* Hello there! You've stumbled onto the archived bloggage of TRMW aka The Real Matt Wright (wait... who?). This site contains posts from my stints blogging at Metempsychosis and Urban Honking, before I moved TRMW over to it's current home. Enjoy!
I picked up the new Kill Rock Stars sampler, Mollies Mix, yesterday and I am really enjoying it. There are so many awesome musical things coming out of the northwest and the twenty-one tracks in this mix are evidence of this. Some other great things: Point Line Plane, The Thermals, Sleetmute, Sleater-Kinney… and those are just Portland bands! Lucky me!
Also, Hello! Video is this weekend! It’s been too long!
In keeping with the general internet theme of exposing one’s life to faceless strangers, I thought maybe someone might like to read an email I just sent to my friend Kai, an American expat living in Amsterdam. This does a pretty good job of explaining what I am thinking about music right now, and makes me look somewhat clever. Maybe. Enjoy!
Kai-
Sorry that it has taken me sooooo long to reply to your email. I forgot about it for at least a month, and then I was just downright lazy. Anyway, I enjoyed reading it, (you really are a good writer) and I’m glad you are continuing to adjust to your place. Which implies that you have a choice. Which, hey, you don’t! So good on you!
Uh, I am writing this at 5AM on the first day of the Spring 2003 semester, my final semester at Lewis and Clark College. I just cannot sleep. I think it is from all the rockstar-lifestyle-activity I have partaken in these past couple weeks. I came home from break two weeks early so I would have time to chill, and in that time I have tried to go to as many shows as possibly possible. And, of course, where there are shows, there is alcohol. I have seen a couple shows at the Blackbird, one at Disjecta, and another at Berbati’s all very fun. This really is a fun town for live music. It’s strange to me that London had nothing in the way of a rock scene, and Portland’s is off the heez.
So you can tell that I have been digging the rock lately. I just got tired of how canned and static so much electronic music sounds. I started listening to the Pixies in London and I realized that I was craving the manic energy that comes with having real live performers banging away at their instruments.
I also realized, in London, that the electronic music scene is a little too Wallpaper*(tm) magazine when you get right up in front of it; All style and no substance (which is a little unfair to Wallpaper, but only a little). Of course, the same can be said of rock music, but at least it’s fun to see live! No offense to Brede but I can not sit still through laptop shows. This is why I cannot be a laptopologist, as per your suggestion.
So I have been digging the really manic spastic rock shit coming around right now. Bands like Deerhoof, Oneida, Point Line Plane, Old Time Relijun, etc are blowing me away. I really enjoy the physicality of this music, and the insane experimentalism. These bands get fuckin nuts, and what’s cool is that it seems to come out of an intense lust for life and a desire to just do something wild and loud, instead of coming from mopey downerism like, um, Radiohead, and a billion other indie rock bands. This is more where I am at in my life. I wanna get crazy and have a good time.
To that effect, I have started a quasi-band with my friend Steve Walsh. We are really just fucking around, but it’s cool to get out of my head and have another person to bounce ideas around with. Keeps things lighter and more fun. I am buying the old Pro-Tools 888 interface that Joe Waters used to use in his classes at LC for $300, and we will start tracking some songs into my computer. This way I can do my composition in realtime on real instruments (which I think lends itself to creativity better than writing on a computer), and still have my fun going crazy with the effects and digital sound editing. I’ll send you a CD when one exists.
London, eh? Good call. It’s a rad town, with lotsa lotsa shit going on (but no live scene, see above). As far as how to get a job in media, check out the BBC. They have loads of oportunities and they make very high quality content. I almost got an internship working for BBC Radio, but it ended up starting after I left.
Will you ever be returning to the Northwest of the USA? I’d like to kick “it” with you again. Alas, mayhaps tis not in the stars?
Oh yah, thanks a lot for the Christmas Card, that was really nice.
By the way, do you know if it would be really hard to get a job writing for the Mercury? That’d be way fun. I’d basically really like to write about music for someone, and I think the Mercury is a good place to do that. I’d also like to continue getting into shows for free after I graduate. Thoughts?
Anyway, if I don’t stop now, I may never stop so I’m gonna have to make a dive for the margins now. Take care, have fun, and GET SOME! SPRING BREAK 2003 WOOO HOO!
XOX
Matt
Happy New Year! May 2003 be full of goodness and light. May I make out with older girls in bridal rooms at weddings. May you eat delicious deserts with reckless abandon. May the US government NOT kill innocent Iraqis for cheap oil. May I make some cool music with my friends next week. May I conitinue to babble pretentiously to myself on this webpage. May Martin Denny continue to spread loungey vibeness.
Last year was really nice all in all. I spent the better part of it living in London, something that is pretty hard to fathom right now. It was an amazing experience that resulted in me wearing way hipper pants. This year I will finish up my college education, become famous, and get drunk a few times, if all goes well.
I will soon be purchasing an old Roland Juno-106 analog synthesizer, a used Digidesign 888 audio interface, and a Shure SM57 mic. I will then record some wierd music with my friend Steve. He plays banjo and and I will be playing the Juno, making for a hopefully interesting mix of old and new. I’ll also play guitar, and sample things. And Steve will play guitar some too. Also, my friend Nina may play bass and do puppeteering (she is a puppeteer). Is this all just an elaborate pipe dream? Wouldn’t you like to know. Anybody out there know how to replace keys on the Juno? Email me!
Now playing: Martin Denny “Hawaiian Tattoo”
Four years of higher education and what do I have to show for it? Well, besides my infinite knowledge and grace, I buttload of doodle art, scribbled in the margins of my notebooks. So, this past weekend I sat down with some scissors and some good old Elmer’s glue, and created a little zine type thing compiling them all. You can view the results by clicking here. Warning: these files are pretty big, they had to be or you couldn’t have read the writing. So go big or go home. Enjoy!
Two hours sleep and going strong! Got that math midterm down, now it’s on to the world music midterm, which is due today by 1:50pm!!! Probably, shouldn’t be typing this right now, eh? Blarrrrg.
Another weekend comes to a close, and all I got was this lousy hangover. It’s a life. Went to the Electroclash(tm) tour on Friday, featuring Peaches, Chicks on Speed, and the northwest’s own Tracy and the Plastics. The whole thing was entertaining, if a little overblown. I would not have paid $18 to see what was essentially very stylish kareoke. But, hey, I got a free ticket and I had fun.
Tonight I will attend one of my favorite Portland institutions. “Hello Video” is a monthly screening of local independent film. But it’s not (too) pretentious or snotty. In fact many of the films are really funny, while maintaining a high level of creativity. And it’s in a bar, like everything should be! Stir all this together, and you’ve got yourself something special. Should be great.
…now to fill the belly.
Alright! Now the “Cartoons” button up top is working! I’ve put up my first couple cartoons there. These are actually my first attempt at doodling into a contained comic-style form. I am pleased with the results and I plan to keep at it. I also have plans to put out a little zine thing collecting all my doodles from my soon-to-be-ended college years. News as it develops.
About to go to bed now. Tonight I saw the movie Group, at the Portland Gay n’ Lesbian Filmfest, and it was very good. Intense, thought-provoking, and very well acted. I honestly was not sure if I was watching a doumentary or a fictional film. Turns out it was the later.
In more important news: I got myself an internship at a recording studio in town! The place is called Sound Impressions, and it’s in North-East Portland. I am so excited! My first day was on Friday, and it went really well, I learned a lot. This will be an invaluable experience.
I’ll try to get around to uploading my cartoons soon.
I’m doing a little updating of this precious website. I want to work my doodles into the mix even more, hence the “cartoons” button at the top. Soon this button will be bring you, the viewer, even deeper into my demented cutesy world. Stay tuned!
Couple nights ago I went to a rad show at the Blackbird. The bands playing were Quix*o*tic, some singer-songwriter girl, and Beachwood Sparks. The first of these (Quix*o*tic) really blew my socks off, which is saying something considering the amount of hype I had heard about them. They are this wierd hybrid of 60′s-gothic-r&b-surf type stuff, and they end up sounding something like Portishead if they were into guitar riffs. I love it. Check their rad album Mortal Mirror. They even cover a Black Sabbath song! Beachwood Sparks are pretty rad too. So now you know, cuz I told you so.
