Seeking Self Acceptance

Photo: Sam Sommer

Growing up, if you wanted love and acceptance, you had to do certain things — like perform well in school, meet others’ expectations, or conform to what society wanted a little boy or girl to look and act like. You had to do what your parents and teachers expected of you.

The educational system I came up through—and that probably still exists to a large degree today—didn’t ask students to access their sensitivity or emotions. It required them to be obedient. It required them to do as they were told. Going to Catholic schools as I did, it was even more intense. All these expectations around school were not only backed up by parents and teachers, but also nuns, priests, and ultimately, God. Religious study, Bible reading, and church attendance were indispersed among the more traditional subjects. It was just another thing, and felt very normal at the time.

But looking back now, I wonder.

I was very good at school. Aside from a few classes, I aced everything I put my mind to. It was easy to me. I knew implicitly how to be the “good boy” that I was expected to be. I was usually the first to raise my hand and answer the teacher’s questions, so much so that I stopped because I could tell the teacher was looking to “give someone else a chance.”

I learned very early how to be obedient, how to give my superiors what they wanted. I became an expert rule follower. But I spent very little time exploring who I was, what I was capable of, and what I wanted to do with my life. That caused some serious issues later on.

The education system didn’t provide a whole lot of room for free expression. Sure, we had art and music classes in school, but they were project-based and quite antiquated. Let’s all sing this song in a choir. Now make this animal from a milk carton.

As an adult, I have only recently come to realize the full extent of these ramifications. This is why I still feel a strong desire to fit in, to be like others, to blend into the crowd. This is why I hate drawing attention to myself in public places, and feel instinctually annoyed by people making noise and creating public drama.

This is why I had a lot of trouble with girls when I first started dating. (Single sex education was another factor here—right in time for puberty!) This is why I was afraid to be assertive with women, scared I was gross and crude and something girls didn’t want to be around. This is why I was the “good guy,” firmly in the friend-zone with all my girl friends, but alone on date night for long stretches.  

This is why I struggle with artistic self expression—and also why I’m obsessed with it.

“Our definition of self-awareness as artists relates directly to the way we tune into our inner experience, not the way we are externally perceived. The more we identify with our self as it exists through the eyes of others, the more disconnected we become and the less energy we have to draw from.”

— Rick Rubin

Unconditional self acceptance is something I’m working toward. Self acceptance means accepting my reality. It’s coming to an understanding that I am something separate from my achievements, from my job, from my family, and definitely from outside expectations. These things all still exist—they just don’t define me.

Sometimes I think I can only be worthy of self-acceptance if I’m a “productive” individual—if I’m working hard, if I’m producing enough artistic content to be “worthy” of being a non-parent.

We’re all a work in progress. I try to take to heart the words of Ralph Waldo. Some days it’s easier than others.

“No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferrable to that or this; only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong is what is against it.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Smartest Producer in the Room

Jump to 10:00.

Everything is Totally Normal

11 Lesser Known Stone Roses Facts

1. They had some cool producers early on. 

• One of their earliest singles, Elephant Stone, was produced by Peter Hook. The Roses loved it and wanted him to work with them further, but he was engaged with New Order tour duties.

• Martin Hannett of Factory Records produced several early Roses tracks. His mix style had them sounding like Jesus and Mary Chain a year before Psychocandy came out. You can hear their work together on Garage Flower, an album released by Silvertone without the band’s consent.  (It’s on YouTube.) 

2. As the buzz of the Roses swept the UK underground, two labels emerged as leading contenders to sign them — Jive/Zomba (later known as Silvertone) and Rough Trade. Rough Trade were a much more natural fit, having The Smiths and Jesus and Mary Chain already on their roster. But the Roses manager—the overbearing, charismatic, and somewhat inexperienced club owner Gareth Evans—pushed them into signing what became known as one of the worst, most restrictive record contracts in history. Not one of the band members, or their lawyers, read the contract before signing.  Rough Trade Label owner Geoff Travis says not bagging the Roses was one of the most disappointing losses in his career. 

3. Mani spent a lot of time in the clubs in Manchester in the late 80s, “clubbing for research,” as he put it. But he did pinch a good loop when he heard it. The funky baseline for “Fool’s Gold” was taken from Young MC’s “Know How.” 

4. Mani was the originator of another classic track—“I Am the Resurrection”—which started off during soundcheck when he started playing The Beatles “Taxman” bass line in reverse. Squire noodled over it in the studio and the 8 minute jam became a mainstay in their live shows. 

5. In the year leading up to recording Second Coming, Squire and Brown were both hooked on Public Enemy’s classic album Fear of a Black Planet. Squire befriended acid house producer Simon Crompton to teach him the ins and outs of sampling and sequencing, hoping they could create something similar. But when they arrived in the studio, the appeal of deconstructing and reassembling music in the vein of Public Enemy lost its appeal. “Too much like a science project,” he said, and the band reverted to studying and picking apart guitar music—especially Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. Their influence on that album is plain.

6. Writing Second Coming was done almost completely by Squire. While the first album was written by Brown and Squire together, memorably going on road trips to Italy with only an acoustic guitar, sleeping rough and writing music late into the night, the intervening years took their toll. The rest of the band, thinking they had many more years and albums to write together, let Squire take the lead on writing duties, “to get it out of his system.” But the longer it took to write and record the record, the more isolated each of the members became. 

7. Just 10 days before their first real world tour, a row between Reni and Brown resulted in the drummer’s departure. Many would say at that moment, the band was over - “No Reni, no Roses.” With only days to spare, the 22-year old Robbie Maddix was recruited to fill in on the band’s first world tour. 

8. The Roses’ first 3 shows in America — Atlanta, DC, and Toronto — were disasters, with Squire and Mani trashing guitars and amps on stage nightly in their frustration. Their first decent show in America was May 20, 1995 at Manhattan Ballroom in New York. The pressure was on as their new label Geffen was in attendance — who signed the Roses for 4 million pounds, 4 years previous, and thus far had little to show for it. But it was a vibrant show and went off without incident. “The fans, after so many years, were thrilled that somebody came to play that music,” said Geffen boss Eddie Rosenblatt. The Roses were finally properly welcomed to North America. 

9. Brown’s singing was so off-key on this tour, the band secretly hired a voice coach to join them, but played it like he was Maddix’s friend, “just along for the ride.” Brown soon found out the truth and tensions rose.

10. The LA show, though attended by luminaries like Beck and The Beastie Boys, went very poorly. A disgruntled fan snuck backstage and stole Brown’s weed stash. Mani caught the ruffian doing so and punched him in the back of the head, fracturing the bones in his hand. The Roses final N. American date was at the Fillmore in San Francisco. It was their best show of the tour, despite Mani playing through intense pain. Squire spent the next day mountain biking outside the city. An accident resulted in him breaking his collarbone, and the Roses were forced to take the next 2 months off, cancelling the Japan and Australian legs of their tour. 

11. The Second Coming tour eventually resumed but was plagued with bad vibes and poor luck. When it ended, Geffen urged them to return to the studio, but having already spent 5 grueling years writing and recording Second Coming, they were reluctant. Brown and Robbie Maddix worked up several tracks (all of which ended up on Brown’s debut solo effort, Unfinished Monkey Business), but there was a failure to launch. They had a final band meeting at their attorney’s office in London, March 21, 1996. When news of Squire’s resignation got out, several names offered their services to the band replacing the lead guitarist — include Johnny Marr and Slash (apparently a huge fan, this was the second time he approached the band to replace Squire). But it wasn’t to be. Fifteen years would pass before the 4 original Roses would be persuaded to reignite the magic. 

Don't Wait

Photo: Bob Gruen

The first Ramones show in England was July 4, 1976—the Bicentennial. Two hundred years after the US broke away from Great Britain, America sent back a gift that forever upended their sensibilities: punk rock.

According to Danny Fields and Arturo Vega, as quoted in Please Kill Me (Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain), the forming members of The Clash and the Sex Pistols were at that first show but hadn’t quite broken out. They were a little taken aback by the Ramones. The Brits were intimidated because they saw these lanky guys in black leather and thought that the Ramones were more than just a band—they thought they were a gang. As Danny Fields puts it:

“Paul [Simonon] and Mick [Jones] weren’t in the Clash yet, but they were starting it. They were afraid to play until they saw the Ramones… But basically, the Ramones said to them, which they had said to countless other bands, ‘You just gotta play, guys…  Come out of your basement and play. That’s what we did. You don’t have to get better, just get out there. You’re as good as you are. Don’t wait till you’re better, how are you ever gonna know? Just go out there and do it.”

Publishing is the final step in the creative process. You’ve got to put it out into the world. Without doing so, the work is unfinished and will never be seen. Perfection is the opposite of good. Get it out there and move on. Your work isn’t doing anyone any good locked up on a hard drive, or kept in a basement rehearsal. No one gets to hear it that way. It doesn’t exist until it’s published.

The other important part of this is that you have to finish what’s in front of you before you can move on to the next thing.

Free your mind by putting the work in front of you out into the world. Then you can give your whole self over to the next task—your next adventure. Creating the next thing.

And who knows where that will lead you.

Living Backwards

Photo: Vincent van Zalinge

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

- Soren Kierkegaard

The Search for Meaning

Photo: Chris O.

There are times in life when we find ourselves hanging our heads in our hands and wondering. 

Death, departure, the loss of a close one, the breakup or dissolution of a relationship—significant life events can leave us so bewildered we can’t help but take a step back and think about the choices we’ve made; where we stand in the world now that heaven and earth have shifted to new coordinates. Worse yet when it blindsides us. Sometimes all we can do is stand and stare slack jawed thinking, what the hell just happened? 

Some dear family members of ours recently moved away — folks I deemed irreplaceable. No, they weren’t going to another part of the world, but they were going far enough that they would go from being a daily part of my life to an annual part of my life—at best. 

With them, they took not only companionship, camaraderie, and love, but also the only child in our small family. 

Gone. 

In the wake of their leaving, my wife and I experienced a spectrum of emotions—anger, sadness, regret… and finally, begrudging acceptance. 

We were left asking ourselves questions. Why are we here? What’s keeping us in this city, in this part of the country? Why am I working the career I’ve chosen? Why this occupation and company? Is it time for a move? Have we been too long in this place, this town, this way of life? Would it be better to change things up, try something new? 

It was about this time when I picked up two books that have been very helpful for me in the past – The Power of Now (Ekhart Tolle) and Man’s Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl).

Photo: C. Otchy

The Power of Now teaches mindfulness from an intellectual standpoint. I had become familiar with the concept from Sam Harris, having used his Waking Up app before, but Tolle approaches the concept from a literary dialectic standpoint, posing questions and answers between an imagined teacher and student. 

The basic concept is simple: thinking too much can drive you crazy. If you let your thinking mind rule your life unchecked, buckle up for the natural consequences: neurosis, depression, anxiety, and general unhappiness.

The mind is naturally in a constant state of narrating what’s going on, what you’re going to do next, how you are reacting to the world around you, rehearsing what you want to say to someone, getting offended, getting excited, getting angry, getting disappointed… It’s a constant roller coaster. 

The mind is very good at all this useless narration, pain body attachment, and propping up of the ego—but for what purpose?

The Antidote

Paying attention to the present moment, on the other hand, helps to release attachment to the racing thoughts. Similar to willfully embracing short term memory loss, you concentrate on what you’re seeing and feeling in the moment instead of perseverating on your thoughts. 

Someone once described mindfulness to me as “being a rock in a river.” Your thoughts are constantly arising and there’s nothing you can do to stop them. This practice encourages you let them flow past without letting them sweep you down the drain. 

There’s no way to stop these thoughts from arising. The mind will think endlessly—that is what minds do. Your job is to let the majority of those thoughts go without letting them carry you away.

A therapist once told me that 90% of our thoughts are recycled. I’m not sure how one would arrive at such a statistic, but it feels right. How many times has the same criticism crossed your mind, though you’re making different choices, engaging in different thoughts, and interacting with different people on separate days?

One could make a good argument that the source of the majority of the pain and suffering one experiences in life is the result of paying attention to some thought pattern that arose on its own and should have rightly been ignored. 

Illustration: C. Otchy

The Search

Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning is a heartening look into how to find meaning and fulfillment no matter what your circumstances. As a Holocaust survivor, he should know how to find meaning, if it is to be found in this life. 

My biggest takeaway: in every moment of every day we have the choice whether to succumb to the forces that threaten to destroy us – our petty insecurities, vices jealousies, anger, fear, and depression – or to rise above them. 

The survivors of the Holocaust were all in a horrendous situation that was beyond desperate. And yet, they managed to rise above it. Frankl had every reason in the world to be depressed, to lose hope, to wish for death as an end to his suffering – and yet he and others like him somehow managed to survive. 

These brave souls chose to bear their cross with dignity and hope; to do what they could to help and encourage others to march on and survive another day. 

While we may not be in the same desperate condition he was, we can certainly learn a lot from him. It takes courage to bear the circumstances in which we find ourselves, but it’s a choice we can make. We can accept our lot with dignity and play our role—not begrudgingly, with a chip on our shoulders, as if we deserve better (even if we do)—but with pride and nobility and self respect, no matter our rank or position. 

It’s difficult sometimes, but if we choose to rise above our smaller selves and to play our part with a smile, we almost always see it reflected in the people around us. If we can find a way to lessen the load of our friends and neighbors in some small way, we often find ourselves rewarded and grateful we put in the effort. 

This is the meaning and fulfillment Frankl describes, and is why I keep his book on my nightstand more often than not. 

Advice for Creators Facing Empty Project Files

Photo: Polina Kuzovkova

“Waiting for a good idea” is never a good idea. It’s hard work that makes things happen. Great ideas don’t just show up – they are uncovered in the process of doing the work itself.

Instead of dramatizing the struggle in your mind, sit down and create. Writer’s block isn’t any inability to write. It’s a situation where you don’t think your writing is any good, or at least not good enough to show others. It’s a perspective held by the writers themselves.

Consider the possibility that you’re not a very good judge of what’s good or bad about your own work.

The only way around writer’s block is through it. You have to get the ‘bad writing’ out first before you can get to the good stuff. Stop thinking and worrying and imagining how bad you are and just do the work.

I’ll never forget going over to a friend’s house to collaborate on a project. I didn’t know he had cats and started sneezing soon after arriving, as I am quite allergic.

“Do you want to hold her?” he asked.

I looked at him in confusion. “What?”

“Sometimes the quickest way around an issue is directly through it,” he replied.

I’m not sure that’s how allergies work but I do see the wisdom in his reply.

The smallest attentive audience is enough to put you as a creator on the hook for making something that matters. That smallest viable audience is easier to attain than ever before.

We have the tools to reach people—the internet makes them more available than they’ve ever been before. So long as we keep showing up and keep publishing our work, it’s a matter of time before our tribe shows up.

Your audience doesn’t have to be the entire world. If a small HVAC business has 200 clients, that can be more than enough to sustain it if it’s the right clients.

It doesn’t matter if 99% of the world ignores your work. What matters is that you care for and create with that 1% in mind. That’s what makes a satisfying and prosperous career. Keep at it and your influence will grow over time.

Make the supposition that your work actually matters. Work with the thought that your creation is actually affecting someone positively. That’s the best intention you can have.

Lighten the cognitive load - decide who you are and what you do. Don’t waver. Own it. Love who you are and love your work, no matter if it makes you crazy once in a while. Just decide to show up every day and do it. Choose to find the smallest viable audience, and create exclusively for them. Make magic in the small, then repeat the process.

Self Induced Hypnotic State - album release!

Today I’m releasing my new album. Like the last one, I’m releasing it with the good folks at Deep Electronics in Den Helder, Netherlands.

Listen to the album on Bandcamp, Spotify, or Apple Music.

Because liner notes have sadly become a thing of the past (another casualty of the streaming era), I’m including below some of the notes from the release.

Chris Otchy is a Northern California-based composer and music producer. He is interested in sonic experiments with textures, rhythmic noise, and melodies that foster transcendence and aid relaxation or joyful movement and expression.

Chris has been making electronic music in a range of styles since the early 2000s, but began taking a more serious interest in ambient music in 2016. His main tools are modular synthesizers and samplers, which he uses to mold emotional textures and melodies from the sounds around him.

“Self Induced Hypnotic State” is a potent example of Chris’ unique brand of ambient techno. Through these seven tracks, his vision ebbs and flows through deeply psychedelic musical vignettes; subverting established norms and creating atmospheres both alien and resonant.

Hope you enjoy the music!

Popping up!

lempuyang · LPY Mix Series 03 - Federsen

I’m honored to have one of my favorite producers include a track of mine on a recent mix. Federsen is a native of Scotland but resides right here in San Francisco. His dub techno productions have been instrumental to my understanding of the genre, and I’m psyched to have met him and to have my music cross over into his realm.

This mix includes some really nice selections. Hope you enjoy it as much as I am!

Goodbye, Office

I recently attended my company’s holiday party. Like many companies, ours is planning to close their office permanently at the end of the month as all workers are now fully remote.

It’s a little sad because this office is freaking awesome. It’s on the 34th floor so it has an amazing view of downtown San Francisco.

I love elevated views of cities. There’s something so enchanting about being in a tall building in a city. The blinking lights. The hills in the distance. The amazing backdrop of the ocean and the Bay and the bridges and the vaulted sheer cliffs of Marin shooting out of the water. It’s a lovely feeling, day or night to be in a skyscraper. It feels powerful.

And then you see all the people in all the buildings, going about their duties. People upon people upon people. Floors upon floors, stories upon stories. And all those machines. Desks and chairs. Lamps. Piles and piles of telephones and staplers and printers and computers. Ephemera.

I’m reminded of a wonderful poem by Philip Larkin.

“Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring  
In locked-up offices...”

Of course, Larkin was talking about death, and he does so masterfully.

“That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will...”

Brilliant. The final phone call… the one call you can’t ignore. Ha.

And now we are faced with the death of our offices. Appropriate.

What will happen to our downtowns and business districts, now that so many employers are choosing to support a remote work style? There’s so much potential. So much infrastructure.

Could it be that this is a phase? Maybe people will choose to come back, request to work from an office. I certainly like going in occasionally… just not everyday 😊 But it does provide an appreciable degree of focus, outside all the trappings of your house and living quarters.

Each Moment Replacing the Last

Today I’m releasing my latest album, Each Moment Replacing the Last, with the good folks at Deep Electronics records in Den Helder, Netherlands. I’m so proud to be part of their family of excellent artists and producers.

The title came to me from a talk by one of my mentors, Sam Harris. I’ve never met him in person, but his podcast and meditation app, Waking Up, has become absolutely critical to my sanity over the past 12 months. His approach to mindfulness meditation is really easy to appreciate and practice. Sam mentioned this phrase in reflecting on the neverending stream of thoughts and experiences we encounter in daily life, and how we can improve our mental health by not holding onto any of them. In other words, by letting each moment replace the last, we don’t hold onto any of the (mainly negative) perseverations or obsessions to which our minds are predisposed.

Because liner notes have sadly become a thing of the past (another casualty of the streaming era), I’m including below some of the notes from the release.

Chris Otchy is a Northern California-based composer and music producer. He is interested in sonic experiments with textures, rhythmic noise, and melodies that foster transcendence and aid relaxation or joyful movement and expression.

Chris has been making electronic music in a range of styles since the early 2000s, but began taking a more serious interest in ambient music in 2016. His main tools are modular synthesizers and samplers, which he uses to mold emotional textures and melodies from the sounds around him.

In “Each Moment Replacing the Last,” Chris takes a special interest in drones and slowly undulating waves of sound. It contains some of his most restrained and minimalist compositions. What arises in the stillness is a keen awareness of both the notes and the empty space around them. As with much of his music, those spaces are usually occupied with some subtle movement—field recordings and the rustle of household objects. “Each Moment” emerges as a meditation on organic noise and silence.

I hope this music provides some respite from the stresses of your daily life.

Listen to the album on Bandcamp.

Creative Advice from Christopher Willits

I came across an interview with ambient maestro Christopher Willits recently. I found it really inspiring. Unfortunately I don’t know where I sourced this from, so apologies to the journalist for re-printing it here without permission.

This is pure gold in terms of creative advice. (All emphasis is mine.)

“For me, creating music is a process that happens as it needs to through listening, discipline and play. It’s about listening to the moment, being present with the energy I’m feeling, and the sound I’m expressing. It’s about setting space to explore, and follow my heart while just being real with myself; setting boundaries, drafting deadlines, and knowing when and how to take meaningful breaks.

“Creating is work. It’s a space I set through discipline, yet I surrender control. Creating consistently takes patience and persistence, letting go of expectations while fueling the fire to complete the process.

“When I compose, I begin with an open mind focused on a feeling, or an intention, a space I want to create with the music and share with others. It emerges through disciplined play. I feel where the music can go and let it come through me in whatever way it wants to.

“Often the music flows without any effort and sometimes it’s like solving a puzzle. The key is to stay out of judgment while discovering the path forward. I envision the space, energy, narrative that the music wants to create and let go of any expectations of how it gets there, and even if it gets there. It’s like setting out towards a destination, but the focus is on the journey, the process, and less about the outcome. When the process embodies the product, the music completes itself.

“Music is medicine for both the artist and the audience. When I’m creating, it’s very autobiographical in that the process is teaching me something, and that becomes encoded into the music. I’m expressing and processing feelings and stories that seem to elude words. At the same time, it’s not about me at all; the music is moving through me, expressing something more universal than my own story.”

Creative Advice from Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert is a novellist who has written a bunch of books I’ve never read before, but I have heard of the one that drove her to fame, which is Eat, Pray, Love. I came across some writing advice from her recently which is 100% pure gold. Here it is.

• You’ve been doing research your whole life, merely by existing. You are the only expert in your own experience. Embrace this as your supreme qualification.

• Every writer starts in the same place on Day 1: Super excited, and ready for greatness. On Day 2, every writer looks at what she wrote on Day 1 and hates herself. What separates working writers from non-working writers is that working writers return to their task on Day 3. What gets you there is not pride but mercy. Show yourself forgiveness, for not being good enough. Then keep going.

• Be willing to let it be easy. You might be surprised.

• Use radically simple sentences.

• Don’t worry if it’s good; just finish it. Whether or not your project is good, you’ll be a different person at the end of it, and that’s always worth doing.

• Whenever you can, tell stories instead of explaining stuff. Humans love stories, and we hate having stuff explained to us. Use Jesus as an example: He spoke almost exclusively in parables, and allowed everybody to draw their own lessons from his great storytelling. And he did very well.

• Your work doesn’t have to be any particular length, or written for any particular market. It doesn’t have to even be seen by another human being. How and if to publish your work is a problem for another day. For today, just write.

Dance Performance at Escuela Profesional de Mazatlan

Bethany Mitchell used two of my tracks in a dance performance she choreographed called “Home.” (My tracks come in around the 4:00 mark.)

The performance was developed during her Fulbright Specialist residency at the Escuela Profesional de Mazatlan in Mexico. She worked with these performers in the spring, and this performance took place on June 10, 2022. It was performed by the third year students at the Angela Peralta Theater in Mazatlan.

This program was made possible by Delfos Danza Contemporanea and the Instituo de Culturo Turismo y Arte de Mazatlan.

Thank you to Bethany and to the dancers at Escuela Profesional de Mazatlan! It’s an amazing piece on its own and adds a whole new dimension to the music. I am truly honored.

Beings in transit

“We are more real in our simple wish to find a way than any destination we could reach.”

— David Whyte

There’s a reason some of us like to travel so much. There’s a reason we enjoy the process of going from one place to another.

In many senses, the essence of who we are lies in the journey, the getting to where we’d like to be.

As David Whyte puts so succinctly in his poem, we’re constantly moving closer to finishing, closer to another, closer to losing faith, closer to saying something, closer to success, or closer to giving the whole thing up.

More so than any arrival, we are creatures that exist in being almost there. We’re beings that are on the way.

Because what happens when you arrive? You feel the temporary joy of completion. You relax for a minute. But soon enough, you start looking for your next destination. You need to move on.

That’s why it’s so important to choose the right horizons to chase. We have to find projects worth our time and energy, because life is the journey more so than any destination.

Berlin, Day 4

On the way home from the festival today, some friends and I change trains at Warschauer Strasse, and see a pop up rave happening underneath the motorway.

We grab beers from the store in the train station. I love that these little bodegas exist in the train stations, and also have pretty nice espresso machines inside.

All sorts of people are milling around under the motorway: old, young, locals, travelers. Old school Berlin dudes who see what’s going on and do just like we did -  grab a beer to join in the fun for a while.

This is one of the reasons I love Berlin. People don’t host renegade events in public if they’re depressed. It just speaks to the fact that people in this city are so psyched on life, so filled to the brim with enthusiasm for living, that they would drag a PA under a bridge and a few cases of beer for randoms to go get off their heads serendipitously, just for a laugh, just for a little while.

Berlin, Day 2 - Richie Hawtin and Dave Smith

This place is so much more my speed than London. I feel completely different here — so much more welcomed, so much embraced by the city and people. The cafe culture is divine…. people eating and drinking outdoors—what a concept!

Superbooth is fun - lots of enthusiastic people talking about music and new products they have in their pipeline. A few tents are just piles of classic gear. There’s a DIN Sync tent I walked into earlier has a dream studio inside - Roland 909, 808, 303, 606, plus an old Pro One, a SH-101 and a few other odds and ends. Everywhere you turn there’s electronic squeaks and squeals. It gets to be a bit much after a while.

Which is probably why when an actual DJ starts playing — as one did tonight at around 5pm — it blows the roof off. The refreshing sound of perfectly mixed and mastered tracks being played through an amazing sound system ripped through the park and people immediately converged on it. It was like coming out of the desert and diving into a swimming pool of champagne. I didn’t recognize the DJ, but he was obviously a friend of Richie Hawtin, as he was playing at a sake bar co-promoting the renowned DJ’s MODEL 1 mixer. It’s a sick mixer, really expensive, but I’m sure a ton of fun to play with.

Richie Hawtin himself stands nearby, casually chatting with Dave Smith from Sequential and other artists, instrument manufacturers and festival attendees. It’s a singular moment.

My takeaway — play with your tools and toys all you want. At the end of the day, if you want anyone to listen to it, it has to add up to something that’s more than just the sum of its parts. And if it’s techno you’re making, DJs rule the day.

Author’s note - Just two weeks after returning from Berlin, Dave Smith passed away. No cause of death has been revealed to the public, and it’s all the more strange that he looked the picture of health at the time. Here’s his talk, introducing his final synth - a revamped Oberheim OB-8. Andreas Schneider also gives a very touching account of his final moments with Dave. Rest in peace, you synth god!

London, Day 4

The first day I arrived in London, I tried to use an old ten pound note to buy a travel card from a small shop. I had saved the note from my last trip to London, which was 15+ years ago.

The shop owner told me the bill was no longer good. He couldn’t accept it.

I thought that a bit strange but kept going with my day, not dwelling too much on it.

It wasn’t until today, standing in front of the original Lloyds of London on Fleet Street, the epicenter of financial commerce in the capitol city of England, that the strangeness of that event truly struck me.

Everything has an expiration date - even money. Everything.

Can you grasp the implications of that? Money expires… like old milk.

Use it or lose it. It all falls away.

I get the whole generational wealth thing — that’s fine. But I feel like this was a big sign — you can’t take it with you. Life is a one way street. Money, like everything else, is ephemera. Use it wisely, but don’t expect to last forever.

In my experience…

Personal history is a one-way street, as well — it need only go in one direction.

No, history doesn’t repeat itself, but yes, it does rhyme. Still, need we try to repeat it by re-visiting these places we have already been?

This is something I have done many times - revisiting places I had a good time, seeking a resurgence of the old feelings I had once before. One could argue I’m doing it right now, coming to London, where I had many good times back in my youthful visits to this amazing city. But there’s something missing now. Me. I’m different. I’m not the person I was, and never will be again.

That’s one of the interesting things about travel — the person who leaves is never really the same person to arrive. The very act of traveling changes you.

Time is a one way street. It’s the universe’s way of telling us that you can never go back. Home was destroyed for you the day you left it.

This should never make one feel upset because there are so many places in the world to explore. You have to just keep going keep going keep going keep going.

London, Day 3

I feel like I finally got into a groove with this town. Had a coffee in my regular place, and off I went to the British Museum.

I found myself a bit peckish, and about an hour later had another coffee and a bite in a small sidewalk cafe. This place was a stone’s throw from the British Museum, so the three women working there must have experienced a steady stream of tourists all day long. They were absolutely miserable. These women were so clearly run down by their own existence, it was sad. The Eastern European haircuts, the dull, lifeless eyes, the exhausted way they handled their duties and spoke with the customers—it all spoke of a deep despair.  Life to them was making mediocre food and coffee drinks for an endless stream of rude, blaze’ tourists struggling to speak English. It depressed me so much I downed my food, paid, and quickly scurried away.

The British Museum is a facilitating place, but it’s hard to ignore that it’s also a testament to the horrible brutality of humanity, and western civilization’s endless capacity to rob and pillage all that came before. Beautiful and at the same time revolting.

It’s a little hard to recon with the fact that everything in that museum (like many historical museums), was pilfered from the Near and Far East and from Europe. All stolen items. I couldn’t help but think, “Wow, this is amazing… but shouldn’t it be nearer to the culture from which it sprang?”

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche, (1833) in the National Gallery, London

I understand how ages-old antiquities can easily be destroyed in war torn countries. The reliefs of the centaurs fighting the men in the Parthenon, the reliefs of the lion hunt from Assyria, the aeons-old Egyptian sarcophagi and mummies, the freaking Rosetta Stone for crimminy’s sake… Amazing, but why is all this stuff here, in London?

The short story, I’m sure, is because richly endowed Brits (and Americans, no doubt) went to these countries when they were either impoverished or under siege, and offered their governments a shit ton of money to excavate these treasures and bring them to the museum, “for the benefit of humanity.”

And now I’m contributing to that larceny by attending the museum. So I’m as much a tacit contributor to the cultural appropriation as the next guy. SHAME ON ME.

It’s also kind of weird that here we are, all us thousands of tourists, gliding by room after room after room of fantastically old artifacts. And on we glide to the next room, to the next painting, to the next femur of an ancient farm woman… and to most of these artifacts, we give not much more than a cursory glance. “Oh, another bas relief from the Parthenon. Huh, this one’s more than 2,000 years old. Crazy.”

On to the next, on to the next, on to the next.

I got the same feeling at the National Gallery in the afternoon.

Room after room after room of these priceless masterpieces of fine art, mainly of European (white male) artisans. In truth, each one of those paintings deserves an entire day, or at the very least an hour, of intense study and speculation, just to understand the context in which it emerged, its meaning to its creator and its meaning in the wider context of history.

But we don’t take the time. No one does. We just walk on by.

But what else could you do? It’s overwhelming. There’s so much of it. And for the majority of the people there, we’re only visiting London for a brief period, so the instinct is to cram it all in. Sigh.

Between the galleries I got a pint and a pie at The Guinea, which was amazing. That pub is 350 years older than the formation of the United States! No big deal.

On to the next, on to the next, on to the next…