In a living room amongst friends; in a corner with all the gear i had ever purchased or been given or found on the street, i sat alone with my guitar, preparing to begin a musical culmination of everything I have ever created to the point. There was no opener, no closer, just me and my bag of tricks. And it really did feel in those moments that I was emerging and poised to ascend...
“Dennis Leaf Lake.” My first time seeing Fallen Leaf Lake in the Wintertime. Wish it were under better circumstances. There is beauty in the eye of the storm. Sometimes you just gotta go out there in the Desolate Wilderness to find your peace within it. Live Like Andy.
Death loomed large over my head in the months leading up to this. At that point in my life it felt like one after the other. Some closer than others, all variations of the same, putting you back in that place of wondering, of really taking stock in the what and the why of the shit that actually matters and all the shit that doesn’t. It takes everything we have to make something beautiful.
I was working at Gregangelo’s at the time and was really starting to blossom as an artist and a creator. I was finally feeling like I had found a validating direction for the creative thoughts swirling around my head. Being a part of that incredible operation, I got to see how the sausage was made and be fully immersed in it. We were producing shows, creating deeply moving experiences, coming up with some truly hilarious shit.
I kinda knew how to read a crowd, but I learned how to nurture one, how to guide one, to give, to pull back, how to hold one in the palm of your hand, and how they can turn on you if you try to hold them the wrong way. I got to learn how the art of the experience can be infinitely more powerful than any song or canvas or stunt. That was a huge leveling up point for me, learning the meaning and the method and the responsibility of giving it, making a life of it, and the reward that it brings. We weren’t starving. We were working. We were living. We were thriving. Then I got a call that stopped me dead in my tracks. In a day’s time we were driving to the mountains to say goodbye to a soul taken too soon. That was a hard winter…
I was living at CoopHau5 then and as soon as I got back, I walked down to the Walgreens on High Street to buy myself a 20-something dollar WAHL. I needed to make some kind of change and I needed to do it myself. It was my way of controlling the things that I could control, taking the power back into my own hands. Vikings cut their hair before battle, in mourning, to signify monumental change and of all the people I needed in my life, it was Ragnar. I had questions and maybe the gods had answers. Only after I had done it did I understand the visceral power of how it made me feel: Alive. Invigorated. Free. Like an X-Men finally able to control their power. And I needed everything to feel that. I’ve always been lucky to be able to channel these things into something and I was lucky to have this show on the books to focus my energy on. So I poured myself into it. I leaned into unhealthy habits, putting everything I had into making something new and beautiful and raw and fresh and real. Incorporating keys, looping guitars, writing things that chanted, that moved, that pulsed. I had gotten a taste and now I wanted more. I was searching for the Sound, searching for Solace... within the grief.
“Geronimo Story Time.” We don’t always have the luxury of a clean slate, but we can find ways to start fresh. Now is as good a time as any to take the power back into our own hands. #create #magic
I remember sitting in the back room writing out the lyrics to Ambient Wizardry. I really wanted to include that in the repertoire, showcase that side of me rarely seen outside of an intimate studio setting. But more than that, it was because I wanted the outro. I wanted to play the eulogy. It was ambitious. I had never looped in front of people. I screwed it up a few times. We didn’t even use the keyboard I brought. But in the end, it didn’t really matter all that much. This was special. This was the first time that I felt what I was doing could be even remotely considered an ensemble and preparing for it was the first time I could actually see it being accomplished outside of my own mind. Starting with just me and my guitar, adding in all the elements piece by piece, person by person, turning up the dynamics and the volume until it couldn’t go any higher, or at least higher than the neighbors would allow. It was a musical storytelling experience, the journey of my sounds. I’ll look back on that as the start of something that set the tone for really clarifying the direction I want to go.
After the show, Skyler took us out for a beer before we made the journey back across the bridge. We were choppin it up, winding it down, and at some point he says to me, “you know, I think you’ve really figured something out.” And I felt like I had, too. Only in the years that followed did I find out how truly difficult it is to ascend, but that moment opened up a world of possibilities, shone light on what was possible. And in that sense, I had arrived: I had introduced myself to what I was capable of. If not for the world to see, then for a select few to know that this exists, tangible and real…
Fast forward to now. No one would argue with the fact that the shit is hitting the fan in every which way on every possible level. The veil is lifted. Insanity is reigning supreme. People’s physical and mental health is going haywire. If we can find a way to level up amidst it, we can make something of it and find meaning in the madness. That’s the only way to truly ascend.
