I Am An Obsolete Warhorse: Obligatory Birthday Blog
Today marks a quarter-century of my existential blight upon this planet. I’ve gotten into the habit of making a personal post like this each year to keep track of the ever-accelerating whirlwind of successes and failures (and everything in between) that defines and re-defines my role on this lonely, gaseous hunk of rock called Earth. This year has been a doozy, so here goes:
To say that my life has been shaped by the amazing community of artists and people that make up New York City’s chip music scene would probably be the biggest understatement of my existence. I can not even begin to imagine what the hell I would be doing right now if I hadn’t discovered Bit Shifter’s album, Information Chase while working at a student radio station near Buffalo, NY, or happened upon the work of Don “NO CARRIER” Miller while working on my Media Arts thesis, circa 2005. Five years later, I’ve not only had the pleasure of meeting all these amazing artists that I had admired from afar during my stay in the frigid wastelands of Western New York, but also had the honor of naming them among my closest friends.
I can not, for the life of me, understand why the various amazing folks I’ve met since moving to NYC continue to support me so adamantly and selflessly. Around this time last year I was just beginning to play shows and develop lasting friendships with some of the people that I now rarely go a week without seeing — Ricardo (Da Pantz), Adam (Gets Awesome), Dustin, Jenn DLV and Facundo (whom we’re having a fundraiser for tonight at Pulsewave), to name a few.
I could not have imagined a year ago that with the support of these and many other fine chums and fans, I would be playing shows in New York, Boston, D.C., Philadelphia and Seattle, or that I would be making a living (kind of) writing about what I love. I also wouldn’t have believed that within the next year, I’d be getting paid gigs or playing alongside long-time admired artists like Nullsleep and Minusbaby. Everything seemed to happen in a rush, and the bonds I’ve formed since my hasty and poorly-thought-out move to Brooklyn two years ago have proven to be more rewarding than any goal I had originally hoped to accomplish by living here.
tl;dr – Thanks for your support. Together we will continue to re-define our own obsolescence and unveil the mainspring to our destruction.
~ Z.A.
