Solid State

I recently reconnected with my old friend and musical mentor Mark G. Cooley. To say he was a major influence on me is putting it mildly. From Sonic Youth to Segovia, the dude primed me for a life in music.

Mark is one of the most humble, talented and gracious individuals I've known in my entire life. Close to the only one!

I fell out of touch with him at least ten years ago, due to geographical distance and personal negligence. In the meantime, he's had gallery installations all over the country, and continues to create and record some mighty fine music. As a matter of fact, it's a lot like the shit I've been listening to over the last few years.

Anyway, I'm gonna hang out with him in a couple of weeks, and we're getting ready to start a long-distance musical collaboration that I'm guessing may be the greatest thing ever put to hard drive. If it goes well, I'm actually gonna push it a lot further than B-town, where I rarely push at all.

So that's cool.

But everything else is a pain in the ass: tracking down photos of bands for the paper (sometimes harder than you can imagine), meeting deadlines, and generally trying to stay above water. I've also been having a hard time getting hold of people who I need to do some basic business with.

But here is here, and now is now.

Someday — and hopefully not too long — we'll be in a different space entirely. Looking forward to that.