This is what the boat looks like before it gets outlined and colored. This is a replica of the True Love from The Philadelphia Story (1940).

Would you like a big beautiful portrait of your big beautiful boat hanging on your wall to love and adore every day? Please reach out and introduce yourself!

Image description: black and yellow show poser that says on the left:
All ages show. Punk Fest. Aug 2nd. Music 5 - 9pm. Fruitport Bandshell. Bring $ for merch and donations supporting local mutu al a id.
On the right, list of bands: Kat Karnage, the Corman's, Sherri and the Tomatoes, Coyote, Mullali, Violet Scum and House of Egregious. 

Last summer Carolyn ZS (Zaldivar Snow), or as you may know her on synthagram, @tangent_universes reached out and asked if she could interview me for her delightful digital zine Wow and Flutter, on IG at @wowandflutterzine, where she interviews musicians who love, collect, record onto and manipulate cassette tapes. Along with being an accomplished musician, she's an OG of the synth community as a contributing writer at Tape Op, as well as small label Mystery Circles, and performs live at DIY shows all over the Eastern Seaboard. She also helps organize Sound Scene Audio Arts Festival in Washington DC, which showcases immersive sonic experiences and public art.

Carolyn was one of the first synth gals I found on IG who also lives a life of the great outdoors. We both live near natural delights like bogs, marshes, rivers and bayous, and can often be found hiking around with our field recorders in hand. I'm always humbled with appreciation when someone who has already lived a few lives in the scene offers to extend their platform to the new kid. She made me feel really special getting press for my very first EP, which is not usually the norm. So here's to wishing Carolyn a Happy Thankyoutine's Day for making the debut of my first hand pressed cassette feel grandiose and important, it certainly was to me and it was a real treat to bring the synth club into the fold with this interview.

This was also the first time I was interviewed as House of Egregious, which felt really cool to be seen and cemented as a musician in interviews instead of only a puppeteer. That's not talking smack about puppets lol really, and yes they will eventually find their way back into my work - esp after seeing Oneohtrix Point Never puppet the mini puppet he had built of himself with Control Voltage, which is definitely something I've been doodling schematics for ever since I picked up KOMA Elektronik's CV motors, light sensors, etc in the summer of 2022 and took my synth building class in fall of 2023.

For now, I'm working on my second EP which I hope to have ready by August to take on tour with me when I hit a few locations in MI and Chicago - dates coming soon. In the meantime, please enjoy this lovely conversation Carolyn and I had about tape.

Interview: The Itch that Follows the Scratch

So I finally checked a big life goal off and successfully grew my own mushrooms at home, and oh wow were they beyond delicious! I've spent over 4 months researching, book collecting about cultivation and experimenting - finally we saw success. Could I do this at a larger scale, to feed my community? The horror that comes from failure pales in comparison to the disaster that comes with never trying. I love learning about things I have no reference point to fall back on, it's incredibly terrifying and liberating to go from not knowing to understanding to the point of being able to accurately explain it to someone else. I'm going to keep pushing to see how far I can go! Next is to try outdoor beds to see if I make that work to produce higher yields. If I could learn synths after have 0 musical background or experience, surely I can make this work. Recently I read that "it's about what you're willing to do, not what you're capable of doing" and that really got to me. I totally agree, but that puts a hell of a lot more accountability on your shoulders than something shrugging off as "not for me" upon immediate failure - and boy have I failed at mushrooms. Laughably so. And this is all while figuring out how to hydroponically grow 36 different lettuces, herbs and vegetables organically at the same time. This year has been wildly expansive, I never saw the life of a gardener for myself but I'm here and I'm queer so get used to it.

Everyday I keep on trying to hit the books harder, watch more PBS, cram as many "things to avoid as a first year gardener" tips into my tired brain as I can, and after four months of intensive study - I can proudly say that I'm to the point where I'm growing enough mushrooms for four people to enjoy for breakfast. So that's why I've been quiet on the music and blogging front, but I promise some fun things are coming down the pipeline in both MI and Chicago this spring so stay tuned!

Poster text:
August 1st 2024
Comfort Station * Chicago
House of Egregious
with Warm Darn
Door at 7p
Show @ 7:30p
Outdoor show
If moved inside, N95 masks will be provided
ADA access (venue and bathrooms)
EP debut
Noise + Synths
free show, donations accepted

I have a synth cave where my entire collection lives, but this time I wanted to challenge myself with a different workflow. Sometimes having too many options can slow down ideation, so I tried different approaches I haven't ever toyed with - I used only two portable synths to compose the entire score, recorded it with my voice recorder and worked upstairs where I usually paint. It was the best decision I could've made!

I wrapped recording with about 15 minutes of sound and gave that to my partner chop up and sync to the different animations. It's funny/befuddling to think how much finessing goes into syncing up a fourth of an hour of bleeps and bloops to a minute and a half of footage. Even though the ratio is big, there was still footage that wasn't scored, so I did another round of recording for about 7 minutes and finally assigned a sound for every moment.

There are two ways to score a film, start with the footage and make music and sounds specifically for each moment OR create many sonic swatches, pull from that and splice it all together. I like to score with the ladder workflow, I think it injects a lot of spontaneity and opens the doors to having many more a-ha! moments than anything I could've prescribed and purposefully tried to define. I call these moments of serendipity "puppet magic," even if I'm not working on on a puppet show. The roots of puppet magic are found when something artistically comes together perfectly without meticulous planning: a quick cut without a template that fits like a glove, a mistake that turns out better than what was intended, or discovering a movement you didn't build for but looks effortless and purposeful.

That being said, in this case, I'm not naive or discrediting that much of the magic pumped into my short filmmaking process is conjured by the hands of my partner who is one of the best editors in the industry. (this isn't a bias because he's so handsome, his impressive CV backs this up) We make a really great team and making short films together is one of my favorite art forms because collaborating with him is so fun and he makes my footage look like a billion bucks. He's super supportive of my art career and always invested in my creative process, no matter how obscene the timeline may be. I'm really lucky he's an editor because if he wasn't I would have made 0 short films in my adult life, that part of the workflow frustrates me to no end and brings me no joy - so our director/editor combo is really a dream come true <3

Come check out the Agitator Animation where my scored compilation of animations will debut on Saturday, February 3rd from 6 - 10p at Agitator Gallery in Chicago!

I'll be debuting my animations one by one on my House of Egregious instagram soon, and then after I'll put my compilation to my Short Films page.

taken from @agitatorgallery's IG announcement:
Volume 4 of Agitator's annual open-call, open theme comics compilation is LIVE! Come meet the artists, and buy books, original artwork and swag.

Book Edited by Gretchen Hasse, designed and produced by Alex Wilson. See you there!
The 15 Artists I'll be showcased alongside are linked in the IG announcement.

Can't make the show? Check out my comic here!