I was thinking about ICQ on my Sunday morning drive. My wife and I lived in that app throughout college and our careers. One window with one person in it with a status line you wrote yourself, so the other person knew whether you were awake. There's a middle ground between messaging and social. I know it's there, from those years and from my time at Myspace. It's funny that nobody has cracked it yet.
Small fragments. Things I read, heard, or couldn't stop thinking about. These are too short for essays but too good to lose. Sort of like commonplace book meets tumblelog.
429 bits, and counting.
The Rolling Stones building "Sympathy for the Devil" in 1968. Amazing to watch a song come to life. I've probably watched this a dozen times over the years — the band sitting together, riffing, finding their parts. Same feeling as the Fred again.. and LATIN MAFIA session in Mexico City.
In the early aughts my best friend got married in New Zealand. The day after the wedding a few of us rented a convertible and drove north with the top down, iPods and aux cables passed around the car. I'll always remember the light, the wind, and the gratitude I felt that day.
Seattle to the Bay. Somewhere over the Northern California shoreline the plane starts its turn and my mind goes with it. Golden hour. Water hitting sand, then rock, then sand again. Fog holding the light. The mountains stay where they are. Sometimes I think they want to reach the beach, even for a minute. I know I do.
I'm probably going to spend a fortune in tokens to organize my filesystem. It'll probably be worth it.
When I came to US I had $700 and I spent most of it on pay phones to call a girl that I loved in Iran! We are married for 27 years now.
— Pejman Nozad (@pejmannozad) February 19, 2021
This is going to be the record of the summer, and this acoustic performance is the one I keep returning to.
I keep hoping this jam from Melbourne in 2022 ends up on an upcoming record. One of the most beautiful things they've ever manifested from nothing.
Watching the replay of The Smashing Pumpkins headline Lollapalooza. They sound enormous.
The Oregon coast.
Obsessed with this one. A song I've loved for twenty years, handed to different voices and made new.
The click is the thing you fall out of, and the falling out is the music.
Been thinking about my college dorm room. Pizza delivery, anime on Adult Swim, ColdFusion in one window and Incubus bootlegs in another. A bed raised on cylinder blocks, Gaston's hand-me-down futon, a modded PC, and a strange collection of graphic design books.
The best art divides people.
Every time I think I'm done writing demos for my record, another song shows up that's worth chasing. Started with two, then three, then sat on four. Just wrote a fifth. At some point I need to call it.
The Strokes — "In Transit: Part 2". Reality Awaits dropped a few days ago and I've listened to it half a dozen times already. A wild departure from their catalog and their contemporaries — it just sounds fresh. I remember watching the original In Transit almost two decades ago. I always love watching how records get made. Six weeks in Costa Rica with Rick Rubin.