Well, this is my first attempt at blogging. I guess a lot of people who start down this path do the same thing - kind of like dipping your foot in the pool before getting all wet. I've posted a brief description of myself but I feel I should elaborate on this first post, so if someone does wind up following my threads here, they'll have some context for my opinions and what it is that I'm writing about.
I'm originally from the outskirts of Toronto, Ontario - I grew up in a town just outside of the big city called Thornhill. Quite a nice place to grow up actually. I was never a great student - the pitfalls of high school really took it's toll on me, and I wound up with a quite a few startling hair cuts for half of my time in that stage of education, along with sporting trench coats, ties and Doc Martens on even the hottest days at school; when I was attending class anyways, which in the later years was almost never.
What can be said of those failing scholastic years is I that I emerged from it as a huge lover of music - I'd been playing piano since I was 8 or so, (which was encouraged when I was found, at the age of four, standing on the couch and conducting the stereo with the Star Wars soundtrack on full blast) but, like a lot of teenagers, it was around this time is when I really discovered it's truer and personal meaning to me.
Skinny Puppy. Nine Inch Nails. Depeche Mode. Frontline Assembly. Digital Poodle (okay, you may not have heard of them, but they were great). Anything recorded or played with a synthesizer I was all over like syrup on waffles. If it was loud and thumping, even better.
I joined my first band in 1991 and never looked back. Because of it I never graduated from High School either, but I think I'm alright with that; I don't think that ever wound up being a hindrance for me in life. I played in an electro-funkrock outfit called Acid Test, and I admit, that many of the things that I thought came with being in a fairly successful rock band were pretty much wrong.
For starters, it was a LOT of work, for really, nothing. Not enough to move out of the parents place, but at the time, we were touring so much my home (if I can use what I think is a tired cliche) was the road for the most part. But damn it was fun, and I was stricken by the music poison and there was no antidote.
Long story short, band got dropped from the label, band imploded, everyone moved on, I wound up playing and touring the world for a few different groups over the years as a keyboardist, including with industrial rock outfit Econoline Crush and tattooed wordsmith and singer Bif Naked. Great fun, but my dad I think was getting a bit tired of me sponging when I came home from the road so I decided to try something that could keep the creative going and actually allow me to get an apartment.
So I went to school, got a diploma in multimedia and went on to, when I wasn't making music, designing and building web sites.
Then out of the blue, I met my wife online - on Myspace to be exact. She was living in British Columbia but was originally from Ontario as well, and we had some mutual friends and started chatting. Crushes revealed, visits planned and executed, and not long after we were hitched, I was living out west with her and her son, we've acquired five dogs, bought a house on Vancouver Island and it's been nothing but a great, positive and life changing experience.
Which is really why I started this blog I think - my life seems to have been played out in two major stages so far. One, being a musician / developer of new media, and two, my new and ever growing experiences with my new family.
I think that with all the travelling I've done over the years, many of the places I've been have shown me some amazing things and have taught me a lot about the world, but at the same time has made it other things about it even more enigmatic to me, particularly politically.
My family reminds me of what I feel is my responsibility to make this world the best place for us (and everyone) to live, but with so many questions, what is the best route to take? We seem stuck in a lot of ways, at least in western society, that some would say is heralding it's demise. But who's right? And with information available to us in unprecedented quantities, who do you listen to?
It is frightening to think of where things are going these days. The fact that personally, I still see racism and sexism everywhere in many sectors of society. I see the regular abuse of power by those in authority as something to be concerned about. And the chronic and rampant political waffling, half-truths, and lets face it, outright lies by those elected to represent us and our interests, as they discard their charges for monetary and economic interests is unnerving to say the least.
Music has a lot of roots in social commentary and justice, and I've broadened my palette in terms of what I listen to as compared to my teenage years, and made an effort to listen to as much as possible, both lyrically and stylistically. Being a step-dad also seems to have upped my social conscience as well and I feel I'm doing with my politics the same that I've done with music. It's hard to try and explain to someone who's totally innocent, like my six year old stepson, why things are the way are, why they happen the way that they do, why some people do the cruel things they do. Sometimes it's overwhelming, and I think writing about it will at least help me to try and find my own solutions and answers, if for no one else.
That's it in a nutshell - except for what I mean by 'As Hidden in TV'. With my background in developing the technologies that deliver media to the masses has, over the years, left me rather sceptical of the message that much of the mainstream media, as a collective, put out.
The latest events in regards to Wikileaks in the last month, and the police action at the G20 in Toronto a few months ago has solidified my opinions even more. But oddly enough, I think that the more that is hidden, the more the truth, if you look in the right places, can be revealed.
Marshall McLuhan was right, the medium really is the message.
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