ear and eye out for whats going on behind the old iron curtan (will they ever get away from these damn cold war metaphors either?) but seriously....some of these guys are going to explode in 2005...you saw it here first.

i learned to love my ipod from traveling so much...but now with the newer click-wheel versions and...gasp...the color-screen-picture version, i must say i have ipod envy now...this must be a stereotypically american disease, its not good enough to have something that works perfectly fine...you have to have the latest, best thing...keeping up with the joneses hipster style...geez.

baltimore...this is where i called home for 2004 and i came to love and despize the city....i became nostolgic for cleveland even though i always bitched about it when i lived there. i came to realize that memories are golden and some things were never meant to be...not matter where you live.

i lost the love of my life in 2003 and lived with the fallout through 2004 and then fucked it up again...if certain eye's ever read this...i'm sorry. i never found love again in 2004 even though i dated a number of people, had a fling or two and generally relived my early 20's again in my early 30's...sometimes i wonder if i'll ever be truly happy and satisfied again? my heart is still heavy and the silence is deafening on the other end of the line...time to move on, i know this now and this trip to ohio has really drilled this into my head in a major way...oh fucking well, like one famous rocker once said...this is the strangest life i've ever known...how true that is.

i spent two days total in the hospital this year and will paying it off for a long time...no healthcare here...this should be a human right and not a privilege in the richest, but stingiest country in the world...anyhow, end rant here. at one time i was taking 5 diff kind of pills a day and had to get one of those pill-organizers like my grandmother has...never thought i'd do that @ 31...anyhow, i have it down to 2 a day now, but still using the organizer....that said...i raced off to the library and forgot to take my meds.

the biggest dissapointment was the election...i have never worked for a political campaign in my life and i worked my heart out for john kerry's...i registered over 300 people to vote and canvassed in 3 states, gave money even when it was tight and debated till i could lick every bushbots talking points...i attended rallies and just generally put almost everything else on hold for about three months...my new album got pushed back becuase of all this...ive never believed in a candidate so much and even to this day it wells my eyes up thinking back about it all...the election left me in shock and bitter, but i'm not losing hope and neither should any of you...when the pendulum swing one way so hard...it just has to swing back the other way...

progressives need to reframe the debate and take control of the language again...and they need to organize and start to fight and start acting like a real opposition party...the house of cards that the republicans have built WILL fall apart under the weight of its own contridictions...al gore called them the immoral 10000 musketeers, all for one and one for all...this unnatural coalition of the self-interested (social conservatives, christian fundamentalist, economic royalists, corp elites and anti-govt-anti-tax loonies) will overreach and when they do a real progressive democratic party that can communicate its own values and re-connect with working people and rural poor will be there to take this country back and put it on a proper course...lets hope and pray at least.

well...i could go on and on, but i'll close, thanks for reading, its been a hell of a year, 2005 will see me in new surroundings with old friends and new ones too...i'll be going back to school to get the degree that i should have gotten in the first place and i'm going to become much more hands on about my music project and my personal life.

thanks for tuning in...peace.