I realize that things had finally spiraled out of control the moment I tore open the sealed envelope labeled RENT to pay for another synthesizer.
My collection:
Three analog synthesizers, two drum machines, a digital sound sampler, a Nintendo Gameboy that had been transformed into a pattern sequencer, fifteen or sixteen analog and digital effects units, a personal amplification system, two tube combo amplifiers; yards of instrument, microphone, MIDI, speaker, patch, and power cables; floor stands for the synthesizers, speakers, and amplifiers; a microphone with a stand; custom made shock-proof cases for the synthesizers and the drum machines, four large suitcases for the effects pedals, each individually wrapped in a cotton towel taken from the gym; a subwoofer as big as a love-seat; a leather laptop bag stuffed with, to say nothing of the laptop itself, dongles, adapters, dust covers, interfaces, power strips, extension cords, headphones, connectors, converters, and so on.
I didn’t own a single pair of socks without holes in them. I didn’t own a bed, I slept on the floor. My shelf in the refrigerator was barren and the spiders had reclaimed my cabinet space. There hadn’t been a roll of toilet paper in my bathroom for weeks, and my car was in dire need of an oil change. But I owned a mint condition, never before played analog drum machine exhumed from a storage container that had been closed in 1985. I owned one of the first effects units ever to have been made by Bob Moog’s Big Briar company. And I owned a synthesizer rumored to have been played by Mr. Phil Collins himself.
I annoyed my studious roommates on a daily basis. A chorus of wobbly drumbeats, sub-octave harmonies, pitch-shifted poetry, distorted samples, ambient melodies, and stereophonic feedback would crescendo steadily from sunrise to moonrise, and crescendo yet louder into the cold dark night, night after night, despite ever increasing electricity bills. Some nights I wouldn’t sleep. I would just turn off the lights, close my eyes, and with my hands firmly fixed on the keyboard of a polyphonic synthesizer, play until the sounds conjured bold images under my eyelids that were so refreshing, conventional dreaming became obsolete. I was in love with the sound.
I was never quite able to capture the best moments on tape, but believe me when I say I was good. There were times I played myself into such a state of ecstasy I had to sit down and catch my breath. In the spring and summer, birds would come to my window and peck holes in the screen. One time, in the middle of the coldest winter New England had endured in decades, I unintentionally resurrected a ladybug that had been laid to rest on my dresser the previous autumn. Astonished, but mostly amused, I continued my song as the resuscitated insect, seemingly just as bewildered as I by its sudden return to the material world, crawled about in misshapen circles, dragging along a clump of dust and discarded hair that had formed around it since its initial demise. If someone had been there to record my performance that day, and had they pressed that recording onto a golden record and launched it across our galaxy on the back of a massive transmitting satellite, I feel that our world would have been visited by the emissaries of a hyper-civilized race of music appreciating extraterrestrials some time ago.
But I digress.
There is no question that I enjoyed the music I was making, but I realized at that moment, for the first time in full clarity, just how unhealthy my obsession had become. I wasn’t simply obsessed with making music, because had that been the case, I would have been content with just a single instrument, or perhaps just a stick and the world of solid surfaces to bang it against. No, I was obsessed with possessing the means to make not just music, but every conceivable sound. And though it can be argued that this obsession was working to improve my life in a number of ways, the negative and unhealthy aspects were beginning to stand out. Sure, my landlord would understand if I was going to be a few days late with the rent, but my spine wouldn’t be so forgiving if I was to continue sleeping on the floor, and I wasn’t doing the rest of my body any favors by eating just one small meal a day either. In short, in that moment of foresight and clarity, I realized that I had become lopsided, and that it was going to take a lot of work to regain balance.
To be continued.
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