re:start

for a restart of this neglected blog of mine
let's start where it all started
i still vividly remember being thirteen
playing a very simple computer game with red leds
but having disconnected the speaker
as this would enable me to play at night unbeknownst to my parents
and then discovering that lighting of the leds
intervered with the reception of the radio
while at the same discovering the pinnball sounds at the end
of the frequency spectrum of that radio
together with some harmonica (hohner navy band)
i created my first tape of noise
'over green seas by galahad kilner'
little did i know the world of noise out there
being weened on schlagers et al
so eventually i drifted of to metal mires and new wave
playing some bass trying to get some kind of band together
and pestering my mates with an endless stream of demotapes
(little did they know they only heard a tip of the iceberg
of music that i actually made)

so where it all started
was a book of interviews with john cage
'conversing with cage'
call it an epiphany
something opened in my mind
which to this day luckily hasn't closed
all of it 
the chance
the game play
the silence
the absence of silence
the choice
the humour
the seriousness without the dread
the all
i discovered a whole new world
which i am still exploring today
which is limitless
for which i am glad

i found free jazz
and
improv

somewhere in between i gave up writing lyrics
as i thought i had pretty much said what i had
to say and i didn't want to repeat myself
or say something somebody else had said better

later on i discovered 
amonst others
alvin lucier
toshiya tsunoda
andrea neumann
the onkyo movement
and more specifically taku sugimoto
whom i adore
i combined a lot of what was before
in my pieces as gart & seekatze

normally for practice i play some fingerpicking
john fahey-esque improvisation or play to some jazz record
but earlier this week i was playing
a -for lack of better term- reductionist piece
letting the silence evolve between each note
and letting the silence play the next one
in the attic
while my wife and daughter of four were playing
when i suddenly realized they had fallen silent
and where listening very intently to the silence,
the scarce notes

a fine moment

this is where i am now

and here is where we'll continue