Sold my old sampler today, my first, the hardy and archaic Roland SP-808, and relived 10 years of my life in 15 minutes as I cleaned all the old samples off of it.
Some of it bliss. Much of it hell. Whatever the case, this crazy collection of a thousand late nights and early mornings I spent making music, sometimes high, sometimes drunk, many times both, is now gone forever.
What I found:
A personal history of electronic music home schooling.
Experiments, home runs, and a whole lot of junk.
The toppings from a glitchy sappy beat-driven ‘ballad’ written for a life-changing love I crushed.
Slices of songs that have shaped me.
Blips of good kids sitting in and making shit shine.
The voice of a dead friend, people I don’t see enough of anymore and 4 year old rapping Eminem.
Answering machine messages from me from anywhere and everywhere, possessed, and too far from home to wait to put down the sounds in my head properly.
Chaotic 5 a.m. microphone rants while in the throws of insomnia.
Bits of Bukowksi distorted and delayed.
And I guess in some way a sonic foundation laid for my life to one day include doing this site.
My eyes were wet by the end.
If you have a sampler, I encourage you to sit and revisit your old samples sometime.
It’s way crazier than moving.
To give you a better understanding of this sample/life connection, here’s a message from Dr. B that I sampled a few years back. Some time after that I ended up at a cardiologist, who explained that I suffer from Bradycardia.
Originally, I just thought the message would make a cool sample then later realized it sort of predicted and made even more sense of this old demo that’s been gathering dust in my hard drive for what seems like forever now.
If you’re down to take a listen, I suggest you make yourself comfortable, put on some headphones, turn it up, and let it roll. It’s a grower, not a shower.
Anyway. Enough about me.
What about you?
