end of the year, bring on the new one.
The end of a decade and a strange one at that. I have been thinking a lot about what a weird trip the last ten years have been and have realized that it could not have ended better for me. In 2008 I had hit rock bottom, I let people get the best of me and virtually everything that could go wrong, did… all at the same time. I did not realize that I was letting people and personal issues hold me back so much until I had completely given up and succumbed to a period of depression unlike anything that I had ever experienced before. For the first time I found myself alone, in a city that I did not even want to move to in the first place. I promised myself that 2009 would be better, not perfect, but just better. I made some resolutions(which ended up being achieved, most even surpassed) and said my “fuck you’s” to the previous year, people who had stabbed me in the back and some personal problems that had gotten out of control. At this time I had lost nearly all of my music equipment and other belonging due to the fly by night nature of having to get out of my old home as fast as possible in order to avoid falling deeper into debt, legal problems and to preserve my well being. This opportunity to start fresh was a blessing in disguise though as I soon realized. I found myself for the first time with a good income, time and flexibility to do my own thing as well as the mental clarity to focus on projects that had ended up on the back burner. I dabbled with a band that was boring and never going anywhere but still had a little bit of fun and from that I met Nathan(who I now record and perform with as Ascites). We hit is off immediately even before we started working together on our project, his similar background and personal/political beliefs allowed for us to get along and I think we both quickly saw that we were on the same level as far as what we were looking for in a experimental band/project/whatever you want to call it. We started off with a pretty limited setup, lots of borrowed, broken and a few pieces of gear that I had been forced to take from a prior acquaintance that had robbed me. Our first recordings were very harsh and chaotic but quickly grew into a unique sound, we started adding new equipment to our setup and each one of use started to develop a style that complimented to other one. Randa(Nathan’s wife) started contributing more and more with her industrial junk metal sounds, DIY instrument abuse and her sometime terrifying physical abuse of metal, wood and other objects. I think it was at this point that we all had fallen in love with this project and for me personally it was one of the best things that had ever happened. I was able to focus my negative energy into something where it belonged for once instead of hurting myself or other people around me. Soon after our first successful show our friend Alex was asked to join and added another layer of emotionally driven sound to our project and we started recording. In a short period of time we had developed a very defined sound, had played some good local and out of town shows and started receiving a lot of regional and local support given that we were just a tiny little noise band. Having a creative outlet with my good friends had started to change my outlook on life for the better, I decided to take a trip to New York to go to No Fun Fest and to meet up with a friend that I had been talking to more and more. I don’t know if it was the incredible show at the sold out venue, meeting people that I had a lot of admiration for, spending time and hitting it off with said friend or maybe just a combination of everything but I had one of those life changing moments where I just knew that I needed to step up my game and keep doing what I was doing. Our band from the start has always been about self gratification, expressing ourselves and trying to have a little bit of fun in the process so we decided that we would book a short tour, rent a van and hit the road. We played some shows up and down the East Coast and then came back via a final show in Houston. Some shows were awesome, others were awkward but we had a great time and it was definitely a milestone for us. To make gas money we had recorded and released our Incisional Drainage CDR + Cassette demo. Originally we just needed something to sell on tour so we used packaging that we had available to us, Randa did hand written liner notes for every single one of these on some blank hospital forms and we packaged the CD and Cassette combination in bio-hazard bags that we had acquired and. We had no idea that Incisional would be a big deal for us. We sold some releases, traded some and straight up gave some away during our travels and local/state shows. We really had no idea that people would actually like the release until we started getting asked about it. We had received some air play on an experimental show in New York and a few blogs had reviewed it/offered it for download. This was flattering but I do not think it was until we found out that there was a write up on the Houston Press website, and even more so in the music magazine Signal To Noise, that it really hit us that someone had actually liked our work(Thank you so much Ray, you have really helped us out as a band and we hope that you maintain a relationship with us as we grow). Our second release came out after Dead Audio Music Festival when we met Karl of the harsh noise project Skönhet from Sweden and he asked us if he could release a cassette on his Fonofobi Tapes label which was later released at another great Houston show in October. By this time I had become heavily involved in analog synthesis(addicted and obsessed?) and have built up a pretty nice personal collection of music equipment that has been a lifesaver. Nothing has kept me in a better state of mind that getting lost in sound and making music when I am feeling bad. I guess it was only natural that I started working on more and more solo work that definitely used noise as an influence but did not really fit with the imagery or sound of Ascites. What started as a dark ambient, drone minimalist doom project eventually turned into Abuse Tactics. My current live set is very loud, very heavy, electronic doom that takes obvious influences from early industrial electronics as well as drone, doom and sludge bands that I have been a long time listener of. A.T. gives me a way to express my feelings towards the darker, nastier elements of humanity without having to worry about maintaining an image that other people in a project have to all agree with. Solo work definitely scratches that itch that is left over from working with other people even though Ascites is my main musical focus. After having a house full of electronic music equipment it was only a matter of time until I started applying my gear and knowledge that I had picked up towards different kinds of music and I have since been working on programming, writing/production and performance of more “palatable” electronic music that I will be releasing in 2010 with the help of some fellow musicians. I also spent a large portion of the year honing my skills when it comes to building, repairing and designing electronic music equipment and a collaboration with a friend will be releasing a boutique stereo distortion unit specifically designed for electronic musicians(although also totally suitable for any studio or effects rack). On a personal, non-musical level I think the best thing that I accomplished this year was re-connecting with my now two closest friends. Our relationship had been basically severed due to our past mutual friendships and living conditions and it was a total relief when we all decided that it was not our fault and that the problem was completely related to third parties in our lives who are really not worth getting upset over because they are just irrelevant to life in general. These two friends(Kelly especially) have been through some pretty terrible things with me and continue to be supportive, honest and always looking out for my best interest. I really value their opinions and will always appreciate them. I also developed a strong bond with someone at the beginning of 2009 that I have already mentioned earlier in this post who helped me with quite a few personal problems and pushed me to stick with music and art. I developed feelings for them very quickly and had some amazing times with her but there were too many factors that prevented things from escalating further which was for the best I think. Regardless I think that this particular person and I will be close friends for a very long time. A strange friendship also developed from a person who took us in on tour last summer. I guess I was kind of rude to her in my exhausted, chemically altered state at the time but we got in contact some weeks later and have maintained what I consider to be a solid friendship that I really do value(thank you so much for listening to me bitch about everything, now go tell that young man how you feel about him or I will do it for you). The last month of the year had a few hiccups but nothing that I would allow to upset me and it certainly has provided me with some great things too. I met a girl at the beginning of the month and we decided that it would be fun to go to the art museum one night and just hang out. Nothing was expected of this but I guess we hit it off and have been together every day since then and I am still amazed that we get along so well and have similar interests of which I learn more and more about daily. I look forward to starting off a new year with her and seeing where it takes us. I have grown as a person for sure this year, it has been a success as far as achieving personal goals, my career, my friendships and with how I deal with issues as a person. I have never felt so motivated to take care of what I need to do in life to move forward and I have no doubt that 2010 is going to be a huge year for me as well as those close to me. Big things are coming and I hope we all get to share them with each other.
Goals for this new year are pretty straight forward as I have posted before:
- release more material, retail ready albums of all 3 projects and finish our splits and releases that we just finished recording
- tour, tour and tour(this one seems to be almost taken care of already as far as shows being booked)
- take better care of myself and lose more weight
- get over the few remaining things that I am struggling with personally
- build more gear
- keep my friends and family closer and make them a bigger priority in life
- get better on the keys
- be a better parter in relationships
- don’t let vices get in the way of my musical endeavors(learned this lesson recently, will never happen again.. I almost ruined a great thing.)
- add to my synthesizer & hardware collection
- more noise of course ;)
I really appreciate everyone who has been involved in my life over the last year and wish the best for everyone, stay safe tonight but be sure to rage hard and have a great time.
I would also like to mention that I am not even angry at the shitty people who use to be a part of my life, I know that they keep tabs on me now and again so I would just like to say that getting away from your self-induced negativity and imaginary problems in life has been a blessing for me, I have achieved my goals and just keep getting more and more successful now that I am not surrounded by underachieving cowards who are too scared to work towards their own goals and instead try to hold people down with them. Thanks for making me a better person, hopefully you guys do the same one day and make something worthwhile out of your lives. I really mean it.
